Running Bear’s August 2019 Coffee Shop


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Good morning Everybody!

I did not intend to stir up so much controversy by mentioning economics, but we all know where good intentions lead to.

I need to focus on things I can control or at least things I enjoy.

The Orioles brightened my day yesterday. Journeymen pitcher Randall Asher Wojciechowski out dueled Justin Verlander! The Orioles bullpen could not make the 5-3 lead hold up, but the birds did mount a 3 run comeback in the 9th to win!

In the top of the 9th Mychal Givens blew his 6th save of the season and he hit the final batter he faced. The catcher was setup on the outside corner, but as Givens is prone to do he missed his target, badly, hitting Alex Bergman in the back. It did not seem like much at the time but it helped set up the birds for a comeback.

In the bottom of the 9th leading by 2 runs, 7-5, the Astros brought in their closer, Roberto Osuna. He gave up a lead off double Jace Peterson who until recently has been hitting below the Mendoza line (200). The next batter, SS Richie Martin grounded out to shortstop, Peterson advanced to third. It was his first stupid baserunning mistake, but he got away with it. The next batter was catcher Chance Sisco. In what looked to me to be retaliation he got drilled with the pitch!

It sure looked like it was intentional and the umpire warned both teams. I have no idea why you would hit a batter in the 9th inning, intentionally with only a 2 run lead!

Now the tying run is on and the winning run comes up. Chris Davis hit a medium deep fly to left and Peterson again stupidly ran the bases, but got away with it, again by scoring on the sacrifice fly, a very close play at the plate. He was not the tying run, what was he thinking!

Now 3B Rio Ruiz comes up to bat, with the tying run, hit batsmen Sisco on first. Osama threw Ruiz 7 pitches, 2 change ups followed by a cut fastball out of the zone. Then he throws 4 consecutive change ups. I know Ruiz is not good at hitting off speed pitches, but 4 consecutive! Ruiz hit the 4th consecutive change up 417 feet to give the Orioles a walk off win! I have to give some credit to the Astro's closer Osuna, for his arrogance and or stupidity!

As in anything, arrogance and or stupidity is always a disadvantage.

An interesting side note; Ruiz became a father recently and has hit a homerun in both games since becoming a Dad. As Orioles announcer Brian Roberts said, "he now has Dad Power!" :)

The Orioles are 40 games under 500, but I sure do enjoy watching/listening to the baby birds play!
 
Baltimore Chapter, National Railway Historical Society
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Baltimore Chapter, National Railway Historical Society
2019 Baltimore Chapter Annual Picnic
The Chapter’s Annual Picnic will be held on Saturday afternoon, August 17, 2019 from 5 to 8 PM at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. The Chapter will have its usual caterer provide us with fine picnic food.
Admission will be by donation. Potluck foodstuffs are also welcomed.
The Baltimore Streetcar Museum is scheduled to be back in operation by the end of July, as it recovers from the derailment of a CSXT freight train that fell onto the Museum’s sub-station and overhead wires. Progress continues on the reconstruction. Assuming operations resume, streetcar rides and opportunities to take a turn running a streetcar will be provided! Donation of $15 per person requested to cover food costs and donation to the Museum.
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Good morning 80* and humid. Stepped out on the porch and had to go back inside to get a towel. Thought I was in a sauna. Hope everyone had a nice weekend. We were surrounded by t/s but didn't get a drop of rain.. Prediction for today is heat index 104 and rain in p.m. We shall see.
Phil

A MEETING IS AN EVENT AT WHICH MINUTES ARE KEPT AND HOURS ARE LOST.
 
Good morning everyone. I'll take coffee, eggs, sausage, and pancakes today, please, Flo.

Flip, Willie, Chad, Chet, Louis, Sherrel, Patrick, and anyone I may have missed - thanks for the comments on the photo I posted Friday, with two trains passing through downtown.
Willie - You're right about signs, even small ones. I may still revisit the sign issue on the Farm Supply building.
Chad - I have always enjoyed REO Speedwagon - Kevin Cronin is a pretty good rock singer, and RIP Gary Richrath - REO was known as one of the rowdiest groups when they stayed in hotels on tour.

Over the weekend, I bought a joiner (biscuit groove cutter) at Grizzly for my wood workshop, and did some more work on some smaller crafts (birdhouses, magazine storage bins). Some we use, some I give to our kids, and some I sell at craft fairs. Will move to bigger, more advanced projects this fall. Will post a photo or two of my stuff - I'm an amateur, but getting better. My dad taught me woodworking, even though it wasn't his vocation, and to this day I love the smell of wood, and enjoy working with it.

Also ran trains and did some scenicking a lot over the weekend. Had the whole clan over for dinner yesterday and, as always, they want to watch the trains run. Here's a photo of one of the trains coming through the tunnel (the only tunnel I have on the layout). This is the favorite part of the layout for our 3-year-old granddaughter - she loves to watch the train come out of the tunnel. Then she wants to see it again, not realizing the train has to go all the way around the layout to get to the tunnel again. The logging camp is behind the train. Those barrier walls are not set into the ground yet, just leaning against the mountain. A little more scenery and paint and this section will be done.

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And the view going into the tunnel . . .
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Have a good day everyone.
 
Good Morning All. 78° and clear. Another day avoiding the predicted triple digit high that the weatherman has been predicting daily since last Tuesday. Two days left! We have been and still are under an excessive heat advisory through tomorrow. Playing it safe anyway by limiting outdoor chores. Yesterday I added water to the pool!:cool:
A handful of bacon and two eggs sunny side up today Flo.
Following up on a part of the government spending discussed yesterday. Medicare and Social Security are not an entitlement programs, Medicaid is. I paid taxes for over 43 years for medicare and SS, and a portion of my SS check still goes to Medicare. I would gladly have paid a little more while working in order to assure the solvency of each, but politicians chose to ignore the facts. Instead, I put a lot of money into various retirement funds (and savings) to ensure my retirement income. Social Security was never meant to be the sole source of income for retirees, but a supplement.
An aside - I am reminded of a couple of buddies of mine who are still having to work because they did a lot of self-employment and "off the books" work throughout their working careers. Sure they made a lot of money back then and failed to save any, but when they realized that their SS check was only going to be $625/month, it was too late.

Thanks for the likes and comments yesterday; Chad, Phil, Garry, Jerome, Ken, Justin, Sherrel, Louis, Johnny.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I mainly did detail painting and more ground foam. Nothing to take progress pictures of yet. So I will post a couple of repeat pictures of Magees Tire Service, a beginners kit from Bar MIlls.
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Ken - Yes on the gas prices. I remember well filling up my VW Beetle for less than $3, every two weeks! Nice station picture, looks like the same kit painted differently.
Justin - I posted about "Dust Monkeys" a day or two ago. Here are a couple of pictures of cabooses that I have installed them on. They aren't intended to "deep scrub" the track, just remove dust.
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Terry - At least your efforts with the grass weren't completely in vain.
Louis - You seem to be in fine form the last couple of days!;)

Everybody have a great Monday.
 
WILLIE- No matter what you save while a worker, four spinal surgeries , stent, cancer operation dentists, sure do a wipe out . Unless you have ultra deep pockets, oil well etc., and even then, please stay healthy.
Phil

NOTHING EVER GETS BUILT ON SCHEDULE. OR WITHIN BUDGET..
 
Today, while trying to get to a local "mall" in the greater Tokyo area, about 7 miles by train from our hotel -- it was supper time and this is a massive 3 building, 3 floors each "mall" with like 80+ or 100+ restaurants in it -- we got on a wrong train and had to get off and on another one. Luckily the number of stops didn't change vs the correct train as the wrong one paralleled the correct one most of the way and then split off, and when we bailed and got on one going "back", it continued to the correct station. (The line we were on starts somewhere far away and then splits into two separate lines where we bailed, so we came in on one leg and went out on the other, fortuitously.) The line is the Musashino Line and here is one of the trains we were on -- an E231 of some sort. This is the one we got on after bailing from the wrong train. I did not get a shot of the wrong one but it was a Series 205 train (an older one).

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One of the traditions of traveling by train is to buy an "ekiben" or "eki bento" or "train lunch". Every station has shops that sell them and lots of people will buy them and eat them on the train. We had not really bought them at all on this trip, except my daughter wanted one when we were on the Hello Kitty Shinkansen a week or two ago, but my mother-in-law went with us on the Shinkansen to Tokyo today and she wanted one and bought one for each of us. My daughter wanted a certain one, for the ceramic container it came in, but did not want the food in it. I did not really want one, as I have eaten too much on this trip already, and thought this a good chance to decrease the days calories, but I sucked it up and got the one my daughter wanted so she could have the container. (It was actually pretty good -- some sort of shredded short ribs and sauce over rice as the main bit, with a small amount of konjaku noodle and a couple green beans and a single fish cake and a block of what I think was a firmer tofu)

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Just caught up to all the posts......as far as the Brat sausage discussion....I really love these guys. First met them about 25 years ago while visiting the US. I like to split them lengthwise and brown them in a frying pan and serve them beside sunny-side up eggs...awesome combnation.! Unfortunately cannot find them here in Montreal.

Cheers
Gene
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Morning Everyone!
Supposed to reach 90* for a high today - the record was 103* in 2000.

Terry - glad to hear that "some" of the grass made it!

Chad - Excellent "tales" of travels -- Like the snack container!

Gene - Can you NOT get the Hillshire brand at all, or just that one?
 
Morning all,

Busy day at the office so far this morning and trying to catch up on things here. It was a busy weekend. Of the for online auctions I was bidding on, I won my second choice and lost the other 3. You can only spend so much before it isn't worth the couple of items you want. I've attached a couple of pictures:
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Just what I need is more kits...

I did get a couple of hours yesterday to get the trackage running on the grandson's N-scale layout. The 2 engines I received in the auction package run very well. I just need to get the switches powered. There wires on those are so fine gauged that I'm trying to think of how to connect them. I'll post pictures later from his layout so far.
 
Everyone - forgot to mention in my earlier post - - MOH and I held a garage sale Saturday morning - did pretty good. Anyway, when it was over and we counted our profits, I said to my wife, "Half of that could go toward the layout and the other half toward my woodworking shop. Anything left over you can have." She gave me that LOOK!! Guys, how do they do that?!?!
 
Willie - that gravel you have as the parking area around your Bar Mills Tire Shop - - what brand is it, and what "grit" is it a medium or coarse, or what? I like how it looks and have wanted to start doing that around some of my industrial businesses.
 
Morning Everyone!
Supposed to reach 90* for a high today - the record was 103* in 2000.

Terry - glad to hear that "some" of the grass made it!

Chad - Excellent "tales" of travels -- Like the snack container!

Gene - Can you NOT get the Hillshire brand at all, or just that one?


Sherrel....no Hillshire brand at all in Montreal at least, probably all of Quebec and possibly all of Canada. We have strict bilingual packaging laws in Quebec and Canada...pretty well everything must have both french and English on their packageing...I suspect that Hillshire figures the return on investment to do that isnt worth it in our small market....never forget, the whole population of all of Canada is about the same as California.
 
Howdy ....

Louis ..... I like the photo of the big Pennsy Baldwin Centipedes .... I did not think it was controversial what you said regarding economics. We all should be concerned about the direction the of the deficits.

Willie .... I like McGee's Tire Service. That is a good idea about dust monkeys. ... Actually, Medicare and Social Security are entilement programs. They fit the definition exactly. I sometimes see people saying they are not, and I think they should refer to their dictionaries. Yes, we pay taxes for those programs, but the taxes cover only part of the costs. Unfortunately, these and other government programs are taking Uncle Sam on a path toward a complete financial collapse. .... It is unfortunate about self employed people failing to pay into SS and failing to save their money and invest it wisely. .... Speaking of definitions, I can't find a dictionary defining "government" as a source of funds to pay people's living expenses.

Johnny ..... Those are nice tunnel scenes in your photos.
 
Willie - that gravel you have as the parking area around your Bar Mills Tire Shop - - what brand is it, and what "grit" is it a medium or coarse, or what? I like how it looks and have wanted to start doing that around some of my industrial businesses.
Johnny - It is Woodland Scenics ballast. All fine but it is my own mix of fine buff, fine light gray and fine gray. Don't really remember the percentages, I usually just eyeball it anyway.
 
WILLIE- No matter what you save while a worker, four spinal surgeries , stent, cancer operation dentists, sure do a wipe out . Unless you have ultra deep pockets, oil well etc., and even then, please stay healthy.
Phil

NOTHING EVER GETS BUILT ON SCHEDULE. OR WITHIN BUDGET..
In my experience, it's the dental that can kill you, because it seems to be a afterthought on most insurance policies, with less coverage and higher copays. We haven't had a single medical or surgical bill since I began work for the Federal government, and I kept the full insurance when I retired. Dental is a different story. Routine care is covered, but anything else is a copay; I've had several teeth pulled or capped at $500 a pop, and even fillings get expensive (I seem to have reached the end of the warranty period on all of my fillings, which now have to be replaced). The dentist wants to do some gum surgery, but the area isn't bothering me so I'm holding off. It doesn't help that each of us had to retire at 62.

Anyway, my Big Boy is supposed to show up today, a day early! I got the George Bush and Support Our Troops SD70s on Saturday, so I may get down to what I humorously call my layout later this afternoon, for the first time in weeks.

Back to health issues:
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Good Morning Everyone...partly sunny with heavy rain in the forecast for later.

Just returned from an extended weekend at the cabin. Perfect weather with temperatures in the mid-70's and low humidity. We had the second campfire of the season on Saturday night and a neighbor saw the outdoor lights and fire and stopped by. I'm starting to feel much better since being on the antibiotics for the last three weeks, but my appetite still hasn't returned.

We had the pressure tank for the cabin replaced since it wasn't holding air and the pump was recycling too much. The new tank was the top of the line and the plumber wasn't cheap either, but we needed the new tank. I wasn't strong enough from the Lyme Disease to do the work myself which I could do without a problem if I was 100% healthy.

A fellow I know from meeting him at our local social club stopped by the cabin and offered to take us on a pontoon boat ride on his lake. He gave us his address and then we happened to drive by his "Cabin" on the lake when we when for a ride one afternoon. His home is easy a 4,500 if not more square feet lake home worth several million dollars and here's 70 year old plus Doug who drives a pickup and dresses in a flannel shirts and is likely a millionaire many times over. Never judge a book by its cover.

Looking forward to spending some time in the train room this afternoon. One thing I want to do is fine out how to transfer pictures from my camera to my computer without emailing from the camera to the computer. I think some detail maybe be lost in the transition by sending it via email.

Catching up on on the Forum posts.

This afternoon I would like to take some photos of several cabooses that were weathered. The cabooses are really run down, nearly approaching being platform pushing cabooses who have seen better days. I like beat up equipment and I enjoy watching a real old CNW caboose used by the Union Pacific doing switching moves around Butler, Wisconsin. The old caboose is a a real contrast to the restored CNW caboose that's on display by the public library in Butler.

I would to run trains and I was using a SOO GP38-2 to pull a ore train. I switched to a SOO Bandit GP38-2 and it had a hard time pulling the 16 car train around curves. Being four axle diesels, I believe the SOO GP38-2 has more weight than the Bandit which gives it more pulling power. Today I'll try a SW1500 to pull the train and see what happens.

Guys, keep the photographs coming one the Forum.

Later.......

Greg

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Ever since I visited the Kalmbach Offices, home of Model Railroader) and saw their Milwaukee, Racine and Troy railroad in person I wanted one of their locomotives. I finally purchased one when they became available.-Greg
 
Sherrel....no Hillshire brand at all in Montreal at least, probably all of Quebec and possibly all of Canada. We have strict bilingual packaging laws in Quebec and Canada...pretty well everything must have both french and English on their packageing...I suspect that Hillshire figures the return on investment to do that isnt worth it in our small market....never forget, the whole population of all of Canada is about the same as California.

I do about the same as you at least half the time. I use the Hillshire brand of Kielbasa - it's great for breakfast!

Too bad it's so cold up there .. In the mid-sixties, I found the Canadians very helpful and friendly people - at least those around Edmonton, and West, along the Alcan Highway.
 
Sherrel....no Hillshire brand at all in Montreal at least, probably all of Quebec and possibly all of Canada. We have strict bilingual packaging laws in Quebec and Canada...pretty well everything must have both french and English on their packaging...I suspect that Hillshire figures the return on investment to do that isn't worth it in our small market....never forget, the whole population of all of Canada is about the same as California.

Too bad that it maybe be difficult to freeze and then ship some Hillshire products to you. They are good sellers here in Wisconsin.

Like Sherrel, every trip to Canada I found the people to very friendly and enjoyed traveling to Vancouver, Toronto, and Ontario. Some of best trips we have taken.

Later....................

Greg
 
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