Running Bear’s August 2019 Coffee Shop


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Sorry - got in too much of a hurry. Meant to say in my last post a few minutes ago:
IB Ken, Louis, Garry, Chessie, Sir Fold, Flip, Patrick, Wheeler, and anyone I missed - thanks for the likes and comments on my photo of the logging camp yesterday. I appreciate all the encouraging comments.

Time for coffee. Have a good day.
 
Good Morning All. 73° and thunderstorms which began about 0500. 1.6" in the rain gauge so far, but they are nearly over. Saves me from irrigating the garden this week, and I can delay topping off the pool for a couple more days. Of course it also means more mowing by this weekend.
Doctor visit for my wife went well yesterday. He was very pleased with what he saw. Exactly two weeks after her release from the hospital, he made her walk without the walker, which was done without any additional pain. Note that I tried to get her to try on Sunday and she declined. She graduates to the cane now, an old fashioned one that I inherited from my grandfather. As I pointed out before, the replacement knee was fully functional as soon as we left the hospital; use of the walker simply eased the pain and swelling, and was also a kind of safety (steadying) device. I was wearing one of my model rr tee shirts and the doctor asked about it. Turns out that he has a small Märklin HO set-up of his own. He and his dad built a fold-up layout back in the 60's when they lived in Scandinavia, which he still uses.
Just pancakes and bacon today Flo.

Thanks for yesterday's likes and comments; Patrick, Phil, Sherrel, Justin, Garry, Chet, Louis, Ken, Johnny, Jerome.
I don't have a picture of my old VW Beetle, but I do have it in a scene on the layout.
08-14-19 001.JPG

R-L is my wife, me and my brother in law. We were all a bit skinnier back then.

Slow day in the train shed yesterday. Did some ground foam, and some painting on the vegetable market. Made some trees for eventual use.


Chet - The Dust Monkeys lift ever so slightly no matter which way they are turned for me. They also end up reversed when I do out and back switching runs which I mostly do. Great aerial photos.
Greg - A Beetle with FM radio. That's newer than either of the two that I owned. I had a Karmann Ghia also that I don't recall the vintage of.
Ken - Glad to read that the return to work was uneventful. I wish you the best going forward with your continued recovery.
Louis - Are you running for President? Good articulation but I cannot comment on much as I would get too wound up. I am amused by the Medicare for All crowd which hasn't noticed how well the government has run the current Medicare program for the last 70+ years.

Everybody have a great day.
 
Good morning ....

Ken...... Thanks for the info about B&O 4604 .

Johnny ..... Your logging scene looks great.

Willie ....... Love the VW beetle scene .

Louis ..... Before advocating Medicare for all, I suggest you reconcile the many failures of ObamaCare. For example, it was very harmful to self employed people who previously had their own affordable insurance policies. .... Next correct major problems with Medicare. Its trust fund is being depleted. Its growing deficits are massive. It is the main cause of Uncle Sam's $22 Trillion debt. ... HHS doubles its spending every ten years. This year, it will spend over $1.2 trillion. Ten years ago, it spent about $600 million annually. Ten years before that, it spent about $300 billion annually. And so on. .... Ten years from now, it will spend $2.4 Trillion. Ten years after that , it will spend $4.8 Trillion. And so on. ..... Solve those problems first. ...... Also, remember health benefits paid by employers are not taxable income to employees, and they are in lieu of higher pay that would be taxable. You gave an example with Amazon. .... You indicated you don't like corporate welfare, but you want government to take over a major expense. Makes no sense. .. I suggest you you go back to the drawing board and rethink the idea of national health care because it would be disastrous.
 
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In the US: I am a little bit late to the discussion, and I am not trying to make it political, but Social Security is not a social insurance program (and neither is medicare). You are not "paying into" anything that obligates the government to pay you anything. In other words, you have no claim to anything except whatever the current version of the law outlines as benefits. If Congress changes the law, they change your benefits (or even eliminate them) and you have no claim. I am speaking strictly from a legal standpoint. FICA (Social Security) and Medicare payments you make are strictly taxes levied by the government. They are not premiums or contributions in the legal sense. The government can change the benefits, or even cancel them at any time, without obligation to you (current or future recipients). There is no legal difference between a "welfare" payment to a recipient and a Social Security payment to a recipient. Both are benefits defined by the government and paid for by taxes. (or through deficit spending). (In structure it is akin to a huge Ponzi scheme, where current recipients are paid by the income payments made by "new" (future) recipients.)

Now, this is not what people are lead to believe -- they are lead to believe that they they are paying into a "social insurance" type program and that they have legal claim to benefits in the future. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I am not giving any opinion on it, just laying out the facts so that there are no misunderstandings.
 
I work at the other end of these pictures. We unload one or two trains a day. We get PRB coal from Wyoming and we get CAP coal from IL and other locations. I will try to post some pictures of it. I'll post more as I figure it out. I've ordered a powerplant for my layout. That should be interesting.

my view

More coal cars

the final result

I hope you can see the pictures OK.



Another pit stop before bed. I hope everyone is doing well. Haven't had time to run my new GP7 as of yet. I'll have to clean my track beforehand. Hopefully this weekend I can make the journey down to the train room. Going away from the C&O this go around. Another West Virginia coal railroad was the Norfolk and Western. Of course it's now Norfolk Southern. At any rate I'll share a couple of photos I dug up. Two are of the same location from Bluefield, WV/Va. Bluefield is in two different states. I have been here a few times and it's a pretty good sized yard located there. One photo is of today and the other back in coals heyday. The last one is out of Kenova WV I think.
 
Good Morning Everyone.....rain last night which we needed. Now over-cast.

Willie:
The FM radio was simply a non-stereo, single speaker radio that I had to special order with I purchased the VW. FM stations were few and far between in 1973. At night we would listen to Wolfman Jack from Texas or Mexico.

Leaving tomorrow for the cabin and spend several days doing odds jobs and taking it easy. I like to take drives in the woods and see what I can discover. I find the drive up to be relaxing if the traffic on the Interstate behaves.

I really like the Dust Monkeys and how they clean the tops of the rail.

Keeping it short this morning.

Later.....

Be good.

Greg

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There is no legal difference between a "welfare" payment to a recipient and a Social Security payment to a recipient. Both are benefits defined by the government and paid for by taxes. (or through deficit spending). (In structure it is akin to a huge Ponzi scheme, where current recipients are paid by the income payments made by "new" (future) recipients.)

Now, this is not what people are lead to believe -- they are lead to believe that they they are paying into a "social insurance" type program and that they have legal claim to benefits in the future.

BOOM!
 
Morning from LLC! (liberal land california)
Been busy trying to correct some mis-happenings on the RV. 1. A service bulletin on the support bracket for the hyd. leveling pump. 2. Need to find out why the "steps" won't work. 3. Clean it out - last group didn't do much at all (pissed). 4. Shower door off track. 5. Flushed out really good the septic system (pissed). 6. Food items left in cupboards - a no-no where mice will try and get in and at them (pissed). 7. Wife tried to take out a guard rail coming down the mountain and did a little damage to a couple compartment doors on the side - need to try and straighten them a little (pissed).
A few other small items to cover as well.

Supposed to be (aww crap-just looked) 99* today. The record was 103* in 2003.

Read, with interest, CHAD, LOUIS, GARRY, and WILLIE's take on Gov functions.
I agree with many of the points all around -- seems CHAD has a good grip on it overall.

Now, as to all the giveaways being batted around - --
If all the money in the world were divided equally among everyone:
In a few years - a few people would control over 90% of it - just like today!
At least for a while, I could drink Maker's Mark rather than Old Crow!

Your mileage may vary.
 
It rained for about 5 minutes and quit. Sun is BURNING HOT. I guess more rain and t/s later.
Phil

DON'T LET YOUR WORRIES GET THE BEST OF YOU. REMEMBER MOSES STARTED OUT AS A BASKET CASE.
 
Afternoon all,

It was still morning when I started to read this forum before posting. Like the "bugs" on the layouts and your stories about your bugs. My only "bug" story relates to the first time I tried to drive one. It was dark and the shift pattern was different than the stick I had in the truck. Ended up driving it it second the whole way (about i mile each direction).
 
Very good points Chad. On the other hand, I do challenge anyone to name a single government give-away program that Congress has ended in the history of the country! Whether it be to corporations, farmers, poor citizens, defense contractors, or even foreign nations; Congress has never eliminated a single program. Some have ended by Presidential decree.
 
For the record, I'm not advocating Medicare for all, we need an entire new ball game and I'm not running for president.

Like others, I have some skeletons in my closet, but unlike others, I am not stupid enough to go under the microscope of presidential politics.

As for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), see how it works in Maryland. Other states are playing politics and have not fully complied. It is certainly far from perfect, but it is a small step in the right direction. I have health insurance now, even with several pre-excising conditions, thanks to the ACA.

The ACA, could have, should have been much better, but one side decided not to participate in the debate, my way or no way. I guess they thought what we were doing was good? After 2 years of majority control of the house, senate and presidency shouldn't we now call the ACA; Republican care?
 
Very good points Chad. On the other hand, I do challenge anyone to name a single government give-away program that Congress has ended in the history of the country! Whether it be to corporations, farmers, poor citizens, defense contractors, or even foreign nations; Congress has never eliminated a single program. Some have ended by Presidential decree.

Willie ...... You are correct about Congress not ending give-away programs. Does not happen....... Medicare should not be ended, but it must be reformed to slow its growth. If not, lack of funds will force cuts to amounts of benefits. ....

Chad .... Good summary. Do you have any ideas about how to slow growth of Medicare?

Louis ..... ACA had winners and losers. Losers were self-employed workers and their families. I could tell you war stories of some self-employed family members. Regarding pre-exist conditions, Congress could have solved that without screwing up the rest of health care.
 
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In the US: I am a little bit late to the discussion, and I am not trying to make it political, but Social Security is not a social insurance program (and neither is medicare). You are not "paying into" anything that obligates the government to pay you anything. In other words, you have no claim to anything except whatever the current version of the law outlines as benefits. If Congress changes the law, they change your benefits (or even eliminate them) and you have no claim. I am speaking strictly from a legal standpoint. FICA (Social Security) and Medicare payments you make are strictly taxes levied by the government. They are not premiums or contributions in the legal sense. The government can change the benefits, or even cancel them at any time, without obligation to you (current or future recipients). There is no legal difference between a "welfare" payment to a recipient and a Social Security payment to a recipient. Both are benefits defined by the government and paid for by taxes. (or through deficit spending). (In structure it is akin to a huge Ponzi scheme, where current recipients are paid by the income payments made by "new" (future) recipients.)

Now, this is not what people are lead to believe -- they are lead to believe that they they are paying into a "social insurance" type program and that they have legal claim to benefits in the future. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I am not giving any opinion on it, just laying out the facts so that there are no misunderstandings.
Can you imagine how many law suits would be filed if they were to eliminate Social Security and or Medicare? Even if they come up with a better replacement the courts will be busy.
 
Garry, as a small businessman I've done cost analysis for healthcare, in the late 80s and twice more in the 90s. The only cheap health care I found was actually very little coverage. That's why I never hired any permanent workers.

I'll make some calls when I get time and ask small business owners I know and see what they tell me. With healthcare exchanges increasing purchasing power for small business owners I'd expect it would be better.
 
Good afternoon, a little catch up today.

I will just say this and see what happens. Social Security was meant to be adequate income to live off when it was established. It was meant to free up the workforce, infuse cash into the economy (kind of a quantitative easing for the masses) due to high unemployment, also give older workers a much needed respite.

The stock market is gambling, always will be winners and losers. My parents were taken to the cleaners staying in for the "long haul". Wisely, their real estate was paid for, and lucky for us it was a lasting legacy.

ON THE TRAIN I got my Northern Pacific wall sections painted, also added some people to the module.

more later, Dave
 
Good Afternoon Everyone...partly sunny.

The trains were postponed today since my half hour job to replace a toilet flushing valve in the half bath turned into four hours. The commode is between a cabinet and a wall so working room is at a premium. The connection for the wall supply to the toilet should of been removed using only my finger strength. No way.

I thought I had a spare flushing value, but no luck and off to the hardware store to purchase one.

The nut on the bottom of the tank turned turn several turns then stopped. No way was it just finger tight. It appears that there was either dirt in the threads or the connection was crossed threaded the last time it was removed and replaced. By guess cross threaded. Impossible to undo. We had the floor replaced in this area and the floor installer did have problems when he reinstalled the toilet with this part.

The model railroading Dremel Tool to the rescue and it helped me cut off the riser inside the tank and then remove the supply fill pipe.

Another trip to the hardware store for a new supply pipe.

Once I had all the correct parts and it was a 15 minutes job to finish and clean up. At least I saved the expense of a plumber at likely $289.00 for a service call.

A few choice words.

It was like installing a HO decoder in a Z locomotive.

Greg

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