Running Bear’s July 2021 Coffee Shop

[Raboliοt]

6:57 PM...Let's roll !

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Wish M-I-L a happy birthday. Have you ever thought about all the things and events someone 100 has seen?

Thank you so much, Hughie!
I wonder if she might have witnessed this?

 

[troyphoto]

Oh... the humanity! To ruin all of the pizza with that one initial slice....

 

[GarryCBQ]

Howdy ...... I'll have pineapple and ham pizza, please.

Sherrel ...... Happy 100th birthday to your MIL.

 

[CambriaArea51]

Afternoon, thanks for all the likes on the hopper cars. Got one left to decal then off to the weathering dept. A hot 85 and the grass is growing quickly after 3" inches of rain.
Sherrel - Happy 100th Birthday to your Mother in law.

 

[kbkchooch]

Me loves pineapple pizza

 

[bnsf971]

Me loves pineapple pizza

Seems like you either love it or hate it.
You couldn't run fast enough to give me a slice of it.

 

[IronBeltKen]

Me loves pineapple pizza

My household has a love/hate relationship with it: Wife loves it, I hate it!

 

[kbkchooch]

Good Evening gang!

Troy, belated Happy Anniversary to you and the Mrs.

Willie, Congrats on your upcoming 49th!

Hughie, closing in on 55! Wow!

SWMBO and I are having our 2nd in October, we'll never catch up. (but then again, this is the 3rd time around for both of us) If I would have married her the 1st time, we would be at 39 years.

Sherril Congrats to your MIL on 100 years. We should all be so lucky!

On the MRR front, it seems the global chip shortage is hitting our hobby too. I have it on good authority that the Bowser RS3's will stay in China for awhile. The DC units are done, but the DCC and DCC/Sound units are awaiting ESU/Loksound decoders before final assembly. ESU is having trouble getting the chips to build decoders and it would cost much extra to make 2 shipments of the models from China than 1, so the DC units will stay put. Incidentally speaking to my LHS yesterday, he has had difficulty getting decoders and systems of late also. With that knowledge I bought his last Loksound Micro yesterday!

Pizza. Yes I like pineapple on pizza, or really anything but anchovies or mushrooms, even though on a Dominos Philly Steak pizza, I can ignore the fact that mushrooms are hiding under the cheese!

Really, has anyone here done this??

 

[IronBeltKen]

Good evening Shop Dwellers, we've got 79*F with dwindling sunlight and a paltry 3mph NW breeze.

A quick shout-out to the "likers" of the photo of my almost-finished Ford plant facade: Rick, Tom-Cambria, Hughie, Garry, Tom-O, Gary, Patrick, Karl, Willie, Christian, Troy, Sherrell, Guy

. . .
Ken .... the Ford plant already is amazing. Good work !
. . .

Much appreciated Garry!

. . .
Ken - Really impressive wall there.
. . .

Thanks Willie - on the topic of walls, I just have to share THIS:

Sherrell - a happy 100th to your MIL! My MIL would have been 100 this coming September, but she passed at 92.

In other news: I finally got around to doing the initial setup of my new laptop this afternoon - didn't want to initiate that until I had a wireless mouse to use with it. The very first thing I did after installing the mouse was to disable the touchpad (I like my cursor to stay in the place I want it, thank you very much!). Everything went as smoothly as could be expected, albeit with some delay because of the strange "prompt" Microsoft used for me to logon to my account. They told me to enter my phone number, but when I did, the error message read "That number doesn't look quite right, please try again". Eventually, with Geek guidance, I was able to figure out that they wanted my Microsoft account ID - which is my email address, NOT my phone number!

Aside from that, the only other anomaly was a warning message that displays each time I power it up: "We couldn't determine the type of battery charger you are using, please use a 45-watt charger or your battery may fail to charge." WTF!? It's the charger that was packaged with the machine, has the Dell logo stamped onto it...[?] I'm leaving the new laptop plugged-in but powered off, until I get the Webroot security software installed on there; that chore can wait until Tuesday.

Good Night - and have a Pleasant Tomorrow!

 

[CGW121]

Wife and I just had our 21st in June. Second time for both of us. I have 3 brothers who have been married over 50 years, 2 of them have been married over 60. Kinda rare. I don't eat pizza much as it doesn't set well with me. Pineapple is ok.

Mike

 

[bnsf971]

Aside from that, the only other anomaly was a warning message that displays each time I power it up: "We couldn't determine the type of battery charger you are using, please use a 45-watt charger or your battery may fail to charge." WTF!? It's the charger that was packaged with the machine, has the Dell logo stamped onto it...[?]

Ken, look closely at the connector on the laptop. There should be a small pin in the center of the connector. If it's bent slightly, it won't recognize the charger. Also, if you're plugged in to a surge protector, that sometimes will cause an error message on any newer laptop.

 

[Raboliοt]

 

[Patrick]

Morning all,

Clear and 66° this morning in Doo-Dah. Supposed to get to 88° later today.

Not much new going on. Hopefully quiet today after me new supervisor was out yesterday. Still need to take a week before the old boss leaves at the end of August. His last real day is August 27th, but his retire date is September 13th. Funny thing with the state retirement system is you have to "work" on your last day, so everyone takes terminal vacation and shows up for one day to work. Rather a stupid concept in my opinion. If you're done you're done. payout the vacation and comp time and be done. Everyone knows the person retiring isn't really going to do anything anyway.

Pineapple on pizza is ok, not my most favorite, but I do like the fishes on the pizza. Too bad the rest of the family doesn't.

IBKen: Thanks for "The Wall". I needed some Pink Floyd to help get the day started. Then behind it popped up Queen's :Bohemian Rhapsody". Good start to the day.

 

[PRR Modeler]

Good Morning,

I know it's been about 4-5 months since I posted last, but I have been lurking. Mom continues to decline both mentally and physically and my Dad has also started to physically decline. I continue to spend about 5-6 hours a day with them and my better half has been cooking meals for Dad.

I talked to Phil last week on his 85th birthday. He is dealing with pretty bad energy levels after any kind of exertion and he is frustrated from it.

I have been trying to get 1 hour a day in the train room. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the BTS Cabin Creek Mine. I've had to modify some of it to work in it's new home. I do have the track work for it complete and tested with a H10-44 that will be assigned to that location.

That's it for now. Thank you for your prayers and we'll wishes. I probably won't post every day but I won't be such a stranger.

 

[kbkchooch]

Good Morning,

I know it's been about 4-5 months since I posted last, but I have been lurking. Mom continues to decline both mentally and physically and my Dad has also started to physically decline. I continue to spend about 5-6 hours a day with them and my better half has been cooking meals for Dad.

I talked to Phil last week on his 85th birthday. He is dealing with pretty bad energy levels after any kind of exertion and he is frustrated from it.

I have been trying to get 1 hour a day in the train room. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the BTS Cabin Creek Mine. I've had to modify some of it to work in it's new home. I do have the track work for it complete and tested with a H10-44 that will be assigned to that location.

That's it for now. Thank you for your prayers and we'll wishes. I probably won't post every day but I won't be such a stranger.

Good to hear from you Curt. I wish the circumstances with your parents was better.

Stop in anytime.

 

[Boris]

Really, has anyone here done this??

Karl: I tried once...didn't get that far...not really that hard to do.

Ken: The Ford plant build is fantastic...thanks for the paint tip.

Curt: Good to hear from you. That daily time in the trainroom, is a good idea, considering what y'all are involved with right now. Sad about your parents decline. Not easy to deal with. Prayers continue.

Garry: I like your "Local"...

Not much going on here, sunny and 73, going back into the 90s today. Got the flower beds weeded yesterday.

Eastbound out of Enola, #4860+2 GG1s on what appears to be a Van Train. What is unusual about this photo, is the 4th GG1, dead in consist and a Van train going via Enola...Van Trains normally were routed through Harrisburg, on the other side of the river. Van trains rarely ferried shopped GG1s, also. It is possible that the pigs are in a block ahead of mixed freight, which is out of view, perhaps aa train for Baltimore, but the dead GG1 is still going the wrong way. Great Photo.

 

[TLOC]

Fellow modelers from around the globe, good morning. So. Central Wisconsin is experiencing another wonderful weather start to the day. 75 now but heading to 88f degrees. Low humidity, super clear skies and an occasional slight breeze are just what anyone would like scepter guy of the north. 60’s for him.

I started to cut the lawns yesterday at 5:30pm and it was too hot for me. Lasted maybe a 1/2 hour. I read that cutting between 5 and 7 pm is best for the grass. Today I go back to when the grass is dry from the morning dew I am cutting. That is what is best for me!

Curt, that is tough what you are going through, I hope the best for you and the family.

Did the 2 miles of walking on the trails this morning. Terry wants me to build back up to 4 miles a day but she slept in. I can do the 2 miles and then swim but doing 4 miles takes too much out of me.

Looking at the layout pictures posted here and within the forum I have come to a realization I do want to build a city scene. I never really had the room and have concentrated on elements I love or enjoy. Paper Mills and other heavy industries like a grain mill complex, ethanol plants or scrap steel. I have plenty of room now. So a city and harbor scenes is what I am looking forward to. Now just to find my old doodles on a city and harbors scenes.

My brother’s ride yesterday ended up with him in Wausau, Wi., 155 miles from here. He decided to see a friend who is suffering with anal cancer. While there he dropped Terry’s car off at a local dealer and had them adjust the suspension as it turns out a sensor wasn’t working correctly. When he got back late afternoon the two of them went for a ride. I would never have noticed a difference.

Well, I will walk the grass as it looks like what dew we had is gone. Cutting grass is my immediate goal, enjoy your day.

TomO

 

[Jaz avalley]

I've mentioned before that we are trying to get a new home built. I am an "owner/builder" and have a home builder contractor firm that is working with me as advisor and running the job under their umbrella. (They are friends of the family and until he passed the family patriarch who runs the company lived in my parents' neighborhood, and one of his sons, who runs the company with his brothers, lives a few houses down from my parents, so they are doing this as a favor to me -- I am paying them a large fee, but a lot less than I would be paying if they were just building the house and selling it to me).

We had bank problems that lasted 6 months until we basically gave the bank the flying finger, and went to another one, which had the construction loan closed in a hair under 2 months, which around here, is really good. The original bank, the largest Utah based bank, used a low end knuckle dragger appraiser who was not fit for the type of project we are doing [and who charged 1/2 of what they told me to expect a project like ours to cost to appraise, and the second appraisal from the second bank, which was great, did cost]. He said our project was an over-improvement for the area (factually it is not, there are plenty of houses just as large or larger in the neighborhood and I provided a ton of proof in my rebuttal), and there were a bunch of other factual errors about the project that affected the appraisal, and which I provided actual counter data in our rebuttal. He also didn't like the layout of the so-called "bonus space" above the garage (instead of a normal attic, we used it for a large room [for trains ] and some offices for work at home). He called it "obsolete" in function. Between it all he knocked roughly 25% off the actual value so that the appraisal was much less than basic construction costs. I submitted a 45 page rebuttal with pictures and hard data. His reply was "it is not debatable" when it came to the "over-improvement" and "functional obsolescence". A short paragraph or two to most of my 45 page rebuttal. He did include several paragraphs explaining some technical stuff that was minor [about construction technique and materials and how it affects the appraisal] -- stuff that I think actually supported my claim based on his description but I did not follow up with it. The loan officer said he took it to their higher committee, which basically rubber stamped the appraisal. We needed to get started this year so I basically told the loan officer that we were withdrawing the application since he couldn't get it done. He said it wasn't his fault that the value was not there in the appraisal. I pointed out it was deficient but they were unwilling to order a new one, even after 6 months.

new bank ordered an appraisal which came back at over 50% higher than the defective one from the first.

Anyway, the point of all this is to set the background for the real news.

A week ago today the excavation company started digging!!! They are still working on it as they have to truck out most of the dirt, which makes it slower. The lot is sloped down from N to S, and from W to E and I want to make the yard relatively flat -- we will end up adding dirt to the SE corner to level it. And I also don't want to have a steep grade on the driveway*, and I don't want steps into the house from the garage and no more than a 1/2 step from outside to the front porch. When I am old and decrepit (retired and getting older and maybe with health issues) I don't want to have to deal steps or crap like that. I look at my dad, who is 85, and for his age and condition in pretty good shape, but physically weaker, and he has lots of steps and stars into his house or in the house which he can no longer easily traverse (diagnosed with prostate cancer, though signs of it have disappeared mostly after they put him on a testosterone suppressant to keep from feeding it). I want to avoid those problems when I am old.

All the actual living space is on one floor, so the footprint is a little large. Because of that we have a large basement -- which I will put to good use with my non-train hobbies -- as well as a family room and guest bedroom and lots of storage and misc rooms for game room, workout, etc. But nothing in the basement is where I have to be able to get for normal living when I am old. Same for the "bonus" space above the garage. Not needed for basic life. But the larger footprint means we have to move a lot of dirt.

We had another meeting today with the builder guy, their super who is running the job, and the head owner of the excavation company, to make sure we had done things right, as the hole is deeper than they normally dig and the super was second guessing things (not the first time -- he is an excellent superintendent for this builder but we are using ICF and some other things they don't normally do so he has had to adjust how he thinks about things and his normal way of measuring and laying things out. With ICF, we have no separate foundation -- just a building wall that goes from footing to roof, so there is not the normal standard foundation form height to key off etc.

Did I say they are digging? When the footprint was originally laid out for the excavation crew, it was accidentally 3' further off the road than it was supposed to be. So they ended up overdigging an extra 3' on the back side more than they usually overdig. And the guy laying it out on the dirt also mis-read the plan so a 17'x'17' enclosed patio without basement underneath it got excavated as if it were part of the main house so we will have to fill that area back in and compact etc (basically an extra room attached to the house outside the main structure wall with 2 sliding glass and a normal glass door to give lots of light and airy feeling).

I planned on extra excavation costs but it is more than I budgeted for with all the dirt they have to move off site. Luckily I had a large chunk added for the geothermal and energy efficiency measures and I think that extra chunk of money I added to the second loan for those measures is not needed. So it will cover the extra excavation costs.

Once more, did I say they are digging? We started this adventure in the spring of 2019 with a trip to an architect with my floor plan scribblings, and had hoped to start last summer, but got behind with a bunch of things and then finally getting the loan app in late summer and it taking over 6 months before we basically had to start over, so it has been stressful and I am just glad to have gotten started. The real physical work is coming up -- I am doing the ICF blocks with my son and one other guy, plus I will be putting the radiant in, the cabinets, the LVP flooring, the stairs (with some help), etc. But physical work, even as a desk jockey for my living, is easy compared to getting to the point where you can start.

This is not the whole hole, they are still working on it to the left, but I do believe this corner where I am standing is at the front most section. And the good chunk of the back wall on the right back should not have been taken out --- basically from that little jog you see upper right, to a little right of the center point on the back wall, forward even with that jog, which is actually a lot bigger than it looks from this vantage point.

View attachment 129960

Make sure you have essential materials in place , here in the uk due to lockdown there has been an unprecedented demand - low supplies, then Covid - low supplies and the Brexit war = low supplies with planes running less more is going by container but the UK and the US and Europe have a small number of ports that mo ve containers so they are literally queueing out on the water and each day they queue adds more container costs last spring 2020 a container from Asia cost 2061 pounds at present it costs 5800 pounds and this is not likely to get better, we have shortages of cement,steel - because we bowed to the eu and stopped making steel,wood prices like yours are going high, chemicals from Texas was apparently a problem becaseaao winter,Scandinavian wood is messed because they had a warm winter, I went into my shoe repairers and was admiring a Zippo (US made) and they said yeah they are stuck in a container IN EGYPT, plaster is like hens teeth and people are travelling in the uk a hundred miles to go get some which is just plain crazy, so make sure you’re watching your supplies and are ahead of the game, builders here are literally downing tools because of said shortages, we had 2 projects which we have put on hold,one is a leak,where we can cope with a leak but we cannot cope with a big hole in our roof and a shortage of goods, I added an alarm and a towel and watch the weather,luckily it needs lots of rain and the wind in one specific direction,so we cope…cross fingers.

 

[Jaz avalley]

Greetings all,

Quick post as I must leave soon.

Finished the bracelet! Not something my wife would wear, but the commissioner seems happy by the pics. Wife taking it to her this morning and we will see.

View attachment 129975

Wife thinks I am nuts to think about the train conductor job - - - but $37/hour is almost what I make now! And no self-employment tax!!

Later folks! -------- Steve J

May be hard on your feet,make sure you have orthopaedic support inners if you tad ot