Running Bear’s July 2021 Coffee Shop

[Raboliοt]

12:20 PM Now it's time for lunch in France. See you soon folks !

 

[CambriaArea51]

Good morning....Coffee and breakfast sandwich Flo. Rain on the way about 10 am so it's looking like the train room for the afternoon.

 

[MilwRoader_Steve]

Greetings all,

05:55 here and I have been awake since about 2 except for a brief spell around 3, but a dream woke me and I got up to read at 03:35. Back to bed at 5 but no joy, so with the alarm set for 06:15 - - - - might as well get up and start the day.

Church work, first, and then to the daughter's to watch the England - Italy match with them. Pizza is on the menu. But I do have time for a nap scheduled in between - - - which I will now especially need if I am to be at all sociable.

No train work, yesterday. Purchased the new refrigerator and dishwasher for the kitchen. Delivery is Aug 09, so that will be the true offical end to the summer kitchen project. Now we enter savings account rebuild mode. With the kitchen project, helping two daughters move, carrying one daughter between jobs - - - the reserves took some serious hits. So I will focus on using what is on hand for the train room work - - which will be fine as I can complete my yard with everything I have - just can't go electric with the turnout controls. But as others have astutely observed - I can plan them in and add later when resources permit. No teaching gig this fall, so will miss that extra income. But we'll be oaky. Belt-tightening for a couple months to get comfort level back up. I'm sure you all have been there.

I am also on 'final approach' to completing the bracelet for wife's co-worker. I aim to have that finished and delivered by Friday. So that will be my focus this week. I'll post a picture when it's done. RR-ing is, after all, a hobby, right? Leisure time activity? Did I hear somebody snicker?


Enjoy the day, all! --------- Steve J

 

[TLOC]

Good morning from the south deck this morning. Again Wisconsin is a cool 64f degrees but today heading into the high 70’s. It is still quiet around the house. I have been up for 1.5 hours and all the girls are still sleeping. They were a giddy bunch last night as they were drinking wine and beer. Their game is 7pm Central Time but they are leaving for the 90 minute drive at noon. They will overnight at the friends place and come back tomorrow. Unless that changed during the wino fest last night.

I will swim after they are gone. Then I have some ideas to try in the trainroom.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Morning - here is today's "poop".


Excessive heat will continue inland through Monday, while coastal areas remain under the influence of the marine layer, with patchy low clouds and fog each night and morning. Isolated showers or thunderstorms may develop over the mountains Monday and Tuesday. Weakening high pressure will lead to cooler conditions beginning Tuesday.

Today: Mostly sunny and very warm. Afternoon breezes , high near 92°F .

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. Mostly cloudy and 71°. Rained overnight but that has passed us on the way south. I'm left with 0.4" in the rain gauge this morning. That should be it for rainfall until late September or early October but one never knows. At just over 3.5", we have already exceeded our normal July rainfall, which is 2.3".
Running late this morning as I slept an incredible 10 hours last night...with only two bathroom breaks. Almost an "all-nighter".
Today is corned beef and cabbage day here on the SFW estate. I dug one of the extra ones out of the freezer that I bought when they were on sale at St Patrick's Day.

Thanks for the likes and comments regarding yesterday's post; Guy, Chet, Ken, Hughie, Karl, Tom O, Joe, Chad, Gary, Garry, Tom, Justin, Rick, Sherrel.

A BLT sandwich with double bacon this morning Flo. I'll take the usual OJ today.

I did no actual modeling yesterday out in the train shed. I did do measuring and planning for the cannery and the Wayne Feeds Store. Then I resumed the switching action that I started Friday. I also started the quarterly cleaning task on the next part of the upper level. I am a bit late in starting, but I will continue my two year documentation process. That area will include parts of the outlying areas south of Vernon and the whole town of Maulsville.
Most can be seen in the center of this overview shot here.

Some of the Maulsville includes this.

Sherrel - Regarding smoking. A friend of mine once said that he also had no trouble quitting, he did it every night! I went cold turkey way back in 1970 when some new tax raised the price of a pack from 30¢ to 33¢, and I decided that I could no longer afford that.
Troy - I usually cut my pork butts/shoulders in half to smoke them. A full one is way too much for my wife and I to eat. Even a half provides enough for three full meals and a lunch or two; that is the half without the bone.
Chet - You posted about your wife staying with a friend at The Villages. What a community! We sold so many windows to builders there that we had three different distributors serving them; one out of Leesburg to the SE, one from Wildwood to the W and one out of Ocala to the NW. Scandalous place from what I read as well.
Love the scenery on the club layout. Is that lady still doing it?
Garry - I also hope that the bridge is repaired by then, it won't affect our trip up as I posted. But we're hoping to return through Little Rock on the way home without taking that I-55 detour, although it will be different seeing that bridge instead.

Of course today is 7-11 Day. Get your free Slurpee at any location, or multiple locations if you like those things. Otherwise have a great Sunday and go to the church of your choice.

 

[Raboliοt]

What a wonderful layout !

 

[McLeod]

Good Morning!
Thought I'd better post something so y'all don't think I was melted in the current, ongoing heatwave.
Today is supposed to be the coolest day of the coming week with a high in the mid-70's. The guessers are saying a 12% chance of rain, but, I believe that's just an attempt to word some science behind the predictions. Rest of the week will continue in an un-naturally hot and uncomfortable manner.
I like the cold far better than the hot. At least a person can defend themselves from the cold easier. You can layer on the clothing, but, you can only strip down so far before you get arrested.

Anyway, I don't function well in the heat and I have some commitments to attend to. So, I might not be dropping in for a coffee everyday.

Today, I don't have much of a photo presentation. Possibly a couple of repeats. Someone might be interested in the stenciling on a center-beam flat.
The lumber load on this particular car comes from the mill my wife works at. She was one of the people responsible for slapping in a kazillion staples onto the lumber piles when they get wrapped. I had to correct her on that, because I hate pulling staples out of a board after I buy it.

Here's a loaded Center-beam flat waiting for a train to go to market:

Have a great Sunday, and a wonderful week ahead!

 

[Texas Hobo]

Good Morning all! Well the sun is playing hide and seek this morning, while a 30% chance of rain.
Not a lot to report, however our 3 yr. old great grand daughter came by yesterday and wanted see paw paw's trains, twice. It is quite interesting watching the faces of young children when they see the little trains move and the smile when the little train blows it's horn. You never know when an event will become a memory.

STAY SAFE
LATER

 

[Boris]

Good morning y'all, and happy Sunday. We are enjoying a visit from Second son, who is up from NC to take possession of the F150.
Tomorrow, I go for a CT Scan, to follow up on the first one. It might be my imagination, but I feel that since the pulmonologist changed my meds, I am having fewer episodes of the chronic deep cough, and fewer nigh time coughs. Time will tell. Plan on doing more with the layout this afternoon.
Wife is planning on Italian pork Chops and eggplant for tonight's dinner....yum!

I guess that I am just an old country boy at heart! I got to listening/watching U-Tube of The Highway Men

Sherrel: Can't beat that , although I do need my fix of old Bob Wills music with Leon Mcauliffe on the Steel guitar every now and then.

He still can't keep up with the other dog, he tires easy, but he is improving.

Karl: Improvement is a good thing...Won't be long before he shows the pup a thing or two.

That CNJ Alco need a bath.

Chet: Of all the Eastern Roads, the Reading was the only one that consistently tried to keep their power clean. The CNJ, ran them until they dropped.
BTW, I am really impressed with the appearance of that club layout. Some really fine work. The RDC fits well in that atmosphere.

I don't know how long the ship will be there.

Garry: Interesting problem. Either they have to raise the water level enough to allow the ship to rise off the sand bar, or lighten the ship enough to accomplish the same. Not an easy task. Keep us updated. On morning, many years ago, I was driving home from my C Trick Hostler job at Wilmington. The Delaware River bends South of Marcus Hook, and North of Edgemoor. There is, (or was), a stationery beacon on a rise above the Governour Printz Parkway, to remind Pilots of this bend. The Tanker Christina Onassis, running on ballast after discharging a load of oil at Marcus Hook, ran aground on a sandbar on this bend, at low tide All it took was for the next high tide to float it off with the help of a tug. These things happen. Probably, the only reason the incident remains in my memory was that the ship belonged to Aristotle Onassis, of Jackie Kennedy fame.

I like the few Plasticville structures that I have. They are all some of the same kits, albeit HO scale, that my Dad had on his Lionel layout when I was growing up.

Willie: They were the minerature version of the Plasticville O and S buildings. What I liked about them was that the homes resembled homes being built in the suburban communities around where I grew up. The Supermarket, closely resembled an ACME or Best Market, the Toll Booth looked like the ones on the NJ Turnpike...Te two track signal bridges are based on the PRR Signal Bridge, but not the signal type. which are color light.

I often worry that I am a COPD time-bomb that's going to go off when I get older, or experience some other precipitating event.

Ken: That was the real danger of Covid - 19, that the virus would exploit any inactive lung disease present. I had asthma practically all my life, and had been exposed to poor quality air from the get go. Then I exposed myself to other hazards by occupation(s0, and smoked. Yet, after I quit smoking, I had pneumonia twice, and each time the infection caused the COPD to worsen.... OTOH, there are some great (read pricey), meds that do help.

Three of these wall panel sets, with some corrective surgery, should be plenty to cover ~5ft of the back wall:

I like it, I like it. BTW, I see WKW has re-released their version of the Ford Assembly plant. Will that help your project along?

Southbound, near Odenton, MD on the Baltimore & Potomac portion of the Main Line, Philly to Washington. The B&P was a bit of a roller coaster.

 

[L&N Castle]

Karl ..... My Dad had sign in his workshop where he worked on trains: ..... "It may be expensive, but it is cheaper than psychiatry. "

True.

 

[Jaz avalley]

So I had to call my doctor yesterday pain in leg so bad, they said pain that bad. Go to accident and emergency, I did 4 hours plus to be seen, but got decent answer apparently I have sciatica, not the type where pain runs down your leg, but type that seems in your butt cheek and is actually right by hip, it is known as runners form of sciatica apparently I need pain killers, physiotherapist and hopefully if I can stay off it long enough it might heal…..yeah
i breed ducks and have 11,4,3 should be 6 let’s no go into that, 14,2 baby ducklings at various ages, I’m incubating, several mums are brooding,plus the original 40 muscovyes, now you cannot pick a musky up like a chicken you get in behind and grab the clawed feet it get cut to pieces,
I have 40 plus chickens, 3 cats, 4 goats and am milking, each goat has special way it wants to be milked and learning to milk properly is usually a learning curve I took about 4 weeks to come to an accommodation with my first milk goat, so I cannot just hand it off….all need fresh water daily to 2 daily minimum,milking thankfully once a day,but I usually do a lot of walking sorting them out
then I garden and dog,digging I’m told is out, as if I let the sciatica get really bad it could become a permanent issue, so I have been told to stay off my feet……yeah right lol……no chance…the other half cannot cook - he had tried - he does not know how the washer or dishwasher works and today needed help working out how to use the hoover - vacuum cleaner, and to be fair he has a full time job, and I am a stay at home wife so usually work division is perfectly acceptable, but when it gets bad, and one second no pain then for an indefinite period I can walk on the right leg, then for no reason it is like pain free again…..so yeah so much fun and the layout is in the loft and stairs are a killer at the moment…ho hum

So a and e emailed the doctor I now have a blood test appoint, I have a physio call back with a follow up appointment….and a prescription for major pain relief…...and…..the pain disappeared before I took a single prescribed tablet…..
so which is worse …embaressed but turned up in case the pain returns…..or it actually returns …….

 

[bnsf971]

 

[Jaz avalley]

MIKE -- I had just read that as I was assembling a "new" one that had been in the drawer for a couple years!
Well - there goes about $100 up in smoke. I had a couple that were never used. DRAT, DRAT, DRAT!

I used it anyways - and pretended that it worked?
Now I will have to jump through hoops to re-engage a new fill - probably? Be better if I can snitch a draw every now and then from one of my wife's?

Hang hang on expiry dates are often - not always- just advisory to stop you seeing them, I often use out of date drugs,take with caution pay attention and if not happy then throw away,even my doctor agrees that pharmaceutical companies give short dates,so inventory has to be replaced with associated costs,if the inhaler is undamaged and the product works as you normally expect it is likely fine..,
tinned Food has been raised from old American sunken boats and been tested and found edible after 100 years,,,,,there is of course a risk of botulism…….although the tin normally swells…..
anyway just because it is out of date it does not mean it is totally useless, check and see on a forum or such and see whether the product in question is still safe and saving you the cash

 

[CambriaArea51]

The rain has dragged on all day so I was able to get the hopper cars done. They will go into the phosphate fertilizer train. Speaking of which someone spilled fertilizer on the top of the second car while loading and has rusted the side over time.

 

[CambriaArea51]

Just got some news that CSX 911 got side swiped by 4 hopper cars that derailed.

 

[GarryCBQ]

Howdy ....

Tom (Wisconsin ) .... I like the photo of your industry you fit going around a corner.

Joe .... The GG1 looked good in red, white, and blue.

Garry - I also hope that the bridge is repaired by then, it won't affect our trip up as I posted. But we're hoping to return through Little Rock on the way home without taking that I-55 detour, although it will be different seeing that bridge instead.

Willie ..... Hopefully, we coordinate schedules if you plan on coming through here so it is not when we are out of town.

Garry: Interesting problem. Either they have to raise the water level enough to allow the ship to rise off the sand bar, or lighten the ship enough to accomplish the same. Not an easy task. Keep us updated.

Joe ..... Lake level is at Summer Pool which is higher than in Winter. Normally, the Corps of Engineers starts lowering the lake before August is over. News reports say there are proposals are being prepared to salvage the ship. Not sure what that means. Government wants to minimize environmental impact. The sand bar is a duck habitat.

Everybody ..... Have a good evening...

 

[TLOC]

Thank you Garry. I love the massiveness that the Paper Mills are. Turning the corner was away for me to convey that.

I was going to watch the NBA Finals tonight but I have little interest in the NBA. Terry is there again tonight and they posted a few photos of a good time.

TomO

 

[IronBeltKen]

Good evening Shop Dwellers! 78*F under partly cloudy skies with a 5mph SSE breeze. Thanks everybody for all the likes and comments on my envisioned Ford assembly plant facade.

My almost-6yr-old laptop is acting like it's nearing the end of its useful life. Monitor keeps flickering between a greenish tint and normal colors, and I always have to power it off completely to successfully restart it after Microsoft installs a Windows10 update - otherwise I get the Blue Screen of Death. Looks like I'll be spending tomorrow afternoon at the local BestBuy purchasing my next laptop - I want to transition off of this current machine before it dies completely!

. . . As much as I hate to admit it, the wife is almost always right. After putting up with a bad shoulder for months I finally got the rotator surgery done years ago and the replacement as well. Swallow hard and admit it.
. . .

FWIW, I believe it was my wife's nagging the ultimately saved my life. She kept wanting me to get a complete physical when I was 46, so finally I did - and that is when the doc discovered I had cholesterol, high blood pressure, and was 20lbs overweight. This led to me going there for follow-up visits every 6 months since then, and it was during one of those visits in December 2018 that he found my PSA level was over 4 (the danger threshold) - which, in turn, led to urologist visits where a biopsy revealed I had Stage 1 prostate cancer. If I had NOT been getting those checkups, the cancer probably would have reached Stage 4 and spread all over my body by the time I sought treatment on my own...

. . .
[Quoted earlier text about COPD]

Ken: That was the real danger of Covid - 19, that the virus would exploit any inactive lung disease present. I had asthma practically all my life, and had been exposed to poor quality air from the get go. Then I exposed myself to other hazards by occupation(s0, and smoked. Yet, after I quit smoking, I had pneumonia twice, and each time the infection caused the COPD to worsen.... OTOH, there are some great (read pricey), meds that do help.

(Quoted earlier text about Ford plant)

I like it, I like it. BTW, I see WKW has re-released their version of the Ford Assembly plant. Will that help your project along?
. . .

Joe - for what I'm aiming to do, the WKW Ford Plant wouldn't give me enough bang-for-the-buck. I only have space on this part of my layout for a facade, not a whole building; I wouldn't be able to include the ornate front entrance/office section, and the walls of the 'factory' part would only cover ~4 linear feet. I already have an old unassembled G. Roberts Printing kit, which lends itself extremely well to kitbashing, and for the [cheaper] cost of two more Roberts Printing kits, I can cover more than 5ft and have plenty of material left over for future projects.

* * *
Weekend update: I spent most of Saturday carving up wall pieces from 3 WKW G. Roberts Printing Co. kits to make the facade for Ford plant, didn't need to mow the lawn since the mower is still in the repair shop. Not much mrr activity today, however, since my grandson's baptism was this afternoon and they had a reception/luncheon afterward that lasted until 5pm.

The following two photos show the carved-up and mated wall pieces that will form the backdrop of my Ford plant. I needed to do two sepaate shots, one from each direction, since it is too long to fit within my cellphone camera lens in its entirety.

The view looking northward:

The view looking southward:

Haven't decided yet, whether or not I want to include that separate wall piece on the side...

Good Night - and have a Pleasant Tomorrow!

 

[troyphoto]

Well, howdy there internet MRR peeps, It's Troy again.

Go to bed at 10 and awake at 4... gave up and got up at 4:44
Hoped to hit the napping recliner for another hour or so, but started surfing game stores looking for some specialty dice that come out of Italy one one particular game. Wanted a distributor in the US so I didn't have to pay more for shipping than for the dice. FOUND them. Out of Jersey.

Welp... wife is off work this week. We need to make a trip to go see my mother (1.5 hours). Otherwise, we're exploring the new home town. Wife says it's museum and festival time.

I've been told that one stop might involve trains. We'll wait and see. If so, I'll post pics.

TTFN

I feel a nap coming on