Running Bear’s June 2021 Coffee Shop


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Back again as the vacuuming is done. How much needed to be vacuumed, heck we have been gone forever. Pool next.

Willie, I totally understand not giving the wood chip hoppers up. If you run across any shows and they are $22 or less I will take up to 6. Thank you.

Steve, just take your time on the kits. If you are happy with what you paid, that’s good. On Some other forums some wise guy would say, I can get those x amount cheaper. But rarely proves it. My feeling, if it’s in the budget, it’s fine. I buy rarely now but usually Accurail, Scaletrains, Tangent and Walthers, looking only for specific needed items. Nice picture.

Guy up North, the woodchip rail car is not for all paper mills or OSB manufacturers. Most of the Papermills along the Wisconsin River truck in wood chips and I didn’t/have the skills to build the hydraulic lift they use to empty the trailers
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But I wanted the chip pile and I had the 4 woodchip cars. Also, it allows for 4 more spots on the layout and that’s good
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TomO
 
Troy - Well done on the tiny ships! Weren't they supposed to be done in a WWII 3-color splinter pattern!
There's a reason I don't paint my early war Brit tanks in Caunter Camo... :p Apply same reason here.

Actually, tracking down proper colors is intimidating for warships from 1939-45. Things changed rather rapidly. So, I'm letting the folks modelling in larger scale set the standards for me. I find a good example on one of the Naval Modelling forums, and use that as reference.
 
Morning all,

Late on this morning as I was tending to stuff at the office. All sorted for now.

Humidity is up here in Doo-Dah, where we're expecting a high of 89° and a feels like in the upper 90's. Tomorrow a feels like between 100 and 105°. And just last week I was complaining about how cool it was...
 
Good game last night. Was on a restroom break when the OT goal was scored. Caufield just adds something to the Habs. He grew up in the same rink Joe Pavelski did now of the Dallas Stars. I can’t count the number of goals Joe scored over the years against my son’s team. He spent many a summer day at the house with my kid.

TomO
Who did your son play for, DC Everest?
 
Good Morning all! Well it's the start to a very hot and humid day here in H-Town, and the ground still moist from all the rain, just adds to the mugginess. I think a breakfast burrito would be nice.

At my age rolling out of bed is the easy part, getting up off the floor is a whole different story.

I made very little progress on the Majestic Hardware yesterday. Glued some trim and touched up some paint. Today is grocery day, so little will get done in the train world. Maybe that will be the break Willie was suggesting.

STAY SAFE

LATER
 
Who did your son play for, DC Everest?

Mike, I would not have allowed DC Everest! Just kidding, sort of. Brian played for Mosinee from 1999 to 2002, 3 year lettermen including as a freshmen. Had to quit the 2003 season as he had too many concussions. The daughter played HS hockey for Mosinee from 1998 to 2000 and went to play on scholarship at UW Eau Claire till 2002 switching to UW Madison when she realized playing hockey would have been for 4 years but graduating was on a 6 or 7 year plan.

I was president of the Mosinee Hockey Association from 1995 to 2002. I was prez when we rebuilt and enclosed the rink building, re-did the boards, glass, zamboni and the roof.

I love the game and Terry especially loves Women’s Hockey. I thought Central and Northern Wisconsin were hot beds of hockey! Madison and it’s suburban hockey teams and fans are 3 times as crazy for youth and High School hockey. It’s also very much more expensive down here and they have no incentive for helping those who can’t but want to play. Mosinee Youth Hockey always had 3-4 kids in the program that got help. Not down here!

Pavelski and Caufield are products of the St. Point youth program and High Schools.

TomO
 
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Willie, same here with the kids. All earning more then me at the 36 and 39 year old ages they are at. Same here, no bills, great retirement income for Terry and I. I have pounded into the kids heads about savings for emergencies and retirement. I think they are finally listening.

Pool temps, when I first got the lap pool it was too cold. Took a couple months to dial in what felt good when working out. Great explaination on the Windows. When Crestline Windows went from extruded Aluminum to just a Aluminum clad they looked the same but were lighter, easier to build and of course less money but sold for the same! 11 years at Crestline and 5 years at Hurd (wood and extruded Aluminum) and 2 years running a glass plant at Cardinal. The last 22 years were spent in the consumer collections business working for the brother.
Tom O - I somehow missed this part of your post yesterday. Interesting about your background in the window industry. I put in all 43 years for General Aluminum under four different ownership groups. The last one, Metal Industries (MIWD and now MI), bought us in 2000, but waited until 2013 to install their own management team. Me and the maintenance manager were the only survivors. But they agreed with me when I suggested that they start looking for a younger replacement, since I was already eyeballing retirement. They eventually replaced me with five people, although two of them had other duties that I didn't have. They since reduced it to four! Problem was though, I now had no responsibilities any more and nothing to do. I was moved to a vacant office in the far reaches of the plant, and no one really knew whether I was even there! I had to go to two meetings a week, so essentially they were paying me for nothing. Eventually my buddy (also a survivor) in the IT department showed me how to log in to my work computer from home, management didn't know this was possible, so I started to take a day or two off and send out spreadsheets and reports that I prepared ahead of time and my boss actually thought that I was there. It all got old after 18 months so I retired just as they were moving the entire plant to a new location eleven miles away. Yea, it was nice drawing a good paycheck for nothing, but besides being bored I was getting tired of commuting 94 miles a day for nothing.
I spent a lot of money with Cardinal over the years. At one point we used their Low-E glass until Guardian in Corsicana TX finally started offering it.
 
Good afternoon. It’s partly sunny and 92.
A replacement o2 machine was delivered last night, and is more or less functioning.

In case you missed it, “Charter offers” seems to be replacing “Auto warranty” scam calls.
 
Tom O - I somehow missed this part of your post yesterday. Interesting about your background in the window industry. I put in all 43 years for General Aluminum under four different ownership groups. The last one, Metal Industries (MIWD and now MI), bought us in 2000, but waited until 2013 to install their own management team. Me and the maintenance manager were the only survivors. But they agreed with me when I suggested that they start looking for a younger replacement, since I was already eyeballing retirement. They eventually replaced me with five people, although two of them had other duties that I didn't have. They since reduced it to four! Problem was though, I now had no responsibilities any more and nothing to do. I was moved to a vacant office in the far reaches of the plant, and no one really knew whether I was even there! I had to go to two meetings a week, so essentially they were paying me for nothing. Eventually my buddy (also a survivor) in the IT department showed me how to log in to my work computer from home, management didn't know this was possible, so I started to take a day or two off and send out spreadsheets and reports that I prepared ahead of time and my boss actually thought that I was there. It all got old after 18 months so I retired just as they were moving the entire plant to a new location eleven miles away. Yea, it was nice drawing a good paycheck for nothing, but besides being bored I was getting tired of commuting 94 miles a day for nothing.
I spent a lot of money with Cardinal over the years. At one point we used their Low-E glass until Guardian in Corsicana TX finally started offering it.

Willie, I really enjoyed the window industry particularly the glass departments. Started at Crestline in Wausau, Wisconsin in 1977 as receiving foremen. The requirement was I needed a 4 year college degree. They literally threw me out there in a Union environment with abooklet of Union rules. If the guys I was in charge of didn’t like me right away I wouldn’t have lasted 2 weeks. Receiving reported direct to purchasing so I had to play nice with my boss and the plant supers who thought I should report to them.

Moved into production management and ended up running both purchasing and the superintendents. All within 5 years at 30 years old and the future was bright. But, I was on the wrong political coattails when the Harris Family sold to Sentry Insurance. Crestline had 100 million in sales when purchased, a pool of 3 secretaries, 1 VP and 1 President. Within 2 years had 20 assistants and 16 VP’s of something of which I was 1 and 85 million in sales. 3 years later Sentry sold to LaSalle a venture company and they wanted us all to resign but wouldn’t fire any of us. None of us resigned and meetings were fun.

Finally, a glass company called TAS, Inc out of Blue Island, Illinois offered me the plant manager of their glass production lines in Wausau. It took me 6 months to figure out the owner was embezzling from his own company and cheating our clients. Went to work for Cardinal in Spring Green, Wisconsin running the production lines from the TAS, Inc. plant in Wausau, that they took over. They closed them up as equipment was not to their standards even though our product exceeded the requirements. Making insulating glass with LowE and Argon gas was a fun adventure In its infancy.

Hurd Millwork and Doors was an adventure. 60 million in sales and they were using a film inside their low E insulatated glass and couldn’t get the glass production lines up to meet window production numbers after 3 years of trying. Within 3 months after I got there we were exceeding on 2 shifts and no overtime. Basically my best friend was chief engineer and as I was in charge of glass production including purchasing. I allowed his corrections that the previous group wouldn’t allow. Again I was on the wrong coattails when Hurd was purchased by a private equity company out of NY. A few years after none of the previous promotions came true I left to work for the brother. Lots of stories about glass and sash departments in the Window Industry. I traveled overseas a lot to view new equipment particularly in Switzerland, Italy and West Germany.
TomO
 
Good evening .

Sherrel .... Thanks for commenting on my photo .

Everybody .... Again, thank you for likes and comments about my photo .

Tom O ..... Interesting way to unload a truck. I'm geeing the driver did not stay in the cab.

Willie ..... It sounds like you had interesting work. Pella wind company has a plant not far from here in Murray, KY.

Jaz .... The windows on your building came out looking good. In my buildings, I line them with black construction paper if I am not adding interior details or lighting. That blocks the view so you can't see though the building.

Steve ..... I have built that refrigerator car kit. Mine is lettered for Milwaukee Road. Nice. .... It is good meeting you and your wife with photos.

Below is a picture of my wife (Shelley) and I when we were having fun in London, England several years ago. She has quite a sense of humor.

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Good evening gang!

Bud went back to the vet today for follow up. Vet is happy with his progress so far. They have stopped his anti inflammatory meds and we will slowly begin weaning him off his steroids over the next 8 weeks or so. If all goes well, he will avoid a relapse and soon will be the scourge of those bird seed stealing squirrels again!

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TomO, at 1st glance, I thought this was taking off! I do remember something similar at our local Co-Op when I was a kid, used to dump our corn hauling truck (1953 White Freightliner with 19 ft bed) by lifting the front wheels until the whole load fell into the auger. Back before OSHA, on a few occasions I got to sit in the cab while it was lifted. Cool for a 10-11 year old kid, and scary too!

Good afternoon. It’s partly sunny and 92.
A replacement o2 machine was delivered last night, and is more or less functioning.

In case you missed it, “Charter offers” seems to be replacing “Auto warranty” scam calls.

Terry, Glad to hear Marie got a new machine, now you can both breathe a little easier. But what, pray tell, is a Charter Offer??

Time for the sandman, Cya tomorrow!
 
Morning all,

Woke up to a very warm and humid morning. Currently 78° and clear with the dewpoint at 77° making for some light fog in areas. Feels like temp of 86° already this morning. High supposed to be in the low 90's but already we have heat warnings up for feels like temps from 100° to 105°.

Well last 2 nights found the pool down on water, below the filter intake and a pond in the backyard. Wife said to find the leak, which I think is in a seam at the bottom. Hope it's not the seam.

Time for a cup and western omelet this morning.
 
Good morning gang!

Warm & humid today with afternoon thunderstorms. I hope it washes some of the Cicada guts off of my truck. I've been averaging hitting 12-15 a day driving to and from work. The front of the truck looks like a murder scene.

I got my new used roto tiller running last night after taking apart the carb and cleaning it and flushing the fuel tank.

Flo, coffee, a short stack and 2 eggs over easy please, oh, and dont forget the bacon!!
 
Good Morning!
47°F out there on it's way up into the 60° range. The earth was wetted down last night in the rain, but the sky is broken cloud with some blue mixed in there this morning. - I believe it is going to be a fine week coming up, no matter how dire the weather reports try to make things. It's great to be alive and breathing, and living in a peaceful place where I don't have to worry about anything more than a CN cop giving me tickets for walking on the tracks. Life is wonderful, and I don't want to be anywhere else.

Garry - Really a fun photo of you and the wife in the London Dungeon. The dungeon reminds me of the 'House of Horrors' wax museum that used to be in Banff. I would visit it yearly when a child holidaying with my parents; but, it's long gone now. A victim of progress and modernization, I suppose.
I like the reefer you built; and it looks like it's on a very nice layout.

TomO - Thanks for the photo of the chip truck unloading. - We have a-lot of B-train chip transports rolling down the highway here. I've never actually thought about how they might unload them. Now, I'm going to keep my eyes peeled when I'm near the local mills and see if I can't get some photos. We have a local co-generation plant nearby, that is burning chips as an energy source. I might just walk out there one fine summer day and get some photos.

Steve - I live in a place where that reefer kit would cost more than$25.00, so the under $18.00 price tag on it looks very attractive to me. What's a twenty dollar bill when you're getting a load of long-term fun. I always think that I could be wasting that much if I wanted to get a headache for throwing down on one case of beer (if I drank). - That's a very nice photo of you and you're wife, with the rainbow in the background.

I haven't been taking many photos these last days, so I'm going to hit the archives for today's offering.
This is an SD40-2Q locomotive that visited my town in September of 2020. It was only in town for the one day, so I'm fortunate to have secured a few photos for the historical record. You may have seen these photos before; I can't remember if I've already posted them.
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It's going to be an easy day today, unless the wife changes that perspective.
So, right after coffee I'm going to go into the basement and continue work on my layout room reno. That's still not done.

Thanks all, for the likes on these simple posts.
Have a great day!
 
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