Running Bear’s May 2021 Coffee Shop


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Good morning gang!

Finally the sun is out after 3 days of rain. Got to clean out the gutters and bale the yard.

Murphy raised his ugly head yesterday as the washing machine failed. It started making banging noises on a spin cycle as it walked across the laundry room. When it stopped ruining the drum was leaning at a 15° angle and little pieces of plastic were everywhere. So off to Lowes we went for a new GE unit.

It's been an expensive month, $1300 for the A/C, $4200 for the dog and $600 for the washer.

Flo, what can I get for 99 cents?
 
Flo, what can I get for 99 cents?
You can get one of those double bubble bubble gums that we used to buy a little cheaper.....lol
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Morning all,

Rainy this morning and currently 60° this morning. Been at work a wee bit over 2 hours so far. The servers finished moving to the new machine overnight and here I am getting them restarted and updated (new host version requires updating the host tools). So far 2 completed, #3 in progress and so far no surprises (knocking wood). Boss most worried about email, but I have that working, just need the accounting machine finalized and that's the most important 2 completed.

I bought the soundtrack from "Mortal Combat" yesterday. It was recorded and pressed in Helsinki. I was a bit disappointed as it is just Finnish hymns.
 
Good Morning!
Gonna be a hot time on the town today with the temps hitting into the 70's. It was 55° already, when I woke up this morning.

I won't be in here long as the wife has a hankering to travel to Edson for more flowers. - That's ok with me, as Edson has a fairly large CN yard in town. Except that being the main CN line to Vancouver, it will likely be container trains. I'm not a big fan of container trains. I'll go with her though, and see what kind of photographs I can generate.

Sherrel - You didn't mess up anything with that aircraft type discovery. I had to search it out; and it took me awhile, starting with Piper crop dusters. I finally found it by recognizing the shape and color scheme.

Mike - I can't afford to place a bet on your offer. I don't have a left nut, being born deformed with two rights. Besides, I only have a couple of 3 dollar bills left to place bets with.

I need to get going; the wife is getting excited about new flowers.
Here's an enhanced locomotive photo, one for the road:
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Have a good day!
 
Good Morning All. Rainy and 62° in my already water-soaked world. It started about 4:30 this morning and by 8:00 there was .5" in the gauge. Forecast is calling for 2" today, and then spotty showers for the next ten days. Never dried up enough to mow yesterday, so that saga continues. I am seriously thinking of just going and buying a lightweight push mower to use around the immediate house. The 600 pound tractor with my added 200 pounds is just too much weight for the saturated yard.
I picked about 1 1/2 pounds of green beans from the garden yesterday. While I was out there, I apparently disturbed a pair of young deer that appeared to be snacking on some fallen acorns under a nearby oak tree. Mama may also have been there, but I didn't catch sight of her. They normally don't get that close to my house.

How about some steak and eggs this morning Flo. And a big ole glass of OJ to wash it down with.

Thanks for the likes and comments regarding the weathered boxcar yesterday; Patrick, Guy, Garry, Karl, Sherrel, Tom O, Hughie, Chad, Tom. And thanks also for the likes on the crop-duster photos. He's always a blast to watch.

Out in the train shed yesterday, it was another "run the wheels off the trains" day. Local switching runs on both the upper and lower levels, and several laps on the upper level with a couple of different unit grain trains. I believe that I have settled on my next layout project, it's gonna be a big one! Some of it won't be easy but it is long overdue. More on it tomorrow as I develop things in my head further.

Meanwhile, another round of pictures from my recent road trip. Let's visit the Wildseed Farms, just on the eastern edge of Fredericksburg.
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This place is quite a collection of passive activities. There's many acres of wildflower gardens and fields, several acres of nurseries where commercial plants are available, a gift shop (every place has one of these), vineyards, a restaurant with German food and of course a wine-tasting room. Here are a few of the wildflower areas.
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You can see some of their many different vineyards in some of the photos.
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There's a few ponds scattered in the gardens.
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While there are a number of varietal vineyards on the farm, there is no winery. They contract that part out to a local winery that does that for many of the growers. They then get it back for use in their tasting room and for sale to tourists. It's a nice peaceful place to visit.

Jaz - The fruit trees look great. It looks like you might get much more than you can actually use. What do you do with any surplus?
Troy - I'm not a Civil War buff, but I posted over on your other thread. Hope that it helps.
Karl - You're not having much luck exorcising Murphy. First Bud, then the water under the door, now the washer. At least Terry is getting a break!
Patrick - Pretty pitiful joke this morning!

Well everyone have a great day and an awesome rest of the weekend. Remember why Memorial Day is observed and honor our fallen heroes. My namesake, Grand Uncle William (grandfather's brother) was killed in Europe during WWI.
 
Once again it is Memorial DAY! I don't say Happy Memorial Day as it is a more somber day in my opinion.
We, this Country, has been in far too many conflicts and killed off far to many young men in their prime, but as the Good Book says: There will be wars and rumors of wars till the end of time - sad.

FLO, Good Morning to you. I will have the same as Willie this morning - except a DP to drink, PATY!

Weatherman says 85F/29C for a high with mostly sunny! We have ONE month left in our rain year and we are 7.44 inches behind the "normal average" for here of 12.98 inches. I have a feeling that this fire season will be a humdinger - everything is a pile of dust already.

You didn't mess up anything with that aircraft type discovery. I had to search it out; and it took me awhile, starting with Piper crop dusters. I finally found it by recognizing the shape and color scheme.
GUY - Just wanted to set the record straight ... I've only been wrong once! That was in my first choice of a spouse ... err, make that twice ... oh never mind!
Went back and did some looking: I must have been thinking about a Weatherly 201.

WAR STORY: In 1962 I picked up a brand new Pawnee 235 at Lock Haven, PA, and headed out for Harlingen, TX at 110MPH - my very first Ferry flight for my very first employer. I had not even gone 100 miles until I really needed to pee, and there to my left was the runway at State College, PA. I entered a normal left hand pattern for the airport (now, remember that I had never flown one of these and was only shown how to get it started), and as I approached the runway, I stared to flare and bring the nose up to a landing attitude. If you look at a photo of a Pawnee - the nose slopes downward even when the aircraft is on the ground and suddenly the plane started to drop like a rock - I must have been at least 50 feet high, or more, and the instant thought ran through my mind that I was gonna die on my first flight! All I can say is that that 235 HP engine, in an almost empty airframe, saved my life. Just at the time the landing gear hit the pavement and bounced, the engine roared to life and I was immediately airborne again. I came around and paid close attention to where the angle of the nose was for a slightly more normal landing and once I had parked and stopped shaking, I had to search my duffle bag and find another dry pair of pants!

OK, I had to talk about something -- love all the PIC and GUY - That is a very clean looking CN loco ... are you sure they have enough windscreen wipers! Nice angle and framing of the photo.
Willie - Very Nice flour photos. Lots of color there. Must have been very pretty to see?
Now, I need to run down the street to HD and get some parts for a toilet that won't stop running!
 
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Happy Memorial Day for our US based members. Moment of silence for those who gave all.

After the moment of silence, a little noise:

My daughter is 13 and plays guitar in a student rock band at a local private music school. They had their semester end concert back on May 15. I finally got the good recording (from my Sony A6300 on tripod) uploaded last night. She features on the two G-n-R songs. (She is the one on the audience's left with the black guitar)

For this semester each band was supposed to play one song from each of the 50s, 60s,70s, 80s, 90s, 2000, 2010... But all the 80s song submisisons from each kid were a lot better than the other decades so this band only got to do all their songs from one decade...

 
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Morning. I hope you all had a safe weekend.

Always a somber weekend here, decorating family graves. Whole lot of veterans buried here going back to the civil war, so a sea of flags. Then out to the Pioneer Cemetery for more distant relatives. Raining lightly the whole time, lots of thunder, clouds low down below the mountain tops, so a gray day to reflect and remember. Pretty Wagnerian, really.
 
Safe & Blessed Memorial Day, ladies & gents. I agree with Sherril, that this is a somber day. I did not discover until recent years that I had a relative who made the ultimate sacrifice. My dad’s cousin succumbed to his wounds, incurred when a rocket he was defusing in Cologne exploded, just a few weeks before VE Day. Being of German descent, I know that I had family members fighting on both sides of the war. Have a safe day while you enjoy your family gatherings today.
 
Good afternoon on this USA Memorial Day from Austin, Texas. A great day honoring the men and women who served and gave that ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms this country represents. 83f degrees now feeling 91. Home in Wisconsin it’s 71 degrees feeling like 69.

Yesterday at 5:30 we headed out for a 30 minute drive to the son’s favorite Barbeque restaurant. Kent Black’s in San Marcos. 5 minutes from home base and we ran into one of the heaviest downpours of rain I have ever experienced. 4.6” officially in 20 minutes at the airport which was 2 miles from our let’s turn around spot. We had no barbeque last night but instead went with pizzas. Later around 9 we had another downpour that put 2.5 inches of rain in the son’s computerized rain gauge. Yep, it’s a computerized station! You know how hard it is to read a plastic rain gauge, right? ( I shouldn’t gripe as we have 3 spread across the property in Wisconsin). But, I have to tweak the kid on something. Another 3.2” downpour between 9-10 this morning and there was again flash flood warnings all over. Our son says after 11 years in Austin he has figured out that when the weather guessers says there in only a 20% chance (or pick a number) they actually mean, that 20% of the AREA will get rain.

Dinner tonight, we will try to hit up where we tried to go last night.

Fellow global modelers, have a great day.
TomO
 
Good afternoon ... Honoring those who died for our country.

Sherrell ... I agree with your thoughts about the phrase “ Happy Memorial Day “ . It is a somber day.

Karl ... Your experience with Murphy has me wondering if you take lessons from Terry.

Model Railroad: currently I am operating some steam locomotives.

Everybody... Have a blessed day.
 
Fellers! I hope everyone is doing well. Havent had much time to do anything on here. My work schedule has been quite hectic. The senior tech went out hurt and its been bonkers since. Also hasnt given me much time for railroading either. I have been toying around with my throttles some. Honestly i have way too many of these. I have been working with one here lately that is a really decwnt throttle. I never really gave this one a chance. The original knob on it made it hard to control speed without two hands. I purchased two mrc throttles when things went sideways for me. So ive had it for a good little bit. I just never really used it. Im sure yall have seen or even used one of these throttles:
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Its a bit bulky to hold on to. However it performs really well. This one is a little rough around the edges but i did get it for less than $20 so i cant complain. I did add another caboose to the fleet as well.
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This one i picked up from my lhs. Thats all i have for now. I figured id drop in as its been a good while.
 
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