Running Bear's April 2021 Coffee Shop


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I can’t believe you have elephants on your layout Jazz, that’s a first for me here....lol
Circus trains were kinda of big deal in the 90's , Walthers came out with a set in HO .

Well , I found a location in the next county with 2500 doses and pratically an empty appointment book so , I 'll see how it goes this afternoon . I booked yesterday , I could have gotten an appointment for yesterday but I would been rushed ( 45 min drive) .
 
I forgot one or two things

4. Driving in the rightmost lane possible. Germans learn (and it is the law) that you drive in the rightmost lane possible on the open Autobahn.

5. Germans don't get their license until a minimum age of 18. They are a bit more mature when they learn. It is also much more expensive to get the license. So they treat it with more respect

In the US, people think of a license as a teenage "right of passage" and with most states allowing driving around 16 or 16.5 years old, which is exactly the wrong age to put the responsibility of driving on someone, US drivers do not learn proper driving skills from the start. (16 is the wrong age, as, according to those experts who track development, kids at 16 are going through the same brain development phase as a 3 year old -- figuring out about consequences for actions, or in the 16 year old case, re-learning it in the 16 year old case -- something that should already be learned when learning to drive and not the phase of brain development to be in when learning to drive [this info was given to me by a HS teacher I know who was at a conference learning about education and learned from the development folks about the phases of brain development]).

Spent 14 years over there. Had my International License. Germans are NOT better drivers.
 
Because so many folks stop in here, I will post my question for the largest viewing: Do some rail companies run their switch heaters all winter long? I see fairly large propane tanks located at the ends of sidings, which causes me to wonder how often the tanks are refilled.

Example

Example 2: "Heaters can also be manually controlled by dispatchers at a central control point or snow sensing systems automatically start heaters as soon as the snow falls."

TThe snow sensors that I've seen is a cup with a heater in it to melt the snow into water and then it measures conductivity of the water .

They may turn on if snow is detected or if the ambient drops below a preset , they may also have a manual override.

They are probably on route if its filled by a propane company , meaning they check it and top off every month or week or event.
 
Spent 14 years over there. Had my International License. Germans are NOT better drivers.

I beg to differ. They are much more orderly drivers and adhere to common practices. There are jerk and bad drivers everywhere and the manly, arrogant businessmen in their BMW/Mercs are one case of that [in Germany], but I never regularly saw, in all my driving in Germany, the careless lane changing (especially without signaling), weaving in and out of traffic (on a regular basis), the regular driving in the left lane by slow drivers who refused to move over, the clueless drivers unaware of their surroundings, etc. Stuff we see every day here. I won't say I never saw any of that, I just never regularly saw that.

I can list a ton of German driving faults and problems, but they don't outweigh the entitled clueless driving in the US.

Btw, you don't need an international license in Germany. After 1 year of driving there on your US license, you need to get a German license (which can be as easy as getting an official translation of your US license, taking an eye test, and paying a fee -- depends on which state (US) or country you have an existing license in) . If you were there as military, special Status of Forces rules apply with a military Certificate of License. I have a German license somewhere in my packed away stuff :) The German license never expires. But when I go I drive on my US license, as a visitor, as I don't want to get any points against the German one in case I get blitzed by a photocop for something.

Your mileage obviously varies from mine in this issue. Which is fine. My whole point is that they make unlimited speeds on the Autobahn possible as a whole country and one reason it works is that the drivers are better trained and act more responsibly (overall). (unlimited speed in some stretches -- more and more stretched get speed limits as traffic volumes go up as I understand it).
 
Willie- for the life of me, I sure as heck don’t want to celebrate my ex(other than the fact of lessons learned, so I know what not to do this time around, with pretty decent success. That and like you said, the fact that she is my ex(even though she’ll get half of whatever SS is left when I retire).
The theory about the higher speed road being the toll road uses the same theory as “congestion-based toll rates that NYC, DC & other metro areas use, especially in HOV lanes.
Sherill- when I was in HS, one of my friends drove an early 70’s Beetle(when it wasn’t at the import clinic across the street). One time at a party, 4 of us picked it up & “reparked” it next door, facing the opposite way. :D
Terry- when I did interstate road trips(esp during daylight hours), I tried to get in the middle of a pack. Those packs had a tendency to MOVE without drawing the attention of HPO & everyone operated to the benefit of the pack(Johnny Law only tended to look up if he was going to pull over the whole pack. I’ve heard of troopers doing that before, but never firsthand experience.
 
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Making some progress on my carpentry skills though this week, but very slow going....staining is a Knightmare ..... lol
Store version that I like
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My version so far
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JazzDad - Your bringing up the propane heaters is interesting to me. I knew that I had seen guys with burners going around and thawing out turnouts, but I had not given thought to automatic heaters.

That reminded me that after looking at my 15 YO grill, and that I need to replace the flame scarred hose and regulator after the fire ... I have decided that I will just replace the entire grill!
The Spousal Unit requests one that is a smoker as well.
 
JazzDad - Your bringing up the propane heaters is interesting to me. I knew that I had seen guys with burners going around and thawing out turnouts, but I had not given thought to automatic heaters.

That reminded me that after looking at my 15 YO grill, and that I need to replace the flame scarred hose and regulator after the fire ... I have decided that I will just replace the entire grill!
The Spousal Unit requests one that is a smoker as well.

Maybe a copy of this too??

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One time at a party, 4 of us picked it up & “reparked” it next door, facing the opposite way. :D
MIKE - NOT bragging, but have you beat! Four of us put Rod's three steps up on his front porch one night. He laughed about it and drove it off with a couple boards. :D :D

GARRY - Funny! 🤣

GARY - That's looking really good! 🙂

KARL - I swear - you're a laugh a minute! 😁
 
Terry- when I did interstate road trips(esp during daylight hours), I tried to get in the middle of a pack. Those packs had a tendency to MOVE without drawing the attention of HPO & everyone operated to the benefit of the pack(Johnny Law only tended to look up if he was going to pull over the whole pack. I’ve heard of troopers doing that before, but never firsthand experience.


I have three "rules" I abide by to avoid getting snagged on the highway

1. Never be the first or last in a pack. Drive in the middle of the pack if possible. (Ie, don't stick out)
2. Drive in the right most lane possible for the traffic conditions. People are accustomed to the fast people being on the left so by driving on the right you give the appearance of being slower than you might otherwise be. (See #1 above -- don't stick out)
3. Don't drive more than the local "grace" speed for your area. (10 over for example) unless you are in point #1 or the overall traffic is going faster.

It all boils down to "don't stick out".

I've only gotten one ticket on an interstate or divided highway in my life -- back in 1989 in Indiana when I was ignoring all the rules above. Driving across country to my grandmother's funeral in Utah (living in Mass at the time) with my parents in the car, I was in the left lane, alone, doing about 80-85 in a 65 zone. I was tired as we were trying to cross the country as fast as possible with multiple drivers and was not paying attention. The officer tailed me in an unmarked car and interestingly pushed me up to a speed of about 90 or more before I started to pull over and let him pass, ie, he was trailing me closer than I felt comfortable going and I slowly increased speed. As I started to move over to let him pass the lights came on. He only wrote me up at 83, and was generally pretty nice and professional about it, and I had 3 months to send the $55 fine in (no personal checks accepted). As it neared 3 months, I sent in a personal check as I was not paying attention to the fine print, and they politely returned it to me and gave me another few months of time to send in the certified check. Which I did. Luckily Mass and Indiana were not in the same interstate compact at the time so it never got reported to Mass and never hit my insurance. Now-a-days with the internet and everything now digitally connected, that wouldn't happen that way.
 
Now eating ice cream ....I've been to the doctor to get my shot ....I behaved myself. I go back on Cinco de Mayo. Only two us there ,they had like 2000 + doses , took more time to get the little card than anything else. Stopped off at Home Depot to pick up some brads for Caboose throws.
 
I have three "rules" I abide by to avoid getting snagged on the highway

1. Never be the first or last in a pack. Drive in the middle of the pack if possible. (Ie, don't stick out)
2. Drive in the right most lane possible for the traffic conditions. People are accustomed to the fast people being on the left so by driving on the right you give the appearance of being slower than you might otherwise be. (See #1 above -- don't stick out)
3. Don't drive more than the local "grace" speed for your area. (10 over for example) unless you are in point #1 or the overall traffic is going faster.

It all boils down to "don't stick out".

I've only gotten one ticket on an interstate or divided highway in my life -- back in 1989 in Indiana when I was ignoring all the rules above. Driving across country to my grandmother's funeral in Utah (living in Mass at the time) with my parents in the car, I was in the left lane, alone, doing about 80-85 in a 65 zone. I was tired as we were trying to cross the country as fast as possible with multiple drivers and was not paying attention. The officer tailed me in an unmarked car and interestingly pushed me up to a speed of about 90 or more before I started to pull over and let him pass, ie, he was trailing me closer than I felt comfortable going and I slowly increased speed. As I started to move over to let him pass the lights came on. He only wrote me up at 83, and was generally pretty nice and professional about it, and I had 3 months to send the $55 fine in (no personal checks accepted). As it neared 3 months, I sent in a personal check as I was not paying attention to the fine print, and they politely returned it to me and gave me another few months of time to send in the certified check. Which I did. Luckily Mass and Indiana were not in the same interstate compact at the time so it never got reported to Mass and never hit my insurance. Now-a-days with the internet and everything now digitally connected, that wouldn't happen that way.

Chad - looks like your driving philosophy is the same as mine! On roads where the LEOs can setup radar, I don't go more than 9mph above the posted limit. And I've always tried to avoid being the pack "leader" when traffic is moving faster than that [typical in my area]; of course, once in a while the car in front of me will change lanes and I'll suddenly find myself in the leader spot and have to slow down accordingly. Along these lines, I once saw a comical bumper sticker that was probably geared more toward safety than avoiding a ticket, it read: Drive it like you stole it!
 
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