Running Bear's Coffee Shop LXX


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Wow, Ken D&J, Your trip sounds worthwhile today. I just returned from Wally World where I had to pick up a few things for both the doggies and wifeies - lol. The 2 Marines' standing at the entrance in full dress were having to hold on to their hats because of the wind ... I stopped- squared up- and gave them a salute and they snapped too, returning the gesture, and I caught one of their hats in mid flight. Giving it back I offered a hearty "Carry On" and they both responded with a boisterous " Simper Fi" - and we all had a chuckle together. They said that one day during this week they collected over 1000 toys. I told them that I had already given at the office - which happens to be two different animal rescues which hold a "Toys for Tots" drive during December. One of the rescues is run by an (now) Army Reserve who lives in Missouri and spent several tours in Iraq with a Golden Lab named GABE. His Facebook Page is named Gabe to the rescue . After his return he and his dog were in the Rose Parade out here and the dog won top honors - 1st Place - at a show out here with Betty White which got him in the Rose Parade. (I screwed up and put the cart in front of the horse) Long story short - The dog died from cancer 4-5 months after all the hoopla and Chuck loved that dog so much that he started a rescue in the dogs honor and has several hundred thousand followers on Facebook. AND I don't know why I am telling you all this?

Still trying to round up all the parts I need for my F-3 project and still have NOT pulled down all the decorations NOR put up a single strand of lights outside.... I am a pittiful excuse for a human being. Too many people throwing stuff at me from allsides.
Youngest daughter had surgery Thursday because of "insulin pockets" and the fear of one or more breaking open, so MOH has been staying with her when her hubby has to work and at night so he can get some sleep. She has to have medication every 4 hours and MOH says that it is very painful - right now she cannot get up or go to potty without help.

Right now it is 78* with humidity at 9 % and winds from the East 15-25 MPH. The two fires near here are about 50% contained, (I have never understood what that means) but they are still active. They still have really big problems up North.

SIL is on Cloud 9 - Georgia will be in the Rose Bowl this year and some of his college buddies are flying out from Atlanta. He asked me if he could drive the RV to the game so that they could all Tailgate Party - I said "Where's My Ticket"!
In reality , I have no desire to go - rather watch the game on TV.

OK Off on another quest for the Annual Christmas Bunco Party which is tonight!
 
It finally stopped snowing about 2 hours ago. I'm glad it never got below 32 degrees, or we would have had a whole lot of snow on the ground, instead of the 5" or so.
 
Good morning gang,
Sunny and 26 here with about 4 inches of the white stuff on the grass, a little on the roads. Pretty, not a real P.I.A.
 
Good Morning All. 37° and clear with no snow on the ground here. Ironically, my son in San Antonio roughly 325 miles south of here received a bit over 2" Friday. Even further south by another 150 miles on the Texas Gulf coast, Corpus Christi received 7". The last time San Antonio received 2" of snow was 1985. Corpus is really far south, geographically it is about as far south as Tampa FL and is right on the Gulf of Mexico. They rarely see snow, especially that amount. Spent most of yesterday either at or traveling to my granddaughters third birthday party. Three is a really adorable age for children, especially a well behaved one like she normally is. One activity for the kids was "Pudding art" which involved painting a picture with chocolate pudding. One kid made a few splotches on the paper and then joined the others in eating the contents of their containers instead.
Yesterday was unusual in that I didn't even set foot in the train shed, so nothing to report. Arrrgh! Withdrawal!

Garry - Ah yes, Champion Packing. Like most modelers, I have that kit on some forgotten corner of the layout. In my case incoming cattle and swine come by truck, and the only rail service is reefers with outgoing frozen meat.
Justin - Nice looking dog, but he/she does appear to be asleep!:)
Joe -
Wonder what's next?
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Repossession of MIL??? Seriously though, good luck. There is hope however; 37 years ago, my lawyer missed a small lien on the deed to the property/house that we were buying that the seller was responsible for. When we "discussed" it with him, he agreed to pay half. Behind the scenes, he may have recovered the full amount from the seller, we'll never know.
Greg - Wow, 1000 ft² room! Of sports memorabilia...she really is a sports fan. And I thought my wife was a fan with 12 sports channels on the dish! You are also right about the incomplete RR projects. Unless it's another modeler, most people just want to see trains run, at faster than prototype speeds!
Ken (D&J) - Fun day for sure, all model RR related. Be safe on the roads.
Sherrel - Prayers for your daughter. Hope that the recovery period is short.

Everybody have a great day.

Willie
 
Good morning to Terry, Karl, and Willie ..... and anyone else who is here this morning ... .... I'll hav coffee and a donut, please.

Sherrel .... Sorry to hear of your daughter's surgery and pray for a quick recovery.

Karl .... I recently gathered up five failed decoders and sent them to NCE to trade in on new ones. I'm glad you told us about NCE's trade-in program. I'm thinking of using some of them on some Santa Fe engines iI have (Sherrel and Willie might like that. )

Willie ... It's hard for me to picture 7" of snow in Corpus Christi. I suppose mot people there don't know how to drive in it. My packing plant receives cattle by rail and ships meat and hides by rail. The cattle comes from the stock pens I put on the layout last year. The meat goes to the City of Heartland. The hides go to a tannery adjacent to a shoe and boot factory which ships by rail.

Greg ...It is remarkable your wife is that much of a sports fan. My wife collects Hummel figurines and has quite a collection.
 
Well, it's been an interesting weekend here. Actually, things started last Sunday...
First of all, though, an important safety tip: When you are walking down your driveway to the mailbox, and there has been a lot of heavy/wet/frozen snow and ice hanging in the tree branches like the sword of Damocles, be sure to wear head protection. It really hurts when it falls off said branches, and whacks you on top of the head.

Now, back in October, I needed to purchase a new laptop, as the old one had suffered a catastrophic failure (wife dumped hot coffee on the keyboard, and Apple products are especially intolerant of liquid dumpage). I decided to try one of the new Macbooks, as it was ultra-portable, and touted as being nearly as capable as a newer Macbook Pro, with roughly the same battery life. I found out they are not. Not even close. And the keyboard--yuck! Anyway, after a couple of months attempting to get used to it, I found a dealer that would accept it in trade on a newer Macbook Pro. Naturally, by the time I arrived, he was sold out of everything but a 17" model. So, that's what I have now. It is extremely capable, has roughly the same battery life when unplugged as the little one, and 4 times the memory and processing power. It also is 4 times as large, and weights 4 times as much. So, something else to get used to. It appears these things are exceedingly rare, and $$$, so I will make sure I get used to it--one way or another.

The sn*w we had over the weekend caused all manner of havoc around here, but it could have been much worse. The temp finally dropped below freezing last night, and has already rebounded to 34. Of course, last night some jackleg came blasting by the house about 4 AM, on the wet road, and--did I mention it got below freezing last night? This one was nearly killed when he slid off the road, and crashed into some really big rocks along the road.

My Christmas shopping is complete, as far as me getting stuff for my wife, and our relatives. We still need to get a gift card for my stepson, and mail everything out tomorrow, so it will get there before Christmas. My wife still hasn't begun shopping for me, I sent her some hints, though I really don't expect to see any decoders hung by the chimney with care on Christmas morning.

Have a good Sunday.
 
Good morning fellers. Got half an inch of snow last night. Kind of a laugh here in West Virginia. I know some of y'all have gotten more and are far worse off than me. I do hope everyone is safe and sound. Willie I did realize my dog looks like he is sleeping. He is smart and knows when you are trying to take a picture of him and he will walk away. It was the only angle I could catch him from. I taught my little 5 year old how to run trains yesterday. She's pretty good. Hopefully I can keep her interest. She always gets upset if I go to the lhs without her. So those trips are daddy and daughter dates. That's all I got for now. Y'all have a good day.

Sent from my Moto E (4) using Tapatalk
 
Repossession of MIL??? Seriously though, good luck. There is hope however; 37 years ago, my lawyer missed a small lien on the deed to the property/house that we were buying that the seller was responsible for. When we "discussed" it with him, he agreed to pay half. Behind the scenes, he may have recovered the full amount from the seller, we'll never know.
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Willie: Repossess the MIL...they'll be sorry :rolleyes: Call it life experience, but I have very little tolerance for "Professional Providers", who make a lot of promises, charge a lot of money, and don't deliver as promised. Lawyers, accountants, doctors and dentists, for example. I realize, that I can't do everything on my own, but...I'm tired of getting screwed over by people supposed to be working for me.
Garry: Hides, what a "pleasant" smelling load in an open gondola, especially in mid summer...There was a rendering plant in Wilmington, DE, that loaded hides into gondolas on the team track, six days a week. gawk! The cars were classified for Potomac yard, so they went south, probably to a Tannery. Believe they served all the local packing houses.
 
Hides were a staple on one of our local railroads. In fact, its slogan was "The Sole Leather Route". It was a memorable aroma from those old wood boxcars they used to transport the hides--even if they were empty.
 
Just got home. the power went out yesterday morning so a friend on the ohter side of town came and got me.
A buddy of mine just a copule miles away still doesn't have power.
Damn is it cold in here!!!
 
bnsf971 said:
Hides were a staple on one of our local railroads. In fact, its slogan was "The Sole Leather Route". It was a memorable aroma from those old wood boxcars they used to transport the hides--even if they were empty.
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There was a Tannery at one of the suburbs closer to Brisbane that left you in no doubt to where it was. Gone now, since civilisation caught up to it, but we still have the Cattle Train that brings livestock down from the beef capital, Rockhampton, up the coast a'way. Our regular "Breath of fresh country air".
 
bnsf971 said:
Hides were a staple on one of our local railroads. In fact, its slogan was "The Sole Leather Route". It was a memorable aroma from those old wood boxcars they used to transport the hides--even if they were empty.
Click to expand...

Terry .... I recall the old boxcars assigned to a rendering company in Detroit which had quite a fragrance ....
 
Good afternoon. We're up into the low 30's with plenty of sunshine after starting off at 21 degrees this morning. Did I detect some whining about an itsy bitsy little bit of snow ????

We managed to get the flooring project finished yesterday at out friends house yesterday. It would have been nice if they had pulled up the carpeting before we got there. Removing the carpet and clean up cost us a few hours. We did manage to finish th eflooring plus cut and install all of the baseboards and trim. Had to work into the early evening, but I didn't want to have to spend a second day working. As it ends up, with all of the crawling around, getting up and down I have part of my body hurting that I didn't know that I had. Moving a bit slowly today.

Eric - Happy to see you getting out with some of your (real) friends.

Garry - Nice looking meat packing plant. Put mine together about the same time you did.

Justin - That dog looks as lazy as my crew. They have relaxing down to a science.

Karl - Nice to see you in here joining us for coffee. Was wondering about you.

Ken D&J - It does sound like you had a productive weekend. Wish we had activities like that up here.

Sherrel - No Christmas??? We haven't put any up in years. Not many people would see them if we did and we just pass on Christmas decorating.

I did have the LaSalle show up last week. Growing up in the 50's, there were plenty of pre war cars still on the road. Wish more vehicles were available.

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Being that I am moving a bit slower than normal, I think I'll just go down to the train room and run trains.

Later
 
Good evening y'all.

Cleaned the 3" of snow off the truck, and cleared the driveway. More or less have to because the sun doesn't touch most of the driveway again, until late March. Also dropped some critter friendly ice melter.
Temperature has warmed to 33° in advance of another weather front, with possibly a dusting over night.

Chet: I kind of agree with Garry, about your layout, the difference, is that I look at it like it's a museum of life in the '50s. Very nice.

I have the exterior decorated, and some interior decorations up. For the third year in a row, It looks like the trees will remain in storage, as we will pend Christmas with the grandchildren, in Snowy Northern New York. `I started to run the buss wire for the layout, Did I mention that I hate crawling underneath the layout?
 
Well fellers I'm running trains again!! However.....I'm limited to only two units. My atlas uboat and my bachmann gp38. None I mean none of my athearn units are working. They sound like coffee grinders and they just won't run. I soldered the straight sections on the branch and the turnouts on my yard leads. I'm flawless with my atlas unit. I can't get anything going with my athearn units. My favorite switcher that I could never have ever imagined going down much less not wanting to run right is garbage. I ain't going to lie I'm heartbroken to say the least. I may have to look into these units. I did just lubricate them. I followed the directions word for word. My Chessie gp35 has never been loud much less be a crappy runner. It's her performance that got me to love it so much. She had great slow speed and just seemed unstoppable. Out of all three of my athearn rtr units she's the one I want up and running again. I'll have to figure this one out. Y'all have a good night.

Sent from my Moto E (4) using Tapatalk
 
Justin: I'm really not surprised by what you are reporting. I have had problems with Athearn engines, that are not running for an extended length of time. Not sure if they build up crud on the power pick-up, or whether the lubricant solidifies, but they sit there and buzz, or run like crap. I'm talking about RTR F7, GP35 and RS3 models in particular. The F7s usually clear up after forcing them to run at or near full power, for a couple of trips along the railroad, the RS3 has cracked gears, and the GP35, well I'm not sure. Meanwhile, my Walthers SW1, and Atlas RS1 and RS11 run fine. My Proto2K, Gp7 is sluggish until it "warms up", and the S1 is just plain slow, although it performs better after running for a while. One other thing I've noticed about my Athearn RTRs is that they quiet down after they run for a while. Take the GP35, and remove the body, and see what it does, then increase power check and see if the drive train is binding, or if the gear towers are misaligned. Check your power contactors, and if you don't find anything wrong, give it another break in run, before reassembling it. BTW, I'm still running straight DC.
 
Good evening Shop Dwellers - just a quick drive-by post before I go to bed.

I finally finished the GP7 upgrade project! Lasted much longer than I anticipated, but worth it in the end. I'm going to make a separate thread about it. I was getting all the photos uploaded starting at ~9pm, but the editing and labeling took so much longer than I planned...so I have to wait until after work tomorrow to post them.

G'nite..!
 
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