Running Bear's December 2021 Coffee Shop

[McLeod]

Good Afternoon!

I spent some time this morning putting 'glass' and drapes in all but the rear windows of the Cafe'. There was also time spent on further fiddling with the interior photo, trying to size it properly and print it on card stock.

I thank Terry for his efforts in eliminating the large chair, but, as it turns out that chair isn't much of a problem. This Cafe' does have the biggest juke-box the world has known, though. The patrons must like their music as much as Louis! - I'm satisfied it will work out!

Here are some photos of what I was playing with today:

That interior will be curved, of course, when it is installed. I hope that will force the perspective a bit better. There will also be Cafe' appropriate signage blocking those little windows up top.

My drapes arn't all that great, but, I don't remember seeing a lot of pull-down roller drapes when I was a kid. I seem to remember there was always real drapes on the windows.

I might not be coming in tomorrow. The wife is off work for awhile, and she has some crazy idea we're going to do something different together.
Hoping that means we're going fishing.

Have a good one!

 

[Texas Hobo]

Good Afternoon all! A very overcast day and 80% chance of rain tomorrow.

Flo, think I'll just have a scotch.

Covid - I've said before, I don't like the way the media presents the numbers. If yesterday the county had 6 cases and today 12 cases the alarms are going off on all the channels, Covid up 100%. What they fail to mention however is that the county population is 500,000. See there would be no reaction to 0.000024% of the population of the county has Covid. If they are going to use percentages at least tell us a percentage of what.

LHS - Wish I had one. There is one shop in Houston that is strictly trains. A second shop is more of a hobby shop with cars, boats, planes and trains. While I state Houston as my location, I'm actually 40 miles south. Fighting Houston traffic just to pick up a bag of landscaping or some paint just not worth it. I, like most, prefer when possible to pick up and look & touch. I suspect a few good ideas were lost because it is such a hassle to go get items for the idea.

Willie - The best to your brother. I lost my sister nearly 12 years ago to throat cancer.
Guy - Diner is looking pretty good.

Ran a few trains today. The wee people over in Apple Ridge had their tree lighting ceremony today.

STAY SAFE
LATER

 

[Texas Hobo]

After studying the tree the town elders thought it would be better in town, so they moved it.

 

[santafewillie]

After studying the tree the town elders thought it would be better in town, so they moved it.
View attachment 136386

That's one hell of a tall tree!!!

 

[Boris]

Do you miss the brick and mortar hobby shop because you:

1. you would prefer to buy there and support shopping locally
2. do you prefer the LHS because of the characters that shop or work there
3. do you care about getting the best pricing
4. want to feel and touch the product before purchasing
5. something else

Gonna be awhile before I reach that level

the owner didn't take charge cards. He told me if his customers didn't have the cash to buy a item for their hobby, then they shouldn't be buying it.

Tom: Yes to 1,4. Most LHS at the Shore are gone, although there may still be one at Point Pleasant. When I came here 36 years ago, my "mail order" was limited to Standard Hobby and Trainworld. I spent a lot of money, mostly full price, at B&M stores. Truthfully, I don't miss the LHS. Those of you who have a good one, are blessed. The best shop around here, in Brick, had the best location, across from Jo-Ann fabric, so I could wander over there when the wife needed fabric. While the owner was great and knowledgeable, he owned other businesses, and was mostly an absentee owner. The price you paid, frequently depended on who was working the counter.. Best prices / pre-order priority was reserved for members of an Ocean County Club. Since I didn't belong, I rolled the dice on price. About this time MB Klein in Baltimore, (My go to, when I lived in Abingdon), expanded their on line operation, and made it easy to be my LHS. The store in Brick, Yeah, they closed about 17 years ago.

Greg: The guy who didn't accept cards, whas quite judgmental, and pretentious, wasn't he? More likely, he couldn't meet the car compamy's standards, or didn't want to pay the fees. CC sales have to be reported as Income...Cash...easier to hide. Met a lot of that personality, over the years.

Ken: Not for nothing, but you are one of a significant group of modelers here, that I use as a source of information, because your work is so good. You, (Karl & Curt), also model roads I'm at least somewhat familiar with.

Willie: ..."in Texas, while your property appraisal can go up, most property taxes are frozen for anyone at age 65. Mine were frozen when my wife hit 65 two years ahead of me."...

Supposedly, in Jersey, we have something called a "Senior Tax Freeze". however, it's income based, and during the Christie years, Our joint income was always above the threshold for qualifying.the threshold for qualifying. Now,with the Murphycrats running the show, we are below the threshold, but the local property taxes I pay have dropped several years in a row. So again, I don't qualify for the freeze. Should make it, if I'm still here, with the lowest tax total applying as a baseline. Our assessments, are annual, and based on 100% Market Value. Some counties have this system, while others don't. I like this system, because it gives me the equivalent of a property appraisal, each year. This helps older home owners, while biting newcomers, who think it's not fair...And yes, the assessment usually is within 5% of the sale of a comparable property. The assessment is an accessable public record, and readily available to buyer, seller, agent.

 

[ACL-CSX]

Good evening y'all. Made it to Raleigh. Going to turn in soon to get an early start tomorrow, will try to catch up in the morning.

Y'all be good and remember, if you can't be good, be good at it.

 

[Texas Hobo]

That's one hell of a tall tree!!!

In the old days, did you ever see the tree at Rockerfeller Center. Easily 65 feet. Mine is slightly taller thar a two story building.

 

[CambriaArea51]

renewing a thread, just to get their pictures in. I know every time I had something to write or show about my papermill quite a few jumped in to post there pictures and then…

One of the reasons I don't post threads here. Had similar experience, or pick it apart on how they would do it and you're not doing it right. I could've done a thread on the grain train I did but why bother.

 

[CambriaArea51]

Willie- Nice sunsets, been too cloudy here to get one.

Hughie- Nice looking tree, is that O scale tree.

 

[IronBeltKen]

Good evening Shop Dwellers,

Thanks for all the likes & comments on my earlier posts!

The weekend after my Moderna Covid booster has come and gone with no perceptible side effects other than a sore shoulder. Of course I slept much later than normal on Saturday morning, which shortened my available free time.

I took advantage of the milder-than-typical weather conditions on Saturday to perform the pre-seasonal maintenance on my snow blower (oil change, etc.). Probably a good thing, since the Weather Channel is predicting measurable snowfall for the mid-Atlantic states this coming Wednesday. Other household projects include getting the house child-proofed to make it safe for our 1yr-old grandson when he comes over for Christmas dinner and festivities. Original plan was for our daughter and SIL to host it, but they are putting their house on the market and need to keep it looking presentable.

Bottom line is that I didn't spend any 'quality' time in the trainroom. However, I did get an email from Amazon that this tube of Vallejo acrylic orange paint has shipped, and should be here by Wednesday - so then I might be able to get started on repainting my new Walthers SW7 for my private road.

I have my own personal solution for the political crises in the country: I just avoid watching the news! I figure if anything happens that's important enough to personally affect my day-to-day living, MHO will tell me about it - she reads all the papers that cover from the red to the blue side of the spectrum. My BP is high enough already, thank you!

Tom[O], Joe and Tom[C51] - thanks for the vote(s) of confidence. I suspect these winter blues [a.k.a. "Seasonal Affect Disorder"] have hit me harder than usual this year, and jaded my outlook. (I normally do a better job of hiding it, but not this time LOL!) At least now I know it's not only me who feels like the "nerd" who didn't get invited to the party...

Good Night - and have a Pleasant Tomorrow!

 

[D&J RailRoad]

I think not watching the news is what a lot of voters do. Just vote for the guy with the shiny shoes.

 

[PNKFLOYD]

Ran a few trains today. The wee people over in Apple Ridge had their tree lighting ceremony today.

Hughie-thanks for inviting us to the tree lighting ceremony. It is a beauty.

 

[TLOC]

Good evening Shop Dwellers,

Thanks for all the likes & comments on my earlier posts!

The weekend after my Moderna Covid booster has come and gone with no perceptible side effects other than a sore shoulder. Of course I slept much later than normal on Saturday morning, which shortened my available free time.

I took advantage of the milder-than-typical weather conditions on Saturday to perform the pre-seasonal maintenance on my snow blower (oil change, etc.). Probably a good thing, since the Weather Channel is predicting measurable snowfall for the mid-Atlantic states this coming Wednesday. Other household projects include getting the house child-proofed to make it safe for our 1yr-old grandson when he comes over for Christmas dinner and festivities. Original plan was for our daughter and SIL to host it, but they are putting their house on the market and need to keep it looking presentable.

Bottom line is that I didn't spend any 'quality' time in the trainroom. However, I did get an email from Amazon that this tube of Vallejo acrylic orange paint has shipped, and should be here by Wednesday - so then I might be able to get started on repainting my new Walthers SW7 for my private road.

I have my own personal solution for the political crises in the country: I just avoid watching the news! I figure if anything happens that's important enough to personally affect my day-to-day living, MHO will tell me about it - she reads all the papers that cover from the red to the blue side of the spectrum. My BP is high enough already, thank you!

Tom[O], Joe and Tom[C51] - thanks for the vote(s) of confidence. I suspect these winter blues [a.k.a. "Seasonal Affect Disorder"] have hit me harder than usual this year, and jaded my outlook. (I normally do a better job of hiding it, but not this time LOL!) At least now I know it's not only me who feels like the "nerd" who didn't get invited to the party...

Good Night - and have a Pleasant Tomorrow!

Nerd who didn’t get invited to the party.

A great line!

TomO

 

[TLOC]

Good morning from Wisconsin where another night of sleep has occurre. Better then the no sleep at all in 36 hours this past week but I really would like a solid 7-8 hours.

Yesterday afternoon’s hockey game between the Ladies of Wisconsin Badgers and the foes from Minnesota called gophers. Minnesota has good teams in hockey always. The Badger Ladies the last 7 years the games have been close but no one dominated the game except this Friday night and the afternoon game yesterday. Of the 6 periods I would give domination to the Gophers in 4.5 of them. UW lost one and tied yesterday but lost in the meaningless shoot out.

Modeling. The train room reorganization effort continued yesterday. i posted the before picture the other day, here is the after
View attachment 136357

It looks the same because it is the same. I got in the train room a few times yesterday but the intended project was avoided. Maybe today.

Lots of frost outside this morning so I will not go on my walk until it warms. The high today should hit 38f degrees but I see the tree tops are moving around so it will feel cool.

Another hockey game today but this time not for highly payed because of their scholarship, “student athletes”. The 8 year old grand son plays at 2:30 and he is this weeks goalie. His dad says he started out hating it. He has been studying up on being a goalie and when he read about playing angles, cutting down the area and how in books, he got excited. He is one of those math geniuses and this goalie stuff is right up his alley. When I talked to him last night I always ask if he is having fun being the goalie. His immediate answer was yes and then got out his whiteboard so he could explain how to play the angles. My eyes rolled.

Be safe, have a great day
Tomo

The big aisle is clean. Ready for Santa to deliver the rubber floor tiles, (now in January).

next

the novice goalie at 8 years old

 

[Texas Hobo]

Hughie- Nice looking tree, is that O scale tree.

No, it's HO

 

[Alcomotive]

I was looking for some Micro Engineering track the other day, not the switches and I seen that latter thing some where in the process.

I am still searching.....

 

[PNKFLOYD]

The last 24 hours have been rather busy. Yesterday afternoon and evening was spent decorating and attending our annual family Christmas party. My cousins and their families have not been together for two years and this was a new location. We were supposed to eat at 6 pm, but the only people there was my family. As we were thinking of a meal of jello salad, tomato pie and Golden cake. At 6:08, my cousin from Georgia rolled in with her family. By 6:30, we had 54 people watching the SEC championship game and sampling 21 delicious dishes.
After Alabama won the Game, the TV went off and the volume went up as we got caught up on the last two years. By the time we cleaned the hall and got things put up at home, it was after 11 pm.
Barely woke on time to set up early for communion at church, then quickly home after church to change into my railroad overalls for an afternoon shift greeting visitors at McWane Science Center. We had a constant flow of visitors and I even had one little girl tell me I missed a spot as I cleaned the track of the On30 layout.
This photo is the three HO Christmas themed cars I had brought from home.
.

 

[Jaz avalley]

That's one hell of a tall tree!!!

It is Xmas and so you get magic, London gets a big one sent in from Scandinavia maybe he has the same supplier

 

[OBTC 1909]

Good morning all! Windy, wet and 41 degrees out now, expecting windy, sunny and the same temp for the day.
Had a short but nasty thunderstorm go through overnight. Scared the dog and she had to come sleep in our room for the rest of the night.

Had a great couple days off and now it's time to go back to work. I enjoyed the time off so much that it makes me wish I could retire again. Unfortunately, the cost of health care tells me I gotta keep working for the foreseeable future. I could get by with cheaper insurance if it weren't for Diabetes. The cost of insulin forces me to get higher cost insurance to pay for it. I rarely get sick otherwise.

Nothing else to report. Hope you all have a great day!

 

[Bruette]

Good morning Everybody!

Jesse, thank you.

Wow, busy weekend has caused me to fall far behind! I attempted to catch up, but only made it through page eleven. It's great to see so many posts in the coffee shop. Lots of great people in here!

Still busy today, thank God so I might not catch up until January. Christmas is always busy for me and in my diminished, but improving capacity I can't remember falling this far behind. "Do your best, let God worry about the rest" that's my motto and I'm sticking to it!

One year I'm going to see the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular! In the mean time YouTube will have to suffice.

Have a great day Everybody!