Running Bear's December 2024 Coffee Shop


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Good morning. We have a white blanket on the ground from Wednesday’s 1/4” of snowfall. It is 19f degrees now and moving to a high of 29. The newest snowfall per the weather app is falling now and by its ending around 3pm will be somewhere between 2-4”. This weather observer’s window seat indicates however there is nothing falling from the skies.

No matter, my ride to a layout build session will arrive at 9:45am. The build time is scheduled from 10 to 2:30 with lunch at noon. We were told to come hungry. The layout will depict sections of the Great Northern in the 1960’s. Triple decked with a big mainline run. No helix but a peninsular that will provide the climb between levels. That’s not framed yet but should be interesting

The estranged sister in law is stopping by this afternoon around 4 and I want to be home for that. Other than in a courtroom Terry and her sister have not seen each other in she thinks 10 years. They were supposed to meet in early Summer but the sister blew it off. With all the crap her sister and 2 of the 3 brothers have put her through I would have said F you but she’s willing to try again. Family drama sucks and I hope this works out

Enjoy your day
 
Good Morning All. It's clear here and 30°. Same old forecast except maybe cooler nights for a couple more days. Christmas Day still looks like it will be in the mid-60's.

Somewhat boring day yesterday. The stiff NW wind kept me indoors with all of those mindless household tasks that only come around at Christmas time. I did get to spend 49 minutes, 24 of it on hold waiting, to talk with the financial advisor at my brokerage/retirement place. As of midnight last night, I have a $$$ RMD in the checking account. That needs to be moved this morning, it will be transferred electronically to the Money Market account while we discuss where it will reside long term. I believe that we will open a brokerage account, which my wife has finally warmed up to in the last year. She has always been hesitant to the idea, but after seeing how well we are doing with stocks within the IRA, she has changed her thinking.

The weekly grocery trek is today. I've tried both Wednesdays and Fridays, but it is much more crowded on those days. Several additional stops are planned. The damn dishwasher awaits me as well. And somehow, I got lassoed into wrapping some Christmas gifts today, under supervision of course.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I did the usual running of trains while I touched up the paint on a few figures. I also did some reverse surgery on a poorly made Chinese figure. The original leg was severely mis-formed and broke while I was handling it. The girth of the part that broke off, didn't match the stub that was left, so just gluing it on wouldn't really work.
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I had a spare "lower lady" part trimmed from someone who is now a passenger in a vehicle. So after some cutting, gluing, and painting, I have a lady who can actually stand by herself.
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Christmas Lights - I seem to be seeing about the same number of lighted houses out here in the boonies. Many are quite extravagant in order to be seem from the road some distance away. I believe many are permanently mounted.
Tom O - Regarding the weighting of the containers: I realize that you are probably not going to do it, but 3 oz sure seems excessive. I add 1.25 oz to every 40' container, and 1.375 to a 53 footer. It works well for me. I super-glue pennies inside.
Louis - Deserted roads??? That's the norm out here.
Mac -
I guess that's a new thing this year.
People have been doing that for at least 70 years. In the 60's it was done but using "Super 8" film.

Everyone have a great Thursday.
 

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Many are quite extravagant in order to be seem from the road some distance away.
When I first started with Amazon the more affluent neighborhoods didn't have many houses with Christmas lights. Those that did have lights were usually elegant soft white lights. Over the years the trend has been moving to more extravagant displays. We were in some of those areas this morning and I was amazed. I saw all kinds of lavish colorful displays, even those huge inflatables, I loved it! With only a few houses in between they could be seen from great distances.

I had a spare "lower lady" part trimmed from someone who is now a passenger in a vehicle. So after some cutting, gluing, and painting, I have a lady who can actually stand by herself.
That is excellent work, it's not even noticeable what you have done.

Deserted roads??? That's the norm out here.
I would enjoy that, but I don't want to come across wild boar! They don't look to be nice at all.
 
I am loving these "low" (a relative term) gas prices. Combined with the fuel efficiency of our Equinox it keeps more money in my pocket.

This is trip odometer #1 After filling up at my local gas station I drove to one of the Amazon stations.
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This is trip odometer #2 I haven't reset it since I replaced the spark plugs.
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This Cheverolet is outstanding and perfectly suites our needs.
 
Good evening all. Just a quick message. I am still this side of the Great Divide. Allowed home, but have to visit the hospital almost daily. I guess they need the bed for someone else. I was wired to a heart monitor earlier as my heart missed more than a beat. I guess I haven't used all my 'lives' yet. Will try and 'look in' tomorrow.
 
Good evening all. Just a quick message. I am still this side of the Great Divide. Allowed home, but have to visit the hospital almost daily. I guess they need the bed for someone else. I was wired to a heart monitor earlier as my heart missed more than a beat. I guess I haven't used all my 'lives' yet. Will try and 'look in' tomorrow.
David, it's good to hear from you, and that you're still on the right side of the dirt.
 
This is the extent of our Christmas decoration (at the new house -- old house has nothing now though I'll see if the daughter wants to put some lights on the railing or something). My mom did get us a tree which we have no room for in our current house so I may stick the tree in the big room above the garage for now in the new house.

The light pattern is based on which lights see the WiFi at the moment. They get a color. The white lights are not connecting. (The WiFi in the new house is currently only a single access point in the basement and with all the concrete and steel and gypcrete floors etc you don't get a lot of signal outside -- I'll be adding more access points in the house eventually to fix this).

I could also change light colors on the lights in the ceiling on the porch but they don't show up currently for the same reason -- they did originally but the wifi got moved in the basement and now there is no longer enough signal on the porch).

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Good evening all. Just a quick message. I am still this side of the Great Divide. Allowed home, but have to visit the hospital almost daily. I guess they need the bed for someone else. I was wired to a heart monitor earlier as my heart missed more than a beat. I guess I haven't used all my 'lives' yet. Will try and 'look in' tomorrow.
Glad to see you pop in. We were worried about you!
 
Good Morning All. It's clear here and 30°. Same old forecast except maybe cooler nights for a couple more days. Christmas Day still looks like it will be in the mid-60's.

Somewhat boring day yesterday. The stiff NW wind kept me indoors with all of those mindless household tasks that only come around at Christmas time. I did get to spend 49 minutes, 24 of it on hold waiting, to talk with the financial advisor at my brokerage/retirement place. As of midnight last night, I have a $$$ RMD in the checking account. That needs to be moved this morning, it will be transferred electronically to the Money Market account while we discuss where it will reside long term. I believe that we will open a brokerage account, which my wife has finally warmed up to in the last year. She has always been hesitant to the idea, but after seeing how well we are doing with stocks within the IRA, she has changed her thinking.

The weekly grocery trek is today. I've tried both Wednesdays and Fridays, but it is much more crowded on those days. Several additional stops are planned. The damn dishwasher awaits me as well. And somehow, I got lassoed into wrapping some Christmas gifts today, under supervision of course.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I did the usual running of trains while I touched up the paint on a few figures. I also did some reverse surgery on a poorly made Chinese figure. The original leg was severely mis-formed and broke while I was handling it. The girth of the part that broke off, didn't match the stub that was left, so just gluing it on wouldn't really work.
View attachment 207151
I had a spare "lower lady" part trimmed from someone who is now a passenger in a vehicle. So after some cutting, gluing, and painting, I have a lady who can actually stand by herself.
View attachment 207153


Christmas Lights - I seem to be seeing about the same number of lighted houses out here in the boonies. Many are quite extravagant in order to be seem from the road some distance away. I believe many are permanently mounted.
Tom O - Regarding the weighting of the containers: I realize that you are probably not going to do it, but 3 oz sure seems excessive. I add 1.25 oz to every 40' container, and 1.375 to a 53 footer. It works well for me. I super-glue pennies inside.
Louis - Deserted roads??? That's the norm out here.
Mac -

People have been doing that for at least 70 years. In the 60's it was done but using "Super 8" film.

Everyone have a great Thursday.
I sent the email saying I cannot do the containers with additional weight. No response yet!

I came up with the 3oz added total per Evemodel well cars last Spring after he was having issues with the cars he got from eBay. I also used pennies. Evemodel cars are 1 ounce lighter than even the light but well detailed Atlas well cars. I agree 3oz in each container is excessive but when I came up with the 3oz it was for the bottom container only.
 
Good evening all. Just a quick message. I am still this side of the Great Divide. Allowed home, but have to visit the hospital almost daily. I guess they need the bed for someone else. I was wired to a heart monitor earlier as my heart missed more than a beat. I guess I haven't used all my 'lives' yet. Will try and 'look in' tomorrow.
Glad to read you are allowed to be home. Best to you
 
I finally got Whammed! last night. 3 times. And once today in the first 5 min. Even though everyone and their dog have covered the song “Last Christmas” by Wham!, Siri has only been playing the Wham! Version. (Covers don’t count for the game).

My mom had been over to help clean up the new house and had had Siri play Christmas Music, so I just told Siri to continue and that did it.

 
I posted this back on Dec 1st................

On another note, I have been wanting a DJI Mini 3 Pro drone for a long time. So long they now have a DJI MIni 4 Pro available. With a price tag of a bit over $1100.00, I just could not justify spending that much money (plus 8.25 % taxes) for another toy.
Well it just so happened that Amazon ran a one day "Black Friday" deal on the Mini 4....... 25% off. So while it is still not cheap, no one ever hardly has a "deal" on DJI drones. So I bought myself an early Christmas present. I recently did a drafting project for an old customer and was not expecting anymore work until next March. The "extra" work and a bit of the money helped pay for my purchase of the drone and a new battery for my Trailblazer.


Well the drone is a "no show". Original delivery date was between Dec 5 and 12. Then a notice that my package would be late.....Dec18. Note from Amazon said if the item did not show up by Dec 18, I could call Amazon for a refund on the next day. Today was that next day. Amazon guy said he could not make the decision to refund my $$$ and he would have to pass it on to his supervisor who would get back to me in 3 business days. Three "business days" puts that call on Dec 26 because of weekend and holidays. The drone was ordered on Nov 26. As time went by I started checking the tracking. All tracking said was "Item has left the shipper". After checking with China Post Tracking, I found out the tracking number was not the correct format......it was bogus. I'm guessing this item was never shipped. My main reason being nobody on planet earth sells DJI drones for 25% off. I only went for the deal because it was through Amazon. After talking to the guy at Amazon, I called my credit card company that is tied to my Amazon account. They said they would file a dispute with Amazon. Amazon hit my credit card on Nov 26, the day my order was placed but credit card guy said that would not be a problem. So I'm hoping to receive a refund/credit in 3 days to 2 weeks. What a load of crap. I will NEVER again buy anything on Amazon that ships from China.......lesson learned.

The battery in my Trailblazer is still working OK........not ordered from China or Amazon.

Merry Christmas to all.......John
 
I posted this back on Dec 1st................

On another note, I have been wanting a DJI Mini 3 Pro drone for a long time. So long they now have a DJI MIni 4 Pro available. With a price tag of a bit over $1100.00, I just could not justify spending that much money (plus 8.25 % taxes) for another toy.
Well it just so happened that Amazon ran a one day "Black Friday" deal on the Mini 4....... 25% off. So while it is still not cheap, no one ever hardly has a "deal" on DJI drones. So I bought myself an early Christmas present. I recently did a drafting project for an old customer and was not expecting anymore work until next March. The "extra" work and a bit of the money helped pay for my purchase of the drone and a new battery for my Trailblazer.


Well the drone is a "no show". Original delivery date was between Dec 5 and 12. Then a notice that my package would be late.....Dec18. Note from Amazon said if the item did not show up by Dec 18, I could call Amazon for a refund on the next day. Today was that next day. Amazon guy said he could not make the decision to refund my $$$ and he would have to pass it on to his supervisor who would get back to me in 3 business days. Three "business days" puts that call on Dec 26 because of weekend and holidays. The drone was ordered on Nov 26. As time went by I started checking the tracking. All tracking said was "Item has left the shipper". After checking with China Post Tracking, I found out the tracking number was not the correct format......it was bogus. I'm guessing this item was never shipped. My main reason being nobody on planet earth sells DJI drones for 25% off. I only went for the deal because it was through Amazon. After talking to the guy at Amazon, I called my credit card company that is tied to my Amazon account. They said they would file a dispute with Amazon. Amazon hit my credit card on Nov 26, the day my order was placed but credit card guy said that would not be a problem. So I'm hoping to receive a refund/credit in 3 days to 2 weeks. What a load of crap. I will NEVER again buy anything on Amazon that ships from China.......lesson learned.

The battery in my Trailblazer is still working OK........not ordered from China or Amazon.

Merry Christmas to all.......John

What you need to do is ask the Amazon person to speak with their supervisor. Just keep asking. They will eventually send you to a number in Washington state and you’ll usually speak to an American there right away who has more authority to fix problems. I’ve had a couple issues that needed to get bumped up and I wasn’t going to wait for 3 days.

Also, unless Amazon is actually refusing to refund you I’d not bump it to your credit card company. Your account could get flagged as a problem customer and then it becomes a lot harder to fix problems in the future. If they’re refusing to refund then by all means escalate to your credit card company. But as long as they’re just working through their process I’d work with them but be a PITA to get them to escalate you higher up the chain more quickly. I once got escalated to a senior executive’s office trouble shooting guy who made lots of stuff happen. I’d ordered some stuff for our house project that had a deadline and I was not doing to play with their low level India support who had authority to make things happen.
 
I am loving these "low" (a relative term) gas prices. Combined with the fuel efficiency of our Equinox it keeps more money in my pocket.

This is trip odometer #1 After filling up at my local gas station I drove to one of the Amazon stations.
View attachment 207167
This is trip odometer #2 I haven't reset it since I replaced the spark plugs.
View attachment 207168
This Cheverolet is outstanding and perfectly suites our needs.
I just bought an Equinox EV. So far gas cost has been 0. It is a nice car the only problem so far has been low tire pressure in one tire.
 
Well, hello there

It's me again

I'm up. Bed at 10p up at 4a... Coffee is made. Still loving my new thermal pot - it shipped from China, but they had stock in the US already.

Updated my author book store on shopify with signed paperbacks yesterday. Today I'll put together a newsletter for my readers, with a 20% off coupon. If I'm lucky, I'll sell one or two.
 
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