Running Bear's January 2022 Coffee Shop


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Yes, amazing concept.

Except in our case it was medical debt. Some of the stories over the years was so heart breaking. It is why I am a huge believer in changing the American medical system.

TomO
It staggers me you don’t get half decent free health care,and that you don’t get sick days in the manner we do,I guess paternity leave is not common there either.

probably because you spend so much money propping up the rest of the world,or peace keeping, I believe the Europeans are not good at paying their bills, and I think it took us - the UK, half a century to pay off the debts for the 2nd world war. We winged and wined off the spams over here with sir silk stockings boffing our girls whilst we were fighting around the world, which happened, but with Europe a waste land and much of the other agricultural countries devastated without the us food we would have starved. Yes we did do a lot more farming the woman started working but we had the leeway because of the back up. I might not have lived then,but my dad really liked his American brother in law, and was quick to remind people just how lucky they were, and let’s be honest our fighting boys wheee ever they were were not eunuchs, which reminds me of Good Morning Vietnam and MASH.
 
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don’t get sick days in the manner we do,I guess paternity leave is not common there either.

I've never had a sick day issue. Most people I know don't. Not saying it doesn't happen. Especially with lower wage jobs like fast food. But most "career level" jobs have adequate sickness policies. (Whether X sick days, or "if you're sick don't come" etc.)

Except in a few states where it is mandated, Paternity Leave is governed by the company policy. Some companies have it, many don't.
 
Jaz - - somewhat related to what I call the "Lawnmower Principle." It is very much part and parcel of what makes us independent Americans who we are.

In any given housing subdivision in the suburbs, say there are 20 houses on one street within a 3 minute walk of each other. Each has quite a modest lawn. Want to guess how many lawnmowers are on that street?

We don't share well. We want things just like we want them. And we HATE waiting. Even though we are getting more and more molded into waiting, we still hate it with a passion. Think "Cheaper By The Dozen" (old movie). If a thing can be done 5 seconds faster, let's do it. Hence the world's jokes as to Americans being such unsatisfying lovers! "You want to do WHAT first? How long's enough?"

The fights and arguments I hear about from families who are trying to get out the door to enjoy a leisurely relaxing weekend. And trust me, I am NOT holier than thou. "Ah, look at that gorgeous view ... smell that clean air. Okay, that's good let's go do something."
 
Good Morning all!
Been awhile so I thought I would ramble a bit.

31F here, supposed to get to 42F later. Still have about 16in of white on ground.

I replied to a thread awhile back about printing decals as ya can't print white. I sorta knew that there is white toner out there for specific printers. Welp, when setting up the wife's office after the move upstairs to downstairs, I got to looking at the brand new HP Color laser she had bought sometime last spring ( I think ). Golly gee, it is one of the printers you can get a white toner cartridge for! Still problems and you have to hoop jump as it will only hold 4 cartridges and one color will be missing. I do not know yet how well running the decal paper back through the printer again for that missing color will be. I don't want to try and clean out one of the empty cartridges as I am leary of getting all of the old toner completely out. In my case I want white numbers and such for renumbering duplicate engines and rolling stock so it could be a worker for me. Got to looking at Dye Sub printers - whew! New is a pound of gold. Still have to check them out as I still need white ink. More thought necessary.

Of those 7 friends and Daughter that had the dreaded symptoms in a previous post, none got the crap bad. All did pretty good and most were tired the day ( or more ) after.
 
Good morning. 33° with mixed sun and clouds, going to 47° This time tomorrow, accumulating snowfall, and declining temperatures. Of course, I have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow. :rolleyes: Today, we are going to drive over towards the Ocean, just to get out of the house for now.

Spent a lot of time in the train room yesterday, I ran several operations scenarios, switching every industry, and making up several transfer runs. While doing this, I was looking at what improvements I could make to the existing layout. For instance, a city street, that could be moved 6" to the right of its existing ROW. Never noticed this flaw until last night. Considering this portion of the layout has been in place since 2016....I am not very observant.

View attachment 139076
July 1970 WB PC passenger train, either #33 the Juniata to Pittsburgh, or #23, the Manhattan Limited to Chicago, passing Overbrook Tower. FWIW, Walthers makes a model of that tower in HO.
I was only on one of these locos once. I can't even remember why but I do recall not being able to see the engineer from the fireman's seat. I hope he's awake over there. I was new fireman working a freight when around 4am I dozed off. We we're going through the interlocking at Woodlawn. As we went over all the interlocking switches my head hit the side cab window and I woke up. I noticed the engineer and headend brakeman asleep. In 1969 you were allowed to work 16 hours. Dumb rule. That was not changed until 1975. From then on I tried to get as much rest as possible. George
 
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It staggers me you don’t get half decent free health care,and that you don’t get sick days in the manner we do,I guess paternity leave is not common there either.

probably because you spend so much money propping up the rest of the world,or peace keeping, I believe the Europeans are not good at paying their bills, and I think it took us - the UK, half a century to pay off the debts for the 2nd world war. We winged and wined off the spams over here with sir silk stockings boffing our girls whilst we were fighting around the world, which happened, but with Europe a waste land and much of the other agricultural countries devastated without the us food we would have starved. Yes we did do a lot more farming the woman started working but we had the leeway because of the back up. I might not have lived then,but my dad really liked his American brother in law, and was quick to remind people just how lucky they were, and let’s be honest our fighting boys wheee ever they were were not eunuchs, which reminds me of Good Morning Vietnam and MASH.
The US also have little if any (paid) Holiday's unlike the UK.
 
The US also have little if any (paid) Holiday's unlike the UK.

Not sure where you got that information. Most companies provide normal paid holidays. While they are not required by law, every company provides them for the most part (there are probably exceptions -- again with part time, or non career jobs like fast food or similar). I've never worked at a company that did not have paid holidays. I've been working almost 40 years after HS graduation.

My current company has around 11. According to a stat I read the average in the us is 7.6 paid holidays (across all employee types) while professional and technical average 8.5. (see https://www.thebalancecareers.com/paid-holiday-schedule-1917985)

Of course, if you are use the "British English" meaning of "holiday" for "vacation", the answer is different though meaningful the same -- every company I have worked for and every non fast food/non part time job company I've ever seem (except maybe Terry's) has offered paid vacation time or paid time off. Most places start around 10 days and go up from there with tenure. My current company gives "unlimited" time off -- just work it out with the boss and get your job done -- though up to about 20 days a year is the limit without a good reason/explanation/excuse, ie, they will approve without issue up to about 20 days a year (that is the unwritten rule). https://www.zippia.com/advice/pto-statistics/
 
Not sure where you got that information. Most companies provide normal paid holidays. While they are not required by law, every company provides them for the most part (there are probably exceptions -- again with part time, or non career jobs like fast food or similar). I've never worked at a company that did not have paid holidays. I've been working almost 40 years after HS graduation.

My current company has around 11. According to a stat I read the average in the us is 7.6 paid holidays (across all employee types) while professional and technical average 8.5. (see https://www.thebalancecareers.com/paid-holiday-schedule-1917985)

Of course, if you are use the "British English" meaning of "holiday" for "vacation", the answer is different though meaningful the same -- every company I have worked for and every non fast food/non part time job company I've ever seem (except maybe Terry's) has offered paid vacation time or paid time off. Most places start around 10 days and go up from there with tenure. My current company gives "unlimited" time off -- just work it out with the boss and get your job done -- though up to about 20 days a year is the limit without a good reason/explanation/excuse, ie, they will approve without issue up to about 20 days a year (that is the unwritten rule). https://www.zippia.com/advice/pto-statistics/
My apologies not sure where that came from then. The UK is 28 day's Paid, that includes Bank and Public Holiday's for everyone in full time employment (5 day week) by law, any extra vacation you take is unpaid. Part time employees are on a pro rata basis
 
My apologies not sure where that came from then. The UK is 28 day's Paid, that includes Bank and Public Holiday's for everyone in full time employment (5 day week) by law, any extra vacation you take is unpaid. Part time employees are on a pro rata basis

So according to that link I gave the average vacation time (paid time off) is "nearly 24 days". That would not include the paid holidays (things like Christmas, Independence Day, etc), so it would be more like 32-34 paid days including the holidays for people with 15 or 20 or so years tenure. People new on the job would be closer to 10 days plus holidays.

(Again this does not necessarily include part time, per diem, and things like fast food and other starter jobs or Terry's company).

None of this is mandated by law in most areas but is the norm on what companies offer. They want to be competitive and have happy employees.

BTW: here is interesting info on "Paternity Leave": https://www.zippia.com/advice/paternity-leave-statistics/ .
 
Afternoon All,

Spent the morning go to multiple grocery stores and the Dollar twenty-five store. It used to be the dollar store, but they raised their prices to $1.25. After lunch I put in the freight doors and cut out the very fragile freight house roof braces. I need 27 and have 1 extra. It was more of cutting the wood sprue away than cutting the parts out. I ordered some micro-LEDs from Amazon. I need to install them before adding the roof bracings to the walls.

I got some foam board today and tack glued the build on it for stability for the rest of the build.

Thank you for the likes on the photos yesterday.

Jaz- I learned something from you today 👍. You appear to have a plethora of buses. Are there really double decker rail buses?

Patrick- We had a feel like temp yesterday morning of 39 which is quite cold for central FL. I wouldn't survive in a cold weather state.

Sherrel- MOH is the HOA president and she asked me to join the board and I said not only no, but h**l no.

Willie- Thank you. Nice photos. Are you going to weather the roof?

Joe- Nice photo.

20220119_135214.jpg

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Afternoon All,

Spent the morning go to multiple grocery stores and the Dollar twenty-five store. It used to be the dollar store, but they raised their prices to $1.25. After lunch I put in the freight doors and cut out the very fragile freight house roof braces. I need 27 and have 1 extra. It was more of cutting the wood sprue away than cutting the parts out. I ordered some micro-LEDs from Amazon. I need to install them before adding the roof bracings to the walls.

I got some foam board today and tack glued the build on it for stability for the rest of the build.

Thank you for the likes on the photos yesterday.

Jaz- I learned something from you today 👍. You appear to have a plethora of buses. Are there really double decker rail buses?

Patrick- We had a feel like temp yesterday morning of 39 which is quite cold for central FL. I wouldn't survive in a cold weather state.

Sherrel- MOH is the HOA president and she asked me to join the board and I said not only no, but h**l no.

Willie- Thank you. Nice photos. Are you going to weather the roof?

Joe- Nice photo.

View attachment 139083

I hope everyone has a good night.
To answer the question about trams
London Double Decker, withdrawn from service in 1952

tram.jpg

Modern Day Blackpool Tram

bp tram.jpg

We even have buses that run between concrete rails.
I used to work for this company, they use single and double deck buses on this Guided Busway.

cambridgbus.1.jpg
 
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So exactly how does this work? The driver just needs to keep within the side "rails"? Or is there a physical interface that prevents the bus from leaving the track?
There are two small guide wheels situated just under the body at the front, that are connected to the steering, and run along the inside of the concrete "rails" (imagine a high kerb) The bus can also be used on normal roads. The one in the picture is from Cambridge which is the longest guided busway in the world at 16miles
 
Ha ha ha… paid time off and holidays…
Real funny, guys…
Twelve years in a technical job.
Paid holidays: 0
The business is closed one day— Christmas.
If I want to be paid and take a day off, I get to use a vacation day.
That’s the only good thing, after 12+ years, I get 22 of them, but can only take up to 5 at once. No two week vacations here.
 
Ha ha ha… paid time off and holidays…
Real funny, guys…
Twelve years in a technical job.
Paid holidays: 0
The business is closed one day— Christmas.
If I want to be paid and take a day off, I get to use a vacation day.
That’s the only good thing, after 12+ years, I get 22 of them, but can only take up to 5 at once. No two week vacations here.

And then you get the new kids that as they get a day snag it before I can ever do anything. They want to know why I get 3 weeks a year Vacation and have almost 6 at any given time. They will only pay me for 3 if I were to leave. I also have a week of accumulated holiday pay, (from when I actually worked on a holiday) and 40 hours of comp time (as they don't budget for overtime). Yes, I currently have 8 1/2 weeks of time I can be gone (note I earn vacation time if I were out), not including sick leave.
 
The US also have little if any (paid) Holiday's unlike the UK.
Smudge, you are correct sir!

Nearly half (49.2% according to the chamber of commerce) of all Americans work for small businesses. If you include the self-employed (28.2% according to Forbes magazine) I believe these figures may overlap. But it would be accurate to say most americans.

I'm self-employed and a good part of my business has been as a business consultant. Mostly small businesses, but several are fortune 500 companies. I have seen first hand how bad it can be for small business employees. This is where I have to keep my blinders on. I stick to logistics, efficiency and fleet maintenance. The benefits of the employees is out of my sphere of influence.

Most small businesses have have few if any paid days off. Christmas is the exception for many. Some offer vacation pay. Its not unusual for the employee to work 2-3 or even 5 years of service before meeting electability for vacation.

Some unions like the operating engineers have no vacation or sick time. A few of these employers do offer vacation and sick time to these members, but it is not mandatory.. On the other hand the average member can easily make over $100,000 dollars and they have good healthcare and retirement plans.

Wal-Mart and Amazon are the two largest employers in the USA. They do offer better benefits, but pay is near minimum and their dirty secret is, most employees are part-time.

Therefore you can say most Americans have little to no paid days off. Ill go further and say most Americans do not have good benefits especially healthcare. If most Americans get sick and can no longer work, many will face bankruptcy.

The upside, America is still there land of opportunity. If you want more, work smarter and harder. As long as you are healthy enough to do so.
 
Ha ha ha… paid time off and holidays…
Real funny, guys…
Twelve years in a technical job.
Paid holidays: 0
The business is closed one day— Christmas.
If I want to be paid and take a day off, I get to use a vacation day.
That’s the only good thing, after 12+ years, I get 22 of them, but can only take up to 5 at once. No two week vacations here.

New Years Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day is all I get for holidays. Been there long enough that I get 3 weeks of vacation, but I can't take it in conjunction with a holiday and still get paid for the holiday.

Welcome to the car biz in the U. S. of A. Only sex workers get screwed more than us.
 
Good afternoon all! The clouds are moving in and the weather is preparing to change. Made a curbside pickup earlier and there were sprinkles on the windshield/windscreen. Not enough for the wipers/?.
Did run some trains and did a little switching. I'm awaiting Ernie's Gas Station, due in Feb, so I can finish (if there is such a thing) that part of the layout. I am searching for a couple of sizable structures to replace some old plastic stuff.
1642632148557.jpeg

An overall view of Apple Ridge Rail Services 1/19/2022

STAY SAFE
LATER
 
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