Running Bear's March 2022 Coffee Shop


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Games... I love games!
The most recent games I have played, over a year ago, "Madden" and "MLB the Show", both for PS4.
As I mentioned to Chad we do occasionally play family boards games.

My problem is time.
I would enjoy spending more time with my trains, games, baseball and football cards.
Since I finally convinced my wife to resign her high paying job, low salary high bonuses I should say. I have been working as much as possible to keep her busy. In just a little over a year she has learned so much about what we do. Soon she will be able to operate independently. But I'm never going to let her have all the fun!

Not only has my wife made us even more successful, she has enabled us to expand what we do. We have even bigger plans on the horizon.
I love working every day with my wife. My wife is an amazing person. She is the most productive person I have ever known.

The trade off was my free time to enabled us to be completely self-employed.
As a bonus my chronic health problems have been improving. Working seven days a week, at my own pace has been great for me in every way.

I don't want to give the impression I am a greedy person. I don't do this to get rich, I have more than enough. I have always lived a modest lifestyle, regardless of income. It's a good thing I have been conservative with money. I spent a fortune on my health care over the years.

I started this seven days a week schedule to keep my wife from missing her former pay and wanting to return to work. It has turned out to be good for me as well. I'm enjoying being busy and productive. Best of all my wife is happy and working less then before, with very little stress. Although she worries too much about me. My steadily improving lab results reassure her all is well with me.

Today is one of the days I have a little free time. I get to take my grandson to school! My wife is taking this time to sleep late. Leaving me on the couch with my beagles and my train buddies. Thank God for the little things in life, they mean so much to me.
 
Received some bad news. My closest friend since high school, Willy, my old head banger buddy has been taken to the hospital. Seems he had a wound on his foot and did not say anything. Finally his daughter called for an ambulance. He did not object so he must be in terrible pain.
They are trying to save his foot, but it is likely he will lose it. He is diabetic and not good at listening to his doctors.
He also had a stroke almost two years ago, but had been slowly recovering. Enough that he had returned to work.
He nursed both his mother and his grandmother through their diabetes, he knows better, but is extremely stubborn.
Your prayers would be welcomed and most helpful.
 
Good morning all! 46 degrees heading for partly sunny and 72. Up drinking my coffee and preparing for my first day at the new job. I'll admit to being a little nervous about starting something new, but the excitement from actually getting to do this outweighs the nervousness. Hoping I'm going to love it and that this will be my last job until I finally retire once and for all.

Hated to spend a beautiful day like yesterday indoors, but I did it anyway LOL I watched the IndyCar race and then right after that the NASCAR race. Enjoyed both, even though the NASCAR race ran a lot longer than normal. This is one of those races that should probably be shortened from 500 miles to 400. Either way, it was an enjoyable day.

Louis: Prayers for your friend

Hope you all have a great day!
 
I have a few pet hates, not many, as I think we all have, one of mine came up this morning.
I ordered a building, the Woodland Scenics Tera Windows Warehouse from a model shop two weeks ago, no one else seemed to have it, at £74 plus P+P, not bad.
Sent an email on Saturday asking where it was, hadn't received any notice it had been sent, but not all model shops do that.
Got a reply, they don't have it, and will chase the supplier for it. (Seems they never had it anyway) Considering most are made in China unless they send it by air, I'm looking at 2 months at the earliest, WTH!!, so asked for a refund. I looked at their website, and it still says "in stock", take your money for items they don't have, you can shove that idea where the sun never shines in my book.
Fortunately I always use PayPal, so if I don't get my refund from the shop, I get it from PayPal. But not the point really, is it.

Rant Over.
 
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 60°, 100% chance of thunderstorms starting around 9:00 am this morning. The forecast is for about 1" by nightfall. Warm day yesterday at 78° with a lot of wind. There's grassfires all over the place just west of here. Wind advisory in effect all day with gusts approaching 45 mph. The rain however should help with the fires. I am hoping for a slow steady rain as the garden and all of the surrounding landscape needs it. Nothing here is green except the lush field of winter wheat next door. Not a single tree has budded out yet.

So this rain will develop while I am headed for and undergoing a CT scan this morning at 9:45. I'm not real sure that I need it, but it's free and if it's raining I can't do anything outdoors anyway. I think that it's mostly peace of mind for my doctor. I am finally over the shortness of breath associated with the pneumonia, but I am still not up to full stamina yet.

I feel that I have been missing something in life after reading through many of the recent posts here in the Coffee Shop. I have no PC games or any game consoles, so I have no idea of what y'all are posting about! Maybe it's best for me.;) I did have Pong about 45 years ago!

Thanks for the likes and comments regarding yesterday's loco pictures; Smudge, Lee, Joe, Patrick, Louis, Tom, OB Ken, Curt, Hughie, IB Ken, Jaz, Mikey, Tom O, Guy, Tom H, Rick.

Another short Sunday out in the train shed. I applied ground cover to a small area, but that was about all. Moving forward, I am going to populate some scenes as I have built up a good reserve of figures.
Meanwhile a few more engine pictures. First, a pair of newly painted GP35's that I use for local switching.
IMG_7691.JPG

Another pair of SD40-2's.
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These are the "snoot nose" variety.

Todd - Have a safe trip.
Lee - That flatcar load is actually aluminum billet for an extrusion plant. I made the load by cutting up the leftover ends of aluminum brazing rod.
IMG_0573.JPG

It's a reminder of the aluminum extruder that made window components where I worked for 43 years.
OB Ken - Good luck on your first day.

Everyone have a great day. Hmmmh! Where's Karl this morning?
 
Good morning from So. Central Wisconsin where the weather app says it will hit 71f degrees this afternoon. Looking forward to some time on the south deck and opening the wall in the pool area. Other then my Monday vacuuming I am waiting for the 10 pulp cars to weather to show up. Until then, maybe drop some more feeders.

I watched the UW Badgers choke under the pressure of playing before a largely home crowd in Milwaukee yesterday. No other real interest in the tournament and only the second full game I have watched this season.

Checking my meds for the trip. We could be gone a couple weeks to 6 weeks so I have to be prepared. Called yesterday for room reservations in Nashville, the guy who answered was thrilled we are returning. We have not been in this hotel since the return trip from Texas in November 2019 as the Spring 2020 trip to Texas was cancelled due to some virus running around. So, we got a free upgrade to a suite for Terry and me. The son and his G/F is getting a regular room!

Looks like a lazy few days around here. There maybe some art work to hang but other then trains I am free and I am a bit burnt out on the layout. This shall pass…

TomO
 
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 60°, 100% chance of thunderstorms starting around 9:00 am this morning. The forecast is for about 1" by nightfall. Warm day yesterday at 78° with a lot of wind. There's grassfires all over the place just west of here. Wind advisory in effect all day with gusts approaching 45 mph. The rain however should help with the fires. I am hoping for a slow steady rain as the garden and all of the surrounding landscape needs it. Nothing here is green except the lush field of winter wheat next door. Not a single tree has budded out yet.

So this rain will develop while I am headed for and undergoing a CT scan this morning at 9:45. I'm not real sure that I need it, but it's free and if it's raining I can't do anything outdoors anyway. I think that it's mostly peace of mind for my doctor. I am finally over the shortness of breath associated with the pneumonia, but I am still not up to full stamina yet.

I feel that I have been missing something in life after reading through many of the recent posts here in the Coffee Shop. I have no PC games or any game consoles, so I have no idea of what y'all are posting about! Maybe it's best for me.;) I did have Pong about 45 years ago!

Thanks for the likes and comments regarding yesterday's loco pictures; Smudge, Lee, Joe, Patrick, Louis, Tom, OB Ken, Curt, Hughie, IB Ken, Jaz, Mikey, Tom O, Guy, Tom H, Rick.

Another short Sunday out in the train shed. I applied ground cover to a small area, but that was about all. Moving forward, I am going to populate some scenes as I have built up a good reserve of figures.
Meanwhile a few more engine pictures. First, a pair of newly painted GP35's that I use for local switching.
View attachment 143300
Another pair of SD40-2's.
View attachment 143301
These are the "snoot nose" variety.

Todd - Have a safe trip.
Lee - That flatcar load is actually aluminum billet for an extrusion plant. I made the load by cutting up the leftover ends of aluminum brazing rod.
View attachment 143299
It's a reminder of the aluminum extruder that made window components where I worked for 43 years.
OB Ken - Good luck on your first day.

Everyone have a great day. Hmmmh! Where's Karl this morning?
Willie, great idea for the billet. I have an extrusion plant on the layout and my aluminum billet looks like the wood dowels they are but painting aluminum color. I will be borrowing this, thank you.

TomO
 
been putting off doing another amended return for 2018. Did one amended return for that year already then I found another 1099 that I had lost track of and forgot about. I think that will carry forward a loss into 2019 so there's another amended return I'll have to do as well.
I have an electrician coming by this morning to install my Tesla wall charger. No, not the plug in the wall kind but the heavier duty charger with the special cable end that Harris thinks ya have to hold in the car outlet like at a gas pump. Initial bids from some electricians were well over $3,000 to do this. Job should take no more than 10 minutes and require a 60amp breaker and 5 feet of #4 cable. I have the wall opened up and the charger mounted on the wall.
This electrician is only asking $315. Yeah, he's licensed and has the county permit.
I guess I could post a dozen pictures or so of this, but I won't.

20220308_133702.jpg
 
Fun day, yesterday.

Church and preaching went well. Even had a visitor from the neighborhood. I hope she will return as she said she would. She was asking how to volunteer for one of our service projects, so that is a good sign.

Then, oldest dau hosted a B-day party for herself. Minnesota cooperated (or perhaps Dad's 'in' with the Big Guy paid off for a change) and it was a gorgeous day. Sunny and mild, by our standards. So she moved the 'do' from the party room to the rooftop. So spent all afternoon sitting on the rooftop enjoying a gorgeous view of the city of Minneapolis. Was a wonderful day. Naturally, mom and me ended up bringing over a fair bit of all consumables and serving goods. But at least she paid me for the adult beverages. Wish I had thought to snap a pic to share with y'all, but was too busy enjoying.

Yes, mild by our standards. Lots of sun, light breeze and 57 had us all rolling up our sleeves and some diving for shade. I should have. My face is now quite red and it ain't from the wine! Oh well, just don't tell my dermatologist!

So no train room time, but we had a great day. Today, I hope to wire up the reverse loop feeders from the PSX-AR and give that a test run! Exciting!!
 
Morning all,

First, Thanks for all the like on my outhouse. I built it as a joke to go with other buildings, but somehow missed it when I traded my Lionel stuff for HO. It still looks ok for being nearly 44 years old.

Second, I hate Mondays, especially ones that follow most of a week off. Started this at 7:20a and restarted at 8:40...Lots to do so I'd better get back to it.
 
Chad I've played some other games from Paradox, I enjoyed them all.
Probably my favorite early war game on the PC was "Steel Panthers"
Third Reich was my favorite Avalon Hill game! You are correct, the PC version was a big disappointment.
I never played squad leader. I read lots about it in the Avalon Hill magazine, "the General". I watched it being played at the Avalon Hill store at Saint Paul and Read streets here in Baltimore. Its a very complex game from what I understand. I remember it having one of the highest complexity ratings. It could be hard to find players for these games. I bought Squad Leader, but regrettably I never played it.
More than any others I played "Afrika Korps", "Tactics II", "War at Sea", "Midway", " Luftwaffe" and "Panzer Blitz".
There were other games I played as well " Magic Realm", others I can't remember off the top of my head and "Dungeons and Dragons"
I even played a few games by mail.
I was and still am a big fan of games. I just can't find time to play any more.
I do play some board games with my wife and grandson, "Monopoly", " Masterpiece", "Payday", "Yahtzee" and others. If we don't finish a game we leave it on the table and finish another day.

"Steel Panthers" was (is) an awesome game. I played it for hours back when it was being updated.

I played Panzer Blitz (and Panzer Leader and the later Arab=Israeli Wars, modeled on the same system) some, but never really got into that.

The very first Avalon Hill I played (that was not in their leisure series, where I had played "Acquire" which is still available and is an awesome game), was "Luftwaffe". My friend had that and we branched out from there. This was in junior high.

We also played a bunch of War in the Pacific and War at Sea and even made our own mash-up of the two games, since they were basically the same system adapted to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Another really fun one is "Richtoffen's War". I had that (and sold it to my dad) and we played it a ton. I recently bought a copy off eBay to try and get my son to play. We've played once. We also had WW2 and modern air games (not Avalon Hill -- I forget who did the WW2 ones, which were part of a system -- the modern (70s/80s) air sumulation was SPI - Air War.

Ah, the good times. We actually play a lot of games as a family now. Things like the various Ticket to Ride versions, Machi Koro, Tokaido Road, and various other Japan themed board games from the game store. Stuff like that. Usually a Sunday afternoon thing at our home, recently we've not played as much. Need to get back in the habit.
 
Good Morning!

It turned into beautiful weather after yesterday mornings mini-blizzard. Winds sent the cloud east and the sky went blue. It's still blue today at 18F.
I took a photo of the trail yesterday morning, during the dog walk:
CentPk_03-20-2022 (4).JPG

And, that's the only photo I have to share this morning.
I didn't work on my layout tables yesterday. Just took the day off to relax and get in some nap time with the sun shining through the window.

saw a paramedic turn into a ballerina! Black bloke, pink tutu.
Jaz avalley - That's the statement I found funny in yesterday's post. That's why I left the laugh icon. - It had nothing to do with you're fathers illness, which is terrible and sad to hear about. But, I did find those last paragraph words funny. It's just my evil sense of humour.

Joe - That was a wonderful tugboat photo you posted.

Curt - I really enjoy you're layout progress photos. A fine looking warehouse and auto line-up. Is the pavement just paint?

Louis - Sorry to hear about you're friend. Hopefully, modern medical practices can save the foot.

I don't know what's going to happen today. I might do, or I might not. We'll see by the end of the day.
Have a good one!
 
Good Morning Everyone out there in Model Railroad Land. Mild day here in this part of Wisconsin. Sat out in the Sun for several hours yesterday and enjoyed the early Spring weather.

Its hard to believe that Spring is just around the corner for us and like MikeInHubCity says we don't plant our gardens until after Mother's Day or more likely after Memorial Day. I remember a snow storm on May 10th one year and an early snow storm on October 10th the same year.

I cancelled my subscription to Model Railroader Video Plus (MRVP) since it lacks content and many of the video subjects are in the margarine Model Railroader. It seems that MRVP is taking a back seat to the new video series and subjects on Trains.com. I may subscribe to Trains.com in the future. We'll see.

I enjoyed the two series of Rehab My Railroad on MRVP and purchased videos of the entire series thinking that I may discontinue my subscription.

I have a running dispute with the Publisher of John Tews book Timber River Railways after it appears was a problem when I ordered my book and was charged twice on PayPal. The publisher is disputing the claim of a double charge and PayPal wants to investigate. I think if everyone would just talk rather than use emails and letters to communicate it would resolve the issue in short order.

I enjoy watching videos on John Tew's basement size layout and I am a real fan of ore hauling. The book will be a welcome addition to my growing library of model railroading subjects. It's funny that John living just a short distance from my home and I haven't seem John's layout while on the other hand I've seen Jim Hediger's Ohio Southern some years ago before it was dismantled.

Cathy is getting ready for her trip to Arizona and California at the end of the week. I love the desert and I should be going along with her. While she is gone I have a bunch of Allen Keller videos and others to re-watch.

That's all for now................

Greg

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IMG_0455.JPG

A rust bucket SOO Line locomotive at the Omro Junk Yard.-Greg

IMG_0459.JPG
Close-up of the Omro Junk Yard and the assorted old locomotive parts.-Greg
 
Good afternoon,

49° and filtered sun. We had a beautiful weekend, rain overnight with some more coming, they say.

Just read a couple days of the coffee shop --

Lee The model car crash is a first for me. Cool.

Willie I like the F-45's. I had one in GN blue and white, however I felt it was too big and modern for my layout

Curt The stock pen idea is interesting, I read that the watering and rest was something they did on long hauls

Louis I have a fairly new HP laptop, I like it fine

Ken They charge as much as they can (electricians) feel they can get away with. Ours charged me $350 to dig one post hole. I would have done it myself had I known.


I got a lot done on the layout, first a picture of an old Lee Town log truck kit:

IMG_2032.JPG


It is a simple crude kit, but the trucks were simple and crude back then, also

It is a busy Monday at work, but will check in later

Dave LASM
 
Success!

Dropped the feeders for the reverse loop. Hooked them to a pigtail coming out of the PSX-AR via WEGO 3 term connectors. Love those things!!

First power up "Track Fault!" Whoops - - forgot to cut one isolation gap in the rails. Did that and glued in a piece of styrene. Went and made a sandwich for lunch as the CA glue dried.

Came back and started trimming the styrene piece - Damn&Blast - pulled it loose. Glued in a smaller piece and tested via a rolling car - - hmmm. Should work.

Power to the track - all good. Run my cheapest loco (I'd like to think I ain't stooped!) out of the yard head first pulling a grain-box and two tankers. Make the cross to the inner loop, align the TOs for the reverse loop - - - and she enters.

No hesitation, traversed the entire loop, exited - again no hesitation. Whoo-bloody-woo! Aligned the TOs and the train went back into the yard - head first. Stopped the loco over the electromagnet uncoupler and pushed the button and pulled the Loco forward. Aligned the lead track crossover, and back her out to the Turntable lead track. Drove her on the TT and flipped her 180. Ready for another go to leave the yard, head first!

Now cleaning up the table and will film and try to post a vid on Google drive.

Feel purt-darn-gud about the accomplishments. Yet curiously, also a tad bit of a let-down. That's the major track all laid. I'm gonna miss the smell of latex caulk in the evening! What am I going to think about at 3 in the morning when I can't sleep?

Oh, I know, I got lots of work and figgering-out yet to do. Just different phases.
 
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