Running Bear's March 2025 Coffee Shop

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santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Beware the Ides of March today. Partly cloudy and 55°, only heading up to 65° after that string of 80°+ days. A couple of cooler days and back to the 80's on Monday. Up & down from there with some cool days and some warm days. There is still a hint of the dust from yesterday, but I can't tell because it's still dark.

Maybe the high winds here and across the rest of the country are the result of the earth spinning faster to catch up to Daylight Savings Time???

Regarding that deer leg that I posted about yesterday, the reason that it was broken from the previous bone was because I believe it got run over by a plow out in my hay field recently. I observed one of the granddogs out there digging earlier in the week.
Yesterday, I did a little more mowing and hand-watered parts of the garden before the wind picked up around noon. Wind was about 2 hours ahead of the dust storm, which lasted about 3 more hours. Today I will retrieve any items blown asunder, and pick up the metal lawn chairs. Got to bring in a supply of firewood since it is forecast to get to 40° tonight and tomorrow.

Yes, I did brave the dust storm to go out to the train shed yesterday. I picked out figures and added them to the sidewalk surrounding John's Place.
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This is what it will look like next to the neighboring structure on the layout in a not yet completed area.
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Oh yes! The mortar on the other three sides came out a little better than the first.

Troy - I can't read the Wapo story regarding Steak N Shake due to their firewall. I ain't giving them my E-mail address either, so I'm not sure how using beef tallow makes them political??? The Italian sausage is probably a healthier choice anyway, but I doubt that the Kraft Mac & Cheese is healthier than the fries.
Tom O - Nothing wrong with being a non-beer drinker. Y'all save a lot more money than I do!;) Although the price of soft drinks in the grocery store are approaching the cost of beer unless you find them on sale. Most but not all eating establishments that I frequent that serve draft beer still charge $4-$5 for a 20-22 oz mug.
Louis - I agree that businesses should stay out of politics, but I have never boycotted because of it. Except Bud Light, which I never bought anyway. Does that count as a boycott???
Terry - It's been my observation (from personal experience and reading), that prices have gone up in all dining establishments across America.
Hughie - Those all look like excellent additions to your layout.
Mike - The food to go industry down here is thriving but still not as great as dine-in. It was helped by a new Texas law in 2021 that allowed eating establishments to offer to-go alcohol with meals.
Patrick - Its only fair that we send our dirt to you, since you send your cold fronts to us!

Besides being the Ides of March, today is also International Eat an Animal for PETA Day (or EATAPETA). I guess that is where eating and politics cross.
Everyone have a great Saturday and enjoy the weekend.
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Willie I see a lot of church going type people hanging out at John's Place.
Swal
 
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Good mornin' crew! Under clear skies, it's 28 in Cheyenne. Wind chill is at 11 with strong winds from the W @ 17 gusting to 25. High wind warnings in effect. Looking for a high of 53 and a low tonight of 49. No precipitation in the immediate forecast. Expecting cooler temps and possibility of light snow Tue & Wed.
Had a good day yesterday. Spent a couple of hours at the Sherman Hill Model Railroad club session yesterday afternoon. Excellent layout and a bunch of friendly folks. They have a store front (no retail sales though) in the Frontier Mall and have work and operating sessions every Saturday from 10am to 5pm.
From there it was off to Home Depot to pick up a 4'x 8' x 2" sheet of styrofoam insulation for the layout. Nice lady there cut it into 4 - 2'x 4' pieces to top off the benchwork. In Nacogdoches you could only get 1" thick but the HD here had 1-1/2" and 2" thick sheets.
Picked up some Chinese for dinner. Taste buds are still on the.fritz from all the antibiotics. For some reason, Chinese and grilled stuff are the only things that I can taste to any extent.
Yesterday evening, I got several old Accurail box cars out for refurbish and repair. Scrubbed them up and got most of the old weathering cleaned off. Need to finish up the undersides and reweight them for switching. They all have Accurail trucks but I replaced all the wheel sets and couplers with K-D's.
As for the layout, I'm pretty sure I'm going to change direction and go back to the old TSE theme. It's just a more conventional style of modeling and I can have some trains running a lot sooner than I would otherwise. And after all, it was Lance Mindheim and his shelf switching layouts that got me back into model railroading over 10 years ago.
F1 racing is back. I'll watch the replay of the opener in Australia here in a bit and catch the NASCAR Las Vegas race later today. Indy car is off this weekend.
Enjoy your Sunday, have a good week, and take care.

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Good Morning All. Clear and 38° right now. Two hours ago it was 44°. Low 70's today, then 80's for a couple of days, and up and down for a while. Spring in North Central Texas. We still had some pretty high winds yesterday, but they were from the NW instead of the SW, hence the much cooler temperatures yesterday and today.

Looks like the weather system that brought the severe dust storm and high winds here on Friday, did a lot more damage as it moved eastward across the country. Prayers to anyone affected.

Wasn't as much wind-blown debris to clean up yesterday as I expected. I spent the time on the mower instead. Did about another half acre on the south and southwest side of the yard. Won't get any mowing today as we're going to a birthday luncheon for my #1 daughter today. She turns 46 today. We'll be returning the two granddogs to their homes now that everyone from both families have returned from their Spring Break vacations. Daughter #1's family had a good time in Vegas, but the trips to and from were not the best. I posted that the airline lost my granddaughter's luggage last weekend, although it was found and returned to her sometime Sunday. On the return flight Friday, they had to land at DFW with those 40 mph winds rocking the plane like a boat on the water. She said that the pilot actually did a good job, but the left side of the plane landed a few hundred feet before the right side. Daughter #2 returned from Hawaii on Saturday with a much smoother landing.

I did something out in the train shed yesterday that I haven't done in over a week, I ran trains and ran them some more. I don't know whether I will get back home in time to go out there today.

Tom O - Like your area, every restaurant around here has help wanted signs posted. One that we go to occasionally even has it printed on the check/receipt. Our once a week restaurant trips seem to be equally split between national chains and local dives.
Todd - Too many of the craft beers that my SIL loves, are too fruity or otherwise flavored for me to like. I'll stick with my favorite lagers. I have found that the air fryer is now indispensable to my home cooking. I have even mastered a couple of meat dishes in it.
No "Willie's Place" on the layout yet, but I do have a "Cooter's Liquor".
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Terry - Isn't that engine knock covered by some kind of warranty?
Louis - I have nearly the same Wonder bread car traversing my layout.
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Everyone have a great Sunday.
 


Morning all,

Must have been tired as I slept in until 7 this morning. Don't usually do that.

Little chilly this morning with a low of 28° going for 62° later. Winds due to come back up mid-week again. We might get some rain or snow Wednesday. They can't yet decide which they like better.

Corned beef is in the pot for lunch. Still have the potatoes, carrots and cabbage to do, but I'll steam the carrots and cabbage. They turn out better and boil a few potatoes. Not the wife's favorite meal, so she always pawns the extra to the kids as the local son and daughter like it. Just means I won't get a corned beef sandwich this week.

Terry: That should be covered if the car is new.

BBL
 
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Good afternoon. It’s cloudy, windy, and 86.
The engine is covered by warranty. The stealership is trying to charge a $179 diagnostic fee to determine if it’s a warranty item. I’m giving them a call tomorrow about this, because their website wouldn’t let me book an appointment for “customer states” without entering a credit card to be charged the fee.
 
Boris said:
I haven't been in a restaurant or fast food joint, but once, since I went on heart diet. Don't miss it either. Price increases, are finally causing people to pull back...It's been a long time coming.


I rearranged some structures along"West Front Street", to see how they might fit. I have several kits to place where these were.
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Not only the prices that are keeping people from restaurants. Many have gone from a place setting
when you are seated to a napkin with a knife and a fork or two rolled up. Hardly any give you a glass
of water unless you ask for it. Half the time they forget to give you a spoon if you order a coffee.
After they take your order, it's a crapshoot when you will get your meal and if they ever come back
to ask how are things before you get you check.

Oh yeah, big thing now is the little kiosk at your table that by default tallies in a 20 % tip and you
have to search through the little screen if wish to decline or select a different percentage. I prefer to
tip the waitperson in cash (most of them are appreciative of that gesture)-not having to wonder how
much the waitperson actually gets or has to wait to the end of the month to get their tips.
Recently we went to restaurant where the overall experience was so bad that I didn't leave any tip.
My wife is a more gracious tipper than I am-she was even glad when I didn't leave a tip.
 


I knew it was going to happen, and it did...
It's currently raining and 81.
Today was the day I washed the exterior of the trailer to get all the accumulated crud, dirt, and pollen off it. It looked pretty good for about 4 hours, but now it's raining, and raining a little harder ever minute. At least I got done washing it before it started raining. I really didn't want to be standing on the roof with a metal-handled scrub brush in a thunderstorm.
 
Happy Welsh Saint masquerading as an Irish Saint Day!

I'm up!

Put together some toy soldiers yesterday. Need to do some laundry today. May hit the grocery so I can do sausage and peppers in the crock tomorrow this week. Got a couple of mild days coming up, then it gets back to March chilly and rainy.

With taxes done, it's time to start on the next book. I'm about to look into using an AI system to analyze the previous 10 books in the series, break out the recurring characters, find descriptions and traits for each... Some authors are doing it to make the "story bibles" for the series. I'm about to write #11 in one series, which will be the 22nd book in that world overall. Details have become as fuzzy as drunk dust-bunnies on a weeklong spring-break binge.

So, I'm gonna need some help getting all of this straightened out.
 


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