Running Bear's November 2020 Coffee Shop


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Willie: Sure did.

Obviously, many of us will be giving thanks in a non traditional manner this year. While I am a complete skeptic when it comes to news reporting, one can't help but be unnerved by the constant reporting of statistics. Honestly, in retrospect, while I will miss my sons and grand children, I am relieved that we will not be subjected to the underlying stress of "What if one of them is positive, and infects one or both of us"?

I enjoyed your recent comments on Kennedy, and how you developed your interest in politics. When I think back, it's amazing how many politicians and pundits I have met over my lifetime. Most of this I attribute to encounters while employed in the railroad industry, plus the fact that I worked in the Northeast, including Washington, DC. None of these folks would know me from Adam, but the POTUS Elect actually came to my office during his first run for the Senate, back in 1974. My personal interest began in 1960, when I got to see and hear both Kennedy and Nixon, a week apart. I think I was in the 6th grade, at the time. In addition to knowing the local TV beat reporters working the station and environs, I had the opportunity to meet Katie Couric and Andy Rooney.

That was an interesting presentation on modern tank cars.

Guy: Perhaps the fish are also practicing social distancing, eh? Thought the P.M. had a handle on the virus? One thing about this plague, is that it does have the propensity to make government officials look foolish, wherever they may be.



Walt: Not for nothing, but there was a Walt's Cafe in the old neighborhood. Had a stone facade, rater than the Art Deco tile front of the model. Guaranteed, thatyou would be better off running a saloon, than a hobby shop.



Willie: That's why Pennsylvania pulled the plug on alcohol sales after 5PM today. Of course in Pennsylvania, some have been on the stool since 7AM, so they are missing a bunch. Drunks aren't good social distancers.

Ok, made some headway yesterday, all track in the revision area is down. Next step, connect the wires to the buss, install the insulated joints where the districts split, and run trains. Hopefully, I got the track alignment right. There is one questionable spot, but I won't know until I start operating.

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Can't get more Art Deco than this. Colorized photo, of Raymond Loewy's work for the PRR and Studebaker posed together in 1939.
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November 25, 1976 at Abrams (Bridgeport, PA), GP35s still lettered andnumbered for the Reading occupy the Pit track.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!
Joe- my HS alma mater(Sterling Regional) has a bar across the street, called the Warwick Tavern, aka “The Wick”. For years, it has served as the de facto locale for all-class reunions of Thanksgiving Eve. When the beloved Silver Knights got lights on the football field, the crowds would migrate to the Wick post-game & celebrate/commiserate depending on the result vs rival Collingswood. With the changes in the playoff system, a lot of schools moved the games to earlier in the season. Only the long-standing rivalries(like Ocean City-Pleasantville, Vineland-Millville, Atlantic City-Holy Spirit, Gloucester-Gloucester Catholic(they share a home field) & Haddonfield-Haddon Heights) have kept the annual tradition going. Many of those rivalries have been played for 100 years.
 
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I hope this post finds everyone healthy and happy.

God Bless Us Everyone!
 
Happy Turkey day folks!

Today I will be grilling up some appetizers and stuffing myself to the limit. I have been making slow progress on the layout.

Some of you may remember a little over a month and half ago I experienced a nasty kidney stone. Well I recently did a follow-up physical etc. I told the doc I had been feeling something abnormal since. Not huge amount of pain but some discomfort now and then depending what I am doing physically. Well he had me do a urine sample and blood work etc. The urine came back with a little blood. So he thought I had a UTI. So he put me on antibiotics for 11 days then had me do another urine test 2 weeks later. Nope it didn't help or correct the problem. So off to the urologist I went. They scanned my innards and well bingo! They found that I had a stone lodged in my ureter on my left side and yupper that's where I had my discomfort. The doc asked me if I had a high tolerance for pain. LOL I said in some cases yes. He said what must have happened when I had the last kidney stone that past through last time it broke apart in 2 major pieces. So I said now what? He said the stone must have been huge and I am like ya ok. He says no you do not understand. I am like ok hit me. He says my stone was some where around 12 to 14 mm. As the remaining stone is left behind lodged in the ureter tube which happens to be 7.5 mm. I said shizzle now what? He says we gotta go in and get it out. Oh geesh. So I have the operation on D-Day December 7th. So this why I have been moving around so darn slow lol. I am not crazy about the procedure as they will be running a roto rooter right up my sausage with lasers, cameras, and a stent to encapsulate the stone etc. nonetheless it needs to be done as I do not need any issues with backing up my kidney functions etc. So ya that's what going on in my world. I did tag out for the season on deer and turkey this fall. I ended up putting my boat away as I wasn't feeling well to go fish for walleye. I have full freezers so I am good. When the snow hits I will get out and squirrel hunt and grouse hunt. I missed going duck hunting and goose hunting but I will live with out it this season.

So as I mentioned I did some slow progress on the layout. I am enjoying my R&R this week as I have been off since last Thursday and don't go back until Tuesday next week. Waiting on a few items to show up to post on RPO thread. Ya'll have a good one!

Peace.
 
Happy Turkey Day to all my American friends.

Happy Thursday to the rest of you. ;)

To maintain social distancing, wife and I will be cooking a frozen pizza tonight. Turkey's are safe til next year. By then I hope to have my Big Green Egg, and will be smoking a pork shoulder, or perhaps a brisket instead. I'm still wondering who looked at the overly average peacock of the Americas and said: "Bet them's good eatin'!"
 
Morning!

Congratulations Ken, on getting the new set of grand-dadianship papers. An 8 pounder sounds like a big one to me; that must earn mom a well deserved extra bouquet of flowers.

James - My face went contorted with thoughts of pain when I read your post. I hope they get that stone out of there, but, I'd rather avoid knowing about the witch-doctory they've invented to do the job. Were it me, I'd demand they knock me out. - Good luck with that!

The wife and I don't celebrate most holidays, mostly because they are totally meaningless to us. I believe most people like holidays only because they get a paid day off work, or have the opportunity to earn OT pay on the job. Other than that, it's just another day! - The only two days we recognize as notable and celebratory are Veterans Day and Christmas. - Have a good one, though, if you celebrate the day!

It snowed some over-night, so I'll have to go outside and clean the driveway and walks.
Right now, it's 24°F under a cloudy sky. I can't tell if there is a moon out there by looking out the window. It's dark; the cloud is hanging low. Daylight is having a tough time breaking through at 6:30am.

Last night, I glued my people onto the hardware store base. That was fairly difficult to do, really. It's done, though, and I'm reasonably happy with it:
Glued-1_11-25-2020.jpg

Now, I can experiment with interior lighting. Is it going to take one light, or two? I don't know, yet.

Also, I picked up a wireless HP DeskJet printer. Going to try and make some signage in 1/87 scale.

That's all for today! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving all American friends!
 
Good Morning All. Clear and 41° this morning. Heavy dew out there as the dogs paws just told me. A pleasant turkey day for us, temperature going into the low 70's before another cold front hits around midnight tonight. Tomorrow's high might reach 60°, Saturday, rain and 50°. Sunday night thru Tuesday will see temperatures dropping to the freezing mark. I am letting the fire go out in the wood burning heater today while it's warm, so it is easier to remove the ashes. It isn't full yet, but I have learned to "make hay while the sun shines" and today is the day. It only takes about five minutes.

Glad that you're open this morning Flo. I'll take Eggs Benedict made with Taylor Ham this morning.

Thanks for the comments and reactions regarding the tanker photos yesterday; Karl, Patrick, Garry, Tom O, Luke, Alan, Sherrel, Rick, Chad, Joe, Hughie, Guy, Phil, Tom, James, Jerry.

Left the camera out in the train shed last night, so I have no new pictures today. :(
I'll look through the archives in a bit and post some of those pictures later.

Karl - At least my kidney stone story came out better than James.
Guy - I've always felt that it takes a very hardy soul to go ice-fishing. You're lucky to have a spouse/companion that likes it as well. Those pictures make me shiver.
Walt - Thanks! I just realized why you like the cafe.
Joe -
Drunks aren't good social distancers.
Tell me something that I don't already know. LOL
Garry - Lots of tank cars indeed. But commodities that they carry made for a lot of business for ATSF (and BNSF still). LPG to the Midwest, Ethanol from the Midwest headed for refineries, corn oils and syrups to feed processors for all of those cows here. Lots of chemicals to and from the chemical processors around Houston, and of course oil and gasoline...not all of it goes by pipeline.
Ken - At least you got an appointment. Now pray for no blizzard. Congratulations on being a grandpa.
James - Go for the general anesthesia. Ugggh! Did you explore ultrasound? I have had folks tell me that it is unobtrusive, works well, but sometimes has some discomforting side effects.

Everyone have a great Thanksgiving Day.
 
Happy Thanksgiving to all! Just the wife & daughter and I today. The son, daughter in law & granddaughter will be visiting tomorrow due to rotating family holiday scheduling, so we shifted the turkey dinner to tomorrow. The son is not ready to give up his mom's home cooking just yet. I can relate. We'll still be cooking today so all of tomorrow isn't spent in the kitchen!

I got the O'Neill's tower assembled. The glue is drying. Problems I had: The sign had a tendency to curl a little when I glued it to the wall. I clamped it and allowed it to dry overnight. I'm not happy with the vents. I found the epoxy recommended in the manual difficult to control with a toothpick. I'd suggest a straight pin to anyone who hasn't done it this way. For the elbow vent, I think I'll revert to my old faithful white glue with a little India Ink mixed in. Epoxy in this application is too unforgiving for me, though to be fair, this was the first time I tried this technique. YMMV. A little file work and some paint will take care of this problem. The top and bottom will require just a little dressing with a file as the two halves got very slightly out of square when assembling, probably from the clamps. You'll note the clamp on one side of the freight door. The thin section here didn't want to snug up to the wall and needed a little persuasion. The freight door frame was dislodged on the left side as you can see. This has been fixed. The fit to the resin base casting is dead nuts on, so I'm happy!

Tower assembled 1.JPG


Tower assembled 2.JPG
 
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Louis - glad you could drop by.

Congratulations Granddad!!
Thank you Karl! 😀

Ken- Congratulations Grandpa.
. . .
Thanks Tom!
Congratulations Ken, on getting the new set of grand-dadianship papers. An 8 pounder sounds like a big one to me; that must earn mom a well deserved extra bouquet of flowers.
. . .
Guy - Yep, he's a big 'un! 20 inches long (or tall, if he could stand). His dad is 6'4", so he'll probably be towering over me in ~13 years! BTW your hardware store interior scene looks fantastic, looking forward to seeing it installed on the layout!

. . .
Ken - At least you got an appointment. Now pray for no blizzard. Congratulations on being a grandpa.
. . .
Thanks Willie! I just need to call my insurance claim adjuster and let him know that the solar panel removal will be occurring beyond the 90-day cutoff period, and hopefully get a waiver on that (since it's beyond my control)...

James - I can't exactly say I feel your pain, but I also had to undergo surgery on that part of my anatomy in July 2019 to have a tumor removed. Will pray for a successful outcome with a minimum of discomfort...

[P.S.] I think I've discovered a bug in the forum's draft "save" feature: It doesn't save everything. It lost my original reply to Karl, along with all of the smileys I had inserted throughout the message!😒 Guess I'd better go back to doing my preliminary typing in Notepad...
 
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I have to pop in to wish everyone a HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

We have been quite busy with relatives coming in from all over the country. With all of the no travel order going on we are doing both Thanksgiving and Christmas together this year so those not living in the area only have to make one trip.Everyone has driven as the weather has been good with good road conditions. Folks have been bouncing all over the state visiting. We have extra bedrooms and are more or less in between where most of the people in Montana live and have been putting people up every night for the last 5 days.

Did manage to run trains for the people visiting. One high point.

Again, HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all.

Have a house full of people, have to run.

Later.
 
Happy Turkey Day!
57 ° on the way to 67 ° with clear and calm.
As I stated yesterday, there will only be 5 for dinner this afternoon - guess the only thing to be thankful for this year is health.

Speaking of health - JAMES - good wishes for getting rid of that stone. I have had several in my life and they are not any fun at all. Fortunately - I did not have to go the route that you have mentioned. Again - best wishes!

Have a good one - all!
 
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