Running Bear’s June 2025 Coffee Shop

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Good morning. In the City of Lost Wages it is 74f degrees heading to 92. Severe flood watch in effect which to me is strange as there has been no rain since we arrived last week Wednesday. It seems it can rain 100 miles away and the flash floods just run to the Las Vegas area!

This household is getting antsy. He is dying to play golf! The g/f snorkels off Maui a few time a week with a crew of friends. The pool is not cutting it for her. Terry and I are used to getting in a car and exploring. The desert to me though is uninteresting. Tonight though we all are heading to dinner outside the house. The brother is handling it so the food will be good but definitely over the top! He’s paying, so,so be it!

The brother is doing fine and continues to work hard on his re-hab. Today instead of the 2nd visit by the PT we will be at his surgeon’s office for a check up.

His neighbor (golf buddy) next door came over yesterday to tell him he was going to sell and was he interested. The answer was yes. I asked later why and he said because he could and maybe make money off of it. The house looks nice, is modern from the outside and comes with an extra landscaped lot. We will check it out this morning, the brother says it is a little bigger than his. He is checking the HOA rules for AirBnB!

Back home the daughter called last night! Another area farm will be up for sale just north of the SIL’s vineyard. That is now 3 farms within 5 miles of us. I’m pretty sure I could do something with it but I wanted out of this game but keep coming back to it! We’ll see.

Depending on what the doctor tells my brother we might head home but not sure when, maybe Saturday. The son will be here Thursday with a charter group so will spend the night here for sure.

Terry has started the planning for the Vancouver trip. We are not going to wait for the NHL schedule as she thinks September is our best opportunity to go! She almost knocked me over by asking if I wanted to try Amtrak from LA to Seattle. Then rent a car to VAncouver. I would enjoy that!

Enjoy the day.
 
Bruette said:
I should clarify; boiled hot dogs are the best!

Unless they are beef, then it is the charcoal grill followed by the air fryer or the propane grill. Or baked in the oven with beans.
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Now you have me wanting to try doing hotdogs in the air fryer!

Willie-also mentioned yesterday cooking them that way.

Going to give it a shot. Just so happens I have some bun length dogs in the freezer.
 
migalyto said:
Now you have me wanting to try doing hotdogs in the air fryer!

Willie-also mentioned yesterday cooking them that way.

Going to give it a shot. Just so happens I have some bun length dogs in the freezer.
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I only cook hot dogs in the air fryer. If I get and try to use an outdoor grill of any kind, I'd be eaten by hordes of mosquitoes, and I don't like boiled or nuked hot dogs.
 


Good morning all,

49f and sunny, heavy dew, no wind.

Plan to complete my Grantsburg WI depot today and get it on the layout. There are a couple other buildings to make and associated landscaping.

Will be starting up the chainsaw today to cut some brush that has been bugging me.

Wife does not like hot dogs but we do a lot of grilling brats over our cook fire.

Enjoy your day, if possible

Dave LASM
 
Good Morning All!

42F @ 67% clear. Maybe 74F later.

Hot dogs, Bologna - Went to a factory that made the things in my early 20's. After watching and smelling what goes in them, I could not eat any for a couple of years. Over that now, so no biggie. Like Louis, raw, cooked, under cooked dogs [ BBQ, uWave, Air Fryer, water in pan and even laying out in the hot sun for a bit ] on a slab of bread if no buns. Cheese slice on top with Ketchup, Mayo, Mustard and Sweet Relish. hmmm Ima hungry and have some of those long ones....

Have a friend that has dealt with 302's. With 0.03 overbore ( no stroker ) I come up with about 348cid @ just under 400Hp; cam and intake depending. And he said that Holley 600 with hi-rise would be the cats meow. I do need to look into making the intake valves slightly larger for better breathing; port and polish with bigger exhaust tubes. Solid lifters. Speed shop in Spo can handle the machining with necessary parts in stock. There probably will be more and will find out when I have block in hand .. er .. on pallet. It is only money, right?

L8r
 
TLOC said:
Good morning. In the City of Lost Wages it is 74f degrees heading to 92. Severe flood watch in effect which to me is strange as there has been no rain since we arrived last week Wednesday. It seems it can rain 100 miles away and the flash floods just run to the Las Vegas area!

This household is getting antsy. He is dying to play golf! The g/f snorkels off Maui a few time a week with a crew of friends. The pool is not cutting it for her. Terry and I are used to getting in a car and exploring. The desert to me though is uninteresting. Tonight though we all are heading to dinner outside the house. The brother is handling it so the food will be good but definitely over the top! He’s paying, so,so be it!
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If you haven't already, head to Juan's Flaming Fajitas. Friends of ours in Henderson made sure to take us. It was two thumbs up and a big yummmm.

Also, there are a couple of Tiki Bars out there that I want to get to, just to see the tiki decor, and have a Mai Tai.
 
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 63°. The thunderstorm system that hounded Patrick all day yesterday, hit us briefly around dusk last night. Left 1.1" in the rain gauge during the 45 minute downpour. Looks like that's it for now, but you never know in the Spring here. Not supposed to get out of the 70's today.

With two wonderfully sunny days Sunday and Monday, the pool temperature has risen to a comfortable 79°; still a bit too dirty to use, but the filtering is going well. The supposedly impermeable cover was not so impermeable after all, and the muck and slime on top of it all winter seeped through!:mad:
Yesterday, I completed the Onion harvest, mostly successful but I had a white variety that didn't hold up too well with the excessive rain in the critical month of May. About 1/3 of them rotted in the saturated soil. Mostly though, I plant a sweet Vidalia type known as Texas A&M 1015. They aren't allowed to be called Vidalia since they aren't grown in that Georgia county. Those did well, but aren't quite as large as I have grown in the past. I was late getting them into the ground this season. I also cut more firewood from the logs that I have. I even split 3 large pieces into more manageable sizes that my wife can handle. Still a few more to go, but not today due to it being too wet. Tennis shoes and wet grass just don't mix; work boots are too uncomfortable this time of year.

Only spent a short time out in the train shed yesterday. It was all cutting and folding parts for the cardstock structure. I only assembled one part,
Entryway:
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I did touch up all of the white cut paper edges with a black felt tip marker. Here, I did the right side of one piece compared to the left side.
1749047545809.jpeg

Easier to do it before assembly and it eliminates an unsightly white streak on all of the corners.
On this structure, the walls project above the roof. Again, I don't like the white backside of the paper, so I spray paint all of the exposed surfaces with Gray paint.
1749047801300.jpeg

To be continued.

Chad - How's the healing going?
Mike - I see lots of progress on your scenery base. I need to get back to mine, but something else always seems to come up.
John - Good to read that you seem to have resolved the decoder issue. While I don't have problems with DCC stuff, it does bother me to have a nagging problem that I can't resolve.
Your oil change statement jogged my memory...I need to change the oil in the Accura. According to the car's computer, I am 179 miles past due! Not really a lot by my standards, but I need to do it anyway.
Tom - Garden plot looks good.
Dave -
NWP Dave said:
Hot dogs, Cook however you like. Put in bun. Add your favorite BBQ sauce, top with Mozzarella cheese, broil in oven until the cheese melts.
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Now that's an idea worth trying.
Marco - Just cooking the hot dogs by themselves in the air fryer. Buns cooked separately or they'd burn.

Sorry, but hot dogs boiled in beer is just a waste of beer to me!

Everyone have a great Wednesday.
 
Well, howdy there all the peeps with pests.

Looks like we've got an infestation of carpenter ants!

I wonder if they know "Muskrat Love"???

😜

Orkin will be out on Friday for our first treatment. I'll have to get the train area in the basement decluttered so they can access the baseboards under the layout.

Last night, I fired up the kamado to smoke some brats (why is it spelled like Brat but pronounced like braught?)... but the wife over-ruled me. Pizza hut it was. Fortunately, the charcoal was barely lit. I closed the vents and let it die.

On friday, the pest guy will return, and hopefully start killing the ants.
 


WILLIE: Wife says her carrots are good. Small, and a pain to peel, but it's about the sport of growing food. That's her hobby.

And she won't trade the paved walking trails in our community just to move to the country.

That, and her mother is a 10 min walk from here. Gotta take care of mama in her twilight year.
 
Quick note on the trip to Yodobashi Camera and Joshin Denki Super Kids Land. The purpose of visiting these two places was 99% to look at and maybe buy a few things related to model trains.

But before we left this morning, my SisIL brought out several small Amazon packages. She said she had been storing them for me since our last time here. Wee had been in Nagasaki and I had ordered a couple trams and motors for them of Nagasaki trams from Tomytec and they had not arrived before we left. So she's been storing these for me since Jan 2023 and I had totally forgotten. So this was like a Christmas Morning for me today:

IMG_9143.jpeg

Yodobashi Camera is a large chain of stores across Japan full of camera, electronics, cell phones, cameras, appliances, books, music instruments, toys, and all sorts of things like that. There are two large flagship ones -- in Tokyo at Akihabara and the one in Osaka -- Yodobashi Umeda. I missed the one in Tokyo this trip but hit the one in Umeda.

The daughter wanted to go there and of course I wanted to check out the model trains. They have a pretty large section for model trains and good prices. I looked mostly at containers but didn't buy anything as I wanted to check out the Super Kids Land. They do do the"tax free for tourists" which saves you the 10% sales tax.

I then went to the Joshin Denki Super Kids Land. It was about 15 or so minute subway ride and a 12 minute walk that turned into double that. When I came up from the subway into the station and associated shopping areas I did not see a sign for the exit I was supposed to use out of the complex (according to Apple Maps) and I wandered around some until I found what I thought was the right thing. It got me close and I was able to get out and walk to the store.

Here is a store index of floors. The trains were on the top floor.

IMG_9080.jpeg

The 4th floor had a massive AirSoft Gun section in addition to the other stuff listed. I'll make a separate post with pics from the train section. For now, I'll post the things I bought.

I did not intend to buy anything more than containers and maybe a wagon or two but there was a KATO Rhätische Bahn Ge 4/4-II in a special livery in stock. At a great price. The sort of thing that if you see it and want it you have to buy it. I have two other Ge 4/4-II and two Ge 4/4-III locomotives from KATO from the Rhätische Bahn so I ended up getting this one. I bought enough to save the 10% sales tax and for some reason they applied another 5% discount. I'd been there before when they had a 5% discount for tourists who paid with Visa but I did not see that sign (and did not get the discount 2 years ago) and the sales receipt, per Google Translate, just lists 5% discount. Anyway, most of the time prices in Japan are take-home price, ie, with sales tax*, so my actual cost after taking tax and the 5% discount was 8360 yen, which cost me about $59.50-$60.00, depending on what the exchange rate actually is when this transaction is finalized by the merchant. That's an excellent deal.

I also bought two container flat cars, one with a container, and one without. I bought 3 packs of containers, and a mystery box container from an old blind box series from around 9-10 years ago they evidently had left over. Its a cheap and thin plastic container but is fun -- with fictional paint job based on anime.

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That's most of what I plan on buying here train-wise. Need a job before I spend more. However, I plan on visiting a local train shop here in Kobe where I've done business before. He does good discounts online and ships tax free, but he's not part of the tourist tax free program and his in-store prices are not as competitive as his online price for foreigners when he ships overseas. Most of my business with him has been overseas shipments though I visited him last time we were here and I will buy some containers or other small things from him when I pay my visit.
 
Here are some photos from inside the store.

These are N scale. There is a lot more but these are just the display models and not all of them. I took a lot more pics but this just shows the variety. They also have a good selection of Euro imports from Fleischmann, Minitrix, Hobbytrain, and some others as well as KATO USA N scale and some KATO British, Swiss (my Rhätische Bagn for example and some others), and similar. The KATO Euro stuff is KATO inexpensive (being from Japan) but the Euro imports were very pricy. For that stuff I go to the source.

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Here is some H0 stuff. H0 is not that popular in Japan as most people have small apartments or homes and so N scale is much much more popular. And inexpensive. H0 stuff is pricy. Very pricy.

Here is a Plasser & Theuerer MOW vehicle in H0. It's vey cool. I have one in N Scale in th delivery of a Japanese railway but this H0 is massively cool. (H0 in Japan is 1/80).

IMG_9083.jpeg

Here are some pricy H0 locomotives and some EMU type trains. The train on the bottom of the second pic is over $10k. I didn't read the sign but it may be hand made? I've never seen it before on any forum or in any store or listing. I have an N scale version from KATO. It is the E001 Shiki Shima resort train. Like a cruise but on a train. That price includes all the gold colored cars/locomotive etc -- 10 or 11.

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troyphoto said:
😜

Orkin will be out on Friday for our first treatment. I'll have to get the train area in the basement decluttered so they can access the baseboards under the layout.

Last night, I fired up the kamado to smoke some brats (why is it spelled like Brat but pronounced like braught?)... but the wife over-ruled me. Pizza hut it was. Fortunately, the charcoal was barely lit. I closed the vents and let it die.

On friday, the pest guy will return, and hopefully start killing the ants.
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Troy, I was a Commercial Account Manager and Inspector, for Orkin, during my later working years. Loved the job. A lot of science and biology including Purdue University entomology courses. I've been inside many secure areas, clean rooms, operating rooms, etc where there is zero tolerance for pest activity. My job was to figure out how the problem occurred, what the pest is, develop a plan for the tech to get it under control, and how much $$$$$ it was going to cost.

If the tech does his job you should have the issue fairly well controlled 10 days after 1 treatment. Hopefully the tech is applying Termidor SC (termiticide) around the exterior perimeter foundation and applying granular bait. You may need a drill & treat in your walls also. You probably have some dry rot that they have turned into nesting galleries. Ants don't eat the wood. They chew out the rot to build their galleries. You normally will see piles of "frass" where they have pushed out the wood debris. They have to leave the nests to forage for food which is why exterior treatment is important.

Here in the PacNW carpenter ants usually bring their larvae to overwinter in a warm dry place. That's usually between the wall and the insulation. The main nest can be up to 500 feet away. In the spring they larvae pupate and you start to see flyers swarming.

One general pest control pointer is to make sure you have no landscaping touching your house. We used to recommend 18" minimum on commercial buildings. Many times ants would crawl up trees and on to the structure, then in to the structure.

Better to have carpenter ants than termites if you're going to have any type of wood destroying pest.
 
santafewillie said:
Chad - How's the healing going?
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Good morning Willie (and anyone else interested).

When I fell and got the scrapes and road rash, the wife used some wet wipe type things and cleaned it up best she could. It oozed and bled a bit but was exposed to the air and dried during the day. Last night I showered and cleaned it out good. They sprayed it with some sort of disinfectant anti bacterial agent water stuff and then applied gauze and taped it. Just plain gauze. So this morning where it had oozed a bit over night it was stuck to the wound where the ooze stuff dried. I left it on all day and we peeled it off tonight. It hurt a bit in those places where it was stuck. I showered again and cleaned it with running water but their spray anti bacterial stuff ran out. They found some petroleum based methonlatum and put that on to try and keep the gauze from sticking tonight, claiming it was what they always used on wounds. Ok, whatever.

We'll see what's up in the morning. If we can get the gauze off tomorrow without issue I'll leave it open to the air all day and let it scab up. My other sister in law arrived tonight from Yokohama (we had visited with her when we were in Tokyo). She is staying here until we leave. She is also an ICU RN nurse (active -- the sister in law married to the doctor is not actively working and is an LPN). She is the one who found the mentholatum in the drawer and said to use it...

As long as the gauze pads stay on over night (lightly taped) and I can get them off tomorrow and let it all "air dry" we'll be good I think. It looks a lot worse than it is. It's a about 6 or so heavy scratches and a huge patch of abraded skin surrounding the scratches,
 
Good Morning Again!

Ok, in my last post I talked about hot dog - ya - for breakfast. Did get brave and tried something different. Maria had made some egg salad that jumped out of the fridge so - hmmm, how about that on bun wrapped around a long dog? Nuked dog this time, frozen roll for 20 sec's or so, then all together for an additional 20 sec. It was yummy.

L8r
 


All this talk of air fried hotdogs had me itching to try it!

I air fried a couple of good old fashioned bun length hotdogs. Had to have them on bread, no buns around.

Threw a handful of Kitchen Cooked potato chips on the plate and dined.

Sorry no photos, they didn't last long enough, very tasty!
 
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