Running Bear’s June 2025 Coffee Shop

[Marlin39]

Good Evening All. Thank you all for all of the thoughts and prayers, they worked. Sunny and still 92° at 6:30 pm. As promised, I have returned after a quick run through of the estate. Seems that the rain yesterday that wasn't in the forecast, left me 1.5" in the rain gauge and topped off the pool just right. Pool water still had the proper chemical balance and the grass/weeds are growing rampant already.

After two days of tests and stuff, my cardiologist decided that my BP medications needed adjustment. He made a few, but I will follow up with my primary care guy tomorrow, since he is an internist and has always seemed to know the BP stuff better. The echocardiogram, a fancy word for sonogram, showed no issues; the stress test showed no abnormalities, the EKG was clean; numerous blood draws and tests showed nothing amiss; so that's his prognosis. The A1C even dropped to 5.8! Glad for the results, but some of the 45 hours was wasted. My cardiologist just happens to be the on-call guy for the hospital that I chose, because I already knew it. He saw me Sunday morning after the overnight stabilization, and again today to release me. In between, I had almost all good nurses, including a couple of really pretty, well-qualified youngsters, and overall treatment was great. One nurse Saturday night/Sunday morning spoke in low tones with a thick Turkish accent and I had a lot of trouble hearing her. That was despite me explaining my hearing and asking her to repeat everything at least twice. My wife even had issues with understanding her and the admittance questions. Damn, and the food was excellent. I had filet mignon last night. That menu is probably not available to folks with little or no insurance. Lunch today was roast beef and Swiss cheese wraps on flour tortillas (yes, plural) with a delicious Mac & Cheese. All came with salad and rolls as well. There's probably 40 items on the lunch/dinner menu. I think that my wife brought it home, so I'll snap a screenshot or two for you to see.
I'll catch up some more tomorrow when I have had time to reread some of your posts. Right now I'm headed for the pool, and then a little body-rubbing later.

Glad you're back.

My mom had a very similar thing happen several years ago. Interaction from a new medication introduced that sent her to the ER with 180/110. Normal had been 90/62

 

[DeaconKC]

Wow, a lot happened in a couple of days. Willie, glad you're home! Hospitals, no matter how nice and modern, still are lousy places to be. We had family in for over 2 1/2 weeks. Wonderful time but the last left this morning. We are wiped out. There is a reason God gives kids to young people! Troy, love the TT stuff, played Battletech with my g'nephew over the weekend, he's hooked. Also, check out Reaper Miniatures from Denton TX, they have great minis, most are being made in the US now and their acrylic paints are fantastic. I'm one of those who GW drove away with their business model.

 

[Bruette]

I like you too much to throw you into that den of wolves.

I was joking. The OGR forum is too much for me. Which is why I don't go there anymore.

As a young man I enjoyed confrontation. But confrontation online is pointless. The worst are merely cowards hiding behind their devices safely in their homes. They have no fear of the consequences of their words or actions.

I like it here where people respect each other.

I'd chip in $20 to help get you to the competition.

I'm not your guy. I can't eat more than two hotdogs with a roll. Not to mention I don't like Nathan's hotdogs boiled.

Thank you all the same for thinking of me!

 

[Kusojiji]

Damn, and the food was excellent.

Wow! When I was in the hospital, they gave me a menu to choose from. No matter what I chose, I got either lemon pepper pork chop, lemon pepper fish, or lemon pepper chicken. The nurse came in and asked if everything was good. I told him that I keep getting lemon pepper something or another. He said he'd take care of my next order. I ordered a sandwich and got lemon pepper chicken.

Try to stay below 95% for a little while...

 

[Kusojiji]

Reaper Miniatures from Denton TX,

I was happy to see painted stuff, until I found out that they are not...

 

[Kusojiji]

This is exactly why I like using voice to text on my phone.

I'd end up with too many unintelligible garble on my phone...

 

[Kusojiji]

I just found out that they released more JFK files... so of course, I go listen to awaken with JP... haha

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

Good morning! Its 68°F with rain.

Have a great Tuesday!

 

[bnsf971]

Good morning. It's 76 and mostly clear.

 

[troyphoto]

Wow, a lot happened in a couple of days. Willie, glad you're home! Hospitals, no matter how nice and modern, still are lousy places to be. We had family in for over 2 1/2 weeks. Wonderful time but the last left this morning. We are wiped out. There is a reason God gives kids to young people! Troy, love the TT stuff, played Battletech with my g'nephew over the weekend, he's hooked. Also, check out Reaper Miniatures from Denton TX, they have great minis, most are being made in the US now and their acrylic paints are fantastic. I'm one of those who GW drove away with their business model.

The biggest problem of any game system is finding like minded players in your local area.

I could go play a Games Workshop game at any game store. I can go play Magic: The Gathering Card Game, at any game store. Same for D&D.

Historical Minis in the game Saga

It's the other games that you have to find a group to game with. I've got a corps of gamer friends here, and they drift through systems and era. To compare that to Model Railroading, it's like we all get together for 6 mos of Sundays to model Civil War era steam. Then we're transitioning to Modern Intermodal for a few months, then we're back into post WW2 transition era.

In gamer speak, we go from Historical games like Saga or Hail Caesar, then we're off into fantasy games (think Lord of the Rings style), then a few want to play Battletech (not a game I'm interested in), so it's a free for all of games the group splinters for a while, then we get back together for WW2 Bolt Action gaming and let that run for about half a year.

A the HMGS show, you can take a class on terrain making from the grass-guru!

But, the little toy soldiers go into storage cases (usually, the Really Useful Boxes lined with a steel sheet, and each figure stand is magnetized to help them not shift in transport.) It's not like we all have terrained layout at home to put these on.

In other news, I'm on the board of my regional HMGS (the Great Lakes region). That's the Historical Miniature Gaming Society. The big national con is every summer on my wedding anniversary weekend in Lancaster Penn - Historicon. I'd love to go one year, but wedding anniversary....

(Our HMGS-Great Lakes convention... looks about like a train show, but for little toy soldiers)

Instead, we have our regional convention in Oct in Springfield OH. I try to go to that one every year. Historical game conventions are like Train Shows with a lot of portable layouts. You get together to PLAY with the toys, and there are some vendors.

 

[troyphoto]

I was happy to see painted stuff, until I found out that they are not...

What scale is your layout?

I doubt you'll find off the shelf painted product. BUT if we know scale and what you're looking for with figures, we can find a custom painter for you.

For example, these guys are out of Las Vegas. I have NEVER used them, but I know the company they're working under as a solid player in game supplies. https://www.flgpaintstudio.com/

There are probably painting freelancers in Japan if you don't want to deal with the international shipping.

 

[traiNscale]

good day coffee friends

back from lunch, sun is out and around 25 celcius.
yesterday i was back in the basement again, but did not build on any of the layouts, i started to build a small diorama for my youtube videos.
its for my miniprints monthly unboxing videos. so i can show the figures or stuff on a small diorama. will add the second camera to get a better zoom and make the videos even better.

picture of today? another SBB locomotive. A newer then yesterday

wish you all a good day!

cheers
Marco

 

[migalyto]

It happened again! This showed up in my YT feed this morning.

This time in a Chicago suburb

 

[migalyto]

picture of today?

Don't forget to sprinkle in some plane photos from time to time.

You have photographed some really good paint schemes.

 

[Kusojiji]

What scale is your layout?

I doubt you'll find off the shelf painted product. BUT if we know scale and what you're looking for with figures, we can find a custom painter for you.

For example, these guys are out of Las Vegas. I have NEVER used them, but I know the company they're working under as a solid player in game supplies. https://www.flgpaintstudio.com/

There are probably painting freelancers in Japan if you don't want to deal with the international shipping.

I have HO and N. Size of the figures really don't matter unless they are bigger than a house.

I took a look at flgpaintstudio. Nice work. So I buy the characters and send it to them?

I'll try to do a search and see what they have here. Not sure what they call them though.

Thanks!!

 

[kbkchooch]

Good Morning gang!

64° with light rain, heading to a high of 78° with a 60% chance of rain all day. Tomorrow more of the same. Great modeling weather!
But
Grand daughter is inbound, so we will be hosting her today as her parents prepare the house for the move out in 2 weeks. Oh I don't envy them. Just the sight of all those cardboard boxes shivers me timbers!

Speaking of modeling, I have been able to spend a little time in the basement. I started on a laser cut craftsman kit of the Western Maryland station at Highfield MD by Medford Trains.

It happened again! This showed up in my YT feed this morning.

This time in a Chicago suburb

As my dog would say, "Toopid hooman!"

BBL

 

[Patrick]

Morning all,

Well, early morning storms caused wind damage and a flash flood warning for the town I work. Wichita's airport (main weather office) had a gust of 101 mph and many of the weather reporting stations in the 80+ range. Never seen warnings within warnings before. 30,000+ without power in the area. I drove through it, but just after the storm front passed and still had winds in the 40+ range. Town I live in didn't appear to get hit nearly as bad. Trash cans and small limbs but nothing that bad. And we weren't supposed to have this as of last night. Main event was supposed to be this evening into the overnight. Don't know how much, if any of my fence went down this morning, but I should have enough of it stable again. We're dog sitting the son's dogs at our house and I really need the fence. 1 of the 2 was misnamed. She should have been named Houdini and yes she wasn't at our house 24 hours before she got out, but I plugged the rabbit hole I'd have never thought she could fit through.

Had my surgery clearance visit yesterday. BP was 106/68 and weight down a little. EKG was excellent for my age. Dr was overall happy and sent on that I looked good for a new knee.

Good news at work, I have our new .gov email addressing working, but still need more testing. If all goes according to Hoyle, I'm further ahead of our communications folks than they'd like me to be. I was told initially that they wanted to be ready after the 4th of July weekend. Still a lot of work changing almost 400 addresses manually and a couple other changes that allow us to connect to cloud based services.


BBL

 

[TLOC]

Good morning from Soldier Grove, Wi. As mentioned yesterday we are gallivanting around the Driftless area of the state. We are about 90 minutes from home but avoiding the highways will add almost an hour. Right now I think we will head home via Spring Green and wave at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin as we drive by. It might be 1/4 mile away on a bluff from the local roads we will take. Since we have both been there many times there is no need to stop again. I am a huge FLW fan!

It rained often yesterday and hard at times. It was supposed to be raining this morning but the skies are clear as can be. About 60 miles west in Iowa but traveling northwest is a huge weather front but home is south and east of here. So I don’t expect any rain to get us. Later this afternoon the home weather maps are showing storms rolling through. At home later the temperatures will be in the high 80’s.

Willie, glad your home

Enjoy your day

 

[TLOC]

T

What scale is your layout?

I doubt you'll find off the shelf painted product. BUT if we know scale and what you're looking for with figures, we can find a custom painter for you.

For example, these guys are out of Las Vegas. I have NEVER used them, but I know the company they're working under as a solid player in game supplies. https://www.flgpaintstudio.com/

There are probably painting freelancers in Japan if you don't want to deal with the international shipping.

This may sound dumb coming from a person who has done over 1000 model train weathering commissions since 2018 but who’d have thought you could paint miniatures for commissions!

What a great idea and their reasoning on the website says it all. You may not have the time or the artistic skills. I never bring up artistic skills but always mention that I will save your time for other things. When I think miniatures figures I think in HO scale and rarely the larger scales. My bad on that.

Oh well another opportunity lost for me!

 

[TLOC]

Morning all,

Well, early morning storms caused wind damage and a flash flood warning for the town I work. Wichita's airport (main weather office) had a gust of 101 mph and many of the weather reporting stations in the 80+ range. Never seen warnings within warnings before. 30,000+ without power in the area. I drove through it, but just after the storm front passed and still had winds in the 40+ range. Town I live in didn't appear to get hit nearly as bad. Trash cans and small limbs but nothing that bad. And we weren't supposed to have this as of last night. Main event was supposed to be this evening into the overnight. Don't know how much, if any of my fence went down this morning, but I should have enough of it stable again. We're dog sitting the son's dogs at our house and I really need the fence. 1 of the 2 was misnamed. She should have been named Houdini and yes she wasn't at our house 24 hours before she got out, but I plugged the rabbit hole I'd have never thought she could fit through.

Had my surgery clearance visit yesterday. BP was 106/68 and weight down a little. EKG was excellent for my age. Dr was overall happy and sent on that I looked good for a new knee.

Good news at work, I have our new .gov email addressing working, but still need more testing. If all goes according to Hoyle, I'm further ahead of our communications folks than they'd like me to be. I was told initially that they wanted to be ready after the 4th of July weekend. Still a lot of work changing almost 400 addresses manually and a couple other changes that allow us to connect to cloud based services.


BBL

Good news on the surgery clearance.

Patrick, Are the weather patterns in your area changing? I just don’t remember so much news coming from your area in years past until really last year.