Running Bear’s June 2025 Coffee Shop

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santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. It's once again cloudy and it's 69°, headed into the 90's if the sun comes out. Next 10 days look boring, with clouds in the morning and clearing off in the afternoon with a temperature range from the low-70's to the low-90's. It might or might not rain according to the NWS. Due to the recent cloudy days, the pool water temperature has dropped down to 80°.

Yep! It's Friday the 13th. I'm not the superstitious type, but I have no plans to leave the estate today except to get the mail; and that's a maybe if I forget and make the trip to the mailbox (1.25 miles away) tomorrow instead. I haven't gotten the incoming mail notification yet today so there may not be anything important anyway.

Plans for yesterday changed a bit, as my wife felt ill Wednesday night and opted out of the grocery trek yesterday. That made it longer as I had to do the wine shopping. This week is Kroger's 35% off if you buy 6 bottles, which we always take advantage of. She usually does that part while I am in the produce department and the deli. Since I am not as familiar with the layout of those shelves, I had to do a lot of searching. Otherwise the trip went well. Didn't take the Accura to the shop, so we'll do that next week. Price update: Eggs which seem to be everyone's inflation gauge lately, were $3.49 for an 18 carton. Gasoline is still hovering between $2.49 and $2.69/gal at most places.
The rest of the day went close to the plan, which was none really. I made a major picking of Early Girl Tomatoes from the garden to go with all of the Fourth of July variety that we have gotten. I have had a small smattering of Early Girl in the last week, but yesterday's harvest was considerable for my small garden, over 2 dozen, with many many more to come. Next up looks like it might be the Black Krill variety to go with the others.

Last night I went to the NE window to open it for the night and I saw this in the sky.
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As best as I can surmise, it was holograms projected on the clouds by the Winstar Casino about 25 miles north of me. Before I got the phone to take these pictures, I saw outlines of Oklahoma and many other images. Don't know how long they were being projected before I got to the window. These are the better pictures, taken through the window screen which obscured them somewhat.
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Might be synchronized drones flying. The new "fireworks" that I much prefer since we don't have the loud artillery pops sends pets and vets into the bunkers.
 
troyphoto said:
There was a theft here in Indiana a few years ago, where a thief broke into a came store and took the binders full of used cards, valued at over $15,000. Still hasn't been caught.
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If I ever retire, I will have to check out a local gaming store! Maybe I could find somebody to play Avalon Hill's Magic Realm with me. I still have the complete game.

I even have an original Dungeons and Dragons set with my player card that a former girlfriend named for me "Prince Valient" The "geeks" liked me so much they added points to my attributes. Strength, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma. They said to match me in real life. The Dungeon Master okayed it. They were happy to have me play with them, but I enjoyed it even more! I got lucky with the Intelligence and Wisdom rolls. I don't remember the numbers but they were all good. Those were fun nights!

Thank you for sharing all the information and photos, enjoy your games!
 


Good late morning folks, working on the first pot of coffee here. 74 and rainy, supposed to get to 80 today, but I don't believe them. Benn playing a Tabletop wargame called Battletech since it began 40 years ago, some game companies use the business motto of constant upgrades to either the cards you can use [like Magic, the Gathering] or having to replace books and miniatures {Games Workshop]. Other companies stay viable by new miniature or book releases that still keep the older stuff usable [Battletech]. I'm actually going to a Convention in Denton Texas the end of August called Reapercon, 4 days of gaming and miniature painting.
Karl, you know what they call vegan, sugar free, gluten free, brownies? Compost!
 
DeaconKC said:
Benn playing a Tabletop wargame called Battletech since it began 40 years ago
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I worked in Boy Scouts at church for a short while with one of the guys who was an original artist for the Battletech books. (Original FASA books). If you have they older books see if any of the illustrations are signed with something that looks like “Loose”. I worked with the 11 year old scouts in our congregation and he did the 11 year old scouts in the neighboring congregation. We shared a church building and the scout troop was combined.
 
chadbag said:
I worked in Boy Scouts at church for a short while with one of the guys who was an original artist for the Battletech books. (Original FASA books). If you have they older books see if any of the illustrations are signed with something that looks like “Loose”. I worked with the 11 year old scouts in our congregation and he did the 11 year old scouts in the neighboring congregation. We shared a church building and the scout troop was combined.
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Loose? Absolutely! His artwork was very good, I personally was quite sad when his artwork disappeared. I actually helped with two of the few rule changes in BT.
 


I started playing Avalon Hill (and later SPInand other companies’) tabletop wargames before I started with Dungeons and Dragons. Not by much though.

Actually my first wargame was a tabletop miniatures game for H0 and similar (1/72-1/87) WW2 vehicles and troops. It was a book I found at our local library called “Operation Warboard”. It was a simple set of rules developed by a father and his son. Not one of the game systems made by a company. A few years ago I found a later printing and release of the book on Amazon and bought it though my original copy is still in a box somewhere. I think I may have mentioned this story here a long time ago. I checked that book out from the library over and over until the library said I had to let someone else have a turn.

I saved money and bought a bunch of models. Mostly 1/72 as they were easiest to get but also some Rocco 1/87. My dad and I used a ping pong table we could leave set up in the basement for Sunday afternoon battles.

Then a friend of mine showed me this Avalon Hill game called Luftwaffe. That started a whole new phase in gaming for me. Then a friend showed us this Basic (old blue soft cover book) D&D game he had learned at summer camp. That opened up a whole new realm.

These games kept me busy throughout High School and some there after. I still have it all. A few years ago I bought some reissue 1E AD&D books as well as a bunch of 5E books and started doing 5E with my kids. They didn’t catch the bug as much though my son went through a short ophase. Hopefully we can resurrect it. Our music teacher went still plays D&D on a regular schedule. Once a week or every other week or once a month or something with his (now adult) son and a group of others.

One thing I want to do is adapt the Operation Warboard rules from H0 scale to 1/285 scale using the GHQ miniatures. I bought a bunch of those a few years ago and will eventually get around to doing that.
 
DeaconKC said:
Loose? Absolutely! His artwork was very good, I personally was quite sad when his artwork disappeared. I actually helped with two of the few rule changes in BT.
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Yeah he was a cool guy. I eventually moved away and lost track but at the time he was involved with some people in Japan doing some sort of amusement park or something based on Battletech. I don’t know whatever came of that stuff.
 


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