Running Bear's April 2022 Coffee Shop

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I'm in the same boat...Cathy doesn't care about what I spend on model railroading, but what she is upset about is my buying items and not working on the layout. After seeing all the locomotive roll in, I don't blame her one bit. Using the term, "I ordered that locomotive so long ago that I forgot about it" just doesn't work anymore.

I found the best response, if you can avoid initial detection, is that when they find the new item [locomotive, firearm, guitar, power tool, etc] (eventually, a week or month or whatever later), you just dismiss it with "Oh, I've had that for a while now" (ie, implying it is not "new"). Of course, this only works if you can avoid the initial detection of the arrival of the item.
 
Afternoon All,

Started with chores then planted a small section with trees. Later I started putting things away and vacuuming the non-landscaped tabletop. I have a group of local MRR friends coming over on 5/14 and I need to clean locomotive wheels and track. After that I need to recheck everything to make sure it's working correctly and finally stage cars.

Hughie- Now that is ugly.

Terry- That is very neat artwork.

Bigfoot- Nice modeling.

Jaz- Wow. Very nicely done.

Smudge- So, what's the dirt on the cricket player and his beef with the US?

Willie- Nice job on the loco.

Dave- I solve the wife issue by telling her what I'm getting ready to do. She'll say OK or wait until payday. She's never said no.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
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Afternoon All,

Started with chores then panted a small section with trees. Later I started putting things away and vacuuming the non-landscaped tabletop. I have a group of local MRR friends coming over on 5/14 and I need to clean locomotive wheels and track. After that I need to recheck everything to make sure it's working correctly and finally stage cars.

Hughie- Now that is ugly.

Terry- That is very neat artwork.

Bigfoot- Nice modeling.

Jaz- Wow. Very nicely done.

Smudge- So, what's the dirt on the cricket player and his beef with the US?

Willie- Nice job on the loco.

Dave- I solve the wife issue by telling her what I'm getting ready to do. She'll say OK or wait until payday. She's never said no.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
Mmmm Politics, touchy subject, easiest out for me is follow the link.
 
Good Afternoon.
Spent part of the afternoon sifting through the shop-vac vacuum cleaner bag, looking for the Caboose switch throw that it sucked up. Couldn't find my last two Peco track joiners, but, they're probably in there somewhere too. - Suppose I should wear my glasses when I'm vacuuming from now on.
 
I was having lots of troubles with one of the rain gutters near the back of the house, so today I decided to fix it. My neighbor's tree hangs right over the gutter plus all the roof shingle granular's keep on clogging the thing up. I plan on installing those gutter guards but before doing that I wanted to add another large downspout so I can use 4" drainage pipes. The small 3" downspout is not large enough to service the large roof area. The heating wires in the photos are to stop ice dams in the winter months.
George

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Could get a small fortune at the recycling center.
Willie I was watching a story about a recycling center in Texas last week when they detected radiation in one of the gondola railcars. They had to set the car aside until they found the cause. With that I been thinking of buying a radiation detector for some time and finally bought one. GQ GMC-500Plus $168.00
George
 
Good evening. It's clear and 63.
Today was another Interesting day.
You may remember a few days ago I had a close encounter with a really large bird, that left my nearly-antique SUV in a shambles. A couple of days after that, I was made an offer on a nice pre-owned SUV, with my SUV as trade fodder.
So, after considering, I went ahead and made the deal. So, I was the proud owner of a much-newer, much-lower-mileage SUV that hopefully my wife can more easily get in and out of. The old one's seats are 4" higher than the new one. I picked up the car, and drove to the nursing home my wife is in. She told me she lost her glasses, and nobody could find them. After looking pretty thoroughly, I decided they were gone forever, and promised to bring her spare pair the next day (tonight), and went home.
This morning, I got in the new SUV, and headed for work. I made it 12 miles before the check engine light started flashing, and the car wouldn't go over about 50mph. I managed to pull off the highway, checked all the fluids, and made sure nothing visible had come unplugged, as far as sensors go. All good. When I started the car again, the light continued flashing, and it was a long, slow, very stressful drive to work.
It was even more stressful when I borrowed a code scanner, and found out what the code is: P1326. That code means the computer has detected the rods knocking, and has reduced power to keep from further damaging the engine. I cleared the code, and hoped it didn't come back.
Yes, the new car was purchased "as is".
A call to the dealership to share my problems was met with stunned silence, since it ran fine when I left the night before, and there is no evidence of any hanky-panky with the engine.
The dealer called a contact at the place the car was purchased new, and they stated the car was under a recall and extended warranty because of engine problems, and they would replace the engine with a new or reman unit, with a lifetime warranty. The only downside is, it will be a minimum of two weeks before they can get to it.
The dealer I traded at had begun repairing the old SUV, and offered to let me drive it until my new car was ready. Luckily, they had begun fixing it, and had already installed a slightly-used windshield and some other bits that were damaged. Tomorrow after work, I'm supposed to take the car back to them for completion of the repairs.
I then took the old SUV to the nursing home with the spare glasses, and found my wife's missing glasses under the bed, partly obscured by the wheels.
And that's how my day went. How was y'all's?
 
Good evening. It's clear and 63.
Today was another Interesting day.
You may remember a few days ago I had a close encounter with a really large bird, that left my nearly-antique SUV in a shambles. A couple of days after that, I was made an offer on a nice pre-owned SUV, with my SUV as trade fodder.
So, after considering, I went ahead and made the deal. So, I was the proud owner of a much-newer, much-lower-mileage SUV that hopefully my wife can more easily get in and out of. The old one's seats are 4" higher than the new one. I picked up the car, and drove to the nursing home my wife is in. She told me she lost her glasses, and nobody could find them. After looking pretty thoroughly, I decided they were gone forever, and promised to bring her spare pair the next day (tonight), and went home.
This morning, I got in the new SUV, and headed for work. I made it 12 miles before the check engine light started flashing, and the car wouldn't go over about 50mph. I managed to pull off the highway, checked all the fluids, and made sure nothing visible had come unplugged, as far as sensors go. All good. When I started the car again, the light continued flashing, and it was a long, slow, very stressful drive to work.
It was even more stressful when I borrowed a code scanner, and found out what the code is: P1326. That code means the computer has detected the rods knocking, and has reduced power to keep from further damaging the engine. I cleared the code, and hoped it didn't come back.
Yes, the new car was purchased "as is".
A call to the dealership to share my problems was met with stunned silence, since it ran fine when I left the night before, and there is no evidence of any hanky-panky with the engine.
The dealer called a contact at the place the car was purchased new, and they stated the car was under a recall and extended warranty because of engine problems, and they would replace the engine with a new or reman unit, with a lifetime warranty. The only downside is, it will be a minimum of two weeks before they can get to it.
The dealer I traded at had begun repairing the old SUV, and offered to let me drive it until my new car was ready. Luckily, they had begun fixing it, and had already installed a slightly-used windshield and some other bits that were damaged. Tomorrow after work, I'm supposed to take the car back to them for completion of the repairs.
I then took the old SUV to the nursing home with the spare glasses, and found my wife's missing glasses under the bed, partly obscured by the wheels.
And that's how my day went. How was y'all's?
Wow, talk about roller coaster, good news, you found your wife's glasses, and got a better SUV, now with a new engine and lifetime guarantee for free, downside you get to drive your old SUV for a few more days. Definitely a win in my book. :)
 
Good evening Shop Dwellers!

Even though I've left a breadcrumb trail of "likes" so you know I'm not dead yet, I figured I should take time to post something. Actually I had intended to post on Wednesday, but an unexpected problem prevented that from happening.

Wednesday was a "late" work day for me since that was the one day I had to go on-site. So after I arrived back at the house, I had roughly an hour to kill before MOH got home and we'd have dinner. I was going to setup an intermodal train as one of my staged trains for the open house [I normally never run intermodal for op sessions due to lack of a TOFC terminal]. What should have been a ~40 minute task of taking the TOFC flat cars out of their box and attaching the trailers, suddenly became 4 hours of recovery-and-repair activity.

The box containing the intermodal flats and trailers was on a dolly that I normally keep under the layout, but this evening I had rolled it partway into the aisle so I could open the box and extract the cars/trailers. As I walked by, my pants leg snagged a corner of the box and flipped it off the dolly [and I almost fell on my face]; this resulted in the fifth-wheel hitches and some end ramps being broken off of all but two of the flat cars. Luckily all the broken-off pieces were still in the box, but I had to cement them all back on - which took me ~4 hours to complete not including the 1hr evening meal interruption.

Since then I've staged another 3 trains, so now 5 out of 6 trains have been setup. Would normally have been done by now, but all the special family activities associated with the 4-day Easter Triduum required my participation. Saturday I'll be getting my mower out to attack the six-inch tall grass that has shot up throughout my property during the past week. Hopefully the grass won't hide any booby traps that my cutting deck might crash into; I spent the earlier part of today scouring the property for broken-off tree branches and other "gifts" that Ma Nature had left behind from the last windstorm.

...so there you have it, my excuse(s) for not posting here more regularly.
* * *
Good evening. It's clear and 63.
Today was another Interesting day.
You may remember a few days ago I had a close encounter with a really large bird, that left my nearly-antique SUV in a shambles. A couple of days after that, I was made an offer on a nice pre-owned SUV, with my SUV as trade fodder.
So, after considering, I went ahead and made the deal. So, I was the proud owner of a much-newer, much-lower-mileage SUV that hopefully my wife can more easily get in and out of. The old one's seats are 4" higher than the new one. I picked up the car, and drove to the nursing home my wife is in. She told me she lost her glasses, and nobody could find them. After looking pretty thoroughly, I decided they were gone forever, and promised to bring her spare pair the next day (tonight), and went home.
This morning, I got in the new SUV, and headed for work. I made it 12 miles before the check engine light started flashing, and the car wouldn't go over about 50mph. I managed to pull off the highway, checked all the fluids, and made sure nothing visible had come unplugged, as far as sensors go. All good. When I started the car again, the light continued flashing, and it was a long, slow, very stressful drive to work.
It was even more stressful when I borrowed a code scanner, and found out what the code is: P1326. That code means the computer has detected the rods knocking, and has reduced power to keep from further damaging the engine. I cleared the code, and hoped it didn't come back.
Yes, the new car was purchased "as is".
A call to the dealership to share my problems was met with stunned silence, since it ran fine when I left the night before, and there is no evidence of any hanky-panky with the engine.
The dealer called a contact at the place the car was purchased new, and they stated the car was under a recall and extended warranty because of engine problems, and they would replace the engine with a new or reman unit, with a lifetime warranty. The only downside is, it will be a minimum of two weeks before they can get to it.
The dealer I traded at had begun repairing the old SUV, and offered to let me drive it until my new car was ready. Luckily, they had begun fixing it, and had already installed a slightly-used windshield and some other bits that were damaged. Tomorrow after work, I'm supposed to take the car back to them for completion of the repairs.
I then took the old SUV to the nursing home with the spare glasses, and found my wife's missing glasses under the bed, partly obscured by the wheels.
And that's how my day went. How was y'all's?

Terry - bummer about the new lemon SUV! Just curious: Is it a Toyota Rav4? A friend of mine at work told me he had to get his motor replaced [still under warranty] due to problems with faulty oil circulation (can't remember what year model it was).

Good Night - and have a Pleasant Tomorrow!
 
And that's how my day went. How was y'all's?
Mine was excellent, thank you for asking. My brother who is the executor of my late brother's will, got approved by the court and has all necessary documentation. I and four siblings are direct beneficiary's in four different IRA type accounts for a sizable amount of $$$. One is an inherited IRA from my father so I must take an RMD this year. Brother is gathering up all of the non-beneficiary stuff into an estate checking account for eventual distribution to the five of us. Car has been sold, house should close by the end of May and the sizable checking, savings and other investment accounts are being consolidated. All estate debts have been paid. All of this is tax-free to me except for two of the IRA's, which if I roll over won't be taxable until I start to withdraw. Will this sizable windfall change my lifestyle? Most likely no. I might purchase a couple of new tee shirts and we'll get another car, not a Tesla though. While it doesn't leak, the house needs a new roof, but we already had it and the car in the budget. To start the ball rolling, $150K is coming off the top next week, to be distributed to the 12 non-hospice caregivers during his last 8 months.
 
Another reason to move south. Someone here talked about the milage their car got in the winter months. I been checking my trucks milage for the last 3 months. In the winter it was getting 15.5 per gallon. With the weather warming up, it's now getting 18.5 MPG. Last summer it was getting 19.5 MPG. With last month's fuel oil bill of $1,000.00 and the truck getting 4 more MPG in warm weather the Mason Dixon Line looks better and better. Convincing my wife of this is another story.
George
 


Another reason to move south. Someone here talked about the milage their car got in the winter months. I been checking my trucks milage for the last 3 months. In the winter it was getting 15.5 per gallon. With the weather warming up, it's now getting 18.5 MPG. Last summer it was getting 19.5 MPG. With last month's fuel oil bill of $1,000.00 and the truck getting 4 more MPG in warm weather the Mason Dixon Line looks better and better. Convincing my wife of this is another story.
George
Better head further south! Here, just a stones through below the Mason Dixon, (or is it Manson-Nixon) live we still get Winter here. I've seen the winter MPG drop here too!
 
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