Running Bear's April 2025 Coffee Shop

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Just heard the wife and her sis are going to see their mom later this morning.

I'm watching videos on "Accelerationism" - a term I knew about but hadn't connected to the world today. A penny or two dropped in my brain.

On schedule for today, chatting with the AI about my characters and plot.
 
Good morning. Got to sleep about 1:30am, it was raining. At 5 the thunder was constant but thankfully this storm I could not hear the crack of the lightning, it was raining very hard. Got out of bed at 7:10 because of the crack of lightning and it’s still raining. Walked into a full kitchen of people. I totally forgot the daughter’s family was here.

April showers bring May flowers. Boy I hope so as last year we were below the seasonable rain fall accumulations and since I won’t irrigate except the garden beds the flowers suffered. We are seeing tulips breaking the surface but are a few weeks yet from blooming.

Our big election that drew national money is over. There has to something done to prevent multi-billionaires on both sides from contributing money to these campaigns. The ads from the one side were so vicious and nasty that fact checkers were getting fact checked. It was determined that 75% of the attack ads were false from the one side and about 35% for the other side when they started fighting back. Personally I think those numbers are false but what do I know. On YouTube the other day the ads appeared on the dance videos the granddaughter was dancing to. Sad as $90 million was spent with $20 million spent by 1 guy in the last 3 weeks. The winners here, the media

Gas here yesterday jumped from Monday’s $2.99 a gallon to $3.29.

I will be turning on my SAD’s light wall today. Haven’t really needed it this past Winter with so many other health things going on. I think my latest but minor funk is lack of sunshine and natural light. Since my spray booth is now portable I can do some fades while surrounded by the LIGHT!

Yesterday was the 1st day in weeks there were no emails saying beat the tariffs buy a car now. One of the local media outlets per my wife stated they went to 10 new car dealer lots in our area last week and noted vin numbers and prices. They said they will do it again as a series of weekly updates. That should be fun

Enjoy your day
 
Yesterday we had to test ride one of our coasters. We are slowly replacing sections of wood track structure with steel. Here is the first section we had done. So smooth! It’s the first rollercoaster in Pa. to have this type of track installed.
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Good Morning All. Cloudy and 72°, kinda warm. Weather forecast abruptly changed yesterday with the thunderstorms moved to last night and no rain today! Didn't happen. But it looks like the rain will happen here about 8:30 in line with what was originally predicted. This is the front that hit Patrick a few hours ago. Still have thunderstorms in the forecast for the next 3 days.

All of yesterday's plans went astray early in the day. The trip to the feed store has been postponed to today. The rest of the day went differently all due to an unexpected visit. Nothing really bad or anything, I just went with the flow.

No time yesterday out in the train shed. I'm getting itchy as I haven't really spent any quality time out there since Saturday.

Patrick - I know that you don't have any control over what happens when you take vacation time, but use it up anyway. Don't burn out.
Tom O - So which of you voted for more winners yesterday?
If you make the Gulf Shores trip next week, you need to make some time on either Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday to visit the historical museum a few miles north in Foley; to see the very extensive O scale model train layout. The museum is less than a block off Alabama State Highway 59, the main road into town.
Regarding your son and the property in Wimberley TX. That's a pretty small town and the realtor probably represents everybody.
I have toyed with the idea of shorting the market like Terry, but I don't understand it enough to jump in.

Well, the front hit but not with as much hoopla as predicted. It's just a slow unsteady rain instead of the thunderstorm that was expected. Things could change though. Looks like under a tenth of an inch in the gauge.
Today would have been Marvin Gaye's 85th birthday had he not been shot to death by his own father.
Everyone have a great Wednesday.
 
It got down to upper 20s F overnight. Sensor outside says 37F right now at 9:30am. It flurried last night but I don’t think anything measurable. Whatever it’s probably it melted by now. I just saw the flurries out the window last night.

My daughter has a water polo tournament down in Cedar City. That’s a 3 1/2 hour drive from here through the mountains down I-15. It’s basically I-15 the whole way. Weather is supposed to start warming up a little so the passage through the mountains should be ok.

The tournament starts tomorrow and the first game is at 10am. We’re leaving at 5:30am as they’re supposed to be at games about an hour early. Originally we thought the tournament started Friday morning for some reason so when I booked the hotel I got it for Thursday and Friday evening and we were going to leave Thursday afternoon. Then earlier this week we got an email with the game schedule…. Wife and daughter said not try and get another night and try and leave Wednesday evening after wife gets home from work so we decided to get up and leave super early. We’ll be in bed tonight by 8pm.

Got a little bit more done on my throttle app. I have a small side gig I need to be working on worth about 1500-1800. So I spent the evening on that. It’s an app to help you stop or reduce your alcohol consumption. It’s owned by a professor who studies this sort of thing and I was part of the team and did most of the work on the original app about 12-13 years ago. At the time his investment team kind of fell apart after a while and the consulting company I was working with didn’t want to keep the app so it turned it over to the guy who we write it for. He’s hired me off and on since to take new versions as well as specialized study versions for two different VA hospitals and a university in New Zealand and one or two other special labeled versions. A few years ago he hired an off shore team to revamp it and also provide an Android version and I was not directly involved with that revamping. Though I was still “on his team “ and had direct access to the code repositories and was his check on what they were doing. So the version currently in the App Store for iPhone is this revamped version he had them do. It was last updated about 2 years ago.

So I downloaded the the code last night and have been trying to build it. It has it been touched h a few years and it uses an open source library for plotting graphs. The library has not been updated in about 4 years and Apple has changed some stuff (deprecated some stuff and changed some calls as well as made changes in the tools we use). These changes have made it so that I have not been able to build it yet. Can’t start to make my changes until I can build the thing. So that’s my job right now.

I should start a round of job interviews this coming week with a well know larger internet based company. They’d be an interesting place to work and not one I would have ever thought I’d be talking to 10 years ago or even a year ago. The recruiter with wh I had spoken Monday got back to me yesterday that the hiring manager wanted me to start their process of interviews and since I’m out of town I told them I could start this next week. We’ll see what happens.
 
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Good morning, all! I feel, I don't know................ so liberated. The weather is warming up for the next few days with a 90 thrown in. Over the weekend a front will drop temps back int the 40's at night.

I have started the third Mudd Creek kit. I haven't taken a photo yet, but this is from their web site.
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David - Good to hear the news "no C"

STAY SAFE
LATER
 
Morning folks

33, snowing reasonably hard, and 38 for a high. More than a little melancholy this morning from both me and the canines. A little slow out of the starting blocks with the adjustment to an entirely different regime. But I did get 8 hrs of sleep, first time that has happened for a year and a half.

There is a long list of things that need done in town this morning, including getting another phone. The flip phone Verizon sent me to get me off 3G had a rather hastily arranged meeting with the rock wall out front a week back. When trying to enter numbers, you would get from zero to about six digits with every touch-but it dutifully beeped each time. I don't need anything fancy and will probably get an Galaxy A16 if that doesn't require a contract. If it does, it will be another cheapo flip phone for the month and the A16 will be on a different carrier next month. Obviously way better deals out there than we get though Verizon.

bnsf971 said:
If April Showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring?











New neighbors...
Click to expand...
Hay fever
 
Good mornin' crew. It's 31 and mostly sunny here in Cheyenne this morning. Wind chill is at 21 and winds are WNW @ 23 gusting to 47. Windy & cold... High wind warnings west of here. I-80 closed in several places. Slight chance of precipitation remainder of the week but maybe into the 70s early next week.

Today is our 49th Anniversary. Forty-nine years and still going. Thank You Nurse Judy (ret) for putting up with me for all these years. Love You Sweetheart! ❤️❤️ Nothin' fancy just dinner tonight.

That's about it from the other Windy City.. Y'all have a good day and take care.
 


santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 72°, kinda warm. Weather forecast abruptly changed yesterday with the thunderstorms moved to last night and no rain today! Didn't happen. But it looks like the rain will happen here about 8:30 in line with what was originally predicted. This is the front that hit Patrick a few hours ago. Still have thunderstorms in the forecast for the next 3 days.

All of yesterday's plans went astray early in the day. The trip to the feed store has been postponed to today. The rest of the day went differently all due to an unexpected visit. Nothing really bad or anything, I just went with the flow.

No time yesterday out in the train shed. I'm getting itchy as I haven't really spent any quality time out there since Saturday.

Patrick - I know that you don't have any control over what happens when you take vacation time, but use it up anyway. Don't burn out.
Tom O - So which of you voted for more winners yesterday?
If you make the Gulf Shores trip next week, you need to make some time on either Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday to visit the historical museum a few miles north in Foley; to see the very extensive O scale model train layout. The museum is less than a block off Alabama State Highway 59, the main road into town.
Regarding your son and the property in Wimberley TX. That's a pretty small town and the realtor probably represents everybody.
I have toyed with the idea of shorting the market like Terry, but I don't understand it enough to jump in.

Well, the front hit but not with as much hoopla as predicted. It's just a slow unsteady rain instead of the thunderstorm that was expected. Things could change though. Looks like under a tenth of an inch in the gauge.
Today would have been Marvin Gaye's 85th birthday had he not been shot to death by his own father.
Everyone have a great Wednesday.
Click to expand...
She got me by 1
 
santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 72°, kinda warm. Weather forecast abruptly changed yesterday with the thunderstorms moved to last night and no rain today! Didn't happen. But it looks like the rain will happen here about 8:30 in line with what was originally predicted. This is the front that hit Patrick a few hours ago. Still have thunderstorms in the forecast for the next 3 days.

All of yesterday's plans went astray early in the day. The trip to the feed store has been postponed to today. The rest of the day went differently all due to an unexpected visit. Nothing really bad or anything, I just went with the flow.

No time yesterday out in the train shed. I'm getting itchy as I haven't really spent any quality time out there since Saturday.

Patrick - I know that you don't have any control over what happens when you take vacation time, but use it up anyway. Don't burn out.
Tom O - So which of you voted for more winners yesterday?
If you make the Gulf Shores trip next week, you need to make some time on either Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday to visit the historical museum a few miles north in Foley; to see the very extensive O scale model train layout. The museum is less than a block off Alabama State Highway 59, the main road into town.
Regarding your son and the property in Wimberley TX. That's a pretty small town and the realtor probably represents everybody.
I have toyed with the idea of shorting the market like Terry, but I don't understand it enough to jump in.

Well, the front hit but not with as much hoopla as predicted. It's just a slow unsteady rain instead of the thunderstorm that was expected. Things could change though. Looks like under a tenth of an inch in the gauge.
Today would have been Marvin Gaye's 85th birthday had he not been shot to death by his own father.
Everyone have a great Wednesday.
Click to expand...
I don’t understand it or maybe I just don’t want to understand shorting! But the money she is making sure is nice. But all things come to an end and that’s the real timing issue. If we travel though she will have to get out if the timing is good. If not we’ll stay home until we can

The son made the offer at 5% less than the original offer. He trusts this realtor as she was the one who bent over backwards to help him find his 1st place in Austin. But the realtors in Texas do operate under a different set of ethics and rules to Wisconsin.

I was going to check in with you about the gulf shores area. Terry’s friends who live there prefer just to stay basically in their area. We like to explore. We are making no plans until both our doctors next week ok we can go. I may finally get to stop in Bentonville home of WalMart. I want to see the Crystal Bridges Muesum of American Art



.
 
TLOC said:
I don’t understand it or maybe I just don’t want to understand shorting! But the money she is making sure is nice. But all things come to an end and that’s the real timing issue. If we travel though she will have to get out if the timing is good. If not we’ll stay home until we can

The son made the offer at 5% less than the original offer. He trusts this realtor as she was the one who bent over backwards to help him find his 1st place in Austin. But the realtors in Texas do operate under a different set of ethics and rules to Wisconsin.

I was going to check in with you about the gulf shores area. Terry’s friends who live there prefer just to stay basically in their area. We like to explore. We are making no plans until both our doctors next week ok we can go. I may finally get to stop in Bentonville home of WalMart. I want to see the Crystal Bridges Muesum of American Art



.
Click to expand...
It's more of a buyers market in Austin right now. Good timing for your son.

In February 2025, Austin's housing market saw a median sale price of $512,500, a slight decrease year-over-year, with 557 homes sold, down 18.2% compared to the previous year, and a median time on market of 89 days.
Key Market Indicators (February 2025):
  • Median Sale Price: $512,500 (down 0.49% year-over-year)
  • Number of Homes Sold: 557 (down 18.2% year-over-year)
  • Median Days on Market: 89 days (up from 84 days last year)
  • Sale-to-List Price Ratio: 99.59%
  • Months of Inventory: 4.84
  • New Listings: 2,226 in the last 30 days (up 22.2% year-over-year)
  • Total Homes for Sale: 5,730 (up 13.2% compared to last year)
  • Median sale price: $547,026 (January 31, 2025)
  • Median list price: $556,633 (February 28, 2025)
  • Median days to pending: 70 (February 28, 2025)
 


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