Running Bear's April 2025 Coffee Shop

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Hello Crew! It’s a gloomy start to what might be a nasty day. 20 minutes into the walk the group decided to turn around and head back. The goal this week is to walk 30 minutes and turn back retracing the route. Normally we walk 2 or 3 mile loops. All the walking and bike trails are well marked in miles and meters, so we know how far we’ve gone. Our area as is most of Wisconsin today under a Category 3 severe storm warning. Some areas north of me are under a 4! Until yesterday I have never heard a Spring or Summer Storm classified this way. Our winds are steady at 20mph but gusts are in the high 30’s. Tonight though (after 7) the category 3 warning turns to Tornado and heavy hail warnings. I think it maybe a nasty day outside.

My grass is flourishing. It was cut last Thursday but needs it again. I am under doctors orders not to do it. The grandson this season is doing it. But with the storms coming I’m thinking of using the tractor to cut instead of the push mower. But I will wait for Terry’s opinion when she wakes soon. My restrictions end next week so if I ride I doubt a week early is harmful. But I’ll get a 2nd opinion as that’s what every medical decision has demanded this year! I wouldn’t cut before 8 anyway but I will have the discussion

The grandson had 2 soccer games at home yesterday. They lost game 1, 2-3 with the grandson scoring once. Game 2 was cancelled by the other team 15 minutes before it started by phone from the other team. They decided it was too much to play 3 games yesterday in 2 different cities!

Enjoy the day
 


54 and light rain in Sandstone. Good possibility of severe weather all day, weather man wants us glued to our screen all day just in case...

Sounds like Tom is under the same alert, so far only a couple sprinkles

Do the ever wonder how we survived without a handheld device?

Some problems again with the ten wheeler, I recleaned the tracks and loco wheels, turns out the tender wheels picked up something or just needed a good once over

Will be running trains and packing for the camping trip

Later, Dave LASM
 
Morning all,

68° and mostly cloudy, humidity of 93%. High of 80° later with possible storms late evening into the overnight.

Meeting Friday was OK. Found a free parking spot a block or so from the meeting site. Sadly I still had to walk.

Garden doing pretty well.
20250425_191857[1].jpg


From Left to right:

Big plants are Okra, space has 2 rows of parsnips, Next 2 rows are beets, and finally, 2 rows of very tiny carrots.
I planted them heavy as sometimes older seed doesn't come up as well.

I planted the 2 pepper plants I got from the daughter on Saturday, and the bought the tomato plants which still need to be planted. Once they're placed, I'll plant the green beans.

Terry: Only going to get worse I think. Discretionary spending has basically been shut down by a lot of folks.
 
Good Morning All. It's mostly cloudy and a warmish 71° this morning. Still looking at low-80's for a high today. Long range forecast has thunderstorms for 7 of the next 10 days, but the NWS has a lousy track record around here.

Busy day yesterday, mowed the south side, used the weedeater some more, and ran the electric push mower for another 45 minutes until the battery needed recharging. I really need to buy a second battery. I asked the Ryobi rep, who was at HD one day, about that and she said that it would be cheaper to just buy a leaf blower with the same size battery rather than buying another battery. Almost finished the t-post installation and got the first 12 Tomato cages up before I ran out of working will. I'm having to repair many of the cages which were bent out of shape when the train shed roof blew past them during last year's tornado event. At least that can be done from the comfort of a lawn chair.
More of the same today, the east side should be dry enough for the tractor mower today.

After finally taking a break, I retreated to the train shed and started on the P2K freight car build. I built an identical car (except for the reporting marks) back in February, so some pictures might be redundant. P2K kits have a lot of very detailed parts and they recommend using a singe-edged razor blade to remove them instead of a sprue nipper. Good advice and I don't have a sprue nipper anyway. Working for a window company gave me access to more razor blades than I will use in a lifetime. We bought many and the salesman gave me several boxes of 100.
First was removing and trimming the larger, easily identifiable parts that were familiar, since I have built at least 2 dozen of this particular car.
1745844366020.jpeg

Still have to trim the molding posts off those end cages. Many parts are quite tiny.
1745844474792.jpeg

These pieces of brake piping have given me trouble in the past.
1745844534338.jpeg

But I managed to at least get them off and trimmed without breaking either this time.
1745844642328.jpeg

Haven't installed them yet.
Some parts are separate that could just as easily been molded on are the shaker brackets, but in LifeLike's zeal to capture details, they are separate.
1745844809014.jpeg

They have a specific orientation which is hard to actually see.
1745844883027.jpeg

1745844896020.jpeg

I nailed all six this time without dropping any on the floor.
I have also learned with the first kits that I built 20 years ago, to ream out all of the mounting holes before gluing other parts in.

David - Good news regarding Dawn, hoping that the recovery continues rapidly.
John - Regarding Icky Twerp; it was a real surprise to me when I saw him live at some kind of parade and discovered that he had red hair! Not sure if The Slam Bang Theater was ever in color, since we didn't get a color TV until the late 60's; but channel 11 was the first in the DFW area to actually broadcast some things in color.
Justin - Glad that you were able to finally climb out of the woodwork! Good luck with the housing hunt.
Troy - I had read that Bernard of MiniPrints just drove over to NY to mail his stuff, thus saving US customers from the oppressive Canadian international postal rates. Looks like it will work for any tariffs as well, if they apply to that kind of stuff.
Karl - Hope that the cardiologist visit is a positive one. Good luck.

Everyone have a safe Monday.
 
Good Morning All. It's mostly cloudy and a warmish 71° this morning. Still looking at low-80's for a high today. Long range forecast has thunderstorms for 7 of the next 10 days, but the NWS has a lousy track record around here.

Busy day yesterday, mowed the south side, used the weedeater some more, and ran the electric push mower for another 45 minutes until the battery needed recharging. I really need to buy a second battery. I asked the Ryobi rep, who was at HD one day, about that and she said that it would be cheaper to just buy a leaf blower with the same size battery rather than buying another battery. Almost finished the t-post installation and got the first 12 Tomato cages up before I ran out of working will. I'm having to repair many of the cages which were bent out of shape when the train shed roof blew past them during last year's tornado event. At least that can be done from the comfort of a lawn chair.
More of the same today, the east side should be dry enough for the tractor mower today.

After finally taking a break, I retreated to the train shed and started on the P2K freight car build. I built an identical car (except for the reporting marks) back in February, so some pictures might be redundant. P2K kits have a lot of very detailed parts and they recommend using a singe-edged razor blade to remove them instead of a sprue nipper. Good advice and I don't have a sprue nipper anyway. Working for a window company gave me access to more razor blades than I will use in a lifetime. We bought many and the salesman gave me several boxes of 100.
First was removing and trimming the larger, easily identifiable parts that were familiar, since I have built at least 2 dozen of this particular car.
View attachment 217742
Still have to trim the molding posts off those end cages. Many parts are quite tiny.
View attachment 217743
These pieces of brake piping have given me trouble in the past.
View attachment 217744
But I managed to at least get them off and trimmed without breaking either this time.
View attachment 217745
Haven't installed them yet.
Some parts are separate that could just as easily been molded on are the shaker brackets, but in LifeLike's zeal to capture details, they are separate.
View attachment 217746
They have a specific orientation which is hard to actually see.
View attachment 217747
View attachment 217748
I nailed all six this time without dropping any on the floor.
I have also learned with the first kits that I built 20 years ago, to ream out all of the mounting holes before gluing other parts in.

David - Good news regarding Dawn, hoping that the recovery continues rapidly.
John - Regarding Icky Twerp; it was a real surprise to me when I saw him live at some kind of parade and discovered that he had red hair! Not sure if The Slam Bang Theater was ever in color, since we didn't get a color TV until the late 60's; but channel 11 was the first in the DFW area to actually broadcast some things in color.
Justin - Glad that you were able to finally climb out of the woodwork! Good luck with the housing hunt.
Troy - I had read that Bernard of MiniPrints just drove over to NY to mail his stuff, thus saving US customers from the oppressive Canadian international postal rates. Looks like it will work for any tariffs as well, if they apply to that kind of stuff.
Karl - Hope that the cardiologist visit is a positive one. Good luck.

Everyone have a safe Monday.
Some of those tiny parts got installed upside down in mine...

I didn't figure it out until I had it completed.

It is a beautiful model!
 
We're back from Santa Barbara. My wife and I agree that there STILL aren't any ugly women there. We probably won't be going back for a long time. It's kind of lost its surf town vibe. It's definitely has the "American Riviera" vibe now. It's still as beautiful as ever, but we felt out of place this time almost like tourists instead of former locals.

The view from our room. Warf to the left and the harbor to the right.
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Look what I just got in my text!


IMG_1403748248FB-1.jpeg


The interesting part is I was just plotting the route from NE Indiana to Gettysburg PA next month... Debating on shaving about 40+ minutes off with the PA turnpike or whatever the toll road is. Tried to look up what the tolls would be for one way , and saw a $60+ price tag. For that much, I'll take the slower US 30 ??? route. Unfortunately, that's going to be a 10 hour drive by the time I factor in coffee and negative-coffee stops.
 


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