Boris
Beach Bum
George: yard looks good.
Running Bear's April 2025 Coffee Shop
- Thread starter Bill Tidler Jr.
- Start date
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Good morning! It's 55°F and partly cloudy in Tipton. 
I have done some substantial tuning up on my old Varney 10 wheeler and it is running like a top. It has an original brand new motor, the rods assembly was screwed up and that has been sorted out.
I am good with that one as my main road engine, for my prototype for the track i am modelling is the ALCO S-10, mfg year 1905, this old Varney has plenty of similarities.
The CDF used OV-10 Broncos for spotter planes and when you saw one circling overhead it caused some anxiety. If you saw flatbeds with a D9's coming you knew the fire was close. If you had a tanker fly over your house you followed it to the smoke and decided if it was time to pack up. The American River canyon was only about 1/2 mile from us and a lot of fires started there. Hikers & gold miners parked their hot catalytic converters in not so smart areas.
Our home owners insurance dropped 70% when we moved to OR.
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Bill Tidler Jr.
Retired N&W/NS Signalman
migalyto
Well-Known Member
Good morning all!
Happy Hump Day!
Early morning thunderstorms moved thru the area at around 3am. The rain is supposed to be stopping here soon according to the
radar. Good news is, its supposed to hit the mid 70s again today.
I ended up mowing the yard again last night. It really didn't need it, but I wanted to get rid of the excess clipping
from the last two times it was cut and it was so long. Good call on that. With overnight rain and thunderstorms,
it looked like it grew 2" overnight.
We shall see what the day brings.
Have a safe day everyone!
Happy Hump Day!
Early morning thunderstorms moved thru the area at around 3am. The rain is supposed to be stopping here soon according to the
radar. Good news is, its supposed to hit the mid 70s again today.
I ended up mowing the yard again last night. It really didn't need it, but I wanted to get rid of the excess clipping
from the last two times it was cut and it was so long. Good call on that. With overnight rain and thunderstorms,
it looked like it grew 2" overnight.
We shall see what the day brings.
Have a safe day everyone!
logandsawman
Northern Pacific history enthusiast
Good morning, 38f and sunny in Sandstone mn.
Boris and all, thanks for the warm welcome!
It is day 3 of my first full week of retirement, wifey feels a bit bossey, we both have adjustments to make. The biggest being accepting the new title "retired".
Honestly, it feels pretty good. Will be painting backdrop #4 today, that is really going to dress up the train shed.
More later, Dave LASM
Boris and all, thanks for the warm welcome!
It is day 3 of my first full week of retirement, wifey feels a bit bossey, we both have adjustments to make. The biggest being accepting the new title "retired".
Honestly, it feels pretty good. Will be painting backdrop #4 today, that is really going to dress up the train shed.
More later, Dave LASM
NYC_George
Well-Known Member
I see you got a big fire going there Boris. All over the news last night.
Swal
Swal
kbkchooch
Verified Human
Good morning my fellow heathens!
52° and partly sunny, heading to the upper 70s! The dogs and I had Taco Bell for dinner last night, as wifey was at the grandson's baseball game which started an hour before I got home around 5:30. She rolled in around 8 after they called the game a tie because of darkness and no lights on the field. The dogs and the cat and I were all flaked out on the reclining couch. No trains last night.
Wife has 5 years beyond that so after I retire I get 5 years of peace and quiet!
Boris, what's going on with the fire?? Hope it's not close to you.
BBL
52° and partly sunny, heading to the upper 70s! The dogs and I had Taco Bell for dinner last night, as wifey was at the grandson's baseball game which started an hour before I got home around 5:30. She rolled in around 8 after they called the game a tie because of darkness and no lights on the field. The dogs and the cat and I were all flaked out on the reclining couch. No trains last night.
I'm jealous! I still have 2 years, 9 months, 7 days, 15 hours and 20 minutes remaining before I "get out of jail". But who's counting!
Wife has 5 years beyond that so after I retire I get 5 years of peace and quiet!
Boris, what's going on with the fire?? Hope it's not close to you.
BBL
KriegslokBR52
Well-Known Member
Now you have time to build that Northern Pacific decapod.
TLOC
Well-Known Member
Good morning from Wisconsin. It looks like Mike’s (MIGALYTO) rain has crossed the Illinois border and is about an hour away. Right now it’s a beautiful 50f degrees, the breeze is at 2mph and again this afternoon we are looking at 70 degrees. The walk this morning was pleasant
This morning I will be over at the house under construction. The pool company wants to come out and survey the spot the pool is going. They were not going to start until August but they had 2 cancellations and 1 delay. The pool is about 120’ from the house so any new excavation work will not interfere with the current construction inside the house. The build time on the pool start to finish is 8 to 12 weeks in this area
I have a few diesels for 3 clients I am waiting for approvals on so I can package them up, put labels are them and have the daughter ship. I’m not asking if they want them earlier but they are aware I’m gone most of May and early June. These are regulars so they know they can get them any time after they are ready. If not they will go out on the scheduled dates
The wire is cut for the trees. My twisting jig needs some work on it. I got 10 armatures tightly twisted yesterday but the jig is wonky and after the 1st game ( (Ottawa/Toronto) I pulled it apart. So I doubt I’ll get anything done on the trees today. I have 2 sections drawn for the paper mill and I gave them to the daughter last night. She will give them to her drafts person today to convert to what she can use on the laser. Before I draw any more I will wait to see how these sections get burned.
Enjoy your day
This morning I will be over at the house under construction. The pool company wants to come out and survey the spot the pool is going. They were not going to start until August but they had 2 cancellations and 1 delay. The pool is about 120’ from the house so any new excavation work will not interfere with the current construction inside the house. The build time on the pool start to finish is 8 to 12 weeks in this area
I have a few diesels for 3 clients I am waiting for approvals on so I can package them up, put labels are them and have the daughter ship. I’m not asking if they want them earlier but they are aware I’m gone most of May and early June. These are regulars so they know they can get them any time after they are ready. If not they will go out on the scheduled dates
The wire is cut for the trees. My twisting jig needs some work on it. I got 10 armatures tightly twisted yesterday but the jig is wonky and after the 1st game ( (Ottawa/Toronto) I pulled it apart. So I doubt I’ll get anything done on the trees today. I have 2 sections drawn for the paper mill and I gave them to the daughter last night. She will give them to her drafts person today to convert to what she can use on the laser. Before I draw any more I will wait to see how these sections get burned.
Enjoy your day
ctclibby
Well-Known Member
Good Morning All!
31F @ 67% clear and blue. To 65F later today.
DaveLASM: From what I am seeing right now, keeping yourself busy is not going to be a problem. As a suggestion, and since you could carve out some time - grab the wifey and take her for a 'lets look at scenery, rocks and mountains' ride. Of course, RR's always seem to be in that scenery. Maria loves it, she takes her Kindle along and sits under some tree and reads while I wait for trains or take pix of surrounding structures..etc. When we do that, we always seem to find some Ma&Pa diner/dive to eat. Makes life really tough!
Nissan has new front hubs - couple hours of rolling around on the ground yesterday practically killed me. Oh well, probably good for me anywho. Today is the passenger side headlight assembly. When that is done, I B done with vehicles for the time being.
I wondered what my parents did to overcome boredom before the social Internet came to being. So, asked my 23 siblings - they didn't know either.
L8r
31F @ 67% clear and blue. To 65F later today.
DaveLASM: From what I am seeing right now, keeping yourself busy is not going to be a problem. As a suggestion, and since you could carve out some time - grab the wifey and take her for a 'lets look at scenery, rocks and mountains' ride. Of course, RR's always seem to be in that scenery. Maria loves it, she takes her Kindle along and sits under some tree and reads while I wait for trains or take pix of surrounding structures..etc. When we do that, we always seem to find some Ma&Pa diner/dive to eat. Makes life really tough!
Nissan has new front hubs - couple hours of rolling around on the ground yesterday practically killed me. Oh well, probably good for me anywho. Today is the passenger side headlight assembly. When that is done, I B done with vehicles for the time being.
I wondered what my parents did to overcome boredom before the social Internet came to being. So, asked my 23 siblings - they didn't know either.
L8r
logandsawman
Northern Pacific history enthusiast
I need to "finish" the train shed first.
I have done some substantial tuning up on my old Varney 10 wheeler and it is running like a top. It has an original brand new motor, the rods assembly was screwed up and that has been sorted out.
I am good with that one as my main road engine, for my prototype for the track i am modelling is the ALCO S-10, mfg year 1905, this old Varney has plenty of similarities.
Boris
Beach Bum
This morning it has spread to Lacy and Waretown...and wind is negligible.....Imagine that the Earth Day Wild Fire, started by a division of the State Environment Protection Agency. You cannot make this stuff up! Turns out it quickly got away from them at the start, and they did not make an attempt to stop it, nor call in mutual aid. As of 0800, the Parkway is still closed between 80 and 60 in Ocean County...Good Job people.
I'm very familiar with wildfires. We lived about 4 years 2,000ft up in the Sierras. My wife's company had a division about 10 miles down from us. Our little 300 person hillbilly community was about half way between Sacramento and Reno and the whole area was a designated wilderness wildfire area. No fire hydrants and only volunteer fire departments. We were all on wells and a lot of us had sprinklers on our roofs.
The CDF used OV-10 Broncos for spotter planes and when you saw one circling overhead it caused some anxiety. If you saw flatbeds with a D9's coming you knew the fire was close. If you had a tanker fly over your house you followed it to the smoke and decided if it was time to pack up. The American River canyon was only about 1/2 mile from us and a lot of fires started there. Hikers & gold miners parked their hot catalytic converters in not so smart areas.
Our home owners insurance dropped 70% when we moved to OR.
Boris
Beach Bum
No, not that close, but if the wind changes we will get the smoke. The problem here is that these same people normally do controlled burns a lot closer to us, and two years ago the same thing happened in Jackson, and the resulting smoke about choked us.
santafewillie
Same Ol' Buzzard
Good Morning All. Light rain and 61°. Thunderstorms could be heard coming from the west turned into just rain by the time they got here around 0500. From the porch it looks like 0.6" in the gauge and it is still raining. The rain will stop completely soon, but cloudy and rainy for the next 6-10 days, if the NWS is correct. I expect a few of those days might have a bit of sunshine, but not for long. Like I posted yesterday, our humid season has begun.
Looks like I'll have time for indoor projects today. First up will be refrigerator maintenance. I had intended to install a new water filter last week, but just didn't get to it. That will be this morning. I also need to adjust the legs to make it just a bit out of level to keep the door from slamming shut so hard. Maybe my wife won't notice and I can get some extra time out in the train shed.
Started off yesterday with the dishwasher once again while waiting for the dew to dry. After lunch and a nap, I started mowing the back yard and the SW part of the yard. Disaster struck shortly before finishing. Blades quit spinning and mower also came to a halt. The blade belt, which was on it's last leg anyway, jumped off and it jumped up and dislodged the drive belt. Not a real issue with the blade belt, as I have reinstalled it before, but this time it was damaged too badly to use. OK though, I have a spare new one ready to go. Simply putting it back in place is easy, but installing a new one takes two people. But the drive belt is beyond my ability to reinstall. It wasn't damaged, just came off. So up the road to see Bubba, who has his own repair business. He was making progress with the drive belt, but hit a snag, when his drinking buddy and his son saw Bubba's ATV parked in my yard, so they stopped. Ray's son who is much younger and more limber jumped in to help and they got the drive belt back in place. The blade belt was a bit more stubborn, but it eventually got done when I got a small screwdriver to line up the pin holes to reinsert the main mounting pin. Reinstalled the rear wheel and all is now good. But it is 2 hours that I won't recover.
Needless to say, I did not make it into the train shed yesterday except to retrieve a round of beer for the crew.
Marlin -
Dave - Great to see you back in the Coffee Shop. I retired 7 years before my wife did, but navigating the home life was somewhat easy since she worked as an H&R Blockhead and was home for 8 1/2 months a year already.
Karl - There was no real "magic number" for my retirement. I just decided to do it when I was 63.5 because I was ready.
A lot of banter about retirement here in the Coffee Shop the last few days. I can only offer one bit of advice to anyone getting close who is financially ready. Have a plan. Know ahead what some of your retirement goals are going to be. Traveling, crafts, hobbies or volunteer work, etc. Plan on more than one thing. Don't just stop working and think that life will fall in place. I had an ex-supervisor who had retired from three jobs before coming to work for our company. He most famously said that "you can only go fishing so many days a week"! He had no plan and kept going back to work. He found another job after he was involuntarily let go from our company. He was 74 at the time. He didn't need the money as he was already covered by two generous pensions, a 401k, SS and military benefits.
William Shakespeare is 461 years old today.
Everyone have a great Tuesday.
Looks like I'll have time for indoor projects today. First up will be refrigerator maintenance. I had intended to install a new water filter last week, but just didn't get to it. That will be this morning. I also need to adjust the legs to make it just a bit out of level to keep the door from slamming shut so hard. Maybe my wife won't notice and I can get some extra time out in the train shed.
Started off yesterday with the dishwasher once again while waiting for the dew to dry. After lunch and a nap, I started mowing the back yard and the SW part of the yard. Disaster struck shortly before finishing. Blades quit spinning and mower also came to a halt. The blade belt, which was on it's last leg anyway, jumped off and it jumped up and dislodged the drive belt. Not a real issue with the blade belt, as I have reinstalled it before, but this time it was damaged too badly to use. OK though, I have a spare new one ready to go. Simply putting it back in place is easy, but installing a new one takes two people. But the drive belt is beyond my ability to reinstall. It wasn't damaged, just came off. So up the road to see Bubba, who has his own repair business. He was making progress with the drive belt, but hit a snag, when his drinking buddy and his son saw Bubba's ATV parked in my yard, so they stopped. Ray's son who is much younger and more limber jumped in to help and they got the drive belt back in place. The blade belt was a bit more stubborn, but it eventually got done when I got a small screwdriver to line up the pin holes to reinsert the main mounting pin. Reinstalled the rear wheel and all is now good. But it is 2 hours that I won't recover.
Needless to say, I did not make it into the train shed yesterday except to retrieve a round of beer for the crew.
Marlin -
Simultaneously???
Dave - Great to see you back in the Coffee Shop. I retired 7 years before my wife did, but navigating the home life was somewhat easy since she worked as an H&R Blockhead and was home for 8 1/2 months a year already.
Karl - There was no real "magic number" for my retirement. I just decided to do it when I was 63.5 because I was ready.
A lot of banter about retirement here in the Coffee Shop the last few days. I can only offer one bit of advice to anyone getting close who is financially ready. Have a plan. Know ahead what some of your retirement goals are going to be. Traveling, crafts, hobbies or volunteer work, etc. Plan on more than one thing. Don't just stop working and think that life will fall in place. I had an ex-supervisor who had retired from three jobs before coming to work for our company. He most famously said that "you can only go fishing so many days a week"! He had no plan and kept going back to work. He found another job after he was involuntarily let go from our company. He was 74 at the time. He didn't need the money as he was already covered by two generous pensions, a 401k, SS and military benefits.
William Shakespeare is 461 years old today.
Everyone have a great Tuesday.
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