Running Bear's August 2021 Coffee Shop

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Christian- That would work well with a couple of small business's.
it's already planned

920A.jpg
 
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Willie: I guess living in the country you have a regular opportunity to catch stuff. I've only ever had that one experience where I caught 2 squirrels (or the same one twice more like it) that got into the house... My investment in the trap didn't really pay off in terms of catch per dollar.

Today (still Saturday here) I basically walked around stores. First off to Lowe's, to try and find a big nail to make a punch with (by dremeling off the pointy end). It was supposed to be about 8", from what I could remember, so I found a big 8" nail. Unfortunately, when I got home after a trip to Costco (with the family, and lunch at the food court there), the nail was a tad too fat for the purpose I needed it.

I buy the gas for the cars in the family as I have the big %-back on gas credit card and for my son, we also partially subsidize his gasoline if I pay for it -- if he pays he pays for it all (so he can save more for his upcoming university costs and also because a fair amount of driving he does is stuff we would otherwise have to drive him or his sister to, and he saves us the time by helping drive his sister etc). Anyway, he needed gas (small Honda Fit that used to belong to my dad, and does not have a large tank) so we went to the Murphy Express and filled up his car and mine (unfortunately, my HV battery was empty -- being a PHEV I like to drive in EV mode into the gas station and fill up and then drive out in EV mode 🤣 ).

We then went to the WalMart that is near the gas station so I could get a bottle of motor oil (again, for the same need as the punch, which I will explain below), and my son and I walked around looking at stuff for a while. Then he went home and I drove to Home Depot to find a large nail and found the next smaller size, which I fear is a bit small -- 6" long, but was all they had. I also walked around Home Depot for a good long time trying to get inspiration for exterior door styles, lighting, etc. Then I remembered I had forgotten some stuff at WalMart, so stopped by there and walked around some more and got some groceries as well as the important stuff and went home. My watch, which tracks activity,claimed I was already around 9600 steps for the day, After my evening walk I was over 16000 steps. I am usually around 8000 or 9000 for the day including evening walk. So I spent the day walking around Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, and Costco. The important stuff from the second trip to WalMart was an anniversary card and some chocolates. Tomorrow is anniversary 21 for me and the misses. We'll do some other stuff like a nice meal later this week when the schedules fit. But I didn't want to completely miss it and be in the doghouse tomorrow.

To the big nails and oil I fetched today: A friend of mine has a Dillon RL 550B reloading press I sold him about 10 years ago (I am a Dillon dealer). He managed to crack the crank piece on the handle mechanism and Dillon sent me a warranty replacement crank and talked me through the replacement process. I had been over at his place last night trying to do it but we needed to remove some big pivot pins and the suggestion form their "deep cleaning and lube of your RL 550B press" video was to use a big honking nail ground flat on the end. We tried old screw drivers and a other bits but could not get it to budge, so today I went looking for the big nail. I did get the two smaller ones, but hopefully beefy enough, and took the tips off with the dremel tool, but when I texted him I finally had the bits I did not hear back from him, so I did not get it taken care of tonight as planned. The motor oil I fetched at WalMart is also for the press -- to lube the ram on the press t hey recommend a 30W motor oil. I've always used a heavy gun oil but they don't recommend that and his was kind of dry so I figured we should get a bottle of oil and I'll leave him a squeeze bottle full and use the rest on my presses. I think he cracked the crank because I think his pivot joints in the crank and everywhere actually had gotten a bit dry and he had not followed up with the lubrication, and was over exerting himself trying to operate it with the extra friction which strained the crank piece. (I don't blame him -- not easy to re-grease these parts though I will do a better job with my own presses and lube them better than I have).
 
Greetings all,

Recovering from the VBS week - takes a lot outta a guy. Finished Friday, and had to go straight home change in to ritual squad uniform and go to the VFW post for a commemorative service. Family knew I was a pastor so asked if I would conduct a memorial. Glad to help. Got home, tried to rest for a bit, then wife got home. Had two large-ish whiskies, a nice halibut dinner, one glass of wine. Then a relaxing bath sounded good. Too good, as she poked in her head and found me asleep. So off to bed and sound asleep before 20:00 (8pm). She stayed up and finished the bottle of wine and watched some movie about Motley Crue she had heard about from a social gather of work mates.

Yesterday she went off and left me to work on the layout. It was a day of one step forward, two steps back. While installing one electromagnet uncoupler, bumped one of the frog feeders installed the other day and it fell off. So had to pry up that TO and resolder the feeder wire and glue it down. So for about five hours work, I re-installed one TO, installed two EM uncouplers, and laid one straight of about 42 inches. At this rate I might finish the yard by my 70th birthday in 2030.

PHILOSOPHY [read at own risk] - - - - I think there is a relation between my new found passion for layout and my older passion for golf. Both require lots of time and good tools. Both require varying skills which are never perfected. Both Of those varying skills, it seems that certain ones are always just out of synch. I always say if I could put all my good shots together, I'd have a hell of a golf round, but always something seems to be misfiring. Seems the same may prove true for RR-ing! One day, my soldering ability is stellar, but I can't slip a joiner on the end of a rail! So you seasoned vets out there, does the skill set ever come together?

I do like the Larry Puckett "DCC Guy" video series. Watching him seems to give me experience. Seeing certain tasks done, and not just reading about them helps me, at any rate.

Cheers all. Some blessed rain yesterday and this morning! - - - - - Steve J
 
Good Morning!
It's one of those maybe it will rain, maybe it won't rain kind of days, with a solid overcast sky. The cloud looks too light in color to be rain cloud, and it don't smell like rain. It's 52F; I'm enjoying the cooler temperatures.

Raboliot - I can't help but think that having a whole bunch of pizza layouts and a 7'+ small switching layout, is basically the same thing as having a reasonably sized working layout if you were to put them all together. Don't they all kinda take up the same amount of space!?!

That squirrel never showed up to get itself caught in the cage, so I'm wondering if my 82yr old neighbor down the street has already caught it. He also consistently catches squirrels and says he relocates them. (Personally, I believe he eats them). Anyway, the squirrel hasn't been coming around, all of a sudden.

Tom in Wisconsin - I looked at the layout photo you posted yesterday, and thought it looked very close to a prototype photograph I took a little while back. It's kind of along the same lines:
CN Staging WtCrt_07-28-2021.jpg


The wife bought a medium sized sack of unshelled peanuts yesterday, which she spent the evening on shelling. Now she wants me to crush the peanuts up today, into smaller bits so she can mix them up with sunflower and seed to make her own wild bird feed. All of a sudden, she's taken a liking to having lots of birds in the garden. I'm glad she has another hobby.
She feeds the birds and waters the birds, and I build her feeders and fountains. I'm ok with that, as she would cut her fingers off using the saw.
Anyway, I enjoy taking photos of the birds that come around, like this Vesper Sparrow:
VesperSparrow_08-01-2021.jpg

The birds don't seem to mind the dog eye-balling them from outside the fence. Maybe they know they are protected by the fence:
Sky_08-04-2021.jpg


I'm not actually modeling right now. So that's why I'm posting off topic photos. Hope you don't mind; I'm the type of guy that has to show photos along with what I write and yap about. Expect more prototype pics when my foot heals and I get walking again. Still a couple of days out.

Time to walk the dog and get on with things. See ya'll on another day.
Have a good one!
 


Good morning. The storms blew in yesterday afternoon and took off. Not even measurable rainfall. But after dinner at 7:30 the thunder shook the ground as the lightning strikes were on the property. 2.31” of rainfall in the first hour. Then the lightning lit the skies until midnight. From 9pm to midnight another 1/2” of rain. Then all that moved east to the guys toward the Milwaukee area. Watching the weather channel radar last night was interesting, especially the way they indicate the lightning strikes. Maybe Greg or one of the other guys east of me will chime in. Out on the south deck now it’s 78f degrees with heavy humidity 83%, the dew point is already a miserable 72 and a wind of 8mph that must be missing my deck. Nothing is moving here.

Flo, I would like a cinnamon raisin, oatmeal, apple wheat battered pancake. Tell Mel, the last one was perfect. I would also like a diet Dr Pepper, yes the sugar free one is great too.

The son is flying the SIL and 2 neighbors back from a lake up north and the kid will stay overnight with us. Said it rained most of the time up there.

SteveJ, the difference to me about golf and model RRing is that as I practice golf I get better or maintain my game, with modeling the more you practice the modeling gets better but is usually permanent. Golf is so temporary. I used to play 3 afternoons a week but I really don’t miss it.

We have more rain predicted to invade this afternoon so this might just be a house day for me. The girls are meeting up at the stables and there should be 16 of them including our 2 grandkids, the twin 15 year old life guards and a couple other boys the grandson’s age 7 from their neighborhood. The last few rides the g/son complained he was the only boy! Not sure where dinner will be tonight, last night the daughter and g/kids were over and stayed during our storm event.

The wife mentioned last night while getting in bed that maybe it’s time to truly downsize everything! Spent about a hour of valuable sleep time wasted thinking about that one.

TomO

Solitude Sunday Morning
156C2E77-B957-4832-8872-C9D723269A7C.jpeg
 
Good Morning!
It's one of those maybe it will rain, maybe it won't rain kind of days, with a solid overcast sky. The cloud looks too light in color to be rain cloud, and it don't smell like rain. It's 52F; I'm enjoying the cooler temperatures.

Raboliot - I can't help but think that having a whole bunch of pizza layouts and a 7'+ small switching layout, is basically the same thing as having a reasonably sized working layout if you were to put them all together. Don't they all kinda take up the same amount of space!?!

That squirrel never showed up to get itself caught in the cage, so I'm wondering if my 82yr old neighbor down the street has already caught it. He also consistently catches squirrels and says he relocates them. (Personally, I believe he eats them). Anyway, the squirrel hasn't been coming around, all of a sudden.

Tom in Wisconsin - I looked at the layout photo you posted yesterday, and thought it looked very close to a prototype photograph I took a little while back. It's kind of along the same lines:
View attachment 130882

The wife bought a medium sized sack of unshelled peanuts yesterday, which she spent the evening on shelling. Now she wants me to crush the peanuts up today, into smaller bits so she can mix them up with sunflower and seed to make her own wild bird feed. All of a sudden, she's taken a liking to having lots of birds in the garden. I'm glad she has another hobby.
She feeds the birds and waters the birds, and I build her feeders and fountains. I'm ok with that, as she would cut her fingers off using the saw.
Anyway, I enjoy taking photos of the birds that come around, like this Vesper Sparrow:
View attachment 130883
The birds don't seem to mind the dog eye-balling them from outside the fence. Maybe they know they are protected by the fence:
View attachment 130884

I'm not actually modeling right now. So that's why I'm posting off topic photos. Hope you don't mind; I'm the type of guy that has to show photos along with what I write and yap about. Expect more prototype pics when my foot heals and I get walking again. Still a couple of days out.

Time to walk the dog and get on with things. See ya'll on another day.
Have a good one!

guy, thanks for the comment on my pictures. Those 3 pictures today, EXCELLENT. I know you claim not to be a photographer and I can’t tell a great quality picture from a decent one but I know what I like. From the artistic side you definitely have that “eye” in my book. The dog picture is great, he just needs to keep the eyes open!!!

TomO
 
Good Morning All. Partly cloudy and 77°, at least there's a little breeze at 9 mph. Yesterday I resumed my usual summertime task of mowing. The rain last Sunday night really just greened everything up without any major growth, but the part of the yard that I mowed was quite ragged and uneven. Afterward I removed two branches from an oak tree; one was growing straight down and interfered with mowing, the other inexplicably broke about two weeks ago, but didn't detach. I don't normally prune at this time of year, but the opportunity was present and the broken one needed to go. Later today I will cut them up in order to get them off the yard. Now of course, I will have to mow some more today to make things match up on the other side of the driveway.

How about a grilled ham & cheese sandwich this morning Flo. OJ will be fine thank you.

Thanks for the likes and comments regarding "Four Fingered Tony's Meat Market"; Guy, Karl, Tom O, Rick, Christian, Steve J, Hughie, Jaz, Tom, Garry, Chad, Curt, Gary. And thanks also to those who enjoyed the vulture neighbors.

So speaking of critters, I was looking for some particular build pictures yesterday when I came across some pictures of the raccoons that broke into a container and devoured a half bag of cat food while we were out of town in May of 2018. I caught them both two days apart. I got the smaller of the two first, and it partially dismantled the handle guard on the trap.
05-18-18 008.JPG

After making repairs, I nabbed the second one two days later.
05-20-18 006 (2).JPG

Cute but mean creatures they were. One tried to attack me when I let it out of the trap, rather ungrateful.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I continued to paint figures at the workbench and added field grass to the same one square foot area that I have been working on. Here's the figure painting set up.
IMG_7099.JPG

As you can see, most of the ones in the upper end just need either touching up or a single color added. The little cup in the upper right marked "ready" is for figures awaiting dull coat. Most of the ones at the bottom, I have to think about.
Here's a couple of shots of the weeds in place.
IMG_7102.JPG


IMG_7103.JPG

I have obviously done more over the past two days and will continue today.
Here is another shot of the new lighting in the far corner.
IMG_7105.JPG

Quite a difference. Reminds me that I need to figure out clouds some day.

Terry
a pair of Ak-Sar-Ben freight sharks,
??? Isn't that Nebraska spelled backwards?
Jaz - I know all the ways to make trees and have tried most, I just dislike doing it. And the store bought ones just look too fake. I've seen some really good looking trees here made by Tom O and Chet, as well as others, but I haven't even come that close to producing anything acceptable. I have a box of Super Trees now but I haven't taken the time yet, plus they seem a bit large for my purposes.
Chad - My investment in the trap some years back has paid off well. Besides the raccoons pictured above and the armadillo from the other day, I have caught another armadillo, at least 20 opossums, and two different cats that belonged to the neighbors. Two of my neighbors have caught a total of five skunks this year alone. You have to piss them off so they spray, hopefully in the other direction, then you can handle the traps because once they spray, it takes up to ten days before they can do it again.
Steve J - I sometimes just back off when doing modeling projects and return later. I might break two #78 drill bits when drilling holes for grab irons, but I can come back the next day and drill 40+ with the same bit. Go figure! A real fun task is replacing the coupler spring on a Kadee coupler! There's a reason that they provide extras in their packages.

Everybody have a great day
 
Good Morning!
It's one of those maybe it will rain, maybe it won't rain kind of days, with a solid overcast sky. The cloud looks too light in color to be rain cloud, and it don't smell like rain. It's 52F; I'm enjoying the cooler temperatures.

Raboliot - I can't help but think that having a whole bunch of pizza layouts and a 7'+ small switching layout, is basically the same thing as having a reasonably sized working layout if you were to put them all together. Don't they all kinda take up the same amount of space!?!

That squirrel never showed up to get itself caught in the cage, so I'm wondering if my 82yr old neighbor down the street has already caught it. He also consistently catches squirrels and says he relocates them. (Personally, I believe he eats them). Anyway, the squirrel hasn't been coming around, all of a sudden.

Tom in Wisconsin - I looked at the layout photo you posted yesterday, and thought it looked very close to a prototype photograph I took a little while back. It's kind of along the same lines:
View attachment 130882

The wife bought a medium sized sack of unshelled peanuts yesterday, which she spent the evening on shelling. Now she wants me to crush the peanuts up today, into smaller bits so she can mix them up with sunflower and seed to make her own wild bird feed. All of a sudden, she's taken a liking to having lots of birds in the garden. I'm glad she has another hobby.
She feeds the birds and waters the birds, and I build her feeders and fountains. I'm ok with that, as she would cut her fingers off using the saw.
Anyway, I enjoy taking photos of the birds that come around, like this Vesper Sparrow:
View attachment 130883
The birds don't seem to mind the dog eye-balling them from outside the fence. Maybe they know they are protected by the fence:
View attachment 130884

I'm not actually modeling right now. So that's why I'm posting off topic photos. Hope you don't mind; I'm the type of guy that has to show photos along with what I write and yap about. Expect more prototype pics when my foot heals and I get walking again. Still a couple of days out.

Time to walk the dog and get on with things. See ya'll on another day.
Have a good one!
No you got me stumped,your foot is out of action and needs to heal, but but but your gonna walk the dog…..confused….I am.
 


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