Running Bear's August 2022 Coffee Shop

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Good evening guys

So sad to hear of Greg's passing. I really thought he was on the mend and would be back among us. He will be missed.

#5 arrived home from college last night for the weekend with a "Service engine soon" light on. Hooked a scanner up and read the dreaded P0430 code , Catalyst Efficiency code, and a brief road test confirmed my fears, Truck has no power, and the converter rattled like a maraca when driving. Parts were ordered today, we'll take him back to college tomorrow, he will just have to do without a vehicle until next weekend. His college (Hood College) is only 45-50 minutes from here. He doesn't need it other than for our convenience.

In other news the $300.00 truck arrived home today. It needs some work before it can be tagged, but it drove well getting here. now if I can just get it in the garage! I had a cleared bay for it, and have a pile of parts for it, but the wife has cluttered it back up again! I may have to add a "she shed" to the back yard to keep her extra curricular activities out of the garage!

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The end.
 


Kinda in a daze and am shocked to hear about GREG!
Condolences to all his friends and family!
He and I conversed many times and he had models weathered by a friend of mine from the Frisco site.
I had noticed that he had not posted in a while, but I assumed that he was just busy with the cabin and the fact that he had fallen.
 
The battery vs. Hydrogen vs. Nuke is extremely interesting, and critical.

It's not "vs nuke". The nuclear power is what provides the energy to economically create the hydrogen and othet carbon neutral synthetic fuels needed to run a modern economy. So it is hydrogen and nukes. Even with the batteries the nukes are important as a sustainable source of electricity to charge them. So called renewables don't have the energy density nor the on demand ability to be used alone. I'm not saying they don't have their place. But they don't have the energy density or reliability needed as the main source.
 
I'm deeply sorry to hear about Greg.

In my opinion battery technology is not yet good enough for me to invest in an electric vehicle.

John McCain wanted to build 45 nuclear power plants by 2030. I voted for him!

Extremists create more problems than they solve.

O's win again in Houston!
 


Well howdy there internet people and all of us saddened at Greg's passing.

It's Troy again. I've got two degrees, never worked as a bartender, and I still have trouble remembering words some days.

Woke up with a headache today. I drank my 1.5 gallon of H20 yesterday.

Oh, I dropped almost all caffeine. Cutting out iced tea all day will do that. Need to remember to have a can of Diet Dr. P before bed to get some.

I put my FB feed into my signature line. you all are welcome if you dare. ;) That's where I discuss things political. But it comes with a warning:

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Had a good time gaming yesterday. Got to field my Knights Hospitallers, AKA the Darth Vader Legion, from the Crusades. Took on a force of Anglo-Saxon heavy on Levie Archers and foot troops. Barely squeaked out a win.

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Still need to finish off this unit's bases. Then my Horsey Boys need some additional paint, the addition of shields, and basing.

One of the reasons I enjoy this particular game, is the "Battle Boards" We have dice we roll each turn with symbols on them (each die has 3 Common, 2 uncommon, and one rare symbol). We then pre-load the battle board, based on the symbols we've rolled that turn. These extra abilities are both random, planned when possible, and dependent on situation.

I was able to park 6 of my 8 dice on an ability that allowed me to automatically cancel one hit per die. They were loaded and waiting for my opponent to attack.

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He went on the defensive and only manueved during his turn. So no hits came in for me to cancel. I had to pull dice off that ability to roll for my next turn. Trust me, there was strategy involved on both sides.

Hope you all have a headache free day. I'm off for coffee cup #2
 
I moved away from main-line operations because things moved to fast and I found out I like switching operations more

I don’t believe the crossings would cause much slow down. The thing that slowed mainline operations on layouts I operated on was sitting on a siding waiting for a superior train to pass.

I hope you get some helpful answers Todd
Kinda didn't think I would get a definitive answer is the question was sorta out there. To me, waiting at a crossing is pretty much the same as waiting in a siding. To get to the siding is a 1 block slow down ( flashing yellow 1 block out, then yellow entering the siding on my pike ). On coming movement is the same. Passing movement has to slow down 2 blocks before the meet unless dispatch has managed to time stuff perfect. Crossing is pretty much the same except the slow down is 2 blocks.

I guess when I get all the blocks, sidings and crossing locations defined with track segment lengths, I can set up a spreadsheet ( or database ) and test the times. Might be better doing this exercise first rather than having to re-align stuff at a later date although I do love cutting and pasting with scenery, wood and rail! Probably be more on this at a later date.

Right now we are thinking 1st week in Oct to get off the truck. Ya know how stuff circles around you? You could go for quite awhile, then you start seeing accidents and other goofs that are pretty fresh? The you go for awhile again. Seems that circle is getting smaller and smaller for us and those accidents are closer and closer. Our thought is we need to get out of this business before we are caught in something. Both of us are safe and sane drivers and we will continue with that not overly worrying about those circles as that is how we operate, it is just in the back of our minds.
 


It's not "vs nuke". The nuclear power is what provides the energy to economically create the hydrogen and othet carbon neutral synthetic fuels needed to run a modern economy. So it is hydrogen and nukes. Even with the batteries the nukes are important as a sustainable source of electricity to charge them. So called renewables don't have the energy density nor the on demand ability to be used alone. I'm not saying they don't have their place. But they don't have the energy density or reliability needed as the main source.
Other than my use of words, we are mostly in agreement. "Renewable" energy sources are buzz words and dogma to those who never left the campus, but they are flawed. Wind power only works with prevailing winds, but during high wind situations or calm periods, they don't work.
Solar works fine when the sun is shining. Cloudy days and long winter nights tend to reduce the effect of solar. That doesn't mean we shouldn't deploy wind and solar, because it mostly works rather well, but we cannot depend on solar and wind alone. As I said before, we need to think this out, and include other than academics and politicians in the discussion. Nuclear is discredited, mainly because of near hysterical media coverage of incidents overseas. TMI has been shut down, after its service life was completed, and has faded from memory.
 
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