Running Bear's August 2025 Coffee Shop

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Good morning all!

Happy hump day!

Currently 68F heading up to a high of 87F. The humidity is really starting to build as well. looks like the heat is going to
return for the weekend. Oh goody!

Not much else going on here. Have some light household chores to accomplish, but should be pretty quiet.

Didnt do a whole lot yesterday in the trainroom. I did come lose to finishing up the grain elevator section. I should
be able to finish it all up today. It will be good to get some color on it. Tired of looking at all the white mountains.

Have a safe day everyone!
 


Morning all,

74° and mostly cloudy, high of 95° later.

A bit hazy here from the fires in Nevada and Colorado according to the local weather gurus.

Not much going on, I've gotta get with HR and the surgeon's office to see about going back early. I think I'm ready mentally and just need to see that it's safe to do so. I want to head back 2 weeks early. As a preview to retirement, I'm going to go nuts when I finally retire.

BBL
You won’t go nuts! You’ll find your so busy that you wonder how you got any model railroading done at all. Carve some time out for yourself, enjoy your yard and family
 
Morning all,

74° and mostly cloudy, high of 95° later.

A bit hazy here from the fires in Nevada and Colorado according to the local weather gurus.

Not much going on, I've gotta get with HR and the surgeon's office to see about going back early. I think I'm ready mentally and just need to see that it's safe to do so. I want to head back 2 weeks early. As a preview to retirement, I'm going to go nuts when I finally retire.

BBL
You need to transition into retirement. It's a process. I was in outside sales for most of my working years and made the mistake of going from 10000mph to 10mph overnight. It doesn't work.

I jumped off the train at 62 and after 3 months I took a part time gig, originally just to pay for medical insurance until I hit 65. I worked at local Trader Joe's and had a blast working with the "kids". I worked in the dry produce department breaking down pallets of bananas, potatoes, onions, etc. Great daily physical workout, but it was work and I was beat at the end of the shift. When I was interviewed I told them that I was in the enviable position of not having to work, but wanting to work. 28hrs/wk got me full medical/dental benefits and 20% off groceries.

Now I have another gig. Local gun shop has me as a contracted consultant. It gets me human interaction and fun money. I'll do it until it's no longer fun or seems like a job.
 
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Good Morning All. Clear and 73°, aiming for 98° later on. Just reached 92° yesterday which wasn't bad. Hot & dry is the forecast, but that's what it was before Sunday/Monday's rain!

SIL came up last evening to pick up our granddaughter since she has a dance recital today. I prepared baby back ribs for everyone. It was an enjoyable 3 days, but I wouldn't want it to be permanent. Did a load of laundry earlier instead of sending her home with a bag of dirty clothes.
This morning will start with the dishwasher, since little girls use a lot more dishes than I do. I use paper plates for sandwiches at lunch! Maybe it's just a Grandma thing. Also have to gather up all of the pool toys that I see out on the deck, that we normally don't use.

I made a little more progress out in the train shed yesterday. I did my simple green paint on the backdrop for starters.
1754489000067.jpeg

1754489015320.jpeg

Almost finished the ballasting.
1754489064786.jpeg

There's a tiny bit at the end of the spur where the end runs off the plywood and I haven't extended the plywood yet.
1754489146332.jpeg

Eventually there is going to be a small canyon there, but right now it is filled with various scenery supplies.
I also got some ground foam in on the north end next to Buffalo Industries, along the track, and the front of the distribution building.
1754489331886.jpeg

Note that I haven't yet figured out what kind of industry Buffalo Industries is? I do switch out a boxcar there every time a local comes to town, but I don't know whether it's a full one to be emptied, or an empty one to be filled.

Dave - Happy Birthday to your wife.
Marlin - That pinball arcade looks like a neat place to get lost in for hours.
Tom O - The first thing that I noticed in your post this morning was the air quality at 146. That's not just unhealthy for sensitive groups, that's unhealthy for all groups! And I think that ours is high this morning at 74.

Everyone have a wonderful hump day today.
 


Well, howdy there internet peeps and those with gravy

It's Troy again.

Cat is hiding under the bed.

Of course, overnight, he peed on the puppy pads we're keeping on the stair landing. I swapped it out for a clean one. An hour later wife is up, hears him "scratching" without claws on the wall... a signal he's in piddle mode. She finds him on the puppy pads on the landing taking a whiz. He darted under the bed and I wasn't able to coax him out.

Still waiting on the vet to finish with the urine sample. Not sure if they're growing a culture with it, or just looking for crystals?

In an hour or so, I'll head up to costco. I get one prescription from there. It's ready for pick up. And I've got a shopping list. Debating on if I want to pick up a brisket to smoke tomorrow. I've got three lunch servings of the last brisket left in the freezer. But next week's weather is rainy, so I need to smoke Thurs or Friday... Hmmmm....

Now for Louis: Some undead Byzantine Legionaires. The ones to the left have a wash of "coral sea foam" speed paint to simulate oxidation from their armor and weapons being in the crypts for so long. The ones on the right lack that final wash.

I did add a dry brush of the various base colors after the wash to make the original tones come back slightly.

View attachment 234552
Is your furry overlord eating dry or wet food?
 
Good morning all, 81 here and heading for 94. Temps climbing again to the upper 90s late in the week and humidity climbing back up!
Got some cleaning and straightening up in the garage and train room yesterday before it got too hot. Looks like I will be working some tomorrow, just don't know what hours yet. Nephew's family and his MiL's move all starting Friday. His MiL will get in sometime Friday Afternoon, they will try to unload that household then and Nephew gets in late Fri/early Sat and then Saturday unload their household. So our house will be semi-controlled chaos for several days.
 
Morning all,

74° and mostly cloudy, high of 95° later.

A bit hazy here from the fires in Nevada and Colorado according to the local weather gurus.

Not much going on, I've gotta get with HR and the surgeon's office to see about going back early. I think I'm ready mentally and just need to see that it's safe to do so. I want to head back 2 weeks early. As a preview to retirement, I'm going to go nuts when I finally retire.

BBL
I know how you feel about getting back to work. After my heart attack I was in physical therapy and progressing
nicely. Doing daily walks, starting to do things like wash the car, and feeling pretty good. I asked about going back
to work early. With 2 weeks left on therapy, they said I could start working 4 hours a day. After morning therapy, I
worked from 10:00 am to 2:00pm with a lunch break. As a manufacturing engineer in a machine shop, our office
was in a mezzanine in the shop which was up a flight of stairs. Did this for a month and I was cleared to return to
work full time. In retrospect, I'm glad they only allowed me to work 1/2 a day for while before going back full time.
 
We don't have dust storms here, but in the spring when the dust from Texas blew all the way up here it literally rained mud. Everything was a mess.
Car washed were packed for several days.

Never experienced that before.
Yeah it’s kind of like that here. It always bad. Sometimes just light but there have been a few times when it was really heavy.

Car washes are popular here and there are several chains besides the independents.

We have a standing seam metal roof and I was up looking at the solar panels (from afar — I didn’t hike all the way to the peak— I just went up on the porch roof which meets the house roof). I was surprised by how dirty the steel was given the wind. Wind should blow dust away. But it’s dirt that fell with the rain as the rain cleaned the dust out of the air. So it basically dried onto the roof. From the ground you don’t really notice it but on the roof you do.

The climate here is dry and its ā€œhigh desertā€ environment. No cactus but lots of dirt and things like sage brush and wild grasses (this time of year all brown). The mountains have trees and forests but the valleys are this high desert or cultivated. So wind blows a lot of dry dust and we get a little of wind coming down the mountains.
 


Did my morning walk. I’m trying to walk 5-6 times a week. My route is about 3.25 miles. Yesterday I didn’t get up and ready soon enough and it was already almost 90 and no breeze so I wanted until last night. Monday I got out in the morning. It was uppers 80s but a nice breeze. Sunny of course.

I’ve been trying to get to bed earlier and get up earlier. I wasn’t in bed as early as I wanted to be but it was earlier and I got up earlier today. I wasn’t done with the morning routine and out the door at 9am. It was low to mid 80s already and sunny but again a nice stiff breeze. Walking around the perimeter of the development I get a good breeze, as well as in my immediate neighborhood. Walking through some of the lower parts of the development you get less breeze because of the houses and fences and bigger trees. But you get more shade from them. The lower part is older so has bigger trees (all planted by man). The lots are smaller so more houses packed in more densely with 20’ setbacks. Our area is newer so the trees are not as big and block less wind and the lots are bigger. Up to twice as big or more and the house setback is like 45’ so the breeze makes it through the houses and stuff and you feel it more than you do in the lower section. Almost the first 1/2 of the walk is a little bit in my immediate neighborhood and along the perimeter so nice breeze. Then a mile through the lower neighborhoods with less breeze. Then finish up with a shorter circuit in my immediate area again. It’s not bad. Takes just over an hour. My watch claims 199 ft elevation change as well. Gets the old ticker beating.

You feel better the rest of the day as well.

I forgot to mention it was mid upper 80s by the time I got back and I had a good sweat but the breeze was still nice and made it bearable.
 
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