Running Bear's August 2025 Coffee Shop

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Good morning from Vancouver, BC. Canada. I could live here but Terry says it’s a great place to visit. So vibrant and moving. Something always happening and I’d be ok without owning a car because everything is right here. I still can walk but if you couldn’t this would be a tough city to live in. 16,000+ steps yesterday. Plus Uber is only a phone message away. A bike or e-bike if you lived here would be a must, bikes are EVERYWHERE. I thought Madison at home was a huge biking community, well it’s peanuts compared to here. Of course the population her is 10x the size of back home.

Day 3 today is the whale watching adventure.

5am it’s 60f/15c degrees and heading to 73/22 this afternoon. Out on the whale watching they say it will be 10-15 degrees cooler than the land temperature. I’ll be fine as I actually packed a pair of socks. I’m adjusting slowly to the metric system but if you deal with on a daily basis it gets easier. I don’t feel the $$$ rate difference because I rarely use cash but for this portion I have both Canadian and US dollars on me. USD are still a good deal here and of course the credit card is king!

I didn’t realize how much the Canadian Pacific Railroad played in building up Vancouver. I’ll be digging into it when we get home. This city does intrigue me…

Model railroading but the weathering community in particular lost a giant overnight Sunday. Ralph Renzetti passed away suddenly at his home in Canada. While like many of you here we have not personally met we had connected via the web. Ralph was a mentor, adviser and inspiration to many of us who weather no matter the modeling. Trains, planes or automobiles and anything in between he could and would do. Never shied from offering a suggestion or opinion but never in a cruel do it this way tone. He loved oils, was happy in Arcylic but had no use for the pan pastel and powdering products of weathering. The interactions I had with him were almost on a daily frequency and not only because our artist choices meshed our dislike for a certain political person resonated closely. May his family find peace in his memory. Canada and the world has lost another good one.

Be well
 
Good morning all!

Another hot day in store. Already 74F heading up to a humid 90F. Weather folks say some scattered rain showers early this evening.
I will take the believe it when I see it approach.

I did get out yesterday and do the mowing and trimming.

Not much planned for today, just Monday morning light chores.

No train time yesterday, just wasn't feeling it. Hope to get back down there tonight and get something done.

Have a safe day everyone!
 


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Mornin' folks. It's 88F and 67% out here on the patio this morning. Supposed to get to 97F today, but will probably be hotter if yesterday is any indication. Still showing rain on Thursday, but I remain skeptical.

My outdoor work is mostly done for the moment; just need to stuff the pressure washer back in the shed and move my Weber back where it's supposed to be. The weekend was productive!

I even made real progress on the track plan. Still a lot of finishing, tinkering, and tweaking to do, but I think I'm finally getting somewhere with the concept, at least.

Bruette said:
What can you do? The simplest thing is to use a battery charger occasionally.
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Y'know, I knew most of what you said, and the idea of buying a battery charger never actually occurred to me (and I'm not being snarky about that!). I should probably think about getting one.

Bruette said:
AGM (Absorbent Glass Mat) batteries, I don't have a clue. The first and only one I have had lasted 4 years and cost a fortune to replace!
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I don't know much about them either, but your stated lifetime is about what mine survived. The RX is a 2020, and it lasted until early this year, when the original battery abruptly quit. And yes, very expensive, though in my case that was partly because I bought it from the dealer; that's generally a mistake, financially speaking, when it comes to automotive consumables in my experience.

Patrick said:
While I can't say anything about In and Out as I've never been far enough west, I can say I wasn't impressed by the Whataburger I tried in Kansas City. To me it tasted a lot like a Sonic cheeseburger at half again the price. Not a burger place I'd really do again.
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I was never as big a fan of In and Out as some are. Their food is decent, don't get me wrong, but it's always struck me as kinda dry and bland.

Whataburger... I tried it once when I moved to Texas, and have no idea why everyone raves about it. I should probably try again and see if my local Whataburger was just having a bad day or something...

Come to think of it, now that the nearest Carl's Jr. has closed, leaving me at least half an hour (probably more like forty-five minutes) from one, I need to find a new favorite burger place... Maybe it will be Culver's?

Anyway...

Not sure what I'm planning to do today. It's Monday, and I'm feeling kinda bleh. Will probably tinker with track planning, but not sure beyond that.

Have a good week, folks!
 
Good morning,

A wet 62 with moderate wind, supposed to dry up this afternoon, mowing the lawn definitely needed.

I ran trains yesterday afternoon, put out more people, thinking on putting up cattle fence this week.

Yesterday on our field trip i got images of the 1915 Grantsburg Plat book, shows track configuration and industry, will be super helpful for planning!

Dave LASM
 
Good morning gang!

Overcast and 71°, looking for rain this afternoon. All recovered from the extended weekend trip to N.C. Frankly I could go back tomorrow but the retirement calendar says 2 years, 5 months, 12 days, 13 hours and 43 minutes before I can just take off at the drop of a hat.

But who's counting? :D ;) 😂😁
 


chadbag said:
You wouldn’t get very far with a 12v driving your car’s hybrid “traction” system.
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While that is certainly true, I would expect the traction battery to have sufficient oomph to power a starter and some accessories via some appropriate regulators. I wouldn't think the startup current of an EV or hybrid's drive motors would be far off that of a starter.

There's probably some engineering reason they don't do that, I just don't know what it is. Maybe the required regulators just cost too much and they don't want to switch to higher-voltage starter motors. :)
 
Marlin39 said:
Tom,
Vancouver ,BC, has the largest Chinese population outside of Hong Kong. There is no way you'll ever have a bad meal there.

The Grey whales and even Orcas should be very active right now.

Have fun.
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The food has been wonderful. Read that more than 50% of the local population speaks English as a second language. It’s a very diverse community.

There are restaurants everywhere of all ethnicities, even a couple Mexican ones in Chinatown. I chuckled when I saw that. Vancouvers Chinatown is the second largest in North America behind only the one in San Francisco, Ca. There is a huge Italian community here and I had black truffled spaghetti with 3 spicy Italian meatballs last night. It was awesome but like my nonna and my mom used to make, , there was way too much.

We have not and will not do a steakhouse here (doing fish tonight) but I did look at the online menus of some around where we are staying. Some Angus beef but mostly the Waygu stuff which of course really drives those prices up. Vancouver is the 5th or 7th most expensive city in North America depending on what list you look at. But the prices here make the stupid steak prices at Ruth Chris back home seem cheap.

It $$$ is what it is
 
Burger-wise I’ll eat any burger. I won’t choose any burger place but if someone else is doing the choosing I can eat whatever.

I’ll choose In-N-Out or Culver’s no problem. Culver’s is closer but I prefer In-n-Out in a vacuum. But since we don’t live in a vacuum some days I’ll choose one and some days I’ll choose the other. Culver’s has more choice of meals and stuff so if I’m interested in onion rings or bacon on the burger or ice cream (frozen custard) I’ll choose Culver’s. Or if it needs to be quick. Culver’s is now 2 miles from my neighborhood. An extra 3 miles to get to In-n-Out. Usually someone else in the family also has an opinion at the moment which makes the decision.

I’m not picky. Growing up when a trip out to eat was special I don’t argue. My kids annoy me as they’ll “discuss” it ad nauseum and say they don’t want to go if it’s not one of their preferred places. Though I do think they’re getting better.
 
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insomniville said:
While that is certainly true, I would expect the traction battery to have sufficient oomph to power a starter and some accessories via some appropriate regulators. I wouldn't think the startup current of an EV or hybrid's drive motors would be far off that of a starter.

There's probably some engineering reason they don't do that, I just don't know what it is. Maybe the required regulators just cost too much and they don't want to switch to higher-voltage starter motors. :)
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I know on my PHEV that it has a 12V to turn on the hybrid system computer etc. (besides some other stuff).
 
Good morning, all! Currently 84 degrees and headed towards 100. Made 101 yesterday, 4 degrees short of the record. We are heading out to Costco in a few minutes. Might be many few minutes as the Conductress needs to get ready.

Culvers sounds very much like Fuddrucker;s. I think we still have one a few miles up the highway. There is another place, Red Robin, not a bad burger either.

Louis - I knew better than to say anything, 12 - 0 birdies.

Trains - I need run some for a little bit. I also tried taking a photo with a camera instead of my phone. I like how the streetlights reflect over the tracks.
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STAY SAFE
LATER
 
Good Morning All!
55F @ 69% overcast; maybe 85F later.

Burgers: My first In & Out in '15 was in Santa Nella Village south of Stockton on I5 - had room for 70ft across the street. Kept going back. Then Carls/Hardey's when In & Out was not around. Fast forward - we tried 5 Guys in Kalispell last year I think - junk and won't be back. Think that there is a WhataBurger in Kal will have to look for that. The closest good places are Zip's in Ponderay, little further is Dub's in Sandpoint. Since most of those are just to far for only a burger I make them for us. I can build quite the tower burger when we do not hit the local place; Burger Express. In fact, last night I got told 'burgers' so off I went to Burger Express. Forgot it was closed on Sunday, txt'd Maria and she said MickyD's. Should have just came home - 2 1/4Lb with bacon, fries and frosty. Came to $38sumptin. The 1/4Lb things were tiny, maybe 3.5" diameter on a good day with 1/4" of burger. Geesh. Think that they changed the fry oil back to what it used to be, those were different than I remember and OkieDokie. The frosty's always hit the spot.

L8r
 
TheXModelRailroader said:
Good Morning NEW YORK!!!...
Had to do it (I don't even live in NY). Spiderman reference.
Thanks for the reply's guys. That is what I thought, just wanted to make sure. 🙃
I got some figures I've been working on that might go nice here...
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Welcome to the coffee shop!
TheXModelRailroader said:
I got some figures I've been working on that might go nice here...
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We do require photos! Its someone's rules, just don't recall who's! 😀
 


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