Running Bear's August 2025 Coffee Shop

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what up!

yesterday i was down in my layoutroom. i was working on two different projects. one was to try again creating a "realistic" looking waterfall..
damn thats not a easy task. but i think my second attempt looks way better then the first one.

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after that i also did a little something on my side project (z scale layout).
this will be a small part of a harbor. (picture was taken with the evening sun shining on it haha)

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this weekend again i will have some time for my trains, because my girl will comeback home on sunday evening :)
 


Is the bike sitting unused most of the time? any room for a solar battery keeper?
The bike is stored in my basement. I am old. I do not ride when it rains, when the weather is too hot or too cold.
I do like to ride with my SIL and grandsons on the Alabama back country roads But I am only a fair weather rider.
I have a battery tender that I will take off the lawn tractor to keep the motorcycle battery charged this year.
Thanks for the solar charger suggestion.
 
Well, I made it to the big box hardware/lumber store this morning post donut run, and before the grocery run to get the wife her chocolate kisses.

Purchased a 4x8 ft sheet of 1 inch foam. Unfortunately, I have no truck, no lorrie, no van. Just a Toyota Camry. And a 4ft T square, and a snap knife.

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One 4x8 sheet of 1 inch foam fits in the car nicely.

today is rip up carpet on the other landing day. Then spray the enzyme to kill the urine smell, followed by two coats of Kilz paint. Tomorrow is lay the vinyl plank day. That should do my knees wonders 😜 :rolleyes:

If only we had a solar charger for our joints we could plug in when we nap...
 
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 68°, maybe hitting 80° later today. Rather cool weather for us for the end of August. No change until Monday but not much by then. And yes it did rain yesterday, a half inch and then another quarter inch overnight. Will it be enough to make the grass grow again, not yet! But more is in the forecast for Sunday and that will probably help. Looks like I may have to give up on keeping the pool opened any longer as there doesn't appear to be but 2 sunny days in the 10 day forecast. At this time of year, once the water temperature drops below 80° which it will in the next three days, it will not rise back to a comfortable level.😞

Drastic change of plans yesterday, and we postponed the weekly grocery trek until today. I was just not feeling up to it. Hypertension issues and a phone conference with the cardiologist has led to another change in the medication routine. Otherwise yesterday was a wasted day as I got nothing accomplished except warming leftovers for supper and loading the dishwasher. My main concern is why two doctors, a PA and two NP's can't explain why I have spells of high blood pressure when they have prescribed 5 different medications??? I have a chart that I made to track which ones to take and when; and I follow it religiously. I do feel better today. BP this morning is better than it has been for 2.5 days.

I did hike out to the train shed yesterday and only ran trains. I tried something that I don't normally do and that was to run a train on the upper level in a continuous loop while I did switching on the lower level. I can't say that it did anything for me, so I will probably not do it again. I really can only pay attention to one train at a time, and because my layout has intertwined aisles, there are many parts that I cannot see from other places.

Patrick - You didn't mention the brand name of the mower, but I have a Ryobi mower and when I was looking to buy a spare battery, the actual Ryobi rep (who happened to be in the store at the time) told me that it was less expensive to just purchase another implement with the same size battery. I had asked because that's what I saw. In the end, I got the extra battery when last years tornado sent the original mower tumbling over 150' and rendered it useless.
Troy - N scale or not, that MR IV kit is a nice addition to any layout.
Karl - You'd think that Stevie Wonder actually wrote most Walther's instructions.
Louis - Amazon returns really are easy, they may be too easy. I had read somewhere that all returns went into the dumpster, rather than being sorted for resale. Such a waste if it is actually true.

Everyone have a fabulous Friday. I will because I am feeling better.
 
Troy - N scale or not, that MR IV kit is a nice addition to any layout.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find Merchants Row IV in N-scale at my normal shopping sites. Got the MR2 version in N coming from the train shop in Goshen. Appropriate, since I'm trying to build a simulation of Goshen's Main Street. It was the well know "Cruising" drag for teens when I was growing up. The city has since done a lot to discourage cruising... but the Zombie Town needs some hot muscle cars with some "dead heads" trying to find brains on a friday night.
 
The bike is stored in my basement. I am old. I do not ride when it rains, when the weather is too hot or too cold.
I do like to ride with my SIL and grandsons on the Alabama back country roads But I am only a fair weather rider.
I have a battery tender that I will take off the lawn tractor to keep the motorcycle battery charged this year.
Thanks for the solar charger suggestion.
The one thing about solar is that the system needs to be large enough to support the need. I've seen it where a 20 watt system was placed on a caterpillar front loader that had a 24 volt system. Of course it wasn't enough. I can get all tekkie, but a good 50 watt may be a good place to start. Let me know if you need more info.
 
Let's not forget that our friend and fellow forum member, Sherrel Weems (Sirfoldalot), passed away on this date in 2024. A year ago today. I had the privilege of meeting him and Kate as they passed through on their way cross country a few years ago. They visited the train shed and we had dinner afterward at our local Italian restaurant. RIP
 
Not home in Wisconsin yet but you know the weather is changing when the local TV weather cutie puts this graphic up onscreen. Sent to me by the jealous friends back home
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So I headed off to Terry’s favorite weather gathering cutie’s TV channel FB page to see what she had to say


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Maybe I don’t want to head home yet!

Then a friend posts this!

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Strange humor from us Wisconsinites
 
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Good morning all!

Like Willie I'm starting to feel a little bit better.

Another beautiful early fall Northern Illinois day today. Hig is supposed to be around 76F. Sun is out and there is a very
light breeze.

Just doing a few things around the house today. Nothing big. Thinking about closing the pool down this weekend. I don't think
we will use it much more this season and I want to get some of my outdoor stuff done early this year.

Volleyball game last night started rough. We were facing a 20-8 deficit in the first set and they miraculously came roaring back to
win the set. They never looked back and destroyed them in the second set. we are off to a 2-0 start.

Have a safe day everyone!
 
Let's not forget that our friend and fellow forum member, Sherrel Weems (Sirfoldalot), passed away on this date in 2024. A year ago today. I had the privilege of meeting him and Kate as they passed through on their way cross country a few years ago. They visited the train shed and we had dinner afterward at our local Italian restaurant. RIP
Sherrel was truly one of the greats. He would call from time to time just to chat. He even called me one time when I was in the hospital. How he knew what hospital or even that I was in one was beyond me. We miss the Captain here, may he RIP.
 
Good morning all,

I wrote this post yesterday but my speed was super slow. When that happens, I practice my patience and come back later.

66 and mostly cloudy, breezy, a few brief shots of sunshine, forecast high for today is 74 with clouds. We had .14" of rain last night, just enough to keep the dust down.

Orders from the boss to take it easy today, too much chain sawing, she says. No problem, the trains are calling me anyway. I see there is one more kit to assemble, other than that I can start on a new building one of these days. For today, it will be switching out cars and running laps.

Some allergy has my nose running. Mine are very unpredictable, come and go at a whim, for a couple years I had no symptoms altogether. I started on loratadine yesterday, wife just noticed the bottle we have expired in 2020. Shows how often I use them.

My body is holding up well, however. Arthritis in the hands, knees, and elbows is tolerable, all in all should be good for a couple more decades or so.

Have a great day all,

Dave LASM
 
I can relate!

A few more weeks and it will be time to get the snow blower out and ready for duty!
Oh don’t even think that! Last month the guy who did my snow removal last season texted he was out of the business. He said he was contemplating an early retirement anyway at 55 but won a lottery prize to push him to move to Arkansas where he could fish all year round. Snow removal here is a huge commercial centric business. Most of the big outfits will not even think of doing residential and the small guys who will are not the most reliable. I will start looking in earnest next week when I’m home.
 
Louis - Amazon returns really are easy, they may be too easy. I had read somewhere that all returns went into the dumpster, rather than being sorted for resale. Such a waste if it is actually true.
Some get re-sold as there is the Amazon used shop where stiff is re-sold. I’ve bought a few things from it.

Supposedly they sell pallets of stuff because I see spam ads about it 😂
 
Some get re-sold as there is the Amazon used shop where stiff is re-sold. I’ve bought a few things from it.
There have been many times we have gotten wrong or damaged items that they issue you a refund and just tell you to keep the item. No need to send it back.

We can just take the items that require retuning and take them to Stapes. They throw it all in a big box. Whether it goes back to Amazon or somewhere else who knows but there are huge open boxes that the stuff just gets dumped into.
 
Looks like you need a roof rack, a piece of scrap plywood (to go on top as protection), and some bungees.
Or a T-square and a knife. I only need 24 inch wide sections, and it's cheaper to buy a full sheet than four 2x2 project panels.

In other news, we had a maple tree outside our unit that was turning yellow and dropping leaves every July. The Lanscape committee guy and his helper came around with the chainsaw and long rope today.
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And, I got the carpet, pad, and tack strips off the landing. Sprayed the piddle enzyme. Waiting on it to dry and see if it needs a second round. If so, I'll probably pull the baseboards and replace those. I hate cutting corner miters. But I'll make it work.

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Oh don’t even think that! Last month the guy who did my snow removal last season texted he was out of the business. He said he was contemplating an early retirement anyway at 55 but won a lottery prize to push him to move to Arkansas where he could fish all year round. Snow removal here is a huge commercial centric business. Most of the big outfits will not even think of doing residential and the small guys who will are not the most reliable. I will start looking in earnest next week when I’m home.
We have had two winters with very little snow, following two winters with 5' drifts.

Last winter I only had to clear snow 3 times, and not more than 5" each time...and I calculate to be at least 100 miles north of you in latitude.

I doubt we will be so lucky this year. We had the good fortune of developing raw land into our homesite, however. We only have 120' of level blacktop to clear, and now I am retired!

Our frontage is a dead end township road which receives little traffic, we are usually waiting for them to plow, or I take the 4x4.
 
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