Running Bear's December 2022 Coffee Shop

[troyphoto]

Well, howdy there internet peeps, and those preparing to dig out from the blizzards hitting the US

Still have the earache. Did get some sleep, but I'll put in a call to the doc and see if he wants to see me, or just give me a script for an antibiotic.

Not much wording going on, unfortunately. I figured it would take me at least a day to get the routine back.

I am using my new New Orleans coffee mug this morning. Wife thinks I'm nuts, but I like to get a coffee mug from everywhere we visit. IF the mugs are cool looking. This one celebrates the Jazz history of NOLA. I love jazz, and coffee, so double win.

 

[chadbag]

Today was kind of a down day. Beside the stuff I mentioned for work in a previous post, we basically went to a local mall so the daughter, wife, and sister in law could go clothes and other misc shopping. My son and I wandered around and for lunch went to “Wendy’s”. Here it is called “Wendy’s First Kitchen” as it resulted from a local Japanese fast food place called “First Kitchen” being bought by Wendy’s international division. Or something along those lines. The me u is a mix of the US Wendy’s menu and the traditional “First Kutchen” menu. The USA based items like the Baconator have USA in the menu name. They also have Teriyaki burgers, burger with egg, etc from their traditional menu and also have chicken sandwiches, pasta, and other stuff like that. Besides nuggets they have large fried chicken “discs” and their fries are famous for being seasoned with your choice of seasoning.

My son got seasoned fries and pasta and a spicy chicken “disc” while Inhad a double baconator and a chili cheese fry. I also had a desert, which was two pancakes with a white “whipped” cream with sweetened red bean paste and chestnut paste. It was pretty good.

unfortunately, unlike Taco Bell, they do to have free drink refills. And the cup is rather small.

Overall the food was decent for fast food. I think the back actor was about the same as the US based version except the bacon was a bit bland. Chili cheese fries were just ok. The desert was good. My son said his pasta was good and the flavored fries were fine (he had the limited edition Basil fries).

now that we’ve tried it there is no need to go back. I’d go if it was the only food around and we were out and about but once is enough for a purposeful visit.

after the mall we went home and I took a nap. I’ve had kind of a low grade cold since a few days before we left for Japan and I’m trying to beat it into submission.

For supper we had Japanese style grilled meat and vegetables, grilled on an electric grill on the table. I drew meat grilling duty. We had some nice expensive (fatty) Japanese beef, some sliced beef tongue, and a package of sliced USDA Prime beef for grilling from Costco. It was all good. The tongue a bit tough.

we’ll probably do something more tomorrow before we embark for Yokohama on Thursday.

 

[TLOC]

View attachment 157664
Conrail train Southbound through Chester PA 07-12-2022- Bennie Briscoe Photo

Great picture, thanks for sharing

 

[BigGRacing]

Sugar free, flavor-free and fat free donuts :

Gold utensils Christian; are you in the right forum?

 

[PRR Modeler]

Good Morning All,

I'm still around and lurking. The computer guy said he couldn't transfer the data to my new computer because there was bit lock in place on the old one? MOH says she'll look at it. The things I really want are my pictures of my layout construction, but most of all my last pictures of Mom are on my old computer.

It's great to see Karl and Joe back posting and hope Sherrel is doing well.

 

[kbkchooch]

Good morning gang!

Flo my dear, I’ll start with bacon, eggs over easy and a short stack of blueberry pancakes. Oh and an intravenous coffee.

I wasn’t really hungry until I saw Chad’s post!

L8ter!

 

[logandsawman]

Good morning all, from the place that is supposed to get a three day snowstorm...

Currently 32° and windy. Still dark outside.

Patrick: Thanks for the coffee this morning!

Curt: after having a computer crash and a hatred for passwords and user names, I keep most of my pics on thumb drives.

No train pics this morning but have a pic of a bald eagle nest:



also, a red shouldered hawk nest, we are on the fringe of its range so these are of concern on one of the roads we are working on



will be back later, Dave LASM

 

[Boris]

Great picture, thanks for sharing

Bennie Briscoe takes some awesome photos, and videos. BTW: the line is the overall prototype for my model railroad, although I model pre Conrail PC and RDG. I also worked similar assignments there back in the 70s

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. Cloudy, misty and 65°. High later today at 68° with morning thunderstorms ending by 11:00 am. We're under a tornado watch until then as well. Current radar shows the bulk of activity north in Oklahoma and southern Kansas near Patrick. The wind will be shifting from the west shortly which both heightens tornado activity and clears the clouds. It will be really nice to get some sunlight this afternoon. Then a bunch of cooler days with really cold coming the week before Christmas. The rain yesterday was meaningless, around 0.02" which my gauge cannot even measure. That total came from the Weather Underground station around the corner.

The breathing test at the pulmonologist went well yesterday, I think. Won't really know until I go for the follow up late in January. Wife went shopping while I was there. I don't know what's on the schedule today, as I let her make all of those decisions in December. I did get 3 or 4 strings of lights on the Christmas tree before my activity interfered with her watching a movie on the Hallmark Channel. I need 3 or 4 more. At least she sorted through some ornaments and set some out to use this year, while she was watching. At some point this week we have to deal with the car repairs, car rental and insurance. It's already in motion but I haven't been updated.

Chad -

i mentioned to the wife a few train things I saw at the store today. Have to break the ice and get her comfortable with the idea….

Oh go ahead. The new house can wait another year!
Jeff - Congratulations on the college grad.

Checking out temporarily due to the thunderstorms/lightning.
Tornado watch has turned into a tornado warning all around, although this should be over in an hour or so.

 

[TLOC]

Good morning modelers, travelers and homebodies. A great day to be indoors in So. Central Wisconsin. With the rains coming this afternoon the remnants of Friday’s white stuff should be washed away.

Yesterday was fun. Stopped in Lombard, Il on the way to Racine, Wi. Lombard Hobbies if you get the chance is a great place to visit. If you can’t do it in person though IMO the online store is top 5 in the USA. Racine was a visit and late lunch with Terry’s best friend. Then off to Pewaukee, Wi and Hiawatha Hobbies that again is a nice (too crowed) place to visit but a super top 5 online store. Finally the drive home was uneventful. A oblong route as Lombard is 110 miles, from there Racine is 60, 30 miles from Racine to Hiawatha and 70 miles there to home. I purchased my first 6 axle diesels since selling off my Athearn Genesis SD70aces in 2019. I needed something in CN to pull my new reefer train, the grain train and the through mixed to be purchased yet. I also have been contemplating a auto rack train but I need to research the autoracks better. Between the various manufacturers in HO there is a lot to chose from and the prices, well let’s just say they are interesting.

I did some doodling of track plans for my next layout. Terry thinks that I should build it outside the house. The new house will have a basement but not a big one. By combining an out building with her stables for no more then 3 horses it might be a good selling feature down the road. We are still a ways off though from foundation work, but I now know there will be some resistance to the layout downstairs!

The start of the cookie baking season is today. Usually this would be about 10 days of baking but Terry said 4 days and that’s it. Before Covid we also added as part of the cookie gift baskets, a loaf or 2 of my homemade breads. I will make 5 loaves this week but just for the daughter’s Christmas parties starting Friday night

enjoy the day

 

[D&J RailRoad]

kinda cold this morning in Virginia.
Goin over to a friend's house to take a tree down for him. He just can't get around anymore. Oxygen hose and can barely walk. I'll take the wood to my daughter's house as she burns it for house heat. I'll use the trailer to haul the wood and pull it with the Tesla. The Tesla has a 3500lb trailer capacity on a class III trailer hitch. Yeah, range drops off quite a bit when hauling the trailer, but that's the same with any ICE vehicle too.
Still putting the op session together for this coming weekend. Got all the local freight trains set up, Way Bills completed, scheduled and train orders filled out. Now working on the unit coal trains and intermodal that will come up from and go back to the staging area.

 

[Alcomotive]

'Morning folks!

A balmy 4° this morning. Yup winter is here. I have 6 inches of that white stuff on the ground and more on the way tomorrow night. I am working from home today and will do the same for Thursday and Friday due to the snow storm being predicted. I don't mind driving in the snow I just don't like those fools driving habits out there so I try not to be part of the statistics of "idiot" drivers that do not slow down or maintain their vehicles with proper road tires etc.

So later this afternoon I will play hooky and go in the train room. I thank those who responded to my query on the decibel meter. I never even thought to use an app on my smart phone lol so I will be playing with that to see how that works out! Thanks again!

I will burn wood the rest of the day as tonight is expected to get just as cold single digits but I think it will hit the negatives though.

I will check back later as I have a few things to do and the snail man will be coming with a few items. Some items came yesterday and I will share later.

 

[Chrιstιaη]

Gold utensils Christian; are you in the right forum?

Yep !

 

[Chrιstιaη]

I know that's not your hands!!

Me too !

 

[Chrιstιaη]

Hello happy members! Mirbelle, our new baby girl (calm down, she's just a pretty Golden), will arrive on Thursday. So, new girl, new house! Have a good day !

 

[Chrιstιaη]

Today, I bought a new monster for my layout. Wonderful isn't it ?

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning Again. That was quick, the thunderstorm lasted all of 30 minutes. The sky is clear, but the sun is still hidden by the storm clouds that moved east. The neighboring Weather Underground station is off-line right now, but my gauge has 0.5" in it. But the rain was coming down sideways so who really knows. The weather people think that there were tornadoes about 40 miles away.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I did more ballasting. I completed the passing siding and did half of the tail track on the north side of the Ethanol refinery. I did some other stuff, but mainly ran trains through the area to test the track after the ballasting. No noticeable issues, but there is plenty more to finish up.
Over on the workbench, I started a side project to the refinery. I had acquired some used discontinued Walther's Fermentation Tanks that I wanted to use as part of this scene. The original modeler, who was not the one that I got them from, did the most outrageous job assembling them. But with a little effort, I can fix them.

They are so badly done that he put a liner inside each one, also badly done, to disguise the cracks and voids.

I started by removing the tops and the liner.

I sanded the glue seepage and rough spots, and filled in the voids with Testor's Putty.

Going back today with the fine sandpaper before painting them white which they should be any way. This one took about 15 minutes. One reason for taking the tops off, is so I can orient them with the best sides facing the aisle and having the tops correctly lined up for piping and walkways.
I knew that these were in bad shape before I got them, but I felt that I could fix them. The price was right.

Hughie - That Val-U Fuels and Oils is quite an interesting structure.

Everybody have a great day. I need to go outside to see if I have any wind damage.

 

[logandsawman]

Good morning modelers, travelers and homebodies. A great day to be indoors in So. Central Wisconsin. With the rains coming this afternoon the remnants of Friday’s white stuff should be washed away.
View attachment 157681
Yesterday was fun. Stopped in Lombard, Il on the way to Racine, Wi. Lombard Hobbies if you get the chance is a great place to visit. If you can’t do it in person though IMO the online store is top 5 in the USA. Racine was a visit and late lunch with Terry’s best friend. Then off to Pewaukee, Wi and Hiawatha Hobbies that again is a nice (too crowed) place to visit but a super top 5 online store. Finally the drive home was uneventful. A oblong route as Lombard is 110 miles, from there Racine is 60, 30 miles from Racine to Hiawatha and 70 miles there to home. I purchased my first 6 axle diesels since selling off my Athearn Genesis SD70aces in 2019. I needed something in CN to pull my new reefer train, the grain train and the through mixed to be purchased yet. I also have been contemplating a auto rack train but I need to research the autoracks better. Between the various manufacturers in HO there is a lot to chose from and the prices, well let’s just say they are interesting.

I did some doodling of track plans for my next layout. Terry thinks that I should build it outside the house. The new house will have a basement but not a big one. By combining an out building with her stables for no more then 3 horses it might be a good selling feature down the road. We are still a ways off though from foundation work, but I now know there will be some resistance to the layout downstairs!

The start of the cookie baking season is today. Usually this would be about 10 days of baking but Terry said 4 days and that’s it. Before Covid we also added as part of the cookie gift baskets, a loaf or 2 of my homemade breads. I will make 5 loaves this week but just for the daughter’s Christmas parties starting Friday night

enjoy the day

View attachment 157685View attachment 157686

Getting ready to build a new layout? I envy you a bit as I find that to be one of the best parts.

Dave LASM

 

[TLOC]

Getting ready to build a new layout? I envy you a bit as I find that to be one of the best parts.

Dave LASM

Dave, unless it’s built in an out laying building it maybe a year or 2 till the house is moved into. I have no plans in our temporary quarters to build a layout. The paint booth, a work space for weathering and programming but no layout.

I enjoy building the frame work. I love the ground cover and landscaping portions. I really got into building the track but even though all the rail is being saved, I am not sure I want to glue rail to Central Valley ties strips again. I absolutely do not want to spike rail.

I have looked into joining a local club to run trains, but I don’t think so. They are modular and not what I am looking for. Alan on the forum belongs to a club in Milwaukee that has an awesome layout but at 80 miles one way, that’s out to. The guys who hold operating sessions, and there are many in a 50 mile radius, only use their own equipment. They also rarely run the layout between sessions. I have another RR buddy 2 miles away now with the same problem with my layout down. I had no issue with visiting equipment, with DC or DCC.

Terry does want a covered arena to be able to ride in bad weather. Expressed that again this morning! If I built the train room attaching it to the under construction stables and add the arena that would speed things up. The problem with that is it’s going to be away from the house. I often now just walk in the train room and operate for 15 minutes or doing something quick at the bench.

thinking

 

[Texas Hobo]

So I wondered if any of you have done anyhting like this? Bought a decibel meter?

You can get an app for your phone. I used it when adding soundproofing to my generator. Best I can tell it works OK. And it's free