Running Bear's December 2022 Coffee Shop

[logandsawman]

Good morning all, 30 F and snowing. Electricity went off for about 4 hours yesterday. Went off again today just as I was going to do the breakfast dishes.

Not going to work again today, and tomorrow is a vacation day, so I had a two day work week. Shoveled 10.5" of wet heavy snow yesterday, we got an additional 6" overnight and still snowing will be doing more shoveling. Muscles ache a bit.

Tinnitis - in my head crickets is the best, crickets with flutes and clarinets. I am pretty good at ignoring it, it takes me brainwashing myself. Sometimes they break through, however

Patrick - I feel that I will be going to the office until 70. Partly financially a necessity and partly may be difficult staying home all day with the wife.

TomO - my wife is always happy when we are spending money. When we are saving money (being austere), cranky is the word
This morning many of our pine trees have been overtaken by 17" of heavy wet water:

will be removing snow much of the day,

did get some time in the train room; planted these trees by the sawmill (the ones on the left, they are in a gully):



Also made the scene of unloading lots:



The fireplace needs a bit more wood,

Dave LASM

 

[BigGRacing]

I'm watching my wife decorate the living room Christmas tree. I'm doing my part. I'm picking Christmas songs from YouTube and playing them through the TV. It's a good chance to test my new Samsung 300-watt sound bar with sub-woofer I got December 6th. Thank you, Saint Nicholas!

How do you find the sound bar, my tv has Dolby sound and I find that pretty good. Dont know if I need a sound bar.

 

[TLOC]

Good Morning All. Clear and 34° here right now. It will probably drop below freezing around sunrise in another hour. Not a lot of change in the weather here until next Thursday when we might see a few days in a row when it doesn't get above 32°. Brrrh!
Never did rain here yesterday, although it did less than a quarter mile up the road at several neighbors homes. That's always an interesting phenomena to observe.

Well, it appears that my wife is finished decorating the Christmas tree.
View attachment 157752
I reluctantly added the bubble lights; I don't particularly like those things. But if it makes her happy, so be it.
View attachment 157753

Weekly grocery trek day today. Prime Rib Roasts are on sale all over town, and there's room in the freezer for several. I still have one that I bought on sale last month. Nothing else of note planned for today other than bringing in a steady stream of firewood. Three trips at most. Yesterday I removed all of the tree-decorating totes from the living room so my wife can use the whole floor for wrapping gifts.

Thanks Terry, Troy, and Patrick for the leads on the sound meter app. Now I just have to figure out what my account name is! I told y'all that I am cell phone challenged.

Out in the train shed yesterday, it was more of the same. I'm still ballasting. I applied another coat of paint to the inside of the containment berm and temporarily set the loading platforms in place.
View attachment 157756

Dave B -

At least in your neck of the woods, they do have snow removal equipment for the public roads. Here we rely on the first tractor or 4WD pickup truck bringing one of those large round bales of hay to livestock, to provide a path. The county might send out a grader two or three days later if the County Emergency Services Team (ambulances, fire trucks) demands it. They've gotten better after the emergency guys got a court order a few years back.

Everybody have a great day.

Willie, truly understand the making the wife happy at Christmas time bit. Terry has complained since I retired about our Christmas tree. Too big, to hard to set up, too this or that. Finally I just set it up the last few years in the cave but she still insisted on decorating it after I did the lights. Never an issue once it was set up. This year she said you need a new tree. $179 later we have a new HomeDepot tree still 7.5‘ high but much narrower and lights installed. It’s fine and she’s happy.

 

[ctclibby]

Good Morning All!
30F and overcast.
Got mo snow the last couple of days - probably amounted to 3 or 4 inches. We do not have as much as Dave though. The light snow; weight wise we have been getting shrinks even without wind. Weather guessers are still saying more snow in the works. We will see.

Welp, tomorra is the start of my 71st orbit. Suspect that I will not be around until Saturday as Wife and Daughter's squeeze have plans for me which probably will include food and booze in different locations...Not a geographical drunk like the old days cuz all the places we seem to frequent are less than a mile apart. I do have to be at the VFW for the DSO about 11, so nothing happens until after that. Don't worry as I only have 2 drinks/beers - the 1st one and the Last one; and on top of that - my Type II is magically going to go away for a bit.

Got a RibEye slab the Kalispell run day before yesterday and sliced one thick piece for 4 of us; cut and bagged 12, inch thick ones for the freezer. Also grabbed a couple of bags 10-14 count shrimp and kept enough out of the freezer for us to have 2 each. Green beans with onion and bacon along with Mac and Cheese and broiled/toasted French Bread spread with garlic, butter and sour scream is the main, Chocolate Cream Pie is either before the main or desert; depending if I go and get salad makings.

Still have pork rib slabs to cut and freeze, along with a 15Lb bag of salad shrimp to split into 8oz portions for the freezer. Probably will do the 20Lbs of Blue Berries into 8oz bags also that has been sitting waiting patently . Need to slice a 8Lb Pastrami, bag and freeze for sandwich makings.

I tried to get a big chub of bologna for slicing, but no go. The stuff in the local store is close to $6Lb - hamburger is cheaper; geesh.

Later

 

[Chrιstιaη]

Hello Happy Members !
Mirbelle is here ! Isn't she lovely ?

 

[NYC_George]

Hearing loss, especially due to tinnitus, is well known to cause problems understanding what people are saying when in a somewhat chaotic immersion of sounds.

In other words... I can be standing, face to face, with a person right in front of me, and if I'm in a loud restaurant, or bar, I cannot tell what they are saying. BUT... I can tell you exactly what some person behind me, 15 feet away just said. I know.. it makes no sense, but it's real.

My issue is worse, because my tinnitus has graduated to spatial hearing loss. Trying to converse with people in a loud environment gives me intense claustrophobic-like anxiety. It's strange... if I cover my ears with my hands, it gets much better... Like it's the higher frequencies that cause it. But I'm a little too vain to stand there with my hands on my ears all night, lol.

It's quite debilitating, and I avoid places like that whenever I can. Unfortunately, there are times I can't avoid it. Yesterday, after our daughter's graduation ceremony, a bunch of us went to PINS mechanical to celebrate and do some Duck Bowling. The place was extremley loud. Even my 29-year old daughter complained, which is saying someting. Add in all the bowling and other noises, and it was my own little personal Hell on Earth for 5 hours. We got home at 21:45, and it took me until 01:30 this morning before I could get the ringing in my ears to stop.

By the way... whoever called it "ringing" ears lied... It's more like a constant tidal wave of white noise you can't silence. Normally, the tinnitus doesn't bother me much, but something happens when I'm bombarded with noise to make the ocean of sound worse.

I have some form of tinnitus. most likely from my band years playing Jimi Hendrix songs and also walking back to get the steam generator going on the EMD covered wagon engines. The sound from the diesel engine will blow your ear drums out.
Swal

 

[Patrick]

Well,

Best laid plans of men anyway...

Finally figured out how to get email accounts archived to make the legal eagle happy. Now I have 120 accounts to reopen, setup on a computer and archive the accounts, one at a time, and then rename and move the archive to a server that is backed up nearly daily. At least I can hopefully have the exchange server cleaned up before we move everything online. makes for a cleaner move. Let the busy work begin.

 

[Chrιstιaη]

Mirbelle also has a big teddy bear. She loves him.

 

[rgeiter]

I finally put the tree up. Had some help too. Left the decorating to the wife. (not the cat)

 

[bnsf971]

Good afternoon.
It's severe thunderstorming and 71
We also have a tornado watch in effect.

 

[Boris]

Good afternoon.
It's severe thunderstorming and 71
We also have a tornado watch in effect.

Raining and 41° at the Jersey Shore.

 

[troyphoto]

Good afternoon.
It's severe thunderstorming and 71
We also have a tornado watch in effect.

Are you back in FL? I'll probably be down in Tampa Bay next Sept. Can arrange a day early or late if you want to meet and take out to see the train sights!

 

[D&J RailRoad]

dang, non-stop rain.
I want to go check the mail and go get a pre-fab sammich at the grocery store, but this rain. Not just a light rain, but the kind that would have ya soaked in a run from the car to the store door or out to the mail box and back.
I'm not streamlined anymore to dodge em.

 

[Alcomotive]

How do you find the sound bar, my tv has Dolby sound and I find that pretty good. Dont know if I need a sound bar.

I love my VIZIO 5.1 V-Series Home Theater Sound Bar.....it works great! It also has bluetooth for me to connect my phone or laptop to use to play my music etc. I have had it for 2 years now. I got it from Wallyworld (Walmart) on a Christmas sale for like 129 or something like that. My TV is a 80 inch Vizio 4K Smart TV (no camera) as well which I have had for 4 years now. I use the wifi to connect my laptop if I want a bigger screen to view photos or do ACAD. Love the set up!

 

[rgeiter]

dang, non-stop rain.
I want to go check the mail and go get a pre-fab sammich at the grocery store, but this rain. Not just a light rain, but the kind that would have ya soaked in a run from the car to the store door or out to the mail box and back.
I'm not streamlined anymore to dodge em.

I hear ya. I’m a couple hundred miles north of you and it’s been pouring all day.

 

[Trussrod-2]

NIIce scenes Dave .

 

[kbkchooch]

Good afternoon!!

Christian, the puppy is soooo cute!

It's been raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock here most of the day. Ugh.

Our cat Desi, (Sir Desmond of obladee obladah) chilling under or tree.

I picked up the wife's Christmas present today, a Cricut Maker 3. It can cut 300 different materials, including foam core and 1/8th inch plywood. Once she gets good with it I'm gonna see if we can make custom structures with it! Genius!

L8ter!

 

[santafewillie]

It's severe thunderstorming and 71
We also have a tornado watch in effect.

Raining and 41° at the Jersey Shore.

dang, non-stop rain.

it’s been pouring all day.

It's been raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock here most of the day

The system that hit here Tuesday morning must be on the East Coast now. Be careful.

 

[truckdad]

Good Morning All!
30F and overcast.
Got mo snow the last couple of days - probably amounted to 3 or 4 inches. We do not have as much as Dave though. The light snow; weight wise we have been getting shrinks even without wind. Weather guessers are still saying more snow in the works. We will see.

Welp, tomorra is the start of my 71st orbit. Suspect that I will not be around until Saturday as Wife and Daughter's squeeze have plans for me which probably will include food and booze in different locations...Not a geographical drunk like the old days cuz all the places we seem to frequent are less than a mile apart. I do have to be at the VFW for the DSO about 11, so nothing happens until after that. Don't worry as I only have 2 drinks/beers - the 1st one and the Last one; and on top of that - my Type II is magically going to go away for a bit.

Got a RibEye slab the Kalispell run day before yesterday and sliced one thick piece for 4 of us; cut and bagged 12, inch thick ones for the freezer. Also grabbed a couple of bags 10-14 count shrimp and kept enough out of the freezer for us to have 2 each. Green beans with onion and bacon along with Mac and Cheese and broiled/toasted French Bread spread with garlic, butter and sour scream is the main, Chocolate Cream Pie is either before the main or desert; depending if I go and get salad makings.

Still have pork rib slabs to cut and freeze, along with a 15Lb bag of salad shrimp to split into 8oz portions for the freezer. Probably will do the 20Lbs of Blue Berries into 8oz bags also that has been sitting waiting patently . Need to slice a 8Lb Pastrami, bag and freeze for sandwich makings.

I tried to get a big chub of bologna for slicing, but no go. The stuff in the local store is close to $6Lb - hamburger is cheaper; geesh.

Later

Well, from one old truck driver to another……. Happy Birthday

 

[Trussrod-2]

Good morning Spike Drivers & Gandy Dancers, how are things here at Jeffreys' Dinner ?

Hello Flo - Francine, how are my two favorite waitresses this December 15th. Bill of Rights Day, my 77th. Birthday and the morning of Jeffrey's passing 4 years (?) ago.

Flo, I'd like 3 eggs scrambled, lightly cooked, hash browns, Rye toast with Peanut butter and Raspberry jam and Black Coffee. There's a $2.00 tip in advance.

It's 49°F with Hum-i-dity of 72% and slightly cloudy.

Since I came back after my long absence I've been wondering about several other member's I haven't seen on here lately ? Old Ray from N.Y., Ray in Alabrails.nd Phil near Curt. Has any heard from them ?

Modeling the 1890's to 1910 era I keep looking to find an early rail inspection vehicle like maybe an old car or flat bed truck converted to run on the rails.
One of the large hobby shops in NY (?) Used to have 1930 High railer cars but I don't recall there name.

Have a great day !