Running Bear's December 2022 Coffee Shop

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Patrick said:
Morning all,

19° and clear going for a high of 46° later. Supposed to get to 34° and some mix overnight before the front comes through dropping us into the single digits until next weekend. We may even have below 0° lows and wind chills into -10° to -20° range. Would you guys up north please close that damn door??!!!


They are speculaas in the Dutch tradition since the family that started them was from the Netherlands and brought the molds with them. They do make them year round. There is a large population of Dutch settlers in the area (Holland, MI) where the cookies are made.
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I will visit that part of the states, one day (or never). Its so funny to see all the dutch places called after the Dutch cities or counties. Funny it is.
well enjoy the best of the dutch and forget about the rest (enjoy the speculaas that is).
 
chadbag said:
Part deux

My cough is worse and better at the same time. I don't cough that much but when I do I go into a coughing fit sometime. But I'm coughing up a lot of mucus, where before it was more a dry cough with very little mucus. That means we're making progress. And while not perfect, I feel better in general. I did have a coughing fit at the very end of the first hour main church service and had to excuse myself to cough in the hallway/foyer and get a drink or two to calm the throat down. The wife came out and gave me a couple cough drops, which greatly helped.

Japan i still deep in the throws of Covid fear. Almost everyone masks all the time, even outside when not in crowds (though you see a reasonable number of intelligent people who remove the mask at that point). It is not required by law but in a group centric social country like Japan the peer pressure is on. So we mask everywhere we go and even tonight at the Bishop's house due to my intermittent cough, I stayed masked, even though he said it was fine to not mask.

A lot of places still check temperature (the aquarium did) and more play have the equipment set up but don't seem to enforce it. (We had to mask for the entire 13.75 hour flight). Since it is not my country I'm not going to be the one that tries to lead the out of it and I play the good foreigner who respects their expectations.

(I know my sickness is not Covid as we tested multiple times including a lab PCR test before leaving and also the symptoms don't match that well but people look at you when you cough -- lots of disinfectant everywhere in stores, buildings, homes, etc which I use willingly. I have noticed that there are a fair number of Japanese coughing a little here and there as well -- that time of year)

The first night we were in Yokohama my sister took us to a fancy Yaki Niku restaurant (that is a grilled meat restaurant). It was right here in our same building as the hotel and the main station. It was quite nice. I don't know how much the final bill was but I am sure it was hundreds of dollars. My wife gave her sister ¥30,000 (about $230) as a contribution, which her sister tried to refuse but the wife prevailed, but I am sure it was a lot more than that. I am not sure where the tradition comes from but it is similar to the Korean BBQ style meal and may have come from Korea or been influenced by Korea. I know this restaurant had Korean styled dishes available besides the Japanese.

This is a Kinchi plate (after I had already started eating it) including one Kimchi made with mandarin oranges. Another with carrots or something, some pickled cucumbers, some cabbage Kimchee, and some Daikon (radish) kimchee. I ate the whole plate as my son and I were at the neighboring table -- each sits 4 and they sat us in an enclosed booth that had two tables. My son is not much of a kimchee eater. The had another of the same plates of kimchi at the woman table (wife, SisIL, daughter) and they finished that off.

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I also got a special stone fire Bi-Bim-Bap, which is a Korean dish (kind of lie their every day national one) made its rice, meat, vegetables sauce, hot sauce, a raw egg sometimes (that is stirred in and cooks with the very hot rice), all mixed together in a dish-mash. I ate the whole bowl and it was very good.

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My son ordered some lobster tail (and he got my wife scallops as well which we eventually figured out were what she ordered and we gave the eft over ones to her). The next few pics show some of the meats and stuff cooking, of on the plate, or pre-cooking, All were delicious. You cook t yourself and the little grill is in the middle of your table. We had some of the really fatty thin beef that we put on and I didn't get it turned over in time. It turned black. I still ate it and it was still good. No pics though. My sister in law got us another plate of it to try again.

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At the aquarium yesterday, in between the men's room and the women's room, there was a multi purpose "family" and "disabled" bathroom available. This was the door. I am not sure what the middle pic is supposed to represent. Any guesses (work and family friendly only)? I asked my sister in law but she didn't know either.



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When we got back home from the aquarium I was not feeling hot so I just went to the hotel and had my convince store dinner of champions. The rest of the family went to a simple Udon restaurant (Udon are thick chewy noodles in broth and you put whatever you want on them). My dinner included a convenience store fork bun (chinese style), a strawberry shortcake in a cup, an ice cream bar, and a VitC drink from the drug store I went to to get some mouthwash. I think I had one other item that didn't make the pic but I forget. Would have been simple convenience store food.

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This next pic is the station we got off at to walk to the church building and went back to after church. It is typical of small local train stations in residential areas. Small narrow streets with a few shops and then a small station right there.

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When you have a baby that has to have a clean diaper you know the sign or pic.
 
logandsawman said:
back again to catch up a little,

Patrick - too bad I don't have control over the weather, I would have stopped the cold air up at International Falls and we would all be in mild temps

Christian - you are persistent!

Talk of the Netherlands always brings to mind my wooden shoes. These were made by my great grandpa Noreen, I thought he was a sweede possibly they used them there, too

He made these at our old farm in Wyoming MN which is Chisago county Minnesota, Dad said they used these for chores this pair must have been for church; they used wood cause would not rot like leather as it reacted to the manure:

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here shows the bottom, they were used for special occasions I believe,

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have a great evening all and be back tomorrow

Dave LASM
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Very nice! You really have to get used to wear them and actually walk. But once the upper half of your feet are "hardened" its ok. In winter they stuff them with hay and are perfect warm as well (maybe a little larger for winter). Not many ppl in Holland actually wear them and even fewer can make them. Most are made by machine for tourists. The real ones are made by hand...I do have a pair of "klompen"
 
Smudge617 said:
NYC_George hope you guys get everything quickly sorted out.
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Well Smudge I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow, the have everything plumping stores are not open until then. I plan to disengage the pitiless adapter then running a hose to my neighbor's and washing out where the seal sits in case there some debris preventing it from seating properly. It seems like it's drawing air from somewhere, maybe there. It's down four feet to prevent the line from freezing in the winter. If it's gone bad, I'll have to dig down and replace the whole unit.
Swal

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JeffH said:
I enjoy stopping in here a few times a day. But I do sometimes wish more people would look at all new posts, not just what's in here in the coffee shop. This is a social gathering spot, and a good one at that.... Although... sometimes I feel like I have to post in here just to get attention to an issue I have and come here looking for advice. Posting in the other sub-forums sometimes falls on deaf ears...

Not complaining.. just an observation I have had over the past year or so.
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Post a link so we will be looking at it. We are all lazy...so just help a little to get our hands out and help you if possible. I don't want to hang around the forum too long since the hobby is waiting, the cats have to have their food (don't have any!) and all the other things waiting to get attention.
 
santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 42°. Not much change from yesterday, tomorrow should be the same. Thursday is still the day of the big chill coming. But it's only expected to last from noon Thursday until noonish or so on Saturday. Still no precipitation in the forecast.

Took the granddog on an extra long walk yesterday. I had to use the leash since we were using the main road and she is not vehicle cognizant. She really wanted to chase the Longhorns next door, especially since they were within 10' of the fence. They ignored her. The juvenile pair are just beginning to grow their horns, which are about 5" long as of now. The two mamas have horns about 3' in length each. Surprisingly, female Longhorns have longer horns than males.
Today I think that we are going shopping, again! There is no room left under the tree, and only one package has my name on it. It's from my son in San Antonio who won't be here.

I made it out to the train shed yesterday, and continued ballasting. I am left with just an 18" section left to do. I also cleaned off 24 tank cars which were showing a lot of dust. Remember the picture from about two weeks ago? Mostly I ran various trains though. I hadn't done that in over a week.
I pulled out my favorite display car which I do every Christmas season. I don't use it on the layout because it has European couplers and doesn't fit my era, but one of my BIL's gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago, so it is special.

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James - Congratulations to your nephew.
Jeff - I agree about folks needing to look at some of the other threads in the forum. There's some real interesting stuff out there. I even read some of the DCC stuff even though I am DC. I am however a bit disillusioned by many of the new posters who start an intro thread and are never seen again. And the forum software still counts them as active members even 20 years later!!! The Coffee Shop itself wasn't nearly as popular 10 years ago. But we also have many members who don't come to the Coffee Shop for some reason.
Joe - Glad to read that you came through the procedure unscathed. Rest for a few days.
Chad - Interesting looking museum.

Everybody have a wonderful day.
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What is this... the worst tasting beer ever made! Since i was in Denver and visited the museum and seen the Coors factory close by, I only drink other trades. Can you buy Grolsch (cars)? No?! Well repaint the car! The odd thing is the above car is from Austria (OBB).
 
logandsawman said:
Those are nice looking tank cars and fit nicely into my era!

I have two of this same style, Roundhouse kits I think or else blue box. As far as thinning out the herd goes, we moved 5 times in 6 years and that takes a toll on posessions. The last two moves we purchased a shipping container and put it on the land where we eventually built our home and that is where the bulk of my RR possessions ended up,

However I continued to purchase truss rod box car kits with appropriate road names, gave me something to putter with. I will probablly purchase a couple more locomotives, that new H600 at trainworld is pretty tempting, would have to buy one and strip the paint to get my color scheme...
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Costumizing cars is the "best a man can have". Its so much fun to have your own little bit of "world". Being a vege I want to paint some idiot, non-existing decals on my stock car...like the cows or sheep go to an even better meadow instead of the butcher.
 
TLOC said:
Terry is gone shopping, the cell phone is on but ringer was off, the house was silent until I plugged in my IPod and started playing some Tina Tuner. Door bell was ringing. I really wasn’t even sure what it was, as I can’t remember anyone using it. Anyway, Isabel was ringing the bell because I wasn’t answering the phone.

Seems the ground crew has sold some firewood and needed some advice. Guy made an appointment to buy some firewood which I am told he does a few times a year in a 20’ box truck and has since we started advertizing dry firewood. Today he came with a lowboy trailer and a large lift. We have lots of live edge Maple slabs, about 28” x 140” x 3 to 4” thick air drying near the wood shed. Many hundreds more narrower but same thickness. The slabs he wanted have been out there since 2019. Everything is dated. He really checked them over the last time he was here with Isabel. She said today that he had some moisture meter with him then but that was it, no offer. Turns out this guy has sold specialty woods as his side gig forever he said when I spoke to him. He finally retired last October and his side gig is now his full time business/job. He made an offer to Isabel for the maple slabs that she said she needed to talk to the boss about first, me!

His offer seemed pretty good but I went online in front of him and Isabel and checked anyway. A bit low but he said the offer was per slab and there were 26 slabs out there roughly the same size. He wanted all of them. He asked if we’d take a check and we don’t. We take cash or credit card. Called his bank and they would e-transfer to the firewood account.

He said best thing we did was cutting those thick 3-4” slabs. They can be slotted, biscuits added and glued together to make wide tables or desk tops. Hand sanded or run through a plainer. While his employee loaded the lowboy, Isabel showed him the 2 other air drying sheds we have that he had not seen. She is no dummy. He came back and asked me if he could sell what’s in the sheds for a commission.

The crew gets a split of the firewood sales and also for the slabs but this is the first real decent sale we have had on slabs. Based on the preliminary numbers for this sale, the crew of 5 on Friday will each get one hell of a check. It was a good morning and early afternoon.
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What business do you run? You collect the wood, grow them as well? Do you have a heavy sawing machine? Here we can only do smaller trees. When they are too old and too big they are handled in specialized firms. I am a volunteer with the former state forestry (SBB) so just wondering.
 
JeffH said:
We have a neighbor who logs for a living. He specializes by doing logging with work horses rather than heavy equipment. It seems a lot of wealthy land owners appreciate that he doesn't make a big mess when he goes into the woods to harvest trees. He'll spend a day harvesting a few trees from deep in the forest where the trees grow tall without a lot of lower branches. He also tends to harvest trees with large burls (sp?) whenever he come across one that looks promising. He also does a lot of work for Amish communities here in Ohio.
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Thats the best (not the cheapest though). People think bigger is better. The soil is ruined by those big machines. Working with horses...finally we learn our grandparents were not stupid. I will post a picture from the local newspaper yesterday...funny I read this here as well.
 

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Morning all

Merry observered Christmas.

Had a little rain overnight which is making a mess of untreated roads. I don't have to go out in it yet, so it's all good. Not supposed to get above 30° today after yesterday's 34°. We officially had a white Christmas. Snow has to measure 1" or more at 11:00a for it to count. Apparently 3" was measured Thursday when it quit and we still had 1.5" yesterday, all while staying below freezing.

Tomorrow is supposed to be 40°ish.

Bbl
 
Smudge617 said:
I don't understand how this was allowed to happen, where were the escort drivers???. As Alcomotive has said, you never do this without ensuring you can clear the crossing with the entire truck
In the UK, if you have a load this long you have to check in with the nearest signal box that you intend to cross and contact them again after you've cleared the crossing, plus a load this long would have a police escort as well as two escort vehicles.
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All about $$$ I guess...from 1 party. Apart from the personal damage (nr1!!) Check the damage done to cars and engines. Pound foolish...?
 


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