Running Bear's December 2025 Coffee Shop

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Good morning folks. 33°F this morning and cloudy. My weekly load of laundry is in and my first cup of coffee is still too hot to drink.

Yesterday I re-attached the pantograph to the Br.120 that lost it on a tunnel entrance. I also found the missing rear safety railing for the swing-roof hopper and re-attached it, and scrounged up two buffers for the MIA buffers. I swear there's a black hole that all these parts get sucked into immediately after falling off of the locomotive or the wagon.

I also tried fixing another pantograph that has more severe damage on a separate locomotive, and though I have all of the parts for it, I found that my CA adhesive dried up in the bottle. So no repairing that one for a day or three. In addition to that, I also found a front buffer missing on that locomotive. Not only the buffer, the the mount too. I wish I knew where this stuff disappeared to.

Have a safe day those that are snowbound, and the rest of you too.

Servus und Fröhliche Weihnachten!
 
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Good Morning All. Seems to be clear and 43° out there right now. No real change in the forecast, cold front Saturday will affect us for two days and then back into the 60's and 70's for the rest of the 10 day forecast. Still no snow in sight, or rain either!

I would like to sincerely thank everyone for their prayers, well wishes and words of encouragement the past couple of days. I seemed to have come out of the whole episode as well as I could. First, I hate hospitals to begin with, I don't even like visiting people in there. But I had a great team taking care of me; and putting up with me! I don't weigh any less from all of the hair that they removed, completely shaved my chest for the electrode sensors, and both sides of the groin area for the twin incisions. Must have stuck a lot of equipment in there to need two entry locations. Actually it's because they went to the right side for the Atrial Flutter and the left side for Atrial fibrillation. Don't remember a damn thing from the time that someone stuck an oxygen mask on me (and held it real tightly), until 3 hours later when I awoke in a stupor that was really strange. I was told ahead of time, that once I was knocked out, the anesthesiologist was going to stick an oxygen tube in my throat instead of holding the mask. My throat hurt for over 6 hours afterward from what the nurse told me was common bruising. Overall, a good experience, especially Tabitha, the post-op caregiver. She was pretty too. However it was awkward when she had to accompany me into the restroom to pee! It was an expensive 8 hour stay.
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I don't know what allowed amount means, but the last number is the important one to me. I have another bill from the doctor for $3002, that I owe nothing on either.

Of course the whole ordeal disrupted my routine. Much of the recovery time was spent drifting in and out of sleep, and I probably didn't get more than 2 hours sleep last night. To avoid any interactions with the remaining anesthesia I was not supposed to drink any alcohol for 24 hours, and I wasn't allowed to take any sleeping aids last night. Wife did an admirable job starting the fire in the wood-burning stove last night, started right up. Heck, she even shoveled out the remaining ashes that didn't fit in the bucket when I did it Wednesday afternoon. I did help with supper though; no heavy lifting involved.

While I had thought about heading out to the train shed yesterday, I decided that the stairs, even though there are only 4 of them, might not be a good idea until we determine that the incisions have healed well enough. That should be today when we remove the bandages. I'm sure that the townspeople miss me already.

Patrick - While I'm discussing medical stuff, how's that new knee doing?
Louis -
Bruette said:
Go with the clean look, it makes you look younger. Although I found it itches when it grows back.
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That's why I haven't shaved my beard in over 50 years!
Kusojiji - Good luck with the tooth.
Tom O - No net on the beard, but they did put one on my head. Go figure! One of the operating room nurses had a beard net though. Yes, he was a guy.
I have taken a few Bobcat pictures when I was able to walk in the woods next door. It's fenced off now though.
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There were several kits ahead of these two but I didn't have the camera ready quickly enough.
Swal - As Chad pointed out, I was in for a heart ablation, which is supposed to fix the Atrial Flutter that I have, and also for A-Fib; neither of which I knew that I had until last June. I realized that I had had previous episodes of the flutter, and they found some minor A-fib when they stuck a heart monitor on me in September. Combined, I had 4 hours of either one over a 720 hour monitoring period. Low risk but it could lead to more issues in the future.
Todd - Glad to read that you and I presume Maria are safe.

I guess that it is more cab-view videos today. Maybe finish putting my railcar maintenance records into my database, about 160 left to catch up on.
Everyone have a great Friday. Looking forward to a cold one or three later today.
 
santafewillie said:
I don't know what allowed amount means, but the last number is the important one to me. I have another bill from the doctor for $3002, that I owe nothing on either.
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The big number is the fanciful number the hospital makes up as the bill. The “allowed amount” is what their insurance contract / Medicare allows for the services (so what the hospital will get paid). You figured out the last 0 amount.
 


TLOC said:
Good morning prolific writing Crew. Today’s weathering report is si different then yesterday where it was single digits until mid afternoon. Right now at 6.08 it’s 15f degrees heading to maybe 30.

We were on campus for Regional action in the NCAA VB tournament yesterday. The poor Eastern Illinois team never knew what hit them in sets 1 and 2 yesterday. Wisconsin winning 25-11 and 25-6 with every player playing in the 3rd set it was 25-19 Wisconsin in 3 sets . Today the Badgers play the No. Carolina Tarheels and after watching the heels win yesterday the Badgers should be moving on to Austin next week. But they play the games for a reason…

The weathering of the Swing Bridge continues today. Here’s my bench yesterday
View attachment 250255
That is not messy, that is the CREATIVE PROCESS

enjoy the day
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Good, now i don't feel so bad about my "hobby table".
 
RhB Michael said:
Good morning folks. 33°F this morning and cloudy. My weekly load of laundry is in and my first cup of coffee is still too hot to drink.

Yesterday I re-attached the pantograph to the Br.120 that lost it on a tunnel entrance. I also found the missing rear safety railing for the swing-roof hopper and re-attached it, and scrounged up two buffers for the MIA buffers. I swear there's a black hole that all these parts get sucked into immediately after falling off of the locomotive or the wagon.

I also tried fixing another pantograph that has more severe damage on a separate locomotive, and though I have all of the parts for it, I found that my CA adhesive dried up in the bottle. So no repairing that one for a day or three. In addition to that, I also found a front buffer missing on that locomotive. Not only the buffer, the the mount too. I wish I knew where this stuff disappeared to.

Have a safe day those that are snowbound, and the rest of you too.

Servus und Fröhliche Weihnachten!
Click to expand...
Wouldn't it be better to solder the parts of the damaged pantograph?
 
Good morning from a chilled Wisconsin. At wake up (7:25 today!) it’s 7f degrees but also feels like 7 so not too bad. Heading to 22 and sunshine so it might be a pretty looking day.

Again Willie, welcome back and glad the hair removing experience and the follow up medical stuff went ok. I hope the nurse was young and …

The plan today is to do a final inspect, package and bill out some weathering commission work. I looked over the cars last night and touched up some weathering over the graffiti. That was 1 of 4 cars for one customer so I will hit it again with some matte clear and let it sit overnight. That hopefully will ship out tomorrow. Everything thing else last night looked good

I have no plans or desire to do anything else in the train room today except possibly some commission weathering due in January. I generally around the 12th or 15th of each month strip down my air brushes and throughly clean them. I did that however to 2 brushes last week because they were giving me some issues while I was doing the bridges. I rarely get dry tip when I spray but 2 brushes were giving me fits so I cleaned them last week. It turned out both needles had some dried paint on them, it wasn’t tip dry. So I’ll move my calendar alert to January 12 and 15.

My friend I built the bridges for planned to finish the whole scene hoping for Christmas but for sure by the New Year. He texted last night saying his daughter who does his backgrounds wants now to be paid by the foot! His wife wanted to do the harbor/river water using the toilet paper and white glue method says she’ll do it but in January. So do I want to help finish the scene. He doesn’t want to wait for them or pay by the foot! He said he understands with his wife and her activities for the holidays (she is a big time do-gooder) but totally miffed regarding the daughter. I’ll respond yes this morning. Thankfully it’s only a 15 minute drive to his place. His wife has been reacting to having 5 to 8 guys over for 6 hour build sessions twice a week. But she seems ok when I pop over for a couple hours. He wants the 48” behind the bridge done but I’ll plan to work the whole 32’. I’ll start at the riverbank work my way to the right. By time I get to the next stopping point the paint should be dry enough at the river for another covering. That way I won’t muddle the colors. I’ll be using Aryclics where she used oils. His daughter has noted the colors she used on his previous scenes and while I can recreate the coloring I can’t match her creativity for the scenes. But I’ll try…

Volleyball on ESPN today around 1CST. #3 regionally ranked Badgers play #2 Stanford in Austin Texas. Nationally the Badgers are ranked 9th and Stanford #5. I like the Badger chances but they have to bring the A game. No hockey for the Badgers until January.

Enjoy the day
 
Willie, type in You Tube; Rhätische Bahn cab ride.

The scenery is breathtaking in any season, but is particularly serene in winter time with snow in the mountains. Many of the publishers are Lokführers and have Go-Pros set up in their cabs for incredible 4K video in some cases. Many will also give you a map of the route at the beginning of the video or have a small graphic of the route progression in the upper corner of the screen.

They will also annotate all of the tunnels, bridges, viaducts, and snowsheds traveled on the route.

If you can cast this from your computer to the large-screen TV, or pull up You Tube on your TV it's even better. I love watching these RhB videos on my 55" set.
 
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Morning folks, currently 59 with heavy fog. Saw way too many people driving without their headlights on, and it always seems to be the ones with white/silver/gray cars, they blend right in.

Glad to see the surgery went without a hitch and you're doing well Willie.:)
 
Well, howdy there internet peeps (again)

I know a lot of you are thinking you want to get into another hobby! ;) And, maybe even be a cool gamer on the table top like me. :cool:

But where do you start?

No worries, my buddies over on Little Wars TV on Utubez have the answer. They've got a great video with a bunch of downloads. Take you a single weekend to print out and assemble everything you need. Maybe even use up some of the leftover terrain bits you've got tucked away under the layout.

 
Good morning all!

Happy Friday!

A cold damp Northern Illinois day today. Currently its only 22F with an expected high of only 26F. Our 1-3" of snow never
materalized last night. We may have gotten a few flakes. Next snow chance is Saturday when the real cold comes in.

Usual laundry and other misc. household chores today

Basketball last night was a blow-out and not in our favor. Some really sloppy passes, many missed free throws, and foul trouble.
It should of been a totally different game, but every team has a bad night I suppose. They all seemed to take the loss fairly well.
There 4 game winning streak and undefeated (so far till last night) came to an end.

That's about all I have going on at the moment.

Have a safe day everyone!
 
Well good morning folks from sunny central Arkansas. 51 here, supposed to hit 60F today. Well our getaway plans were interrupted last night when our neighbor called us and said our compressor was making at lot of noise at home. So we had our nephew go by and he said it sounded alright to him, but LadyC was nervous about it, so we went ahead and drove home last night. Got in before Midnight and it seems to be okay, it's working anyway, and the installer will come by sometime today to give it a lookover. So we lost a day of hotel room staying, but I do admit it felt good to be back in our own bed.
 
I've had those in my yard. One waddled over from the neighbor's yard one day and before I saw it, Lisl von Schlaf saw it and decided it was an intruder and dispatched it straight away. Poor thing.

A few days later, his friend came waddling over, but I stopped Lisl before she could advance upon the poor thing. I saw him again around a week later, but he hasn't been back since.

They aren't very fast, they can't see very well, and they're not aggresive. They do dig holes in the yard looking for grubs and bugs, but they are mostly docile, curious creatures.
 


Army-Navy Game offers Baltimore chance to shine!
‘America’s Game’ returns to M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday for first time since 2016
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Photo from the Baltimore Sun

“America’s Game” will pit Navy (9-2) — ranked No. 22 in the Associated Press poll — against the Army Black Knights (6-5) in the 126th installment of the annual rivalry game Saturday at 3 p.m. Airing nationally on CBS, the contest will provide a football fans a break from the drama-filled College Football Playoff race and spotlight the blend of tradition and ceremony only Army-Navy can provide.
 
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