Running Bear's February 2025 Coffee Shop

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You all missed out!

wife made a pizza crust and told me to make my deep dish cheesy cast iron pizza again.

This is the one where after you shape the dough into the 10" cast iron pan, add Monterey Jack cheese along the edge of the crust, pressing it up the pan wall. That extra cheese crisps up and is yummy when you get to the crust ring.

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She told me to make a BBQ Meatloaf on Friday when it'll be good grilling weather. So a grocery run tomorrow.
That looks good enough to eat. 🍕😍
How about sharing the recipe for that crust? Living in the sticks puts me a long way from any pizza joints.
 
That looks good enough to eat. 🍕😍
How about sharing the recipe for that crust? Living in the sticks puts me a long way from any pizza joints.
Pizza Dough.jpg

The bread flour instead of all purpose flour makes a difference.
after the "first rise" where it says "let double 1 hour" I shape it into the cast iron pan, and let it sit for another hour.

Here's a vid of the method: BUT we use a different dough recipe than she does.
 


Good early morning all!

A rare bout of insomnia has hit. Doesnt happen very often for me. I awoke at around 2am and could not fall back asleep. I must of been
didturbing the wife with the tossing and turning. She started to get annoyed, so I just got up and brewed coffee. An afternoon nap will
be in order.

Currently 34F, The rain has moved out of the area and should hit the mid 50s again today, but looks like cooler weather
is in store for the weekend. All good things must end I suppose.

Have a safe day everyone!
 
Gene Hackman, wife, and dog


Journalism hat on:
Carbon monoxide leak? New Mexico home? They start a fire to heat and not have good ventilation? Who knows.

I did sleep in until about 5:30 this morning. Made up for yesterday.

Had an interesting day yesterday online. I've got a friend who is very knee-jerk red hat, and likes to call me out for some of what I post about PolyTics on the book of faces. When he groaned about a commentary piece written by someone emulating the great Hunter S. Thompson, I decided to start twigging him back.

He posted something from a commentator that I happened to have a very long response to, so I typed it and hit post. My goal is to get him deconstructed back to the center-right and out of the fringes.

THEN... as if polytics weren't bad enough, one of the author groups I'm in with several thousand other authors, posted a link to an online training for the AI-curious in authoring.

OMG! If you think Red v Blue Polytics is bad - don't wade into the "AI IS THEFT YOU IDIOTS!!!! HOW DARE YOU USE IT!!!!" arguments.
Hint: every court case with the "theft" argument for training has been decided for the AI tech.

The problem is: AI isn't going away. And the hair-splitting of "Well, I don't use it for anything creative" arguments are wearing thin. Fortunately there are calm, rational people (calmer and more rational than me) who can balance the groaners out. It was an interesting day online.
 
Gene Hackman, wife, and dog


Journalism hat on:
Carbon monoxide leak? New Mexico home? They start a fire to heat and not have good ventilation? Who knows.
Police say they don't believe foul play was involved. Since murder/suicide would tend to be foul, it would seem to be accidental. I can't think of too many things other than CO poisoning that would immediately rule out foul play for multiple deaths.
 
Police say they don't believe foul play was involved. Since murder/suicide would tend to be foul, it would seem to be accidental. I can't think of too many things other than CO poisoning that would immediately rule out foul play for multiple deaths.
and that made me check the CO2 detector in the basement, to make sure I'd swapped the battery out in my Jan 1 maintenance routine.
 


Morning all,

35° going for 63° later. Short day as I have to move some hours to server updates on Saturday, otherwise not much happening.

One of the billing clerks working from home emailed me at 5:00a about slowness in the system. With backups still running, yes it will be slow.
Otherwise nothing new going on yet.

BBL
 
Good morning from So. Central Wisconsin. If Hackman and his wife had died just together I would guess and say something suspicious. However with the dog also going at the same time I would say something environmental in the home with carbon monoxide the #1 suspect. Too bad but thankfully for him they should have led a good life along with being a long one.

Weather here has turned. It will be cooler with only 46f degrees the high today but back to the 50’s on Friday. Right now it’s 37 but feeling like 24. All snow except parking lot piles and north shaded slopes is gone! Brown dormant grass is showing and it’s ugly!

I am skipping a layout work session today as Terry has a medical physical to get approval for her cataract surgery next week. With Covid and especially flu rates up in our part of Wisconsin the Clinic is limiting time spent in the waiting areas for the non patients. For her planned 2 hour visit, I will spend most of it in the car. Masks are a highly recommended option! Terry still has balance issues due to her pain management issues with the Trigeminal Neuralgia. She knows it and prefers not to be driving in case of flare ups. So, I need to be there, which is of course not an issue. But over all she says she’s feeling very good. She had no issues going to and coming back from Austin. Says it was invigorating.

The issue with the Wimberley purchase for the son is the landowner wants a percentage of any mineral rights over the next 20 years. There are 3 old capped wells on the property so there is or was oil at one time. They had an agreed upon land price but differ on minerals rights that may never be exercised.

What time I spent in the train room yesterday was mainly taking photos, posting and selling containers and chassis, unweathered! Today it’s a visit to the post office. One of the boxes going out is to a guy who forwarded me some items to weather last week for a weathering client. The weathering client had them drop shipped to me, they are 6 chassis and containers! We both got a chuckle from that one. I sold the guy 24 chassis! Small world.

Sometime today I will drive the 4 miles to the LHS. I ordered a few Linesmen trucks to weather and sell. I was told yesterday they arrived Tuesday so I put out a notice to my client mailing list and
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4 of the 6 I ordered are sold but need to be weathered. The unsold 2 are for me! Here is a previous truck

Enjoy the day
 
Good Morning All. Mostly clear and 47°, headed for 72° today...not quite as warm as yesterday's 78° which should repeat tomorrow. Light northerly wind started around noon yesterday. Ten day forecast is about the same, 70's for a week, thunderstorms next Tuesday and then 60's for a while. It may approach 40° on some nights including tonight. I have several "fire-starter" boxes already prepared.

Wife commented at supper last night that I had a hint of sunburn from working outside most of yesterday. I stacked more firewood from several wagon-loads that I had dumped next to the pile over the last few weeks. Still lots more to go from the last adventure with the lumberjacks. I also moved a couple of loads of wood chips to the garden, about 4 yards total. Haven't spread it out yet, but I will before tilling it in this weekend. Did some other miscellaneous stuff in between.

We're going to get back on track with the Thursday weekly grocery trek today. Not a big list yet since we just went Sunday, but it was too early to purchase beer when we went then. Our state still has some backwards liquor laws regarding who can sell beer before noon on Sunday. Liquor stores must close on Sunday, but it is available by the drink at bars and restaurants.

I only spent a short time out in the train shed yesterday. I yanked another structure to add some figures to before I ran some trains.
Here is an old picture of the Second Class Saloon before it was landscaped.
04-29-18 011.JPG

Just the two girls on the right. I added three more yesterday.
IMG_0401.JPG
IMG_0402.JPG

It takes me longer to sort through and select the figures than to actually add them.

Troy - Sorry to read about the existential dread. Many others felt it over the last few years, the pendulum will move back towards the center. To paraphrase a chant from the 70's, just four more years.
Here is a quote from Frank Zappa that might sum things up for everyone.
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
Swal - Good luck with whatever decision that you make regarding NC. Just be careful and don't do anything rash.
Len - One of the things about retirement for me, meant more visits to more docs than I could ever imagine. I went from 1970 until 2005 without a single doctor visit except the dentist. I finally got a primary care physician in 2005. After retiring in 2015, I have now accumulated seven more! Amazing how Medicare contributed to the proliferation once they started being the payer.
Troy (again) - It is sad about the child who died from measles out in West Texas. That area is really remote, the whole county which is twice the area (1500 sq mi) as mine, has only 20,000 people, mostly Mennonite's and migrants working ranches. Health care is minimal there, the closest "real" hospital is in Lubbock, 100 miles away. Gaines County, BTW, is the number-one oil-producing, cotton-producing, and peanut-producing county in Texas. The Mennonites as a religion are not anti-vax, but some local sects eschew them.
Terry - Implants are not cheap, don't ask how I know. Good luck.
Tom O - Mineral rights can be tricky. I do not own the mineral rights under my property, knew it before the purchase and never bothered to find out who did. Hasn't been an issue yet. There's gas and oil nearby, but I don't believe that the field extends near enough to be worth the exploration expense.

Elizabeth Taylor was born on this day in 1932.
Everybody have a good Thursday today.
 
Mineral rights can be tricky.
And water rights. Something I had never heard of back East but which is very important here in the West.

You can't just go digging a well on your property if you wanted to. Someone owns those water rights. In fact, until a recent change in law, you couldn't cache rain -- stick out a rain barrel and gather water. Since that water goes to recharge the aquifier that water was part of the water rights. The law was recently changed (last 10 years or so I believe) to allow you to collect and cache rain water, which some people do to water gardens or lawns or whatever.
 


I wired up one of the tortoise switch machines to change the signal aspect when a train is crossing over. There are 2 separate auxiliary pads on the switch machine for this purpose. If I don't buy a block detector for blocks before and after the crossover I'll just use yellow for trains using the crossover which is a 30 mph signal and then back to green or red. I know it seems like a lot of work to display a yellow signal. One more tortoise to wire up.
Swal

TSM_02.jpg
 
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