Running Bear's January 2022 Coffee Shop

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Good morning global modelers, stock market gurus and grocery shoppers. Oh what a group we are and that does include the computer stuff written about.

Whole Foods, never have I been in one. Trader Joe’s is the place my sister buys from. Went in once with her and just laughed at the cheese counter guy talking about his artesian cheeses. Told him thanks, stop as being from Wisconsin I might know more about cheese then he did. Our normal store is our HyVee and mainly because of the money earned for buying gas.

Trains, if it wasn’t for sound equipped locomotives I might seriously think about going back to DC only. Sold off all 3 ProtoThrottles because operations on the layout have really ground to a halt. I sometimes have felt lately that I more enjoy the process of the layout build then i do operating trains. Maybe I should put the lift out back in and run trains in a loop while I work at the bench

Have a day!
TomO


Funny you say that about your layout. As simple as mine is with two main lines that allows me to run 2 trains simultaneously and then I will have 3 small switch yards. I like to sit there work on other things while 1 or 2 trains are running kinda nice to be able to do that.

Well soon I will be removing the temporary EZ track and laying the new code 83 down. Most likely after this weekend...... after going to the the Big E Train Show where I hope to pick up a few remaining ME track switches.
 


Good Morning All. Clear and 37° here at Elev 820 ft, 33.37 °N, 97.18 °W. Cold front coming this afternoon; tomorrow's high only going to be 49°, but returning to the mid-60's by Saturday.

Thanks once again for all of those likes and comments regarding yesterday's post; James, Patrick, Tom O, Smudge, Louis, Steve J, Troy, Karl, George, Dave (PV), Joe, Justin, Sherrel, Hughie, OB Ken, Chad, Curt, Rick, Tom, Gary.

Mexican omelet for me this morning Flo. Spicy salsa on the side.

Mixed day yesterday out in the train shed. I added more ground cover, but I did not add any ballast to the last two turnouts, yet. I ran a lot of trains in an effort to locate the cars with the missing brake wheel and air reservoir. Found the brake wheel car, as the wheel that I had found was green, pointing to a BN car. So that one was easy. The black air reservoir is a bit more tricky, although chances are real good that the car is still on the lower level as I don't often move them from level to level. I was able to return all trains back to the staging yard though.

Steve J - $4500? Maybe! Easily! There's an additional 46 engines (in addition to the 19 pictured) spread out in the other two yards and in a couple of the passing sidings. Overall, there's ~800 freight cars. Much was bought quite a while ago. I haven't actually purchased a freight car since May of 2014. I have added nine ScaleTrains engines since then with four more on pre-order. Some of my 35 year old Athearn Blue Box engines are being phased out and retired.
Sherrel -

Like Karl, my money stays in my pocket...never bet on anything other than a slot machine. And then only on a two day visit to Vegas on business.
Tom O - I'm riding the market out. To appease my wife, I'll make a small change in allocations and she calms down when she sees the generic E-Mail confirming a transaction was made. She doesn't know if I bailed or what!;) I tell her later when things settle down.
Mikey - You're right about having too many construction workers in the same pose. I have many Preiser unpainted figures with jack-hammers.
View attachment 139417
Here's what I did with one.
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Patrick - Most Athearn BB kits had 33" wheels.
Curt - Ugggh! That's a real drag regarding the corrugated siding. Good luck.
Louis - As the saying goes, "Whole Foods = whole paycheck". I have never been to one, I'm not even sure if there is one any where near. My son has told me that.

OK. I need some of you stock market entrepreneurs to start "buying the dip". Last week was brutal. I lost over $10K. I haven't bailed yet, but my wife is absolutely freaking out. She just looks at numbers and doesn't consider the actual minuscule percentage of the loss. I only have about 35% of my investments in stocks, the rest in bonds.

Y'all have a great day. Stay safe.
Nice upgrade
 
Good morning all! A very gray overcast damp day here in Houston. I believe they are planning on showing us some sun around Thursday, maybe.
Sausage and biscuits please, and a large cup of coffee.

Been in Whole Foods a time or two. If you are searching for gluten free food you'd be in heaven. I thought quite pricey. I will say their produce looked very fresh and good.

George - Showed the wife the picture of the coupler, she said NO.
Willie - 800 freight cars! I have 10% of that and can't really use them all. There are a few that have never moved since being set on the layout.
Sherrel - Many years back, I took my then 82 year old father-in-law to the airport to pick up his brother. A couple to flight attendants walked by, he turned to look after them as they passed. He said," I'm old but I'm not dead." Sure miss that old guy.


I did run a little switcher yesterday, spotting some cars.

STAY SAFE
LATER
Life in the old beggar…should be a model we live by.
 
Steve J - It's OK to be a food snob. I was merely repeating a comment that my son had made. I grow and preserve much of my own organic produce and the Kroger that I go to has an extensive organic section of produce as well as meats. The organic stuff is priced between 5-10% higher.
carry on with your discussions on how you save six cents on the dollar.
So I looked up the nearest Whole Foods to me, about 70 miles away, and compared prices. Six cents on the dollar?!?! That may be the case in Minnesota! At the one that I looked up it's more like 55¢ on the dollar! All of the locations in the Dallas/Ft worth are in the ritziest neighborhoods in Plano, Addison, Colleyville and Highland Park. Most are located in shopping centers that all begin with "The Shops at ......". I know that you know this area, there are none south of IH30.
I do not disdain their quality and selection, but I can get everything that I want, closer and cheaper at what I assume is the same high quality. Especially the stuff that I grow.
 
Louis: It's all good. I don't stay as current on PC's as I used too. Just too much to remember. I do servers and networking a lot more as that is my current focus in life. I do know I should have bought my computer long ago as I can almost do 90%+ of my job from home. Still have the hands on BS occasionally.

What do you guys prefer for paint? Enamels or acrylics? I've got to get some paint to touch up or repaint some locomotives and wondering which would hold up better. I do use acrylics (water based) on my buildings as once completed won't generally have to be handled like rail cars and locomotives. I do know prep is 90% of the paint job.
A lot of people swear by enamels,and if you track down a proper match is usually worth the effort,especially if you want a pristine new look, I as we know like a weathered look and acrylics lend them self better imo.
The facts are some people find themselves more comfortable with either enamels or acrylics,finding the required skills to use one or other, some people are lucky enough to fathom both. I like acrylics also because if you have an accidental spillage it is easier to mop up, and easier to get a thinner coat on figures so make the most of moulding.
In my opinion, and plenty disagree with me, acrylic is good for hand painting, and enamel in general works better with an air brush. but I have seen plenty break that idea (not a rule)
I would say acrylic is easier than enamel more forgiving, allows more layering and thinner layers, hand painted enamel needs more care.
Also less fumes from acrylics if you are chesty, easier to clean brushes.
That said I have seen superb work by enamel painters,and they would argue that enamel is harder wearing,that said I have never repainted any of mine and rarely dulcote.
If in doubt and you would not want to mix colours for your self find paint that match your needs and trial them on a cheap old wagon,get a bit of confidence before you hit an expensive loco and go through a tough learning curve.
This was my first air brush, in hindsight it is appalling,but I was chuffed to pieces, I used the air brush,did not clog it,and I managed a consistent colour,and the wagon was a cheap £2 item so if I messed up I did not want to jump under the nearest bus
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Being overly cautious I used a light colour
once I managed that I had another go
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you can see some overly heavy paint drips
the finish was shinier that I like,but they were sufficiently good enough I did not overpaint them,the design is realistic not! Those runners are not proto typical
A6090079-D045-4E3F-8B01-535951BA947D.jpeg

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D264362D-9103-4728-8206-F1B179242436.jpeg
this one needed something
so I added some wear and tear
BB440376-8338-4076-99FA-86EA324B886D.jpeg

and I was happy enough with the three that I owned them with sone graffitti
D4E2F3C4-DEE5-4168-B75F-0FC8595961AC.jpeg


£6 pounds as a learning curve, good value in my opinion
i thought I was well hard…..lol.
 
Like Willie said.....Whole Foods = Whole Pay Check.

Some people just go there for the conversation or status quo....all the power to them for the craziness. I went in there once to just observe the prices and quality....no way could I justify paying that kind of money for that type of food. I saw no value in it at all. Nope. I call it a yuppie store or keeping up with the Jones'.....plain stupid.
High prices low turn over,so not always the freshest either,
 
Alright guys (used in the universal sense). "My name is Steve ... and I'm ... a snob."

We shop Whole Foods a lot! Wifeykins is very ... meticulous ... when it comes to groceries. Only takes once or twice at a grocery store for someone to play the ignoranamous card for her to scratch that one off her list. Yep, they are pricey and yep, we shop elsewhere for deals ... But Praise the Good Lord, we no longer are feeding six people on $99 per week. We are blessed with combined incomes such that penny-pinching is no longer our raison d'etre. Besides, the eye candy is overall hugely better at WF than at Wally-world, and life is too short not to look at pretty females. Though I will say, I also like Trader Joes (except their NSDAP-like pandemic response). And the 'sights' there are generally of the same caliber. What can I say, I am a flaming heterosexual!

We have a local butcher for meats, and Hyvee is a three minute walk (except at -15F, like this morning, when it takes longer to don the suit of armor than it does to walk there). So of late, wife has been using "Shipt" online service for ordering basics from Hyvee and then we buy certain things at WF or like store.

I know, I know - - - using an online service is so ... New York ... but we have our legally-blind daughter on the same account so she can use the service and get her groceries delivered which is a Huge Boon to her.

We have an eclectic palate and often have more unusual dishes in our fare. Easier when cooking for two. And we enjoy good things. You should see my wine cellar and Liquor cabinet.

So I will quietly collect my things and skulk out the door ... ... carry on with your discussions on how you save six cents on the dollar. I'll not say a thing. Though in my defense: "I WILL drive 3 miles to save $0.19 per gallon (roughly $2.75 per tank)! Does that get me back in?

- - - - -- - -- - -

Took a break from working from home and remade the cable from SUnday. Meaning, I cut off the Anderson Power Pole connectors I put on Sunday when very tired and put on new ones with greater care. Now it works great. Should have run some more wires - but didn't. My new liquid soldering rosin arrived last night with the mail - will be putting that to good use in the upcoming ROW construction

Thanks, Tom for the SBS (Streamlined Backshop) lead - - never seen them before. They still have some Tam Valley Depot products in stock which are getting harder and harder to find. Though not what I need now. But I am kicking myself. TVD's auto-reverser/circuit-breaker is much cheaper than DCC Concept's . . . . but I already ordered the PSX series and had better stick to them.

Oldest dau for dinner tonight and then a 7pm meeting - my least favorite of the evening meeting cycles. Ugh - - maybe run some wires this afternoon.

Blessings to all and thanks for the read! Steve J
I like a bargain, I see now reason why a person should not enjoy the fruit of their earnings, I am a long way from a wine snob,but would not diss someone for being so, I love cocktails so our drinks cupboard is wide,although after I got pregnant my drinking went downhill fast. I shudder over the cost of a fillet of beef,but buy a sirloin joint for a third off of the price and cut it into steaks saving easily a third on the price,some butchers will cut if they know your taking the lot,but I look at the joints and rarely get stiffed with a lot of fat. I grow vegetables organically but do not pay for organic.
my aunt lived next to a farm for Marks and Spencer’s, and he sold them organic veg,but he cheated and took water from the river which was against the guidelines,but they always advised when they were coming to inspect and he moved the pumps, this was a n obvious infringement, he alluded to fertilisers to my aunt which inferred he cheated there too, so I just don’t trust ‘organic’ products unless I produce them

Our home produced goat milk,meat and bird eggs,meat is incredibly expensive, but we have very happy animals, and good quality product.
I tried oysters once in company and the oyster in question came up much faster than it went down, and projectiles across the dining room, luckily the directors found it amusing…although not longer after they moved to a private dining room :D
 
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Louis: It's all good. I don't stay as current on PC's as I used too. Just too much to remember. I do servers and networking a lot more as that is my current focus in life. I do know I should have bought my computer long ago as I can almost do 90%+ of my job from home. Still have the hands on BS occasionally.

What do you guys prefer for paint? Enamels or acrylics? I've got to get some paint to touch up or repaint some locomotives and wondering which would hold up better. I do use acrylics (water based) on my buildings as once completed won't generally have to be handled like rail cars and locomotives. I do know prep is 90% of the paint job.
I love Vallejo paint. Only acrylic is what I buy for the layout now. Even the Vallejo Air paints are good enough to be brushed on.

I buy from Scalehobbyist.com

TomO
 
We'll have to see how the market does the last 2 1/2 hours and if it can rally like yesterday. I don't worry day to day but do watch. I made $14 in 7 minutes on an option today ;)

Looking at wife's self directed 401k, everything is down except 2 different Gold ETFs, a broad commodity based ETF, and an emerging market "super dividend" ETF. Another emerging markets is flat at $0 change. Everything else is down as of now and the few ups don't start to compensate 😐
 
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We'll have to see how the market does the last 2 1/2 hours and if it can rally like yesterday. I don't worry day to day but do watch. I made $14 in 7 minutes on an option today ;)

Looking at wife's self directed 401k, everything is down except 2 different Gold ETFs, a broad commodity based ETF, and an emerging market "super dividend" ETF. Another emerging markets is flat at $0 change. Everything else is down as of now and the few ups don't start to compensate :)

What a difference 20 minutes makes. Now several more dividend ETFs are in the black in the 401k and the overall loss made up 25% (still a loss). Maybe the people swooping in to buy "the dip" are forcing these afternoon rallies.

Also, I could have made $25 on the option if I had done the math correctly (or more if I was willing to ride it out according to the service who sent the "buy" in the first place. I have a subscription to a service which periodically will do an option buy on something expiring on the next Friday (in this case the 28th) which they think will start moving. Sometimes they make major gains but often the next day they have you sell at a small loss. Their thing is to make the intermittent major gains pay for all the small losses and still be ahead. I don't always do their thing -- depending on how much cash I have and how my other main program spread trading looks and if I think I'll need cash to roll. But I sometimes do this "expiration week" thing but usually I'll immediately put in a sell at $25 or $40 or $50 profit. I don't try for the big wins as a way to avoid the small losses. I am not doing enough of their trades to be able to make up the difference and I noticed that often the ones they recommend start making small moves, even if they end up going down and being a loss. So I try and win that $25 or $40 win before it dives the next day. Since I do it at most once a week (and often skip multiple weeks) I don't care about the single "day trade" strike that can be generated by this for selling the same day. Today I was on "the throne" with my phone when the alert came through that my buy had been processed (I missed the initial window but it came back down an hour later and went through). I quickly did the math in my head for $25 but then put the trade in for $14 because I can't do math while sitting on the throne. I could have probably easily set it at $40 and maybe $50 and already closed it out but was trying for $25 as I was not sure how much of a pop we'd see on this today. But $14 in 7 minutes is not bad. (Minus $1.15 in fees and commission on the buy).

ETA: in the 10 minutes it took me to compose that it made up another 20% and many more ETFs show small gains that were earlier losses.
 
I like a bargain, I see now reason why a person should not enjoy the fruit of their earnings, I am a long way from a wine snob,but would not diss someone for being so, I love cocktails so our drinks cupboard is wide,although after I got pregnant my drinking went downhill fast. I shudder over the cost of a fillet of beef,but buy a sirloin joint for a third of the price and cut it into steaks saving easily a third on the price,some butchers will cut if they know your taking the lot,but I look at the joints and rarely get stiffed with a lot of fat. I grow vegetables organically but do not pay for organic.
my aunt lived next to a farm for Marks and Spencer’s, and he sold them organic veg,but he cheated and took water from the river which was against the guidelines,but they always advised when they were coming to inspect and he moved the pumps, this was a n obvious infringement, he alluded to fertilisers to my aunt which inferred he cheated there too, so I just don’t trust ‘organic’ products unless I produce them

Our home produced goat milk,meat and bird eggs,meat is incredibly expensive, but we have very happy animals, and good quality product.
I tried oysters once in company and the oyster in question came up much faster than it went down, and projectiles across the dining room, luckily the directors found it amusing…although not longer after they moved to a private dining room :D
A first date with a nice lad (no second date not because of this incident but because it was a blind date he he was just over 6 foot well built beard nice features and looked just like my brother! I could not even kiss him good night poor bugger) Anyway he took me to a nice restaurant (he had a nice job own car own flat a real keeper) and he ordered a prawn cocktail in avocado, it arrived with a flourish look superb when it cut into it the avacodo was clearly unripe it left the plate and shot across the room and landed in a woman’s lap, there was some prawns left on his plate, after a quick sideways look he calmly carried on eating his prawns, I was too gob smacked to do anything but watch without turning my face and looking obvious,the waiter tore over apologised profusely - didn’t charge her for the extra starter - sniggers, I think the avocado in its skin landed right way up so no nasty prawn cocktail mayonnaise on a nice dress. when the waiter arrived to take our empty plates he was straight faced no comments over the missing avocado - he got a tip! I forget the main probably a seafood or the dessert definitely creamy and likely coffee flavoured or amaretto, in fact the mini amerotto biscuits sort of ring a 🔔 bell. great food, he chose the wine,the meal wasn’t cheap so I suspect it was a good one, no blue nun lol. A really enjoyable evening, and poor bugger could not get a kiss….he really should not have taken out the glasses to read the bill it was the death nell…..totally reminded me of my brother! I never even told him why cause it seemed creepy. I told the friend who arranged the date,she was married or would never have offered up lol,that I really missed the boat there, I understand he went up the ladder at breathtaking speed,my dad who knew him - same line of business - was horribly upset said the bloke was brilliant, but when I pointed out he looked like my brother,he paused and agreed,end of subject.
 
We'll have to see how the market does the last 2 1/2 hours and if it can rally like yesterday. I don't worry day to day but do watch. I made $14 in 7 minutes on an option today ;)

Looking at wife's self directed 401k, everything is down except 2 different Gold ETFs, a broad commodity based ETF, and an emerging market "super dividend" ETF. Another emerging markets is flat at $0 change. Everything else is down as of now and the few ups don't start to compensate 😐
In my experience hold steady do not panic and in a few years at worse it should recover,and frankly of the who market is going south pulling it except to spend it is not better. Please don’t quote me if the whole lot goes south,because we too will be tearing our hair out,that said we assetised a lot of cash against inflation,luckily our hobbies have never steered us wrong.the goodies we buy cross fingers have rarely gone south,there has been the odd one life happens but generally we learned our lessons young,if we can’t buy cash we don’t buy at all,avoid interest,interest hikes,and cash means we can jump when good offers come around,
 
In my experience hold steady do not panic and in a few years at worse it should recover,and frankly of the who market is going south pulling it except to spend it is not better. Please don’t quote me if the whole lot goes south,because we too will be tearing our hair out,that said we assetised a lot of cash against inflation,luckily our hobbies have never steered us wrong.the goodies we buy cross fingers have rarely gone south,there has been the odd one life happens but generally we learned our lessons young,if we can’t buy cash we don’t buy at all,avoid interest,interest hikes,and cash means we can jump when good offers come around,

No worries there. I buy and hold 99.99999% of the time. This is in a retirement account we won't be touching for 14-15 years minimum.

ANd in the slightly more than an hour that has elapsed since my first post it is only down less than 25% of what it was a little over an hour ago (About $440 down a little over an hour ago and only $93 down now). Well over half the positions are up, compared to the 4 that were up an hour ago (total of 45 positions)...

My other account, which is actively traded but only with options positions following some services I subscribe to (I rarely make up my own trade due to my bad track record) is down today but the only times that really matter are the monthly options expiration dates and how things sit then as these are spreads and only depend on the final value being high or low enough, depending on spread type, to clear the spread. Then the sales premium from selling (technically buying and selling) the spread is the profit.
 
Afternoon All,

Did a couple of chores then spent several hours in the train room. I was able to recover from yesterday's blunder and it looks pretty good if I say so myself. Now on to the blunder today. In my defense the instructions (not clear in my opinion) and pictures weren't clear (Very hard to make out detail of the pictures because of frequent copies). I thought I had the trim figured out correctly but when I went to add the decorative pieces it was obvious, they were too big (long). After thinking about it for a while I decided I couldn't remove the existing painted 2x10 without destroying the wall, so I decided to take the easiest route and trimmed the decorative pieces to make them work.

Talked to Phil today and he's doing well.

Patrick- I rarely use enamel, acrylic is my go-to.

Jaz- Very nice-looking coal cars.

Willie- Nice job on the figure. He looks like he's whizzing! :D Thanks for the sentiment.

Louis- We have them here in the high-cost areas.

George- It looks great. What did you use?

Joe- Nice 1:1 photo.

Ken D&J- Nice job.

Steve- I'm glad the electrical issues are over.

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The roof separates the 2 walls.
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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Steve, I admire a man who is willing to go against the grain. If you like whole foods, that is the place you should shop. You are not alone , dozens of orders are leaving the store through the back for delivery. We have two whole foods stores near me, but I have yet to shop there. I'll make a point to check it out from the inside.
I can attest there are plenty of pretty young ladies coming and going from whole foods. Many of them are carrying a cup of coffee. Not sure what that indicates, just my observation.
 


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