Running Bear's January 2024 Coffee Shop

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chadbag said:
Happy New Year.

We were at my mom’s for dinner and playing some games. My sister and most of her family were there including her son in law sand daughter and grandkids — my mom’s great grandkids. My niece has been living at my mom’s and she was there and a male friend of hers came as well. He had to leave early but he was very nice.

We played “Sushi Go Party” to start. Then an expanded version of Clue called Clue: Detectives or something like that. Clue with extra rooms, people, and weapons, and a couple new features. I didn’t win but was close. I had the room and weapon and one of two people when my other niece made the accusation and one. I probably would have made an accusation on my next turn.

we finished with Pit for 45 min.

wife and daughter left before the son and I. I get home and the wife tells me there was a hug New Years Day earthquake in Japan. Not near her family residences though they did feel something. Luckily the damage was not great and the Tsunami (multiple waves worth) not more than about a meter.

my mom just called a short while ago saying my nephew’s truck, which actually belongs to his brother in law, for whom he works (dad of my mom’s grandkids above), was hit and probably totaled around 3:45am or so. This is a quiet suburban residential street. He was supposed to take the truck to college, his first day, this week. My mom was seeing if we could let them have or use the Honda Fit my son has been using as he won’t be driving for a couple years. Today is his first day of Home MTC. MTC stands for Missionary Training Center. He does this at home for about 9 days and then moves down to Provo to the actual MTC facility for onsite training. Since he is going to Japan and learning a language this phase is about 2 months. So he won’t need the car. It was my dad’s car before he stopped driving and he sold it to us for $1. We were hoping my daughter, who’ll be driving sometime soon, would use it but maybe the nephew needs it more right now. We’ll see. They’re supposed to come over for half a day today to help work on the house.

I’ve been burned out but slogging forward on the house. Today we have a chimney pipe to put through the roof of the enclosed patio. Want to get that done before they put the finished roof on that (rest of the house was done in August). It’s for a pizza oven, which may never happen but is planned for when we can afford it. Originally scheduled as part of the house build. I don’t want to have to deal with the chimney pipe at a later date through a finished roof.

we need to fix a few small pieces of framing (around a tub and a small enclosure around some ducts) so the drywall guys can finish the hanging phase. They’re almost done.

and I need to finally finish the initial control wiring for the heating so we can get heat in the house for the mud and taping.
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Chad that was great to read about the family playing games. I miss family games. Thank you for sharing that!

I'm sorry to read about the truck.

Be extra safe working on the house. As I'm sure you know, fatigue can lead to injuries.
 
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I hope everyone had a pleasant night!

41° with light drizzle, supposed to quit before the sun sets. I'm in the basement working on train stuff! ;)
 


santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Happy New Years Day. Mostly cloudy and 30° here, only going to 47° as a cold front hit yesterday afternoon. The wind has died down, but shifted from the east, which usually brings rain which is in the forecast. However it won't reach freezing again until Thursday morning. That is what the NWS shows right now and we all know just how accurate they tend to be...not!

I managed to stay up until almost 10:00 pm last night, not intentionally but because we went out to eat at the local Italian eatery. They weren't real busy and indicated that they were closing early at 8:00. There was however a steady stream of customers coming for their to-go pizza orders. Lots of young cowgirls dressed in their tightest jeans and boots getting ready for the evening. I quit doing New Years Eve parties maybe 35 years ago when I decided that I wanted to avoid the wasted day after. My own tradition is that on New Years Day, today, instead of taking my daily walk up and down the road out front, I walk my property line instead. It's about 4000' around 15 acres. I've only missed it twice due to mud that I sank into up to my ankles. I have twice made the walk on top of 2"-3" of solid ice after an ice storm. Mostly it doesn't snow here until mid-January through early-March.

My New Years resolution this year is to live...

Yesterday turned out warmer than the forecast, the second shorts and tee shirt day in a row. I cut up another week's worth of next season's firewood but I haven't stacked it yet.

I finished up the mobile home yesterday out in the train shed.
View attachment 178877
Besides the roof details and skirting, I did have to add a base to the steps to get them to the proper height. They still seem a bit low, but I can add another scale 8" base step. I'll wait and see what the residents think.
View attachment 178878
View attachment 178879
Well, almost finished. I still need to paint and mount the propane tanks.
View attachment 178880

Alan - Interesting that I don't get political E-Mails asking for money. Most of mine are from McAfee/Norton, which my spam filter can't stop despite marking them all as such. My political requests come via text messages, all addressed to the former owner of my cell phone number.
Even though I don't model any passenger trains, I am enjoying your thread on passenger car modeling.
David - Regarding peculiar things, we certainly have them here in Texas. I imagine that you Brits would be shocked to see the number of folks walking around here with holsters/guns strapped to their waists.
Tom O - I wasn't watching the Dallas/Detroit game Saturday, but as I understand it, and replays have shown, three different Lions linemen walked up to the ref to talk, but not all three lined up in an eligible position. There's a lot of "he said" talk going around by both teams and the refs. According to the rules, the ref has to notify the defense if there is an eligible lineman on the field and the one who caught the pass was not the one that was identified to the defense. Not that it matters much to me, but my wife is happy that her team won, and we all know the expression about a happy wife... When do you think that they'll start to wear "body-cams"?
Grizz - Neat pictures of the wood-sheathed boxcars.
I can relate to the land development being both good and evil. They first paved our road in 2000, sort of, tar and gravel. While it was great for those of us who lived here, it has led to much increased traffic; now up to 25-30 cars/day, more on school days.
Karl - I do have to marvel that folks like you and Tom O, have LHS's that are open on Sunday. Never in Texas except for the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Once again, Happy New Year and have a great day.
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I think it has to do with online footprint. I read lots of political articles. Some op-ed, others all across the spectrum. It’s nice to know what both sides are saying. Too many people these days just listen to news that tells them what they want to hear. It’s a bit of a chore to be well informed. They probably track me when I click on the article. Oh well!
 
Afternoon All,

The day started out cold at 44F for the second day in a row. Today I painted the kit interior walls black and A&I on the outer walls. I also started painting the details. Our family get-together is cancelled until later in the week. Daughter called and said she has a migraine. At least she called before we started cooking the schnitzel.

Chet- Great to see you posting.

Smudge- Nice video.

Troy- I hope your wife feels better soon. Good luck with the book narration.

Tod- Good luck with the layout construction.

Willie- Very nice trailer project.

Mikey- Great layout shots.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
bnsf971 said:
Willie, most Mobile homes were permanently moored, and wouldn't have used those twin 30 pounders. They would have had a single horizontal tank, or pair of larger tanks placed on the off-door side of the trailer.
If you really want to be masochistic, maybe you could find a natural gas meter instead.
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Thanks for that information. I can actually only remember seeing those on trailers still with wheels or in travel center parking lots. On this model I chose to use the skirting instead of the wheels that were also included.
I actually have a natural gas meter in my details cabinet that came with another kit that I didn't use.
 


Good evening. I spent a little time this afternoon with the trains. They were lonely...
About 3 years ago, I bought a pair of factory dcc-equipped U25Bs through that auction site. When I got them, I programmed them to their road numbers, ran them back and forth a couple of times, and put them back in the box for later, since that was about the time my wife's health started going downhill faster.
When I moved out of the house, they got put away. This afternoon, I got them out and tried putting them through their paces.
Tried.
One of them ran well, smoothly and quietly. The other, not so much. It ground, lurched, skipped, and would barely pull itself. I pulled it off the track, and took a look for debris in the trucks. And that's when I found out what was wrong. The rear truck had been assembled backwards, with the gears in the tower on one side of the truck, and the gears on the axles on the other side. Basically, the engine was running with only one truck pulling. I reassembled the engine, put it on the track, and it is now running laps on the layout with 5 cars in tow.
 
Got the decorations down and put away. I also had to clean out my office so I could do actual work in it. The trains sort of took over my office the last two weeks! I had to take about a dozen cars downstairs, put things away, move tools back to where they belong, etc. etc. etc. Tomorrow I'll have room to do my actual job! Off to dinner. The traditional pork and sauerkraut!
 
Our dinner consisted of Pork Loin, Sauerkraut, Green beans with Sliced Almonds and Sweet Potatoes in a Bourbon Sauce. (With Coffee). It's nice to follow tradition.

Current weather: Partly Cloudy, 36° after a high of 47°. We ended up with more sun than forecast, and non of the rain / snow that was threatened. Going down to around 28°, by morning.

I did get to spend time in the train room, doing more work on the somewhat freelanced Reading Co. Freight house.

Tomorrow, I gather up all the excess card board, for the recycling crew on Wednesday.
 


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