Running Bear's January 2024 Coffee Shop

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Good morning!

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Good Morning All!

34F @ 88% with white on the ground. Not much, but the forecast says 'watch out' for the next few days.

Like David, I have been massing piles of crap that used to be in the 'I might need that sometime' place. Have made 3 dump runs so far with a few more to go. Gotta make room in the workshop for train stuff. Think that I can finally turn a 4x8' sheet of plywood around/over without hitting stuff.

Gawd, ran out of toilet paper this morn and used newspaper. rough Times!

Later
 
Good morning from chilled but still above seasonal averages in Wisconsin. 17f degrees now heading to 35 with what looks like as the sunrise approaches a gloomy day. Our frost line is normally at 2’ this time in January. The local media is saying this morning it’s only at 6 to 9”.

Yesterday was great without the internet to distract me from 7am to a planned midnight. As I describe in a reply above to Mike about being notified about the new release of the Scaletrains WC Heritage unit I returned after 7pm. Still 12+ hours away from the internet was very good.

Besides some layout work yesterday I did some household things and positioned the Christmas bins for Terry to pack up. I am the gopher when it comes to the inside decorations except for my portion of setting and removing the tree. The outdoor stuff I turned off the 2nd but removal is by a service after the 6th and is usually done by the 11th. Terry decreed a few years ago that I would not be allowed on a roof.

Today, is a day back at the weathering bench. A return to the UW campus for Women’s hockey at 7pm which also means dinner out.

Terry is watching Good Morning America on ABC and I see scrolling at the bottom of the screen how European grocers are pulling Pepsi off the shelves because of price increases. Around here CokeCola prices are about $2.50 MORE a 12 pack of 12oz. cans then Pepsi and about $2.00 more than Dr. Pepper! I understand the price increases but not the $$$ disparity between products

enjoy the day
 
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 42° in this neighborhood. Where did that come from??? The National Weather Service obviously missed this one. I received 0.5" of rain in the rain gauge overnight! It was not in the forecast up until the last time that I checked around 8:00 last night, after I got wet when I went out on the porch. I checked and sure enough they had added it.

Birthday day went well for me yesterday. The weekly grocery trek went off without any issues; as a matter of fact, I haven't seen the grocery store as empty as it was yesterday since the early Covid days. I didn't notice any rise in prices this week; maybe they were gradual enough that I just didn't notice. Had the traditional Willie birthday supper later of Beef Burgundy, along with homemade mac and cheese, french bread and blueberries. I did hit my carb limit though. No dessert helped me meet that limit.

I didn't spend much time out in the train shed yesterday. I did start on the second grain elevator delivery pipe, but I basically I cleared out most of the staging yard. That took some time moving all of the trains down the line.
Staging 002.JPG
Staging 001.JPG

Looked around and I didn't find any loose parts and I got it vacuumed. I'll move at least three trains back in next, out of the way so I can continue to work on the grain elevator/cemetery project.

Sherrel - Such encouraging words yesterday!
David - My "might use some day" piles are underneath the layout. It's been a never ending task to go through them and most stuff just gets put back.

Everyone have a great day and a good upcoming weekend.
 
Well, howdy there internet peeps and those older or younger than Willie.

It's Troy again, wishing Willie and all the other Jan anniversaries of another trip around Ol Sol, a happy one.

Another fun day of making an audiobook. I've got to replace one of the character voices. Whoever designed this one, left it very expressionless. The tonality is good, but the AI won't put inflections in. So I need to find a new voice for her.

In other news, it's laundry day, and first Friday of the month. So the mattress pad was the first load. After that, well, darn, we wear a lot of clothing! Especially when it's chilly out.

For those of you who play or used to play RPGs like D&D, this is the one-year anniversary of the Open Gaming License scandal. When Hasbro decreed that they were stripping the 20-year-old OGL from D&D, taking a cut of anything created and sold by a third party publisher (over $750K gross in sales - a threshold which was actually reached often).

Hasbro's stock is currently down to neutral territory, thanks to both the OGL issue driving players away, and from pairing up with Marvel for some stinkers of movie tie-ins on toys.

I'm waiting to see what the small vendor tables are going to cost at a local RPG convention here in Fort Wayne next month. I'd like to get my books there and see what I can sell. It'll be interesting to see what the players think of the soon to be new version of D&D coming out in May....

Here's a fun AI generated pic of one of my book characters as a GM:
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Roll for Initiative!
 


bnsf971 said:
Good morning. It's sunny and 55, headed for 77.
I saw soda prices at the store last weekend, and decided I was going to drink water.
12 pack of coke and pepsi products was $9.59 and $9.89, respectively.
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They're both $8.99 for a 12 pack at the stores around here. Prior to the last presidential election, they were on sale regularly for $3.00. Sales now can be as low as $4.50 each. I think that it's the new economic policy.
 
TLOC said:
Our frost line is normally at 2’ this time in January. The local media is saying this morning it’s only at 6 to 9”.
Click to expand...
WHAT is a FROST LINE?

Chilly Morning at 37*.....here in the far corner of the room. Later on the 62* will top things off with all day sunny! Anymore - I am cold below 70* - hard to believe.

Just looked out the window to the north and it was loaded with an even dozen hot air balloons. We usually have about 1/2 dozen - they launch from about 1/2 to 3/4 mile away.

OK, that does it for me, right now! GUY - Good to see you visiting again.
 
santafewillie said:
They're both $8.99 for a 12 pack at the stores around here. Prior to the last presidential election, they were on sale regularly for $3.00. Sales now can be as low as $4.50 each. I think that it's the new economic policy.
Click to expand...
If you want to be dark about it, massive inflation is a pretty sneaky way to raise taxes without raising taxes. If you were a state, would you rather have sales tax on a $4.50 box of soda, or a $9 box of soda?
And then there's property taxes, capital gains taxes, income taxes, all gather much more money when prices rise.
 


bnsf971 said:
If you want to be dark about it, massive inflation is a pretty sneaky way to raise taxes without raising taxes. If you were a state, would you rather have sales tax on a $4.50 box of soda, or a $9 box of soda?
And then there's property taxes, capital gains taxes, income taxes, all gather much more money when prices rise.
Click to expand...
No one talks about it, but the massive inflation is the very reason why the recent record sales volume for the holidays is what it is. More money spent, less product sold.
 
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