Running Bear's January 2025 Coffee Shop

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Good Morning All. Clear and 26°, warming back up to the 50's again today, may even hit 60°.

Nothing special about yesterday's grocery trek, picked up some BBQ to go on the way home to enjoy for lunch.
Today sees a return of the lumberjacks, who promised to bring the heavy-duty chipper with them. I'm mainly trying to get the front 1.25 acres cleared before spring. I'm not too concerned with the back-40.

Out in the train shed yesterday, it was nothing but run trains. Among other things, I broke-in the new GP9M
One of the highlights from the Texas Northern model railroad is the expansive steel mill that occupies an area about 3.5' x 25' along one corner.
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This is just half of the whole mill, more tomorrow.

Karl - In doing our research, we found the following regarding Medicare. Remember that every person and situation can be different. Contrary to what I posted yesterday, there is a penalty for Parts A, B, & D. It follows a formula that I don't remember and it is based on how long after you're eligible that you wait to sign up. If your already covered by another plan, than Medicare becomes your primary coverage and your existing insurance becomes secondary, or supplemental. If I had still been working at my company when I signed up for Medicare, my coverage and premium with the employer plan would have been reduced considerably. There could be a gap to fill if your wife is covered but not on Medicare. For my case, the total cost would have been close to the same as having a supplemental policy to my Medicare. That's to the best of my memory from 7 years ago.
As others have posted, avoid anything with "advantage" in the title. Bill T is the only one that I know that is happy with it.
Just read your follow-up post regarding being covered by your wife's policy. You should sign up for Medicare immediately upon being eligible. Her policy may have provisions for reducing your coverage and payments. Best to start the conversation with them now.
Todd - I like the 'get up and do what I want' part of retirement as well. But I get sidetracked easily. I may set out to do one thing, and do a half dozen others before I get back to the original task.
Bob - Best wishes for Hammy.

From my house, it's just three turns to get to Texas Motor Speedway, although it's 41 miles! I stopped going because of my hearing deterioration.

Everyone have a fabulous Friday.
 
My Ravens will be watching the NFL Conference Championship Games, same as me. None the less I am looking forward to Sunday.

Washington @ Philadelphia 3pm on Fox
Buffalo @ Kansas City 6:30pm on CBS

I'll be wearing my old Redskins sweatshirt, not for luck, more of a tradition.

It would be historic if KC could win, no team has ever won three consecutive Super Bowls. It couldn't happen to a better coach than Andy Ried. Buffalo has never won a Super Bowl so that would be cool too. Philadelphia has a talented team, winning the Super Bowl would prove that.

I'm hoping Washington can win the Super Bowl. If not, I really don't care who wins, but I will be watching!
 
I enjoy the NHRS also I been to couple of the NHRS races at Reading ( Maple Grove) PA. That's one of very few tracks where the seats are really close to the drag strip...(track).

I believe if you are some what of a race fan...then NHRA and Indy 500..should be on your bucket list.
I lived in the sweet spot for a race fan Less than two miles either way from IMS, and the Crawfordsville IN Motor Speedway, home of the NHRA Drag Nationals. I could sit on my back deck and listen to the races any weekend. the drags scared our beagle at the time. But she was VERY skittish around anything loud. And we were 2 miles away!

And if that wasn't enough, the Indpls Conservation Club was even closer than the speedways. Black Powder night sent the dog fleeing into the Troy Cave in the basement.

Which was a bad thing. I pick up on the dog's anxiety, and I get anxious. Trying to get her to stay with the teenager upstairs was sometimes a chore.
 


Good Morning All. Clear and 26°, warming back up to the 50's again today, may even hit 60°.

Nothing special about yesterday's grocery trek, picked up some BBQ to go on the way home to enjoy for lunch.
Today sees a return of the lumberjacks, who promised to bring the heavy-duty chipper with them. I'm mainly trying to get the front 1.25 acres cleared before spring. I'm not too concerned with the back-40.

Out in the train shed yesterday, it was nothing but run trains. Among other things, I broke-in the new GP9M
One of the highlights from the Texas Northern model railroad is the expansive steel mill that occupies an area about 3.5' x 25' along one corner.
View attachment 209933View attachment 209934View attachment 209935View attachment 209936View attachment 209937
View attachment 209938View attachment 209939
This is just half of the whole mill, more tomorrow.

Karl - In doing our research, we found the following regarding Medicare. Remember that every person and situation can be different. Contrary to what I posted yesterday, there is a penalty for Parts A, B, & D. It follows a formula that I don't remember and it is based on how long after you're eligible that you wait to sign up. If your already covered by another plan, than Medicare becomes your primary coverage and your existing insurance becomes secondary, or supplemental. If I had still been working at my company when I signed up for Medicare, my coverage and premium with the employer plan would have been reduced considerably. There could be a gap to fill if your wife is covered but not on Medicare. For my case, the total cost would have been close to the same as having a supplemental policy to my Medicare. That's to the best of my memory from 7 years ago.
As others have posted, avoid anything with "advantage" in the title. Bill T is the only one that I know that is happy with it.
Just read your follow-up post regarding being covered by your wife's policy. You should sign up for Medicare immediately upon being eligible. Her policy may have provisions for reducing your coverage and payments. Best to start the conversation with them now.
Todd - I like the 'get up and do what I want' part of retirement as well. But I get sidetracked easily. I may set out to do one thing, and do a half dozen others before I get back to the original task.
Bob - Best wishes for Hammy.

From my house, it's just three turns to get to Texas Motor Speedway, although it's 41 miles! I stopped going because of my hearing deterioration.

Everyone have a fabulous Friday.
Thanks!
 
Morning all,

16° and clear, high later of 45°

Dental cleaning returned a verdict of needing a root canal. So I scheduled one for a Friday, I get home and find I need to be in Wichita for another appointment 1 hour after the root canal appointment. Gotta reschedule the dentist when they open.

Busy day as I have to drop some papers off to the Wealth manager, wife has a hearing aid appointment and we have to drive 2 hours east to deliver my younger brother-in-law's computer back. Cleaned off some malware and bloatware, and it's now good to go. I love how McAfee likes to maintain control of stuff, even when it's not registered. McAfee used to be a good product as far as antivirus, but now is nothing more than resource stealing, panhandling bloatware.

BBL
Agree with you on McAfee. Is there a way to get rid of their annoying popups?
 
I lived in the sweet spot for a race fan Less than two miles either way from IMS, and the Crawfordsville IN Motor Speedway, home of the NHRA Drag Nationals. I could sit on my back deck and listen to the races any weekend. the drags scared our beagle at the time. But she was VERY skittish around anything loud. And we were 2 miles away!

And if that wasn't enough, the Indpls Conservation Club was even closer than the speedways. Black Powder night sent the dog fleeing into the Troy Cave in the basement.

Which was a bad thing. I pick up on the dog's anxiety, and I get anxious. Trying to get her to stay with the teenager upstairs was sometimes a chore.
I used to live in reelsville...Putnam county Indiana, just north of route 40. Went to quite a few races at the Lincoln Park raceway they're on route 40....dirt track it was.
I lived close enough to where I could hear the races every time they would race on the weekends.

This was back in the '80s... So I'm not sure if the track is still there.
Actually I just googled it and Lincoln Park raceway is still there....amazing.
 
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Yes. Such a discussion at the time. Off course, at the time we had a Commonwealth of Nations that meant something then.
I'll say no more. I may get political.

----------------------------------

Just had to take more medicine. Now back to the train room.
See? That's what happens when we get political...

The Poly Tic faerie shows up and gives you a dose of nasty medicine!

Thanks for keeping the coffee shop poly tics free! Or at least stealthy tics. ;)
 
Been a long morning.
I put the official officer election ballot together for my train club and emailed the proposed text and ballot out to the other officers to check over before sending it to the membership.
Still pretty cold this morning. Homeless are still prolly hating life.
Finally got the three turnouts on my modules working, using the Digitrax DS52 turnout controller. It only allows use of the throttle to throw the two turnouts with a loconet address.
With the brighter outlook for petroleum now, I'm considering selling my Tesla and buying another Ford, F150. I'm still deciding between a used truck and a brand-new truck, right off the assembly line. If I'm gonna buy a new one, I always use a factory cut sheet and take it to several of the surrounding dealers for the lowest bid. I've found that there can be over $5000 difference between 5 dealers in northern Virgina for the exact same build. I let each of them know in advance what I'm doing and that their bid will be the only opportunity for this buy. I will be doing my own financing and no trade-in so there's no Micky Mousing around on this. They have only the one opportunity to make their best offer and I'll sort em out.
In the meantime, back home. Timonium is coming up the weekend of 1&2 February. My club will be setting up our modular layout there. I'm finishing up the details of my modules for this show. I wanted to have the track side signals installed by now but just got overcome by other events. I'll be doing that mod for our next show in March. I have the signals and the control system for them. Just gotta plan it out and install em.
Gotta get some lunch now. It's afternoon.
 
Agree with you on McAfee. Is there a way to get rid of their annoying popups?
Yes. agree on both counts. There has to be a way of ridding us of their annoying popups. I went as far as to edit McAfee out of the registry on my former laptop, but still had popups pop up. Could they be incorporated in the bios? It's been a long time since I got that deeply involved...but....
 
We went to one a few years ago at Chicagoland Speedway. It was a neat experience, but probably would never go back to one. What I observe red was, most everyone there were really into it.

Now the NHRA drag races at the same venue was really cool to see. Been to several of them.

We had free tickets to a raceway here in Utah once and we went and saw several of the races. It was fun and interesting. And once was enough.

It's like pro sports. I went to an NFL game as a kid (back before Arizona had a team I saw Vikings [Tarkenton] vs Jets [Namath]) in a pre-season game). I saw the Bruins once in the "Gahden" and I went to Fenway once for a Red Sox game against Detroit IIRC [Boy Scout Day so cheap bleacher seats]. I saw the Jazz play in SLC once and I've been to several minor league baseball games and a pro arena football game. I've been to enough sporting events to scratch that itch...
 
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TLOC - Don't sweat the bone density test. Takes longer to do the paperwork than the actual test. Good idea. Better than breaking a hip or something. Looking at the trailer on that 18-wheeler. I think it says Freuhof as the manufacturer, but the design for the prototype was Strick Trailer. Freuhof bought Strick and then sold it back to members of the family. The clue is the three closely-spaced ribs over the 5th wheel. My late FIL was one of the founders of the company. Neat layout!
 
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