Running Bear's July 2026 Coffee Shop

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Good Friday morning. Hope it's not yet sweltering where you are.

Heading out for the range in about an hour. Soupy as all get-out here already at 75°F/75°F. That's 100% humidity.

Grass is getting tall and I can't believe it still grows in this heat. I thought without any rain in the last 10 days it would be turning brown by now. I think it's even greener than it was. Good grief, I'm going to need a goat by the time this temperature breaks on Monday.

I hope each of you has a safe, enjoyable weekend.

Servus!
 


Good morning all!

Happy Friday!

Had a pretty big thunderstorm move thru the area last night around 10pm. Had very heavy rain and a pretty intense lightning and
thunder show, with very windy conditions. We ended up losing power a couple of times for a brief moment.

Not quite as warm today as the past few. Still going to be very humid. Currently its a sunny 73F with the high expected to be around
88F. There is a chance of scattered thunderstorms later this morning into early afternoon.

Not sure what is in store for today. Wife is off work for the holiday. We have to make a couple things for my side 4TH get together
tomorrow. I'm sure a run to the store is in the cards and there is a load of laundry that I didn't get to yesterday.

Have a safe day everyone!
 
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Good Morning All. Clear and 75°, maybe 97° later, just 94° yesterday. This heat dome thingy has missed us here thankfully. Still warm but not oppressive yet.

IIRC correctly, the weekly grocery trek was yesterday and went without incident. Feeling the trend among us and stopped for a haircut afterward, 3 times a year whether I need it or not. Later I made a trash roundup through the house, pool area (empty chlorine bottles), and the train shed, since today is the weekly dumpster pick-up. No wind yesterday so I also got the burn trash done. I know that I could just use the dumpster, but ashes take up less landfill space and it's a habit from well before dumpster service was available here.

Today's activities include watering the garden, weedeating around the back porch and much of the house and grilling Fajitas for supper. Might even get another round of mowing in as well. There's no shortage of candidates for that, but it may be the last go-around for some areas until Fall. Looks like laundry can wait another day.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I decided to pause the current project area for a few days. Not from burnout or lack of interest, but simply from boredom. I decided to put some miles on the 2 newest engines and 5 new freight cars instead. That segued into assembling a few local freight runs in the staging yards. One was run yesterday to the town of Vernon and back and I have two more ready to go for today. I also have 16 tankers (and 2 buffer cars) ready to switch out at the Ethanol facility. No holiday for my engineers this weekend! The local to Vernon had two full Propane tankers for the Propane distributor; four empty covered grain hoppers switched out for fulls at one of the elevators, (I have two in Vernon) and some empty two bay gravel hoppers exchanged for full ones at the gravel pit.

John - Like you, everything tends to be cheaper if I am willing to make the drive, except gas. They closed the only grocery store near me, 12 miles away, when they started highway expansion about 6 years ago. It wasn't the cheapest to begin with. They only recently opened a Tom Thumb store in Sanger, which is competitive but not necessarily cheaper than Kroger in Denton, 25 miles away. Ironically, the Tom Thumb chain is wholly owned by Kroger. I still shop at the Kroger because there are numerous other places that I can include on my trips
The deck is stacked against you anytime that you have to visit the appraisal district board. Don't ask how I know! They can't get me on the house and one acre because that's protected by the homestead exemption and the senior tax freeze, so they get me on the remaining 14 acres. What I paid $15,400 for to begin with, they now value at $252,000! But I get an ag exemption so total combined yearly taxes are ~$800. Heck, my brother pays that much every month in the city of Dallas!
Troy -
Woke for the 3am pee run and discovered a headache settling in between my ears.
Pizza withdrawal symptoms???

All of you who are not used to the warm temperatures, stay cool and hydrated this weekend, and have a safe and happy Fourth of July.
Have a fine Friday wherever you are.

Note that this wouldn't post at 0835 CDT, so I'll try again in a little while.
 
Good morning from Pasadena. It’s warming here into the high 80’s today. The past 3 days have stayed in the 70’s and for the most part was pleasant outdoor walking weather. Today is a museum day so most of the walking will be in A/C comfort. I know great planning! Thank you…

My sister’s condo crew of 8 widowed ladies are having a 4th of July BBQ this afternoon. Guess who was volunteered to handle the grilling!

This will be our last trip here that we spend in the hotel. The condo next door that shares a wall with my sister was for sale. It’s no longer for sale!

2 friends ordered books for pick up at the Original Whistle Stop and the OWS texted me this morning they are available to be picked up today. I go there between the Norton Simon Museum and the BBQ. With my sister and her walker maybe 2 hours at the museum will be enough for her!

Enjoy the day and stay COOL
 


Good morning folks, 88 here, heading for 96!
Server seems to be running well this AM.
We just got back from a Walmart/Cost Saver supply run , mostly for the party here tomorrow. The Walmartians were out in full force, both local and tourist variety. We wanted to get out as early as we could due to the heat and are now home with plans to stay inside the rest of the day.
I have to run the vacuum in a bit while Lady C runs the Swiffer thing, we have everything else except the cooking done.
Should get some train time in late Sunday, once the porch cools down to bearable. This time of year I need to get up earlier to get out there while it is still pleasant.
Quite a surprise last night as I won two very low bids on some Kato locomotives on ebay. One is already DCC while the Blue Warbonnet F#A-B set is not, but they will become so eventually.
Anyway, hope you all have a good day.
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Nice thing with most katos are it a breeze to remove the stock board drop decoder in if all you want is standard DCC.
They also make a replacement board one with sound too. So I am thinking I can run one with sound and one without and it hopefully will still sound okay. What about an ABBA consist, could one loco with sound still sound okay for a 4 unit lashup?
 
They also make a replacement board one with sound too. So I am thinking I can run one with sound and one without and it hopefully will still sound okay. What about an ABBA consist, could one loco with sound still sound okay for a 4 unit lashup?
I would think so.

you could put the sound board in one of the B units so its twords the middle. Then you would also have the option of running just a AB consist
if you wanted.
 
Bob definitely needs to upgrade to the servers with the new hamsters running in the squirrel cages.

I think the old single-hamster server was developing asthma after a lifetime of chain smoking and loose female hamster chasing.
For what this place costs me every month, it should already have dual hamsters, but I've been leasing this server for about 8 years and yes, it's getting old and tired... Migrating is a big deal, so it will likely be fall before I'm able to tackle the move.
 


Happy Friday to all you working stiffs! Howdy folks! 85 in the Brew City this afternoon with thunder boomers possible. At least it's cooling off a bit. Not looking forward to my electric bill this month! I had fun with the mail trains at the club last night, and identified a couple of bad actors that need tweaking. That new BLI GS-4 is a beast of a puller. I had the cars to do either the Overland Mail, or the Coast Mail, so I did both, video follows.


 
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