Running Bear's June 2024 Coffee Shop

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Afternoon All,

Started out the day with a walk at 70F and mild humidity. After some inside chores and then cleaning the pool filter, I cleaned about 2/3 of the siding tracks on the layout. Now I'm sitting on my backside drinking a cup of coffee.

Chet- That was very nice of you. Great layout shots.

Willie- I'm glad progress is being made on the train shed.

Chad- A lot of good progress on the house. What's the difference between a Japanese bathroom and a regular bathroom?

Joe- I sent that meme to MOH.

Hughie- I'm not sure why anyone would do that to their trains?

Bill- Another nice picture.

David- Have a brilliant family celebration.

Guy- Great photos. Good luck with the fire.

Todd- If Dad walks into a room, he has to turn the lights on regardless of time of day, but he started doing it long before coming to live here. Cool catch.

TomO- I was very lucky to see it at Horseshoe Curve. It was also consisted with the Pennsy heritage unit. That was an awesome day.

Louis- Very cool sighting.

Mac- Neat photos.

Mike- Cute pooch.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Chad- A lot of good progress on the house. What's the difference between a Japanese bathroom and a regular bathroom?

The Japanese bath does not have a toilet. And you are not to wash yourself in the tub. The tub is just for soaking and relaxation. In fact, in Japan, a family will all share the same water as it’s expensive to heat water and fill a tub and doing it for each family member is not affordable (especially in older days). You wash yourself before you get in. Traditionally there was a water faucet, a bucket, and a stool and you washed yourself that way. In modern times there is usually also a handheld shower and often a full shower in the room to wash yourself before getting in the tub.

It’s not part of the master bath or the non master bathroom in the house. It’s its own room.

Ours is a large room with an 8’ “partial wall” dividing the changing area from the actual shower/bath room but it’s all one large room (the ceiling is higher so the middle wall has space above it).

The Japanese style bath room is an outgrowth of the Japanese public bath, but that one would have in their own home. Growing up my wife said they didn’t have one in their apartment and had to use the public bath every night. Later my MIL had a bath in her (old construction — probably 60s) apartment. It was a taller tub about 3’ on the side and you filled it up and the gas water heater was in the room next to the tub. There was a water bib and a small bucket or two and you washed and then sat in the tub. She eventually had to move as they were tearing down the building and her new apartment had a nicer version.

My sister in law and her husbands house in Kobe has a nice two part one. A changing room with sink and some shelves etc and a separate bath room that is a wet room and tub similar to what we’re doing (but smaller area).

ETA: our master bathroom is traditional. A toilet nook with door, a his and a hers vanity, and a nice Kohler digital shower. That’s the one I’ll use most of the time. The wife likes the Japanese one. The kids bathroom is also also normal US traditional but with a shower pedestal on the wall instead of the Kohler.
 
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While traveling in Washington i came to Snoqualmie, there are two mallets there which resemble the Mantua 2-6-6-2:View attachment 190802View attachment 190800
The other one looks in better shape and is standing behind the station building. The water tender is apparently later build when the mallet was converted from a tank locomotive:View attachment 190803View attachment 190804View attachment 190801
This is No 11 when it was still running in 1980.
53495926287_4693376285_b.jpg


53497241370_cdde81ed2e_b.jpg
 


All the heat in the world doesn't make a bit of difference when Progress Energy turns off the air conditioning from their offices. The house could be on fire, and the air conditioner would still be "off".
I'm with you Terry! Those smart thermostats to conserve energy at peak times are not for me. They can keep the measly discounts!

I'll control the temperature in my house. :cool:
 
T-Mobile is the only internet available here. And from what I can remember, they use the same system as AT&T, so you might actually get service, if you had service with AT&T.


AT&T and T-Mobile run separate networks. They use similar technology but have their own "cells", networks, etc. So even if AT&T works great, T-Mobile in the same area could be a total bomb, or vice versa. It's common in some areas for the mobile phone operators to share towers but they each put their own equipment on the single tower. (Some locations limit tower placement so the companies share). I have heard that in some remote areas the companies have agreements to provide service for each other's customers in a non-roaming manner.

In the old days, AT&T and T-Mobile were both GSM providers, meaning the technology that they both used was based on the GSM standards. That meant they used SIM cards and unlocked phones could usually work on both networks with a SIM card switch. verizon and US Cellular and Sprint used CDMA technology, which was different. By the time we got to LTE based systems (at the latest, may have been earlier with so-called 4G systems) everyone was using a variant of the same technology. LTE uses GSM style signaling and administration so Verizon and the others started using SIM cards but the actual data signals were new tech in any case. But the control layer was based on GSM. There are variants of LTE and 5G etc so one carrier may use a slightly different version of LTE or whatever but it's all basically the same (at least in the US and Europe -- China I believe has an LTE based on a different principal). You can see this when looking at all the supported "bands" and "service" for a given phone model in the spec sheet.

(T-Mobile started life in the US as VoiceStream before Deutsche Telekom bought it and rebranded it to T-Mobile. which is analogous to the European T-Mobil, and which has since been divested by Deutsche Telekom and is its own company. There were other GSM based systems in the US like Omnipoint in the North East which were bought up by T-Mobile as they expanded their network early after they became T-Mobile. I had a VoiceStream phone around 1997 and when I moved to New Hampshire had an OmniPoint phone which became T-Mobile. Moving back to Utah I got on T-Mobile here and have a number since that I took to AT&T, back to T-Mobile, and now on Mint Mobile. My daughter, when we got her a phone a few years ago, was given a number from the old original Voicestream series of numbers and it is very very close to what I remember my old VoiceStream number was.

Regarding Mint Mobile. It is a pre-paid system only and is a MVNO. They don't own or run any of their own cell towers etc. They buy bulk minutes and data from one of the physical carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, etc. In this case Mint Mobile uses the T-Mobile network, though they have their own SIM cards etc so T-Mobile knows you're a Mint Mobile customer and can down or upgtrade your service based on that and what they've agreed with the MVNO. Mint Mobie was actually bought by T-Mobile so now they're just a subsidiary and not a separate MVNO company. They're still run separately. For me, paying a year at a time, I pay less than 1/2 of what I was paying before for our grandfathered T-Mobile plan. Other MVNO are the other carriers you see that aren't AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon, or one of the other small local physical carriers that might exist. MVNO can be partnered with just one physical carrier, or they can use multiple ones. Examples are Xfinity Mobile, SimpleTalk, Virgin, etc. MVNO means mobile virtual network operator.
)
 
All the heat in the world doesn't make a bit of difference when Progress Energy turns off the air conditioning from their offices. The house could be on fire, and the air conditioner would still be "off".
The wife swore that the electric company was adjusting the Ecobee thermostat. Changed it out for a plain Jane one. Now she thinks their controlling it through the smart electric meter.
 
I'm with you Terry! Those smart thermostats to conserve energy at peak times are not for me. They can keep the measly discounts!

I'll control the temperature in my house. :cool:
You don't need to get a smart thermostat from the company. You can buy one directly yourself. I've had smart thermostats for more than 10 years and they've never been tied into the electric company, which has no control over them. They don't even know I have it. And they work great. I can lower the temperature automatically at night, have it come on in the morning, turn it down for a few weeks while were on vacation, on remotely when we're returning, etc. I had a Nest at first that was given me by someone I worked for. When they sold out to Google I replaced it with a Honeywell (now Resideo) but I didn't like the limitations they had on the use and programming of it. Just their style of how they approached it. So I replaced it with an Ecobee, which has been working great for a few months. Again, I bought these with my own money and installed them myself and the electric company has no control over them nor do they know I have it.
 
You don't need to get a smart thermostat from the company. You can buy one directly yourself. I've had smart thermostats for more than 10 years and they've never been tied into the electric company, which has no control over them. They don't even know I have it. And they work great. I can lower the temperature automatically at night, have it come on in the morning, turn it down for a few weeks while were on vacation, on remotely when we're returning, etc. I had a Nest at first that was given me by someone I worked for. When they sold out to Google I replaced it with a Honeywell (now Resideo) but I didn't like the limitations they had on the use and programming of it. Just their style of how they approached it. So I replaced it with an Ecobee, which has been working great for a few months. Again, I bought these with my own money and installed them myself and the electric company has no control over them nor do they know I have it.
Ya, I got Honywell auto majicks. Both heat and cool functions although they can not transverse from heat to cool automatically - ya got to change the switch. I set up 4 time zones: early AM, day, evening and deep night. I do like the bump up/down button. Couple of presses and you change the temp by a few degrees...until the next time zone. Boy how lazy can we get? Wait, I have a TV remote too.
 
You don't need to get a smart thermostat from the company. You can buy one directly yourself. I've had smart thermostats for more than 10 years and they've never been tied into the electric company, which has no control over them. They don't even know I have it. And they work great. I can lower the temperature automatically at night, have it come on in the morning, turn it down for a few weeks while were on vacation, on remotely when we're returning, etc. I had a Nest at first that was given me by someone I worked for. When they sold out to Google I replaced it with a Honeywell (now Resideo) but I didn't like the limitations they had on the use and programming of it. Just their style of how they approached it. So I replaced it with an Ecobee, which has been working great for a few months. Again, I bought these with my own money and installed them myself and the electric company has no control over them nor do they know I have it.
I was only speaking of the ones BGE (Baltimore Gas & Electric) provides, I should have made that clear, forgive me.

I prefer simple thermostats. My son (an engineer) installed a Honeywell programmable thermostat at our previous house. "I didn't ask for it, you install it" 😁 "aint I a stinker" I didn't notice any savings, but with outside temperature variations it's hard to tell.

When we bought this house, it had a simple digital thermostat with LCD display. It still working fine. I set the AC to 74 and the heat to 68. I often turn the system off, weather permitting. It's been off more than on these last few months. Our brick house is tight as a rat's @$$. My wife can't even hear when it's raining. And she has great hearing. I'm all but deaf, legally I am deaf. No hearing aids for me. "I'm not ignoring you, I'm deaf" :cool: I like closed captioning, I don't miss a thing. I watch mostly sports; I don't like these new play by play and color commentators. Its better I don't hear them.

My son has all the latest and greatest gadgets and gizmos. He has a smart house. To me they are only something else to break. I do buy energy efficient appliances when things need to be replaced and LED bulbs. I like my dumb house. 🤪

I asked my son "how much have you spent trying to save money?" He wasn't sure, I'll bet he spent more than he saved. He and his wife both drive electric cars. I paid $23,000 for my 2020 Chevy Equinox; it averages 30.4 MPG and $12,000 for my 2016 Chevy Sonic 34 MPG. I bought both new. If I followed my son's advice, I don't think I'll live long enough to see the savings.

I'm an old stick in the mud.
 


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