Running Bear's June 2024 Coffee Shop

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Morning all,

70° and mostly cloudy. High of 80° later. Possibility of rain later. We did get some sprinkles overnight along with some thunder and lightning.

Troy: Hope your wife had a good birthday yesterday.
She got a monster plate of chicken parm from her fav Italian place, and later a dish of ice cream from a new chain place

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Good Morning All!
62F @ 75% was raining an hour ago, just cloudy now.

Nissan - Boy what a hoop jump. Being the cheapie I am, I searched and asked questions about the keyed lug. Nissan dealer said they or the factory do not put any wheel locks on anything. Up to the customer to do that. We knew Sam got tires in town, so went to the tire guys ( 3 of them ) and showed them a pix of the lug - 'never seen anything like that' was the answer. When we went to breakfast in Troy the other day, I went into the local hardware store; low and behold the had the red thing in the pix ( Ace did not ). Gave the red thing a try, but it was 1/16 - 3/32 to small. That thing was $15 and because I needed to take 4 lugs off and it doesn't look too tough I figured getting yet another when I broke it would be cheaper than buying deep sockets at $23ish each. So I was down to pounding deep socket(s) on the thing to get it off; destroys the socket and you can't get the lug out of them which by now did not matter to me.

So, dove into the tool box looking for a deep socket just big enough not to quite fit. Had three that looked right. Well, found that a 20mm 6 point was just a tad to big, but a 19mm 6 point looked to work. When I gave it a try, it actually fit on the lug without pounding! Yes a little hoop jumping to get the lug out of the socket. Which begs a question to ask - Why bother if you can put a standard socket on it to take it off? I mean: What good does the keyed lug do?

So I am now a happy camper and got the Crankshaft Position Sensor in - took me about 45 minutes after the wheel came off. The Position Sensor changed stuff. Now runs at a lower RPM when idling; so better MPG.

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Oh, and using a cold chisel was out of the question - did not care about the stud, but me and BFH's don't work to good together and I probably would have screwed up the rim.

Later
 
Good Morning All. Clear and a rather warm 80° this morning. Once again the weather geeks are forecasting 100° for a high, but they have predicted that for over 2 weeks now and we haven't made it yet. Yesterday was just 97°.

Not anything new on the estate yesterday, wife went to Dallas to watch some dance recital and will return today with the other granddog. Yesterday, five weeks after the tornado, there were roofers on my neighbor to the west's roof. It took their insurance company five weeks to get it replaced, and they didn't even have to take the old one off! Tornado did that! Since my train shed is self-insured, I got it replaced in 6 days. The neighbor to the north who lost half of his roof, is still waiting for their insurance company to decide whether to total out their double-wide or not. It was only 11 months old. Two other neighbors to the west who lost partial roofs, who are also self-insured had theirs both done in less than a week like me.
Dry conditions around here haven't stopped early fireworks. The county is not yet under burn ban orders.

Here's a little action around my hummingbird feeder yesterday afternoon, taken with the phone while I was in the pool.
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An intruder flies in!
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First bird scared off the intruder!

Nothing new out in the train shed yesterday. I ran trains instead of anything on the workbench. I also cleaned up a little more stuff from under the layout where the cardboard boxes had gotten wet after losing the roof. Still no major damage discovered, although I haven't gotten to the boxes with the old magazines in them.

Troy - Interesting comment from your daughter. When I was in my mid-20's, I also thought that Sociable Security wouldn't still be here for us. That's the impetus that I had to learn to grow my own vegetables and also to start a retirement account. I found that I liked the veggie gardening and still do it 50 years later. Like all things run by the government, they will wait until the last minute to fix things, like they always do.
Mike - I have found that most modern plumbing jobs are easy. It's squirming and squeezing under cabinets that's hard!
Hughie - Here is Lake Willie cut from Google Maps.
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The teardrop points in the general location of the manor.

Everyone have a great Sunday. Stay hydrated.
 
Good morning to all! It’s a clear morning sky but cool. It’s 54f degrees now heading to 70 and the wind is gusting into the high teens. Yesterday was mostly a perfect day that got even better when the humidity broke around 3pm. Sitting out yesterday was a joy! Sometimes Wisconsin weather is super…

There was no activity in the train room yesterday and none anticipated for today.

I will be heading to an Art Fair in Spring Green about an hour away. It’s almost a tradition Terry and I have gone to since we got married in 1976. Terry is still traveling and the neighbor said she’d enjoy going. I’m sure I can find something for the yard. Spring Green was also the home to the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the home to his Taleisin. If you enjoy architecture and are near the area it’s a bucket list item.

I have started the research for a retail therapy shopping spree that will occur in the next few days. I am changing my layout the the Wisconsin River Valley and Terminal Railroad to the Wisconsin Interstate and it will be joining a network of Wisconsin, Kansas, and Texas freelance railroads allowing for an expansion of equipment as I move from a Class 3 terminal railroad to a regional. I have been purchasing many pieces of freelance private road name equipment either direct from the layout owners, ThreeNotch Rail or HomeShops.net. A transportation network will be setup. I like to operate and this will give a bit more credibility to my operational scheme. I am staying mainly with 4 axle diesel locomotives and hopefully by Xmas I will be ready to go. I have a couple locomotives that will be patched to the WIS but stay in the WRVT scheme. 2 new Gp40-2 W or L’s are being sought plus at least 1 bigger 6 axle unit but more likely 2. My remaining 2 CN go40-2l’s will stay. I know this isn’t for everyone but it has invigorating for me!

Enjoy the day
 
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It is 6:00 AM, June 30, 1964. I kiss my mom goodbye as tears run down her cheeks. I shake hands with my dad, he pulls me in for a hug. Tears are welling in his and my eyes as I open the backdoor and head for the subway into the city. Little did I know I would never live there again. Sixty years ago today, I enter the Coast Guard.

STAY SAFE
LATER
 
It is 6:00 AM, June 30, 1964. I kiss my mom goodbye as tears run down her cheeks. I shake hands with my dad, he pulls me in for a hug. Tears are welling in his and my eyes as I open the backdoor and head for the subway into the city. Little did I know I would never live there again. Sixty years ago today, I enter the Coast Guard.

STAY SAFE
LATER
Thank you for serving.
 
Good morning all,

Welcome to a beautiful Sunday in Northern Illinois. Temps are supposed to be in the low 70s and no rain. We shall see if that pans out. More of the same tomorrow.

Last night was the towns annual 4th of July fireworks at the lake. Since we live near the lake there is no need for us to go and fight the huge crowds. We have a great view right from the back yard. Daughter and I laid on air mattresses in the pool and watched them from there. They put on a great display last night. One of the best we had seen over the years.

I did manage a little train time yesterday afternoon. I started and finished the basic build for the second wet/dry bin. This one went much easier than the first one. I now have to decide if I want 2 more or if this will be enough.

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Have a safe day everyone!
 
Good morning gang, or should I say afternoon?

85° and muggy, heading to 90°. Yech. The lawn is still brown, I'm not touching it. We did get some thunderstorms last night, but not enough to resuscitate the lawn yet.

We did have a brief power outage yesterday. Enough to affect the wi-fi and cable tv, but that's it. I did affect the heat pump, as it was just recirculating air for about 30 minutes without cooling. I shut the breakers off, waited about 10 minutes and turned them back on, seems ok after that.
It is 6:00 AM, June 30, 1964. I kiss my mom goodbye as tears run down her cheeks. I shake hands with my dad, he pulls me in for a hug. Tears are welling in his and my eyes as I open the backdoor and head for the subway into the city. Little did I know I would never live there again. Sixty years ago today, I enter the Coast Guard.

STAY SAFE
LATER
Thank you for your service. Coincidentally today is the 10 year anniversary of my employment at my current shop.

Yesterday (speaking of being at the shop) I had a customer get a little confrontational with me because we could not get to his diesel truck for 2-3 weeks. He could not fathom the facts that a) it's a very complex vehicle that takes a specialized person to work on, b) out of 10 techs, only 1 is certified to do warranty repairs, c) none of the other techs want to work on them because of the complexity and because you have to be half monkey and half contortionist to physically work on them. It's crazy. Also it is going to get worse. More and more the techs are getting older and retiring out or just jumping ship out of the business altogether. My transmission guy semi-retired at 62 only works 3 days a week . The next closest dealer doesn't have a trans tech at all and hasn't for 5 years!.
The fleet of "trained" new techs is a laugh. For every 10 we hire, 1 is a keeper. Even so, we can't keep them off their phones! In another 3-4 years when I hang up my hat I know things will be worse. Might be time to just get another horse.
 


It is 6:00 AM, June 30, 1964. I kiss my mom goodbye as tears run down her cheeks. I shake hands with my dad, he pulls me in for a hug. Tears are welling in his and my eyes as I open the backdoor and head for the subway into the city. Little did I know I would never live there again. Sixty years ago today, I enter the Coast Guard.

STAY SAFE
LATER
June 30 must have been a popular date for the Military. Five years later, June 30, 1969, I reported to the reception station at Fort Dix NJ to become a soldier.

Yo Hughie, we made it!
 
As someone who never served, thank you to all who did.

Not that my grandfather didn't try. He was sure the Military Could Make A Man out of Me.

But, he also said drinking whiskey would put hair on my toes....

I got hairy toes without the whiskey early in life. Now, I'm drinking whiskey, and my toes are still hairy. It's getting thin on top though.

You all smell that?

I smell fresh paint...

And not just on my orcs

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I just clear coated them to seal the speed paints. The speed paints reactivate somewhat with fresh layers. So a gloss coat to keep it sane.

I'll add orc green, some filters/washes, then start piking out details like straps.

Then the glitter paint, since they're going in the Swiftie army.
 
Good morning all. 00.20am (Monday (UK)

Dawn's physiotherapy went really well.
Grandchildren stayed over the weekend. Visited Aircraft/Transport Museum. Grandkids played Pilots in the aircraft. Face painting with Grandma today. Kids loved that.
Grandchildren have gone home. All is quiet.

Time to get some sleep.
'Night all.
 


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