Running Bear's May 2026 Coffee Shop

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It's 7:10 local.

55 minutes after Frontier said the internet would likely be restored. We're still working off phone hot spots.

I've got the phone streaming Pandora radio (current a Jazz "station") through the appleTV to get music on real speakers. My iPad also has cellular data, so I'm using it to get my computer online (computer keyboard is better). Stuff is slooooooow since I'm in the basement with 1-2 bars of signal.

Took a nap today.

Wrote half a chapter.

Did laundry, and hit the grocery (as previously mentioned).

Looks like it's more reading. Or watching youtube on the ipad
 


Took a real close look today and I found that I have offspring in the garden.
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2@ on two different plants. Several more on other plants, but I didn't want to tread on the rain-softened soil today. Variety is Early Girl for those who might be interested.
 
Took a real close look today and I found that I have offspring in the garden.
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2@ on two different plants. Several more on other plants, but I didn't want to tread on the rain-softened soil today. Variety is Early Girl for those who might be interested.
Always nice to see green tomatoes. We don't even have our plants in yet. Been too cold with several frosts. We should be done soon, but tonight is another frost possibility.

Reading an Economics book written in 1928, concerning marketing and selling. Calvin Coolidge, was president. Many of the issues / viewpoints then were similar to issues / viewpoints now. Some things never change.

Competitors, Optima and Verizon are in a race to install fiber after deciding in 2012, not to do so...as a result. we are faced with numerous outages, most momentary. Then they haven't started to connect each home to the underground fiber cables. (They are just working the pole lines now. Meanwhile, the Electric Utility, First Energy, is installing larger poles to handle the extra weight of two fiber optic systems. Going to be a long summer.
 
I have about half of my radio frequencies programed. The computer program isn't all that great but it works OK. Can't copy and paste a list of frequencies from another radio programmer. Everything has to be typed in manually. Still, it beats doing it all from the keypad. It's easy to do from the keypad, but takes longer, especially the text name of the station. That's pretty much a mess on the radio.

All local frequencies are loaded. Tomorrow I have to work on ARTCC frequencies, railroad, and ham with off-sets.
 
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Good morning Coffee Shop! It's Tuesday, 46°F (8°C) and mostly clear.
:cool:
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Weather:
Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 60s. South winds around 5 mph becoming southwest through early afternoon then becoming northwest late this afternoon.Partly cloudy then becoming mostly sunny through early afternoon then becoming partly cloudy. Highs in the mid 70s. East winds 5 to 10 mph increasing to south 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph.
Have a great day!;)
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59°F out there this morning at 0720. Heading for 84°F today.

Still working on my new radio programming and might throw in a small load of laundry later this morning. Have to go pick up scripts afterwhile too. Nothing else going on around here today. I might sit in the backyard this afternoon with the nice weather we're having. Chance of a thunderstorm tonight, and then a little cooler in the mid-70s tomorrow.

Have a great Tuesday! Servus.
 
Good Morning All!
44F @ 62% overcast. Has been upper 70F's for the last few days, Energy Guessers ..er.. Weather Guessers say down to 42F at night, not much above 65F for the next few days.

Paid $4.82 for Regular for our jaunt yesterday. HD first in Ponderay - 10 sheets of OSB @ $9.49 each and R17/R13 - R17 was $52 for 40' roll, $26 for 40' roll R13. Think the total was $630 something. Then off to the Mexican place in Priest River. Ya, well ... closed on Mondays. Maria was bummed.

Vacation: We quit wanting to 'go somewhere' after getting off the truck. We had almost 10 years of wandering the USofA seeing the sites fuel paid by someone else. When we did a '34 we would get off the truck and rent something and get up close an personal to what ever was near, motel along with usually. I am not saying we have been everywhere - but it is dang close. Been on every road that starts with an 'I', countless State and US routes, even RI twice; not bad for a couple of Montana nimrods.

So for the burning question of the day, need some ideas. Jake ( Aussie ) has been scratching insistently. We have checked for various pests and have found none. His skin is soft and supple, the normal color and the scratching does not raise welts, scratches or abrasions. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, gets lots of water and food. It is almost like something on the inside trying to get out - so baggied some DS, flattened it really thin and gave it a look under high magnification - can't see anything moving. Poor thing. Anyway, holding off taking him to the Vet as Maria is pretty keen on this type of stuff and likes to handle ourselves, but not a clue otherwise.

L8r
 
Good morning from cloudy and hopefully soon wet So Central Wisconsin. Chances are above 75% we will see a lasting rain starting in about 30 minutes. That’s per my WeatherChannel app, the local TV website and the neighbor’s FB page who is the morning Meteorologist on the station my wife watches in the morning. That’s rare when all 3 agree so I would bet on the 25% chance of no rain. It’s just been that kind of season.

Checked Gas Buddy a few minutes ago. Our local station this morning dropped to $4.49 it was $4.69 yesterday when I drove by. I was checking a route to Nashville for a friend’s OPS Session Friday and a couple more layouts on Saturday. The guys are leaving Thursday at 6am. Terry and I might join them and their wife’s. The friend has offered 4 couples to stay at his place. He moved there during the Covid shutdown as he purchased his place right before it happened. Said he didn’t meet a neighbor for months. Looks like gas in Illinois tops out at $4.96 for regular and is $3.89 in Nashville. Not feeling the best and unsure about the car ride. He has a horse farm northeast of Nashville he says by 30 minutes but Maps says 50 minutes. Either way 9+ hours in a car plus stops will exceed our 10 hour preferred driving window but we shall decide today. We have been there twice before but his layout was in the building stages. This will be his 1st official OPS Session but has been testing since last Fall.

The earth movers at the subdivision still have not started and today are a week late. They are now promising to start next week! We did make an offer on the farm next door to the property with multiple options for the owner. He wants to keep farming his family wants out. We shall see on that one. I told Terry that’s my last property purchase if it happens when we made the offers. That was a couple weeks ago, she’s still laughing…

Enjoy the day
 
Good Morning All. Clear as can be and 58°, perfect night with the windows all open. It's 70° inside the house, perfect for us!

Got the propane tank filled yesterday, 108 gallons at $1.50/gallon. Actually cheaper than when I last had the tank filled, which was $1.81/gallon in May of 2024. "Drill baby drill". Since I only use it for cooking, it should last two years. I was able to do some work in the garden over on the west edge where I could stand on untilled ground, hoed around the Green Beans over there. Also got some more of the Tomato cages ready for installation today. I installed about a dozen last week. No wind yesterday, so I took the DJI Mini 2 drone out and flew it for as long as the first battery lasted...about 25 minutes. I have 3 but needed to pause and grill the burgers. Spied on the neighbor's cows!

Today will be a carbon copy of yesterday, just a tad warmer and drier. Time to mow again. May grill Chicken Fajitas for supper if we don't go out

Out in the train shed yesterday, I still just ran trains instead of sitting at the workbench. Another day with the unit Autorack train in both directions. Another reason that it usually sits on a shelf is because it looks awkward even on my 32"-34" curves.
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It doesn't however, clip the cars on the passing siding on the inside track.
While I didn't sit at the workbench, I did bring a structure over to be cleaned there. This shows the issues that I have with some tiny spiders that defy eradication efforts.
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David (Marlin) - $78 to get into the zoo is outrageous! Add parking to that. By comparison, the Dallas Zoo is $15.25 for seniors with $14 parking. But it's a vacation, so what the heck!
Tom O -
the son got us tickets to the Austin matches via his contacts at UT.
Our grandson is a student at UT and has described the lottery used for all sporting events there! He found that he could get cheaper "scalper" football tickets at the gate easier than using the lottery! Girls Volleyball tickets at Gregory Gym are always sold out months ahead. The game vs Wisconsin is being held at the much bigger Moody Center.
Regarding the trip to Nashville: Ms Speedy could probably beat that 9 hour trip time!!!
Joe - Our fiber-optic was installed underground to begin with, so there wasn't any of those issues. However pole replacement is coming up. While the one actually servicing our house was replaced about 20 years ago, there's 1.5 miles of 50 year old poles between ours and a line of them that was replaced 3 years ago.
Kusojiji - Nice looking onions you have there. This is only the second year in 52 years of gardening that I haven't grown onions. Six inches of ice on the ground, a week in the hospital and then some recovery time during the ideal planting time thwarted me.
Todd -
When we did a '34
Hadn't seen or heard that in over ten years since I retired from working. Had to deal with that when scheduling customer deliveries. Dispatcher took care of the drivers, I just scheduled window production to meet expected customer deliveries.

The late comedian George Carlin, was born on this day in 1937.
Everyone have a great Tuesday. Patrick confused me with the extra Monday earlier today!
 
So for the burning question of the day, need some ideas. Jake ( Aussie ) has been scratching insistently. We have checked for various pests and have found none. His skin is soft and supple, the normal color and the scratching does not raise welts, scratches or abrasions. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, gets lots of water and food. It is almost like something on the inside trying to get out - so baggied some DS, flattened it really thin and gave it a look under high magnification - can't see anything moving. Poor thing. Anyway, holding off taking him to the Vet as Maria is pretty keen on this type of stuff and likes to handle ourselves, but not a clue otherwise.

L8r

Could be mites, or an allergic reaction to a treat or something he found inside or outside. Some dogs develop allergies over a period of time to the food they eat on a regular basis. And then, some dogs just have an itch that needs scratching.

I would consult a veterinarian if it doesn't improve.
 
Good Morning All. Clear as can be and 58°, perfect night with the windows all open. It's 70° inside the house, perfect for us!

Got the propane tank filled yesterday, 108 gallons at $1.50/gallon. Actually cheaper than when I last had the tank filled, which was $1.81/gallon in May of 2024. "Drill baby drill". Since I only use it for cooking, it should last two years. I was able to do some work in the garden over on the west edge where I could stand on untilled ground, hoed around the Green Beans over there. Also got some more of the Tomato cages ready for installation today. I installed about a dozen last week. No wind yesterday, so I took the DJI Mini 2 drone out and flew it for as long as the first battery lasted...about 25 minutes. I have 3 but needed to pause and grill the burgers. Spied on the neighbor's cows!

Today will be a carbon copy of yesterday, just a tad warmer and drier. Time to mow again. May grill Chicken Fajitas for supper if we don't go out

Out in the train shed yesterday, I still just ran trains instead of sitting at the workbench. Another day with the unit Autorack train in both directions. Another reason that it usually sits on a shelf is because it looks awkward even on my 32"-34" curves.
View attachment 265535
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View attachment 265537
It doesn't however, clip the cars on the passing siding on the inside track.
While I didn't sit at the workbench, I did bring a structure over to be cleaned there. This shows the issues that I have with some tiny spiders that defy eradication efforts.
View attachment 265538
View attachment 265539

David (Marlin) - $78 to get into the zoo is outrageous! Add parking to that. By comparison, the Dallas Zoo is $15.25 for seniors with $14 parking. But it's a vacation, so what the heck!
Tom O -

Our grandson is a student at UT and has described the lottery used for all sporting events there! He found that he could get cheaper "scalper" football tickets at the gate easier than using the lottery! Girls Volleyball tickets at Gregory Gym are always sold out months ahead. The game vs Wisconsin is being held at the much bigger Moody Center.
Regarding the trip to Nashville: Ms Speedy could probably beat that 9 hour trip time!!!
Joe - Our fiber-optic was installed underground to begin with, so there wasn't any of those issues. However pole replacement is coming up. While the one actually servicing our house was replaced about 20 years ago, there's 1.5 miles of 50 year old poles between ours and a line of them that was replaced 3 years ago.
Kusojiji - Nice looking onions you have there. This is only the second year in 52 years of gardening that I haven't grown onions. Six inches of ice on the ground, a week in the hospital and then some recovery time during the ideal planting time thwarted me.
Todd -

Hadn't seen or heard that in over ten years since I retired from working. Had to deal with that when scheduling customer deliveries. Dispatcher took care of the drivers, I just scheduled window production to meet expected customer deliveries.

The late comedian George Carlin, was born on this day in 1937.
Everyone have a great Tuesday. Patrick confused me with the extra Monday earlier today!
Our grandson is a student at UT and has described the lottery used for all sporting events there! He found that he could get cheaper "scalper" football tickets at the gate easier than using the lottery! Girls Volleyball tickets at Gregory Gym are always sold out months ahead. The game vs Wisconsin is being held at the much bigger Moody Center.
Regarding the trip to Nashville: Ms Speedy could probably beat that 9 hour trip time!!!
*************(((*************************************************************************************************
Willie were u listening in on our conversation this morning? Very little construction showing on the routes to Nashville but there are some. Ms Speedy has already picked her drive time spots. She’ll do about six hours and I’ll fill in when needed for the rest and I am also the gas attendant.

Volleyball. When I told the son we were coming for the game and then at College Station he said I can get you tickets for the UT match but we are on our own for Texas A&M. He got tickets easy at UT because it was at Moody. He does lots of work for UT Athletics. We did get tickets for the College Station game as A&M are the defending NCAA champs but purchased through UW’s ticket office. If we weren’t donors no way could we get reasonably priced tickets. Volleyball in the better playing schools is a very tough ticket or a big $$$ ticket. Other than Nebraska which is said to be the #1 hardest ticket in Volleyball has been Wisconsin, Texas A&M and Louisville per some national survey. We tried for years to see Wisconsin play Louisville in Kentucky but couldn’t.

We gave up our season tickets to VB this season. We held GA tickets for 9 years and the only way to upgrade to reserved seating was to up our VB direct donations and then get on a wait list. What we give for women’s hockey and the women’s education foundation doesn’t count, has to be direct to VB. Kind of an open scam extortion thing. Terry decided we are done playing those games with UW Athletics. Needing to get the game 90 minutes early to get a seat was getting old. Super seats on the back line but too much effort as we are starting to feel our age. We can get an occasional ticket if we want but every game is streamed so we can still watch
 


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