Running Bear's May 2026 Coffee Shop

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santafewillie said:
Winco (regional private discount/bulk grocery chain),
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Technically not private but employee owned.

They don’t require a membership like the private clubs like Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJs.

We have one about 10 min from our house. When they first started building them here like 10 years ago we had to drive a good ways. And I didn’t really like them. Debit card or cash only. Meat cuts good value but poor cuts (which is why they’re inexpensive). While some things are inexpensive others are not. I never go but my mom shops there all the time. (She’s closer to it I think)
 


boogietrain94 said:
Do you have one of those big black army boxes im looking to get one for boltaction army i decided to go with us airbourne
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I was given an Army Transport bag a couple of years ago. It is great. Before that, and I still use these, I have some heavy plastic storage/carry totes that have handles that clamp shut. I get the big roll of foam from Hobby Lobby and cut it to fit the boxes and then layer it to protect the minis.

And I love the NS paint schemes! Especially that one on the lower Left.
 
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santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 67° this morning, with a 70% chance of thunderstorms beginning just before noon. As late as Sunday, the NWS was predicting thunderstorms every day from then through the end of the month. Didn't pan out that way. Other than Tuesday when it did rain, and today when it's predicted; they have now removed all chances until next Wednesday. Mother Nature is making them look incompetent! They really don't need her help.o_O

Must be grocery trek Thursday today, the fridge is rather bare right now. Besides Kroger, I think that we're going to Winco (regional private discount/bulk grocery chain), post office and pharmacy. Need to put some gas in the Lexus loaner...I'll be complaining about that when I return it.
The rest of the day will depend on the weather, I do need to mow some and the yard did dry enough yesterday to allow it. Yep! All 1.3" of Tuesday's rain soaked completely in with no runoff seen.

Some of y'all are really paying really outrageous prices for gasoline. I count my blessings that I live close to where they make it, and gas tax is so low.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I completed this quarter's structure clean up with the last two of them. Since I have been doing many vehicles along the way, there aren't many left to do. I did get the first section of new road cut, marked and glued in place.
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After painstakingly brush-painting the crosswalk stripes, I remembered that I had stick-on stripes and used them for the rest. Those on the adjoining road were done with a paint pen many years ago.

Tom O - Wow! 20-25K people at the Farmer's Market is incredible. There must be one hell of a parking lot, even if they're not all there at the same time.
Your friend's layout resembles mine with over 300 structures and still with DC control. Thankfully though, I can still build things myself and have hand-painted well over 1500 figures.
Hughie -

It's that Venezuelan oil that they use!
Kevin - I still carry a pocket knife.

Everybody have a great Thursday.
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Sorry about the crowd number. That’s the total between open and close

Here is the marketing crap they pump out

On a typical, beautiful peak-season Saturday, the Dane County Farmers' Market on the Capitol Square sees an average attendance of around 20,000 people.

Crowd sizes do fluctuate quite a bit depending on the weather and the season:

Peak Saturdays (May–October): Attendance usually hovers around 20,000, though major event weekends (like multi-event Saturdays on the Square) can push the crowd estimate above 30,000 visitors.

Weather Impacts: Rainy or unseasonably cold mornings will naturally thin the crowds, while the first warm Saturdays of spring draw massive, densely packed turnouts.

The Winter Shift: When the outdoor market closes in November and transitions to the indoor Winter Market, attendance drops to a steady, dedicated group of about 3,000 shoppers per week

If you want to experience the market without shuffling shoulder-to-shoulder, aim to arrive early. The "early bird" window between 6:15 AM and 7:30 AM offers plenty of space to walk, shorter vendor lines, and the absolute best selection of fresh produce and bakery items

It’s a busy one. Used to be fun at 10am but just too much now!
 


Good evening guys,

westtexjohn said:

Kyle Busch Dead At 41​

After the race at Watkins Glen on May 10, NASCAR on FOX reported that Busch had asked for a doctor to meet him following the event.
No cause of death has been posted at this time.

John
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Sadly it is true. Kyle won the truck series race at Dover last weekend. When celebrating his win, he was asked what made that victory so special. His reply was that you never know when your next one will be. Oddly prophetic.

Love him or hate him, he was Rowdy Busch. May he rest in peace, and may his family also find peace.
 
Interesting (to say the least) few days here.

I've been selecting a short list of possible used replacement trucks for the RAM 2500 I bought, then totaled back in January. Narrowed my search down to Tundras, and further down to Generation one and Gen two (just due to cost). Found three likely candidates and eventually ran three thru a mechanic highly recommended by my truck-buddy guru. $250 a pop for a deep dive pre-purchase inspection each time.

Had it down to just two, and then, suddenly that third one popped up one early morning. I re-juggled the whole day to have it looked over. Fantastic truck on paper and in person. Until the mechs looked it over underneath. They said $10K to get it straightened out. Yeesh.

On PAPER this was a nearly perfect truck. Carfax 11 pages long, 71 entries and every known issue with the truck dealt with well in advance.

So I ran it up for that third PPI almost on the fly. Borrowed a loaner vehicle from the mechanics for a few hours....and now the whole thing goes downhill.

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On the way back (driving the loaner vehicle to pick up the target truck after inspection) I ran into a "poorly marked (?) construction zone. Poorly marked? No, not marked at all. Two lanes of cars going thru a green arrow suddenly have to funnel into one at the exit of the turn, because the outer lane is completely blocked off. No blend line of cones, no "right lane closed ahead," not even a "Road Work Ahead" sign. Zero-zip-Nada until both lanes arrived on the scene (the line of cones) to find one blocked off almost literally straight across.

General panic ensued, two lanes into one with ZERO warning, and in the end the loaner vehicle I was driving came off the worst. A minor bumper tap with the car ahead probably totaled the loaner car.

And when I say minor I really mean it. The SUV I bumped (2-3 mph) had a bike rack hanging off the back, and when the owner and I looked it over he said "the paint (on [my] bike rack) isn't even scratched." We both agreed: Not a hint of damage to him...but the front bumper came off the loaner car I was driving (an old Honda Accord) and to repair it--at modern body shop prices--effectively totals the car. Utterly ridiculous, as all that happened was that the {soft flex) front bumper popped upward under the low impact, and all the clips came undone. Meh.

More follows. Roll your eyes and move off if it gets boring. I won't be offended.
 
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So I ended up buying one of the other two Tundras. So far, so good.

Wrote the dealer a personal check for the full amount, less the $500 card deposit to hold it.

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Drove it home yesterday. And then, early this morning I get a couple calls from an unknown number--I bounced both...and a few minutes later an email from a purported Bank Fraud investigator expressing urgency. So when he called again, I finally picked up.

"I'm (Mark) from (my bank's) fraud investigation department. Did you attempt to make a card purchase from (a retailer) in Phoenix earlier today?"

Well...no. No I didn't.

"Ok, we're cancelling your debit card now then and we'll send you a new one." I asked to have it expedited and they did.

"We also need to change your PIN number."

[THAT has never been done before in my experience, but when I considered the circumstances it did seem to me the attempted purchase with my card could only have been ATTEMPTED if "they--the card number thieves--had the PIN."

So I changed the PIN through the automated system. "Enter your old PIN," so I did. "Now enter a new PIN," so I did.

"A new card will arrive in a few days." End of saga, or so it seems.

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But it wasn't. The whole purpose of that exercise ^^^ in PIN resetting was for the fraudster to snag my original PIN#. There never was an attempted card purchase in Phoenix. There never were any "card or card number thieves." All made up--and sold to me, a skeptic, quite well. A good fraud scheme.

This guy was also able to compel my bank to issue a new card to replace the old one, which they did, but, as far as the bank is concerned, there never was any PIN change at all. They finally realized, only when the REAL fraud department and I unravelled it, that he's inside their system too.
He managed to prompt a re-issue of a replacement card that they never realized was fraudulent in intent. And they have a GOOD anti-fraud system.

In the end, the last personal check (to buy the Tundra) did clear just before we closed out all my old accounts and moved everything over to new one's. As it stands tonight, I don't think I've lost any money at all.....

....but....it's also clear this guy--almost certainly--has a keylogger installed on my other (main PC--the only one I use for banking). So I can't use it anymore for online banking until it's cleaned out. Unlikely I would trust it anyway, even then.

From now on I'll use it just for sim-racing. Meh.

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As it happens all the parts for my newest PC have been sitting over there (points left) for six months, so I finally have to put them together and move on to do any online banking at all again. A new system will be welcome at this point.

To say I'm leery of the whole concept of online banking--as convenient as it is--wouldn't be an exaggeration. At this point, I want to go back to checks...and paper-cups-and-string for communications, even though they are slow. Or even smoke signals...one digit at a time.

As far as I know, smoke signals can't be hacked. Yet.
 
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Kusojiji said:
You do that PIN thing on the phone?
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I did it verbally on the phone, yes. His setup was VERY good, purporting to be a bank fraud investigator. He was literally reading back to me my own recent bank account activities...and he was able to do that because he had access to them as I had already logged in myself at the same time. The keylogger let him log in too, thus he had access to everything I was seeing with my own eyes.

His reading it back to me, transaction by transaction DID solidify--in my eyes--a belief that he must have been reading them through one of the banking system's terminals. Because he WAS--must have been--a legitimate member of the fraud team. So I bought it.

He offered other evidence too--a reverse lookup number (I had already done that with his original number) and he spoofed a call from the bank's "call center" (a reverse lookup did, indeed pop up one of the bank's official websites). My phone logged two called with literally the same timestamp. Very sophisticated.
 
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Remember, if you get a call from a bank purporting to be fraud department or anything like that, thank them and then call them back on a known number and ask to speak to the fraud department. If it's real they'll be able to find it on your files.

Also never click links to banks or anything in emails. Always hand type the address yourself.
 


Yeah, doing that is how we eventually unraveled it. And the bank's voice recognition protection is what protected me--at least for now--from complete intrusion. At least for now.

The "investigator" now has a long, verbal conversation with me. He has a many minutes of voice data from which to piece together a "voice" from me...asking to do what HE wants the bank to do. To let him move my money around--or take it out--as he wants.

So far, his attempts to use "my voiceprint," pieced together have all failed. But he has made multiple attempts to do so. So far all have been denied.

So far. For all I know, this "Mark" guy, the purported investigator isn't even a real person, but is instead an A.I. construct, voice and all. The bank isn't sure either.
 
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