Running Bear's November 2022 Coffee Shop

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Well, howdy there internet people, and those tire of poly tics!

It's troy again... and this is NOT a political post!

You see, I'm plotting out book 7 in my pixie twist series... and it's election time there. No elephants. No donkeys. No chicken of freedom. (Seriously, the LP national party logo has some weird bird... many of the libertarians call it a chicken).

Back to the book.... So, in the tiny mythical town of St. Mo, it's municipal election time... will the evil town council president defeat the mayor? Will the town's good guys gain a seat on the council to save their beloved pier

Why is that leprechaun dead? Who killed him? And, who's going to count the magical voting crystals?

So, first step in any new book is to make a cover! (just the order I do things... so off to my favorite stock illustration site to get a polling place or voting booth image to add to the cover layout...

Once I put in a search term (voting booth) I get a page of images to view, with a few "suggested term" that I might try... I'm still trying to figure out what the AI Bot was thinking an election entails with that suggested image???

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Good morning from what the weather guessers said yesterday might be our last day of the year where we hit 70f degrees. They of course said that about 10 days ago too. It is 60 now but feels like 52 because of the wind. There are some leaves between the driveway and the side of the house on the grass. I had thought about moving them but then decided there were other things in life to worry about.

I was bored last night, so I started to weather a Centerbeam for me. It’s over in the Continous weathering thread in the Painting, detailing and Weathering forum, if interested. One of the moderators to a sales group on FB sent me a message last night. Asked if I still did pulp cars, said yes but I am on hiatus till February. He asked what I had in stock, I said nothing but have cars on the layout. A long story short. We are negotiating a trade but the hang up, is postage! I ran the numbers of 12 cars in one box and its not cheap, $34.00. But, I took a package of 1 Merchant Row kit to the post office yesterday and was shocked by that price to Texas.

My shadow for the past couple days is today is with Terry and the stable doings. I need to discuss her qualifications again with Terry and then have the SIL interview her too. I think she will be great but down the road. Lots of buts though. Needs better math skills and better reading skills, but she understands. She needs at least a GED. She is bold, insightful and tactful. Seemingly everyone she interacted with genuinely liked her but she’s either 20 or 21. I did 2 interviews yesterday for that open property job, nope to both. Both have the skills not the personality. The ads for 2 days have yielded nothing as too soon. Today, as part of work, I will walk one of the main trails on the property, 6 miles. I have been using the ATV for getting around but we have some complaints about the trail and while I did ride the ATV on it, this will let me inspect closer. Plus it gets me away from a desk longer.

The only other thing today I want to do is take my 3 new CN Gp40-2l’s and send them off to my locomotive weathering guy. Messaging with Alcomotive (James) last night I realized I better mail these out. I should see them hopefully back in 6 months.

Oh boy, the grind starts again. I miss retirement already
 
Morning all,

Dogless this morning as my son's dog went back home. Healed up enough to not need the "Cone of Shame" any longer and doing quite well after the removal of the tumor. Now she just needs to grow her fur back. She's a lot more active without having the weight or poisons from the tumor on her. The scar looks kind if nasty, but the vet did a good job. Hopefully she'll go a couple of more years, but she is 14 years old. She's been with us for 13, as she was gotten before the grandson was born, and was told by the Humane Society that she was a year or so old. She's been a good dog.

Currently mostly cloud this morning, temp of 65° with an afternoon high of 55° after the front comes through. High tomorrow of 41° with north winds.

Terry: Croc is on the right.
 


Good Morning All. Scattered light clouds and a warm 65°. However the cloudiness will increase after dawn and the temperature will only get to 74° today after four days in the 80's. Severe shift in the winds tonight after midnight with our first freezing temperatures Saturday morning. Then crappy weather for the next ten days with highs in the upper 40's to low 50's, freezing temperatures occasionally and scattered rain. Yuck!:mad:

Yesterday was a beautiful day, I started picking all of the green tomatoes before the frost so they will ripen indoors over the next month. Today is grocery trek day with an added stop at our bank. Our checking account was compromised when someone apparently took a check from the mailbox and changed the "Pay to" to themselves. Bank has put a freeze on the account and we have to open a new one today. I'll be questioning them on why it wasn't caught by them while demanding restitution. The only missing funds are the ~$200 that the check was for. Of course we now have a late fee from the trash company since they didn't get it. We were the ones who discovered it when there was an overdue balance on the latest bill. We also have to file a police report. I may not get the rest of the tomatoes picked until tomorrow because of this. Supposed to rain tomorrow.

Yesterday was small project day out in the train shed. I spotted cobwebs on the first visible structure at eye level on the layout a few days ago.
Uncle Tony's Wholesale Meats.
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So I used a combination of brush and tweezers to remove them, as it is one of my favorite structures.
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It's really two different structures for one business. I decided that I would also tackle an added detail for this business, a chest type soda machine.
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This is going to be a tough one. How am I to letter the Coca Cola writing on the front??? Another challenge but I won't get to it today due to the already full schedule.

Tom O - You posted about employees leaving after getting their bonuses. The company that I retired from, in part because the new management team was stupid, had plans to move the entire company 11 miles to a new location. There was a lot of rumbling among the 600 or so mainly legal Hispanic employees. So management offered $300 bonuses to all employees who moved to the new location and stayed at least 60 days. That happened to end on December 23. The plant always shut down between 12/24 and 1/2 and paid all full time employees for the week. So they paid the week's pay, the bonus for staying, and a regular check on 12/23. On 1/2, they had over 350 no shows, which effectively crippled them. Over the next two weeks, an additional 100 or so left because of the strain put on them, from keeping some semblance of production while having to train replacements. Lead time for windows which was 10 days when I ran the operation stretched immediately to 5 weeks and eventually to 3 months when business picked back up in the spring. 7 years later, it is still at 2 months and the labor force still hasn't recovered to full strength. There are three other window manufacturers in the area who immediately picked up all of the experienced laborers.
Dave B - I love the feeling that I get when I run multiple trains for over an hour with no derailments or problems. It's especially satisfying to back a 16 unit container train with double-headed SD40-2 power and a caboose through multiple switches into a staging track without incident.
Congratulations to your family on the first great-granddaughter.
James - I am certainly looking forward to beginning on the Ethanol plant. It will take me a while considering that I have to move a storage shelf and install the backdrop first. Then the visible stuff will begin, painting the ground and backdrop, painting the track, ballasting nearly 100' of track, etc. Other than the four loading platforms, I have no structures, but I have visions. I most likely won't start anything major until after the upcoming holidays though. The whole process is kind of like organizing the garage!;)
Curt - I've been writing to Walther's regarding their QA since the early 90's. It just irritates the heck out of me that large companies can't do a better job with things like that. All I ever get is a polite response. I used to get them directly from Phil Walthers himself, now they come from an unnamed associate in the sales department.
George (Swal) - How's your wife?

It's the US Marine Corps birthday today. Thanks to all who served.

Everybody have a great day.
 
Dave: A mechanic might put a new rear end in a Buick or Ford. So if I play mechanic and put a rear end in a chair, I accomplish nothing but a nap!!! 😉

Patrick - Took me a while to get this one, even in the afternoon.

James - those action clips are a lot easier than the edited versions, as you suggested. THANKS for the call-out!

Willie - Someone stole and forged one of my checks once. Luckily, the check was passed the same time I was in the motel talking to my wife on the phone, had to provide the phone records let me off the hook cause no way I could have written it. It was in the indian reservation so no prosecution or police report but I did get the amount refunded by the merchant, who knew full well it was a forged check.

GOOD MORNING ALL, this post leftover from yesterday afternoon, did not get around to hitting the "post" button.

Well, it got up to 51° yesterday way warmer than usual, rained heavy off and on with a very loud thunderstorm in the middle of the night, still raining, we are on the edge of that big system covering the Dakotas and Southern Canada.

Here are a couple pics from the Duluth train museum, first the cab heater from that 1915 electric locomotive they featured. The cab was tiny, wonder what is in the heater that requires so much space:

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They have two electric locomotives hooked together, said that is how they usually ran them. The biggest disadvantage, they said, was the power lines they needed to run.

Here is a pic of a couple log trucks:

Truck.jpg


These people working the woods back then were super tough.

Will be back later, Dave LASM
 
George (Swal) - How's your wife?
She left for the operating room at 1:30 pm and finally got back in her room at 7:30pm. She was gone 6 hours. I asked what she had done, and they told me ORIF hip surgery whatever that is? They tried to explain it to me, but I guess I'm too dumb understand what they were talking about. Not much time for any layout projects.
Swal
 
She left for the operating room at 1:30 pm and finally got back in her room at 7:30pm. She was gone 6 hours. I asked what she had done, and they told me ORIF hip surgery whatever that is? They tried to explain it to me, but I guess I'm too dumb understand what they were talking about. Not much time for any layout projects.
Swal
 
Good morning!

It feels darn cold around here at -8F. Thankfully, a warm front is supposed to move in for the weekend. I can't help but feel it's going to be a hard winter this year, though.

Willie - For the Coca-cola script. - I wetted paint onto an old rubber printer roller before, and gently rolled paint onto the face of raised detail. It does work, but requires exacting patience. The roller is just wetted and requires a few passes. Can't have lots of paint on the smooth rubber roller.
Other than that, I can only suggest careful dry brushing, or, sand it off and use a Coca-cola decal.
Love the wholesaler building!

Folks, some crap is happening around here that I don't like share or talk about with anyone outside the family. It's been affecting me in a depressive way for some time. I'm tired, but I need to take care of business for awhile, so I can regain peace and happiness. If I don't, the effects will filter through in my words on the forum. - I don't want that happening. So, I'm going to take a break.

Thank you for all the likes and comments on past posts.

I'll leave you with a brief tankcar study, and hope to have some new material when I return.
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It's a darn good thing I'm not king. I'd be sending all the king's horses and all the king's men out to punish those responsible for the graffiti. It wouldn't be pretty.

Have a great day!
 
She left for the operating room at 1:30 pm and finally got back in her room at 7:30pm. She was gone 6 hours. I asked what she had done, and they told me ORIF hip surgery whatever that is? They tried to explain it to me, but I guess I'm too dumb understand what they were talking about. Not much time for any layout projects.
Swal
How is she feeling?

You are not dumb, if you are many more are too, including me! That is why those doctors go to school for so many years.
 


She left for the operating room at 1:30 pm and finally got back in her room at 7:30pm. She was gone 6 hours. I asked what she had done, and they told me ORIF hip surgery whatever that is? They tried to explain it to me, but I guess I'm too dumb understand what they were talking about. Not much time for any layout projects.
Swal
Open Reduction with Internal Fixation.

Basically open surgery to reset the bone and then they use pins, screws and metal plates to keep the bones in place, opposed to THA which is replacing the ball and socket with an artificial one, which also involves the use of a cordless drill and a large hammer.

I used to help my sister make training films for theatre nurses, which is how I know. And no, I'm way too squeamish to do that job.
 
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