Running Bear's November 2022 Coffee Shop

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Good morning from a changed So. Central Wisconsin. Yesterday we made it to 71f degrees and today if we are lucky we might get to 36 for the high.

Those leaves bothering me are gone because I took a mower out of Winter storage and cut them, then blew them away, just finishing as the 34% chance of rain at 3:30 came pouring down. It rained from 3:15 to at least midnight with 2.25“ in the manual rain gauge by the front door. The 2 working computerized weather stations on the property both were higher at 2.62” and 3.41”.
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Terry the wife is somewhat annoyed with me. She says I’m not sleeping enough. She has spent time with Isabel and likes her. Seems the daughter and wife have decided the next property manager. The SIL with Isabel as his assistant. He could still run his consulting business. Dinner last night was annoying, but with great Tacos. The grandkids were off at hockey practice and dance class, being watched by the neighborhood twins, who needed some money. It was a great opportunity for the 2 major ladies in my life to gang up on me. I heard a lot last night not much of it wrong but I still am going to interview more people, if they apply. The SIL is back today and I am going to meet him at the airport and we will go to lunch. I need to see what he thinks of this conspiracy. Went to bed at midnight and at my desk at 4:15 because there is no commute.

Trains, spent about 45 minutes letting the trains run last night after I put up the rarely used Continous run section. My normal train is 12 cars and 2 locomotives (it’s a switching layout) but last night was 28 cars. I put some graphite on the mainline at a few locations and just let the train run. I put up my “wall of lights” around my chair in the layout room. I am ready for the lack of sunlight during Wisconsin Winter and “seasonal affective disorder” or SAD that was one of the diagnosis last January for my anxiety issues. Strange never had issues before, but I am ready as I’m not taking chances. 8 panels of 4’ day light LED’s, the same stuff I have lighting the layout behind the valance. Spent a few minutes at the workbench, just didn’t feel like doing anything though.

With the rains and high winds yesterday and overnight the 1st priority at daylight is the fence line around the stable property and then the 3 main trails. I should be getting a report any time now. The wind is howling so drone flying may not be possible this morning. I am off to work!!!

enjoy the day
 
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Well, howdy there internet people. And those still on the floor, flailing about...

It's Troy again.

Today is packing day. Heading off to Vegas for a writer convention. Going to see friends on Saturday and Sunday, then I'm at the convention the rest of the week... with one detour.

Wife is staying with the friends all week, and they're coming in to get me for a trip to Vegas' Mob Museum on Tuesday.

Wife gets to fly out of Los Angeles, and I'll come back via Harry Reid airport in Vegas. We meet up in Minnesota (Delta Hub) Friday evening and get to sit with each other on the small plane back to Ft. Wayne.

So, I've got to take inventory of the travel bags, and hit TarGet this morning to fill in all of the essentials.

Cat sitter comes over this afternoon, for a lesson on how to operate the giant pooping palace for Lord Fuzzbutt.

Time to shower, then off to TarGet!
 
The wife texted me. Needs to know if I need anything from Kohl’s. She has $80 in Kohl’s cash, 30% off today through the 19th. Must have my list! I don’t keep a list except for trains and they don’t sell trains…

She needs to get her priorities straight

just got emails from my LHS, everything but Athearn Genesis is 30% off because Trainfest is this weekend in Milwaukee.

Lombard Hobby also emailed about their Trainfest show discounts this weekend. Those are the priorities I’m concerned about
 
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Wife's been hitting me up for "My List" as well on Kohl's. She and the oldest daughter wearing out their cellphones...

Been a productive morning????
Furnace guy comes this afternoon, some idiot forgot he was off and scheduled for a Friday after noon, my normal I'm home by time. So I go down to check that the furnace room is clear, taking laundry down with me. A ton of dead crickets all over the place, so I vacuumed the basement, got the first load of laundry going, and took the suitcases from the furnace room. They're only in the way if you need to access the furnace or the filter box (We have an Air Bear type unit that takes 20"x25"x5" filters). Normally have 22" between the furnace and suitcases.

Got a roast in the crockpot for this evening, and then decided I need to change a toilet seat. So I clean the toilet, replace the seat, and am now cleaning the rest of the bathroom. Taking a quick break before starting to vacuum the main level as we don't have a dog shedding anymore. See how much else I can get done before lunch...
 
Good Morning All. Happy Veterans Day. I guess that we say "Happy" as those guys are still alive. Currently cloudy and 47° and weather is going downhill from here. Temperature is basically continuing to go down, it was 64° at midnight. Probably freezing by dawn tomorrow. Everything is wet but there is less than 0.05" in the rain gauge; so little I can barely tell how much. Another light shower to the west will be here before I finish posting this, less than a mile away. Our fall has ended and our winter has arrived. temperature range of 30°-52° in the forecast for the next ten days. High chance of rain next Monday. Our average first freeze here is 11/22, so we'll be ten days early. The wind this morning is not as high as it was predicted, yet! Maybe Patrick and his buddies finally closed that big door.

Yesterday was the last pleasant day for a while. The weekly grocery trek went well, but we spent a lot of money. That was partly because they were having a wine sale at our Kroger, 25% off if you purchased six bottles. Some of the rest was stocking up early for Thanksgiving. I did score a free 16 lb. turkey for spending over $100, which I do every week regardless. Technically I could get one every day while the promotion lasts, but the plan is to get just one more next week. I'm feeding 36 siblings/families on Thanksgiving. that's actually a few less than normally gather. In 2019, we had 51! All descended from Mom and Dad. As the oldest born male or otherwise, I am the patriarch of the family; there's 11 others who live out of state and don't normally attend, thankfully for the host! Went by the bank to open the new account and file the fraud report after our checking account was compromised recently.

Today I have a 10:30 doctor appointment, which my wife scheduled for me; I always schedule them earlier. Just a follow up to a previous one and the cardiologist one last week. I really do think that my primary care guy and my cardiologist are competing with one another. We'll also file the police report today, but we haven't decided whether to do that before or after the doctor trip. Need the report to complete the bank paperwork. Since the fraud was less than $200, I expect to get it back in due time.
I think that I was able to pick all of the usable green tomatoes yesterday in advance of tonight's freeze. I am not a fan of being out there in the rain, nor while all of the plants are wet. First this morning, I will have to get into the blue jean drawer that I haven't been into since early March. Fortunately every pair should fit since I only lost four pounds since then. No socks though.

Thanks for the various comments and reactions to the business structure rehab post yesterday.

Thanks also for the suggestions regarding painting the Coca Cola script in the side of the soda box. Except the letters are not raised, but recessed. I am thinking of brushing on some diluted white paint and letting it run into the recesses and wiping off the excess. Since I was picking tomatoes until dark, I did not get out in the train shed yesterday to try. My other option is to just glue a Coca Cola sign in place.
Since I didn't take any photos yesterday, I left the camera out in the train shed, so I can't even take a picture of the baskets full of green tomatoes, and some red ones too. So I will leave you with some archive shots of a grain train passing through Vernon.
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Hughie - I am self-taught in Excel, and used it for many years at work and home. However I am now a bit rusty since I haven't really had to use it since I retired seven years ago. I know what you are trying to do, but I don't recall how I did it before. I lost my program when a computer failed and I didn't have a back-up, so I can't reverse engineer it. Good luck.
Swal - Is there no way to do the rehab at home? For my wife's most recent knee surgery, Medicare and Blue Cross sent an in-home therapist out to our house rather than put her in a place that could expose her to Covid.
Curt - I tried initially to do what you suggested on the soda box, but in reverse. I primered it in white and tried dry-brushing the red, but the bristles kept sinking in. I don't think that I wiped enough paint off the brush.
In HO, they are monster spiders, but in real life they are just 1/16" spiders. If I don't run any trains for a few days, the snow plow of the first engine through is really covered.

Everybody have a great day. Thanks to all veterans.
 
Good Morning All!
18F and overcast.

Excel: I started way back when with MultiPlan which I believe was Excel's predecessor on a 8086 machine with 40Meg MFM drive and 640K memory. Friend was an accountant type and back then there were not any cheap options for that. Took us about 6 months to get it right. Had the normal accounting stuff in individual sheets; A/R A/P P/L ...etc and I do not remember how many supporting sheets there were. Then Quickbooks came on the scene and we switched as it had a fairly good GUI to work with. It took us under 2 days to get that setup. About that time frame I found databases and started with Access. What a pain! Found Linux and that OS became my go to. Switched to MySql and have been using that ever since as it is much easier ( to me ) to query the database than to do lookup(s) for a named cells. I use PHP and create web based GUI's of which it is free and it doesn't matter how many machines use it.

Floor
: Isn't it funny how far the floor gets away from you the older you get? I don't even want to play without knee pads anymore. Have a couple pair stashed around the house and train cave - not as many as my reading glasses though. I still can put my hands flat on the floor after a bunch of grunts and groans. Of course, like most of you the getting up part is still the 'fun' part.

Nov 10
: We went out for a bit last night to celebrate the Marine Corps birthday. A little slow today so I suspect not much will get done. Happy day after Marines! Also joined the Legion and we now are card carrying members. Got that membership card yesterday which was kinda neat. It will make it easier to remember when to give them money next year.

And finally, all you veterans out there - THANKS for serving!

Later
 


Good morning, all! A somewhat overcast day to start, rain forecasted for the afternoon.

Excel - I do enjoy using it, though like Willie I am "rusty". One of the nice things about using Excel if you are into Access databases is that you can import / export from either. Access becomes so much more useful when you use VBA with it. While I don't think Access would work for my switch list, it is great for inventories and list.

Floor - I used to be able to spring right up. Now my spring has sprung.

Thank you to all the veterans here in the diner and everywhere else
 
The wife texted me. Needs to know if I need anything from Kohl’s. She has $80 in Kohl’s cash, 30% off today through the 19th. Must have my list! I don’t keep a list except for trains and they don’t sell trains…
I was there yesterday buying my wife new sneaker and stuff for her rehab. I was a day early for the 30% off but I got $20.00 in Kohl's cash.
Swal
 


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