Running Bear's November 2022 Coffee Shop

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Don't mean to rain on anyones parade, but it's because everything costs more due to inflation and greater shipping costs. Unit volume is probably the same or less. But I am sure that some politician will claim credit for a recovering economy.
I was going by the numbers of people shopping in the malls as well as sales numbers. Lines were record setting; final retail numbers are yet to be tabulated.

Inflation is less of a factor because of all the inventory overstock deals. I was checking Amazon yesterday looking for an O2 sensor socket set. I got the set for 33% off. Deals as much as 50% off were common. I was trying to think of something I needed, anything!

The political leaders love to take credit. The people drive the economy.

I bought these from MB Klein. I saved $21.19!
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Good morning modelers. 35f degrees and clear in So. Central Wisconsin heading again to the 50’s. The grandkids will both be here as the parents are heading to the last home football game for the Badgers.

The Badgers are letting their interim coach dangle but this week they finally posted the job. The group that pays the coaching staffs the money beyond the coaches University’s authorized salary has been beating the drums hard for donations. The UW football program is respected and generally has done well the last 25 years but won’t pay what the Michigan and Ohio States do in conference. Should be an interesting search with the current replacement, a Wisconsin native, walk-on player, pro and well loved guy getting the job. Fun time coming the next month or so in Badgerland.

The son in law asked if we could build a new slot track for the kids by Christmas. His request couldn’t have come though at a worst time. Besides being rather late, I am on crutches, I really can only supervise. He will let me know after the game when they pick up the kids. But, I did work on a materials list yesterday and then ordered it from a local lumber yard last night, not a big box store. I am waiting for an email acknowledgement of delivery. I did though 1st offer the track here to him as it’s not getting much use except when the teams come for a swim. The daughter said no to that. They want a 5 lane track 60‘ plus, not the 3 lanes we have here. Most of the 8 tracks I have built in the last 5 years have been 3 lanes, 5 will just be a bit slower. The last 3 tracks though were not routed for the slots, they were laser cut and built up to form a slot using the daughters 2 machines. Its a much nicer build process but it is slower and the laminated birch panels have to be really good wood with no voids. That’s why I buy from a sort of local (40 miles) wood supplier. They know what we need to build. He also has one of my tracks.

The online FB sales sites for HO sort of exploded yesterday in terms of product for sale. But shockingly is the listings are at decent IMO pricing. The graffiti weathering guys still are listing Walthers Mainline cars graffitied at $100 to 200 but non weathered cars are decent. I have noticed that the weathered cars for sale are tending to be the lesser models. More the Athearn Genesis, Accurail, Walthers Mainline and Athearn Roundhouse brand versus the Tangent, ST, Exactrail and other brands. Interesting shift to me!

I spent sometime yesterday on the layout. I worked on refreshing the concrete in front of the paper mill’s machine shop. Still have work to do in blending the ground cover to the new concrete seam.
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enjoy the day
 
Good morning all, it is a mild morning in east central Minnesota, 26 and headed for 48 which makes it a great day to work on the suburban. BIG news on that front I replaced the horns on the 88 burby (high tone and low tone) and now I have horns, the vehicle would pass an inspection now with every light and feature in working order. First time the horn has worked since I purchased the vehicle from Dad's estate almost 5 years ago. I have put over 20,000 miles on it still purrs.

Troy - my favorite coffee is the Starbucks Italian roast. Not a big fan of the Christmas blend. Wife drinks Dunkin donuts exclusively but sometimes dips into mine.

I did some work with the train layout, was able to pick out a base color for the fence, to look like faded wood, will be doing dark lowlights

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Here is a pic of the hobos, only two at my scene

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I have been doing a little detailing here and there, finally this guy from Fun-n games in front of the Wyoming depot

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maybe get the fence up today, also going to town

Gas price - we are still at 3.45. Boo hoo. Hate to say but getting use to the high price of gas. By the way, bought a box of cereal or half gallon of lactose free milk lately?

Dave LASM
 
Good morning all, it is a mild morning in east central Minnesota, 26 and headed for 48 which makes it a great day to work on the suburban. BIG news on that front I replaced the horns on the 88 burby (high tone and low tone) and now I have horns, the vehicle would pass an inspection now with every light and feature in working order. First time the horn has worked since I purchased the vehicle from Dad's estate almost 5 years ago. I have put over 20,000 miles on it still purrs.

Troy - my favorite coffee is the Starbucks Italian roast. Not a big fan of the Christmas blend. Wife drinks Dunkin donuts exclusively but sometimes dips into mine.

I did some work with the train layout, was able to pick out a base color for the fence, to look like faded wood, will be doing dark lowlights

View attachment 156732

Here is a pic of the hobos, only two at my scene

View attachment 156733

I have been doing a little detailing here and there, finally this guy from Fun-n games in front of the Wyoming depot

View attachment 156734

maybe get the fence up today, also going to town

Gas price - we are still at 3.45. Boo hoo. Hate to say but getting use to the high price of gas. By the way, bought a box of cereal or half gallon of lactose free milk lately?

Dave LASM
That's some station Dave.
 
Good Morning All. Raining and 50°, the rain is widespread but not heavy except in isolated places. It is predicted to last until after sunset and the temperature won't get too much higher. But it won't get any lower than the lower 40's tonight either. Just a few light sprinkles yesterday instead of the "gully washer" the NWS was predicting. My rain gauge has 1.25" from overnight.
I had some kind of bug that hit me yesterday, thinking sinus infection. Had me taking it easy most of the day. While it's still there, it has abated somewhat. Nose is raw from blowing and the throat still is sore from coughing. Covid test came back negative. About all that I could manage was bringing in wood for the heater. Wife wouldn't let me empty the dishwasher or fix supper.

No train shed yesterday as I just wasn't feeling well. I did do a little work catching up on my freight car maintenance records database. I wasn't too far behind, only about two dozen entries. Reminds me though, I need to cycle through cleaning of those black tank cars. They tend to last just three years between dusting off, while any other color car usually can go seven years.

No time for pictures today, I have to head out to the pharmacy which is only open until noon on Saturdays.

Alan - The first thing that I do when cooking a turkey is to pull that damn plastic thing out and throw it away. I use a conventional digital thermometer. My mother also taught me how to "shake hands with the leg" to see if it was done. I also used to see my MIL do the same thing. If it moves freely without any resistance, it's done!
I have a service like you describe, it's called nieces and nephews. No $100 involved but they do get a free meal for them and their kids. Although I do have a niece with what we call "free range kids". They come in and she lets them loose to do whatever they get the urge to do. Thursday, one eight year old headed straight for the appetizer table and loaded 8 pigs in a blanket on a plate and devoured them all in about two minutes. I successfully blocked him off when he was returning (albeit probably just temporarily), by asking him questions about his football team and the same name Lions on the TV.
Ken (D&J) - You mention the Kia! What happened to taking the Tesla???
Dave B - I use that fence around horse pastures. I paint it off-white and it looks like those expensive board fences that we see on horse farms around here.
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Louis - I can't judge the Black Friday crowds since I don't go out that day.
Swal - Yes that is my home Covid test result. had to rule that out per the wife.

We were discussing Gary's absence the other day. I noticed that he commented in a few other threads this morning.

Tina Turner is 83 years old today.
Everybody have a great day and an awesome weekend.
 
Louis - I can't judge the Black Friday crowds since I don't go out that day.
That makes two of us!

I did enough of that years ago. My first mother-in-law, Joyce, would send me in search of specific toys for her grandkids. Cabbage Patch Kids, Game boy, Transformers and Talk Boy are a few that I remember. I'll never forget being elbowed by 'crazy" shoppers racing through the aisles.

My Mother-in-law had bad legs and her kids would not do it. I did not have the heart to tell her no. She was always great to me, even after the divorce. Joyce was a great lady, I miss her, God rest her soul.
 


Good Afternoon All!
35F heading toward 40F and pretty clear.

Coffee - to us there is only one brand ... Cravens, and we mostly using the Morning Blend. We grind it at the store into 1Lb ( sorta ) bags. When it is down around $9/Lb we usually get a couple or three and freeze what we are not gonna to immediately use.

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch, had plenty of food even with an 11Lb turkey. Only had Dau and her squeeze. Got to graze pretty much most of the day AND still stuffed myself. Paid for it on Friday as I was still bloated. Ya, had leftovers tooo. Tis the season! Making turkey soup today with what is left of the left over turkey with shreaded carrots, chopped celery and thick homemade egg noodles. The big crockpot is almost full with the stuff. Will let it simmer a bit, then bag and freeze.

Scrunched up bucket seats - boy, those bugged me for a long time until I figured out that my hips were lower than my knees. Would get major pain when that happened. With our Kia ( Edge too ) you can tilt the front of the seat down which solves that problem. If ya can't do the tilt thing, a butt pillow works. Getting in and out still is a journey - Butt in first, swing legs around and duck just at the right moment - do the reverse getting out. And my doc says to stay limber!

Have stayed away from retail therapy for the most part. Did get a Camera attachment and a couple of 22" monitors last week which should be here today/Monday.

Later
 
Afternoon All,

Spent the morning at my train buddy Tom's house with several other friends. Months ago I gave one of my buddies a FOS freebee kit of a small gas station. Today he brought it and gave it back to me built and lighted. It's going to replaced a really crappy one in the miners village. I'll do a photo tomorrow. After getting home we went to Lowe's and Target-big mistake. :oops: Not sure what's on the agenda for tomorrow besides the usual house chores.

Thank you for the photo likes yesterday.

Patrick- I was wondering about the blue color.😂

Louis- Nice Christmas cars.

TomO- Nice photo.

Dave- Nice photos. Beautiful job on the scratch build.

Willie- Nice scene.

Christian- I am very sad for you.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Afternoon all,

Taking a minute to post as my knees are reminding me why I should have let the kids install the dishwasher. Been icing my knees since they got me up at 4:00a this morning. Thought I had a leak from the new dishwasher, but when a leak dries while the machine is working, I must have spilled some water out of the feed line when I was hooking everything up. All buttoned up and once I did the first "cleaning" load (empty machine with detergent), we've now done a load in it with another after dinner tonight. Kids said it was a noisy machine, and it kind of was as when I ran the empty dishwasher, and not too bad with a full load. In some aspects it was quieter than the 23 year old one. We got 8 years out of the machine as we bought the place as a VA repo. It had been empty and winterized for 18 months before we got it. Build date on it was in early 1999, so the fact it was still doing a good job of washing that long is a good thing. SIL hauled it to the landfill this morning when He came to borrow my truck to haul a load anyway.
 
Making turkey soup today with what is left of the left over turkey with shreaded carrots, chopped celery and thick homemade egg noodles. The big crockpot is almost full with the stuff. Will let it simmer a bit, then bag and freeze.
It's turkey enchiladas here on the SFW estate tonight. Some slices and parts are already in the freezer for turkey quesadillas next week.
 


Don't mean to rain on anyones parade, but it's because everything costs more due to inflation and greater shipping costs. Unit volume is probably the same or less. But I am sure that some politician will claim credit for a recovering economy.
Sad but very likely true, and those that are buying are probably trying to avoid the even higher costs that will likely follow.
 
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