Running Bear's October 2025 Coffee Shop

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Well, howdy there internet peeps and those sitting on their butts today (paid or not)...

It's Troy again. Wife is making me get off my keyster,.

I need to run to the grocery today this morning, then it's Honey-do time. Seems her bathroom sink is slow drain. Probably hair around the stopper mixed with with fabric softener residue. that's the closest sink to the laundry, so it's where I rinse out the laundry softener cup. I will pull the elbow trap, and clear it, then see what's above it on the plunger arm.

Then I have to get on rover dot com and find a pet sitter to clean Lord Fuzzbutt's pooping palaces, and make sure he gets his kibbles with the probiotic powder every day.

Other than that, I might nap. We will have to see what unfolds today.

Oh, and I get to clean the resin printer. I had a failed print run overnight. Not enough supports on the pieces, and they pulled lose.
 
Good morning Crew from my little part of Wisconsin. It is currently 60f/15c heading to 70/21c this afternoon. There is supposed to rain in the area but nothing seems wet out there. We’ve had a 1/4” of rain so far in October

This morning I will work on the Swing Bridge. I have a couple hours at most to finish the build. Then some primer color and a dirty silver color for the base

The grandson’s soccer team got globbered in the championship game yesterday morning. 7-0 with all scoring in the 2nd half. The daughter says the grandson’s team dominated the 1 st half but no scoring. Said the 2nd half was immediately different as the other team scored twice in the 1 st 3 minutes. Says it wasn’t pretty!

I can hear the rain falling on the roof and against the windows!

Lots of losses last week for me in the stock market. Terry is back in the action playing day trader this week. I’m just letting everything ride. The local real estate market is still super strong. Single home sales are riding steady and there are new homes under construction all over my part of the County. They claim 2 factors are causing that. The continuous hiring at Epic Software in Verona and Exact Sciences consolidating jobs back into the Madison area facilities

My FB page for anyone besides Marco who is interested. It’s just my layout and weathering projects page, no politics, no rants! I run hot and cold when posting

Facebook

www.facebook.com www.facebook.com

Enjoy the day
 
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Good Morning All. Partly cloudy and 68°, another nice day in store. More of the same for the next ten days according to the NWS.

I did get around to mowing yesterday, but did the backyard and part of the front before running out of gas. Then made the trip to fill up the cans. Most of the rest of the day was doing things to tie up loose ends before we leave for the annual Gulf Shores trip. Today I'll finish mowing the front yard and get some of the area behind the train shed before it gets out of hand again. Went to Outback in Denton to eat, before our credits and rewards expired. Took back roads to get there since there was two accidents southbound on I-35 and too many Okies northbound returning home from the Texas-OU football game on Saturday. Several construction zones slowed folks down, even though there is still the same number of lanes that have been there since the 50's! Those concrete Jersey barriers along the side of the road seem to scare some drivers.
Other than mowing some more, the rest of the day is in flux right now.

Even though it was Sunday, I spent more time than the usual Sunday out in the train shed yesterday. No supper prep! I striped the parking lot at the Whitewater Brewery. The "peel & stick" stripes that I am using come in scale 10' lengths, so I had to splice them together. I make my parking lot spaces a scale 8'x15', smaller than real life but OK for the illusion.
Work in progress.
1760359438224.jpeg

After applying them all, I always give them a clear dull coat, which aids in keeping them from peeling up while reducing shine. Note that I didn't make the employee move while I did the striping, since he's already glued in place.
1760359548380.jpeg

After a little further cleaning and erasing my pencil lines, I added another figure and re-placed the vehicles.
1760359712157.jpeg

I then turned my attention to the business across the road, a Chinese take-out place from Walther's called Golden Dragon. That side of the road had become a bit dingy since it was under a direct water leak from when the tornado last year took off the train shed roof.
1760360069462.jpeg

Over to the workbench it went, but I didn't have time to do much with it yesterday. I did find an unwanted dead resident inside though.
1760360188534.jpeg

Not even sure how it got inside to begin with but it is no longer leaving cobwebs to snag any locos any more.

A warm howdy to Justin who briefly came by yesterday. Although he didn't mention whether he still had the layout.
Patrick - What do you use to bait the mousetraps that they are getting out clean with? I use peanut butter which they have to work on getting. I prefer not to use the glue boards myself.
Yeah! Beef prices have gotten crazy recently. I have found some sales occasionally but prices are still too high.
Louis - Here, I have been smoking pork roasts along with turkey breasts, both of which seem to be about 1/4 the price of beef right now. I do miss the brisket though. I know that the Texas BBQ places are suffering since beef is king in this state.
John - I used to bowl at the Big Town Bowl Lanes in East Dallas/Mesquite back in the 60's; at those prices. We rode our bikes over there. Eventually I gave up on it and golf when I realized that if I traded my scores in each with one another, I would be doing great in both.
Tom O - I wish that you hadn't reminded me of the stock market this morning. Friday was horrendous! But I am a buy and hold person, so I won't make any moves today. Wife wants too buy the dip. I don't have the patience or time to be a day trader, even though I have seen some great opportunities in that.

Vocalist/guitarist Sammy Hagar (aka the Red Rocker) , most famously from Van Halen, is 78 today. I only saw him once when he fronted Montrose in 1972 when the band opened for The Eagles/Rolling Stones in the Cotton Bowl. Musician/singer/composer Paul Simon is 84 today. Never saw him. On the non-musician side of things, Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones is 83 today. In politics, AOC is 36. Today is also National No-Bra Day. It's for Breast Cancer Awareness Week, not for us lecherous old men.

Everyone have a wonderful Monday.
 


santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Partly cloudy and 68°, another nice day in store. More of the same for the next ten days according to the NWS.

I did get around to mowing yesterday, but did the backyard and part of the front before running out of gas. Then made the trip to fill up the cans. Most of the rest of the day was doing things to tie up loose ends before we leave for the annual Gulf Shores trip. Today I'll finish mowing the front yard and get some of the area behind the train shed before it gets out of hand again. Went to Outback in Denton to eat, before our credits and rewards expired. Took back roads to get there since there was two accidents southbound on I-35 and too many Okies northbound returning home from the Texas-OU football game on Saturday. Several construction zones slowed folks down, even though there is still the same number of lanes that have been there since the 50's! Those concrete Jersey barriers along the side of the road seem to scare some drivers.
Other than mowing some more, the rest of the day is in flux right now.

Even though it was Sunday, I spent more time than the usual Sunday out in the train shed yesterday. No supper prep! I striped the parking lot at the Whitewater Brewery. The "peel & stick" stripes that I am using come in scale 10' lengths, so I had to splice them together. I make my parking lot spaces a scale 8'x15', smaller than real life but OK for the illusion.
Work in progress.
View attachment 243851
After applying them all, I always give them a clear dull coat, which aids in keeping them from peeling up while reducing shine. Note that I didn't make the employee move while I did the striping, since he's already glued in place.
View attachment 243852
After a little further cleaning and erasing my pencil lines, I added another figure and re-placed the vehicles.
View attachment 243854
I then turned my attention to the business across the road, a Chinese take-out place from Walther's called Golden Dragon. That side of the road had become a bit dingy since it was under a direct water leak from when the tornado last year took off the train shed roof.
View attachment 243858
Over to the workbench it went, but I didn't have time to do much with it yesterday. I did find an unwanted dead resident inside though.
View attachment 243859
Not even sure how it got inside to begin with but it is no longer leaving cobwebs to snag any locos any more.

A warm howdy to Justin who briefly came by yesterday. Although he didn't mention whether he still had the layout.
Patrick - What do you use to bait the mousetraps that they are getting out clean with? I use peanut butter which they have to work on getting. I prefer not to use the glue boards myself.
Yeah! Beef prices have gotten crazy recently. I have found some sales occasionally but prices are still too high.
Louis - Here, I have been smoking pork roasts along with turkey breasts, both of which seem to be about 1/4 the price of beef right now. I do miss the brisket though. I know that the Texas BBQ places are suffering since beef is king in this state.
John - I used to bowl at the Big Town Bowl Lanes in East Dallas/Mesquite back in the 60's; at those prices. We rode our bikes over there. Eventually I gave up on it and golf when I realized that if I traded my scores in each with one another, I would be doing great in both.
Tom O - I wish that you hadn't reminded me of the stock market this morning. Friday was horrendous! But I am a buy and hold person, so I won't make any moves today. Wife wants too buy the dip. I don't have the patience or time to be a day trader, even though I have seen some great opportunities in that.

Vocalist/guitarist Sammy Hagar (aka the Red Rocker) , most famously from Van Halen, is 78 today. I only saw him once when he fronted Montrose in 1972 when the band opened for The Eagles/Rolling Stones in the Cotton Bowl. Musician/singer/composer Paul Simon is 84 today. Never saw him. On the non-musician side of things, Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones is 83 today. In politics, AOC is 36. Today is also National No-Bra Day. It's for Breast Cancer Awareness Week, not for us lecherous old men.

Everyone have a wonderful Monday.
Click to expand...
That what Terry is doing buying the dip! I’m with you buy and hold and over the years I’ve had some great gains. Terry enjoys the search for the killer move and has done better than my portfolio over the 11 years of my retirement
 
Good morning all!

A very cloudy morning to start the day. Current temps are 57F heading up to a high of 73. There is some rain out there, just not here.
Looking at the radar it all to the north and south of us. Pretty much the same story as all summer.

Yesterdays Chicago trip was interesting. We did not know the Chicago Marathon was going on. I kept wondering why the train was so full
on a Sunday of a holiday weekend. Downtown was very crowded and we decided to head north to Navy Pier and hang out in that area.
We decided we would not have went if we knew that event was going on. Still a fairly fun day. Nice to get out of town for the day and do
some family time.

Not sure what we have going today. Wife and daughter are both off due to the holiday.

Have a safe day everyone!
 
Morning all,

Last night's glue board check resulted in zero catches and no "calling cards" in the area. I did vacuum where I placed the traps and glue boards yesterday, so anything new would show up. Trying to figure out why I have 5 known semi feral cats in the neighborhood, seen them in my yard several times, and I still have mice?

Willie: Peanut Butter and cheese (part of a slice). Wife wasn't happy with the glue boards, but I'm not happy with the mice. I think the traps just weren't sensitive enough. Wife read me the whole "Sticky traps are bad and how you should carefully free the critter with vegetable oil and make it feel loved and release it. Nope, alternative methods give it a quick end, although the glue trap get tossed at that point.

Took me a while to catch up on all the posts since I last posted on Thursday.

Banana Ball: Got a text from my daughter about a lottery to get first chance at tickets to a game in Wichita. Seems there are 3 games being played here in May, so I looked up Banana Ball league. I had heard of the Savanah Bananas, but didn't realize it was as big as it is. So I signed up for the lottery and waiting to see if I can get tickets. I watched the Championship game on youtube and really enjoyed it. If I can get tickets, it looks like it would be a fun time. I did read about the Indianapolis Clowns as an expansion and that the name was an acknowledgement to the original Clowns Negro League team.
 
santafewillie said:
The minor irritations from Thursday carried over to yesterday. In the end, I had to make three calls to the doctor's office and two to the pharmacy regarding the prescription that I originally called in on Wednesday. They finally communicated correctly around 2:00 and I was able to drive to town to get it. I have posted before regarding the incompetency of my PCP's office staff and they really proved it this week. In other medical news, the electrocardiologist that I saw last week, has enough information from the heart monitor that I have been wearing, to schedule something called an ablation for the second week of December. It's taken since June for the right doctor to diagnose the cause of my atrial flutter, and the stamina issues related to it. It is a supposedly painless day procedure. While I am not looking forward to another medical procedure, if it works then I'll be quite pleased. I really want to get back to walking a mile a day instead of just 1/4-1/3 mile.
Click to expand...
Damn Willie, sounds like you and I have the same PCP. They're not affiliated with a big Eastern Mega-practice based in Morristown NJ are they? :rolleyes:

You may remember the rant I posted concerning my adventures following my July spine surgery. Last Thursday, I saw mt Cardiologist, and I asked him about my BP issues, possible anemia and other factors. I told him about the way they handled my low BP by giving me an additional drug to raise my BP, instead of just discontinuing the BP med. And I mentioned that as soon as I got home I stopped both of the drugs. He was (surprisingly) pleased that I followed my instincts instead of following Doctors Orders.

I just googled the ablation procedure, Amazing what they can do now. Good luck, and yes, it's a in and out procedure. Aging is an adventure, isn't it.

Problem is the medical profession is so compartmentalized these days that nine of ten doctors will be the wrong choice for someone.
 


Good Morning All!
38F @ 85% raining again. No white ... yet.

I happened on a Savannah Banana game on Fire Stick TV ( Maria was watching but left the area ) and wondered WTF is this? After watching for a little bit I kinda figured it was akin to the Globe Trotters, so I plopped down and watched more. I bet an in person live game would be great.

Mice: I gave up on spring traps or glue paper. I now use a 5 Gallon bucket with a PVC roller on top and keep 3 or 4" of water in the thing. Peanut butter spread on the middle of the roller and a runway ramp up to the bucket top. I happened to see one use it. Got onto the roller with all 4 feet, and it spun. Dead in a few seconds. At one time, I had 4 in the bucket ... no biggie, pull the roller and throw them out with the water. Oh, this is only in the Train Cave as I don't let the cats in there ... period. On top of that, we have one cat that will catch something outside and bring it in the house and let it go; mice, birds, squirrels and snakes. Maria would not let me shoot the cat... So we figured she was bringing food in for one of her kittens. Ya, we have no kittens from her, must be cat mind games.

L8r
 
Before we moved into the house I was sitting in the garage working on something -- maybe the bathroom vanity tops -- and saw a mouse. I went and bought a bunch of the glue traps and spread them around the whole garage perimeter. Withing about 2 days we had caught the mouse. I left the rest of the traps but they've stayed empty so I guess it was just the one that we had. I make sure to keep the garage doors closed when we're not absolutely needing to open them. As the house "shell" is concrete from the footings to the roof, there aren't many other ingress points and we've been lucky to not see any sort of mouse signs elsewhere.

When we moved into our old rental house (we were there 17 years +) we noticed the signs of a mouse. A glue trap under the couch got him and we never saw signs again. I guess we were lucky. We thought maybe the mouse had gotten in while we were moving in and had the doors open, though it could have been there from the people before us.
 
For those trying to buy the dip, a lot of the dip is gone already. Still down compared to the high last Thursday but... I wanted to get in this morning as I had a small amount of cash sitting in our DIY 401k but was late getting up (I forgot). I did get one thing bought -- 2 shares only -- of an AI based ETF. I had bought a few shares recently and it was lower so I thought I get a couple more. I have a goal where I want to be with it so add in when it looks ok.

I won't get rich off it as even if this one were to double that'd be less than $1000 gain for me for the shares I have. But I have a lot of ETFs but except for a few, none are more than 0.5% -- 2% of the portfolio. So spread out a lot. It's worked so far. Mostly buy and hold. I did have one highly leveraged one based on the market that I sold when I thought it had gone high enough and didn't want the crash (it moves around as its leveraged so every down day is worse for it). But it kept going up. If there is a big crash ike we had earlier this year I'd probably get back in with a small position. This last one was a good profit.

One of the things I have is a good foundation of monthly dividend payers which have pumped a ton of cash. Even if the ETFs themselves don't move much though most of them are up as well. Plus a secondary dividend base of the quarterly payers that is OK.
 
Well, howdy there internet peeps, and those who make mousey swimming pools. Be sure to post "No Lifeguard on Duty" so the mouse knows it's not your fault. No mousey lawyers involved if you post that. ;)

And I've got most of the honey-do list done, but I keep thinking of things I need to do:
Clean the freestanding AC unit
Take the furnace filters out that I was going to clean two weeks ago
Take the cat box (the litter robot) out for a deep clean with hose and cleaner

This is going to be a busy week. I'm sure I'll think of more before I get done.

The wife's sink was clogged because the dumb drain kit and stopper that came with it are designed to catch hair... the elbow trap under the sink was clean. The stopper was a mess. And it's not the usual ball and screw cap to put the lever arm into the drain, it's a quarter twist barrel shaped thingie. I'm sure I originally installed it when the vanity top/sink were on their back and I could see what I was doing. Now, I gave up and told the wife I'd get her a rubber stopper plug if she wants to close the drain. The good news is we can pull the regular stopper out and peel her hair off ot it any time we like without crawling under the sink.
 
santafewillie said:
smoking pork roasts
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I neglected to mention pork! I always started my pork barbeque (my favorite) for our 4th of July parties by smoking a whole pork shoulder.

I love smoked beef, but no sauce for me please. Sliced with fresh sliced yellow onion and mayonnaise on a fresh roll is how I like my smoked beef. Pit Beef we call that here in Maryland.
Patrick said:
Wife wasn't happy with the glue boards,
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Oh the humanity! It is inhumane to allow vermin to bring disease and filth into our homes. From what you said I suspect you ended their suffering quicky.
 
Good afternoon gang!

Left the daughter’s house around 8 AM this morning in Clayton North Carolina. Just about six hours later we rolled into the house after one stop for a fuel and a short visit to the local grocery store to grab stuff for dinner. Not bad time for covering 340 miles. I was averaging around 75 miles an hour until we got close to DC even though it’s a holiday. The traffic was out in force and slow as usual.
 
chadbag said:
For those trying to buy the dip, a lot of the dip is gone already. Still down compared to the high last Thursday but... I wanted to get in this morning as I had a small amount of cash sitting in our DIY 401k but was late getting up (I forgot). I did get one thing bought -- 2 shares only -- of an AI based ETF. I had bought a few shares recently and it was lower so I thought I get a couple more. I have a goal where I want to be with it so add in when it looks ok.

I won't get rich off it as even if this one were to double that'd be less than $1000 gain for me for the shares I have. But I have a lot of ETFs but except for a few, none are more than 0.5% -- 2% of the portfolio. So spread out a lot. It's worked so far. Mostly buy and hold. I did have one highly leveraged one based on the market that I sold when I thought it had gone high enough and didn't want the crash (it moves around as its leveraged so every down day is worse for it). But it kept going up. If there is a big crash ike we had earlier this year I'd probably get back in with a small position. This last one was a good profit.

One of the things I have is a good foundation of monthly dividend payers which have pumped a ton of cash. Even if the ETFs themselves don't move much though most of them are up as well. Plus a secondary dividend base of the quarterly payers that is OK.
Click to expand...
My SIL and her husband bought silver in 1980 as an investment at $52/oz, a lot of it at the time, in excess of 1000 ozs. It immediately went down and has not reached that $52/oz level again until today, finally! Not much of an investment considering inflation in the last 45 years. I'm not sure if they held it this long, or took their losses years ago.
 


santafewillie said:
My SIL and her husband bought silver in 1980 as an investment at $52/oz, a lot of it at the time, in excess of 1000 ozs. It immediately went down and has not reached that $52/oz level again until today, finally! Not much of an investment considering inflation in the last 45 years. I'm not sure if they held it this long, or took their losses years ago.
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Of course it would need to be almost quadruple that to actually have made any gain. Or more since 1980 was a high point for precious metals because of the inflation from the Carter years. IIRC Gold hit $850 back then which is about $3340 today using an inflation index calculator. So the >$4000k is a high I think for Gold. The same calculator says that $52 in 1980 is $204 today so your is still down a ton.
 
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