Running Bear's October 2026 Coffee Shop

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Good morning folks. 48°F in the Heartland this morning. Sunny today with a high in the mid-70°s later. Low 80°s the rest of the week, but dewpoints down in the 50°s, so that 80°F is not going to feel anywhere near that warm.

Three hours until drain removal, four more days of antibiotics. These antibiotics will also be helpful to head off any infection from having this drain stuck in me for three weeks. They are not recommended to be left in any longer than that because of the risk of infection. With my luck, I''m certain that would have likely happened if not for the newest antibiotic prescription. At least it isn't screwing with my gut like the last two did.

Chores except for grass cutting are finished. The jury is still out of grass cutting though. I'll have to ask my nurse this morning for the green light on that. It's not urgent thought. It hasn't been growing much at all with no rain.

Have a safe week all.

Servus!
 
Good morning all!

A clear and cool morning. Currently its 43F with an expected high of 71F under mostly sunny skies. Pretty much the same forecast as yesterday.

Have a few things to get done today. I have to run out to the hospital and get my labs done for my upcoming yearly wellness. I have to run to a
couple of stores to return a couple of Homecoming dresses that my daughter was unsure of and dint end up using. Probably a couple of other
things will crop up/

Have a safe day everyone!
 
Good morning from chilled Wisconsin. 41f degrees now and a hopeful 70 later.

Grandson’s soccer team was really good yesterday in both games they played to win the tournament. They are 16-2 this Late Summer/Fall league

Hockey tryouts for him start tonight. M,T,W and T and teams are picked and announced Saturday. I hate this process but it’s what they do here. This is where a lot of parents find out their kid is not the budding NHL pro they thought he was. The grandson is good but would rather play with his friends than play on the AA team he is destined for. We shall see. The 3 buds and 1buddette have been back together since right before Labor Day. The budette got rid of the latest boyfriend the 3 guys hated. Made for a strange Summer. She’s already been told she will not be the AA team goalie though I believe she’s better. The goalies know their teams already as their “try-outs” were basically the Summer league games they have been playing. Games where little defense was played, yeah great way to evaluate a goalie! (Sarcasm)

Packers won, saw 1 play, Brewers and White Sox are 2-0 in the MLB playoffs and my Hawks still suck at 0-3 to start the NHL season.

I’m meeting the local hobby shop owner at 9 this morning before the shop opens at 10. He wants to sell weathered freight cars and I have a deal ready for him. I offered him a consignment deal years ago but he said no, now he wants to try it. He has sold my stuff though at the 2 shows he attends and has always been successful. I have no idea what has changed his mind. Don’t care either. I have cars faded to rust buckets with or without graffiti and just about everything in between. Mostly modern cars from the mid 70’s on with many built after 2000. I have very few prior to that but I have weathered estate equipment he has for sale in the store. I did say no to making trees and selling then through the store though he wants me to talk to my fellow tree builders to create them as a group

Enjoy your day
 


Good Morning All. Mostly clear and 65°. Fall has definitely arrived, as the ten day forecast doesn't have a single day above 86° for a high. Lows all in the mid to upper 60's. And of course no rain after our week with just at 7" total. Trees were already losing their leaves due to the 3.5 month period of zero rain. This drought followed the month of June when we had 13.5" of rain! We've now had 35" of rain this year compared to our normal average of 33" for the year. Three months to go. Rain total yesterday was just 0.10" and the sun actually came out in the late afternoon after 6 overcast days.

Nothing special around here yesterday, a couple loads of laundry and a trip out to the dumpster. Today will be packing day for our vacation after I attend to the dishwasher. We leave Wednesday morning, but have not yet decided whether we're leaving to beat or wait on Dallas rush hour traffic. If the wind cooperates, I have to put the pool cover on today, although the wind forecast for tomorrow is a whole lot better. I just hate to wait until the last minute because I will be loading stuff in the car.

I think that the Cowboys won yesterday, as I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting from the house when I opened the door to the train shed! Quite loud which is unusual for my wife. I had to look around for the bong when I got in. Seems that one of the Cowboy receivers caught 17 passes, which helped the win.

Winding down out in the train shed right now. Nothing new started but I did do some more figure painting. I also did track inspection for the remainder of this quarter's layout cleaning. Happy to report that I didn't find any stray parts. Did find several dead ladybugs and a cricket.

One time local boy, Steve Miller is 83 today. His family lived in Dallas during the 50's and 60's and he went to high school here. I used to see him play at local clubs and the noted free Lee Park anti-war concerts in the late 60's-early 70's. Brian Johnson, singer for AC/DC is 79 today. Another local musician, singer/guitarist/composer, the late B. W. Stevenson was born on this day in 1949 in Dallas. Irish singer and "Live Aid" activist Bob Geldof is 75 today.

Everyone have a wonderful Monday.
 
It's me again.

Cat goes off to the vet in about 15 minutes.

He's been hacking up first his breakfast, then a lot of water and phlem. The last one I cleaned up was right by the front (french doors) and I could see a pink cast to it.

Made a call to the vet. He goes in at 9:30, so i'm killing time before I have to take him in.

Otherwise it's laundry day. And doing my PT Exercises.
 
Nurses visit went well. She pulled 15cm of tubing out of me this morning. Didn't feel a thing. She put a sponge and some tape on the hole and said it would close up in a few days from the inside out.

It was a great feeling to be able to tuck in my shirt tail again and move without fear of something moving that wasn't supposed to.

I really hope this is over for good.
 
Well, lord fuzzbutt let me know what he thinks of this vet visit.

IMG_8532.jpeg


He peed on me despite having the warm towel

IMG_8531.jpeg


Waiting on the bloodwork to get done
 
Contrary to opinion here, the purpose of a rock song and especially prog and fusion and blues songs (and of course jazz) is to provide a backdrop for the solos.

Straight rock songs less so and shorter solos (a bar or 4 or 6). Hard rock tends to be longer, as it should (think Zeppelin or similar).

This is the gospel according to Chad.

But in reality it’s very much the case.

As a counter point, my music teacher told me about a radio station back east that didn’t even play the whole song. They just played the chorus. That’s all anyone remembers anyway (lol). This tends to work better for pop though.
 
Good morning folks, 74 here with bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. Lady C made breakfast this morning, she is an excellent cook. Back is complaining this morning, so gonna baby it today. It was an excellent weekend, but paying for it today. Anyway, goal for today is to sloooooooowly
unload the van from Saturday's Train Show. Pulling for a White Sox v Brewers World Series.
On the Solo opinion, depends on who it is. Here's one of my favorites, okay, it's a battle with two drum solos...
 


chadbag said:
Or whatever decoder they chose was not Japan specific but one that includes this N. American "standard"?
Click to expand...
These are Japan decoder companies. The EF58 decoder came from a company called NGDCC, which I keep thinking of as Next Generation DCC, but it is actually New Generation of DCC. He only makes Japan prototype stuff and is wire in, not socketted, for specific applications. The other company is Desktop Station who makes N18, M21 and some wire in boards. This one provides sound files for free that you can upload into the decoder. The programmer was only ~$45 so was a good investment.

I remember seeing a video specifically showing the light dimming feature - dim at stop, normal when moving. I'll see if I can find it.
 
Good morning all. The sun will be out today and it'll be a hot one. Guesses to be in the 26-27C range (roughly 80F), so the AC will be firing up as the house heats up.

First cup o' joe in and now the hunt for food begins. That pizza made me even more ravenous!

@RhB Michael - nice to get that tubing out finally. As you stated, it may actually be a good thing to be on the antibiotics as it may be preventing an infection from the tubing site. Hope the rest of the recover is speedy and goes well.

@troyphoto - Hope LFB is ok and something he just ate.
 
Kusojiji said:
These are Japan decoder companies. The EF58 decoder came from a company called NGDCC, which I keep thinking of as Next Generation DCC, but it is actually New Generation of DCC. He only makes Japan prototype stuff and is wire in, not socketted, for specific applications. The other company is Desktop Station who makes N18, M21 and some wire in boards. This one provides sound files for free that you can upload into the decoder. The programmer was only ~$45 so was a good investment.

I remember seeing a video specifically showing the light dimming feature - dim at stop, normal when moving. I'll see if I can find it.
Click to expand...
OK. I have some NGDCC decoders -- mostly the bi-polar function decoders. If they're using those then the feature probably is something Japan normally uses. (or the code they used as a base for the decoder had it by default).

Thanks for the update.
 
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Hiya gang!

Spent most of the day in bed with a head cold that started early Saturday. Between sneezing fits I've been lurking. I think the worst is over now, I can breathe through my nose, and its not running like a faucet.

I read recently that Bachmann is producing additional cars for the 1976 American Freedom train so I thought I would check them out as additional cars to compliment my Lionel set of AFT cars and my BLI T1. Has Bachmann lost their minds? $95.00 a car? That's Rapido pricing and I doubt they will be a nicely detailed as the Rapido cars. Bachmann also has released a set of Norfolk Southern passenger cars with a similar price. Has anyone laid eyes on them yet??

Edit. I just got my Lionel HO AFT cars out, went to Bachmann's web page and did some comparison. IMHO these are just redecorated versions on the Lionel castings. Same molded on grab irons, same too thick stirrups. Just a different coupler pocket. No way are they worth $95.00 a car! Maybe $95.00 for the set of 7 !!
 
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Decompressing with YYZed (for those of you who don't know how to pronounce it in Canadian) after an "information" session of our HOA... Boy, did they step in it this time.

HOA meeting was standing room full, go sit in the other room and hope you can hear...

seems the board wants to hire a management company. They say it can be revenue neutral. That means to anyone - even people who know what "for those of you in Rio Linda" means... - they're going to fire our two full time maintenance guys who know the community, and people here actually to trust to enter their property in the event of problems.

Some of what the new management company does is good: Community newsletters, recording meetings for up to date meeting minutes - that has been very lacking.

But they also do "on-site visits" to take care of "covenant violations".... following the debacle they had over trying to rewrite the landscape and architecture rules earlier this year, this board has turned chicken, and won't actually write notes to members when they spot something that should be corrected. And they still left some major areas of resident rights and protections unresolved when the board tried to railroad their preferred rules through earlier this year.

I know, many of you refuse to live under HOAs. This community is great. We have 1.5 miles of paved walking trails in a wooden neighborhood. Maintenance under the current crew is responsive and good. We get a few odd neighbors, but so does everyone. Even Willie gets feral kittens invading his train shed!

We just have to weather this storm and get some better people on the board this fall.

But, I'm definitely going to downsize the model railroad into manageable modules. and make it so we can move if the board gets the community too screwed up.
 
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