Running Bear's October 2026 Coffee Shop

[TLOC]

Good morning crew. Wisconsin is cool! 47f feeling like 40 and heading to 64. Today it shall be dry. I have to wander downstairs and go out to check the rain gauge. 36 hours of rain should would have been nice in July and August.

We went to hockey on campus last night. The Badger Women raised the 9th NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP banner last night before they destroyed Boston University. Class act by BU and its coaching staff. They were on their bench clapping for the Badgers during the ceremony. Not all visitors have done that in the past. Again today at 5pm.

I’m torn between attending the PNW layout work session today, tomorrow or neither. I’m working on a canvas until 8 or whenever. I’ll decide then based on Terry’s health. I’m taking a break now as I’ve been in the studio since around 4:30.

I still find it strange (BNSF971) Terry’s place of employment demands they use their personal phones for work yet blocks other uses for it while at work. I would think someone (attorney) would take that case in a Labor dispute. That’s so wrong to me.

To all returning from medical things may we all be pointed in a healthy direction.

Enjoy your day

 

[TLOC]

well well well

its already october holy hell. the year went quick.
yesterday i dont know why, well i know why. i saw some pictures of Pelle Keld Søeborg's newest modules. His such a talented modeller.
And he stated that he built those modules on the European FREMO US standards... and this made me thinking...

iam now thinking to tear down my shelf layout, and start over but with modules.

why?

- i learned a lot with starting my layout
- many mistakes where made
- iam still not happy with my curve (after 2times reconstructing my "mountain"
- iam still in the phase of track and no landsacping (expect the curve)
- track plan is without any plan of how to operate

positiv points:

- i could restart and taken all that i have learned into the modules
- simplify track plan
- plan 2-3 small industries

iam only strugling with finding the right measurements for the curved modules. bit i think i dont have the space for a 60° curve. this would be too big. so i maybe will there just build a smaller curve.

or (mindflash right niw) i make a straight module with a turnout that goes left on a tighter angle.... why did i not think about that earlier...

those are just some thoughts. when i do the module style, i can build what ever module i want, and i can switch them out. oneday i want to build i high dense industrie the other day iam more in the mood on railfaning along a river...

cheers and a great friday

Marco

Here’s my take! Marco since you are intrigued by building the EU Freemo US standards. Because your thinking of past concerns you have had YOU ARE DOOMED, Just switch now. Pelle is a fantastic modeler and a super gentlemen. I’ve met him twice when he was writing for Kalmbach

 

[traiNscale]

Here’s my take! Marco since you are intrigued by building the EU Freemo US standards. Because your thinking of past concerns you have had YOU ARE DOOMED, Just switch now. Pelle is a fantastic modeler and a super gentlemen. I’ve met him twice when he was writing for Kalmbach

hey tom

i hope i did understand your message right. but i really think i will start over and will use at least some kind of US Fremo standard and start building modular sections.

maybe i will start in around 3h tearing down the layout (when iam back home after work). i have to say now that i have a idea in mind, it feels kind of refreshing. will see where it goes!

Cheers
marco

 

[Marlin39]

Phone stuff - One of the main reasons (besides Nicki's health scare) for retiring early was the unnecessary increase in micro-management. Our corporate overlords, encouraged by overpaid MBA's, decided it would be a great idea to monitor us via our company phones & GPS. We had company vehicles and phones, but in their infinite wisdom they decided to put an app on the phone that monitored what time you left your home and returned, were sitting and idling more than 10 minutes, how fast you accelerated, how hard you braked, how hard you made a turn, were you exceeding the speed limit,, etc. Mind you, the company was self insured so it had nothing to do with insurance rates. My local management didn't care what we did as long as they never received a notification from corporate. I had great local management. I can honestly say I worked "with" them and not "for" them.

I had also exceeded my sales goals every year by double digits, but for 2021 (Covid) corporate wanted a 25% increase out of me.....F that. Corporate also wanted everyone to report daily sales activity via a useless, company designed, CRM. I had a meeting with my local and regional management concerning the micro-management. I made it clear that I was an adult and didn't need the baby sitting. All they had to do was see my weekly and monthly sales numbers to see if I was working. It shouldn't matter if I was working 5 hours or 10 hours a day. They completely agreed, but said I needed to play the game. I decided I didn't want to play corporate's game and gave a 2 month retirement notice shortly thereafter. My branch manager decided he had enough after 30+ years and retired about 6 months after me.

Marco - I am in the process of building a small, disposable, switching layout. I'm using 2 old 1'x3' diorama bases. I'm using Lance Mindheim's minimalist concept of 1 turnout and 3 industries. Keeping it simple.

Louis - Keep getting better and this is going to be a good baseball playoff season.

Mike & Tom - Happy belated Anniversaries.

TomO - I understand about priorities when taking care of an ill spouse. They do recover. Just more slowly as we age. I am Nicki's caregiver until she is cleared to to drive, in about 2 months.

Michael - Beer and a functioning bladder go together.

 

[RhB Michael]

Foley cat out, JP drain still in. This doesn't seem like it's ever going to end and they just keep you coming back for more. Pisses me off.

Now, they want to be 110% certain the bladder won't leak under pressure and if the drain starts to fill more than it has been for the last week, to get my ass to the hospital STAT. I guess they don't want to give me another reason for a lawsuit.

It does feel good to have that Foley out, and there were no removal problems. Slid right out after they deflated the balloon. The only part that was really noticeable was when it passed the prostate. It's a warm, fuzzy feeling for a few seconds when that happens.

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. Cloudy and 70°; that's actually been our temperature for the past 27 hours. No higher, no lower. Might go up to 77° today. Nice break from the 90°-100° that we've been having. Of course this humidity this morning of 100% is a bit high, and it's supposed to remain nearly that high through Sunday. Ground outside after 5.5" of rain is wet but not saturated. Pool temperature however is coming down fast due to three overcast days in a row. Knew that was going to happen and I am prepared to put the cover on it Sunday or Monday. It was a fantastically long season this year, used it nearly every day from May 25 until September 30. Slightly over 4 months (128 days) this summer/fall.

Yesterday went well on the grocery trek despite the road handicaps along the way. Avoided the bro-ha-ha from the POTUS visit, and thanks to my wife on the GPS, we also avoided several road closures and heavy traffic issues caused by the rain. Ironically, none of the traffic issues were in construction zones. Got a haircut along the way but for a change, we didn't have to make a stop at the pharmacy. I really need to come up with a plan to get more refills at once instead of having 1-2 of our prescriptions every week. The visit to the spine doctor went as expected with no positive results. He is referring me to a spine surgeon for a decompressive laminectomy; whatever that means. Supposed to be an out-patient procedure to remove bone from the spinal canal.
After the grocery trek, the dreaded dishwasher awaited me.

Light schedule today due to the ground wetness. I'll probably remove the ladder from the pool this morning. Leftovers for supper tonight as we attempt to clear the fridge before vacation next week.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I moved the rest of the trains out of the staging yard. Three went to the north (layout-wise) yard and filled that up. Two others are parked on passing sidings for now. Had some trouble with spine cars/trailers, which I always seem to have. Because of the instability of these 2-axle cars, I don't run them often and they seem to derail in random places. I have all of the trailers weighted, but the center of gravity is too high to help with the derailing. After removing all cars/trains, I did a visual inspection for stray parts and found only one brake wheel. Of course it's mineral brown which may make locating the target car a bit time-consuming.

Rubicon - Have a safe trip and enjoy it.
Michael - Good luck with the catheter removal. I know that you're looking forward to it. No pictures please.
Tom - Glad to see you posting again. Congratulations on 34 years.
Terry -

I'm dreading the day I lose my phone, or my phone gets shut off or damaged. I have been forced to tie my entire life to my phone number and text messages.

It's such a shame. I have avoided letting that happen to me, so far. And don't get me started on MFA's!
Troy - Enjoy that Kirkland while you can before tariffs kick in.
Louis - May Angela have a safe and enjoyable trip.
Kusojiji -

Yay!! Remember what I said about them making sure the tip is not stuck. I am still paying for that. Let's just say that my aim ain't no good no more...

If that isn't enough, wait until you get older and have to rely on gravity instead of pressure.
Tom O - I thought I remembered you posting that you would post a canvas or two. ???

Singer/songwriter Don McLean is 81 today. Michael Rutherford, guitarist/composer, singer for Genesis and Mike & the Mechanics is 76 today and Police bassist/singer/composer Sting is 75.

Everyone have a fantastic Friday.

 

[migalyto]

Good morning all!

Happy Friday!

Thank-you all for the happy Anniversary wished. Nothing special happened since we had a volleyball game last night. We will probably do a
nice dinner somewhere Saturday evening but that is up in the air since we will be at a volleyball tournament out of town all day Saturday. We probably wont feel like doing much, but we will see.

A cool Northern Illinois day. Currently its a sunny but breezy 54F. high is supposed to maybe reach 67F, but dry. We have had close to 3" of rain
in the last 48 hours. Long range says it will be fairly dry for the next week. Farmers around here just got a start on harvesting but I wonder what this will set them back? There is standing water everywhere since we got a bunch of rain last week as well and the ground was already saturated.

Just the usual stuff around the house today Last load of laundry is set to come out of the dryer in a few minutes and everything else is picked up and done.

Time to hop on the mower and bale the yard.

Have a safe day everyone!

 

[RhB Michael]

I reported around 0530 that it was 64°F. It's now dropped to 62°F and still cloudy and drizzly outside. I really don't see it getting above 65°F today if the cloud cover remains.

With as little rain as we've had here, harvest is probably going to be a little on the early side. Farmers are checking corn moisture content now for harvest, and beans aren't far behind. Beans are usually a little wetter and take a little while longer to dry. They always seem to be the last to be harvested around here.

Graineries know how much a truckload of corn is supposed to weigh at the right moisture content. If the tuck is too heavy, the corn was too wet for harvest. Too light, and the corn was too dry and they missed the window. Same for beans.

 

[RhB Michael]

Yay!! Remember what I said about them making sure the tip is not stuck. I am still paying for that. Let's just say that my aim ain't no good no more...

I did mention that, but it was moving freely before she pulled.

 

[troyphoto]

Well, howdy there internet peeplz and those with Cats of one type or another.

It's Troy (with Lord Fuzzbutt the semi toofless) again.

Ventured out this morning and paid the chiropractor bill since the insurance deductible hadn't been met yet. That was $560 out of pocket. I should be about 1/4 of my way through the deductible now.

Wife checked next year's insurance plan. For two of us, we can lose the deductible, lose the co-pay on a lot of routine stuff, but the hospitilazation out of pocket jumps slightly compared to what we have now. All for $1800 more a year total.

I blinked and asked why we weren't on that one all along. She tried to math at me and "we're both in good health... at least we were..."

followed by "I see your point, yeah. That's the one from now on..."

In other news, I've got through all of the jazz CDs, cleaning the disks and cases, ripping them to computer files.

I've still got 30-ish to listen to in order to see if they're keepers or not. There might be a few strays hiding amongst the Rock and Classical bins.
Now I'm starting on the ROCK and Pop bins. At least 200, if not 300+ of those to work through.

For any of you that watch Cheap Audio Man on the tubez of U, I want you to be assured, that I now have his recommended choice for testing new HiFi gear. Will Smith's "Big Willie Style". But, if you really need it, let me know. I might part with it.

Troy - Enjoy that Kirkland while you can before tariffs kick in.

Don't worry Willie. I've got plenty of discounted US Bourbon and discounted US wine to drink. You know, trade war stuff. I'm getting back into US wine again as it seems to be permanently on special now.

 

[DeaconKC]

Good morning folks, 68F here and raining. Hopefully will continue as we need the rain. Sadly, everything is pretty much brown here and it's been so dry we will have a drab Autumn. Got quite a bit done on one of the TTrak modules last night and this AM. Waiting for paint to dry this morning so I can put road lines down and paint the rails on the the Unitrack.
Marco, I like your planning on your modules, have you considered using a narrower radius curve, camouflaged by terrain?
Michael, congrats on getting rid of part of the irritation! And has been mentioned, we really don't want pictures.
And @troyphoto , this is for you:

 

[RhB Michael]

No photos from me. Just got back from the hospital to drop off my first lab sample after Foley removal. I don't know what they are testing for that they couldn't have acquired right from the Foley.

But they wanted fresh and within six hours off removal. They asked me how old the sample was and I said "about ten minutes". They must have thought I was hanging around the hospital until I had to pee.

I live two blocks from the hospital. Bottled, bagged, and delivered in under 10 minutes.

 

[troyphoto]

Good morning folks, 68F here and raining. Hopefully will continue as we need the rain. Sadly, everything is pretty much brown here and it's been so dry we will have a drab Autumn. Got quite a bit done on one of the TTrak modules last night and this AM. Waiting for paint to dry this morning so I can put road lines down and paint the rails on the the Unitrack.
Marco, I like your planning on your modules, have you considered using a narrower radius curve, camouflaged by terrain?
Michael, congrats on getting rid of part of the irritation! And has been mentioned, we really don't want pictures.
And @troyphoto , this is for you:
View attachment 274675

I make it up as I go along. Seriously.

Then one the characters decides to do it their own way, and we're off on tangent.

Had that happen with a lesbian character I couldn't figure out until she said; "I am a LI-Brar-Ian" just like Evie in The Mummy movie with Brendan Fraisier.

Oh... I have a niece who is both Ls mentioned above.... And the character name was a mix of her name and her wife's name.

Well... that character didn't kill the guy, And it looks like she's getting her own series.

 

[troyphoto]

And I found a gem in the used CDs.

Great condition other than a cracked case. Gave it a new case, ripped, and now listening.

I know there are "Musically better" from the BE-Att-els, but I love the movie, so this one has a special place in my love of the group.

 

[migalyto]

I live two blocks from the hospital. Bottled, bagged, and delivered in under 10 minutes.

Cant get much more fresh than that!

. They must have thought I was hanging around the hospital until I had to pee.

Should of told them you collected it in the parking lot!

 

[TheWaysideRailroader]

And I found a gem in the used CDs.

Great condition other than a cracked case. Gave it a new case, ripped, and now listening.

View attachment 274677

I know there are "Musically better" from the BE-Att-els, but I love the movie, so this one has a special place in my love of the group.

I love The Beatles too! After hearing Ringo Starr narrate Thomas & Friends, then finding out he was the drummer, I started listening to the Fab Four as well as Ringo's solo works. (If I could, I'd learn to play the drums inspired by Ringo!)

 

[TLOC]

Good afternoon. It’s nice and bright at 64f degrees plus it’s dry. Just under 5” in the rain gauge since Sunday night. Looks like no rain till Tuesday.

Insurance. Our supplemental insurance in 10/25 informed us that they would no longer cover us. 7 years of supplemental plus 30+ years being our health insurance company. So for 2025 supplemental coverage we went self insured and it’s been good. In August the health insurance shop contacted us and informed that my previous supplemental insurance company was going to accept me again. The agent spent a few hours with Terry going over the new numbers and it was borderline depending if they would cover out of network emergency care. He and Terry were told a response would be given in October. Today all the work the agent and Terry did is for naught. The insurance company will no longer handle anyone’s supplemental coverage in our area. Received a letter when I went to the mailbox after the work session this morning. Terry also received a message from the agent saying his group was informed yesterday at 4pm. Terry will decide if it’s worth the effort to find a carrier that will cover me.

Good afternoon. It’s nice and bright at 64f degrees plus it’s dry. Just under 5” in the rain gauge since Sunday night. Looks like no rain till Tuesday.

The work session went fine this morning but then remembered getting out of the car I took no pictures. We installed the abutments and placed the bridge. Roughed out the river bed and sketched out the contours of a low river bank system. Worked on 2 other river crossings that I had already built, painted and weathered the bridges. Came home with different kits of bridge abutments from Micro engineering, Walthers, Monroe Models and a 3d set John had a friend print. I will ready them for a concrete color and see how they look. Finally we screwed in the 1/2” plywood where he wants the Voss River bridge scene to go. I came home with a ME instruction set and diagrams for the Voss River bridges the trestles. We believe we need 13 trestles and the river crossing will be 60” long and 10” to 11.25” high from river bottom to railhead. This afternoon a work crew will be working on prepping the scene as it’s just framework now. He is going to construct the scene with track before we cut it away to add the bridge and scenic elements. Hopefully by the end of February the scene will be complete.

UW hockey on campus at 5pm. We may eat out afterward about 8pm, Terry is unsure what she wants to do

John texted over some pictures

 

[Kusojiji]

Good morning all. Got up at 0500, had a cup of cold coffee, did the eye drops at 0600 and am now making a load of hot coffee. Did the cold coffee since the coffee maker makes a racket.

Looking at my cameras and I can see shadows right now, so the bright yellow thing is up in the air. That'll be good for the plants as they can finally come up for air.

The typhoon track is starting to look favorable. Hope it continues to turn right.

I think the coffee maker is done. BBL

 

[Kusojiji]

won't leak under pressure

Makes sense. Gotta do the pressure test before certification as with all high pressure pipe work. It's nice that you can give them fresh, 10 min samples.

 

[RhB Michael]

I got the labs back several hours ago. The Foley caused a UTI that now I'm taking antibiotics for. This saga doesn't seem like it's ever going to end. A call to an attorney is not yet out of the question. This is the last straw. One more unexpected complication and I'm picking up the phone.