Running Bear's October 2026 Coffee Shop

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Good Saturday Morning All. Overcast and 66°, It rained here between 5:00 and 6:30 this morning, leaving me with 0.5" in the rain gauge. While it's currently raining steadily about a mile west, it appears that it is receding away; but more might show up here later this morning according to the radar. NWS says rain off and on until this time tomorrow morning, all from that Pacific hurricane that I don't remember the name of. Polo, maybe???

My lumberjack crew stopped by yesterday and offered me a free load of wood from a job that they are doing nearby. I took a look and accepted it. Mixed hardwood load of Oak, Pecan and Hackberry. All are high in BTU's per cord with Hackberry actually better than Oak. I'll have to trim some of it down to size, but overall it all looks good. It's a mixture of mostly green wood with a little dead wood, which I will use for next winter. I don't need any more for this season. Long-term planning here!
Around the place, I noticed a few days ago that the Hummingbirds have vacated the place. I haven't seen any at the 2 feeders since last Sunday. And mature grasshoppers are really scarce this year as they have been all summer; hardly any at all. Compare that to a few years ago when they were really thick.
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They stripped every leaf off that Mulberry tree and killed it.

No real plan for today, as I was somewhat expecting the rain. I have to make some additional vacation decisions today (or soon). Have to decide how I want to deal with the trip there itself. Already have stopover reservations at Baton Rouge the first night. I no longer do the entire 12 hour trip in one day. That's an 8 hour segment plus lunch. Since we're leaving on a weekday, Dallas morning rush hour comes into play. If I leave early enough from here, 5:30-6:00 to beat it, I can make it to Lafayette LA for a late lunch, which is preferred, but then it's only an hour to Baton Rouge and a wait until we can get into the hotel. If we leave 2 hours later, then it's lunch in Shreveport. There ain't nothing between Shreveport and Lafayette. Decisions, decisions, decisions! Home to Shreveport is 3.5 hours, Shreveport to Lafayette is 3 hours and an hour to Baton Rouge. The next day is more relaxed since that leg is only 4 hours, leaving after rush hour in Baton Rouge (notorious), stopping in Gulfport MS 2 hours away, for a visit to the model RR museum and lunch and then a 2 hour trip to Gulf Shores AL ahead of the Mobile rush hour.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I resumed with the clean-up project. Vacuumed the 16' 6-track staging yard, cleaned the track with a soft eraser type gadget mounted on a stick; then vacuumed again. Nothing unusual; dust, dead insects and cobwebs. Although not as many cobwebs as usual, but they're probably all stuck to the front of the engines that cleared the yard.

David (Marlin) - My wife, kids and grandkids all have that app that tracks you on their phones. She (wife) originally installed it on mine, but I had her remove it that afternoon after I found it. I don't go anywhere nefarious or anything, but the whole idea sucks in my opinion. On one monthly summary after our last vacation, it reported that her phone had traveled over 95mph for a time...well, I admit that the road we were on had a speed limit of 85mph and I might have stretched it out a bit! But in my defense, she was in the car with me and should have known. While it might be useful to my daughter to track my grandsons aged 17 & 19, my wife uses it to see where each of my daughters might be going out for dinner, whether they're working from home or the office and other "snoopy" applications. She also peers in on our grandson at college in Austin to see where he is!
Troy -
troyphoto said:
"we're both in good health... at least we were..."
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Aging. One of the realities of life.
troyphoto said:
I'm getting back into US wine again as it seems to be permanently on special now.
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Noticed that here as well.
Kevin - Have fun at the train show.
Louis - That Yuengling is certainly a step up from the taste of Budweiser.
Tom O - First frost here is typically November 22. Last year it was December 2.

Late rocker Eddie Cochran (Summertime Blues, Twenty Flight Rock and others) was born on this day in 1938, died in a car crash in 1960. Chubby Checker is 85 today, my favorite wasn't the "Twist", but "Pony Time"; remember the lyric "Boogety boogety boogety shoo!"? Guitarist/singer Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac is 78 today. The late guitarist/singer Stevie Ray Vaughan was born on this day in 1950. And drummer for Mötley Crüe, Tommy Lee is 64 today.

Everyone have a fine Saturday.
 


I'm here too. I posted much earlier.

Today is the first day in three weeks I've been able to wear a pair of jeans. In spite of the JP drain entry point at my left side belt line, the jeans waistband is holding the tubing securely without movement. It still has a drain sponge around the perimeter and is taped down, but I can't feel it in place. It's more secure than while wearing sweats or BDUs.

After losing four more pounds in the last three weeks, the jeans also fit better and no more muffin top!
 
Good afternoon. It's mostly cloudy and 90.
I've returned from my not-so-local hobby shop, where I picked up decoders for the RS2 and FP45, two of four DCC ready engines in the batch. The other two accept E24 decoders, and the hobby shop didn't have any.
They also have Z scale hard-wire decoders for $18 each, which is significantly less than any online pricing I found. I'll start picking those up over the next few weeks. I need a total of nine decoders for this lot, the pre-configured frames will help a lot in equipping them.
I also picked up a pair of NOS Roundhouse 57' mechanical refers with Micro-Trains trucks and couplers installed, and a pair of covered hoppers. One hopper is a Walthers car, the other is Atlas. Both are older runs, and equipped with Rapido couplers.
Well, I'm off to the workroom to install trucks and decoders. Everybody have a great day.
 
Kusojiji said:
So in cases like this, if the truck is in the wrong, does the railroad go after the driver or company for compensation?
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Since locomotives are equipped with forward cab cams, they usually do. In the past they had a policy of making quick settlements, which only encouraged trial lawyers to file frivolous suits, some quite creative. BTW, the truck or car is always wrong.
 


Well, today's festivities went off the rails pretty fast once I started.
First, both truck retainer pins broke off inside the body of the Atlas hopper. Not a huge issue, I drilled out the remants and everything went smoothly after that.
Then, I took the shell and factory light board out of the Kato RS2, applied the Kaptan tape that comes with the decoder, and went to install the decoder. And noticed I had reinstalled the factory light board. Ooops...
I then grabbed the decoder off the table, and went to install it. That's when I noticed I had two factory Kato light boards, and no decoder. Umm... I called the hoby shop and let them know. They told me to bring it back for exchange or refund. That means a trip to the hobby shop on Tuesday.
On to the other one, that I did verify had a decoder, and not another light board. I was very surprised about the switch, since the package was still stapled shut. I guess staples are cheap, and I hope whoever switched them enjoys their free decoder.
 
The state of Alabama managed to go without any train wrecks on Friday.
Although there is still wreckage to be cleaned up, both lines in Maplesville and Springville are back in service.
There was only one injury in the Springville wreck, the truck driver, who is out of the hospital now.
In Maplesville, several residents lost trees in their yards, but no damage to homes or cars in the drive ways. Still lots of garbage and pieces of boxcars on the ground.
 
Nothing new on the model railroad scene. Waiting for my wife to clear out a bunch of stuff in here study, so I can get through to the train room. Meanwhile, got an I-phone, and am trying to get up to speed. Been meaning to do this for quite some time, but it became necessary because my old flip-phone is on its last legs. Fortunately, my colleg-age granddaughter wrote out a manual for me to study. Eventually, I hope to get up to speed with the thing. Don't really use all the stuff on the new phone, but it is handy to become modernized.
Watched the Navy-Air Force football game. Air Force won, and will go on to play Army for the Commander-In-Chief's trophy later this month.
Be well and safe all! Green boards all the way!
 
Sigh...
I put everything away, and I'm just running trains. The second decoder is dead, and the programmer doesn't detect it. The lights on the board light when on the programming track, the contacts to the motor are good.
I "was" only kidding when I said something about going back to analog...
 
trailrider said:
Nothing new on the model railroad scene. Waiting for my wife to clear out a bunch of stuff in here study, so I can get through to the train room. Meanwhile, got an I-phone, and am trying to get up to speed. Been meaning to do this for quite some time, but it became necessary because my old flip-phone is on its last legs. Fortunately, my colleg-age granddaughter wrote out a manual for me to study. Eventually, I hope to get up to speed with the thing. Don't really use all the stuff on the new phone, but it is handy to become modernized.
Watched the Navy-Air Force football game. Air Force won, and will go on to play Army for the Commander-In-Chief's trophy later this month.
Be well and safe all! Green boards all the way!
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Stay away from social media, but there are a ton of capabilities and apps that are very useful. You'll work into it as you go and the needs come up. Good luck.

Don't hesitate to ask questions here or DM me as well. There are a lot of iPhone users and some of us work with them professionally (not that that makes me or anyone experts -- I learn stuff all the time).
 
Good morning all. Looks like the typhoon is making the right turn and won't be hitting us. The guess is cloudy, followed by more clouds. Temps are nice so we had the windows open all day yesterday. Hope to continue this trend.

First cup of joe down, now looking for food. BBL.
 


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