Running Bear's September 2023 Coffee Shop

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Afternoon All,

Today in the train room I put together 2 dirt and rock vehicle ramps for vehicle traffic. Other than that, I have been helping MOH get ready for her trip tomorrow. You would think she was moving to the other side of the country. Two boxes showed up (heavy) at the door. MOH said Oh yeah, I ordered that at the quilt/sewing convention last month...sigh. They're in the garage until she returns.

Thank you for the photo likes yesterday.

Terry- Nice job with the track troubleshooting. Good luck with the new doc.

TomO- Great looking gondolas. I hope the cough is nothing serious.

Willie- Nice looking loads.

Joe- That's a shame about the pain and mobility issues especially after you faithfully completed the post-surgery rehab.

Here's a photo of Badger (because of his facial markings) sleeping in my son's linen closet this morning. I wonder if he's comfortable.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Good afternoon all! Temps in the high nineties with nearly matching humidity. Spent most of the morning at the vet with my fuzzy buddy. Poor dog has a skin problem, and an ear infection. going to take a couple of weeks to clear up.

I added some signal lights to the layout. They don't really work, but the intent was to mark the center of the uncoupler track. When the yard tracks are full it is hard to locate the magnets. These lights will help, and they add a little to the scene.
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STAY SAFE
LATER
 
I have a question for the dinner. In the picture in above post is a Kato 4-8-4. A great locomotive, runs great at any speed, pulls great. The problem is with the rear truck on the tender. If you reverse to uncouple, or to couple the truck comes loose from the body of the tender. There is a pin under the tender, and when you put the truck back and slide it towards the rear it clicks, so I assume that it is in. As soon as it gets pushed forward, the truck falls out. Anyone got a suggestion as to a fix? It gets very annoying.
 


Well, howdy there internet peeps

Got my 3D printing mini-empire back together. It's in the basement utility room. The wall in the back was mostly blue, with a bit of tan, and an old wooden shelf on L brackets.

Tore it all apart on Monday to paint the wall. Put it back together last night. Today I installed new shelves and moved the Filament Hotbox (to bake out the moisture the filament absorbs) up to the shelves. Had to add an extra brace beyond what's in the pic. Since the printer will pull the hot box off the shelf if the filament gets wrapped up, snagged, etc.

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Good evening. Today's weather extremes low 67°, high 93°. It was noticeably hot and very humid. After lunch, we chilled out inside and generally avoided going outside. Had turkey burgers and roasted tomato and yellow squash. Feel bad for all the kids that have to go back to school in this heat. Seems to happen every year.

If we get an early enough start, we plan on weeding a portion of the flower bed adjacent to the patio, and replanting with fall flowers. the heat will last through Saturday.

Speaking of weather, they began hyping this storm on Sunday when it was just getting started,and now it's Tropical storm Lee,
Headed West, North West. There are two other disturbances, 1 being ex hurricane Franklin moving south between the Azores and Portugal, the other "Disturbance" is the next super storm, yet unnamed and undeveloped, just left Africa. Stay tuned.

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last few days until yesterday were mostly overcast with some spasmodic deluges interspersed with some partially clear and sunny hours. Today was sunny and got to the high 70s but some thudnerstorms supposedly are coming through tonight with possible rain. It was really windy when I drove up to our house site an hour or so ago to close things up and unplug the power and make a few measurements... But the next week is supposed to be sunny or partly cloudy and in the mid 80s. Summer is not over yet.

August actually had a lot of nicer days in it interspersed with some really hot (but not out of ordinary for August hot). July was our really hot, supposedly record breaking time.
 
Morning all,

61° and clear, high today of 90°. AQI currently of 89 is elevated due to smoke from Canada. We're under the influence of this for the next few days.
Don't much care for the smoke, but I do like the cooler weather. The rain I got at home yesterday amounted to .1" That's barely enough to settle the dust and by late morning, you wouldn't have know it even did that.

Not much yet going on. I have a 3 day work week, with vacation starting Friday, although Friday won't ultimately be taken out of my time off banks. I'll have more than 40 hours this week with the holiday pay, and no overtime pay 😢. I get creative with next weeks hours as the time will get pulled from 3 different time off banks (Comp time, wellness day and Vacation). The wellness days are bonus to meeting your health goals, which also reduce your health insurance premiums for the next year. They convert sick days into wellness days that you are free to use for anything. You lose those at the end of the year. Taking the week off, I'll still have too much accrued vacation.

Flo: Give me a western omelet with a side of bacon and a short stack. I'll get everyone's drinks today. Yes even the diet Dr. Pepper.

BBL
 
Good Morning All. At 0600, it is mostly clear and 80°. Didn't cool off much overnight. Only 100° yesterday with the same expected for the next two days. The forecast for Friday is 107°. The NWS is actually predicting a 60% chance of thunderstorms Monday-Wednesday, which will be more than welcome. Patrick mentioned AQI, ours is a pleasant 34 here. Pollen count is 0 for those sensitive to that, but we are under the ongoing heat advisory; since May I remember.

Better than expected visit with the cardiologist yesterday. Abdominal, heart and carotid ultrasound scans were all normal and no problems were seen. The usual advice of exercise and lose weight were given. The ophthalmologist visit was uneventful. Everything is properly in place and healing, but surprisingly enough my right eye vision was not as good as two weeks ago??? It was 20-20 then, but lower yesterday.I actually knew that yesterday morning before the visit as things seemed a little blurry. He said that it was dry eye and gave me drops for it. Today's visit with the gastroenterologist is to discuss the potential capsule endoscopy procedure.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I continued with the figure painting project. First there are 31 of them completed and in the paint booth for a spray of dull coat.
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Here's a close up of two of the Chinese figures that are due for a repaint/touch-up.
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First, the color choice is not to my liking and secondly it's a sloppy job anyway. But, at 20¢ each, I can afford to fix them up, besides I think that these were a Christmas gift from one of the grandkids.
My other small project is to upgrade a structure that I built years ago.
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The backstory is that is a restaurant owned by the same family as one across the courtyard.
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The story continues: the courtyard is a former street that the railroad had the city close because there were too many grade crossings close together, so the city sold it cheap to the restaurant owner. He converted it into this courtyard for an outdoor dining patio.
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Now it's time to detail this side.
The structure itself is a Smalltown USA structure.

Nothing much to comment on from yesterday, except thanks to all who commented on the scrap loads.
Everybody have a great hump day.
 


Good morning gang!

Work was tough yesterday, from 6:20 a.m. til 6:10 p.m. Got home, had supper, washed dishes, took out the trash and sat down with the Mrs. and the dog. All 3 of us fell asleep on the couch until 9, then we all got up, the dog went out to pee while the wife and I did the same in turn, then we all fell asleep with the cat in the Master bedroom. No trains at all!

Willie, great news from the Dr. !

BBL
 
santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. At 0600, it is mostly clear and 80°. Didn't cool off much overnight. Only 100° yesterday with the same expected for the next two days. The forecast for Friday is 107°. The NWS is actually predicting a 60% chance of thunderstorms Monday-Wednesday, which will be more than welcome. Patrick mentioned AQI, ours is a pleasant 34 here. Pollen count is 0 for those sensitive to that, but we are under the ongoing heat advisory; since May I remember.

Better than expected visit with the cardiologist yesterday. Abdominal, heart and carotid ultrasound scans were all normal and no problems were seen. The usual advice of exercise and lose weight were given. The ophthalmologist visit was uneventful. Everything is properly in place and healing, but surprisingly enough my right eye vision was not as good as two weeks ago??? It was 20-20 then, but lower yesterday.I actually knew that yesterday morning before the visit as things seemed a little blurry. He said that it was dry eye and gave me drops for it. Today's visit with the gastroenterologist is to discuss the potential capsule endoscopy procedure.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I continued with the figure painting project. First there are 31 of them completed and in the paint booth for a spray of dull coat.
View attachment 173694
Here's a close up of two of the Chinese figures that are due for a repaint/touch-up.
View attachment 173695
First, the color choice is not to my liking and secondly it's a sloppy job anyway. But, at 20¢ each, I can afford to fix them up, besides I think that these were a Christmas gift from one of the grandkids.
My other small project is to upgrade a structure that I built years ago.
View attachment 173696
The backstory is that is a restaurant owned by the same family as one across the courtyard. View attachment 173697
View attachment 173698
The story continues: the courtyard is a former street that the railroad had the city close because there were too many grade crossings close together, so the city sold it cheap to the restaurant owner. He converted it into this courtyard for an outdoor dining patio.View attachment 173699
Now it's time to detail this side.
The structure itself is a Smalltown USA structure.

Nothing much to comment on from yesterday, except thanks to all who commented on the scrap loads.
Everybody have a great hump day.
Click to expand...
Good news for your from your medical staff. I also get the dry eye thing. I used to hate the eye drops but now it’s just part of the routine. Once in the morning at wake up and again at bedtime. If I stay at the bench more than an hour I have to use them. You will know when you need them

congrats on a great report
 
Good 70f degree morning from So. Central WIsconsin. The overnight rain, well another joke from the NWS. We gotta sprinkle as the pool deck does have wetness on it and the furniture is wet. On the other side of the house where my old time rain gauge beaker is was dry. Even the grass in my bare feet produced no moisture. Today we were supposed to be in line for rain about when the kids come home from school till early evening. According to the hourly forecast on the WeatherChannel app the highest chance of rain is 21% at 1PM and it just keeps dropping from there. A few inches of rain sure would be nice!

On the train front! Weathering continues on diesel locomotives, more containers and now pickup trucks. Earlier this Summer I weathered 41 pieces of MOW equipment. Today I will add UP decals and striping to 7 trucks. Hopefully after the granddaughters Miracle League baseball game I will finish the weathering on those 7 and one linemens truck. Here is the linemen’s truck
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Some of the locomotives
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The hope is I can inspect the CSX and 2 BNSF and get approvals before lunch. He and I have had some discussions on the frame and truck coloring so the NS loco needs approval before I go any further. It’s too light a color for me and does not match the initial photos I was working from but it matches the color swatch he sent me! I actually have another NS Locomotive for another client with the same number from Scaletrains to do. All 4 pictured locomotives are from ST and I must say, they blow the Athearn Genesis locomotives I have worked on out of the water for details. As for running characteristics I think they are pretty close but I prefer the Tsunami2 sounds ((Athearn) to the ESU sounds (ST). All subjective but my thoughts!

enjoy the day
 
Afternoon All,

Started out with a walk at 76F but low humidity so it was a nice walk, but they say the humidity will be starting to rise again...sigh. MOH left on her trip around 6 am and is at her stop in SC. Tomorrow she and her friend drive to northern OH (west of Cleveland). Today I did several indoor chores and tomorrow son and I have weed pulling outside. Joy, but it needs done.

Badger says thank you for the likes. I was going to post another, but he already has a swollen head. He thinks that he is a model! :rolleyes:

Hughie- The signal lights are a nice addition.

Troy- That looks like a professional set up.

Joe- When I was a kid in El Paso (1st-9th grade) none of the schools I attended had AC. As you can imagine it gets pretty darn hot there.

Willie- Nice details. I really like the outdoor dining.

TomO- Nice weathering. I'll never have solar power again. You may remember the major water damage on the roof into the walls and upper flooring that required me to tear down the first layout. That was from the connection points on the roof.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
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