Running Bear's February 2019 Coffee Shop


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A Pacific National train got caught in the flooding on the Mt Isa line. The train had been stopped on the highest part to hopefully save it, but to no avail. This is the only pic on the web I can find at the moment that I can copy. The crew were rescued by Helicopter. Other pictures show the train stretched out across an inland sea.
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There looks to be a lonely cow standing alongside it. Reports say that 300-500,000 cattle have perished in the floods.
 
Ah, the good old days, of DOS and Basic...How 'bout COBAL and FORTRAN? They were mandatory courses, and may as well been Greek. It only made sense once we mere mortals were given access to Conrail's computer system. :rolleyes:

DOS is obviously still present in the Windows code, it's just better hidden. I kind of wish IBM had persisted in development and marketing of OS2, instead of cowering before the Microsoft Juggernaut.

Boris

Joe: I'll second that, OS2 Warp was a great alternative to windows. I still have it on both CD's as well as 3.5" diskette.
 
Good evening.

Curt .. your building project looks excellent ...

Toot... the flooding looks horrific in that photo.

Everybody ... You are not going to believe this .... while my mother in law is very ill, my wife’s sister and sister’s husband (our brother in law) are taking care of things for her.. BIL was driving MIL’s car as part of that. ... The car was stolen this morning . ... BIL filled the car with gasoline, and then entered the convenience store at the gas station. Not only did he leave the keys in the car , but he left the engine running. Dumb. When he came out of the store, the car was gone. He asked two guys in the next parking place if they saw what happened. They said they did not notice anything . Surveillance cameras showed those two guys were part of the theft. Their car was also a stolen car. They drove away quickly.
 
The mere mention of COBAL and FORTRAN stirred up painful memories of punching cards after class, only to have the stack fall off the car seat under braking, and the rubber band breaking.
FWIW, my 1st puter was a Vic20
Named for the former CEO of the NY Central, no doubt. ;)
 
Toot... the flooding looks horrific in that photo.
Looks much, much worse in the other 2 pics that were newspaper copywrited. That engine was in the middle of one stretched out either side and water as far as the eye could see. Gon'na take a while to dig them out of the mud, even once the water drains away.
 
Good evening all.
Hi Flo, Francine, good you ladies are here keeping Jeffrey Running Bears' Dinner nice and warm ! Coffee and large bowl of Chili with Beef and plenty of the blended Cheddar cheese on top ! Be right up, great !!

Weather wise:. It was 28°F with a High of 40°, right now it's 28° dropping to 25° tomorrow morning at 5:00.
Yesterday, late afternoon I checked the rain guage which read 0.42" but it just started to sprinkle. Today, early evening I checked the guage again, it read .92" bring the seasons total to 18.38 inches.

Curt: Thanks for your concern about my being tired, I should be getting my Thyroid medication fairly soon which should help.

Boris: Thanks for relating the bad crash info.

Willie: You did a great job paint the sides of beef to resemble freshly butchered by Tony! Is this when he lost his finger ?

As far as the muddy soles of your boots/shoes how about getting a three stiff bristle boot brush cleaner to rub your boot through several times to clean off the mud and junk. Almost any farm supply place should have them.

Hope all have good Monday and week ahead.
 
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Google "Welfare fraud" and read some of the many articles and studies that put the figure at around 80%. Section 8 abuse, under-reporting income, sharing kids (as Garry pointed out), SNAP abuse, are just a start. It's not needy, but in most cases greedy and laziness. It's a whole subculture that is routinely "swept under the carpet". At the present time, anyone that needs or wants a full-time job can have one. When I drive down streets both rural and urban, every business has help wanted signs. And don't give me any child care BS (like Senator Warren), because that's available as well. Most needy people are that way out of choice that has been made easier by political decisions.
I'll stop here as any more could be construed as political.

Willie, First thing I did this morning was to enter welfare fraud into Bing, I avoid google.

Government statistics put fraud at 1.5% in the food stamp program. Survey's show as many as 80% are willing to cheat if they have no fear of an audit. The real numbers are unknown.

Yesterday I asked my wife and daughter about the SNAP program.

I had no idea how bad this was. I did not even know what SNAP was.

My wife's store accepts SNAP (food stamps) she told me she is not allowed by law to ask for ID. (WTF) She told me some customers have dozens of SNAP cards, so many they can't keep track of all the pin numbers. My wife asked a policemen what should she do in that case, he said "there is noting you or we can do. It's a violation of their right to privacy". That is also what her corporate office told her.

My daughter works for Costco (I was surprised to know Costco accepts SNAP) she told me she sees the same things as my wife. She added that some SNAP users are buying for resale! They even go as far as to try and use their tax exemption in the same transaction with SNAP purchases!

Both my wife and my daughter told me some people have thousands of dollars on their SNAP accounts. They know because it shows the balance after competing the transactions. They also told me most SNAP customers seem to be legitimate, but who knows for sure?

As I said, government needs oversight, reform, real investigation and more importantly prosecution
!

One side says "cut everything" the other side says "add more", I say reform the rules, add investigators and lock these criminals away or at least ban them from the programs, do something!

It should be easy to clean up this mess. As we say in baseball "the ducks are on the pond" let's go hunting! The government that is, not vigilantes,

PS, child care in Maryland is only a phone call away, If it's true and I believe it is, that is no excuse for not working.
 
Louis- I say that all the time when I hear someone died stupidly. Of course you want to run that consist because it's Pennsy:cool:.

Curt, I bet you can tell some stories of Darwinism.

I love that set, it reminds me of some of the locomotives I saw working at what was then Consolidated coal piers. The B&O is my favorite, but the PRR is a close second. The PRR is the reason I was born in Baltimore.

If you talk to Phil, tell him I said hello, for me please.
 
On a lighter note, Look what was left on my porch yesterday!!
mels+model+sm.jpg

I'll find a place for it , and surround it with appropriate cars & trucks, figures and LED lighting. Anyone have any ideas on how to do 1:87 neon??

Very cool! Reminds me of the circle drive-in in Dundalk.

Maybe Miller Engineering has something?
 
Everybody ... You are not going to believe this .... while my mother in law is very ill, my wife’s sister and sister’s husband (our brother in law) are taking care of things for her.. BIL was driving MIL’s car as part of that. ... The car was stolen this morning . ... BIL filled the car with gasoline, and then entered the convenience store at the gas station. Not only did he leave the keys in the car , but he left the engine running. Dumb. When he came out of the store, the car was gone. He asked two guys in the next parking place if they saw what happened. They said they did not notice anything . Surveillance cameras showed those two guys were part of the theft. Their car was also a stolen car. They drove away quickly.

Garry, I'm sorry to hear that.
 
It's 32 with light snow, alternating between rain and sleet. It's a winter mix in southeast Baltimore, no surprise, it's February.
 
I hate a Winter Mix! We had some earlier this year and this has made walking down to my mail box treacherous. We're above zero today, so we're on easy street.
 
Good Morning Everyone. Temperature went up overnight and it's now 44° but still drizzling. I miss the sun, it's been a few days. Even with the expected all day off and on light rain, it's expected to reach 60° later on, wind is currently shifting from SE to SW which always brings warmer temperatures. Brisk north wind shift around midnight will clear things out for a sunny day tomorrow with the high around 57°.

Thanks for the recent comments regarding the "beef", Jim and David.
Resumed the ground cover project yesterday in the train shed. I also swapped the position of two of the structures in this new town. I completed painting a few more figures at the workbench. I also spent nearly an hour disassembling the 64 unit container train and moving portions back to the various staging areas. As I was reviewing potential kits for my next build, most likely in April after I finish the two structures on the bench right now; I opened and examined a laser-cut wood kit that came from Bar Mills. I noted some missing castings and I E-Mailed them around 5:30 last night regarding that and another self-imposed issue. Surprisingly I got an initial return E-Mail from Art in less than an hour, he was on vacation and said that he wasn't returning for a couple of weeks; but Len at the plant sent an E-Mail a couple of hours later with a response! Such great customer service, I had to look twice at the calendar noting that it was Sunday!

Curt - That's one awesome looking dock.
Beady - Congratulations on the clean-up. Get something going soon before your wife puts something in the way. I like the Homer Simpson cut-out!;)
Ray - Quite the devastation down there. Crew was lucky.
Garry - Boy, that's a real drag regarding the car.
Louis -
Mark yesterday I heard on the radio the all-time low in Baltimore was -7 in 1899, I thought of you,
I've seen -2° here once in '88 or '89. I have read that it got to -8° in 1899, but I was not around to see that. Sherrel maybe?:p On average, in my county, the high temperature for the day is only below 40° for about six days a year. Although in the year that I recorded that -2°, it was below 20° for almost three weeks. Went through a lot of firewood that winter.
Another SNAP abuse is purchasing groceries for someone else who returns the favor by purchasing alcohol or tobacco for the recipient. Although it is now restricted, an abuse at the casino nearby in OK, was folks getting cash from an ATM using the Snap card. You know where they spent it!
Section 8 abuse is more widespread. It's not just the live-in spouses who work and provide some income, but the family members that they charge rent to. Since it's all cash, it cannot be traced. My wife has done taxes for people who were unhappy with the results and returned the following day with a whole different set of numbers; more dependents, greater child care expenses, they dropped income from some dependents etc. Like your wife, there's nothing that she can do about it. It is far more rampant than you first thought.

Everybody have a great day.
 
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