Running Bear's June 2019 Coffee Shop


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Good afternoon.
We're in the process of, among other things, cutting the cable cord for television. We have a Fire stick, and accounts with Prime Video and Netflix. Wednesday, we dumped AT&T for our cell service, and went with T Mobile. T Mobile offers a 55+ service, with unlimited talk, text, data, and they will pay our Netflix bill, for $90 a month for two lines, including fees and tax.
In the process, we're going to turn off our DirecTV service, and use internet shows and an antenna for over the air broadcasts. The main TV in the living room is a smart TV, so it should be a simple thing to add the apps for the various sources, right? Wrong. LG only has a handful of apps available, and the only two that are supported are Netflix and Prime Video. While both of those are good things, there are another dozen sources we want to use to stream programming. My initial solution was to use the Fire Stick from the bedroom TV. That would have worked, except the living room TV doesn't have enough HDMI connections for this. I went to our local big box electronics store, prepared to suck it up and get a new TV with enough HDMI connections, but lo and behold, they offer an HDMI selector, which I can connect up to 4 devices into, and it will output that device though the single HDMI connection available. So, instead of paying $359 for a new TV, I paid $26.99 for the selector, which is currently connected to everything, and functioning as expected. I'm excited about not having to spend $$$ to save $$$ for once.

My O MY -- You've been a busy boy. I would like to get away from Direct TV as well, but I want it for the RV.
Do you have any suggestions of a replacement for that?
I could go with DISH and then just have the option of an on/off switch when not being used, but that would require probably buying another antenna and receiver- I don't know?
Meanwhile, I am going to study what you did very carefully!
 
Sherrel, the phone plan is called Magenta 55 plus.
As for the television situation, there are many stations you can get over-the-air with a basic outside antenna.
 
I fought the lawn, and the lawn won.

I've spent almost the entire day since my last post earlier trying to fix a sudden disaster in the lawn department at our house. In 2012, I bought a brand new Cub Cadet tractor, with the intention of it being the last one I would need to buy.
Yeah, right.
Today, I went out to the garage (yes, we have a special garage for the tractor), climbed on board, inserted the key, turned it--and the engine came apart catastrophically. I found out the engine in the tractor, of which mine was one of the first ones made, has a few "flaws" that will ruin it without warning. That's what happened to mine. A new replacement will cost more than the tractor is worth, and used engines will likely have the same flaws as mine--if there were any, which there are not, because they've all blown up.
So, off to the store I went, after perusing the classified ads, Craigslist, and a couple of other sales venues. Everybody that is selling a used tractor wants almost as much for their used, beaten-half-to-death, worn-out equipment as you could buy a new one for. So, I took a look at the current crop of name-branded MTD mowers, and hope I got the best of the bunch. Other than resale value, I couldn't justify paying several hundred dollars more for a JD Green one than the same tractor with an orange paint job, so I got the orange one, with a hundred dollar rebate. I have 30 days to return it if I change my mind--or if the new one blows up.
Maybe tomorrow I'll get the hay--I mean grass--mowed.
 
Good luck with the new Tractor tomorrow, TERRY.
Place has pretty much died out today ... Guess it's time to roll up the carpet and lock the shutters?
Say Goodnight, GRACIE!
 
Good morning. It's clear and 62.
I decided to temp fate one last time before turning in, and ran a 60 car freight powered by 7 locomotives. It ran like it should, with no problems. I do need to adjust some volume levels, because the EMDs in the consist drowned out the GEs, and it should have been the other way around.
 
Good morning, y'all. Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads! 68°, and sunny.

As for the television situation, there are many stations you can get over-the-air with a basic outside antenna.
Terry; that's assuming one lives in reasonable proximity to broadcast TV stations. The NYC Transmitters are either on #1 World trade, or The Empire State Bldg., which is 62 to 66 miles to my NE as the crow flies. Philly TV transmitters are/were in the hills of NW Philly are at least 82 miles away to my SW. Al a carte streaming fees quickly mount up, so one has to be careful, but since cable fees keep going up, and available content keeps declining, we have to do something. BTW, good luck with the orange painted tractor.

Boris
 
Good morning ....

I'm still way behind. A lot of stuff happening as I have posted. Thanks again from prayers and well wishes......... I was in Nashville for 6 of last 7 days, and that included some driving back and forth. Usually, it is an easy drive of a little over 100 miles mostly on I-24. However, there is a lot of road work on that highway currently. Some of it is still repairs from the huge mudslide near Nashville in February. The other projects are resurfacing in both TN and KY. There are lane closures with very long delays.

Willie ..... I see you continue posting great photos of buildings on your layout.

Chet .... It's good to see your club layout photos.

Hopefully, I can do a better job of catching up later.

Have a nice Sunday.
 
Good Morning All. Happy Father's Day to all. Looks like 66° and mostly cloudy. Thunderstorm overnight left .9" in the gauge. Just an English Muffin this morning Flo, I am headed out to a Father's Day brunch in a little while.
Mowed the south part of the estate yesterday and then started with the weedeater. I really dislike using that contraption. Eventually cut up some more firewood and hit the pool by 11:00

Thanks for the likes and comments regarding the saloons/lounges that I posted yesterday; Sherrel, Chet, Phil, Rick, Jerome, Justin, Garry.
Since I did a few bars, why not continue? I know that I have posted both of these before, but some patrons here may not have seen them.
First up is the Green Door Lounge, a Blair Line laser-cut kit. I made it stock out of the box with no modifications.
7-18-17 002.JPG

Next is a Grandt Line kit of the Second Class Saloon. It is a stock plastic kit that I painted differently than their model.
04-29-18 011.JPG

I finally managed to get to the train shed yesterday after some afternoon household duties. I got back to the Masonic Lodge and finally fabricated that pesky part that was giving me fits last week. Did some more assembly and touch-up painting before moving to the next big step, the extended trim. In the meantime, over on the peninsula project, I started adding field grass and weeds along the ROW and elsewhere. Moved the fertilizer distributor over to the already crowded workbench for some weathering. Stopped everything and ran a few trains since I don't model after I raid the beer fridge.

Chet - Is all of the club's layout courtesy of the scenery lady, or do others get involved? I sure could use her here.

Really slow day in the Coffee Shop yesterday, and the forum in general. Among other absent folks whom I miss is Mike (migalyto). Where the heck has he been?
Here's my Father's Day dilemma. One of my daughters asked what I wanted? I cannot come up with an answer other than a gift certificate to the LHS. If I need something, I just go out and get it, so I really don't need any tools, utensils etc. I finally just sent her a list of Walther's listings on Amazon, because she is addicted to online everything!
Everybody have a great Father's Day.
 
Willie... The lounge and the saloon look great . Evidently, your 1/87 figures have ample ways to quench their thirst.


Here is my only C&NW locomotive. It is an Atlas / Kato model, and it was a gift to me. The bay window caboose is an old Athearn model.
 

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Sigh...
The new tractor lasted .3 hours before it go tore up...
Our local cable provider left several feet of steel wire laying in the grass, which I found by running over it while mowing. A new blade assembly and mandrel for the blade is needed, which Charter/Spectrum/Time Warner/whoever they are this week is going to pay for. You tend to get people's attention when they ask how they can help you, and you ask for the contact information for their legal department.
$43.98 and $69.78 for the parts.
 
Happy Father's Day to all the DAD's out there!
I have not heard from anyone so far this morning...sigh! Just the companionship of 4 puppies - two of mine and two of my daughters.
I purchased a 1.5 lb very nice Ribeye to put on the grill later on this afternoon. I am sure that I will save a bite for each of the puppies, maybe I should have purchased two? Come to think of it I will throw on a chicken breast for them to divi up.
Supposed to reach 80* today - was 71* a year back and the record of 97* was in 2006.
I have managed to pretty much trash the house in only 4 days. Daughter, husband, and two G-sons will be arriving Thursday from N Car. -should I start cleaning today, or wait another day? HERE LATELY seems my motto has been, Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.

Sorry to hear of your mower problems Terry! now that grass is going to really need that baler!
 
Good morning. Looks like another nice day with temps in the mid 70's.

Terry - What a bummer with the tractor. Glad to see that you got the cable company to pay for the repairs. Years ago I bought an Ariens tractor which was a year old demonstrator. Got it with a 48" mowing deck, 48" snow blower and a double extension roto tiller for $3,000. It served us well for 30 years working 12 months out of the year. One day I was mowing and the engine started running rough and I felt something splash on my leg. Turn it off and looked at the engine and you could see the rod and bottom of the piston through the hole in the block. We looked for a replacement motor and found that there were only 2 available that would fit the tractor and they wanted $2,000 for a short block. I ended up getting a new Husqvarna with a 48" mowing deck for $2,300. Got a plow for it for another r$200. I sure miss the old Ariens. I did win the battle with the lawn. We were probably a couple of days short of a hay field. Only had to rake one area over the drain field. Lucked out.

We have been with DirecTV for over 20 years. When we got it, it was the only service available as there was no cable available where we were at the time. Last year we were about to look elsewhere for TV service and I was going to cancel the service, but the guy at DirecTV said that being that we were such "loyal customers" that maybe we could work something out. We are with AT&T therefore getting a discount. There are only 2 cell providers up here, Verizon and AT&T and the prices are almost the same. We were with Alltel until AT&T bought them out. We were paying around $154 a month and the new plan now costs is $56 a month, for the time being. It doesn't hurt to call and see what discounts are available. I can get an additional $5 discount because I am a vet, but haven't followed up on it yet. Local over the air TV only gets us 5 channels out here, all but one major networks which we seldom, if ever watch.

Terry -
Hope your daughter is improving. I love traveling in the summer month with all of the road construction. What a pain in the butt.

Greg - Like that CNW Geep. Nice. Always liked their paint scheme.

Willie - Nothing like have plenty of bar on the layout. Up here in Montana, there are plenty of them, some without even having a town near by. Nice photos.

Sherrel and Willie
, I have asked, even tried to bribe the scenery lady at the club to come over and do some scenery work on my layout. but it's a no go. I am still finding a number of new scenes that she put in over the winter when I did not attend any operating sessions. She is quite the artist. Here are two more photos of the Gardiner area. The first is of a home entering the town. I have no idea what a Union Pacific locomotive is doing there.

thumbnail_20190613_145927.jpg


From there, the tracks leave town. In the next photo, the line runs along the Yellowstone River.

thumbnail_20190613_133345.jpg


The road to the left would be what is now US 89 which runs alongside the Yellowstone River all the way right into Livingston. The old main line also runs right along the river.

No NASCAR today, so I am hoping to get to spend some time with the trains. I would like to get the crossing flashers working, but I do need to get some heat shrink tubing before starting that project. Maybe I'll just run train.

Later
 
Sigh...
The new tractor lasted .3 hours before it go tore up...
Our local cable provider left several feet of steel wire laying in the grass, which I found by running over it while mowing. A new blade assembly and mandrel for the blade is needed, which Charter/Spectrum/Time Warner/whoever they are this week is going to pay for. You tend to get people's attention when they ask how they can help you, and you ask for the contact information for their legal department.
$43.98 and $69.78 for the parts.

These can be had for next to nothing, and they have no moving parts. If it was good enough for your great-grandfather...

Fine-vintage-hardly-used-hay-scythe-sythe-by (1).jpg
 
Happy Father's Day to all the DAD's out there!
I have not heard from anyone so far this morning...sigh! Just the companionship of 4 puppies - two of mine and two of my daughters.
I purchased a 1.5 lb very nice Ribeye to put on the grill later on this afternoon. I am sure that I will save a bite for each of the puppies, maybe I should have purchased two? Come to think of it I will throw on a chicken breast for them to divi up.
Supposed to reach 80* today - was 71* a year back and the record of 97* was in 2006.
I have managed to pretty much trash the house in only 4 days. Daughter, husband, and two G-sons will be arriving Thursday from N Car. -should I start cleaning today, or wait another day? HERE LATELY seems my motto has been, Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.

Sorry to hear of your mower problems Terry! now that grass is going to really need that baler!
Never do tomorrow what you can put off until the day after.
 
Good afternoon Shop dwellers! Sunny & humid here in central MD, the calm before the storm [literally]. Figured I should make a quick post since I never got around to it for over 36 hours.

Saturday kept me quite busy. Started with a visit with my local mrr friend Keith, who made a bunch of scale shrubbery for me using lichen that grows on the land near his hunting cabin in Garrett County, covered with ScenicExpress Super Leaf. Stayed there a few hours, then came home and spent ~3 hours mowing my 2-acre lawn. Did my weekly food shopping and gas fill-up, then spent the rest of the day at a cookout at the house of some of MOH's friends.

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads here!

Terry, sorry to hear about your tribulations with the mower and the idiot cable workers who can't clean up their messes. Does MTD still manufacture lawn equipment at their plant in Valley City, OH? Or have they, too, gone to hell China?

Chet - this isn't the first time I've been screwed by Samsung. A system update ~15 months ago deprived me of the ability to set custom text-message notification tones for people on my Contact List. Now they all sound the same, and I never know if it's my wife trying to reach me - or a Verizon "FREE MSSG" telling me that "...your monthly wireless bill is now ready for viewing and paying online."o_O

Will post more later after some editing tasks...
 
keN, the new one was manufactured in Tennessee. The broken one was manufactured in Ohio.
 
Here is a sampling of some of the lichen-based brush clumps my friend Keith created for me; there's a few more trays-full in addition to these. I'll probably not use the pale light green stuff, but the rest of it has plenty of color variations in green, brown and gray that should look great once I've cut them and positioned them on the layout:

1560709574283.png


...and HERE is where I'm planning to plant them, along this backdrop [toward the right]:

1560709707550.png


The lichen Keith used is a lot finer than what you'll typically get from a commercial vendor like Woodland Scenics, and he preserves it by soaking it in glycerine, so it will stay soft and supple for "a few decades" [don't know any more details than that]. I still need to throw down some earth-colored turf and a dusty, rutted gravel driveway for the trucks that will also serve this industry.

Iron Belt KEN, Lemme see? It is my understanding that photos here do NOT need to be re-sized anymore - the Forum Software does that automatically?
That's a GREAT question Sherrel and I'm glad you asked!:D Uploading directly from the phone shows exactly what I shot, warts and all. I like being able to crop my pictures and eliminate any peripheral eyesores, or maybe rotate the image a few degrees to get a "correct" horizontal plane.

As an example, here is what my second image [above] looked like directly off the phone. Notice the big plastic-covered garage door peeking thru at the top, and how the layout surface seems tilted to the right:

1560709961443.png

I was going to ask Terry how he did that because everytime I have tried to "ditch" the Thumbnail - the big picture goes away too!

What I have noticed is that if you "copy" the picture and then "paste" (see pic below) - it does not come with the thumbnail, but if you use the "attachment" function - then you get the thumbnail.

Hey - your right! Guess I oughta remember that from now on...
 
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