Coffe shop XXXIV - 9/10/12


jeffrey-wimberly said:
Good morning. It's 55° with 100% humidity. The high will be 82° and it'll be mostly cloudy.
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Nothing on my schedule today but rest. Yesterday was a busy day. I may work on the upper portion of the grain elevators main building later.

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ok jeffery i love love love those KCS hoppers i have been looking for those cars for a long time , wanna sell them ;)
 
Alot of thoughts are flooding my circuits today. Mostly about model trains and computers. Thinking may want to put train layout in the other bedroom instead of the giant living room. Plenty of space for N, and more cozy in the back there. Will ponder this a day or so more.

Anyway my laptop was losing its wireless connection every few minutes last couple days......so I changed the wireless setting from B&G mixed.....to G only. Seems to be better now...but for how long?

Been checking around for a new laptop. My HP is almost seven years old. They sold out of the decent $500 ones at walmart...and there must be better ones than at walmart? Amazon.com? Newegg? Or maybe walmart is good since they take returns? Headed out now out on a mission to get coffee and look at laptops at staples.


Mike
 
railfan said:
Been checking around for a new laptop. My HP is almost seven years old. They sold out of the decent $500 ones at walmart...and there must be better ones than at walmart? Amazon.com? Newegg? Or maybe walmart is good since they take returns? Headed out now out on a mission to get coffee and look at laptops at staples.


Mike
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If you don't want to spend the cash for an Apple product, I got a new Asus laptop for my wife from Best Buy. It has a quad core processor, 320 Gb hard drive, 4Gb of ram, and all the usual extras. We paid about $350 for it a few months ago.
 
Well at staples I found one HP laptop I liked for $450 after rebate, amd quad core, with Beats audio, which I need beats audio like I need another hole in my head.......but the little red B icon is cute looking and system sounds nice, has some cool recording, and EQ software. Other laptops with beats actually have the mini-subwoofer (yes!).....not this one. Trains on youtube would sound awesome with that I'll bet. :eek:

But then I saw a quad core HP desktop bundle with everything I liked including a real nice monitor for $579. I can switch from wanting a laptop to a desktop fast when it has a cool looking monitor......like some lizards change their skin color. :p

So didn't buy one yet, but went to walmart and got more jeans, tee shirts, socks, underwear because have no washer dryer in new place. This way I can last awhile between trips to laundry village. :D
 
Here is a link to the one I got my wife. The latest amd greatest has a bigger hard drive and a couple of other nice things hers doesn't have, and is still the same price as hers. I think they have free shipping, as well, so you don't even have to put on any pants to get one. I won't keep on posting links, but there are a lot of good computers out there. Oh, don't get Windows 8. Trust me on this...http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+...lack/5767639.p?id=1218692161293&skuId=5767639
railfan said:
Well at staples I found one HP laptop I liked for $450 after rebate, amd quad core, with Beats audio, which I need beats audio like I need another hole in my head.......but the little red B icon is cute looking and system sounds nice, has some cool recording, and EQ software. Other laptops with beats actually have the mini-subwoofer (yes!).....not this one. Trains on youtube would sound awesome with that I'll bet. :eek:

But then I saw a quad core HP desktop bundle with everything I liked including a real nice monitor for $579. I can switch from wanting a laptop to a desktop fast when it has a cool looking monitor......like some lizards change their skin color. :p

So didn't buy one yet, but went to walmart and got more jeans, tee shirts, socks, underwear because have no washer dryer in new place. This way I can last awhile between trips to laundry village. :D
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Railfan,
Try Tiger Direct. They ocassionally have some great deals. I have given them a fair amount of money over the years.
 
It's a nice 70 here. We're expecting a low tonight of 55 with a chance of rain.
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This morning I had expected this to be a day for resting. My father had different ideas. First, breakfast at McDonald's. Then a trip to Wal-Mart to stock up on supplies for relatives coming Thursday. My younger sister and her significant other are coming down from Pennsylvania to visit for bit. Then visits to several law offices and the courthouse to make sure all the records on my parents property is straight. You see, my parents are selling their house. It'll still be in the family, it just won't belong to them anymore though they'll have a lifetime lease on the east wing. Still, all three legal heirs have to be there, of which my younger sister is one. My older sister and myself are the other two. One of my relatives here is the buyer. And yes, she can afford it easily! If I even look at the electric bill for that place my bank account screams and faints! Heck, my electric bill and car insurance together came up to just over $110 last month and that doesn't come close.

Finally got back home after 2pm. I was quite restless so I went out and mowed the grass. That ate up a few hours. Then since my father is working tonight I fed his dogs and the cat. Boy that cat has the dogs well trained. She comes through the door first. They have to wait.

Well after that busy day I'm fairly wiped out. So I think I'll call it a night. See y'all tomorrow.

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Hey! Where did everybody go? It's only 1:00am on wednesday morning. LOL! I've been researching what I can on this HP quadcore desktop at staples....and it has 72 good reviews and averages 4.5 out of five stars....and the super geeks give this processor high marks. And it's wireless!.....a wireless desktop. Holy bingos!

http://www.staples.com/HP-Pavilion-P6-2136B-Desktop-PC-Bundle/product_797075

How can I not buy this? I haven't had a new computer in seven years! Whoa nellie! I should really think this through. Why the rush? Ohh but...but....:D
 
railfan said:
Hey! Where did everybody go? It's only 1:00am on wednesday morning. LOL! I've been researching what I can on this HP quadcore desktop at staples....and it has 72 good reviews and averages 4.5 out of five stars....and the super geeks give this processor high marks. And it's wireless!.....a wireless desktop. Holy bingos!

http://www.staples.com/HP-Pavilion-P6-2136B-Desktop-PC-Bundle/product_797075

How can I not buy this? I haven't had a new computer in seven years! Whoa nellie! I should really think this through. Why the rush? Ohh but...but....:D
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It's kind of tough to carry the desktop out onto the porch to drnik your morning coffee and browse the forums. Just saying...
 
Good Morning

Passing showers and a bit muggy this morning..going up to 70F today in the later part of the afternoon.:)

Everything has quieted down here...for the past couple of days relatives were 'swarming all over the joint'...as a certain song had it...oh...blast..now it is doing a loop inside my head...:rolleyes:

This Thursday will be my CT check up to see whether I am clear of the bone cancer...I just hope I am....:eek::confused:

Today? Relax and enjoy the day...and replenish supplies again...:eek:
 
Good morning folks.

We have a high near 80 and then highs in the low 50's to upper 40's for the weekend. Talk about a temp swing!

Last night was a traintastic night. I poured my second pour of envirotex lite for my river. I think it could use quite a bit more depth though. That's what I get for not tinting the water enough. I now have to create depth by actually having it!:eek: We'll see, I may just add water effects and call it a day.

I also received my Bachmann RS3 yesterday. Boy is that a smooth running loco. I think I forgot how smooth diesels are after running steam all the time. Now I need to break it down and paint it for CNW. Somehow the Southern paint scheme doesn't fit in Southern Minnesota!:D

Another project I did was shim the motor on my Mantua pacific to help the gear mesh. Well, I tried increasing the tightness of the worm gear and it didn't even run. Then I tried making it looser than originally installed and it runs like a champ. Only problem is it's loud as heck! It sounds like a dang Athearn. I notice when it runs really slow it looks like the shaft on the motor is moving up and down a little. Almost like it's not straight. Maybe I'll tear it apart again to see what I can do about that. Or......I leave it alone!

Well, like i said, I had a traintastic day yesterday.
Have a good one folks.
 
bnsf971 said:
It's kind of tough to carry the desktop out onto the porch to drnik your morning coffee and browse the forums. Just saying...
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True.....good point, but I seem to have my old standby laptop working better at the moment at least. I'm not rushing into anything yet.....and thanks for the link to the Asus.


Mike
 
Good morning. It's 69° with 75% humidity. The high will be 82° and it'll be partly cloudy.
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Nothing much going on today. I'll be going to town later to do a bit of grocery shopping. No noise from down the hill so maybe I can get through the day without my father adding something to it. Work on the grain elevator is progressing slowly.

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Well today was no better than yesterday! I no sooner made my morning post than my father calls with things that have to be done before his visitors get here. So I helped him out with that then it was off to town for lunch and a trip Wal-Mart. Lunch was at a Mexican place we frequent. Tell you what, you go there you better bring your appetite! Prices are good and the portions are BIG. then it was on to Wal-Mart. This I didn't mind too much as he was saving me a drive to town for grocery shopping. I did my shopping right then plus picked up a new flash drive to replace the one that died.

I got back home and discovered I had a couple of packages waiting for me. One contains a little gun store. Looks like maybe an old Woodland Scenics metal building. The box also has a load of grain elevator parts and pieces! Just the thing I need. The other box contains two locos. An Athearn RS-16 with a bum motor and what looks like a Mantua SP F7A dummy unit. Wonder how long it'll take me to slap a powered chassis into it.

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Well I tore down the RS16 and it appears the motor isn't bad after all, just very dirty. I cleaned the brushes and commutator with 91% alcohol. The amount of crud that poured out was significant. Three fingers on my left hand turned black! I rubbed the commutator with an alcohol soaked paper towel until all I could see was clean towel. It runs like a champ now and I consider it worthy of converting to DCC.

On the Mantua F7A I have an F7B body in the closet somewhere. With it and the F7A body I can change a couple of FT's to F7's. The FT bodies are on Athearn clone F7 frames with Frankenstein power and drives.
 
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