Running Bear's December 2018 Coffee Shop


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Good Morning!

It's first Sunday of Advent and also the first day of Hanukkah!

Happy Holidays Everybody!

In my faith I believe Advent is to commemorate the first coming of our Lord as our Savior and also the second coming of our Lord as Judge. God have mercy on us all.

Just a reminder; I respect people of all faiths or of no faith. I believe God made us all and God made no mistakes. I try to follow 2 simple rules
1. love God
2. love Everyone.

The second one can be really hard!

I have good news; Tucker is doing better, thank God. He is still stiff in the mornings, but his pain has subsided greatly. He has not had pain medication for 2 days and I pray he does not need it today to make it 3 days! One day at a time we grind it out. I am still giving him the anti-inflammatory medication.

Once again, Happy Holidays Everybody! It's easy to love all of you!
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Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush has died at the age of 94. Long before stepping into the Oval Office, he played first base for Yale Baseball and appeared in the first NCAA College World Series. He is pictured here meeting Babe Ruth in 1948 while playing for Yale.

Four decades later, Bush became the first sitting U.S. President to throw out a ceremonial first pitch from the pitcher's mound, in 1989 at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium.
Society for American Baseball Research
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Since this is the COFFEE Shop, this question has bothered me for a long time, now! Is this question also the definition of America? 10-15 years ago, Coffee prices started to climb. Instead of just raising the price to cover the inflated price, the coffee industry decided to re-tool the size of the Coffee Can, making them smaller! Did this industry think that the coffee buying public was too stupid to notice that the size of the Coffee Can had shrunk? The new small can is 26 ounces. The old can's where 39 ounces, making the new cans 1.5 the size of the old cans! I noticed right off that the can's where smaller!

Oh, that's right, we're supposed to talk about the weather here at the Coffee Shop! Well I've got 17 on my thermometer, The WeatherUnderground states my temperature is supposed to be 21. It doesn't look like we'll be seeing the sun today, either!

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These where our guests at the bird feeder yesterday. They do a great job of cleaning up the seed that the Chickadees and Nuthatches kick out of the feeder. Chickadees and Nuthatches are always looking for that one particular seed. Their generosity with the bird seed feeds the Turkeys, Deer, Squirrels, Voles and other critters.
 
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Good Morning all,

We have had a ton of rain over the last 24 hours, and even had a rare Dec thunderstorm roll through last night, with some pretty impressive lightning. Typical Illinois weather this time of year though. Last week at this time we received a foot of snow, and a week later we got a thunderstorm. It really did a number on the snow that was on the ground.

Mark, It looks like you have quite the variety of wildlife that visits. On the subject of coffee. Im the only one in the house that drinks it, so a can lasts a long time. I did notice the smaller cans, with the same price, and it looks like several companies followed that model. I can usually get it on sale here reasonable, and I always have a new can in the basement freezer.
 
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Here in SE WI, we had mostly light rain yesterday and a brief bout of thunder last night. Perhaps the fringe of the system coming by your parts, migalyto? Today will get up to low 40s, then back down to more seasonable 30s, and a mix of rain and snow. A full day ahead, but probably not much time for trains... :rolleyes:
 
Good Morning again to All. 41° and partly cloudy skies with the sun just peeking over the horizon. Well, after a week or so of afternoon temperatures in the 70's, the next ten days will be in the upper-40's to mid-50's. Didn't have a really active day yesterday as I battled a kidney stone all day. These are no fun, second one in the last four years. I was better by supper and grilled skirt steak for fajitas. Nothing like good old red meat to reward myself for the day's agony, but it will contribute to the next one.:( I did put the new washing machine to use while we successfully catch up on a weeks backlog.
I did spend more time in the train shed though since mobility was painful. Most of the time I was at the workbench or searching for particular freight cars that I know still have plastic wheels or couplers. According to my database query, I am now down to only 22 cars left with plastic wheels after yesterday. Nine of those cars are in the MOW train which doesn't see a lot of action and will be the last cars retrofitted. Finding those other 13 cars, even though I know the reporting marks and numbers isn't easy. Locating that one particular brown ATSF covered hopper out of over 100 on the rails isn't as easy as it sounds. I even have pictures but they are in the house on the desktop computer. I did get seven changed out prior to running the latest query. I ran a few trains later in the day.

Greg - I too am taking more time when assembling models than I used to. Racing to complete one led to rework later on, on some of them.
Sherrel - I used glass crates for years to construct stuff. Both of the floors in my barn and the floor in the old train room were made from that stuff. High-grade 2" x 12" and 2" x 6", although most were only 7' long. People used to ask why I used 2" x 6" for wall studs in my old outbuildings like the chicken coop, they were free! Just had to remove a lot of nails.
Chet - Nice layout shot.
Tom - Great job on the UPS trailers.
Ray - Hope that the rain shows up and settles down the fears of your fellow countrymen.
Louis - When I was younger, Victoria Secret's was my favorite store to visit. For the last fifteen years it has been Home Depot!
Mark - Coffee cans are not the only thing that has shrunk. Soup cans, tuna cans etc., have also shrunk. I don't drink coffee so that doesn't affect me (so why the hell am I in the Coffee Shop?). I did notice the coffee cans years ago when a friend who had his own catering truck used to give me his empty cans. At first the cans were the same size but contained less coffee, then the cans shrunk to match the volume.
Kudos for feeding the wildlife.

Besides being the first Sunday of Advent and the first day of Hanukkah, it is National Mutt Day. A great day to pamper those lovable, adorable members of the family. Take some steak out for their supper.
Everybody have a great day
 
Good morning. It's raining and 43.
Yesterday was spent transferring all my stuff to my new laptop. It had to be updated to the latest operating system, then it had to be updated to the latest version of the latest operating system, then it had to have a supplemental update to the latyest version of the latest operating system, then everything had to be synced and paired with everything else, then everything could be transferred. The most painful part of that is our local ISP is updating their lines here, and the connection kept dropping out or slowing down to a molasses-like crawl.
But it's done now. Whew,
 
Good morning, everybody !

Louis ..... I like the photo of 41 and Babe Ruth. ... I have great respect for 41, 43, and the entire Bush family. ... Thanks for the Christmas greeting....

Mark ..... I think the coffee makers did the same thing the candy bar makers did.... Long ago, a decent sized candy bar was 10 cents or even just 5 cents. The candy bars became smaller. Prices went up. Full sized candy bars are available now for over a dollar.

Toot .... Those wildfires sound awful.

Tom ... I like the UPS trailers.

Willie.... Your favorite store when you were youngers was Victoria Secret ? ? ? ? ....... Uh oh....

Mark ..... That is a busy bird feeder .... Apparently, it is also a critter feeder.

Chet .... I like the MILW ribbed boxcar. .... I have two MILW ribbed boxcars on my layout also.

Sherrel ..... The little Frisco switcher looks blue. I don't recall Frisco having locomotives painted blue.

Terry .... Sometimes it seems like computers make more work instead of saving work. Your work on the new laptop appears to be an example.

Mike .... Sounds like a lot of rain.

Erik ..... I know what you mean about not having much time for trains. ..... There always is too much other stuff to do.

...

Yesterday .... I got my streetcars back in operation. They will not work on duty track. So I cleaned all of the rails. One of the streetcars had gears jammed by a particle of ballast (or something like that). I cleared that out.

....

Below is our youngest granddaughter in our "backyard" on Thanksgiving.

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Another day and more honeydo's for the Spousal Unit today. It's 44* headed to 60* for a high. Although the forcast says clear - there are lots of mid level "puffy" clouds at the moment.
Everything seems to be getting smaller quantities except the prices - they are running counter!
Eventually we (US) will join the rest of the world by taking a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread.
Politicians love inflation; makes everyone feel better about their pay increases even though manufactors just raise prices to compensate. Also it serves to "push" everyone into a higher tax bracket - it's planned that way!
I have maybe 2-3 hours of stops to make this morning and will probably watch a couple hours of football - no more all day as I used to do. I just seem to have lost a lot of the enthusiasm that I once had.

Chet - Foxie had her staples removed this past Wednesday - she and Iboth are estatic! She has returned to her former self and we are both enjoying it!

Garry -- The Frisco received that "blue" 70 tonner in a merger. That was it's prior color and they just used company yellow to repaint the name and number. Seems they really didn't want it, even though they had 5? 44 tonners, and sold it pretty quick within a year or so.

Willie -- I'm a little surprised at your kidney stones as active as you are? Guess that may not matter. I had a bout with 3 of them between age 48-53. The one that got to me was so large that they were just about to prep me for surgery when it passed - it was a monster! The pain from that one had me begging the hospital to kill me! The other two were not pleasant, but I was able to function, although very painful.
I so offer you MUCH sympathy!

Cambria -- Where in NC? My SIL is a Marine at Lejuene near Jacksonville.

TOOT -- Those fires are bad .. I've never seen fires move so fast as what CA went through, I feel for those folks there.
103 degrees with probably humidity is not good - stay cool!
 
Thanks everyone for the help on the difference between the oil ... Now I understand.
Seems to me that I should have used ND oil in my motor scooter, and lawn mower's, and such that had no oil filters?

Now, I have another question on motor oil - eeeks!
What is synthetic oil made from?
The RV recommends "Blended"? WTH is that?
 
Good Morning Everyone..............overcast and some snow is forecasted here in Wisconsin.

Worked most of Saturday on the New River Mine kit that will be replacing the former model. I installed and wired the three, two light signals for the hopper entrances and four wall fixtures on the sides of the structure. The sides are weathered before assembly using Pastel powers and then sealed with DullKote. The interior of the mine is a rat's nest of wiring with the 20 leads for the micro lamp wiring and power leads. I try to be neat as possible but working in a small area it becomes harder to do.

Monday, I'll do the corrugated roof and post a photo or two when it is completed. I may use roll roofing on a part of the mine that's hard to see since the mine is at eye level.

The Walter's instructions for the kit is not real clear and thank goodness I already build the first kit. No tips on construction techniques.

The fun part will be wiring the Tortoise switch machines to operate the signals. I'll enlist the Mrs. to be my observer since wiring under the bench I can't see the signals and determine whch ligths are lite, either red or green. The Mrs can tell me which light is lit when I do the wiring. The wiring for the signals is color colored so that will make it easier to do.

I use card edge connectors on the terminals of my Tortoise switch machine throughout the layout which makes it easy to do the wiring and soldering with the card edge removed from the bottom of the Tortoise. I purchased card edge connectors for the mine spur two Tortoise machines that have screw terminals on the bases rather than have to do any soldering.

I don't look forward to landscaping the slopes behind the mine and ballasting the tracks behind the mine and leading up to the mine. That will be on Wednesday. I plan on illuminating the spur tracks as they near the hopper entrance. I believe the addition of lighting like adding figures adds a new level of realism to a layout.

Better get down to the layout and work on the mine until lunch and the Packer Game...right!

Later.

Greg

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Sirfoldalot said:
Thanks everyone for the help on the difference between the oil ... Now I understand.
Seems to me that I should have used ND oil in my motor scooter, and lawn mower's, and such that had no oil filters?

Now, I have another question on motor oil - eeeks!
What is synthetic oil made from?
The RV recommends "Blended"? WTH is that?
Click to expand...
Yes, all my old Briggs & Stratton-equipped mowers used ND oil.
Synthetic oil is graphite based. Blended oil is part regular, dino oil, and part synthetic.
 
Afternoon All,

Watched the grandsons for about an hour today then I finished putting on the remaining pieces of corrugated roofing that I still had left. After that based on a TT bridge detailing that a friend of mine did to the new Walthers TT I decided to do the same. I will most likely have my friend Jon take off the plastic handrails for metal ones. I also plan on putting down weathered wood strips (2x10) on the plastic wood and build the shack in wood and get rid of the plastic one. I'll take a picture when it's complete.

Mark- I guess the hens feel safe since they survived Thanksgiving.

Sherrel- That's a lot of info. Nice looking shifter.

Cambria- That's really nice modeling.

Garry- Nice picture of your granddaughter.

Sherrel/Louis- I'm glad your pooches are doing better.

Greg- Are you combining 2 of the mine kits together? I had to use my son when I was adjusting my signal dash pots. Of course he had to roll his eyes when I asked him to help.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Sirfoldalot said:
still want to know why an air compressor needs NON Detergent oil?
Click to expand...

It may be the way in which the oil is distributed around the engine. Autos all use oil pumps to pressure feed it, whereas compressors use the old splash or dipper method where the connecting rod has a spoon like projection to pick up the oil in the sump and fling it around. Maybe it aerates the oil, or breaks it down.
 
Hiya gang!
Total lazy day today, at GFs, playng with the dog and her son.
I did get an early Christmas present for myself yesterday.
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This oughta power my airbrush, media blaster, impact gun, DA sander, air file and air rachets just fine. OK, it may be overkill for the airbrush, but so what. TSC had them on sale on black Friday. Now I can retire the little pancake compressor I have been using.
FWIW, HD is my favorite store, outside of a hobby shop. However if I am dragged into a Victoria's Secret, I suddenly become full of purchase suggestions!
 
kbkchooch said:
Hiya gang!
Total lazy day today, at GFs, playng with the dog and her son.
I did get an early Christmas present for myself yesterday.
View attachment 32248
This oughta power my airbrush, media blaster, impact gun, DA sander, air file and air rachets just fine. OK, it may be overkill for the airbrush, but so what. TSC had them on sale on black Friday. Now I can retire the little pancake compressor I have been using.
FWIW, HD is my favorite store, outside of a hobby shop. However if I am dragged into a Victoria's Secret, I suddenly become full of purchase suggestions!
Click to expand...
But do you have to use non-detergent oil in it?
 
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