Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Christmas


We had a lovely family Christmas. Here are a few pics:








Santa was very good to me. I got lots of books, a bluetooth headset, some kitchen stuff, a projecting clock, and best of all, a pocket camera. (After much research, I decided on the Panasonic LZ8, for anyone who's interested.) So now I will be able to take pictures even when I don't cart around my big Nikon. Yay!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Green Bay, WI

Back in mid-November I went up to Green Bay, WI for work. The way my appointments were scheduled, I had a fair amount of time to do some sightseeing. I took in both Lambeau Field (home of the Green Bay Packers football team) and the National Railroad Museum. Here are some photos from the trip.



These seats are uber expensive.




Our tour guide was excellent and our group was friendly.


Those are cheese hats in the back of that Packers truck. The gift store was a sight to behold.


Big Boy...designed specifically to haul payload over the mountains. It needed to carry an ungodly amount of coal.


This is the engine room of the Big Boy. Yikes!


A Pullman (sleeping) car in rather good condition. There was a neat exhibit inside that made use of big LCD screens and an animated attendant would speak about civil rights as they pertained to train travel.


I climbed this observation tower. It has 99 steps exactly!


The view of the museum from the wooden tower.


Looking out onto the river that runs next to the museum...see that ice there? Yeah, it was cold.


In addition to the enclosed warehouse, there was a "trainport" of sorts with more specimens. They were covered, but still exposed to the outside elements. Walking through some of them, it was so cold and quiet, it felt like I was walking through something frozen in time.


I pretty much had the museum all to myself, which was nice.


Do you think there are enough rivets on this train? I think it needs a few more.


Now that's what I call a stainless steel kitchen!


Something about this car reminds me of the show Mad Men.


They had a big display of train logo signs. I really like these two but they were all cool looking.