Jacki and I were outside playing with some cameras and I was all like OMG my hops are coming up. Ok so maybe it wasn’t quite that valley girl, but it was close. Anyway here they are….

That is the big Fuggles plant that I have.

Jacki has been doing a ton of film developing in the last couple days so keep on eye on her blog and flickr for lots of fun pictures.
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This is the tentative agreement between Norfolk Southern Railroad and The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. This agreement is still subject to ratification by the membership.

2008 Tentative Agreement

Side Letters

Questions and Answers

The Cliff Notes Version

I know I don’t normally put work stuff here, but this is really hard to find so I thought I’d put it up for guys.

We kicked around at Franklin Park Conservatory for the morning of day 2. Not the best trip I’ve had to the conservatory. Lots of construction going on and the butterfly room had just opened so not very many were out. The weather was also bad raining and cold. It was still fun to have a day out with the family. The train thing and all the weird little buildings they had setup were lots of fun. Not a lot of good pictures. Just couldn’t seem to get any. Lots of kids running around in the way. So I’ll post a couple that I like and then fold and put a slide show under that for anyone who wants to see all the pictures.

This is just a door next to the gift shop.

I really like this little tree in front of one of those weird buildings.

And here is one of the trains….

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I brought a camera to work with me this trip. Here are a few of the pics…

Nice view of downtown Columbus, OH from the train…

Drop below the fold if you want more pictures…
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Here is the deal. For anyone who doesn’t know I’m a railroad engineer. Until recently we had been staying at a really shitty dorm. So getting moved into this new location is a significant improvement in my quality of life. I’ll drop some pictures in a bit. Also in the last few days I’ve gotten the first couple of skeins of rug yarn plyed up and some beer and mead racked into secondary fermenters. Today Jacki and I made about 5 pounds worth of twice baked potatoes. That was interesting.

Here is the couple skeins of rug yarn so far….

Here is my favorite part of the room…

Who thought this was a good idea? I mean really. We spend 12 hours at work on these things every day and they think we want to look at them in our off time?

More RR junk under the fold. Maybe a little beer as well…
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I started spinning my first superwash roving a couple days ago and managed to get all the spinning do yesterday. Then I plyed it today. I hope plying counts for the Tour de Fleece cause there have been a couple days that is all I have done. I have managed to spin every day of the tour so far. So good for me! We also had a dye day a couple days ago and I hand painted some roving. It turned out way cool. I have been getting some compliments on my color combos, which I appreciate, but I’m still having to ask Jacki a lot of questions. Like with this roving, “What colors do I mix to get green and purple?”. I don’t know how she hasn’t choked me yet. Anyway we are going to split the
4oz ball of roving and each spin half. Then ply them together and see what kind of crazyness we get.

Under the fold are pictures of the superwash and some pics I took at work on the railroad the other day.

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I know I said I’d try not to post to much railroad stuff, but I thought this picture came out pretty neat. I shot it with my phone so the quality isn’t all that great. I like it being all grain and stuff tho. Anyway it’s the walkway through the engine compartment on a Canadian National engine. Most of the walkways for going down the side of an engine are on the outside. Some of the Canadian ones enclose the walkway as part of the engine compartment for whatever reason. I don’t know why. Snow maybe?

So I’m a railroad engineer. It’s not nearly as cool as everyone seems to think it is. I probably won’t post much about it, but who knows. This is one of the funniest things I have ever heard from a railroad call office. Warning! There is a lot of cursing in this.

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