Fantastic Train Day (but Not Fantastic Football Day)

 

There wasn't too much to say about my day at work, except that it was very productive, and also I walked with Hardingfele at lunch. However, on the way home from my new parking lot, I could see the train was poised to head north, so at home I took a walk to the crossing. Just as I gave up and was starting to walk home, I heard the train horn, so I hurried back to the crossing and could see the train heading north. I was all excited and made a video, but it didn't really have that great of graffiti, and later when I saw the other side of the train on social media, there wasn't much on that side either. I walked back home to find Travalon had already gotten back from work, so we went to Nar Turkish restaurant and sat on the patio overlooking the rail yard, but it got too cold so we moved inside to eat dinner. I love this neon sign they have by their ice cream stand.

Here are screenshots from my video of the train in our neighborhood:

And here are the screenshots from the other side:

Travalon had to work in Sun Prairie today, so he went up to Portage first and took some photos and videos. I will post his photos today and then will post screenshots from his videos tomorrow. The first two are from this morning, as viewed from my new parking lot.

And here are some in the Portage rail yard.

A couple of interesting doodles on the train:

More graffiti:

And a park shelter in Rio (which for some reason is pronounced RYE-oh) that looks like a train depot.

Good thing we both had such a good train day, because the Packer game is truly atrocious.

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Exploring Levy Hall

 

Today at lunch Seabird and I went to explore Levy Hall, the brand spankin' new building housing a lot of the Humanities departments. History takes up a lot of the building and seems to have offices on every floor. There were some beautiful classrooms with stunning views full of sunlight, and Seabird and I wished we had been in classrooms like that in our university days. We had both helped out in Religious Studies, so when we ran into a faculty member from that department, we all chatted a bit. Then we found my Union peep who works in another small department, and he gave us a tour of his floor. He said there was even a commuter room in the basement, but you can't get into it unless your ID card has been activated for that building. We did peer into it and saw it had indoor places to park bikes, and also shower facilities. I would have loved that back when I was biking to work every day! There is a cafe, and there is also going to be a rooftop terrace, but it's not finished yet.

Meanwhile, Travalon checked out another spot where train cars are parked, in Middleton. He took some photos. I know I have posted some (maybe all?) of these before, but here they are again.

When I got back to my parking lot, a train that was facing as if it were going to head north was backing up, and it had a lot of cars on it with cool graffiti. Sorry, no photos - my cell phone can't take good photos at that distance. I hurried home, thinking it was going to come north and pass through my neighborhood, but I have been home all evening and never heard it pass by. Maybe it will tomorrow.

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Boat Ride with Lotus Harvest and Choro Session with Humiliation

 

I forgot to mention two things yesterday. One was that I didn't bring something with me to eat before the condo association meeting, so at my afternoon break I went and bought a sandwich. They didn't have the kind I love, so it took a bit for me to decide, but then I was in the right place to see a train go by on campus, with lots of beautiful graffiti. I didn't take any photos or videos, sorry. I was kind of far away from it.

The second thing was right at the end of the day when I asked my coworker who isn't even thirty if she was done in the mailroom, since I was going to lock up early to go to the meeting. Her student hourly asked me how the Halfway to St. Patrick's Day party was, and I said, "Lots of fun! Thanks!" so she said, "It was lit, huh?" I said we're all too old for that, and she nodded knowingly and said, "It was lit!" My coworker asked if that was the party I'd told her about that morning, so I said, "No, that was the Willy Street Fair yesterday. It's not Irish, just crazy." Then I told them about going to see Herb Alpert, and they were both like, "Who??" so the student looked him up and she said he was kind of a thirst trap... and then she saw his age. "He's 91?" she yelped. "That's pre-World War II!" I said yes, he was even before my time, but it was amazing how energetic he still is at his age, so we speculated that the music kept him young. The part that really killed me was when the student said she was glad my weekend was "fire" or "lit" or "ballin'" or some slang like that, and I was amazed that a college student (and not a poor one like I was who couldn't afford to do anything, but one with a boyfriend and enough money to travel abroad) thought that my life was so exciting. I mean, it is to me, but it's always interesting to learn that it is to people who are less than half my age.

This morning Travalon and I walked earlier than usual because I had a bunch of meetings mid-morning, and it was sunny outside, but when we actually got outside, it was raining! And yet no rainbow! My second meeting lasted about three minutes because none of us had any issues to discuss, so Travalon and I took a long lunch to go out on the boat. We saw a cormorant, terns, gulls, and a family of pied-billed grebes, and we also saw this buoy that seemed to imply we should be speeding:

"Slow? No!" But you can see from these others that the word "wake" was below the water line on that buoy.

We also harvested a lotus seed head and ate the seeds, which taste a little like macadamia nuts when you get them at the right time. (The "right time" seems to be the autumnal equinox.) I did throw one back, just to give the plant a chance to reproduce. It only seems fair. When I told Seabird about it, since she was the one who had told me about how you can harvest the lotus seeds, she asked me to grab some seed heads for her, but we didn't get a chance to go back out in the boat. However, I forgot one seed in my pocket, so at least I can bring her one tomorrow. Here you can see a line of lotuses in front of a hill.

Tonight there were only four of us at choro: the guy who runs it, the cavaquinho player, the student who always goes to the Slow Irish sessions, and me. The student and I were embarrassed because while we are pretty good sight readers, we are not really improving because we don't practice between sessions, which are only once a month. The cavaquinho player was surprised that we don't - he said he does. My problem is that I do so many things that I never focus on any one thing enough to get good at it. 

I could see on the way to choro that the train was going to be heading north through our neighborhood, and sure enough, the guy who always makes a video of it had posted one when I got home. Here are some screenshots of graffiti.

This is some random graffiti. It's not like the train I saw on campus yesterday, that had lots of "Puck" and "Amor" on it. I do not recognize a single one of these tags. Also, the first engine was the yellow one the railroad has just acquired, but the second one was the standard red one like most of theirs are.

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