Eurospoor 2011

I got on a real train shortly after 9:30 in the morning. I went to Eurospoor 2011 in Utrecht. The biggest model railroad fair in Europe. There are loads of displays and loads of shops, new and second hand. The latter being the most interesting.

And if you think model railroading is dead, think again. It was very busy. There were 5 line-ups to get in.

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Old Dutch rail stock.

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Fantasy yards.

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More old Dutch rail stock.

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Some displays are huge and need several people to be operated.

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Some people prefer to take photos of the scenery.

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Small train passing an old factory in another fantasy layout.

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Long cargo train passing.

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The scenery can get pretty realistic, even if it's 87 times smaller than real size (H0-scale).

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This display was fantastic. It was completely covered by snow, very sparkly, drawing a lot of attention.

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Close up from one end.

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Very old Hornby models.

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Beautiful old trains in a 50's setting.

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I couldn't leave empty handed of course. I was hoping to find this model and on all 20,000 square metres of shops there were only 2 models in 1 of the shops. They must be getting rare. Here's a wikipedia page on them (in Dutch): http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorpost.

I left soon after I made my purchase so that I wouldn't be completely broke when I got home ;-)

When I got back home I remembered I hadn't blogged my new key "hanger". It's actually magnetic, very handy.

I also hung up my Irish blessing. I'm still very happy with it :-)

Skeet shooting

I went skeet shooting with colleagues today. This is a skeet.

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And this is me shooting. I never fired a shot in my life before this and I had no idea how hard it would be. Apparently I'm pretty good at shooting this way. I scored 16 out of 25 shots and shared third place of 23 people.

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Clearing the skies from skeets... ;-)

Other colleagues taking a shot (click images to enlarge):

Bas.

Ritchey.

Dave.

Sicco.

Ira.

There was dinner afterwards. Quite a nice dinner I must say! My colleagues Ira and Bas on the left here.

More colleagues.

Another table with colleagues.

The skies

I went to work a touch early and found the most colourful skies on my way.

First it was pink and then it turned orange.

In the evening I saw the movie "Contagion" with Marjolein, Danny and Kees. It was pretty alright! Afterwards we went to Mulligans for a nightcap.

Making a hole

My colleagues Ira and Bjorn with whom I worked very hard to get a certain piece of software finished. It's all looking good. It's going live in little over a week. Very exciting!

The main entrance of Central Station has opened again. It's been closed for many years. I wonder if it's permanent. I'm not a big fan of how it looks to be honest... I have the feeling it's temporary because the inside isn't really finished yet.

I needed to do a bit of homely DIY: making metal holes in a shirt for halloween. This is one of the "holes". I have no idea what they're really called so I'll just call them "holes".

Now, the hole is fixed on to a piece of cloth by this little helper device. Problem was that the anvil part is a little too big for the "hole" to fit. The "hole" you see, needs to curl open to the outside when the anvil part is hammered down on it. But because it doesn't fir properly it works a bit shit.

We no like shit so we fix. A-huh.

So I hammered this center pointer in it to widen the opening.

Opening widened just enough.

I did a test and it worked beautifully. See how the metal has curled to the outside?

Put through a little hole in the cloth and fix! Nice!

Karin sent me pictures of Mason in his new dog house. It looks great and so does Mason :-)

Nic's shop

Colleagues fed us chocolates from Australian. I thought they were very nice. (all 6! :-P )

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While walking home I spotted this little snail. I wonder what it was doing.

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Nicole has found a place for her cake shop. I walked past and it looks good. Small but excellent starting position. Easy to clean and maintain. The big window is awesome. Can't wait to see what's going to happen here :-)

The van Reijen brothers

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I saw these on my home from work. They made a pretty shot in the low autumn light.

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I ate at Mic's parents again before squash. Daan and Erin were there as well. Here's Daan, me and mic. Mic's really a cool guy but he just has a big problem looking the part ;-)

The experiment

What has better or worse to eat, calorie-wise? Chocolate? Or Liver cheese (or whatever it's called abroad...)?

Tare.

15 grams of chocolate. 420 cal/100 gr. So this totals to 63 calories.

13 grams of liver cheese (or whatever it's called abroad again...). 348 cal/100 gr. This totals to 45 calories.

So yeah, eating the fatty liver cheese (or whatever the #@*$ it's called abroad!) ~is~ actually better when only ONE slice is put on a slice of bread...

Marjolein and I visited my sister Ilse and Cassie. There's a bitch inside Ilse's new car! Didn't know that...

WTF?!

Ilse, Cassie and Marjolein. Cassie cooked a lovely dinner and we had a great time.

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I bought this old Gaelic blessing more than 10 years ago (if not 15) in Ireland. It has hung on the wall in all the houses I lived but I left it behind when I moved to Australia. I found it back at Ilse's place and she was kind enough to let me take it back. I'm very happy with it.