The Wolverine Passes Kalamazoo

As I headed into town, I passed by a park that I'm pretty sure that I've seen from the train.  There is train bridge there.  After visiting with my cousin, I decided to go catch the train at that park.

 It didn't take too long for the train to appear.

 I thought it was pretty cool to see the train going over the bridge.  I just wish the water were a little smoother.

I think it looked pretty cool passing over the bridge.

A Stop in Jackson

On Sunday I decided to head over to my cousin's place in Kalamazoo.  Since it was on the way, I decided to stop by the Jackson Yard.

 It's kind of neat there, because I'm usually guaranteed to see some engines.

 I kind of liked the way the sky looked behind this engine.

 Operation Lifesaver is a group that advocates rail safety.

 Again, I thought the sky looked pretty cool behind this engine.

 Some of the other engines getting read to pull a load, I think.

 A shot of the cab.

 I kind of liked the shot from the front.

I end with the Conrail caboose which is fitting, I guess.

A Snowy Evening Planewatching

After the game, I decided to head over to the airport.  It looked like it would be a good night to catch some planes.

 First up was a 737 operated by Sun Country Airlines.  I'm not sure if I've seen Sun Country here before, so it was kind of neat.  Sun Country was founded in 1983 and based out of Minneapolis-St. Paul.  It mainly tries to fly people from Minneapolis to warmer destinations.  They had steady growth for a while and then went through a bad period.  Currently it serves 38 destinations.

 I don't remember all the details on the flights, so I'm just going to talk about the pictures.  This is a Delta Airbus 320 coming in for a landing.  It was snowing off and on while I was taking my pictures.  That made for some interesting effects.

 The side shot of that plane.

 This was an American Airlines MD-88 coming in for a landing on the other runway.  I think it was coming in from ORD.

 Another Delta Airbus 320.

 An MD-88 belonging to Delta.

 This Jet Blue Embrear 190 was coming from Philadelphia. 

 One of the planes that I was waiting for was this 757 that was coming in from Cancun.  It would have been nice if it would have brought the weather.  I kind of like this front on shot.

 The side shot.

 This Airbus 330 was coming in from Frankfurt.  I kind of like this planes.

 Another 320.

 A CRJ-200.

 The Boeing 717.  I think this one may have been arriving from LaGuardia.

 Another A330.  This particular one was coming in from Shanghai.

 A Southwest 737 that was coming in from Baltimore-Washington International.

 I'm pretty sure this Spirit Airlines A320 was coming in from Orlando.

 This plane may have been coming in from Charlotte.

 One of the planes that I was waiting for was the Air France Airbus A340.  It is a four engine plane that is slightly larger than a 707.

 It was coming in from Paris.  It was kind of cool seeing it all lit up.

 One more shot.

 After the A340, I saw that there was a DC-10 coming in.  Since I figured it would be landing on the other runway, I decided to head over to a spot where I could catch it.

 Fed Ex Flight 505 is a flight that comes in from Memphis, Tennessee.  It was a DC-10 which was pretty cool to see since those are getting rarer.

 My light was disappearing, but I still think I got some pretty cool shots.

One more shot before calling it a night.

Eastern Michigan vs Northern Illinois - Women's Basketball

It was a double header on Saturday and I decided to stick around for the women's game.  This was the first Eastern Michigan women's game that I've been to this year.  As I do this post, they are 6-22 overall and 1-15 in the MAC.  More on that later.

 Northern Illinois is currently 19-8 overall with a 12-4 record in the MAC.  I'm not sure where that puts them in the MAC, but I imagine that it puts them near the top.  And they looked like it.

 A shot of the basketball band.

 Another angle of the basketball band.

 The guy in the middle is Fred Castro.  He is the current Eastern Michigan women's team coach.  He took over after Tony Verdi ended up going to Maryland.  Last year, the Eagles made it to the second round of the WNIT tournament where they lost to TCU by 4 points.  This year, I don't think they are going to make it that far.

 After starting from the Eastern perspective, things didn't look good for the Eagles and I was more interested in getting decent shots, so I started to shoot from the NIU perspective.  Despite the slow start, Eastern actually made a game of it by getting within 10 points.

 This was probably my favorite shot of the day.

 Swoop.

 For the end of the game, I decided to go back to shooting from the Eastern side.  Phillis Webb would end up scoring 31 points which I think was her career high.

One of the Eastern players working around the defense.  Eastern would lose by 10 points.

Eastern Michigan Vs. Northern Illinois Basketball - Men's

I'm finally getting around to doing my pictures from the weekend.  I had sort of a busy weekend and kind of spent last night catching up to it.  So let's start with Saturday, I went to both Eastern Michigan basketball games.  First up was the men's game.  As always, I'm posting pictures surrounding the game.  For actual game shots, go to Hustle Belt.

 It was kind of a good day to go to a basketball game because the cold weather was kind of catching up to us again.  It even started to snow a little later.

 It was also a pretty windy day.

 Mark Montgomery is the current Northern Illinois basketball coach.  He was hired there in 2011 and has since acquired a 74 and 106 record.  Prior to that, he was an assistant coach at Michigan State  and helped lead them to three final four appearances.  Prior to that, he was an assistant at Central Michigan.  He played basketball at Michigan State  and was a member of the 1990 Big Ten Championship Squad.  He played some professional ball in Europe for 4 years.  As I write this, Northern Illinois is 14-10 overall and 6-5 in the MAC.  Last year, he was 21-13 overall and 9-9 in the MAC.  That was enough to get him to the Vegas Tournament.

 The EMU dance team look good as always.

 This was probably my favorite shot of the dance team.

 Raven Lee getting mugged on his way to the basket.  After a seven game losing streak, the Eagles finally looked like the team that I was expecting them to look like.  Raven's scoring was sparked by three three pointers in a row.  I think he ended the game with over 20 points.  Eastern ended up winning pretty handily.

 A few more shots of the dance team from the halftime show.

 After the dance team, they had a young basketball team play sort of a game.  It was pretty fun to watch and the kids actually looked pretty good.

 A pretty nice shot.

 An overall shot of the stadium.  As you can see, there aren't really that many people here.  I kind of wish the teams would get more support.

 As I make this post, Eastern Michigan has an overall 14-15 record and is 6-10 in the MAC.  This was after a pretty strong start in the MAC.  I think they are going to have to put together a nice run in the MAC Tournament to go to the NCAA Tournament.  Short of that, I don't think they are going to any other tournaments.

 James Thompson at the free throw line.  He's been living up to expectations this season.  In fact, I think he may have exceeded those expecations.

 I kind of liked the reflections in the court.

I like this picture well enough but I really wish I would pay more attention to the trailing player.  Barring a miracle, Friday night will be my last game of the season because I think they will be playing away for the MAC tournament.