Delayed.

Woke up this morning with a low-grade fever.  So I stayed home today and spoke with Larry via email. Since I still owe him a Wednesday, I'll go in next week for my last day. 
This afternoon if I'm feeling better, I need to run to the library and take down the depot display.

The beginning of the end.....

This is the last official Monday, and despite a raging sinus infection, we (because Lindsey came by too) got a lot done.  A lot moved.  We cleaned out most of the On-Hand room and moved allllllllllll the boxes that we finished into that room.  It's hard to believe that we're already up to 90 boxes.  Crazy.

Bad news, however.  Our intern who was all set up for the spring fell through.  I sent some emails this weekend to some students, hopefully I'll get a bite.  Larry wants the museum open by July 1st.  I'm nervous that won't happen without an intern in the spring.  ANd I don't know if I'm going to be able to spend a lot of time there in the spring, with getting ready to graduate and everything.  But I will be able to stop by for a bit. 

Anyway, we are going to place another order for more shirts and we are going to schedule a "hanging" day over Christmas break to hang some of the larger pieces like the old chalkboard time schedule sign and the train windows.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

To all!  Enjoy your turkey, stuffing, and pie!!! 

The morning after...

The Open House!  It was a success!  We got over $100 in donations and we got over $500 from our "gift table"!  Very exciting.  Larry said it looks like we got over 800 people over the two days.  That's really good!

This morning I recounted our stock and came up with the profit numbers.  Lindsey stopped by as well, and she's going to help me tackle the storage room next week, see if we can't make the place a little more organized for when Scott comes in in the spring.  If we are able to do that on Monday, then hopefully on Wednesday I can at least finish the boxes in the corridor so that area is all clear.  Then Thursday I'll spend updating the catalog so it's ready to go for Scott.  That's the plan, anyway!  Then that will be it for me.  Officially.  :-(

But I'll be sticking around to help.  Maybe I can continue to push Larry into creating a state-wide association.  I really think we need one.  It would help all the depots and railroad towns around the state.  I also had an idea in which I would need to contact Tray Sherwood at Mainstreet about "renting" a unoccupied downtown building's window to put a train layout for Christmas.  We could also advertise Santa Claus.  I think he should be coming to the depot again this year.  I'm going to check, anyway.  Also, Tray said she'd sell our t-shirts down there, too.  So if someone wasn't able to get on at the Open House, they will be available still for Christmas!  We're putting in another order for Christmas too. :-D

Open House!

So this weekend is the depot's annual Open House.  Lego land is all set up (and wonderful!) and we've got train layouts in the other half.  Laramoo the cow is out as well.  
It was quite a good turn out today.  Lindsey and I were there from 1-5 and once people were done with lunch it got pretty crowded.  A few people we talked to said that they'd lived here for a while and had never visited.  The donation box was getting full too, and we sold 14 t-shirts (have an order for 3 more), 8 mugs, and a few hats, among other things.  I'll do a full recount of our gift inventory on Monday to determine what was popular and if we need to order more shirts.  We sold out of the XXL, so we definitely will need some more of those.  Also, Tray Sherwood from Mainstreet said she'd sell some of our shirts for us as well.  So that's good, until we get our own gift shop up and running (there are still indecisions on that, so unfortunately it won't be this year) and when we have the museum and regular hours as well.
Apparently, the date for the dedication of the train at Heritage Railroad Park is going to be July 1st.  Larry said he would love the back half of the museum open by then.  It can be done.  It won't be easy, but it can be done.  We have first GOT to get rid of a couple of those benches!  They're taking up so much space that we can't do anything back there right now.  We have 2 to get rid of.  They're 16 feet long, 4 feet tall, and 5 feet deep. 

I also can't believe that my time is just about officially over.  I have Monday, then the next week until Dec. 2. 

Gift Shop Thursday

Just a quick morning.  I set up the gift shop table for the open house this weekend.  I also took inventory of all that we have to sell so we can look back afterward and see what was popular, what wasn't, etc.  Bonnie will be setting the prices, but I'm going to make a price list to put on the table.  I figured that'd be the easiest way to price the items.  I also need to see if I can put together a quick sign before Saturday morning as well.  It'll say, "Don't Forget Your Train-Themed Gifts!!  All proceeds support Your Historic Laramie Railroad Depot."

Yay! Power tools!

Today was another project-filled day.  After sorting through the t-shirts and giving each board member their total price, I helped Larry start getting things together for the Open House.  We gave our Union Pacific cow a bath; then it took 5 hours to drive down to storage and load up all the parts to the train layouts, drive back (and praying that nothing fell out of the back of the pick-up trucks on the way back), unload and assemble 7 tables. 
I now know the best way to design a table that needs to be regularly de-assembled and re-assembled.  I also got to use electric drills and screwdrivers, which made me happy.  :-)

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to decide where the gift shop table will go, so hopefully more of the layouts both train and lego, will be up by tomorrow morning so I can go ahead and set that up tomorrow. 

The train layouts are quite fun.  Maybe sometime I will make one and donate to the depot.  :-D

For the rest of the term...

I worked on a few more boxes this Monday, however mostly I looked at what I'll attempt to do for these last few weeks.  I can't believe officially, I have only 6 more days at the Depot!  The rest of this week will be dedicated to getting ready for the Open House this weekend, next Monday before Thanksgiving, Lindsey will be back and we'll discuss how we'll hang these 3 gorgeous train windows in the museum.  Hopefully after that we actually CAN hang the windows.  The rest of the days I will attempt to get as many of the boxes done as possible before I leave. 

I will still be stopping by occasionally in the spring and summer though. 

I also suggested to Larry about starting a state-wide association.  Right now the only group remotely close is TRACS, which is a Union Pacific association.  But I really believe that if we were to start a Wyoming Historic Railroad Association in which all the depots from Cheyenne from Evanston, as well as other railroad towns in the state can work together and help each other.  We have papers from Evanston, and I'm sure they have papers related to Laramie.  It we were all together, it would be easier to share research and get funding for the association as well.  Maybe that's something we can work on after the craziness of the Open House and the holidays has passed.

Bathroom Thursday

Still helped work on the Men's Bathroom today.  I was actually very excited because I got to operate the hydrolic lift to mask off the windows and the emergency lights.  We were getting ready to spray texture the walls with plaster when two things happened.  One, we lost pressure in our air compressor and two, I had to go to class.  :-(  Thursdays are short days, and the time goes by quicker when you're doing work on bathroom walls!

5 hours in the Men's Room (and a hour for lunch)

You know, most people don't understand how much work and how much one needs to be a "jack of all trades" at a small museum.  Especially if the museum doesn't have a lot of funding. 

Today I helped Larry and Jerry work on the men's room.  The walls still looked horrible and needed attending after the water pipe busted several months ago.  In order to save money, we're doing the work ourselves.  Some WyoTech volunteers scrapped most of the loose stuff off over the weekend, so Larry worked on patching up the holes, I was a great cleaner-upper today.  ;-)  And I was an excellent scrapper holder.  But I also learned about how to fix cracking, damaged plaster walls.  I also masked off all the areas that are not going to get the texture when Larry sprays either tonight or tomorrow morning (I'll be dressed for dirty work tomorrow as well).  We used at least a couple hundred square feet of plastic in that bathroom today covering the smooth lower portion of the walls, the doors, the stalls, the windows.... 

It may not seem like a lot, but it made me think that I'm sure the Met does not have their president doing repair and maintenance work.  It's important for someone going into the museum studies field to understand the different jobs that make the museum work.  From the janitor to the director.  And it's also important for one to understand that depending on what museum one works at, it is good to be very well rounded and hands on, because the water line might break and the plaster walls of the historic building might need fixing.  :-)

Dirty Monday

I feel awful for missing Larry's party on Friday.  We were at the depot, and there was a family emergency.  I hope he understands.

It was a busy day, though.  We had men in working on the doors in the baggage room fixing the doors so they're not so drafty and slide smoother.  Larry also had a meeting with some men from the city who are working on the fence that goes around the snow train.  It's going to be a nice fence.  It'll have sections of smooth steel with a RR crossing sign on top.  Larry wants to make the smooth section large enough for text.  I suggested they gradually slope the top of the section down on either side of the RR crossing to make it more aesthetically pleasing.  We'll see how it ends up!

I also finished up a few more boxes.  We're definitely going to need to buy some more boxes before we can continue.  We've got 30 more to go through, I'm entered in box #87 today. 

The morning after...the board meeting.

They had another board meeting yesterday evening.  We've got our t-shirts finalized, so I was able to send the final order to Jeff this morning.  That's exciting.  The board, especially Bonnie, is excited about my "Haunted Depot" idea for next fall.  I figure I'll start some research into that this coming summer, since I already committed myself to sticking around and organizing it.  ;-D
I also worked on some more boxes as well.  It's a short day today, so there wasn't too much going on.  We need to get more boxes, we ran out this morning again.  Only 34 left to go....

Library Day

I set up our display at the public library.  It didn't take long. so I worked on putting together some updates for the board meeting tonight, as I won't be able to make this one.  :-(  I actually have to go into work at Bath and Body Works instead. 

This is what I came up with:

Museum Update:

Have over 80 boxes completed, 36 more to go. 

Officially have an intern to take over in the spring: Scott Cheney, who will be working 18 hours a week.

We have some cases moved into their spaces.

There is a possibility that a marketing class at UW lead by Dr. David Hunt will be wanting to work with the depot in the coming semesters.

T-Shirts:

Need to make the decision whether to have the logo on the side or in the center:

And an example of the two color logo on a natural colored shirt:

I’ll get the total cost and request a check to give him by this weekend and he’ll have those done for us by the Open House.

Halloween:

Trick or Treating downtown went well, we underestimated the number of kids!  I think it would be a great event to take advantage of every year.  Especially if we were able to expand it into a “Haunted Depot” which could bring in some money.   Even though I’ll be leaving as an official intern the first part of December, I will be around and stopping back by as a volunteer, and if it is decided to do a haunted depot, I’ll be glad to take that project on next year.

Albany County Library Case:

I set up the library case today.  Whomever was in charge of setting up the Lego Land portion on the top shelf has not done their display yet.  I told the library that if they don’t come to set up by next week to let me know and I’ll do more.  J

I also brought some small stickers that were left over that Jay printed.  I gave some out to some kids at the library while I was setting up and left the rest in the library’s sticker basket that children get to choose from when they check out a book.  We’re getting our logo out there!