Polar Express

Fabiola · December 27, 2004, 11:33:06 AM

Furby, tell me this, did you know Billy? 8)
Do you think he deserved to be in that train with Ton Hanks?
I mean, come one, why did they choose some one for a such unknown place like Grand Rapid? ???
Ok, if I DO KNOW ABOUT Grand Rapid, any one could know, but why did they not had picked an important city like Halifax instead? ;D ;D
Or even the Wonderful City?
I need to know! :

:

Love,
Fabíola.

Jeff · December 27, 2004, 11:45:51 AM

Fabiola, You may be the only one here that watched that movie. Tammy wants to see it but can not get me to go. I can however tell you a very good reason for any train to go to Grand Rapids.

Read this thread. You might have missed it.

https://forestryforum.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?board=general;action=display;num=1103382394

Fabiola · December 27, 2004, 12:02:23 PM

It is a nice movie, I enjoyed! You should go... 8)
I was wondering thar the train would have to pass by there anyway to go to the North Polar, since it is far north already!! ;D
Any way, the guys from Grand Rapid may not enjoy my joke but I am the only person in my country that can say: "Oh!, I have a cople of friends from that place!" :P
Isnt it great?
:

:

Fabíola.

Paschale · December 27, 2004, 12:38:44 PM

Well, from now on, Grand Rapids is going to be on the map! ;D Polar Express is going to be played every year now for Christmas, whether y'all want it or not, just like Rudolph, and each year, people are going to be hearing about good ole Grand Rapids! ;) Grand Rapids isn't such an "unknown place" now, is it, especially if someone from Rio de Janeiro's asking about it! ;D

Come on up, Fabiola...there's plenty of snow for everybody!

Furby · December 27, 2004, 01:08:59 PM

Paschale,
DON'T get her started on the snow thing! :

I don't need to here how sunny and warm it is down there!!! ;D It IS summer there you know. ;)

Fab,
Can't say I've ever met the guy, but I will say that I wouldn't mind seeing the movie. Grand Rapids is pretty well know around the country. Some of the news channels talk about it a few times a year or so. :

;D
I think it just goes to show that you don't need to be from Hollywood or some thing to become famous. Even somebody out in the middle of no where, can write a book and get a movie made. The fact that it can gain world wide attention is pretty cool! 8)

CHARLIE · December 27, 2004, 08:52:25 PM

Donna and I took our grandchildren to see it. I wan't looking forward to going, but as it turned out, I actually enjoyed the movie. That computer animation is really something. I have no idea why they stopped at Grand Rapids. You would have thought they'd have stopped in St.Paul, Minnesota instead. ;D

Furby · December 27, 2004, 09:32:36 PM

I haven't seen the movie so I'm not totally sure what you all are talking about, but the gentleman that wrote the storybook that the movie is based on, is from Grand Rapids. If I remember right, he dreamed up the story when he was little.
Maybe that answers some questions.

Ed · December 28, 2004, 05:39:59 AM

This is the locomotive that was used for the sound effects in the movie, It's located about 10 miles from me. Pretty neat.

http://www.mstrp.com/npephotos.htm

beetle · December 28, 2004, 05:53:48 AM

Great movie, I enjoy going to the theater to see these type shows. I get to spend time with my Son that I know I will mis when he gets older.

Today we are going sled riding, tomorrow four wheeling, ice skating Friday.

Paschale · December 28, 2004, 06:34:34 AM

From all that I've heard, it's an OK movie, but the way to see it is in 3-D at the IMAX theater. Sounds like the snowing scenes are pretty fun this way, and the train looks like it's about to land in the laps of the kiddos in the theater. ;)

Fabiola · December 28, 2004, 08:42:57 AM

:'(

Code Select

DON'T get her started on the snow thing!
Furby, how can you be so bad with me? :'(
It is NOT MY FAULT!!!!!!!!!!
The movie is good! I enjoyed I guees more than my nice and nephew did!
Not everybody knows but I do still dreaming about go to MSU to study! That means I WILL have to go to Grand Rapids! I like the name. Does eny one know why the town is called like that?
I will try to get the book in here and know more about the writter...

Paschale · December 28, 2004, 01:28:11 PM

Well, Fabiola, the reason Grand Rapids is called Grand Rapids is that the Grand River runs right through downtown. The river used to be filled with rapids, thus Grand Rapids. Apparently it was quite a sight to see the logjams that would pile up through Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids (or GR, as we call it) used to be the furniture capital of the world, so there was a huge hunger for lumber. Anyway, city planners years ago eliminated the rapids altogether, and there is now a series of several dams which smooth out the flow of the water. I often wish there were still the rapids roaring through downtown. Maybe Furby or I can dig up some old pictures of the logjams on the Grand River for you. You can sort of see a picture of the river and downtown Grand Rapids here, at the top of the webpage: http://www.grandrapids.org/

Jeff · December 28, 2004, 03:54:14 PM

Yep, you can watch guys fishing during the run for salmon and steelhead right down town.

Furby · December 28, 2004, 08:34:58 PM

Yep Jeff, the 6th street dam. Great place to see the fish being caught, but really busy when the fishing is hot!

Paschale,
If I remember right, there some great pics at the museum in the GR exibit. I don't think they will let us bring in cameras though. Gonna have to dig around for other pics.
I've always wanted a drawing of down town back when all the canals were there yet. I always thought it would be cool to see where all the canals ran.

Fabiola · December 29, 2004, 04:42:04 AM

Code Select

The river used to be filled with rapidsWhat rapids would means? Sorry about my english...
Paschale, I was looking at the site you sent but there is no pictures of the tonw.
Furby, is the picture you sent at the river?
You guys can send me post cards! I love post cards!
Think of it Jeff, a place where the menber could talk about theirs cities!
At least for me it would be nice!

woodmills1 · December 29, 2004, 06:30:11 AM

Up here we have a furniture store called Jordan"s Furniture run by two guys, Barry and Eliot. They have done pretty well with their reasonable fprices, quality products, and funny funny parody comercials starring both of them. They have expanded from one original store to at least 3 maybe 4 in Ma. and NH. One store even has a motion oddesy ride.

Well the newest one has a section that has scenes from Boston all built out of jelly beans, a place where for 10 bucks you can get on a trapeze, and an IMAX theater.

Kathy, the lovely Mrs. Wood got reserved tickets for the showing of Polar Express on Monday, seems almost every show sells out especially during vacation week. I wasn't really wanting to go and almost balked, but

What a great little movie and as mentioned in IMAX the 3D was spectacular. Go see it you will believe.

www.jordansimax.com/
www.jordans.com/
www.1000gems.com/monthlygems/070101.asp

sprucebunny · December 29, 2004, 06:59:53 AM

In North Conway, NH they've had an almost real live Polar Express for about ten years. They take people at night on the Conway Scenic RR up the line a ways to a destination that has been created to be like the story. It is always sold out instantly.
See more at www.polarexpress.org

Furby · December 29, 2004, 06:53:09 PM

Fab,
Go to this link: Grand Rapids, MI, look at the bottom of the page.

I know of a webcam that should show the area, but it is down right now. :-/

The pic you are thinking of is from Washington state, not GR.

Here is a pic of some rapids that I pulled off the web: Pic of rapids

The following link is from with in Sprucebunny's link: About the author

Furby · January 21, 2005, 06:30:50 PM

I was downtown a couple of weeks ago and forgot the camera. Today I was heading in that general direction so I grabbed the camera and made a slight detour.

This first pic is of the fish ladder at the Sixth St. Dam. The duck looked pretty darn cold, and I don't blame him as it was a warm 15 above out.

This is the Sixth St. Dam.

Ice breaking up as it flows over the dam.

One more looking South towards Downtown G.R.

I was going to try and get a couple of better shots from the Sixth St. Bridge, but I couldn't keep the batteries warm enough to take pics anymore. :

Paschale · January 21, 2005, 07:55:56 PM

Cool pics of our hometown, Furby! 8)

Furby · January 23, 2005, 08:08:20 PM

Well I was planning to go back down to the fishladder and dam on Mon. to see if there was any good pics after this latest snowfall and heavy frezze.
They just showed pics on the news. The ice jam has gotten worse and you can no longer see the dam or fish ladder.

Where I was standing when I took the pics above is totally under water/ice.

Furby · January 24, 2005, 09:29:36 PM

I picked up my brother after school today and we went down to the Sixth St. Dam. Here's a couple pics.

This would be looking at the dam, if you could see it.

This is looking down stream from the Sixth St. Bridge, towards downtown G.R.

This is the fish ladder, or what you can see of it.

The ice jams do happen from time to time here, just not this big very offten. The water had already gone down close to a foot, and you can see some open water that formed since Sun. afternoon. A couple of miles down stream the water had dropped about 2', and another couple of miles about 3'.
The Sixth St. Dam is the uppermost dam in a chain of dams going through downtown G.R., so you can see how bad this ice jam is.

Paschale · January 24, 2005, 10:06:02 PM

Cool pics, Furby! That's fun to see the ice jams. Makes me want to head out to the Lake (that'd be Lake Michigan, for all you non-Michiganders). I remember seeing ice jams in one of the boat channels a few years ago. The thing that was really pretty remarkable was the sound: all of those mini little icebergs, jammed together, rubbing up and down with the waves made the coolest sound I've ever heard. I can't really describe it, but it was a very eery, lonely sound that was absolutely unlike anything else I've ever heard before. I wanna go back now, since with this cold spell, there's sure to be plenty of ice in the channels!

Roxie · January 25, 2005, 03:01:14 AM

Fab,
Did anyone answer you about what 'rapids' are? In the states, we call rapidly flowing water, rapids. The Grand River had rapidly flowing water...so the town was named Grand Rapids. You might be more familiar with the term whitewater. That is what 'rapids' are.