Railroad Days - 2007

The Durham Western Heritage Museum, Lauritzen Gardens and the Union Pacific Railroad Museum joined together for Railroad Days - 2007. A single ten dollar admission fee granted the entire family admission to all three locations for the entire weekend. Buses carried patrons from site to site.

A few locomotives were on display at the Western Heritage museum. Photos of these and the permanent railroad displays are here.

The new garden railroad was open to the public for the first time at Lauritzen Gardens. The large locomotives at Kenefick Park were available as usual. Here are photos a few photos.

I didn't make it to the UP museum during Railroad days. That will have to wait for another time.

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Invasion of the Fireworks Monsters

Every year, just before the Fourth of July, the suburbs of Omaha are invaded by giant monsters.

Fireworks, banned in Omaha, are legal in the suburbs. Stands like these sprout up overnight. Each location sells fireworks to raise funds for a different charity.

I've always appreciated the irony of selling fireworks to support the volunteer fire department.

For more random street scenes, click here.

Neighborhood Street Repair

After 25 years, many of the neighboorhood streets were in need of repair.

Large sections of the street were removed and replaced.

The construction made it difficult to get around the neighborhood for a few days. A little exploring was necessary, every evening, to find a new route home.

For a few more photos, click here.

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Coal Train Leaves the Tracks

The Fourth of July was exciting for the crew of this train.

Several hoppers of coal jumped the tracks and dumped their contents on the embankment.

More photos here.

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Pentax K10D - early results

Pentax has released a pair of Single Lens Reflex cameras with an upgraded version of the Shake Reduction feature introduced in their point & shoot line of cameras.

The K10D, a full-featured, weather sealed, 10MP, SLR hit the stores in the USA just before Thanksgiving. You'll find examples and discussion in all of the regular places.

The shot included here was hand-held at 1/8th second. Normally, I'd not be able to take a steady shot at any speed less than 1/30th second. This is a very significant improvement.

Unlike it's competitors, Canon and Nikon, Pentax chose to build the SR feature into the body. This makes it immediately useful with most any lens compatible with the K-mount.

The K10D has been an instant hit. The initial deliveries were sold out within a couple of days.

Here's a gallery of sample shots from the K10D.

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