I now have a new digital Single Lens Reflex camera. After a lot of looking and investigation, I finally decided to buy the Sony A100 digital SLR. The deciding factor was that the Sony takes the lenses I already have. About a year ago, Minolta sold their camera divisions to Sony. The A100 is Sony’s first camera using the Minolta technology plus their own technology. The three lenses I already have fit the camera very nicely and all work correctly. That meant I only needed to buy the camera body and the Sony had sufficient capability for what I use a digital SLR for. I checked several websites and then went downtown to the local Inkley’s store. They were willing to come within about $40 of what the online price was and having access to their support made the deal. I took a few test pictures, but this one is the first real picture taken with the new camera. It’s so nice to be back in the digital world again!

Union Pacific Railroad’s #844 Steam Engine came to Pocatello Friday evening on May 4th. This was one of those Big Deal events in a railroad town like Pocatello. The train was making it’s way from Cheyenne, Wyoming (home base for the engine) to Tacoma, Washington and back. It will be back in Pocatello on Sunday, May 27th and will be open for tours all day on the 28th. You can be sure that we will be there, along with a cast of thousands, to look, touch, take pictures, and buy souveniers.

I did take a bunch of pictures — four rolls of film in all — and picked out a bunch to put in the picture album. This was old technology work. My Minolta digital SLR was stolen and my Sony Cybershot camera is in the repair shop. So I reverted back to 35mm film using my Minolta Maxxum 9 SLR. It’s time to buy a new digital SLR. Since Minolta got out of the camera business and sold it all to Sony, I think I’ll buy a Canon camera to be compatible with Nina. Now it’s just a choice of finding the best deal either in town or on the Internet. When #844 comes back to Pocatello, I want to be taking digital pictures this time!

We have just returned from Soda Springs and spending some time with mother and dad. It’s been a fairly cold day and snow was coming down when we left Soda Springs to come back to Pocatello. Today was also Train Day. Union Pacific’s big 844 Steam Engine was coming through the area and would be spending the night in Pocatello. The train was supposed to arrive at 2:30 and the web site said that the train often ran early. But, wonders of technology, the train has a global positioning system onboard and the railroad has an interactive map that shows the location of the train. At 2 p.m. the train was still in Wyoming and was running at least 3 hours late. Since we were planning to drive to Soda Springs after watching the train, we decided to go first to Soda Springs and watch the train come through there instead. It worked out well. We arrived at mother’s house, checked the web site, and waited until the train was about twenty minutes away. We drove downtown and got (hopefully) some great pictures of the train coming into town.

Since it’s spending the night in Pocatello and leaving tomorrow morning, we decided to go find the train after we got back to Pocatello. We found we could drive right up to it and walk all around the train. That engine is absolutely massive. We took a few more pictures and will be there in the morning when the train leaves to take more. Since I don’t have a digital camera right now, I went back to my older Minolta Maxxum 9 SLR film camera. It’s been perhaps a couple of years since I’ve used that camera and I’ve now opened the body twice before the film rewound. It’s a good thing there’s still more opportunities to take pictures of the train!

I’ve finally gotten the rest of the pictures in the picture album from my trip to Manila as well as Stephanie’s birthday. In addition, I took a little bit of video from Danielle’s International Children’s Choir concert. It’s about 33mb large, which isn’t too bad. You can watch the video by clicking here.