This has blown up on YouTube the past couple of days - apparently the Federal Trade Commission is putting teeth into COPPA (Child Online Privacy Protection Act), to the tune of a $42,530 fine per violation (video)... since most of the world considers what we do to be "playing with toys," what we put up on YouTube can potentially fall afoul of this. 

I'm at the scan party at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center, and Rapido has announced the PA-1 and PB with TCS Wow Sound. 

Sorry it is sideways. MRH: We fixed it.

Some may remember that when my wife and I went to Salt Lake City for the NMRA National Convention, we ended up spending the first evening at a Home Free concert (my wife's favorite music group, which she did not know until that day was in the area). Well, we are in Nashville, TN for a Home Free concert at the Ryman Auditorium ("The mother church of country music") this weekend. Wandering around town, waiting to check into the hotel, we stopped by the Tennessee Central RR museum, which was founded by the local NMRA division.

When I realized I had 82 photos under this category, I decided it deserved it's own blog post. To put it simply, the Northern Utah Division, PSR, NMRA was definitely out there in promoting the hobby to the youth of the area, and were happy to show how they were doing it.

I've decided to give the layout photos their own blog post, primarily because there are going to be a lot of photos here, so there will be some pretty long pages. 

On Friday I decided to try something different - I have a 10-18mm wide angle lens, and I wanted to see how well it would do for layout photography. I went back to my normal 18-135mm zoom on Saturday, because I decided I wanted the ability to zoom in more than I could with the 10-18. 

On with the layouts.... 

Okay, it's 8:30pm-ish here in Salt Lake City. The train show has been over for 4 1/2 hours (not including post show teardown time) and I'm just now getting to this. Dinner with Joe, Patty, Eric and my wife was lovely. 

Fair warning... this may take a couple days. My wife and I drove down here in two days, the first was about 8 1/2 hours, the second 3/12 hours. Google says it's going to take 12 1/2 hours straight driving to get home (not counting food, bathroom, and fuel breaks). 

I have sort of a tradition at these events... falling way behind. I'd pretty much avoided that this week (Contest Room was definitely slipping though), but tonight.... full stop. 

No, nothing bad. 

Welcome to the National Train Show! Model Railroad Hobbyist is in Booth 1026, and we'd love to say Hi!

Thursday of NMRA Convention week is one that is looked forward to with both anticipation and a bit of trepidation. It is load-in and setup day for the National Train Show. 

This means that for the vendors and layout participants they've got to get everything up and running in a fairly limited amount of time - while everyone else is trying to drive their truck and trailer around you. 

It's the day you find what didn't survive the trip to the show, and what you forgot to pack or bring with you. 

I've decided to put all the contest room photos in their own blog entry. 

Let's start with the carousel video I shot yesterday -