Here is a preview look at the Arnold Palmer designed North Carolina State University Lonnie Poole Golf course, located inside the beltline near the NCSU Centennial Campus and the NC Farmers Market. Looks like it should be opening spring/summer this year. It offers a great view of the Raleigh skyline…

Lonnie Pool Golf Course Sign, Raleigh

Overview of a few holes on the Lonnie Pool Golf Course, Raleigh

Bunkers on the Lonnie Pool Golf Course, Raleigh

Lonnie Pool Golf Course, Raleigh

Raleigh Skyline

Sprinklers on the course

Rainbow in the sprinkler, with the skyline

Lonnie Pool Golf Course, Raleigh

Lonnie Pool Golf Course, Raleigh

Lonnie Pool Golf Course, Raleigh

A kite flies high above the city of Raleigh

Beamer Power Kite

Lonnie Pool Golf Course, Raleigh

Blue sky from the NCSU Golf course

Nighttime skyline from the course

People traveling into downtown Raleigh via South Saunders Street will be greeted with a rather large welcome sign as of this week. It comes on the heels of other similarly styled way finding signs around the downtown grid. At least it is better than that temporary Extreme Home Makeover sign from early 2007, seen here.

The New “Welcome to Raleigh” sign.

Look to the bottom right of the MLK overpass to spot the sign.

A few months ago I bought an inexpensive solid state video camera to just leave in the car and capture random subjects with. The image quality isn’t too great (the sound is particularly inadequate), but its not bad for the price. It won’t cut it for the occasional Weather Channel broadcast video, but its so small that you can get away with shots you wouldn’t want to attempt with something more expensive.

While shooting the sunset from the Duke Raleigh Hospital parking garage on Wake Forest Road for the recent March photo series, I set the video camera up to record the scene while I took photographs. This video is about 1 hour reduced to 25 seconds.

Notice the Wake Forest Road I-440 beltline exit traffic.

Now what is a scenario where you might not want to risk an expensive piece of equipment? A 250,000 pound train locomotive running over top of the equipment might qualify.

A note on the recent train “themed” subjects: My wife’s Dad is a locomotive engineer for Norfolk Southern and is 2 months away from 34 years with the railroad. If you ask him, he’ll tell you (to the day) how many days he has left until retirement. That being said, Beth and I thought we’d capture him in action while we still have the opportunity.