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Thursday - August 30, 2007

Sunset at the Palace

We went to the Westwood game tonight. They (yes, the infamous "they") refer to the RRISD stadium as "The Palace" which always makes me laugh. It really is quite spectacular...as far as high school stadiums go. The sun was setting as we got there:

Posted by Joanna at 11:31 PM | Permalink

Sunday - August 26, 2007

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I wanted to find something special to post for Dad's birthday but I seem to be suffering from a bit of a brain freeze. So, I'm just gonna post pictures of Jennie's doggies. She claims that Snuggles shares a birthday with Dad so maybe that'll do. By the by, I took these photos yesterday. And, so...

Here's Romeo:

And, here's Snuggles:

Cute, aren't they? Dumb as posts. But, cute.

Posted by Joanna at 5:40 PM | Permalink

Friday - August 24, 2007

The moon!

I was driving home from work a few days ago the moon just looked so nice in the sky. So, I grabbed my camera when I got home and took a couple of shots. I liked this one best:

And, as I drove home tonight, again I was entranced. There were some wispy clouds floating around, looking very cool. By the time I got home, though, and had my camera out, the clouds had disappeared. But, the moon was still very cool looking:

Wow. Eh? I hope I have a nice view in a few days when it's full. And, that I remember to get my camera out.

Posted by Joanna at 11:08 PM | Permalink

Thursday - August 23, 2007

Rainbow at the Mall, Part 5 (the end)

Sorry it took so long to get back to this story. And, again: no rainbow in the photo. Such is life.

After it got darker, I walked up to one of the trees and tried to get a close-up of the birds. I think there are about 375 birds in that photo. No, really. Here's a shot of the same photo with a pink dot on each bird:

I couldn't help of thinking of that Hitchcock movie. The vast number of birds and the sound they made. Wow.

Posted by Joanna at 11:24 PM | Permalink

Wednesday - August 8, 2007

Rainbow at the Mall, Part 4

Okay. So, there's no rainbow in the photo. But, it's a continuation of the story that started with the attempt to take a photo of a rainbow. So, the title remains.

Look at all those birds! That's a decorative structure near the main entrance to the mall. I bet when the architects designed it they never envisioned it playing home to thousands of purple martins. What do you think? I counted about 900 birds in that photo. No really. Using a full-resolution photo and my paintbrush tool in Photoshop, I put a dab of paint on each bird that I could see. After every 10 dots, I'd make a hash mark. And, I ended up with 90 hash marks. Wow.

Here's a close-up:

Kinda scary, isn't it? The noise was something else. Yikes.

Still more purple martin photos on the way.

Posted by Joanna at 11:30 PM | Permalink

Tuesday - August 7, 2007

Rainbow at the Mall, Part 3

Look! Even more birds. There were thousands of them. Thousands and thousands and thousands.

I can't begin to guess how many times I've driven by the mall in the summer at about dusk over the last few years and seen all the thousands and thousands of birds that hang out there round about sunset. I always thought they were grackles. I never stopped and actually looked, though. Since I was there trying to take photos of the rainbow, I saw the birds close-up. And, it was clear that the vast majority of them were not, in fact, grackles. It looks like there's one grackle in this photo. He (she?) is the one that's so much bigger than the others...near the right edge.

The situation was rather creepy. It felt very much like Hitchcock's The Birds and it made me feel kinda nervous. As I was snapping photos, a gentleman and his daughter walked up to talk to me about the birds. The little girl was about 7 or 8 and was walking around with an umbrella to avoid the obvious...what with all those birds flying around. Not a bad idea. He told me the birds were purple martins. And, it looks to be true. Apparently, the birds are staging as they get ready for their trek to Brazil for the winter. Cool.

And, when I turned around and looked across Airport Blvd., I could see even more of those birds flying toward the mall for the night.

More purple martin photos on the way.

Posted by Joanna at 8:59 PM | Permalink

Thursday - August 2, 2007

Rainbow at the Mall, Part 2

Getting back to business. I said that there was more to the story of the rainbow photo a couple of days ago. Check this out:

I actually took this photo about 35 minutes before the photo I posted on Monday. But, the light was better in the other one and you could see the rainbow much more clearly. Anyway, I was trying to get some "artsy" photos. To wit: rainbow + flags + airplane!

But, do you notice something else? Like the big black smudges in the sky? Those are not big black smudges on my camera lens or sensor. Nope. Those are birds. And, if you look carefully at the photo I posted on Monday, you can see some smudges it in as well. You can mostly see them near the top of the photo. The things that look like gray streaks are actually thin wispy clouds.

I repeat: there's more to the story. And, I will be back.

Posted by Joanna at 5:32 PM | Permalink

Wednesday - August 1, 2007

Fiddle Wizard

Here's a photo of how my evening went:

It's been a long two days at work. This evening ended on the perfect note (so to speak) with an evening at Threadgills listening to the Damian Green Band. Fun, fun, fun!

PS: Entry #100 to JoJo's Photobox. Woo hoo!

Posted by Joanna at 10:49 PM | Permalink

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