The final sunset of 2011

I have no idea what kind of bird this is. I just thought it looked kind of cool.

It's fun to go back and look at some old shots that maybe didn't leave much of an impressiion when you first went through the files. Sometimes you find something, or maybe just look at it differently and a little bell goes off. something tells you "It may look cool if you..."

In Texas, about 38 miles North of Pecos, is a ghost town by the name of Orla. We went through it a couple of years ago and I can't resist taking pictures of old abandoned buildings. I did a little bit of research and found that at one time, Orla had a couple of hundred people. As of 2005, the official population was 2.

From Tybee Island, Savannah Ga.

I just got back from getting my new glasses. I'm excited, I can see again. This photography thing may get even more fun now.

Alley in Savannah Ga. Saw this guy taking a smoke break.

I got out on the water today... even took my camera but nothing really got my attention. This is one from the archives.

I have not been good about posting for a while. I have been a little busy. I know it is a little late for a Halloween theme but this is going up anyway.

OK just one more from the Wormsloe Plantation. I couldn't resist this candid shot. This kid looked to be about 15 and was probably dragged against his will to be part of the group doing the pioneer reenactment. He looked so bored when he was sitting there. I could imagine him wishing that someone would come along with a musket and put him out of his misery.

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The Wormsloe Plantation has demonstrations showing how the early settlers lived. Occasionally, and this turned out to be one of those times, a group comes in and reenacts those times. This is a small section of their camp.

Just outside of Savannah is an historic site called the Wormsloe Plantation. A settler named Noble Jones who was one of the original settlers in Savannah owned the plantation. It is now a state park. This is the oak lined road in.

Another from the Savannah botanical gardens.

We go to Savannah fairly regularly and have seen a lot of the stuff there. We had never been to the Botanical Gardens. It was not a huge place but it was worth going.

I haven't posted on here lately. The main reason is that I haven't really had anything new to put up and I was getting tired of going through old stuff. Well, we went to Savannah for the weekend so I should have plenty of new stuff to post. This is from a shop on River St. I'm not sure if this is still an operating establishment or not  (I don't really think so though).

This kind of thing happens when I get bored and have time to play around.

Thought I would throw one up (a picture that is) before I go to bed. You would think as many pictures of flowers that I take, I would know what kind some of them are. Usually not.

Sunset over Estero Island Fl., taken on one of those sunset nature tours.

Foggy morning at an outlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Marketplace shop.

Another beautiful Central Florida Sunset.

Old window shutter.

No commentary, just a picture.

I got this shot while wandering around DeLand Fl. 

I left the house this morning with every intention of taking something new to post today. Unfortunately, the events of the day were not consistent with that goal. I got out on the lake, ran to my intended fishing spot and started casting. It was still a little dark to try to take a photo without benefit of a tripod so I figured I would fish for a while and then look for a photo op. On about the third cast I boated my first (and as it turned out my only) bass of the day. While I was trying to free her from the hooks, she flipped and two of the barbs on one of the treble hooks sank into my index and middle fingers of my right hand. Of course the fish kept on flopping driving the hooks in even further. I finally pinned the bass down and got the hooks out of her. Now I had only to deal with the ones in me. I cut the hooks loose from the lure and started attempting surgery. The one in my index finger happened to be on the side of my finger and the point had gone all the way through. That made it easy as I only had to push it the rest of the way through and out the other side. The one in my middle (or bird finger if you prefer) was another story. It want right into the finger just below the first knuckle. All of my efforts to extract it failed so I had to pack it up and go to CentraCare. It is now out and It looks like I have a cast on my finger. This was a rare day where I think a day at work may have been better.

Anyway, since I didn't get anything new for today, here is another from the archives. This was taken several years ago in Chicago.

Today I had the opportunity to shoot a small wedding for friends in Winter Park. It turned out to be a beautiful day for an outdoor wedding. Congratulations Moe and Joe.

From Savannah Ga.

Last year in Savannah, I ran across this scene. I thought it was interesting to note that while you may think you have done everything right, somebody will think of something that you didn't.

This is a companion shot of the previous post. This is an abandoned store and Post Office.

We were told we were nuts and that we would end up killing each other but a couple of years ago we drove a rental truck full of our son's stuff to California when he moved out there. Fortunately, we were not on a tight schedule so we could take our time and visit places like the Alamo, and a plantation outside of New Orleans. I also had the opportunity to stop whenever I saw something interesting and take a photo.It really was a lot of fun. I would do it again though I think it would be better in a car. This was an old abandoned gas station in western Arizona.

During our recent Chicago visit, we took a day trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to meet up with an old friend Tom and his wife Susan. Tom and I were bandmates back in the good old days of the early '80s. While there, we visited a very unique piece of architecture, The Milwaukee Art Museum. As you can see it is built to resemble a ship. It really was an interesting building, all white inside and out with the exception of the art itself. I would recommend this to anyone visiting the city.




This second shot is lookng up into the "mast"





One of the halls.

This sculpture was on the walkway to the museum.

I had a long day on the lake today. It started out with the alarm going off at 3:00 am. It was time for our June tournament on Lake Conway in Orlando. I arrived at the lake about 5:00. and fished until the weigh in at 2:15. A lot of fish were caught today but no really big ones. It only took about 8.5 lbs to win. I did have a 5 fish limit but finished down a little (probably in the top 10 out of about 30) with about 6.5 lbs. I guess I have had worse days. Any way, I just felt like posting a picture. This was from a while back. I took a little trek one evening down to the St. Johns River to photograph this old railroad bridge. It reminds me of going fishing with my dad over on the coast. We used to go over a draw bridge on our way to Haulover Canal in Merritt Island. He commented that the perfect post retirement job would be to fish all day while periodically getting up to push a lever to let a boat go through. That doesn't sound like too bad of an idea.

The first couple of days that we were in Chicago, the weather was not very good. It was chilly, cloudy, foggy, and rainy most of day Saturday (our first full day there). We booked one of those double decker trolley tours that lets you get on and off as much as you like for 3 days. On Saturday, we spent most of the time inside. The trolley leaked so badly that they eventually called for another so we could transfer into a dry one. Hey, it's all part of the adventure right? This first pictue was taken from the Navy Pier, once a part of the Great Lakes Naval Base and the place where pilots would practice for landing on an aircraft carrier. Now it is home to many eateries, boat tours, and a giant ferris wheel.



On Sunday we had tickets to see the Cubs play. That is why these Chicago trips were originally started in 2004, for Matt (our son) and I to take a few days to get away to watch a couple of games. Since he now lives in California and we don't get to see him very often, Reba (my wife) went with us this year. We took the red train from where we were staying to the ballpark and arrived at around 10:30am. They don't open the park up until an hour and a half before the game so we had some time to kill, walking around Wrigleyville, buying Cubs apparel and generally sightseeing. About a half hour later, it looked like the sky was going to open up so we ducked into a little sports bar to wait it out. We were just in time. It poured down rain for about an hour. It finally let up and we were able to enter the park. Every time it looked like it would clear up, another band of showers would come through. They finally got the game started almost 3 hours late. The Cubs won the game so all in all it was a good day. The next two photos were random street shots from near Wrigley Field.