Misc sights from the weekend…
and…
Succulents and sunflowers.
Misc sights from the weekend…
and…
Tag: photoblog
80 is the new 70!
We celebrated mom’s birthday at a luncheon with family and friends. It was lovely.
Ten years ago, i was unable to attend her 70th birthday surprise party due to the US airspace remaining closed after the 9/11 attack. How quickly a decade has slipped away. But, I’m glad we were able to make it here this time to celebrate with everyone.
Cerulean.
We are both up in Seattle this weekend to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday. I flew in last night and we stayed with Patrick and Nga. This morning we went to breakfast in Ballard at the Fisherman’s Terminal. It’s a marina strictly for commercial fishing boats. This is the home of many of the crab boats on the show Deadliest Catch. Below is a shot of the memorial to fisherman lost at sea..
After breakfast we drove around to the peninsula to meet up with my family for the rest of the weekend.
Friendly skies.
Headed back to Austin for a laundry run. It drizzled in Dallas this afternoon. On the approach to AUS I was hoping that was a thundercloud, but it was not.
Today is the last day of Summer 2011. Sad, but hoping cooler and, more importantly, wetter weather lies ahead.
New York state of mind.
We had another full day today at the THINK Forum. Today’s speakers included the President of the Philippines, President of Costa Rica, CEOs or Chief Scientists from Dupont, Royal Dutch Shell, Dow Chemical, Bharti, ICICI Bank, Mars (chocolate company, not the planet), the head of the World Trade Organization, Charlie Rose the TV guy, Tom Friedman the Foreign Affairs columnist for the New York Times… to name a few.
After the last session I decided to walk, and I took a detour through Central Park. By the time I got close to my hotel they had several blocks completely closed to car and pedestrian traffic. They had 2 large garbage trucks pulled across each of the the intersections to prevent someone from driving a car through the barricades. Apparently, Obama was leaving his hotel, which is right across the street from my hotel. I couldn’t get anywhere near my hotel for another 30 minutes or so. I also learned from our doorman that the President of Iran – Ahmadinejad – is in the hotel cate-corner to mine. Tough neighborhood.
Anyway, I eventually got back to my hotel in time to shower, shampoo and shine and get ready to head to the Rose Hall, the Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center for a special, one time performance in honor of the IBM Centennial. Kind of funny to see all my fellow IBMers dressed in black tie and formal gowns. The performance was commissioned by IBM especially to celebrate this occasion. It was AWESOME. Morgan Freeman was the emcee, and performers included the Julliard Orchestra, singer Jessye Norman, modern dance performers, violinist Joshua Bell, Steve Martin, and Patty LaBelle. Here’s a shot of the troupe on stage after the finale.
The current and last 2 CEOs (and i’m pretty sure the next one) were in the audience, as were the grandkids of TJ Watson. Afterwards, we had dinner at the Opera House. I’m back in the hotel now, and am very tired, but inspired, and a little spoiled. 🙂
Hallelujah!!
I decided to take the afternoon off today. So Monte and I went out to lunch, something we haven’t done in a while. As we were getting back in the car, it started to sprinkle. We stood there in awe… It has been so long since any rain has fallen, and even longer since any rain that has fallen has stuck around long enough to make a difference.
By the time we got to our house it was raining lightly, but only for about 15 minutes or so. Let’s hope there’s more in store in the next few days.
Survivors.
If you’re keeping track, yesterday was the 85th day of 100+ degree heat in Austin this year. Today we have cooler temps due to a cold front that has passed through. Yippee!!! That means temps dropping down into the 90s. 😐
I wandered out back today surveying the crackly brown landscape. Somehow, the morning glory vine still has some life left in it. Since this Spring, it has grown up and around the 7′ obelisk in the garden, and is all brown and seedy, except for this crown of blooms.
House guest.
We are bird sitting Mr. Echo while Tom and Doray are off to California for a week of vacation. I’ve tried to get a close-up shot of his unusual eye, but it isn’t working out. This is a cropped version of a longer shot. You get the idea. Mr. Echo is a red-bellied parrot (with orange eyes).
Never Forget.
We spent this day, the 10 year anniversary of the bombing of the World Trade Center, together with fellow B-dockers at the marina. We were all mindful of what day it was, but really enjoyed spending time away from the painful reminders and just enjoyed talking, fishing, floating and trading stories with friends.
The lake is at 632 and change – 3 feet from the low of 2 years ago, which will surely be surpassed. It’s sad to see the pasture out back that Hurst Cove south has become. This (poorly stitched together) panorama shows the view off the back of the marina looking towards Lakeway Park. Across the way you can see Hurst Harbor Marina (on land). All their boats have been moved across the lake long ago. Also missing is Johnny Finn’s floating restaurant that has been moved again to the mouth of the cove.
The shot below is Sail & Ski marina on the other side of the marina, looking out towards the main body of the lake. All the docks have been stacked to make 3 long docks. Johnny Finn’s is in the distance, right in the mouth of the cove. On the far right you can see the private docks stacked up on land in the dry finger of the cove.
Harvest Moon Slip-up.
It’s a full-moon weekend, which means another get together with our sailing friends. We have taken to doing “slip-ups” lately, instead of raft-ups, because it’s getting a bit unwieldy to raft-up bunches of boats together in the shrinking coves. So we party on the dock instead of at anchor. This is the Harvest Moon full-moon weekend, and to celebrate we wanted to do something big. So, Ramon graciously offered to roast a pig. So… how do you do that on a dock at a marina? Well, you use one of these things in the picture above – a caja china. Robert and Ramon set up on the middle of the newly-extended F, A & B Dock. The pig is inside the box on a rack, and the coals are above on a tray.
It turned out delicious. We had a TON of people, as Texas Sailing brought many of their boat owners over from Lakeway Marina who stayed in guest slips overnight. Tasha would know for sure, but we think there were about 50 people or more there.
A good time was had by all. iPod wars on Cupholder wrapped up about 3 or 4 AM. And, oh by the way, Mike, Wally, Robert and David stayed up all night playing dominoes and generally making a racket all through the night on Allegro in her neighboring slip. Crazy kids!
Orange tulip.
Fresh flower shot….I can’t resist tulips.
Too close for comfort.
As you may be aware, Central Texas is ablaze with wildfires. The drought has made conditions extreme for fire danger, and the high winds we got (instead of rain) from Tropical Storm Lee over the weekend fanned the flames far and wide.
Today I was working from home and had the windows open, because the “cold front” that blew through over the weekend left the temperatures in the (relatively) pleasant 80-90 degree range. The winds have been blowing out of the north, so much of the smoke has not blown into Austin, as the fires are mostly east and west of the city.
Around noon I smelled smoke and figured the wind had shifted and we were smelling smoke from the Bastrop fire east of us, or maybe the Spicewood fire west of us. I went outside and it was snowing fine, white ash. I walked out front and saw a plume of dark smoke high over the greenbelt/park at the end of our street. Then I heard the sirens.
They evacuated our street from the park to just one house away from us. We spent the afternoon watering down the roof and packing the car with stuff that seemed important at the time.
Apparently there were 4 or 5 different fires in the park. They think these were started by someone intentionally – unimaginable. There were 3 engines down the street for most of the afternoon. Two were fighting the fire in the park, and one was standing by to protect homes, if the situation turned. This is a shot of one of the engines just a few houses away.
Thankfully the latest status is that the fire is contained and the evacuation has been lifted. Power came back on about an hour ago. Everyone in the neighborhood is on edge.
I pray that all the current fires are soon contained, and that no new ones are started.
Up a creek with a paddle.
Today we hooked the trailer up, packed up my kayak and stopped by the marina to borrow another one from friends on b-dock. We are headed to the San Marcos river, which we have tubed for many years, but this time are going to paddle.
The San Marcos is a spring-fed river, and even though we are in a severe drought, it continues to flow with crystal clear, cool water. We put in at City Park here, and first paddled upstream as far as we could go. Then we paddled down stream to the Lion’s Club take-out point and took our kayaks over the 3 rapids there and went a little farther downstream.
As we headed back we got a workout on a couple sections, and in carrying the kayaks back up the rocks around the 3 rapids.
As usual, I like to look for found objects. I would have loved to have found my prescription raybans that I lost last summer on the rapids, but I didn’t. We did however find a couple pairs of flip flops. I found a matched pair of Corona flip flops, one upstream and one downstream, and Monte has claimed these (you can see the first one that I found in the picture above. I hadn’t found its mate yet). I also found a matched pair of little baby flip flops, which we gave to a woman and her baby that were playing in the water when we got back to City Park.
We took lots of pictures. It’s funny that I’ve never noticed how many fish are in the river. I guess all the times we have tubed we didn’t really notice because you aren’t looking down into the river when perched on your tube.
Here is a picture of a water bird striking an odd pose that we encountered along the way…
Virtual Friday!
Today is Thursday, but it is the day before a much needed 4 day weekend! I’m taking tomorrow off, and Monday is Labor Day, and am looking forward to relaxing with my sweetie.
Cheers!
Sheila365 