Friday, February 20, 2009

Creatures

So yesterday morning I'm standing at the window after breakfast and there's a bunch of deer in the garden, as often happens.

If you stand very still, sometimes they don't notice you. And if you get lucky, they are more intent on chewing grass than looking in the window. So this particular individual was about four feet away from me, just by the house, while I was wielding my camera in her direction.

She has a very sore looking back foot, it looks like all the skin has been scraped off it. She seems to pick it up more than her other feet, it must hurt.



Meanwhile, it was Birdy Breakfast, if you were a sparrow, anyway. Six of them were clustered around Feeder No.1:



We actually bought another feeder, the same as this one. Feeder No.2 is installed a few feet away, under a bushier tree. The cardinals seem to prefer it over there now and the seed level is dropping at one heck of a rate. I guess they like the extra shelter.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Chuck's Deli


I can be found in this cafe most Thursdays. Behold the Chuck Salad, which is most delicious.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Medicine


Awesome: you can actually buy chill pills! Spotted in HEB.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Clay Shooting

Here's a few shots from yesterday's sporting clays annihilation.

First up, an arty I-35 shot, where the flyover from 290 crosses over, as we're heading north:


Here's our mob's shadows at station 2. Our target has just leapt from the trap.


This used to be a small lake. It is now a clay graveyard. We need rain!


Larry shooting, while Alan pushes the buttons. If you look really close, you can see the two clays. Larry has just broken the higher of the two; you can see it's a bigger smudge as opposed to a sharp dot.


This is a 1:1 crop of a pic of a Rabbit target, running across the edge of the bigger lake (which is also much depleted of water).


This is a target leaving the trap on station 12.


And finally, another arty shot, this time of the big Agave cactus by the clubhouse.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Office Space

There's a film called 'Office Space' which has been a cult classic since it was released ten years ago. It was made by Mike Judge (who also does 'King of the Hill' and 'Beavis and Butthead') and filmed right here in Austin. I managed to snag two tickets to the 10th Anniversary screening of the film at the Paramount Theater on 7th and Congress.

Sadly, both Alan and I have been full of the lurgy. Mine has mostly gone now but Alan has been knocked for six by it for the last week and he's still not right. So much as he wanted to see the film, he didn't think he would last the night. So I called Tamzin to see if she wanted to go. Which she did.

Here's a blog post which shows some of the actors arriving (wetwired.org). You can also just see me in the last picture of Samir, I'm the one with the bright blue shirt holding my phone aloft which is bright with flash.

Here's a video report from KVUE News. Oh, and it's made the Rolling Stone too!

It was pretty cool; about a dozen of the cast were present for some Q&A after the film. When they arrived, a printer was placed on the pavement and each cast member had a go at it with a baseball bat! (This will only make sense if you have seen the film). We walked in over a 'Jump to Conclusions' mat and went upstairs to take our seats in the stratosphere, it's an old theatre with very steep tiers.

Watching the film with an audience who know and love the film was good, the place was filled with laughter and cheering from start to finish. Great atmosphere. I think Tamzin enjoyed it too.

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Washing planes


I washed this Bleriot earlier before photographing it for a client.


Here's the aircraft after a bit of magic pixel dust:



It is a bit crispy


This sign is outside the fire station in Kingsbury. We so desperately need rain!

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Ballooning again

The balloon club decided to grab a flight on Saturday morning as the winds were forecast to be calm and the sky blue.

So lots of people assembled at a school off Braker Lane to fly. Five balloons turned out which they tell me is a bit of a record for a club flight.

I ended up crewing for Rusty, who had me on the inflation fan to begin with, followed by radio and navigation duty in the chase car. I can see that I might have to get some practise in driving vehicles with trailers if I'm going to make a habit of crewing. Lynn drove this time though so all was well.

The balloons flew about 30-40 minutes although it didn't feel that long at all. They found themselves heading directly for Bird's Nest Airport, so landed in that nice friendly space while they could.

Back to the launch site for some tailgating; strawberries and champagne!

Sam's Texas Twist and Dick's Big Boy


Phil's home-made balloon


Rusty's Confetti


Nick and Dick