General – Page 51 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Remembrances

Cynthia continues to chug away at the scrapbook for the trip to Spain. She’s completed Madrid, Seville, Segovia and Toledo.

Granada and Barcelona are going to be HUGE.

She’s already filled 1 1/2 giant binders full of photos, ephemera and her own recollections of the vacation. I bet this will be 4-6 binders by the time it’s done.

This has propelled me forward in processing my photos. I have completed the following galleries here at baldheretic.com

Madrid	Madrid – Retiro Park
Madrid – Segway Tour	Segovia
Seville	Seville – Alcazar
Cordoba	Toledo
Granada	Granada – The Alhambra

There’s a partial gallery for Barcelona, but it is not complete.

Oh, and I should not forget the nearly complete gallery for William The Well Travelled Sheep…

William The Sheep in Spain!

[tag]Spain, Madrid, Segovia, Seville, Toledo, Granada, Alhambra, photography, Sony Alpha 100, travel, Europe, Segway, Memories, Jay Lee[/tag]

Cynthia and I decided we’d go to the zoo and renew our memberships and take a walk through since it was such a lovely day. Once we took care of the renewal we headed head straight for the Meerkat exhibit, only to find it choked off with a wacky batch of seniors with an over abundance of very elaborate camera gear…

There were about 6 of them with high powered lenses, tripods and tricked out flash units not to mention backpacks, camera vests and various other sundry gear. It was rather comical, to say the least.

This guy was the most “loaded for bear” of them all…

Despite the camouflage, I am fairly certain the meerkats saw him in the abundant sunlight.

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Here’s a few of what I was able to capture using my limited equipment…

click for full size

Those seem a little sad so here’s a cute photo of the baby Orangutan playing peek-a-boo with a red blanket

click for full size

And here’s a pretty bird from the aviary

click for full size

fnord

Vintage animated GIFS on my home page
Not only that, they’re makin’ obscure and pretentious references…

A’yup

Oh Possum, Where Art Thou?

At Cynthia’s office there’s been an ongoing battle with an opossum that has taken up residence in a tree next to the parking garage. The creature has been hissing at people as they pass by so her employer tasked building management with its removal.

This has been going on for a few weeks now.
They’ve set a live animal trap, but to date have only captured the occasional stray cat.

I’ve been sending opossum pics to Cynthia’s work e-mail so she can taunt the failures of the opossum squad.

I found a good one that I decided to give the LOLcat treatment…

It was inspired by one I found and sent earlier

Happy New Year!

2007 was, without a doubt, an AWESOME year for Cynthia and myself!

The photography keeps evolving we’ve had a blast with it this year.

We planned and executed our most ambitious vacation ever!

Our jobs remain steady (knock wood)

We have our health (knock wood again)

All in all, no complaints. Good health, good friends and good times.
We can only hope that 2008 will bring more of the same.

Here’s to a healthy and prosperous new year for us all!

And a special wish for all my photographer friends that the world around us remains full of interesting and dynamic subjects for us to aim our lenses at!

*photo courtesy of Cynthia

Antique Rings

These rings belonged to my grandmother and are from the turn of the century.
I had great fun shooting these pictures.
I put the camera on a tripod, finagled a flashlight and a LED lamp and then set a magnifying glass on edge and shot through it to get these.

I paid particular attention to this one…

12 Giraffes Of Christmas

As in years past, Cynthia’s family sends us a few boxes of Christmas presents via the US Postal Service. It’s always nice to have them to open on Christmas day since we usually just celebrate with the two of us.

This year there was the expected assortment of wrapped gifts from Cynthia’s mother and some of her sisters.

There was also included an unusual set of numbered gifts from her sister Patricia in Florida. These came with a note indicating to open these IN ORDER. There were 12 in all and we puzzled over them a bit before putting them under the tree.

This morning we got up and had breakfast and then proceeded to exchange gifts and open up the presents from Cynthia’s family. We decided the gifts with the special instructions should go first.

Cynthia opened the first one and looked at it and I exclaimed “It’s a giraffe in a pear tree!!!”

It was a hand-made Christmas ornament of a giraffe climbing a pear tree. With 11 more to unwrap, we knew where this was heading. Yup, the 12 Giraffes Of Christmas. Each one hand-made by Patricia and representing a play on the 12 Days Of Christmas. And they’re all ornaments for Cynthia giraffe tree which will now have to be a full sized tree next year.

My favorites are the “calling birds” giraffe dressed in hunting gear with an orange lined hat and a bird call, the “maids-a-milking” giraffe dressed as a cow with a little cow-bell on his neck and the “French Hens” giraffe, replete with beret, baggett and bottle of wine that says “Chateau Giraffe 2007” on the label.

Click on any of the images below to see a more detailed shot.