Houston – Page 29 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Tall blondes

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It is no secret that Cynthia’s absolute favorite creature on the entire planet is the giraffe.

The first time I ever visited Cynthia’s apartment when we were first dating it was hard to miss the life-size giraffe sculpture in the living room, a sculpture Cynthia had made from scratch using dowels, chicken wire, paper mache and finished in polymers and which, to this day, dominates our dining room.

For Cynthia’s birthday this year I arranged a behind the scenes tour of the Houston Zoo’s giraffe exhibit. Our tour was this past Saturday and it was a blast!

It was a chance to get up close and personal with these magnificent creatures

Cynthia gets a nuzzle from Kiva

Cynthia joins the herd

Nigel likes the carrots

It was incredible being so close to these animals.
Cynthia claims it was the best birthday present EVER!

So now I guess I have my work cut out for me for next year….

You can see many more pictures from the encounter here.

Freeze frame

I was contacted by Allen “King of the Oldies” Hill to inquire if I might be available to come to the Continental Club and shoot some promo shots for the new incarnation of the El Orbits.

Since David Beebe is about to undergo surgery on his voice box he will be taking a hiatus from the band for about a year.

Thomas Escalante, lead singer for Clouseaux, has already moved in to the lead singer position with David doing backing vocals and playing bass. With David gone the vocals are covered but there is a need for bass guitar. That’s where Allen comes in.

With all these changes there’s a need for new promotional material, hence the request for my photographic services.

Truth be told, I was pretty nervous. I don’t mind going out and shooting casually because there’s nothing riding on the results. When shooting on spec there is an expectation and failure means disappointment for more than just the photographer.

Still, it was an opportunity I wanted to take advantage of and I agreed to do it.

The results were not everything I had hoped for. I don’t own professional lighting gear and they wanted the picture on the stage at the Continental Club and the lighting there is pretty bad.

My current photographic preference is to shoot without a flash. This results in shots that are a tad grainy and “soft”, but look cool when reduced in size. In hindsight I should have shot a few with the flash just so they would have had that as an option.

I sent over the files from the images I thought were most usable and Allen determined that this one would do the trick:

Click image to see full size

In other photographic news I sold another picture at Sig’s Lagoon. I’ve doubled my sales revenue!

2006 International Quilt Festival

Well worth clicking to see a larger version

The largest quilting event in the world happens in Houston every year at the George R. Brown convention center each November. The International Quilt Festival is something that Cynthia never misses.

From their web site:

The largest annual quilt show, sale, and quiltmaking academy in the world attracts more than 53,000 attendees with 2,000+ quilts, cloth dolls and garments on display; more than 1050 booths selling quilts, supplies, books, notions, antiques, and crafts; and more than 400 classes, lectures, and events for all skill levels.

It’s pretty impressive. In the past I have had to miss it due to obligations during the fall, but not this year. You might think it’s too girly or froo-froo or whatever but you would be wrong. Some of these quilts are works of art that are amazing to behold.

Here’s a picture of the entire quilt from the above photo:

Click it, you won’t be disappointed

Cynthia and I agreed that this was the coolest quilt at the show.
Just take a look at some of the detail:

Clicky and drool!

There was one other quilt that I saw that I particularly liked

More detail when you click

Cynthia was able to get some good fabric swatches for a quilt she is planning to make and we found some awesome fabric for a new custom shirt for me. All in all, a great outing and one I recommend to anyone.

So long, farewell, adios!

Los Skarnales played what has been billed as their “final performance” last night at the Continental Club.

That band is going to be sorely missed.

Geek Gathering

Last Friday’s Geek Gathering was a near miss for me. I completely spaced and almost forgot to attend the very event I organized. It’s not the heat, it’s the senility.

I arrived fashionably late to Tropioca to find a few gathered geeks. Groovehouse, KD5, Barrett and a few others scattered about. Glad to see it going on without me.

After a bit phliKtid showed followed shortly by Jamie who was on her cell phone and apparently being asked a technical question. Groovehouse and phliKtid came to her rescue with an Internet connected laptop.

There was much keyboard clacking and tongues clucking as information was relayed via the phone to Jamie to Groovehouse and phliKtid and then input into the computer. Answers were found and relayed back via the computer to human to phone to human interface.

Success!

I’m glad I managed to show up as we had a special guest come and hang out with us.

Long time friend, Fish fan and award winning Houston blogger Charles Kuffner of Off The Kuff fame.

It appears that technology and politics mix quite nicely over dessert and bubble tea.

Chillin’ at The Big Top

click to enlarge

Got behind the bar at The Big Top and shot this one.
That’s Big E (Continental Club door man), Nick Gaitan (bass player for Los Skarnales) and in the background is Nick’s sister Gina and his father.

Deconstructing a Cynthia prank

gg3 Over a year ago Technology Bytes celebrated our 10th anniversary with a party downtown. For reasons now quite forgotten, Cynthia decided to make aprons for herself and for our friend Katie. They wore them while serving birthday cake to our guests that evening. The one that Katie wore was done in a dog theme because of her pet Beagle, Lucy. Cynthia thought the apron would be a nice gift.

Cynthia has also been known to make the occasional apron as a birthday or Christmas gift for a friend or family member. She also has an extensive collection of hand-made aprons she has sewn for herself and hang in in the kitchen next to the refrigerator.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I am having a drink at the Continental Club and conversating with Alison Fisher, a local musician and long time friend. During the course of of our discussion she discloses that she has no apron. An odd thing to bring up but she was at the anniversary party I mentioned previously and I figured maybe she was fishing for a hand-made apron from Cynthia or something. I asked her what her favorite thing was and she said she loved dogs.

I made a mental note and when I went home I mentioned this to Cynthia.

Keep in mind that Cynthia does not know Allison. She met her at the anniversary party over a year ago but has no lasting memory of the interaction.

Cynthia volunteers to make Allison an apron. We go to the fabric store and pick out an appropriate dog print and Cynthia puts it together and we present it to her while she’s playing a show at the Big Top. Allison is very surprised and appreciative.

One might think that would be the end of that, but no. Cynthia gets it in her head that Allison, a woman she has spoken to for a grand total of maybe 10 minutes over the last year and half, should not have just one dog apron. Oh no, Cynthia decides that Allison should have a collection of dog aprons.

We set out to purchase all the dog print fabric we can find and over a several weeks we come up with quite a few. Cynthia takes a few days and sews together 7 aprons.

Allison’s band plays at the Big Top two Saturdays a month and we settle on a date to ambush her during a show with the aprons. Last night was the night and we showed up with 7 separate gift bags, each containing one apron. As Allison is playing a song Cynthia goes up to the stage and places a bag at her feet. We expected that she would open the bag at the end of the song and be surprised to receive an apron and then continue presenting a new bag during each subsequent song.

As it turned out, Allison eyed the bag and made a comment about her curiosity but did not open it. As she started up the next song Cynthia placed another gift bag at Allison’s feet. When the song ended one of her band mates asked what was in the bags and Allison said she did not know. Still she did not open the bag and started the next song and, as before, Cynthia place the third bag at Allison’s feet.

This went on for 7 songs with the conversation turning to the bags with more and more frequency. Eventually Allison did open the bags and was quite flabbergasted but seemingly delighted at having an instant dog apron collection.

In fact, she even played the rest of the show wearing an apron. We got her and her husband/drummer Clint to pose for a picture and a good time was had by all.

God knows what the patrons of the club who witnessed this must have been thinking. Not that we really care. I’d like to think it adds to the mystique of the Big Top and to the Allison Fisher musical experience.

The most important thing is that Cynthia enjoyed playing this out and I think Allison was not only a good sport, but enjoyed this rather surreal evening as well.

Dog on a motorcycle

People often ask me why I always carry a camera with me all the time.

This is why:

Click to enlarge

I was sitting at the bar of The Big Top Lounge on Main St. having a drink with some friends. We were just killing some time before the Astros game last night.

I just happened to look out the window and saw this guy waiting at the light at Alabama. I was able to run out the door, camera in hand and snap two quick shots before the light changed and the dynamic duo sped off, presumably to fight crime.

Technically, not a great picture, but in terms of subject matter you just can’t plan for something like this.