Sony Alpha 700 – Page 7 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Ninot Exhibition

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A few samples of the ninots from the exhibition. Each one is about the size of a person and is only a small part of the entire fallas, of which there are nearly 300 scattered about the city after the planta which is today.

Cynthia was, as those who know might imagine, quite delighted to find a giraffe ninot…

This gives you an idea of the workmanship that goes into these things.

Hard to imagine that these will all be burned at the end of the festival.

East Side Represent

Houston - East Side

John Nova Lomax invited me to go on one of his Sole Of Houston walks. This time he was hitting the east side. The plan was to just sort of meander out to 75th Street and then head north to Canal and then head back to town. It was VERY interesting. We started about 9:30 am and finished about 4:30 pm. We covered a LOT of ground. You can read the story here: Sole Of Houston: East Side Story — Trains, Tequila, Dogs & Grief. There’s several more of my photos in the posting.

Little Joe Washington

Little Joe Washington @ The Houston Continental Club celebrating his 70th birthday.

Stop Making All That Racket!

Sapsucker or Woodpecker?

I was in my home office this morning and heard this guy outside. He was pecking to beat the band. I believe him to be a sapsucker as spotted previously but I could be mistaken. More likely a Downy Woodpecker which seems more common. He’s very high up in the neighbor’s tree, but the SAL-70300G did a fine job in the bright, early morning sun.

Watching All The Gulls Go By

Contrast

Bokeh

Under The Radar

Ruffled

Wingspan

Galveston Oh Galveston

The weather for the last few days has been spectacular. Lows in the 50’s and highs in the 60’s and 70’s. I had Friday off and wanted to take advantage of it so I invited my friend Jim Henkel to head off on a road trip to post-Ike Galveston to have a look around.

The Flagship Hotel

Galveston is still very tattered. Lots of debris and devastation but signs of life and reconstruction were plainly visible. I wasn’t all that interested in documenting the destruction, but the sight of the Flagship Hotel was pretty compelling.

The Flagship Hotel

We checked out Seawall Blvd and then headed to The Strand (Galveston’s historic district) where they were making preparations for the Galveston Mardi Gras. And by preparations I mean people were busy stocking the storefronts with booze.

We found some lunch and then headed off to catch the ferry over to Bolivar Peninsula to have a look around. That was way more depressing. We took a quick look around and then made our way back to Houston.

The road to recovery is a long one for poor Galveston.

I Got A Basketball Jones

I was commenting to some friends at one of the recent Geek Gatherings how it had been awhile since I’d been to a basketball game. I’m not a huge huge fan, but Cynthia is. I enjoy it well enough but the real joy is watching Cynthia watch the game.

Turns out the person I was talking to was a season ticket holder and he said that he could hook me up sometime as he didn’t go to every game. I didn’t think too much of it until a few weeks later when he contacted me and offered tickets to the Rockets VS. Mavericks game.

The tickets are at the Red and White Wine Bistro, an upscale all you can eat restaurant and wine bar. Food was included with the ticket but you paid for the wine. And the seats are right on the balcony with a great view of the court.

The Toyota Center has a 4 inch limit on lenses so there was no bringing my long zooms. I settled on my 11-18mm with the idea of capturing some wide angle shots like this one:

Rockets VS. Mavericks

Click to see the larger version and check out the detail.

And although I know it is getting more and more passe and trite, I took the opportunity to create a fake tilt-shift miniature:

Rockets VS. Mavericks

Again, the larger version is much more enjoyable.

The food was excellent, the seats were great and we had a blast! The Rockets even won!

Thanks for the use of your tickets, Alan!

BUG

Bug

We went for a walk on Saturday down by the bayou just to get out and get a little excercise. Of course I had the camera in tow. Not a lot of photo opportunities, but Cynthia spotted this guy on a flower no bigger than a pinky fingernail. I’m stiff today from squatting down and trying to hold the camera still as the wind blew my subject to and fro.

It looks very much like a Crane Fly (aka Mosquito Hawk) which we see all the time in and around the house. But this guy is much smaller and has a probiscus rather than mandibles. My guess is he’s either a juvenile Elephant Mosquito or just a plane old male mosquito.

This pic remonds me of the album cover of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of The Worlds

On a side note, there’s a 30th anniversary tour in the works which (sadly) doesn’t look like it will make it here to the U.S.

This shot was done with a flash from above.

Bug