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…
Picture of Greg Henkel and myself at Scarborough Fair in Waxahachie, TX circa 1989. Our second year there performing with The Flying Fish Sailors.
Thomas Escalante salutes his dark master as The Suspects perform another reunion show at the Continental Club last Friday night…
More evidence in the gallery.
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.
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Came home early today to find 3 vultures lurking very near to the house.
I immediately knew what had brought them around.
Somewhat gruesome so I put it behind this link
Ahhh, the circle of life.
And Cynthia was just commenting the other day that she wished someone would clean that up!
Cynthia and I went out for our traditional Christmas Eve Chinese dinner tonight. This year it was at The Ambassador which is next to the Ragin Cajun over on Richmond.
The Ragin Cajun’s holiday decorations were cause to pause as we made our way to dinner.
Christmas here in the south has it’s own style…
There’s a throne just sitting there in a corner of Shoeshine Charley’s Big Top Lounge. I decided that it would be a good opportunity to shoot a pic of Bill Shirley.
You can’t help but look regal sitting on a throne.
Bill seems right at home….
Friday night had all the earmarks of being a good night on the 3700 block of Main. The Suspects were playing their second “reunion” show with The Aqua Velva opening up. And if that wasn’t enough, The Light Rock Express were groovin over at Charlie’s Big Top. Things were just getting “fired” up when the doorman of the Continental Club exclaimed “Holy Sh*t! A flaming car!”
I turned just in time to see a truck driving down Alabama towing a backhoe on a trailer and the trailer was ON FIRE….I thought at first this was some kind of art car event or something.
A handful of us ran around the corner to see what was up and we saw the truck pull up next to a gas station.
Could you imagine being at the pump, just minding your own business filling your tank and a truck load of flaming death just pulls up?
Apparently there was an industrial strength cardboard barrel full of trash on the back of the truck that had managed to ignite. The guys jumped out of the truck and pulled it down to the street where it commenced to roll around.
One of the guys from the truck hopped out and had the wherewithal to climb into the backhoe, fire it up and attempt to tamp out the flames. This resulted in the flaming horror rolling down the street several feet.
Fortunately, it rolled AWAY from the gas pumps.
The group of men in the truck and the guy in the backhoe all did their part in extinguishing the flames and even got some help from a handful of bewildered homeless guys and had it mostly put out by the time the fire department arrived.
Just another reason why I try to have my camera with me at all times. You just never know what your going to see at any given time. The last two shots here are my favorites and the ones I wanted to show off, but I felt the context was important.
