The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard – Page 67

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

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Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Migratory Ruby-crowned Kinglet. I originally thought they were Orange-crowned Warblers, but further research and a reader tip indicates I may have mis-identified them.

You can compare here:
Orange-crowned Warbler
Ruby-crowned Kinglet

The wing-bars seem to be the tell….

They visit our yard each winter and are extremely elusive in terms of getting a photo. Today there were two of them in the front yard and they seemed oblivious to my presence. So oblivious, one nearly landed on my arm while I was shooting the pictures. Even so, they dart around so quickly and erratically they are not easy to photograph.

Snow!

Around 4:00 yesterday afternoon it began to snow here in Houston. A freak weather occurrence, to be sure. It didn’t really “stick” as the ground temperature was too warm for that and frankly, I thought it wouldn’t last too long.

Cynthia called me from the road as she headed home. She said it was definitely snowing out west as she proceeded to the beltway. I wasn’t headed home right away as I had my Wednesday commitment and was hanging back at the office. I was pretty disappointed that I wouldn’t be seeing it for myself.

Prior to heading over to KPFT to do my radio show I met up with Owen for a pint at Rudyard’s. I did see some snow as I drove over, but it was super light.

As Owen and I sat and chatted, the snow started falling harder and harder. It was quite the cozy scene as we sat in the warm pub and watched as our fellow revellers went outside to marvel at what passes for a winter wonderland around these parts. We heard some young lady exclaim “It’s a miracle!” I don’t know about that, but it was pretty cool!

Snow Man

After a few pints Owen and I parted ways so I could get over to the radio station. The snow was kicking up pretty good at this point, and while not treacherous driving in terms of road conditions, you still had to be careful as many drivers were stricken with a case of “deer in the headlights” syndrome as they gawked and the magical white stuff drifting from the sky.

The radio show goes two hours and the studio is pretty sealed up where you can’t see the outside easily so we were somewhat taken aback when we wrapped for the evening and proceeded out to the parking lot…

Snow!

There was enough snow accumulation on my car for phliKtid to write a message on my back window:

Snow!

As I headed home around 10:30 the snow event was mostly over. This morning as I write this, it’s just cold and there are reports of some iced over roads, mostly overpasses and such.

According to the weather forecast, the temperatures will be back in the mid 70’s by this weekend.

Gotta love Texas…

We Must Repeat

Studio Work

Allen Hill Entertainment Xmas Card 2008

I was contacted recently by my friend, Henry Davis, the brilliant graphic artist about a project. He’d been retained by Allen “King Of The Oldies” Hill to produce a holiday card for Allen Hill Entertainment and he needed a photographer to assist in the project. Apparently he couldn’t find one, so he came to me.

Allen wanted a card that depicted himself ice skating on the reflection pool in front of Houston City Hall.

Since it rarely gets below freezing in these parts, much less does it ever snow, this was going to be a studio project combined with digital chicanery. We arranged to meet up at the Houston Chronicle to “borrow” their photography studio and staged what we needed and Henry did the rest in Photoshop.

It was my first time in a studio with the new flash. I think it came out pretty well.

Tool User

Magnetism to the rescue!

When you have your roof replaced, it generates a lot of waste as a byproduct. For the most part, the crew did a good job of loading it all into trucks and hauling it away. Several truckloads of debris by my reckoning.

Unexpected, but not surprising, some nails ended up in the pool. Now that it’s getting a little cold here, wading in and fishing them out was unpleasant thought. Waiting till summer was also not an option. I tried using the cleaning net attached to the telescoping pole, but could not quite scoop them up.

Then it dawned on me. I’ve had in my possession a chunk of ferromagnetic rock since my teenage years. I found it near some railroad tracks when I was a teenager and I’ve just hung on to it. By placing it into the cleaning net I was able to collect all of the loose nails at the bottom of my pool without much effort and, most importantly, without getting wet.

Tis The Season

Christmas Tree

The weekend after Turkey Day kicks off the yuletide season here at Casa Heretic. Cynthia’s the driving force behind all the cheer that’s on display in our home.

Cynthia has a large and varied collection of mouse ornaments that adorn what used to be our only Xmas tree.

A few years ago Cynthia started a smaller, giraffe themed tree for the giraffe room.

Last year, when Cynthia received the 12 Giraffes Of Christmas it was obvious we were going to be needing a bigger tree.

We went out and purchased a 7′ tree and some plain, gold and brown ornaments after Xmas last year and Cynthia fashioned her own decorations to flush out the collection.

Now, we are a two full-sized tree family.

That’s got to be the BEST (and possibly only) giraffe themed tree on the planet!

Shiny Euros

We have received our travelin’ Euros for the upcoming trip. I love the colour of European money. The holograms are so pretty. It’s like play money in that it doesn’t look real, but it also evokes the passion I associate with travel. Having Euros in hand makes the whole thing more “real”, if that makes any sense.

Of course, being the shutterbug I am, I wanted to photograph the bills as a matter of course so I played with different configurations and ended up with the above shot.

When I had finished procressing the RAW file and went to open it in Photoshop CS3, the strangest thing happened. This message popped up saying “”This Application Does Not Support the Printing of Banknote Images”:

In doing some research, this seems to be the same for the new American bills that were recently issued.

What stikes me is that this is not a scan of the Euro notes. It’s a photograph and it doesn’t even include a complete, unobscured bill in the photo. Yet Photoshop recognized the content of the image and produced that warning and, presumably, will not print it in the unaltered form.

It only let me save the oringinal file as PNG and I have not tried to print it.

Technology is cool!

Hammer Time

We’ve been through a few hail storms over the years. I rather regretted not contacting the insurance company to have a look at the roof after seeing many of our neighbors getting new roofs on each occassion.

We knew our roof was getting to a point where it would need to be replaced and were dreading having to pay for this out of pocket.

Before Hurricane Ike we did have an inspector come out and have a look and he said it would only be a matter of a few years before replacment would neccessary.

After Hurricane Ike plowed through we noticed a lot of loose shingles in the yard and called our insurance company to have a look and they declared the roof a total loss and are paying to have it replaced (less our deductable).

I’m home now listening to the pounding of hammers as the old roof is ripped away and the frame is being prepped for new decking and shingles.

Dooley is terrified and probably learning some new sound effects and some conversational Spanish.

New roof being installed