Today, with perfect and delightful autumn weather, I set out at my bus stop. Riding it to the Spring Valley Train Station's Red Line, I then boarded the 402 to downtown Carrollton,Texas. I could have boarded it's partner and gone to the Irving Convention Center. That trip will be saved for another day, as the construction there is still ongoing around the north side of Los Colinas and their new entertainment district.
Meanwhile at the Carrollton Rail Station, crossing Belt Line is best to stay on the platform and take the walkway several stories up and then either take the stairs or the elevator down to street level. The walk to downtown Carrollton's Historic Square is short, but packed with so much. I could spend the better part of a week there. But the interesting thing is that I found an old wagon that displayed a lot of pumpkins and squash and hay and sunflower centers with seed. Many of you have read my many post where I talk about my old shoot wheel that I used when I had my car. You know the old addage: a picture is worth a 1000 words. So, the ideal stuck and hence, the second posting of the day as I had made a post this morning shortly after my breakfast and while I was having my coffee.
While at the corner of Broadway and Main, I went into an ice cream shop to inquire about the gentleman that I had photographed sitting on the bench outside his shop smoking his pipe. It seems that the ownership of the shop has changed,but I found two big and soft chocolate chip cookies. And, I sat on the bench outside the shop and had my cookies watching people and cars pass the intersection. I was just about ready to leave when I spotted a planting at the edge of a parking lot.It was very near where I had photographed an amazing growth of prickly pear cactus in bloom in the past. But, crossing the street, I wandered over to the Calla Lilly bed. Just as I was ready to shoot one of the blooms, I noticed this very large grasshopper move on the stem. Getting a shot before he could fly off, he didn't seem like he was in that big of a hurry. A young man making deliveries to several buildings was walking down the sidewalk. When I saw him, I motioned of him to come over. He seemed to agree with me that this old tobacco spitter (what we called them as kids because they chewed the leaves and would generate a liquid that looked like tobacco juice. They could spit it at you if they felt threatened). The picture is the one in our blog header tonight.
Okay. The hub of the wheel is homebase. The spokes extend outward for 18 miles toward the rim (which is the boundary circle of the Metroplex). The distance between the spokes is 8 miles at the rim. If you shoot along one spoke, say spoke A, the next day you shoot along spoke B and etc.,etc., and you cover the full number of spoke you have, in effect, covered the entire Metroplex on a regular basis. This allows for construction projects to rise from the ground to the finished building and, basically, you also have a time table that the project took in building.
When I decided to give up my car, I was a bit uncertain how I would cover the area that I had been covering for both Live News Feeds and for my portfolio etc.,etc.I would not know how this was going to work until I could get out on the bus and rail routes following my surgeries. In September I was walking up to 5-miles a day and began to explore bus and rail routes that would take me near to my formal shoot wheel. Then, the call from the surgeon that the last of the surgeries was going to be scheduled for October 15. Knowing the heal time required, I had estimated that I would be able to be back out and testing how much strength I had lossed with this final surgery. Much to my surprise, I was back to 3.75 miles last week end and this weekend, I was nearing the 5-mile mark again. Today, was the longest trip from start to finish and I was blessed to have no problems when I came in today after a 4-hour outing. So, visualize the wagon wheel (my shoot wheel guide) and it will help you appreciate the area that has been covered the past 15 years. Of course, there are things about the shoot wheel that are considered, "trade secrets" as part of copyrights and how we arrange content on line as well as the general outline of the shoot wheel theory. The Intellectual Property Police are watching! So don't get frisky on this old man. LOL.
No comments:
Post a Comment