Sunday, January 27, 2013

Bunny Outline and A Green Heart

A Green Heart at the Chinese Lantern Festival  Takes Shape
This past fair season, Fair Park held a very large area to display the Chinese Lantern Festival. It was such a success that after the State Fair ended, the display ran a few additional weeks. Now that the media calendar is beginning to search for such material, I was able to find a bunny being built and a heart. The heart I shot was green. I choose it because it fits so well with ecology. That famous money-making Cupid treat, candy, fits because even at Valentines, mint chocolate has its followers,too.
A Bunny Head Takes Shape. The electrical bulbs and wiring can be seen inside in sunlight.

 
The Beautiful Lotus Bloom in Silk on a Blue Sky
All these are lighted from the inside and were fantastic at nighttime.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

A Second Calatrava Bridge Is Now Approved!

Note the beautiful red ring around the eye. Click on the image to enlarge.
With the first Santiago Calatrava bridge now built and supporting traffic with its cable stays, a second Calatrava bridge,though scaled back, has now been approved to carry Interstate 30 traffic over the Trinity River. This second bridge will have bike trails and hopefully, construction of the Trinity River park will begin later this spring or early summer as the bridge building once again begins West of downtown. Most people don't get excited over projects like this. But for me, it runs deep in my blood and construction projects of this size are like new batteries in an old toy.





 

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Walgreen's To The Rescue

Sea gull at Sunset Bay
The plumage is amazing
 It was in the 70's today. Even in Texas, that is a gift in late January because February really can be the coldest month of the winter. I get cabin fever after about three days in the house. So, when I discovered that one of my prescriptions was due for refill, I logged on and submitted the request to Walgreens. This morning, I had an email that my prescription was ready for pick up. Perfect!  An afternoon under the blue sky and sun. With a stress-test coming up shortly, it will also cover a cardiac walk and exercise. Sweet!

Subject matter was a bit limited, but along came a co-operative and curious sea gull. They really are beautiful birds. There must have been five or six photographers all looking for something interesting and for a rare winter's day, nothing was happening today.

 
A man walks  his dog and a woman rest in thought.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Architecture Comes in Varied Forms

Yesterday, while looking for something interesting to blog about, this little wren's nest could not be passed up for its architecture elements and stringing. It seems that every winter, I run across something like this that is unique and interesting. What is so amazing to me is the size of the wren overall. It's not a very big bird.
I have seen some hummingbird nest that are smaller and more detailed, but this one caught my interest because of its location right over a busy bike trail.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Paddlesurf


                                                                                                                                                                      It's always a gift to get a 60-plus degree day in                              
A super nice paddle board he sells at their shop
I watched him put this in the water and it was one of the most easy I have ever witnessed.
Off from the ramp and headed toward the dam. I saw him from the road down at the dam later enjoying his paddle surf
Mid January. With plenty of blue sky early on, before the high cloudiness rolls in toward sunset, it didn't take much to get me motivated to get out and walk. Deciding where to go was the next problem as Dr. Oz was at Cowboy's Stadium giving free physicals to over 1500, the annual Stockyard Rodeo  Exhibit will be filling the stockyards in Ft. Worth with a million visitor, Founder's Plaza at DFW had aviation geek weekend going on at Texas Trail and Airport West so the magic rabbit in the hat is always White Rock Lake. With all the good weather, there would be people all over the lake and that means finding something unusual and not normally found. Well, as the luck of the  draw happens.......White Rock was a winner again.

This gentleman is a partner in a paddle board shop and had with him one of the new stand up paddle boards. The shop has some unique activities planned for a bit later on this spring. It  sounded awesome. His shop: RIOSUP. They offer: Core Fitness Training and also have boards/gear/Eco tours.


  

Thursday, January 17, 2013

A Train of Trains

History moving up the road from Dallas to Frisco. This is the consist of the hospital move of two engines and two diesels on their own wheels. It had left Irving about 45 minutes prior from this spot and from the Gribble siding going north toward Carrollton.
Just north of Gribble siding. The train behind waited as this consist passed it on the right, then back on the main track .
The Santa Fe diesel familiar to every one at Fair Park
Spot No7 and another moved as a hospital move
Chained Down and 20'06" on the move

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Flipping/Turning and Airport


The Dallas airports were flipped today landing south to north because of the strong north wind. Caught this Southwest flight coming in low over Deep Ellum and downtown landing runways 31 R and L rather than 13 R/L. The sunlight was perfect on the reading racks at the Klyde Warren Deck Park.
Outdoor Reading Material at the Klyde Warren Deck Park
Racks are made available by DMN and the Belo Foundation.
The flip approach landing runways 31 R/L rather than 13 R/L

It All Started in the wee hours of May 28th when 80 MPH winds was tossing everything against the side of my house.

 Those winds were substained for well over 40 minutes. The results were trees everywhere down or large branches broken off. One of my bus ro...