Update on the Rain Totals

At the 12:53 update at Dallas/Ft.Worth International, 4.60 inches have been recorded. Currently, we are in a dry period wave. That just means there is much more to come tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.
Hurricane Patricia, the largest Hurricane ever recorded with winds at 200 MPH and a Barometer registering at 25.97, the lowest pressure ever recorded due to move inland. It will then cross the mountains of Mexico and get picked up by the jet stream, bringing the moisture into Texas. It's gonna be a weekend under the roof.

The Rains Have Returned

After 4 months without rain and  after the record month of rain in May, the rains have returned.

As of 22:53 today, Thursday, 22 October 2015, the rains started about 13:30 this afternoon and DFW International has reported a total of 1.86 inches of rain with two more days of solid rain coming from Hurricane Patricia in eastern Pacific near the Baja of California. Totals look to be very impressive by Sunday when the rain begins to taper off. Flash flood warnings are up.

Will update throughout the weekend.

Emirates A380 Just Arrived at DFW.

The Emirates flight was not at Terminal D late this morning. Since they fly daily service, everyone was wondering what was going on. Obviously, with the flight just arriving at a quarter after 10 tonight, either a schedule change is in the works or something else. The Qantas flight was right on time and graced the skies as it made the wide turn to the final. The field was full of people snapping photos for the first time. For aviation buffs, it's still the thrill it was the first time you saw that plane of your dreams come in and land. Awesome.(Click on anyone of the images to enlarge).

The DFW Firefighters were practicing and training.

UPS was just about to make his turn but said hello first!

Qantas A-380. It's not a Doug Parker, that's for sure!

Methodist Outreach

It is the third year now, that the good people at Arapaho United Methodist Church, at the corner of Arapaho and Coit, have allowed me to photograph their pumpkin patch. It's always a great honor to do so. Why? Well, half the sales go their mission program while the other half goes to the Navajo Indian Nation in Arizona,  an outreach mission program of the church. My hat is off to the mission committee and is one of the main reasons that I have plugged their pumpkin patch in this blog. Besides, One of mom's sisters married a Methodist minister and stayed with his congregation in Arkansas for nearly his entire career and mom devoted a lot of time to the Cherokee Nation  in Oklahoma, which was dear to her heart. Funny how things come full  circle. So, go buy your pumpkins at the church's pumpkin patch this year. I'll tell you a little secret  why their patch is set apart from all the others....I can't tell you the secret but I can tell you it's red and has four wheels and a handle. ;<{} If you want a little history on the Navajo Nation , here is a link:     http://www.navajo-nsn.gov/history.htm

Here's some pictures of this years good looking pumpkins, too.

Amen!!

---and the crop looks very, very good.

There are several displays like this one, which is always very creative.

15Oct edit for clarity.

First In-Flight Migration V Sighted

Whooping Cranes and Sand Hill Cranes both migrate over Texas on one of their migration routes south. Flocks are not always massive flocks of hundreds of birds, but a flock or 30 is well within range. Ironically, the migration V was flying directly over the 18/36 runways at DFW. It was beautiful to see natures air force  vectoring over and around one of the busiest airports in the world. Such a sight. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up along with the goosebumps on my arms.

Wishing a larger lens was in my bag but this does confirm the citing. Click on one of the images to enlarge.

They moved with the grace of an airliner as if they were on an approach frequency. Click on the image to enlarge.

A TIME TO GO and A TIME TO PASS

A new island created from the May floods. The pelicans like it.

Look closely to see a couple of faces. Taken 10-6-2015

Yes, there is another face here, too and it was taken 20 miles away about 10 days ago +/- a couple of days

A time to go and a time to pass and the time to pass was the past two days. Going  downtown during this period from all reports was totally  insane. Seeing a couple of movies filmed would have been fun. Seeing the vintage 1963 cars  used in the Franco film would have normally been even  more of a magnet, to wit:

There has been massive traffic jams and not all of it was the Horseshoe Project where I-30 and I-35E mix up the east-west and the north-south traffic. There was also  two movies filming at the same time. One staring James Franco in Dealey Plaza, the other for a television series, so I'm told. The other reason is the 128th run of the State Fair of Texas in  Historic Fair Park. You could not get me to be on either end of Main or Elm or Commerce Streets for nearly any amount of money. Notice that I did leave that option open. That's called covering your bases, I believe. The Rangers are in the playoffs, too, so riding the trains, either Dart or the TRE to Ft.Worth to catch the shuttle to Globe Life Park was out of the question. So, as much as I try to give equal time to the venues that I shoot in normally, this week was just better to let downtown pass at the moment.

There are changes that occur in each of the little venues  and  when you go to check them out you find changes that are constantly evolving. So it's worth the effort to make the circuit on a regular basis. Strange as it is, three years ago statistics found that most of my images that sold were within two miles of home. The last two years that pattern has changed. My biggest sellers are textures.  It ignites that pattern change in my shooting as well. Now,  every shoot does not end until some new textures have been included in the days shoot.

Over my morning coffee, after checking e-mails, the next thing  that I do is to check the list  from several photo stock agencies  as to what they are looking for to fill their customer's  top  searches.
My Project List, an on-going list, it's never completed, comes from those top searches from media moguls that are newspaper, magazine, journals, web  designers, blog writers and many other forms of graphic arts. Just this past week several  of my images turned up in print. It is always a joy to see someone using your work to illustrate their own work.

Total Support of Dallas' Park System Has Now Been Downgraged.

Dallas wrangled the voters a couple of times to get their way-- their way being $31.8 M in cash and an agreement  to get $2M more annually in perpetuity-- in a deal with Rowlett and City Council over tax revenues from the sale of Elgin B. Robertson Park. Two trips to the ballot box got harder to figure out what was really going down with each trip, even after doing the research. At some point it really is easier to believe in the old adage: Don't fight city hall, but my total support of Dallas will be downgraded after this slight of hand. When I saw the first Rowlett rezoning signs I knew the city had done their magic trick.There's another phrase  that could be used, but I was raised with more tact than that.

Accepting the fact that there will be no more photos of a migrating snowy owl; no more watching the guy exercise his 12 foot Python in the open field; no more fantastic shots of sailboarders laying out their chute lines in those grassy fields, is a big disappointment for sure. The increase usage of White Rock Lake has increased lately, but White Rock does not have the open expanse of water that Lake Ray Hubbard has and was accessible as a city park for boaters and fishermen or just a fantastic view of the lake by visitors that pulled off I-30 for a break.

Last week,while making  a trip out to see what was happening a line of cars  and mine were meet with fences. Earlier trips just yielded the re-zoning changes which announced the official sale of discovery. But the latest trip was meet with fences steering you only to the existing marina and boat dock after you figured out what the signs were telling motorist. The rest of the park was totally fenced off now that the sale has gone through.The developer has staked his claim quickly.  At least my vote to keep the park makes me  proud of that fact. It wasn't a jewel so-to-speak. It was a diamond in the rough and Rowlett gets to keep the diamond!

Here are two links to published articles about the pre-sale and the post sale of  Elgin B. Robertson Park.

1.http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/04/dallas-voters-would-be-wise-to-authorize-parkland-sale.html/

2.http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2015/02/26/dallas-sells-lake-rayhubbard-park-for-31-8m-paves.html

Both articles are a bit murky and one needs to have followed city council broadcast on Wednesdays to see how murky things got.  

Boaters were saying that Dallas simply never took care of the park.

There were people who were stunned the city sold the park. They pointed out situations like this since the sale.

People said they didn't understand the wording on the ballots when they voted to keep the park.One man said he felt that because of the wording on the ballot that he wasn't voting the way that he wanted to vote. I felt the same way, myself.  Fishermen were not happy, either.