It's True. You Talk to the Animals and they Talk to You!

Last week in one of my post it was mentioned that the work load had been heavier of late, but that the enjoyment of being busy has always motivated me to do even more. To top that off, this is the time of the year that for me personally is a somber one that begins on June first and last until July 10th. In that period, my work load will drop to near nothing and it will be a time for me to just be a wanderlust. But, it's not June one yet!

Two big events are coming up this weekend. The DFW Dragon Boat Races and Kite Festival kicks off in Las Colinas

The song bird is on a #3 Rebar arch. The bug in his beak is as big as the rebar he sits on.

This is my buddy. He walked with me on the sidewalk. I"d stop and turn around and he would catch up, then we would go another lap.  It was so funny. He listened as I talked to him, tilting his head to the side and looking up at me.

This great blue heron was a high stepper. He had a gate  that never changed as he walked the edge of the canal. This is the second bird of the crane family that I have seen do this in the past few days. The other one was a great egret that walked the edge of a fountain like this guy and actually was fishing. This guy was just out for a walk. He tired me out !

on Lake Carolyn and the last year for the Byron Nelson Golf Classic plays at the Four Seasons Resort at Cottonwood in Las Colinas before moving to the new Trinity Forest Golf Course in South Dallas. The past two years I have watched this course take shape and the #5 pin was in the cup this time last year as a show of progress. But, this year, the Byron will still be at Four Seasons and will be a time for all the old familiar faces that have worked at the Four Seasons the past 35  years to say good-bye with the class that tournament generated year after year after year. With luck, getting shots from the Byron and the Dragon Boat Races should not be to much of a problem with the proximity of both venues almost overlapping each other. Next year, will be a bit more challenging to say the least.

This afternoon, brought me to Farmers Branch for a quick check on a little project that has been wilting on the vine for the past year. But, before it's leaves turn brown and fall completely off the vine, it was an honest attempt to check on it one last time. In fact, the Gardner was working on it when I got there and the darn thing looked pretty well. It just might survive.The roses were not as nice as  they have been in years past and the calla lilies, while pretty, were a bit down this year as well.

But, it was an interesting bit to sit on the bench swing and watch the birds. There was one big beautiful great blue heron,  busy little song bird who actually caught a big bug in flight and a blue jay that wanted to walk with me on the sidewalk.  I do talk to the animals and over the years, I have learned that they will talk to you if you listen and pay attention to there jesters.

This Is Why I Keep My Camera On The Front Seat.

Sometimes, you just never know where a picture will come from. As noted in previous post, my friend and long time Associated Press photographer was great for driving that point home. As time went forward from those days, I began to see the reasoning behind his harping. JD was so brilliant  in dishing out things like that, it  made you like him more than you hated him for it in the overall.

Today the wrap around low that was moving into Arkansas after a tornado close by here yesterday, again, was spewing beautiful but way to many clouds over the metroplex while the rest of Texas bathed in glorious sunshine. But, sometimes you just get in the car and cast your fate to the wind in hopes that you will get a break here and there.

I did. And this is what I got.

This just came out of nowhere.

Although I had heard about this earlier, I wasn't expecting to see it pop up where it actually did in Deep Ellum. Stunning!

It's A Long Way From Here To There

Yesterday was a precursor to today. I noticed work starting on a water tower and went to check it out. The guy told me that if I was back tomorrow (today) between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. I could photograph the envelope being filled with hot air and watch it rise like a balloon to the top of the water tower.

Without an alarm clock set, I was awake at 5:00a.m. I made a quick breakfast. I even was willing to for go making a pot of coffee for instant. It was 6;50 when I came out of the house. From my driveway, I could see the water tower in the distance and the envelope was already raised!

As it turned out, I still drove over to the water tower which is two miles by surface roads. It's a long way from here to there it seems. There was no rush, but I sat in the car and drank my coffee watching the workers come and go from the tool trailer and then saw the ripple in the envelope as the blower was turned off.

The next thing that I knew, I was looking at a guy on top of the tower leaning over the side pulling up some of the envelope toward the top of the tank. He had safety gear but there is no way that I would get up there on the top of that take, a hundred and twenty feet off the ground and then look over the side, much less reaching for the material and pulling it up toward him like he had a blanket or something.

The day progressed from the water tank to McDonald's for a senior coffee and a sausage biscuit. The birds were happy this morning and even photogenic. By 2:00p.m. I was heading toward home for lunch and inside as the sky had gone from a beautiful blue hue to overcast.

If you have not looked at the portfolios of late, you will see some interesting images of architecture, flowers, birds, the water tower in greater detail and my favorite little bird---the scissor tail flycatcher. I've got his favorite post down to morning, noon and afternoon. I also almost got a perfect shot of a red winged blackbird in full wing and tail expanses. It was a bit blurry. I was not expecting him to do what he did when he did it at the time. I'll keep trying until I get it down pat. If I can shoot an A-380 Heavy jet coming in at 140MPH, this blackbird is not going to get my goat!

The cables were in place yesterday as is top rails that the envelope will be anchored.

This guy has nervers of steel! No way I would do that.

See the guy on top in the center? That shows how big this operation is overall.

The perfect pose for the blackbird, but it came out a bit blurred.

Cuteness That Is Just Cute to the Max

It's been pretty busy but I have gotten 250 images published.There has been a lot of Live New work as well as a few that I even just passed on because there were so many irons in the fire. There are festivals about with more coming up at the end of the month. The weather has been great. 78-81 during the day and 54 at night. That is good sleeping weather and I need that sleep.

It's also the end of the first week without my TV. That was a choice thing. U-verse just got so greedy I pulled the plug on it and my LAN line telephone. For the first time since I was 21, there is not an AT&T in my life. The funny thing is that I have not missed it. I stream my news programs local and national and that's all that I need really. I still want to know what's going on in the world. Besides, I do enjoy listening to Classical. I regained by surround sound and tuner as a unit again with the TV gone. I had forgotten how nice it is to work on the computer and listen to classical in surround sound.

But now that the chicks have branched and even flown to parts unknown. It doesn't seem like that much time has gone by already with the owl nesting season, but I was watching the owls and the red-shoulder hawks since mid January. Here it is clicking away into May already. So, I have a set of images of the owls that readers might like. The published ones are (naturally) better, but for those of you that use stock for your blogs, this will give you some indication of how to use the images in another way if a person steps in while you are shooting and the image comes out with an elbow or a hand. Don't toss those. They can be edited down to remove those things without that aweful  thing they call Photoshop.

Ronnie Houses (and I don't mean Ronald McDonald near hospitals)

At first the concept seemed to me like a great idea. That is to say, putting a modern nice 5-bedroom home in an old established neighborhood. You have fully mature trees, it just seems like it should be there. It would be, or though it seems, the perfect ideal situation as so many of the suburban neighborhood developments are bare of old growth trees---just sticks with wires holding them upright. It is going to take 25 years to have those trees higher than the house tops in those new developments.

We have all seen that situation. So, I was pretty much in favor of the zoning changes that permitted custom home developers to come into a mature and seasoned neighbor, buy up a house here and there and quietly, tear them down and clear the lot. Then one day the workers show up and start digging the foundation. Then, the framers begin the hammering and sawing. Then the roofers are climbing on the steep pitch and lofty roofs that are in the canopies of the trees. You get the picture. Then, Voila!  There is this McMansion that is sitting on your neighbors lot so out of place in your neighborhood. Then, one of your neighbors is talking to you about the one that is farther down your street that has an open house sign out in front. Then you begin to feel squeezed as more and more houses are torn down and McMansions appear one by one. Then one day, you are the only house left and instead of these McMansions increasing your neighborhoods value that includes your property, it is now driving your property value into the ground as their values increase and the guy from the street corner sign or major artery street billboard says they will buy your ugly looking home. What pressure!

It's happened all over Dallas. My mom's old neighborhood that was long and sprawling 3-bedroom ranch-style homes are now pretty much gone. So much, I hardly recognize the neighborhood any longer and if I didn't see the old street signs, I'd swear that I wasn't in the old neighborhood.  One street that I travel on my route is now constructing  the Last  of the Mohicans. I use the James Fenimore Cooper narrative of the second book of the Leather Stocking Tales as a historical reference only. I counted the number of houses since the first one appeared  on the street and the total is 34 homes. Now, an adjoining street has its first anchor on the corner ready to bulldoze more of the homes from when that neighborhood  was new construction.

Calling these houses McMansions just do not even pay justice to the underscore of what is happening. In several cases---what has happened. Therefore, I have begun calling them Ronnie Houses. "There's another Ronnie House!"

A Ronnie House

A Ronnie House next to what the neighborhood once was. To me, it's forced upon those that worked hard to have a nice home only to sacrifice it for those who want your trees that are fully grown and have their Ronnie House too! Every one is impatient---the developers to make more money and the homeowner who just can't wait 30-years for the neighborhood to mature. What pressure.

50 Years of Loyalty Down the Drain

I cut the cord!

 No more LAN line telephone from AT&T. No more U-verse TV from AT&T. 

An old friend from the past has now marked its presence in Dallas. Good ole' Bank of New York,Mellon Bank. Mellon bank, of course was that famous Pittsburgh bank before they merged. I happen to think that the merger was one of the best bank mergers to date. Both were excellent banks and combined, they are top notch! Glad to see them in the Dallas Market.

Things like this bring banks like BNYMellon

Light Rail also is a big draw for Dallas. This is the largest light rail system in the country. It just grew with the opening the UNT-Dallas station for south Dallas campus, the second campus in the metroplex for UNT-Dallas.The UNT Law School will be in downtown in  the old Muni-Building.

Editor's note:
In the DART light rail photo, we stated incorrectly that the new station was the UTDallas. It is the University of North Texas campus of UNT Denton, Texas. We regret the error and are sincerely sorry for the mistake.

It's Been A Busy Week and it's only Wednesday

Yep! It has been a busy week. I can always tell how busy by the total number of images registered in my camera. At first, I thought that I had made an error or somehow caused the camera to reset the total. That didn't happen. The second way to tell is to check the trip setting on the car. That checked out too. The third way to check is how much sleep I get per night. This morning confirmed that as well. I had a 10-hour sleep last night. It's all related. I walk. I'm out in fresh air. I come home and edit images. I go to bed. The test there is: what time did I go to bed? When I'm busy with a lot of shooting more than two or three days, I'm up to midnight and I sleep well. It was 9:30 a.m. before I got up this morning. Briefly, I was awake about 5 a.m. when thunderstorms rumbled through outside.That is my signal to turn over and go back to sleep. Which I did.

Tonight, at 7 p.m., I had to switched from AC to heat. Unbelievable!  It has been in the 80s the past few days. There was high wind yesterday but it was from the south and the air temp was comfortable. But, with a north wind today (my worse enemy) it was a day to stay inside and take it easy. Which I did. Before going to bed tonight, I will have to turn the AC back on as the temp will rise during the night. I feel like I'm riding the Blue Streak Coaster at Cedar Point on Lake Erie!!

Besides the festivals going on that happen this time of year, I had two separate sets running on the live news feeds.

The images today come from the Murder,Suicide in the High 5 office tower . A sad situation, even from a distance.

The heart of the Dallas High 5 Interchange.

The police had the ramps on level 2 and 3 shut down for most of the day. The U-turn lanes on the service roads that allow you to reverse directions  were also shut down. This is still Dallas' most traveled interchange.

The 7th floor window was shot out. This building is directly across 12 lanes of traffic from Texas Instrument's south campus.Greenville Avenue is about .08 tenths of a mile beyond this view.