No One Has Ever Won The Kentucky Derby On A Donkey

Play Ball!

In fifteen weeks from this Saturday, the crowds will hear the singing of, "My Old Kentucky Home" and a few minutes later, hear the track announcer say,"--- and they're off!" at the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky.That first Saturday in May is like so much in life. Regardless of how you plan, Mother Nature may just have a different thought about how that day will go from year to year.

Last week, a young college professor that I know, wrote a blog post about how people don't ride horses any more. Now, true, this U Mass teacher does live in Boston and while Paul Revere may have ridden his horse to Concord yelling, "The British Are Coming", in Ft. Worth, they were getting ready for the month long Ft. Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. I missed the Western Parade because of the cold. An email from one of my editors wanted to know if I would cover the show for them and I had to decline. It was the second offer from them that I had to say no.  But that didn't dampen my spirits. I have a file folder of people I've come across that ride horses here in Dallas. Being  somewhat of a joker that I am, I  sent Pat the file of images. It wasn't long before I got a reply saying that, "well, I guess people still do ride horses after all." Pat is a link in a growing  number of Anthropologist that I have known, currently know and read regularly and joke with in bantering phrases.

Repartee.Wordplay.Good-humored.Jesting. But most of all, it ties me to an old college professor of mine who was pure English and was then and now in death is noted for his translations of Percy Bysshe Shelley. While teaching in the landmark Hallmarks of English education before coming to the states ever few years, Neville, would go back to London to his flat in the summer. He would continue to write to me filled with his banter and to this day, those days in his classes and the group discussions held in his apartment on the weekends, were spent listening to jazz recordings that he found so delightful as he sipped on  imported Spanish Cognac or Sherry, talking in detail about The Humanities. Neville was employed in our  English Department and the course that I paid to be in was his, The Humanities. Never in my wildest dream would I ever think that such a course would be so profound on my life. It all played out to Mother Nature's plan and I am most grateful and thankful to have had that experience to banter with a man who was so English, so common, so expert in his field. A lot of reading for a course for sure, but when one stops to think that the great leaders of the world all had that same experience, it wraps me in that cloak of knowledge that others do not have. Strongly influenced by Shelley's poems were people like Karl Marx, no less, Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi.

Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience was greatly influenced from Shelley's stand on non-violence  and to have in political protest to violence, no violence. Knowing that Shelley died young in 1822, his popularity is greater now that at the time of his death. Then, I look at the news headlines and I wonder where the Shelley's of today are. All I see is haters everywhere.

Yesterday Was Three Kings Day: Epiphany

The mixing of cultures between Christianity and  Eastern Orthodox tends to confuse some. Even the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" does not convey the mixture in the best of ways, but it does point to the Epiphany as the 12th day. In short, Epiphany is when the "Three Kings" arrived with their gifts for the Baby Jesus at the manger. On our calendar that is always January 6th---the 12th day of Christmas. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, it is the Festive Day of the Three Kings.

Workers high above the trees reach for the strings of lights.

The trees on the square were all connected with lights.

Boxes of Red Bows are packed away for this coming December.

It's about a two day operation to take down these strings of lights. Watching the men work was amazing at how well they went about their job. There was a small microwave on a brick planter where the men heated up their coffee and lunches. An all things being Texas, the cans of Dr. Pepper was the drink of choice for breaks!

Talk about the commercialization of Christmas and we tend to leave it all with Christmas Day when the neatly wrapped presents are under the tree and the stockings are hung with care. Thank goodness for the Eastern Orthodox that still end Christmas with the Epiphany! Our Epiphany seems to be after the kids have torn through the wrappings like a tornado. The commercialization even continues after Christmas. The lighting companies come around to start taking down the strings of lights for another year. Such was the case in downtown Garland on the square.  The beautiful multi colored lights  in neat diamond patterns that hang from the trees and the red bows and garland that crossed the streets from light pole to light poles were coming down for another year.

Ice Is Pretty and Sometimes Unusual

This start to 2018 has been a bit more wintry than most. The big thing has been the 76 hours below freezing for starters, which will reverse for the next ten days. Remembering that usually by March 1, buds are opening on the trees here. One of the more unusual sights, besides people forgetting to shut off their timers on their sprinkler systems, has been the fountains and stack pipes along main underground water lines. Large lake fountains fire up just enough water to keep them from freezing but they still do.  At least, they don't burst pipes if there is water running. Still, I have seen some unusual ice formations. The frost flowers are  the most unusual. I missed the best opportunity for those by a day but there were some formations that were pretty cool none-the-less.

Frost Flowers

Some Grow Taller Than Others

The formations are so neat.

66 Hours Below Freezing and Counting

One of several  of these fountains look much like this one. It's been below freezing the past 66 hours (and counting).It has not been this cold in Dallas since 1979! Tonight's low will be 19-degrees F.

The second and third tiers were just as frozen as the top.

Ever heard of "BIKING"?That's when you wake up in the morning and look out at your front yard and discover three or four dozen of these "park anywhere" bike rentals have been parked in your lawn by your prankster friends!

Last Remote Post #5:

I didn't win the Lotto or the Mega Lotto

I did plant three trees in large porch pots that cut the afternoon heat down from 130 degrees F to 105 degrees F during the afternoon summer sun  beating down on my porch. This tree was someone doing much the same thing as I did but on a much more massive scale of operations.

T

I took more pictures this year than in the past 10 years. The total images published with agents and distributors is at 6,566 images. I didn't win the race with a friend of mine what published more. However, my goal was to publish 1250 images this year and I did accomplish that goal. The indexing is also done, but for security reasons cannot say what that's about. So as the two on this fun ride fly and reach for the sky, the year slipped by almost as fast as they were having fun.

So, to our readers, while being  in a focus to set new records this year, we also published more post this year than  in the past few years, passing the old record of 126 post. If you, our readers, found one thing to chuckle about, or learned something about urban photography, then we have fulfilled a part of our mission statement which is dedicated to my son, my mother and my maternal grandmother. Without them as three corner post in my life, this blog, the urban photography and archives would not have been possible. 2017 was a great year in many aspects. It is to be hoped that all of you have a very good, safe and happy 2018.

Remote Publish No. 4: Wishes

Wishing all our readers the quiet peace of this season.

Remote Publish #3: The Point---Up and Down

Sometimes, Solutions To A Problem Come From Above.

Not always can one shot tell the whole story. In this case, the DFW Sectionals pinpoint towers like this and list the height, which is more or less controlled by the FAA. See the ladder. It goes all the way to the top to change the bulb and is listed on the charts as 1029. That's a lot of steps on that ladder!

The bases of these twin radio towers are upside down pyramids.