Cowboys Cooked Another Goose Play Off while Mother Nature frosted the ground with snow and ice and sub freezing temps

 The old adage, "when it rains, it pours" was working overtime in Dallas this past weekend. Haven't seen snow on the ground for a couple of years and while opening the door to get a good feel for festive winter awakening, looking out the window was just fine. The gauge on the porch seemed to be pegged at about 5° F. The wind chills down the brick in the winter and holds the cold, while in the summer, the sun beats down on them and drives the hand around the numbers and pegs them at that 120°F reading. Love Field is always more warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than my porch. 

My last trip out found me having to pull out some cash for a bus ticket because I had t put my phone on charge and left the house with it still plugged in on the charger. By the time I got to the bus stop and discovered my forgetfulness, I was not about to walk back to get the phone. Then during the trip, I was going to check my steps and realized, "hey, I do that on my phone". So those steps were lost for the days tally. 

Never-the-less, I found another telephone pole were the summer's heat had melted the tar on this one as bad as the first one I found. The tar pooled up on the sidewalk below the pole like the first one. 

Set a new record yesterday at 85,000 Mega Watts of Electricity demand and the grid held!

New Year is off and running wild already

 The weather is a condition not an excuse, I know. However, Cold weather and pushing yourself can land you in that spot of land where there is a lot of granite. So, I stay in and clean up old files and review new ones. Today, I spent most of the day putting out little fires as a result of AI training and some customer service agent that assured me that my concern would not happen. Then, I get a letter, that it did. Not once, but twice. All I know is that I hear a lot of "I'm sorry" from customer service lately.  That does not get it with me at my age. It seems there are not many people that pay attention to detail any more, but then, in a barber shop, I found one that reminded me so much of my dad, a detail man in every thing he did, that it was hard to hold in the emotions. So, it did help to see that there are a few of those people left today.

Yesterday, I got out and had a wonderful time. It was a delightful day in the 60s. Today, the rain came. Tonight, the Polar cold front that is passing us will make it to the Gulf. The operative word here is "Polar". Tomorrow, will be our first hard freeze of the season. Highs will be in the low 40s but the kicker here is the 45MPH gusting winds from the northwest. It will move out fast and Wednesday, the 50s and 60s are  back for a couple of days before another system pushes us toward a longer-lasting spell of cold weather.  My doctor's appointment will be surrounded by winter on all sides. Never fails. Made the appointment two weeks ago because my doctor could not see me the same day my other doctor's appointed occurred. 

So, while I got some interesting pictures from yesterday,  I  am not totally done editing  the batch as of yet. 

Here will be a few of left overs from 2023 that AI finished using as their training target.

Cold Rain in Dallas, Today.

 Rainy days and Tuesdays. The day has been busy creating backpacks using our photos in  abstract and also was able to add new categories to our light boxes on our Dreamstime portfolio. It should make it easier for the graphic arts crews to find what they want much faster, even giving them more choices at one sitting rather than going through a few thousand images there searching for one specific topic. 

Every one be safe and stay well for 2024.

Happy New Year's Every One

 It was a delightful afternoon at Addison Circle on the last day of 2023. The pictures are simple but somewhat have elements that I have liked over the years; a robin, a squirrel, a splash fountain. The Silver Line Station at Addison Transit Center is looking great. The tracks are now in and the branding elements are in place. 

The crow was an interesting creature to watch today. He was actually walking the rails, hopping down to grab a bit of small ballast to aid his digestion track. Meet some interesting people today here at Addison and yesterday in downtown. The people from out of town were flocking to the JFK site. The diversity between yesterday and today was noticeable as I walked from Union Station around the Houston Street area as people were coming from Reunion to the Holocaust Museum, Dealey Plaza (both sides) and then up Pacific Avenue all the way up to the train station in the Arts District. Dallas was being described by some that I chatted with as amazing, unbelievable for the buildings, the restaurants etc. It hit me as those things that we take for granted by living here.  But out-of-town visitors are a key element to the local economy, too. Saw a lot of Missouri gear being worn,too. Interesting that I did not see a single Ohio State hat, jacket, sweatshirt.  Not one. And here I sit with a slice of the goal post from Ohio Stadium and a antique folding chair from the 2000 renovation at Ohio Stadium in my living room. When they were put up for sale, I bought both pieces. They have the "official"   Ohio State sticker with Andy Geiger's signature. Somehow, I separated the stickers which were stuck on the merchandise from the authenticate certificate. Somehow  I know that they are still with me but I haven't seen them in a bit. The chair still has a piece of pink bubblegum stuck on the underside. That's more  authentic to me than any certificate humorously.

Well, Mother Nature hit us with the first freeze and is going to do it again twice this coming week.

Although, I did get out two days in a row with the wind chills and strong Northwest winds gusting to 40 MPH. Living in the Great Lakes for over the years taught me well as to how to dress for the cold. Thank goodness. I can't wait until mid-March. Knowing ahead of time that it could be a hot summer again this year, I'll take it better than the cold, and I like snow and ice. It's the winter season wind, I don't like.

Onto the journey of photography. Most of the leaves are now down. There are still some winter plantings that are in bloom and they will soon be rotated out and replaced with a more hardy version. My porch plants that I relocated from the porch to my living room are growing like crazy. 

My desk drawer has been piling up with things that need to be done for the new year. Usually, with

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, I still review, but take no action until the final week of the year between Christmas and New Years. So two of my outings in the dreaded wind, I got somethings cleared up early. One-by-one the rest will giving me a chance to clean up some more after New Years  when I  need to get out and can do some imaging in between chores an feeding the beast that always munches on some light-hearted stuff. 

The Link to one of our portfolios had to be taken down again.

 

The links were taken down for some bad actors. There are those few that ruin things for the many.

I am in talks with some IT firms and hosting sites that are working on this very problem from other bloggers. 

Hopefully, we will be able to post all our agencies portfolios so you, or readers, will be able to see 10,000 

on blog if you so choose. Have a safe and Happy New Years.

In my Live News Feed Days, I loved doing that part of photography, but it just got to where it took to much time in a rat-race kind of work.One of the guys that I still follow also likes trains, like me. What caught my eye was a rat-race kind of happening that we all have done at one time or another. He had posted BSNF of his shots of Intermodals heading to the west cost ports. This is what it should be as shown on a car rack carrier of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Line. I watch the Union Pacific bring three mile lone strings from west coast ports that they now ship from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, and from Chicago they also ship to the Inland Port Facility in South Dallas and on into Mexico. So, UP ships now to Mexico, US and Canada from coast to coast. 

My favorite spot is shoot them is as they roll toward the Inland Port Facility and if I happen to be waiting for a train at Dallas' Union Station I like to shoot under Reunion Tower as they pass.  

Very Much Likely to have our first freeze tonight ~~~

with even another one towards the end of the week. The good part of this past weather evens has been the rain. Boy, did we need rain and as my grandfather taught me as a young boy, "it was a million dollar rain". When I ask him what that meant, he said, it is gentle and a good ground soaking rain. It would be years later that I realized that him being Irish, he used the Irish manners for family. He had been referring to the Irish Blessing rather than the St. Patrick's Day Wish for his family and peers.

A St. Patrick's Day Wish for You

May your life be long,

May your heart be true,

May your path be clear

and your skies be blue. 

May your soul be happy

and you know deep joy,

May your dreams take flight. 

The different is what he was using to answer my question was this:

An Irish Blessing

May the road

rise to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

the rains fall soft upon your fields and,

until we meet again

may God hold you in the palm of his hand. 

In his context, he considered a soft rain that rained all day and into the night as a "million dollar rain, one that soaked the ground but was not washing as a run off or flood, or frankly, a blessing from God until he could get back into the fields again as now, his crops would continue to grow to harvest. God, had sent a million dollar rain.