Oodles Of Doodles CCCVII

It's been a bit since the last doodle I posted, so here's a quick one to tide you over. This festive scene comes from the back side of Karneval In Koln (Music Of The Colorful Carnival Celebration Of Germany) (Capitol T10222). Featured artists include Willi Hofmann, Werner Preuss, Horst Mys, Colonia-Orchester and Rheinland-Chor. This is another record in the Capitol Of The World series which seems to be a particularly rich source of doodles, provided you can find the long out-of-print records in the first place.

Shuttle Shutout

Well, I'd hoped to bring you pictures of the shuttle launch this morning, but this is all I got. Up until a couple hours before launch, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but as 11:38 am approached, so did the cloud cover. All I saw was this little bit of smoke peeking through a hole in the cloud cover. I waited for it to come out above all the clouds, but if it did, I didn't see it. I didn't actually drive anywhere, so nothing ventured, nothing gained. This was shot from right in front of work, so the distance from there to the launch pad is about 140 miles. I was a lot closer last time.

Happy Halloween Music

Prior to today, the only holiday music I've shared out on the blog has been for Christmas. Lots and lots and lots of Christmas music. But occasionally, as I was hunting down Christmas music, I'd occasionally spot something a little less jolly, something spookier, something more appropriate for Halloween. So I started collecting up those tracks when I stumbled across them. And now, the time is here to share them with you. It's just a collection of tracks, no special CD cover, so don't get all excited. Some of these are great, some of them are good, some of them are OK, and some of them, well, let's just say they're worth whatever you're paying for them. I think there are 24 tracks, most of which are instrumentals. The few vocal tracks I think are my favorites, but they are hard to find. Other bloggers have done a great job of bringing you more Halloween tracks, but I don't think I've seen any of these shared out elsewhere. If so, sorry for the duplication. So what's in the zip file?

Sid Bass-The House Is Haunted
Ralph Materie-Haunted Guitar
Phil Napoleon-Satanic Blues (written by a guy named Christian!)
Noro Morales-Mr. Ghost Goes To Town
The Modernaires-The Rockin' Ghost (co-written by Steve Allen, I think this is my favorite. Whoops, I seem to have put in both the stereo and mono versions. Sorry...)
The Mighty Sparrow-Madam Dracula
Michel Legrand-Old Devil Moon
Marty Gold-King Of The Mountain (Great version!)
Lou Levy-Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead
Lord Melody-Creature From The Black Lagoon
Les Brown & Vic Schoen-Oh, Those Martian Blues
Lenny Dee-Satan Takes A Holiday
Johnnie Long-The Boogie Man
John Gart-Funeral March For A Marionette (You know, Alfred Hitchcock's theme...)
Jimmy Durante-We're Going UFO-ing
Herbie Harper-The New York City Ghost
Ethel Smith-Ethel Meets The Count
Dinah Washington-My Man's An Undertaker (What was the inspiration behind this?!?)
David Rose-October Mist
The Count Of Monte Cristo & Congo Bey-Zombie Jamboree
The Brute Force Steel Band-Beastly Meringue
Billy Strange-Theme From The Munsters (No, I don't know why it sounds like that...)
Billy May-Return Of The Zombie

There you have it. Lot's of tracks from those old LPs that you know I love. Everything should be tagged with artists, titles, LPs, dates labels, you name it. No covers, though, 'cause I'm lazy. Hope you enjoy it. Here's the Linky-link.

The Next To The Last Week In October

More great fall color for the calendar picture this week. I think I shot this detail of a maple tree behind Stan Hywet in Ohio last year, but it could really have been anywhere at the height of the fall color. Impressive, no?

Field A'Flower

Several weeks ago, I was on my way somewhere when I spotted a large expanse of flowers. I made a mental note to come back over the weekend and shoot some pictures. Then I forgot where I had spotted them. Flash forward to last week on my way home from Big Cat Rescue, and I happened to drive past the spot. I had to cut across a couple lanes of traffic and enter a parking lot through the exit, but I managed to get to where I needed to be for the picture taking. Turns out it was a small, shallow pond that was covered in water hyacinth. Unfortunately, most of the flowers were past their prime, but I still got a few great pictures.

Big Cat Attack, Part 20

This is the last cat I shot at Big Cat Rescue last Saturday, so this is the end of my big cat pictures. Hope you enjoyed seeing these great cats up close. If I remember right, this was their very first tiger, so he has a huge pen, almost a full acre, with access to the lake and plenty of space to romp. Yet he still hangs out in the front so he can watch the tourists and get his picture taken.