I don't know why, I just thought this picture of four sandhill cranes walking down the driveway to my parent's house was hilarious. I suppose you had to be there. The ones with their beaks open were making their loud cry, telling me to quit following them around and taking their picture. Sorry, guys, I couldn't resist.
I keep forgetting to post this. Last time I was working over in Daytona Beach, these giant stick insects were mating on the window sill out side the office I was in. That big one, which I think is the female, is about four inches long, not including the antennae or legs. The little male is only about two inches long. The only time I ever see these creatures is mating season, and even then I don't see two many of them. They seem to like to crawl up walls while mating for some reason unbeknowst to me. Biggest one I've ever seen was almost six inches, but that was back before I was an avid photographer, so I never got a picture. But maybe someday...
I love the internet! This is a muskmare (the big girl) and the little guy is her stallion. Scientific name is anisomorpha buprestoides, commonly called two-striped walkingsticks. How's that for info?
Imagine my surprise when I spotted this cute little lighthouse while on the Staten Island Ferry. Imagine my surprise when I tried walking towards it and after a mile or so I was no closer. Turns out that it's in New Jersey, and not actually on Staten Island. And if you look close at the shot below, you'll see it's got an airport nearby. I shot this on 9/11, so it concerned me at first, but the second or third time it happened, I figured out what was going on. Turns out it's Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) behind there.
PS-This was not the first lighthouse I saw on my trip. More about that other one later.
Hmmmm... I leave New York, and the financial markets tumble. You'd think they could have paid me to stay in town a few more days... Anyhow, that's the New York Stock Exchange above, before the big tumble. After the Dow Jones Industrial Average looses 500 points today, I suspect that flag looks quite a bit smaller now.
Add JFK to the list of airports that are kind enough to offer free wireless. I'm sitting here waiting for the flight back to Sarasota, and I wanted to say that I had a great time here in the Big Apple. They aren't kidding when they say it's big, but I never figured out the apple part. I'm happy to say that I made it to almost all of the spots on my list, including all five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and The Bronx), the tops of both the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center (Top Of The Rock), Coney Island (blech!), the Statue of Liberty (it's actually called Liberty Enlightening the World, by the way) and I even walked the entire length of Central Park. But more on all that later, after I've slept for about a week. Shame I have to be back at work tomorrow.
After several tries, we finally located the Imagine mosaic in the Strawberry Fields section of Central Park. I'm not sure how we missed it the first few times, but we finally got to the right path. It's across Central Park West and just slightly south of the Dakota building, where Lennon lived at the time of his death, and where Yoko Ono lives to this day. There was a guy there playing Lennon songs on a guitar, and plenty of people quietly showing their respects to their favorite Beatle. I don't know if you get the flower petals every day, or just on the weekends.
I was a little shocked to be a thousand miles from home and see a bumper sticker for a Tampa radio station on a guitar laid near the Imagine memorial. But there is was. Maybe I should send them this picture. WMNF, are you listening?
One of the more surprising things I've seen here in NYC is this statue. Nothing too exciting when you spot it, until you read the story behind it. This sculpture was 2.5 kilometers from the atomic blast at Hiroshima in 1945. It was brought to New York ten years later and now sits in front of a Buddhist temple on Riverside Drive. Impressive, huh?
Hooray! I spotted my third copy of Rodin's Thinker today. This cast is located in front of the philosophy building at Columbia University here in NYC. The two previous versions I saw were in Cleveland and San Francisco.
Turns out they have the same moon up here in Manhattan that we have down in Florida. Who knew...
I think I may be the only person in NYC who has ever noticed this sign. It's certainly not stopping anyone from using their horn.
High above Lower Manhattan last night, I spotted the two towers of light that they put up in honor of the fallen twin towers of the World Trade Center. We headed down towards them to get some better shots, but they were out by the time we got closer. Pretty impressive even at this distance, though.
...When you see the Empire State Building towering overhead. But it's still two miles away.
Well, if everything goes according to plan, this share will pop up on the blog while I'm on board a big ole jet airliner heading from the Sunshine State to New York City. Yep, I'm heading up there for a long weekend of picture taking and to pay my respects at Ground Zero. Hopefully I'll have some time to share pictures with you while I'm there, but if not, I'll have plenty to share when I get back. The list of places I want to see and shoot is outrageous. But just because I'm the one on vacation doesn't mean you don't get a little gift. I wanted to share this record with you because of the NY, NY theme, and I think you'll agree it's an incredible find. I can't believe that it hasn't been shared out a million times on the internets. This is Harry Geller And His Orchestra-New York, New York (RCA Victor LPM-1032, 1955). All the tracks on here were written by Mr. Geller specifically for this homage to the world's greatest city. Not only is the music great, but the LP sleeve itself folds open from the middle to reveal the great city skyline at night! Here's the download link, go download this baby!
I'm going to try something a little different with this share. I'm putting the tracklisting below, with the thought that it might draw more hits when people search, and I've included scans in the ZIP file of not only the front, back and inside of the record sleeve, but also the A and B side labels as well. I figure it's a nice little touch. Here's that tracklisting.
Side 1:
1. The Rivers
2. Subway Polka
3. Statue Of Liberty
4. Canal Street Cantata
5. Window Shopping On 5th Avenue
6. The Cafes (Including The Automat)
Side 2:
7. Radio City
8. Shubert Alley Overture (Opening Night)
9. Museums
10. Park Concert
11. Central Park
12. U.N. Building
Again, this is probably one of the best records I've ever had the pleasure to share. Trust me on this. The track Subway Polka appears to have been used as the theme to Beat The Clock at one point, and this may be the same Harry Geller who wrote the music for The Odd Couple TV series, who passed away earlier this year.
Someone pointed out to me today that it had been ages since I posted anything to the blog, and I suppose they are correct. I've been busy with other things, and time sort of gets away from me. So here's something from my trip to Charlotte, NC that I meant to bring you earlier. This is a piece of public art located in downtown called Grande Disco. It's quite the impressive piece, and it was one of the things I wanted to make sure I saw while in Charlotte. It reminded me a little of a Borg spaceship (in a new shape that we haven't seen before, but plausible in my mind) or perhaps the spaceship that brought the giant cockroach to earth in Men In Black. Either way, it's an impressive piece of work. I think it used to spin, but it's currently fixed in place.
Hmmm, I guess this piece isn't unique.
Here I sit at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, waiting for my flight. I just realized after an hour of sitting here that they have free Wireless internet. Of course, I have to re-log in every three minutes for some reason, but that may be because I'm way at the far end of Terminal E, about as far from the main building as you can get. Probably not much signal left by the time it gets down here. Anyhow, I wanted to throw up a quick picture for you, and it has to be quick because I can see my plane at the gate now. This is a dragonfly I saw at the Latta Plantation on Saturday. Right after I took this we went to the raptor center where I got to see much larger winged creatures. But those pictures will have to wait for another day.
We went to the Carolina Raptor Center in North Carolina today, and they had something I'd never seen before. You're looking at an albino red-shouldered hawk! I thought they had a cockatoo in a pen when I first walked up, and then I saw the beak. This girl was beautiful. They say she's not a full albino, and she did have a few dark feathers on the back of her head, but everything else was white. I don't think you'll ever see one of these in the wild.
By the way, Honeysuckle is her name, in case you were wondering where that title came from.
Anybody want to guess where Ernie (Not Bert) is this weekend? This Queen greeted me when I walked out of the airport.
I was at Mom and Dad's for a little while today after it had rained, and I shot these rain drops on some leaves. The name of these plants was right on the tip of my tongue, but I lost it. They come in these incredible bright colors, but they can be difficult to photograph, I think these came out pretty nice. I wonder what it is about the surface of the leaves that causes the water to bead up like this?
This billboard has been bugging me for several months now. It's on the Eastbound side of Interstate 4 near the intersection of I-75, on the wrong side of the road for the direction it faces. But that's not the problem. The problem is that it says AVALIBLE. I think they meant for it to say AVAILABLE, but they didn't quite get all the letters in there or in the right order. I hate typos, especially big ones. Well, I guess big is relative, but this one is billboard sized.
I almost missed the full moon last night, and then I almost didn't get a chance to post the picture today. But I didn't, and then I did, so here's the shot I know you've all been waiting for. Looks to my eyes like there was some haze in the air, or, more likely, some thin clouds when I shot this. I know there were plenty of clouds about, but I thought they'd all passed when I shot this. But I don't think it's as sharp as the full moon from last month.
