Eddy Arnold, RIP

Countrypolitan crooner extraordinaire Eddy Arnold passed away this morning at the ripe old age of 89. While I can't say he's a blog favorite, there are plenty of his records down in the archives. And if you're looking for some small tribute to him, I've shared out a couple of Christmas items from him around here. The first is a USAF promo from sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. He also turns up on a US Navy promo from sometime a little later. I hope you enjoy these little tastes from a great artist.

The Big Time

Those of you who visit regularly may remember the sculpture above, entitled Pulse, and you might remember my involvement in getting it manufactured. Well, they finally issued a program for the show, featuring photographs of all the artworks and bios of the artists, and guess what? They used one of my pictures instead of a shot by the official photographer! How cool is that? I didn't know they were going to use it, or I may have worked on it a little harder. Like move those little signs you see in the picture that warn people not to climb on the structure, or maybe try to get a better sunset in the background. But it's still a great picture.

If you look close at the scan above of the back of the picture, you can see my photography credit on the right side. Pretty cool, eh? (It's hard to read unless you click on the picture and make it bigger, so be sure you do that.)

PS-See along the bottom of that scan where it says something about "For Purchase Information..."? You can buy this sculpture if you like. They are asking $180K, but I bet you could get it for $175K if you asked nice. Shipping and handling not included.

And I Quote

From Roger Ebert's review of Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle, "The only hamburger worth that much trouble when you're clean and sober is at Steak 'n Shake." I couldn't agree more. I knew I bought all those books for a reason.

19 Daisies

Support Your Local Eagle

As part of the Earth Day festivities at Oscar Scherer State Park last Sunday, they brought out this bald eagle. He's a permanent resident of a local sanctuary, and they bring him out to show the majesty of these beautiful birds. You see them on the backs of quarters, and maybe in the opening animation on The Colbert Report, but how often do you get to see these guys up close? Never, that's how often. Well, maybe not never, but rarely. And Sunday was your chance. They really are magnificent. No wonder they selected the bald eagle as our national bird. They're much more exciting than some dumb old turkey.

Unprocessed Thanksgiving Dinner

For only the second time ever, I saw a wild turkey on Sunday. The first time was quite a few years ago when I was first starting to get interested in digital photography. A buddy and I took my new 1 megapixel camera out on a small road trip, and one of our stops was a dirt road that ran up into the Green Swamp a short ways. Off on the side of the dirt road, I spotted a turkey and got a single shot that's only slightly worse than this one. But I knew that great things were coming if I only practiced with that camera. And that brings us to yesterday and my second turkey. This gobbler was on a trail at Oscar Scherer park. I spotted him as soon as I came around a corner. I thought at first it was a single sand hill crane, but I watched him for a second and figured out what it really was. I slowly started trying to get closer for a better shot, but a couple of other hikers walked past me and straight towards the bird, causing him to run off into the bushes. I would have liked to gotten a better picture, but there's always next time. Even if it takes 6 more years...

What Is A Balloon Glow?

Gather 'round kiddies, and let Ole Ern tell you about the balloon glow. It was about a week and a half ago when I was at the Sun-N-Fun Fly-in, and I came across a few of these hot air balloons, all filled up with hot air, as is their way. But nobody was going anywhere because they were tightly tied to the rear bumpers of large pickup trucks. Every so often as the hot air in the balloon turned to lukewarm air, the operator would pull a handle overhead and release a generous helping of flammable gas into the balloon. At about the same time, he would flick a lit match up over his head, igniting the flammable gas and creating a giant fireball. As it got darker, these fireballs would light up the inside of the balloons, creating the glow I spoke of earlier. Now you know. It's hard to tell, but the balloon all the way on the left would be glowing if it weren't made of a dark fabric. I don't know why they included such a dark colored balloon in their glow. I guess they didn't want to exclude anyone...

A Thistle Among Flowers

Sometimes you've got to zoom in as far as you can go to get right to the heart of the matter. I found this thistle blossom on the side of a runway at the airshow last week. Even though there were hot-air balloons taking off over my head, I had to get down on my hands and knees to shoot the flower at my feet. Beauty is where you find it.

Home Sweet Hole

People say that a turtle's home is his shell, but that's not entirely true. And technically, this isn't a turtle, but a tortoise. A gopher tortoise to be exact, and he lives in a hole in the ground. I stumbled (almost literally) across this guy on Sunday while at an Earth Day celebration. I thought he was a stuffed display at first, but then he slid a few inches into his hole as I got closer, so I knew he was the real thing. These guys used to live all over the place here in Florida, but habitat loss has decimated their population, and they are now protected. We used to play with them as kids, but I suspect that's against the law now.

A Wing And A Prayer

I didn't download the pictures I took on Saturday until Sunday night, and I didn't look at most of them until today. So I didn't know that I had this great pelican picture until just a few minutes ago. I shot this guy near the New Pass Bridge at the south end of Longboat Key. As you can see, the water is starting to get that great shade of green again. I need to get out and take more pictures!

Airborne

The morning that I went to the airshow early to see the hot air balloons go up, I spotted these sandhill cranes flying in. I've always wanted to shoot these guys in the air, but never had the luck of catching them when I had a camera around my neck. These guys happened to be in the right place at the right time, and so was I. You can tell that they are cranes by the way their necks stick out while flying. Most other birds with long necks tend to fold their neck up. Lots of other pictures of sandhill cranes here on the blog, so go have a look.

Not The Cadillac Ranch

Here's a posting I've been meaning to bring you for a while, but I've been a little preoccupied lately. On my way to Lakeland recently for the airshow, I finally remembered that I wanted to stop and take some pictures of a little roadside attraction called Airstream Ranch. And I just happened to stop in the middle of a press conference they were holding. So I just pretended that I belonged and walked out into the field where these 8 Airstream trailers are planted. Turns out that they were put there in January as a promotion for a camper salesman who's got a dealership at the next exit along the interstate. (That's interstate 4 near Dover, Florida, that you see running along behind the trailers.) Not long after the trailers were put in, the dealership was informed that the property under the trailers was not zoned for advertising. The dealership claimed it wasn't advertising, as there was no sign anywhere on the trailers or the property, and thus it was art. The county balked and gave a deadline to have the trailers out. That deadline happened to be a couple of days after I stopped by, and I haven't heard what happened. I guess I need to go look up the outcome. To me, it is art, much like the original Cadillac Ranch, or the sculpture in Sarasota called Dance.

Thunderbirds Are Go!

I just got home from two days at the Sun N Fun Fly-In up in Lakeland. It's the second largest airshow in the world, and it is BIG. But the big draw for me this year was the USAF Thunderbirds. I shot them twice, and I think I got some really nice pictures. The shot above is from the Friday show, which was technically a practice, but they went through their whole show flawlessly, so they obviously didn't need the practice. I'm too tired to post much now, but I wanted to go ahead and get this teaser up. Lots more to come! Oh, and any of you who are fairly close to Lakeland, they are performing again tomorrow (Sunday). It's worth your time and effort to go see these guys. Trust me.

Not The Top Of The World, But Close

You've seen a shot I took from the top of the Sears Tower, but you haven't seen any of the pictures I took from the top of the John Hancock Building. I managed to get to the top of that one a couple of hours after sunset, and it's quite the different view at night. The Hancock building is near the northern end of all the skyscrapers in Chicago, so the money shot is looking back south, with the lakefront being to the left, and the loop district being towards the right. Standing above everything on the right is Sears Tower. The big North-South road you see near the left center of the picture is Michigan Avenue. Somewhere a couple of miles south on that road is my hotel. It was a long walk, but well worth the trip.

Hmmm, I thought the Hancock building was the second tallest in Chicago, but it looks like I'm wrong. The second tallest is the Aon Center, which I think you can see above just left of center. If I had known that, I would have tried to get to the top of it, too. Oh, well. Wait, I guess it depends on if you count the antennas or not. With the antennas, John Hancock is still second tallest. I tell you what, just nevermind. They're all tall buildings. I live on the second floor, and that's high enough for me!

Ye Olde Water Tower

Continuing on with more pictures from my trip to Chicago, I bring you the Chicago Water Tower. I believe this was one of the few structures in Chicago to survive the great fire of 1871. It's an interesting building, stuck in the middle of other buildings that look nothing like it, yet mirroring the appearance of the pumping station across the street. If I hadn't known it was a water tower, I'd have guessed it was an old church, or maybe some eccentric's castle.

That Miro

Here's something I shot in Chicago without having any idea what it was. I took this in the near-darkness, so it's not the best picture ever, but it turns out to be the only shot I took of it. Well, one of two, but they're both about the same. This is by Joan Miro and is called Chicago. Or maybe it's called The Sun, The Moon And One Star. Hard to tell. Anyhow, it's due south of the Picasso I shared earlier (Literally on the other side of the street), but I didn't know what it was, I just shot everything that looked artsy.

Under The Loop

I tried to get a decent picture of the streets that run under the El in the Loop in downtown Chicago. None of them came out. It's too dark under there, and I didn't want to stop in the middle of traffic to shoot. But I did get this shot looking down into the theater district from under The Loop. I think you get the idea.

I Can See My House From Here

For those of you that might be curious, here is a view of the hotel I stayed at while in Chicago, as seen from the top of the Sears Tower. Look close near the exact center of the picture, and you can see the words Congress Hotel in reverse. They display out towards Michigan Avenue, so you're looking at the back of them here. Just to the right of the top of the red CNA building is Buckingham Fountain, which was not in operation while I was there. Top of the picture is Lake Michigan. It wasn't frozen over, but there was ice in the water in some spots. The road you see going left to right through Grant Park is Lakeshore Drive, aka US 41. I could not have asked for a hotel located in a better spot, let me tell you!

Always Use Your Spell-Check

Just a warning to those of you in charge of anything that's going to be seen by the public. What you see above is a sign on the observation deck at the Sears Tower (on floor 103). Note that #7 is Buckingham Founntain. My hotel is also visible in the picture, and when I walked over to the fountain from the hotel, it wasn't spelled founntain. (It also wasn't on, but that's another story...) That's the sort of thing that annoys me. I paid about $13 to ride the elevator to the top, so they have plenty of money available to make a corrected sign. Someone should write a letter. I just hope there aren't any typos in this post...

That Calder

When day two of my Chicago stay turned out to have nice weather, I decided to get out and shoot after work. I left my hotel with directions to the Sears Tower and figured I'd see plenty along the way. Guess what? I was right. I stumbled onto both a large Calder sculpture, and a peace protest that was to follow me around the rest of the evening. I think the protest was in the gathering stage when I stumbled across it (Turns out it was the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq). They were gathering in front of this large Alexander Calder sculpture called Flamingo. I didn't remember it at the time, but I recently noticed it in the background of a shot in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I guess I should have watched that again before I travelled to Chicago. To my eyes, this sculpture is very much influenced by the Picaso just a few blocks away, which, by the way, was where I ran into the peace protesters next.