Recently in Interesting Category

I drove to Enchanted Rock today. It's been quite sometime since I went there previously. It was a beautiful day out. We arrived at around 8:30 in the morning. And unfortunately people started arriving in droves. Including big groups of very loud people. I had wanted to enjoy a peaceful climb. But it was not meant to be. I guess that, for the next time, I need to camp there overnight and climb it at first light.

My next door neighbor was game to come along. And we posed for this picture at around 1/4th of the way up. There was a handy rock to set the camera on. Unfortunately, the facial recognition count-down feature did not work. But the standard 10-second count-down did.

As we were climbing, three old propeller-driven aircraft used the rock as a way-point and performed a turn for us.

With three cloud trails forming a \ | /, I centered the picture on a bloom from some sort of yucca plant.

When I got to the top, I saw some beautiful islands of grass, moss, and cactus. They were very zen-like in a sea of pink granite.

I thought I was hallucinating that there was a dark streak in the sky. So I took a picture of it. At least the camera shared my hallucination.

I tried a vertical panorama of a tree today and learned some things. Even turning the white balance to a specific setting, and turning the automatic focusing off, I still ran into problems. My dynamic range was blown in the last picture on the top. This caused the tree itself to go almost black. So when I tried to recover the bark, the picture turned very grainy and noisy.

So, for the next time, I will take a set of multiple exposures for each position in the range. And the aperture will be fixed so that the depth of field will not be compromised.

Okay, I would have liked to have gotten the compass-rose points into the picture. But I missed a couple of pictures towards my feet. Sigh. Data lost is never recovered.

I went swimming today in Barton Springs. It was quite an experience! First of all it is really cold. You would think 68 degree water would not be that bad. After all, I wear shorts and short-sleeved shirts in that weather. But it took me a while to acclimate to it.

The next odd thing is there are plants living in this pool just below the surface. So when you swim, you are brushing against them and swimming through them. The pool is also quite deep so there is no standing around to rest.

It was certainly fun. I should try it in Winter when it is freezing out. I bet it would feel quite warm...

They cut down the climbing vine again. Which should be no big deal. It seems to grow back in a year. Its a really fast growing vine.

It left an interesting pattern on the wall....

The architect poorly designed these buildings at work. The Bradford Pear trees were placed too close to the buildings. They don't get enough light. And the high winds knock them down. And they never get replaced!

It seems that two were taken down recently. Too bad they wont let it grow back...

My Grandfather owned a Keuffel & Esser Co. Slide Rule 4092-3. There is a patent date of December 22, 1908 on it. It seems pretty old. I wish we had talked about it when he was alive. I bet there were some interesting stories involved...

Some times the program's automatically generated taunts just happen to fit the bill.

It's cool that a big wildflower area is right next to the parking garage at work!

I like the Domain's multi-colored sign. Too bad for all the power lines around it...

I think its included in the documents you sign when you move to Texas. You must take a picture in a Bluebonnet field...

This sign looks much different in the bright light of the day...

Snow in Round Rock from Mark Hamzy on Vimeo.

The cat was caught white bearded playing around in the top of a dusty cabinet. And now it looks like its owner...

Since I was driving out to Houston for Lone Star, I decided to head out to New Orleans for a vacation. Nick and Stephanie were in Lafayette, Louisiana at the time, so I stopped and ate lunch with them at Julien's Famous Cajun Style Poboys Store No 1. Unfortunately, the store closed early for the holidays. So we all headed over to Olde Tyme Grocery.

I arrived at the Sheraton on Canal Street later during the day. Unfortunately, it was Christmas Eve and many restaurants were closed. But, I stumbled upon the Gumbo Shop. The line was down the street at 6:30! But I lucked out when they were asking for two people or less and everyone else was in a group with more than that.

The hotel was situated on the edge of the French Quarter and close to the river. And the view from the window was not so bad.

More details after the cut...

It looks like, with the construction work going on to expand 1460, that a group of people took the time to clean up what once was a desolate cemetery.

I couldn't really escape my reflection on some of the holes today. But it did make for an interesting picture...

Not one, but two different Austin Photographers meetups are scheduled for this weekend. One is on Saturday and one is on Sunday. How odd.

I started off in the Capitol Building. Which I have never been in before. So sad.

A few Christmas ornaments on a scraggly tree turn a little more interesting with a thin depth of field and Christmas lights bokeh.

There are these customized art sculptures of guitars around the streets of Austin. I played around with killing the background with my one 580EXII flash set on full manual power. I dialed the exposure down two more stops in post-production to almost kill boring urban background.

I also played around with a slow shutter speed (1/10 second) and dragging the camera downward. One neon light can turn into many...

It also works when you change the zoom as the picture is being taken...

We also played chicken with traffic while we took a picture of the Capitol building.

An urban mural turned more interesting with a picture of Frost Bank in the background.

The night was rather foggy out. Which was sad. What can you do? I still had a fun time though. And I also learned not to use the flash when taking a picture of something in the distance. The fog really reflected the light!

At BGG.con this year, there were some AWESOME, hand-painted crokinole boards! I normally hate finger-flicking dexterity games, but I would love to own the Dragon's Lair or Magicola board.

I went to Ventanas for lunch today. But first I paused for a bit to watch the removal of a bunch of Italian Cypress trees. Around half of them died this year. So the solution it seems is to remove all of them. One of the things that I hate about our site's policy is that they never replant trees. So sad. And so environmentally unfriendly...

I had the French Onion soup, an eggplant dish, and an apple tart. All of them were very tasty!