Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Texas Sculpture Garden in Frisco

On Monday, I had a quick lunch at Subway & then drove through the Texas Sculpture Garden in Frisco. I say "drove through" because the 7 employees at the new Subway appeared to all be in training & were a bunch of morons so I had very little time by the time I found the entrance. (I found the website later)

The sculpture garden is in the Hall Office Park just across the street from the Rough Riders baseball park. Basically it's a techno-office park with art in the front lawn. They have a pdf tour guide.

The whole thing appears to be the idea of one really rich guy who happened to relocate his business in Frisco. This is a picture of Craig Hall of Hall Financial Group from the TSG website & a personal message from Craig.



He reminds me of Larry from Three's Company for some reason.

I only had time to shoot a couple of pics. Click the pic to see it full size on flickr.com.

Texas Sculpture Garden #1

Both of these were by the same artist. I find this one to be very mathematical.

Texas Sculpture Garden #2

I'm planning to shoot the whole thing just to test the D70 a bit more. I'm loving the D70 by the way. Still figuring out how to get the best results, but it's getting easier. I was testing different exposures in my office & snapped this one. I guess I need to move these to storage.

I'm Wired

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Cottonwood Park

Last Thursday I met the wife for lunch. I had about a half hour to kill so I drove over to Cottonwood Park in Richardon to take a few pics. We go to the art festival here in the fall & spring. I highly recommend it. You can buy cool stuff that doesn't cost a lot of money.

Bridge

First I saw a crow... I see them all the time, but this one seemed extra cocky so I took his pic.

Crow


Then I was repeatedly divebombed by a flock of pigeons.

Pigeons


Then this plane flew over a couple of times. If you click on the picture & look at the original on flickr.com you can make out the numbers on the plane.

Plane

Then the squirrel. I actually hate squirrels, but this guy was tame so I shot a few pics of him. When I'm reduced to taking pictures of a squirrel, I know it is time to leave.

Squirrel

But just as I was topping the hill, I saw these turtles getting a little sun.

Turtles

That kinda made my day. I've always like turtles. I always stop when I see one in the road & move it to safety.

Then it was time to go eat at Del's in downtown Richardson. Excellent burgers & root beer. Been there forever. New owner cleaned it up and the food still rocks.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Soler

Last month I read about Soler, a street artist that has spent some time in Dallas. I'm into street art (I still call it graffiti) so after pestering the blogger, she gave me the exact location of a "Soler". Yesterday I found some time & drove to the SE corner of Pacific & Pearl. I went all the way around the building & didn't see it. I decided to leave & as I was making the block I saw this in the distance. Turns out you sometimes need to look UP. As you can see, I was a good distance away when I spotted it. (center of pic)

soler-02

Here's one of the better shots. If you click on the pic, it will take you to flickr.com where you can see it in the original size. Looks like the little one is about to get mugged!

soler-08

This one should give you an idea of how high up the wall these were... at least the liquor billboard makes a good artist scaffold.

soler-06

I just realized I didn't get their feet in any of these... bad photographer. I'll have to see about getting up high to get the whole piece photographed.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

St. Patrick's Day

The last few years I have taken the train to Trinity Hall & celebrated St. Patrick's day. This year I decided to go alone, so I packed up my ipod & new camera and got the wife to drop me at the train station. The station at Galatyn park is right next to the Renaissance hotel. Click the photos for the album where you can view larger pics.

Galatyn Park Station

The fountain seems computer controlled, but probably is much simpler. In the summer this is a popular spot for kids on bikes. We'll bring my son here soon, I think he'll get a real kick out of it.

Fountain at Galatyn Park

I like this pic because of all the detail. If you click on the pic & then choose original size on the site, you will see the 6.1 mp version. You can pan around and really see just how bad the sprawl has gotten in North Dallas. This really sucks.

sprawl

The ride on the train was fine. I saw the house I lived in while I was at SMU. This house was next door to my best friend's house. They had a pair of 60 year old oak trees his grandfather planted. House is there but empty since both parents died a few years ago. Trees are still there. A few years ago I sat up in that tree with my friend Chris and we split a six pack. His mother came out & yelled at us to get down. It was funny because both of us were probably 32 years old at the time. She died that winter. His dad died the next spring. miss both his parents. They were good people.

Old Oak Trees on Glen Lakes Drive

Here's a shot from the rear. If you look at the 6 megapixel version, you can just see my old house. It's a doctor's office now. Great place, wish I still had it.

Old Oak Trees on Glen Lakes Drive

Those pictures really suck, but it was the best I could do from the train. I should have gotten off the train at Walnut Hill station. Next time I will.

One thing I like about the train is getting a whirlwind tour of all the graffiti. I only took one pic, since I was always so busy looking at everything. Classic blunder. Not a good pic at that. Oh well, I'll do better next time.

Graffiti from Train

I continued on to Mockingbird Station. Trinity Hall was just an escalator ride up and I was sipping a Guiness within 5 minutes of the train stopping. On the way in I snapped this pic of the Trinity Hall sign. Love it.
Trinity Hall

This my friends is what a bar should be. I don't even miss the cigarette smoke. Notice the dark wood, low light, and general happy feel of the place.

DSC_0181

This guy seems to be there every time I visit TH. I forget his name, but it doesn't matter. Everyone is named Shaun on St. Pats day. (or is it Shawn?) He was hitting on these two women. They had planned to see a movie at the Anjelika, but the lure of the beer was too much to resist. They asked me what I was going to do with the pic... they were worried about it showing up on a website. I don't know what they are worried about. Maybe they were supposed to be working or something.

DSC_0183

For some reason I always seem to run into my next door neighbor at TH. We really don't see them that often with everyone's busy schedule. We get along great & all... just all very busy with kids & work I guess. Anyhow, here they are. A very handsome couple. Unfortunately I had to give up my seat at the bar & move outside where it was windy. The things you do for friendship. :)

DSC_0193

Eventually it was time to go so I took the escalator down to the station. At 5pm the station is packed, which didn't bother me cause I was in ipod isolation.

Escalator at Mockingbird Station

I thought these guys were funny. They were looking cool & acting the part.

DSC_0210

I thought this was a nice contrast to the above picture. No smiles here.

Cool Guys?

Finally back at the 190 station. I had some time to kill. This is a lame attempt at art. I wanted to climb this thing it was so friggin tall. Did I mention I like to climb?

Power Lines

Finally the wife comes & I shoot this as I cross the street. I'll spare you the 10 minutes of I'm bored standing at a bus stop pics.

DSC_0246

Thursday, March 10, 2005

New Camera - Nikon D70

I finally broke down & bought a Nikon D70. I called Competitive Camera this morning and they had 'em in stock at a reasonable price. There was also a $100 mail-in rebate as an extra incentive to do it now. I went body only, since I have a couple of decent Nikon AF lenses already. There are pictures at billybobbain.com.


I've shot about 120 pictures in a couple of hours. I had a glare problem early on, but I think it might have been related to the program I was running.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Pirate Ship Playhouse

Unlike me, the wife actually got a bonus this year. She only bought me socks, but she bought Noah this very cool pirate ship playhouse. Tots Towne got her money finally, even though they pissed me off. We plan to move it outside this weekend. We'll see. ;)



I was able to convince her to pose with him. The lighting was difficult with this stupid phone camera. The only time I'm happy with the pictures from this phone camera is when I'm in bright daylight. Note that I have decided not to use my Nikon N80 35mm or 3 year old Kodak digital until I buy a new Nikon D70 digital SLR. This is the best of the series. I need to edit it in Gimp & try to lighten Lee Ann up a bit.



Gotta work now.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

What kind of Jones Soda are you?

Stolen from non-girlfriend.




You Are Turkey and Gravy Soda



Gobble. Gobble.


Sunday, March 06, 2005

North Texas Irish Festival

Yesterday we went to the North Texas Irish Festival at Fair Park with the wife's parents & the golden child. I believe we'll make it an annual tradition. The weather was a bit overcast, but it was comfortable and nice to be outside for a stretch. Here's a shot of the wife & Noah with the main outdoor stage in the background.



The initial beer hunt took longer, due to the whole "ticket" thing, but eventually we had our 1st Guinness of the day. And god said it was good. The funniest thing about all this is the merging of the Irish with Texas culture. The whole kilt & cowboy hat ensemble was very popular.



The food was exceptional. I tried some of the irish stew, but the best thing was just the normal fair food. My favorite was the Cajun wrap... I went with beef and was not disappointed. I have this thing about eating chicken away from home. Much of this festival was indoors, here's a shot of one of the music tents. I think Seamus Stout was playing at that time. I have seen them at Trinity Hall and they are excellent.



While in line for a Guinness at one point, I saw a man holding his newborn. Behind me in line was a group of college students and one of the girls piped up, "Why would someone bring their newborn here?". She said it over & over and they all agreed that it was stupid. Since I was over working on Guinness 5.0 at that time, I had to respond. I reminded them that it was a FREE country and that guy could do whatever he wanted to as long as he wasn't hurting anyone. They were so astonished that they didn't say a word. So I took the opportunity to add, "And I don't know why a man would bring someone like YOU here?". Stunned silence from all of them. What are we teaching these kids in college? I would have called me a "geezer" and threw a beer in my face. I think she might have been a "tagalong" with the other 2 couples anyway. Maybe she left & they were happy. Someone always tells me when I act like a moron, so I feel obligated to do the same.

On the way to the car we spied a Delorean made up in Back to the Future style. I had to peek in and see the flux capacitor... looked to be light rope from Wal-Mart. Damn. You can just make out the flux capacitor in this picture.



Turned out to be a very fun day.