No Vacancy

From Eeyore's Ramblins

These shiny butted bumblebees (or possibly carpenter bees, I'm not positive) were just swarming all around the balloon flowers. I was right in the middle of them, but they paid no attention to me. Good thing, too. I remember trying to catch them as a child when they would go down inside a deep flower and I would grab the end of the flower and close it up. Actually I only think I did that ONCE! Now the only thing I try to capture is their image.

Cruise In

From Eeyore's Ramblins

Every third Saturday night, at least during the summer, owners of antique and restored vehicles gather in a parking lot in Columbiana, Alabama, and sit around admiring each other's vehicles and swapping tales. I wandered around a couple of weeks ago and tried to get some photos of shiny stuff (there was plenty of it around). This was the engine in a restored Corvette.

Just Hanging Around at Lay Lake

Like Dusty said on his blog the other day, these guys are incredibly hyperactive and difficult to catch. This one had staked out this twig as his home base (at least for a few minutes) and was using it as his lookout position to guard his little corner of the lake. When any other dragonfly, or mosquito hawk as I grew up calling them, came near, he would dart at them, chase them away, and return to his perch. Since he routinely landed near the same spot, I set up the tripod, focussed on that spot, and waited with the shutter release cable in my hand. He would land and I would trip off several shots. Until that afternoon I really did not know there are so many different kinds of dragonflies, many sizes, and colors, but all the same basic helicopter shape. And all very adept at changing directions abruptly in mid-air.

2 Things Challenge Star/Appeal

The 2 Things Challenge this week is Star/Appeal. I have enjoyed taking some photos of the night sky, so I guess you could say it "appeals" to me, and this cluster particularly appeals to me. It is Pleiades, otherwise known as the "Seven Sisters." It is one of the nearest star clusters to earth, and it's been around a while. I even remember it from when I was a child. The thing is, we used to think of it as the Little Dipper. It is not the Little Dipper, but we were kids and didn't know any better. Neither did our parents. I was almost disappointed a few years ago when I got a star book and looked it up. But then I thought the real names, Pleiades, and Seven Sisters, were just as appealing as Little Dipper would have been. Now I look for it it the winter sky whenever I'm outside, in the country, away from the city lights. Fortunately this one is bright enough to be seen even through some of the light pollution.

Green Eyed Hibiscus

This giant Hibiscus was just in a pot on our patio, but if you get close enough, it looks like eyes to me.

2 Things Challenge Yellow/Brick

The 2 Things Challenge for this week is Yellow/Brick. Everybody's first thought has to be something to do with the Wizard of Oz and the yellow brick road. Mine was too, but look as I might, I could not find a yellow brick road. Then I got to thinking about this. My daughter had her first baby on April 21, a bouncing baby boy. Well about a month later she got a hankering. You ever had a hankering. You get something on your mind and you've just got to have it. When Memorial Day rolled around, she had been cooped up in the house basically since February (bed rest before and taking care of Mason after), and she was anxious to get out of town; husband, baby, and all. Getting out of town was one thing, but her real hankering was for dry rubbed ribs. There are plenty of very good barbeque places around central Alabama, but none are really famous for their dry rubbed ribs. Tennessee is the place to go. So on Memorial Day we loaded up the SUV with Gramps, Grammy, Momma, Daddy, Mason, stroller, diaper bag, and of course the camera, and off we go to Chattanooga to Sticky Fingers Restaurant for some of their self proclaimed famous dry rub barbequed ribs. The trip was a real treat, and the barbeque really was very good. While we were eating, I spotted this ad, painted on the building across the alley from the restaurant, and I thought the red and green (and YELLOW) made a nice composition. If you look closely (click on the photo for a much better image), there are some yellow bricks in there, or at least yellow and green bricks. The flower is a magnolia. Can't get much more southern than barbeque, Coca-Cola, and magnolias.

2 Things Challenge Yellow/Brick

Sticky Fingers Coke Sign, Chattanooga, Tennessee

2 Things Challenge Rusty/Shiny

The 2 Things Challenge this week is Rusty/Shiny. I've done a couple of things with this challenge.

First is a set of train tracks near my house in Wilsonville, Alabama. These tracks are used on a daily basis to haul coal to the nearby power plant. Even though the sides of the rails and the spikes holding them down are very rusty, the tops of the rails are polished shiny smooth by the constant wear of heavy rail cars. The boot? The boot is in fact why I took this photo in the first place, and I'm sure there is a story there, I just have no idea what it is. That's the kind of thing I make up my own story for. What are your ideas?

Next are a pair of bolts and nuts. The rusty set is from an old railroad car essentially abandoned and donated to the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum in Calera, Alabama, not far from my home. I believe the museum is gradually trying to restore some of the old engines and various freight and passenger cars. When I was there though, this car and its rusty bolt were just sitting there, gradually doing their part to increase the entropy of the universe, silent as to its history and not telling its story to anyone.

Now this shiny bolt has a different history. It is not a new bolt. It was already old and itself abandoned in 1967 when I recognized it as stainless steel and rescued it from the scrap pile at the paper mill in Macon, Georgia, where I worked summers while attending Georgia Tech. With the permission of my supervisor I requisitioned a stainless steel nut to fit the old bolt and took it home where I polished off all the old grime and grease and created a shiny paper weight for my desk. This thing has been with me ever since, usually just sitting on my desk, but occasionally letting me take it for a spin as I contemplated some tough problem at work, or just needed to relax for a minute or two. I know its story, or at least most of it, and I do believe it knows mine.