Neat Little Thing I Saw

Yesterday Melanie was running late and I drove her a few stops ahead of the bus so she wouldn't miss it. I stuck around to make sure she got on. When the bus arrived and she embarked the bus started pulling away slowly before she sat down. As she walked back toward the rear of the bus she kept pace with the bus stop, for about two seconds it looked like she was propelling the bus with her feet. Nice little surreal moment to start the day.

The Nobama Attitude

Driving to work today I ended up behind an SUV with so many conservative stickers on the back that I thought maybe it was done as a joke. It had a sticker that said "I support the 2nd Amendment," one that read "If you voted for Obama in 2008 to prove you weren't racist then vote him out in 2012 to prove you're not an idiot." It also had a sticker asking how that hope and change were working and another with the "Nobama" along with the design borrowed from Obama's 2008 campaign logo. There was one more about the leaders will follow if the people lead but that one could go either way.

I found interesting the sticker that implied that some people voted for Obama out of guilt. Methinks that may be a bit of projection on the part of anyone who believes that. Maybe, just maybe, I didn't vote for Obama out of guilt. I voted for him because I am a liberal and I support his policies over McCain's (and there is not way in hell I would vote for a ticket which had Sarah Palin). Maybe, just maybe, you didn't vote for him and protest a bit too much for a similar reason? No? Hey, you brought up race, dude, I think you're the one with issues.

And this whole 2nd amendment thing. Oh good, you support the 2nd amendment. I am so happy you think the country should have a militia...What? You think that allows you arm yourself to the teeth and allow criminals to shoot up neighborhoods because "law abiding" citizens sell their guns and/or don't store them securely? As Al Franken once said in reference to a quote by Phil Gramm ("I have more guns than I need but not as many as I want"), "He and I are two very different people."*

*May not be exact quotes, I don't have access to Franken's book Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot which is where that quote appears to originate.

By the way, one of my favorite Al Franken moments happened on Al's appearance on Howard Stern back when Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot first came out. Howard massacred the name of the book at one point, calling it something like Rush Limbaugh is an Idiot and Al interrupted Howard and dead panned in the way only he can, "No, no, the title is Rush Limbaugh is a BIG FAT Idiot." Slayed me.

Lightning

At the end of my lunch hour today a thunderstorm blew through the Southpark area. Upstairs I pressed my camera to a window and took about twenty shots, trying to catch some lightning. I got one.

Lady Liberty

Since tomorrow is Independence Day of 4th of July how about a few photos from Flickr of the Statue of Liberty?

First, how not to take a picture of a friend and the statue


A nice panorama from the south


A couple of nice aerials




A shot from a ferry in 1961


Some nice clouds

Beach Trip

On Monday Melanie and I drove out to Kure Beach, NC for a couple of nights. We picked Kure Beach on a whim. We had been looking around and had considered Charleston and Tybee Island. While searching around I came across the website for the Southwind Motel in Kure Beach. It is a small family owned place and was the kind of place we were looking for. It was on the beach and affordable. Kure Beach is nice. It's a little out of the way and not too crowded and it's not a complete tourist trap. We got to spend time walking on the pier and the beach, swam in the ocean and got a couple of hours of good beach time in. We also got some good reading done while sitting on our room's balcony. Good time.

This is the view from our room's balcony. You can see the pier on the left. The pier was a short walk away. There were a couple of decent looking restaurants (I say decent looking because our room had a kitchen and we ate in the whole time), a couple of shops and a game room. Nice little area.


The pier had a few regular pelicans that would wait for scraps from the the dozens of fishermen who were on the pier all the time. Some of the fishermen would toss into the waiting maw of a pelican undersized fish they couldn't keep. One pelican would get in behind a fisherman whenever he heard the reel.


The pier was a busy place. People were fishing there constantly. When I got up at 5:30 to photograph the sunrise there were people out there already. There was a shop you had to pass through to enter the pier and that shop had a display of all the big catches made off that pier. I didn't seen anyone catch anything over six inches long.


I decided I was going to get a shot of the sunrise. I had to set my alarm for 5:30. I don't remember the last time I did that. This is the a long exposure of the surf before the sun arrived.


This was only the second time I had seen the sun rise out of the sea. Incredible. Nothing like it.



Another hungry pelican on the pier. We walked on the pier a few times. I really like walking on fishing piers on the Atlantic Ocean. You can watch people fish and you get nice views of the beach and ocean.


I think this shot of Melanie sums up nicely the good time we had.

The Beach

We are heading to the beach for a couple of days in a few hours. Our destination is Kure Beach, NC. We found a nice motel right on the water for a good price. I am really looking forward to this which, I guess, is why I am awake at 6:30.

Back to the Flickr Collection

In December of 2010 Charlotte was pummeled by a good 4 inches of snow. We barely survived. It was worth it because we had a chance to go to Freedom Park and take pictures. Good times.

Monster on the Golf Course

Yesterday Barry found a young praying mantis on his golf clubs. It was so thin and light green that it was almost transparent.

Golf Panorama

Today I played in a casual tournament that was raising money for a youth group for a church in Clemmons, NC. We played at Salem Glen Country Club and it is a really nice golf course. There are a lot of elevation changes and a nice use of doglegs, water and hazards. I didn't take a lot of pictures because, honestly, I wasn't hitting the ball well and too busy brooding on my bad golf game. Today was odd, I just wasn't hitting the ball well. These two panoramas turned out pretty good.

The view from the tee on #12

The view from the 14th tee

Teeing Off

Tonight Melanie and I are driving to her sister's house for the weekend. Tomorrow her brother-in-law Jon and I have a golf outing at a place called Salem Glen Country Club. If they are honest on their webpage it sounds like a fun and challenging course. In honor of golf, below is a shot of my friend Chis in 2007, teeing off at the old #8 at Revolution Gold Course. Yes, he is wearing my Glen Lake Lakers hat I purchased at a football game while on vacation.