When I saw the people standing in the openings in the parking structure watching the building burn, the image reminded me of a scene from a Fellini film. Then there’s the three arson investigators that are reminiscent of Van der Weyden’s “Decent from the Cross.” The last two photos are time lapses of sorts. The penultimate photo is the tile mosaic façade of the burned out building at 12:08 PM and the last photo is what’s left of the tile mosaic façade of the burned out building at 5:13 PM.
Here’s what’s left after the fire.
I am posting my blog very late today, because I got home late from the fire. The flamenco studio on the end of our block caught on fire yesterday afternoon and it turned into a major fire that threatened the rest of the block. Patrician Design was the most immediately threatened business, and fortunately the firewall between PD and the flamenco studio held. Our offices above Gold Street Cafe got a lot of smoke, but late, after they had the fire out and the power was restored, I opened up the office for some firemen and women who brought a big fan in and blew out as much of the smoke as the could from those offices. While they were blowing smoke out of the offices upstairs, I went downstairs and got all the servers fired back up. After that, the fire marshal gave me permission to secure the office, set the alarms and go home. The photos show the progression of the fire and the last photos are of Patti of Patrician Design celebrating that her boutique didn’t burn down. The fire caused a lot of excitement and anxiety for what started out to be a rather lazy afternoon.
I finally replaced my 2006 Mazda 5 the insurance company totaled with with a 2009 Mazda RX8. This little beauty only has 28,500 miles, and has a 1.3 liter Renesis/Wankel rotary engine that pumps out 238 HP. The car is solid, perky, responsive and really fun to drive. It’s not as fast as Laurie’s Speed 3, but now we have two red Mazda sports cars. Laurie took these photos of me in the RX8 with her iPhone in the Credit Union’s parking lot. The car was halfway in the shade of the building so the color is a little off.
I got a great deal on the car from the owners of Pho 79, a Vietnamese restaurant located at 2007 Candelaria NE, for those of you who live in Albuquerque. We haven’t eaten there yet, but Tom, the owner, gave me a cup of Vietnamese iced coffee after we finished the deal (the coffee was wonderful). I’m planning on going there for lunch later this week. Pho 79 got a great review by “Trip Advisor” that called it a “hidden gem.”
The last time I photographed the Route 66 Diner, I believe three years ago now and the wall at the entrance off Central Ave. (old Route 66) didn’t have all the old signs and Route 66 memorabilia nailed to it. The mess of signs makes for an interesting collage under the distorting eye of my 17mm lens.
Harley Solo and the Lonely Caffe (sounds like a good name for a blues band) seemed to be the morning theme as I walked across Gold to the office.
We went to the showing of the top 13 films from the Albuquerque 48 Hour Film Festival in the historic Kimo Theater on old Route 66 downtown. The participating teams get topics and then have 48 hours to write, cast, film, and complete final production of their movies. The common elements in each movie were a map, the phrase “You’re so smart!” and the name Roman Rodriguez. The atmosphere was festive and the films were very well done and enjoyable to watch. I hadn’t been in the Kimo in a very long time. It’s a great theater with its glowing skulls and depictions of Anasazi symbols.
I love the dramatic skies we get this time of year.
This is the interior of one of the old buildings downtown that has been vacant for years. It would make a great studio or dance space.
I dropped my car off the get the tires replaced at the Downtown Goodyear garage, and passed by the Anasazi Building on my walk back to the office. They are making progress on it as you can see from the first photo taken yesterday and the second photo taken in May of last year. The Sandias had waves of clouds crashing over them this morning. I took the panorama across from the Balloon Museum and Laurie took the last photo from our property about the same time.
Off Center & Not Even 