Landscape and view of the Sandias from US 550 on our way to and from the Jemez.
Category: Sandias
Bird, Bee, Flower and Clouds
We watched the final stage of the Tour de France, and the multi-media, light extravaganza they projected on the Arc de Triomphe was spectacular. If the church could could produce the same quality of multi-media production to illustrate the pastor’s points as the Tour de France’s light show did for the awards ceremony, I might buy into the multi-media projection during the service. Then again, if churches could give multi-media shows half as good as the clouds over the Sandias, they might be entertaining.
A hawk was blending with the insulators on the power pole — good hunting strategy. The bee/wasp in the second photo is as BIG as it looks. I’ve been trying to get a clear photo of this critter for a long time. It never lands for but a split second and zips around very quickly. I finally got it in flight. The Asian lily was backlit nicely just after sunrise, and the clouds were quite entertaining throughout the day.
Anasazi Building
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.
Out and About
I drove through north Corrales and all access to the river and bosque are closed. People say we are in a drought, but really we are experiencing what is more normal for arid New Mexico. So if the bosque and state parks and wilderness areas are only going to be open when we have above normal rainfall, New Mexico may end up being closed for longer than most of us will live. Rosencrantz was hanging out in the bamboo looking smart, and René was having a bad hair day after I gave him a shower.
Sayre’s Barn at Sunset
I went out to check the status of water in the ditch (not running) and got photos of our neighbor’s barn at sunset, the best view I can get of the Sandias without breaking the law, a photo of the law and a nice reflection of the standing water in the ditch. I did see an big, old, finned Cadillac on the way home. The car was so big that with two lanes between us on Coors Road, it barely fit in field of view of a 55mm lens. Seeing an old Cadillac on the road reminded me of Loquillo’s song “Cadillac Solitario” where he is singing about being drunk in a Cadillac while parked under the three crosses on a hill overlooking Barcelona after his girlfriend dumped him. We discovered Loquillo in 1996 when we happened upon one of their concerts in Plaza Mayor during the San Ysidro festival. The crowd was huge, and the performance and sound was amazing. We learned later that Loquillo was a huge star in Spain with 25 records/CDs on the market at that time. We went to at least one more live performance by Loquillo while living in Madrid, and brought back several of his CDs.
Six Differences
A happy dragon fly was flitting around this morning. We did a lot of yard work today. Can you find six differences between the 2nd and 3rd photos? Rosencrantz was sitting in the window by the front door wanting in, but I was on the deck. Instead of going through and letting him in, I photographed him through the glass in the door to the sunroom. He finally gave up and walked around the house to join us on the deck and lay on the table with Guildenstern.
Must Ask You To Leave
I had to meet a guy at a call center, and while I was waiting I noticed the Sandias reflecting on the building were nicely cubist, so I snapped a photo. I waited almost 10 minutes after I took the photo for the person I was meeting to show up. Soon after he came out, a security guard came walking up from the other direction and when he got up to where we were standing, he told me “Photographing the building is not allowed. I must ask you to leave!” The person I was meeting with said “Oh! Really? I didn’t know that!” I left right after that, but I find these supposed “no photographing buildings” policies to be very strange — when I looked up the address on Google maps, there was a nice, extremely clear satellite image of the building, and “street view” images of the building. When I got home, I looked up Google Images using the address and found a lot of photographs of the building that were taken on the property, as well. Despite what the guard told me, photographing the building is very much allowed, because there are images of it all over the Internet.
Hey Jude
On my way to class on Friday, the young man with the guitar was sitting alone playing and singing at the to of his lungs, and not very well. As I walked by after class, the blonde with the harmonica had joined him in performing a horrible rendition of “Hey Jude” (to be fair, only the singing was really bad, but not terribly objectionable for some reason). They were so involved in the song they didn’t noticed that I had stopped to photograph them, and they were doing the song so badly, they bordered on performance art. As I continued on my way, the guitarist started singing “nah nah nah nana nah nah…” so off key, and out of compas, that I burst out laughing and laughed all the way back to the office.
I took a load of trash to the dump today. I left early and got up to the entrance I’d always turned into and there were no other cars. “Nice!” I thought to myself. As I drove up to the building to pay, the attendant came out and said “The dump entrance is up the road before the light — this is recycling.” He told me to drive straight ahead and follow the road around. I followed the road through about twenty people eagerly waiting for stuff to recycle — they looked disappointed when I drove on by. I got back out on the main road, drove up toward the light, and found a long line of trucks waiting to get into the landfill. Forty-five minutes later I discovered I was in the line for the scale, but I couldn’t change lanes, so I drove onto the scale, walked up to the window and told the attendant that I didn’t need to be weighed. She said “that’s okay, but the people behind you will be mad when they see you turn the other way!” She asked for my license plate number, my proof of residence in Corrales, and driver’s license, then when I went to give her a $5 bill to pay the $4.75 fee, she told me it was a “free day!” “So that accounts for the long line of trucks them?” I asked. She nodded “Yep!” and told me the line would probably go down to the roundabout by noon. If I’d known it was a “free day” I wouldn’t have gone. I would have preferred to pay $4.75 to dump the trash then spend an extra 45 minutes waiting in line to dump the trash. I took the photo of the Sandias on the way home from the dump.
There’s Something About Ben
Ben Lolli is an actor, comedian, filmmaker, master of odd jobs in exotic places, and all around cool guy. Bruski made a Super Fans of Ben Lolli page and Lita has been calling for photos of Ben. These photos go back to 2009, and give you a hint there is something about Ben. Rosencrantz got in on the crazy Santa act!
Stormy Saturday
We had a stormy Saturday that produced a lot of clouds, wind, and few snow flurries and but basically not precipitation at our place. Despite the weather, I managed to get half of the iris I had to dig up for the electrical upgrade planted, watered the tulips that are starting to come up, got a door installed on the study, and made it out to get photographs of the stormy day. I am feeling quite productive today.
Off Center & Not Even 