Urban poetry

Waiting for the light.

I took this with my phone -- the shoes, the bag and the street just coordinated so beautifully. (I rotated the photo for effect; it looks like they're my feet but they're not.)

Astronomy Tuesday

When the moon is in the seventh house
And Jupiter aligns with Mars...

(Yes, I am that old.)

This amazing picture was taken in Australia, like so many of the best Earthbound pictures of the sky. It shows all of the visible planets lined up like obedient schoolchildren under the stern gaze of the Milky Way.

Image Credit and Copyright: Alex Cherney (Terrastro, TWAN)

Sunday bird blogging

Another flashback to more tropical climes: another cassowary in Kuranda.

This picture was a little dark and noisy, but I like the point of view: seen from this angle, that bony ridge on top of his head isn't quite so alarming.

The eyes, on the other hand...

Geometries

A fire escape and railings make some interesting grids outside a bar on Eighth Avenue.

It's going to be another very hot and humid day here so I think I'll be cleaning out a closet with the air conditioning on.

Urban poetry

A suitably gritty filter over a quick phone shot of a dumpster parked on a city street, inexplicably filled with mattresses still wrapped in plastic.

It might be the result of a fire in a bedding store -- it's definitely been hot enough for some serious spontaneous combustion.

The Readiest Road to Health

I woke up early this morning for a dentist appointment and knew pretty quickly I wouldn't be going anywhere. I wasn't puking or in pain, I simply lacked the ability to get out of bed, or for that matter, to sit up in bed. So there I remained, staggering to the kitchen every so often for a cup of something hot and soothing. Fortunately I didn't encounter any roving bands of delinquent kittens on the way or they might have done some serious damage.

It's mostly the stress of planning a huge project without any department behind me, and no backup for the ever-growing pile of deliverables. There are important decisions to be made and no one but me to pull the facts together and recommend a course of action.

I really need this, a “perfect substitute for the live horse" so I can ride my genuine horse-action saddle while I'm on project team conference calls and get some of those promised good spirits and stimulated liver action going.

I just can't decide whether I should get a sidesaddle or not.

Astronomy Tuesday

We don't have photos from the Juno probe yet, but in the meantime there are still plenty of amazing images of Jupiter from the Cassini mission to savor.

This look at the moon Io sailing high over the Jovian clouds was taken New Year's Day 2001.

Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

Sunday bird blogging

A sun conure in Kuranda, looking ever so demure, but no doubt plotting how to eat the buttons off your blouse. It's not a very crisp image but I can't resist that face.

Saturday reflections

There's a corporate art exhibit behind the glass, with several pieces consisting of stacked concrete shapes. It makes an interesting texture behind the odd shapes of the plaza seating and the New York street reflections. I'm going to go back and capture some more reflections before the exhibit closes.

Urban poetry

A wall of water in one of the many little corporate mini-plazas scattered through Midtown Manhattan.

Dagen H

This is Stockholm on September 3, 1967, the day Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. (Dagen H just means “H day”; the H is for högertrafik, right-hand traffic.)

Swedes had resisted the change for 40 years, even though their Scandinavian neighbors drove on the right, and most Swedes had cars with the driver's seat on the left. You can't make out the details in the photo, but I'm confident that every single driver is looking grumpy.

Posted for no particular reason -- it makes me smile, and it is a fair representation of how things are going at the office these days. I had hoped that I had done my last Windows/Microsoft Office upgrade but alas that was not the case.

Photograph by Jan Collsiöö / Public Domain

Astronomy Tuesday

Saturn noir.

This image, taken by Cassini, shows the dark side of Saturn, something we never see from our faraway perch on Earth. You can just see the moon Tethys as a bright dot above Saturn's north pole.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute