Disco Kat

Johnnie Brock's Party Warehouse  bills itself as the largest store in the universe. Perhaps not, but they do have an impressive 25,000 square feet of retail space devoted to mostly costumes -- so if you are in need of a sexy-creepy clown costume, you could do worse. We ended up there recently because we thought they may have some interesting after-Halloween specials.  Alas no. Because they occupy the costume niche so successfully, and because they operate year round, there were no deep post-holiday discounts like you see in the big box stores.  They did have a 50 % off table, however, in the back. Mixed in with expected useless bric-a-brac were some ridiculously cheap mirrored balls. Since we've been waiting for a good sale on mirrored balls we snatched one up. Here the cat is showing interest in our new purchase. The dog is terrified of it.

-Vince

Cycling Around North St. Louis

I went on an architecture bicycle tour of North St. Louis this morning. It's not the best part of town but I love the building stock in this part of the city. Sadly, however, much of it is in ruins. This is the rose window to Bethlehem Lutheran. Clearly, this window belongs to a once gorgeous building that has simply been left to rot. The rest of the building was in similar shape.

The next three photos are examples of one of the reasons why I like the old buildings so much in St. Louis. Nearly every one of them is adorned with intricate decoration.

I'm aware in all of these photos I have pushed the saturation or contrast just enough to make the images appear a little off.  I prefer them this way to show detail. Sometimes the unprocessed photos just lack the oomph to capture the feel of these real-life features.

-Vince

Cats

In addition to Larry the beagle we also have Maggie cat. Like other cats she is a needy beast until she's got your attention -- then she wants nothing to do with you. Maggie is named after an old friend of ours that doesn't much care for animals and hides behind a claimed universal allergy to maintain her distance from them. Whether or not she is actually allergic will be a hotly debated topic for years to come.

Maggie was my biggest distraction on Monday. I had called in sick from work because I was under the weather but I ended up working all day on my home computer because I was bored and home was quiet. For some reason, Maggie cat becomes single-mindedly a lap cat if I am staring at a screen and pecking away at the keyboard. After brushing her away a few times, she finally took the hint and took this position on a pull-out writing shelf on the desk I was working at (in the picture she's in a window but she had the same paws-over-the-edge pose on the desk). She sat like this for about a half hour, staring at me, as if I had wronged her. I made it up to her later by ignoring her the rest of the day.

Photo by K.

-Vince

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

Even though points and the winner don't matter, there are rules to the Great Forest Park Balloon Race.   I believe they involve something about the other balloons chasing the Energizer Bunny balloon.  It's a bunny chase, like greyhound races but with less cruelty and gambling.

In any case, the Bunny is the star, and by my estimation the largest balloon of the lot.

While I didn't catch the rabbit in all its glory, during the glow before the race,   I did get a photo of it as it resigned itself to cool air and collapse.

The second picture was taken near the same time of the evening. Most pilots weren't flaming their balloons anymore and balloons fell as they cooled. I didn't see it happen, but I'm not convinced spectators weren't blanketed by collapsing balloons. I'm sure most photographers had given up on getting a good-glow photo by this point but I like this one. It's cold and somewhat menacing. Cold and somewhat menacing balloons.

-Vince

Great Balls of Fire

I know precious little about hot air ballooning. Sure, you put a load-bearing basket under an envelope of hot air and things go up, up, up. But the actual mechanics of piloting a balloon? I'm clueless. The glow was the closest I've been to balloons and I was struck with the size of the flame used to heat the air. Not that it seams unreasonable -- just that it seems a bit precarious. I don't recall ever hearing about a balloon burning to the ground but how difficult could it be? Is the bottom ring of the balloon made of asbestos?

-Vince

Great Forest Park Balloon Glow

This Saturday was the Great Forest Park Balloon Race. The night before the race there is a glow where most of the balloons are inflated and lit up so they can be enjoyed in the dark. It's a neat event, there are a lot of balloons and the average spectator gets more access than I was expecting. When we first showed up the balloons were fenced off until they were inflated. Once everyone had their balloons off the ground the fences were opened to allow you to peruse and interact with the crews.

Most of the time the balloons are dim and only received an occasional shot of fire to placate the crowd or to top off the hot air. In an effort to create photo-ops, however, they would blast an air horn every five to ten minutes and all the pilots were supposed to flame their balloons at the same time. The first two photos were taken during these synchronized blasts.

The final photo was the last bit of light before the sun went down. This photo was taken in 'auto' mode and no filters were applied in processing -- so the color is close to true. It was a clear, cool and gorgeous evening for the glow. The ground was a little muddy but I think that's to be expected with a crowd this size.

-Vince

Larry on an Zebra

K and I ended up at the zoo on Sunday. One of the pictures I wanted was a zebra I could use to make a Larry-as-Don-Quixote image. I got the zebra pictures but I didn't have a good beagle picture at the angle I wanted. For now I'll settle for this mock-up.