Some Days Start This Way

Last Thursday was a good day for catching the sunrise. So we popped out on the balcony and did it.

Lady Bird Lake Firefighting

We saw smoke on Lady Bird Lake yesterday but couldn't figure out what was on fire. It looked like the lake itself. Turns out there were two separate boat fires at a marina near the Hyatt. Our faithful correspondent Jackie had a good view from her apartment and submitted some great pictures. I chose this one to show the firefighters using the Congress Avenue bridge as a perch to fight the fires.

Angel Wrangler

Some of the smallest performers in "The Nutcracker" are these little angels. A wrangler prepares them for their entrance at Ballet Austin's production Saturday night. FFP took this photo backstage with his iPhone. I love it! Performances continue Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week. This has become one of my favorite traditions of the season. Our tix are for Thursday but FFP has been doing a little wrangling of his own meeting with some of the VIPs riding the large comic Mother Ginger skirt.

Fall Roses

Little garden plots on the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge are tended by civic-minded companies or people. These roses were opening up on a beautiful Thanksgiving day. Today it is raining and we are very thankful for that.

Dance on the Street

Shot this from the street the other day as ballet dancers worked in the Armstrong Connelly studio at Ballet Austin.

All Too Apropos

This cow, on South Congress, is called blazing cow or something like that. Given the horrible wild fires in the surrounding counties and the continued lack of rain in Central Texas...it's all too appropriate.

TaCow!

TaCow appeared in front of the Garrido's restaurant in our building while we were gone on vacation. Love it.

Where There is Smoke

Yesterday around 5:15PM we took this picture from the balcony of our condo. That is not a mountain, nor a cloud. It is smoke from the Batrop County fire.

Keep It Weird

This cow, near Schlotzsky's on South Lamar has lots of Austin icons...including bats in her ears.

Reflection on a Tribute

There is a lovely memorial to Texas Peace Officers who died in the line of duty on the northeast side of the Capitol grounds. I happened to notice this reflection in it the other day as we walked around it.

Could it Be a Postcard?

City Daily Photo has a theme day on the first of each month. This time it's "postcard-worthy." We don't usually think of our pix as postcards but this one, with some of the skyline, Lady Bird Lake and some water recreation is a recent shot from Lou Neff Point that we thought we'd use for this.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.

Our little town

If I was still running my ad agency and we were trying to create this shot, we couldn't have done better than this. I snapped this one by sheer luck when I saw the composition forming the other day. Kind of cool that Forbes says we are the number one "Next Big Boom Town" in the country.

Lone Star Cruises

I was taking an exercise walk on the north side of Lady Bird Lake yesterday and noticed how nice this Lone Star Cruises boat looked on the south shore, reflected in the lake. Normally they'd have a special cruise to watch the July 4th firecrackers go off Monday, but not this year. Fireworks displays all over the place have been canceled because of the drought and extreme fire danger. I think downtown may feel like a bit of a ghost town on Monday. I'm not all that sad about that, really.

Sunset Reflected

Two nights ago I caught the colors in the Frost Bank as it reflected the sunset. We never really get tired of it.

Nutria

Jackie always takes an early Sunday morning walk around the lake. She encountered this critter trying to get in on the bread scraps intended for ducks, swans and turtles. She says: "We see a lot of them in Lake Austin, where they were first brought in to eat the invasive duckweed. (Of course the nutria and the duckweed have both flourished.) Had never seen one on the hike and bike trail before. However, since the UT rowing crew competes each year for the Fighting Nutria award, nutrias must also be commonplace on Lady Bird Lake. And I found another nutria photo on Flickr from the same area of the trail." She found a link fingering nutria in the top 100 invasive species.

Fly Your Lone Star

The other day someone was flying the Texas Flag on the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge. Took this with my iPhone. Flag obscures the Austonian, W Hotel under it, 360 to the left.

The Day the Music Died

Here you see well-known composer and musician Graham Reynolds taking a sledge hammer to a piano that was slated for extinction anyway. This happened after he and some other players gave a concert at the foot of the pedestrian bridge not far from our home. These old pianos have been placed around the downtown area and anyone can play on them at any time.

Mighty Cloud

At sunset on Tuesday a mighty cloud in the east reflected the setting sun in the west. This same cloud formation (which showed a little lightning but brought no rain) appeared so strange from the vantage point of San Marcos to our south that someone made the cloud a facebook page.

Big Moon

Jackie shot this a while back and I am just now running it. Shot looking east along Cesar Chavez on the night of the big moon I believe.

Sunday Workout

Lots of exercise gets done on Auditorium Shores on a sunny Sunday (just three days ago). They have some bars and benches and the guys find many variations on exercising on them. Who needs a gym? (Well maybe they do today. It's 18 degrees outside.)