Crimson ProjeKct Warehouse Live July 8, 2012

I almost missed this show entirely. Horribly under-promoted and under-attended. Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto representing King Crimson rounded out with Tobias Ralph, Julie Slick and Markus Reuter.

The “project” has been touring as the opener for Dream Theater but since Dream Theater didn’t get booked in Houston we were treated to three hours of fantastic music, including an all King Crimson encore.

The first band was Stickmen featuring Tony Levin, Tobias Ralph and Markus Reuter. The second band was Adrian Belew with Pat Mastelotto and Julie Slick. The encore was all 6 of them.

Stickmen + Belew Trio

Tony Levin

Adrian Belew

Take A Bow

Tony Levin

More photos here
Houston Press review here

Sun Halo – May 4, 2011

Spotted a halo around the sun on May 4th. I’ve seen them around a full moon before, but not around the sun. By obscuring the sun with my hand or my index finger I was able to shoot some reasonably good photos of the phenomenon.

22° halo is a halo, one type of optical phenomenon, forming a circle 22° around the sun, or occasionally the moon. It forms as sunlight is refracted in hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. As the light beam passes through two sides of the prism forming a 60° angle, the angle of minimum deviation is almost 22° (namely, 21.84° on average; 21.54° for red and 22.37° for blue). This wavelength-dependent variation in refraction causes the inner edge of the circle to be reddish while the outer edge is bluish.

Sun Halo 3

Sun Halo

Sun Halo 4

Backyard Birding Report – April 20th, 2011

We’ve not spotted a single hummingbird so far this spring. BUT, we’ve spotted two kinds of birds not previously seen in our yard. We’ve seen a few Indigo Buntings, but I’ve not managed to get any photos. We’ve also seen a few of these:

Carolina Chickadee - 3

Carolina Chickadee - 2

I knew it was a Chickadee the minute I spotted it. Cynthia said it can’t be a Black-capped Chickadee (though it looks EXACTLY like one to me) because they don’t come to Texas. We looked up the Black-capped Chickadee and sure enough, they’re indigenous to the norther regions of the U.S. and they don’t migrate. A little research and we determined them to be Carolina Chickadees.

Also, one of the birdhouses we have hanging on the side of the house looks to have been attacked by something with sharp claws. It has not, however, stopped a pair of sparrows from raising three babies in it

Baby Sparrows

And, although not spotted in my yard, this guy strikes me as interesting. A very ragged vulture that rides the drafts between my office building and the one next to us.

Ragged Vulture

Barcelona – Our Last Day

Our last day in Barcelona. We’re pretty wiped out. We managed to master the mass transit, but we still logged some miles on our aging tootsies. Cynthia and I both have blisters on our feet. Cynthia has managed to walk through the soles of her primary pair of shoes. Our favorite thing to say is “My dogs are woofin” referring to our feet.

Me personally, I’m looking forward to not hefting a camera bag everywhere I go and worrying about some crafty pickpocket or confidence man scheming to separate me from my valuables.

Not that I’m complaining. This has been an awesome trip and we have enjoyed almost every moment of it.

For our last day we decided to visit Casa Milà. I figured we could get there early and hopefully beat the crowds, which we did.

Inside Casa Milà

I really love the Gaudi architecture. So interesting, especially considering the time-frame he was working in. From the top of Casa Milà you can get a pretty amazing view of another of Gaudi’s works, one that is still in the process of being built, La Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Familia From Casa Mila

And the roof of Casa Milà is just plain cool.

Sentries Atop Casa Milà

Sentries Atop Casa Milà

After we finished up with Casa Milà we made our way back up the side of Montjuïc via the funicular to go to the Miro Museum. Sadly, no photography allowed inside the museum. And I had to check my camera bag by locking it in a locker. That was a little stressful, but it seemed safe enough. I just didn’t want to lose the camera on the last day.

From there it was back to the hotel room to rest up and then off the Bari Gotic area to see if we could find a nice restaurant for our last meal of the trip.

Spanish wine with lunch in Spain. Does it get any better than this?

We happened upon an Italian restaurant called Gravin and it was fantastic! We had a vry nice meal, a bottle of Rioja and a cafe and desert. It was a fine finish to an excellent trip.

Now it was back to the hotel to pack and get some sleep before getting up at 3:30 to check out and catch our 6:00 am flight back to America. This trip, like all of our previous vacations, is over in a flash. We’ll be happy to be home, but will miss the adventure.