Kaboom Town

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Bill Chance

Tonight there was a bicycle ride scheduled to the Kaboom Town fireworks display in Addison.

Everybody told me, “Don’t go to Kaboom Town – it’s too crowded and the traffic is too bad.”

But you see, on a bicycle, you can sort of run around the traffic and the ride organizers had arranged to have a party on the third floor of a parking garage not too far from the show. It was a fundraiser for a French club or something – and for a reasonable donation there would be food and beverage. Sounded like a plan.

Everybody met up at a local taco place, gathered together, and rode off through the neighborhoods. It was a slow ride – and an easy five miles or so. The party was fun and the fireworks were pretty impressive.

There was an acrobatic airshow from Addison airport highlighted by someone going up after dark in an ultralight covered in fireworks and shooting roman candles off into the air. The only way that could have been better is if they had a group of them shooting at each other. Maybe next year.

The ride back in the dark was a little hairy with all the impatient traffic. There isn’t much you can do other than ride in a group and take a lane. Someone yelled at us – which is a little aggravating – I’m sure we slowed him up a good seven seconds in his driving rush (after sitting stopped in traffic for an hour) home. I guess it can’t really be a real bike ride unless someone yells at you.

Bikes lining up at Torchy’s Tacos – ready for the ride to Kaboom Town.

Party in the parking garage.

Kaboom Town

Settings

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Bill Chance

Fountain, Flora Street, between the DMA, Nasher, and Crow – Arts District, Dallas, Texas

Sharp or Blurred?

Sometimes the truth is seen in clarity – sometimes in a blur.
—-From Hell’s Heart I Stab at Thee, Armando Vitalis

Natural and Artificial

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Bill Chance

The Santiago Calatrava designed Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge rising over the trees of the Trinity River Bottoms, Dallas, Texas.

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Dallas, Texas

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein

Sunflowers

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Bill Chance

(click for full size image on flickr)

I have been working too much – working through the weekends. But the other day I happened to be off. A friend of mine from Austin had posted some amazing photographs of fields of sunflowers taken somewhere between here and there. She posted on Facebook that she was driving up to get some more shots and I was able to drop what I was doing and go there.

These were taken along Interstate 35 south of Dallas, near the little town of Forreston, exit mile 391. The fields bloom in June – and I ‘m not sure how long they will be there. They were starting to wither in the heat – so I suppose they will be harvested soon.

My friend had the foresight to bring a stepladder, which was necessary for the wide shots. The sunflowers are taller than you expect, over six feet high.

They are an amazing sight – photographs don’t do justice. There was a constant clot of cars that stopped along the Interstate to gawk at the flowers and stop and grab photos. I’ve got some more, I’ll post them in a few days.

(click for larger version on flickr)

Figure for Landscape

Posted on May 29, 2014 by Bill Chance

Figure for Landscape
Barbara Hepworth
1960, Bronze
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas

Figure for Landscape
Barbara Hepworth
(click to enlarge)

Figure for Landscape
Barbara Hepworth

Nicaragua, Panama, Tanzania Peaberry

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Bill Chance

Nicaragua, Panama, Tanzania Peaberry, Costa Rica, Crescent City, Fuego!

Mojo Coffee, Magazine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana

Complete Steel

Posted on May 27, 2014 by Bill Chance

What may this mean.
That thou, dead corpse, again, in complete steel,
Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon.
Making night hideous ; and we, fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this?
—-Shakespeare, Hamlet