New York, Empire State 01

Yes, the Empire State Building. Once the icon of American superiority, it sits now as just another of the huge buildings on the island, an afterthought of days gone by. We didn't go up to the observation deck...maybe next time.

New York, Strawberry Fields

This was in Central Park, at Strawberry Fields. It's interesting to know that Yoko Ono stills lives in Dakota overlooking this area.

As a younger lad, back in the '80's, I was walking around the Upper West Side one time when I came upon a long row of tables at this site. The people behind them said that they were trying to get enough signatures to persuade New York officials to designate the area as Strawberry Fields. I was one of God knows how many to sign, and obviously it came to pass.

New York, General 05

Naturally this store held the greatest interest for my son, though we never actually went in...too crowded! He reasoned that anything they had there can be bought online for the same or lower price.

New York, General 04

No one can hang around New York City for very long and say that it's not an interesting place. We were walking near Central Park when this music came blaring off the street. These guys were making a music video of some sort...

New York, General 03

Who would have thought that such a thing existed? Suppose if you're going to learn how to do trapeze there has to be a school somewhere. Out of curiosity, I went to their website and found that lessons are quite reasonable...$70 for two hours.

In reality, instructing at such a place must be a dream job. Imagine making a living at doing something that is so much fun, and getting paid to share it with others! My brother has a friend named Jeff that is just such an individual, except that his passion is with hang gliders and ultralights. Jeff maintains a heavy teaching schedule in Austin, and spends half the year in Mexico doing the same thing at a hang gliding resort down there.

New York, General 02

Gotta love this sign...

New York, General 01

By far the favorite part of vacation for all of us was New York City. Though I take pride in being a "small town boy", Manhattan has always held great fascination with me due to its culture and manic pace - the only large city I've ever fallen in love with. In fact, I endeavored to move there one time - back in 1984 - but ended up with a calling to return to Texas.

We were there just two nights...the hotels are frightfully expensive. One of the few that takes four people to a room is the Hotel Giraffe, on the corner of 5th Avenue and 25th Street. We'd recommend it to anyone, really a good place to stay and away from the huge crowds, tucked into an ethnic neighborhood with a local feel.

The first few postings here are general pictures that do not easily fit into a category by place or event. We really did a lot in the two days we were there, and found a few interesting surprises along the way...

Baltimore 03

Taken inside the aquarium complex, the focus on this shot unfortunately ended up on the rock wall just beyond the parrot. Thus, the unsharp mask had to be used to make it appear as though the bird's eye was in focus.

This is one area in which I really did wish I'd brought the big cahoonah...the new Nikon D300s. The extra zoom would have been great, as there were lots of birds amid natural-looking settings.

Baltimore 02

Swinging the camera around, this was taken from the same vantage point, of an enclosed walkway across the water.

Baltimore 01

The family went to Baltimore and other places for vacation this past July. I was afraid of bringing the new camera, so all of the next few dozen shots were taken with the Fujifilm s7000.

Why go to Baltimore? Because that's where we flew on the way to Washington, D.C. where my wife had a meeting, so did some exploring and discovered a fascinating city. Naturally, the aquarium was a primary attraction. This was taken while we were waiting to get in, from the pedestrian bridge that crosses the harbor.