Friday, August 31, 2012

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Looks like he's sleeping

We are back from vacation, but this picture (like the ones you've been seeing for the last couple of weeks) were taken earlier in the month. This raccoon was seen on West Sixth. He looks like he's sleeping. But he's road kill. His nocturnal habits and sneak thief behavior came to grief with a car I assume.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Owl in Longhorn Land

Saw this car parked on Rainey Street one day. It celebrates the centennial of Houston-based Rice University. Don't know why a car would be so decorated especially in Austin. Rice is famous for engineering, for a band with a sense of humor (the Marching Owl Band or MOB) and not for football. So it's right up there in my book.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Historical Preservation

This bar on Rainey Street is preserving a couple of walls of the old house while reconstructing everything else.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Javelina

From the looks of it there will be no smoking at Javelina but you can play board games. This is on Rainey Street. Actually you can't smoke at bars in Austin. Which I like because I'm allergic.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

More Grub and Beer for Rainey Street

Rainey Street will soon have everything but sidewalks. This sign looks vintage but the sausage house and beer garden is a recent edition...in a renovated house.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

New Hotel for the Spring

At the southeast corner of Third and San Jacinto a new hotel is going up. It is a Hyatt Place Hotel and they say it will open in Spring of 2013. I'll bet some SXSW folks hope they get open by March. It's been going up fast.

Friday, August 24, 2012

City Hall Sculpture

This is on the southeast side of City Hall. A nearby sign explains: "This work relates to potential energy, water and shelter." It is a 2010 work by Philippe Klinefelter.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Fly Away

I have never been to the Hangar on 4th and Colorado but I really like the logo. That's the Austonian looming in the background.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Sit and Sip

The Halcyon Coffee Shop at Fourth and Lavaca has some colorful seats ready for you outside on the warehouse dock.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Rent and Ride

That's Barton Springs Bikes, by the way. You can rent a nice red one. Noticed bicycles built for two available, too.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Barton Creek

This is a long shot of the area where the last two photos were taken on Barton Creek. The bridge is a footbridge we usually take when we just navigate around the lake. It connects the Hike and Bike Trail without going to the street bridge over the creek.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Safe Canoe

Took this shot of a family in a canoe on Barton Creek where it enters Lady Bird Lake from the Barton Springs Road Bridge. Everyone has a life jacket as they navigate past the underwater weeds.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Navigating the Weeds

A guy on a paddle board (not using his life jacket or the cord to keep him and board connected navigates among the aquatic weeds in the Barton Creek inlet. (Which we discussed here.)

Friday, August 17, 2012

Share the Road!

While it may look like these riders are on the road, they are really just beyond the curb of a street running through Zilker Park and they are on the train ride called the Zephyr. Here's a shot from three years ago showing the engine.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Cinderella?

FFP saw this shoe on the Congress Avenue Bridge last week. It's always a mystery how shoes get abandoned on the sidewalk or street.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Get Curious but Don't Climb

This is in front of the Austin City Hall. I wasn't curious enough to scan the QR code or look at the WEB site. The small sign warns about climbing on the piece (which is, of course, what it invites doing for kids).

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Honoring Austin City Limits

Noticed this plaque the other day on Lavaca Street near the Austin City Limits Moody Theater.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Fierce Tattoos

You can always count on tattoo parlors for murals. This one is on South First.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Creative Signpost

We were on South First Tuesday and saw a new signpost being erected at Freddie's. A guy named Stoner came out and said he was a waiter there and was working on this creation. The pipe man has a tray (which may eventually sport some beer cans he says) and there is a little pipe dog at the bottom that is relieving himself on the waiter's leg. Stoner said he'd planned to hang a sign on the waiter's street side arm but he might have to rethink because it would block the vision of drivers pulling out of their parking lot. He was also talking of representing the dog's output with some copper wire. Click the picture for a bigger version and a better look.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Sides of SoCo

Shopping on South Congress is popular with Austinites and visitors alike. But don't forget the side streets. This one has a boutique, a vintage shop and a Buy/Sell/Trade record store.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Oriental Magic

We have become huge fans of the South Congress Book Store. Shot this reflection picture Tuesday. The hands are displaying a vintage book with the title 'Oriental Magic.'

Thursday, August 9, 2012

No Gold Medals Here

U.S. women teams fought each other for a gold medal in Beach Volleyball. But the casual players were out in Zilker Park in the summer heat in Austin.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

High Work

Yesterday as we were coming back across the Drake (South First) Bridge on our exercise walk we noticed the window washers at work on our building around the 37th floor. Click the picture for a larger image.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Food Truck Culture

With all the people getting grub at mobile (or fixed) food trucks these days, it had to happen. This one offers dog treats. It was at Auditorium Shores last week.

Monday, August 6, 2012

A Pair of Reflections

I like this 'portrait' of us, again using the reflection of Russell Gallery on West Sixth. When we are out walking in the heat, we look a little bedraggled but these reflection pictures tend to just catch an impression of our images.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Dressy Sculpture

We were walking by the Russell Gallery on West Sixth the other day and I found the work on display fascinating. The dress sculpture appear to be made of common objects (the colorful skirt obscuring my face is made from plastic dinnerware).

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Shopping is the Thing With Feathers

Here's the urban adventurers on South Lamar reflected in a shop window with a display of feathers.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Ladylike

This is another view of the Blackmail window display on SoCo, discussed yesterday. The appearance of your faithful photographer is more subtle here.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Dapper Shopping

I'm out of town (again). So I'm running a series of shop window reflections from around Austin while I'm gone. Today we have a dapper male mannequin with a background of a U.S. map in the always delightful shop Blackmail on South Congress. Gail Chovan's chic shop includes one of a kind creations and fashion goods. Her window displays are beyond cool. That's your frumpy photographer reflected in summer urban trekking clothes. Gail is in Paris for the summer with her amazing kids (see her blog).

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Theme Day: Numbers

Today is theme day at City Daily Photo. Numbers is the theme. Austin has some numbered streets and building numbers are great ways of divining directions. But our building is a bit confusing. It occupies all of the north side of the 500 block of W. 3rd Street and all of the west 300 block of Nueces. The building's developers thought calling the building 'The 360' (as in a 360 degree view of things!) was clever. However, if they'd used an address on Third Street it would have been something like 500 W. Third. It would be cooler, they decided, to give it the address 360 Nueces since they could pick any even three hundred number on Nueces. The downfall of all this is that the front door, on Third Street, has the building name (360) which is also the street address but on Nueces. The Nueces side has only a resident only entrance. This makes it hard for people to find the front of the building using the street address and there aren't clear signs anywhere on Nueces. Not to mention that Third Street is so much more intelligible than Nueces especially on the phone. Numbered streets are great. I live on one and I wish it were my address!!

The photo above is the giant 360 on the front of our building (in the 500 block of Third) and an inset of our cross street (3rd and Nueces).

Check out the facebook page for City Daily Photo for other cities on the theme of numbers.