A warm room

Not long ago, we went out on a Saturday morning walk through west Austin. On the way back to our place, we went into Fortney's, a store that specializes in unusal objects and antiques. They had this bedroom display in their shop made up in a Southwestern scheme, complete with a wrought iron bed, leather quilt and pillows, carved wooden furniture and nature-oriented art. Not our style, but charming. Shot with my iPhone.

Cool Cruises

The weather is awful in other parts of the U.S. but ours has been for the most part cool and delightful with a little fog and a little sunshine. Last Sunday on the Pfluger Bridge I captured some hardy folks taking a cool cruise on the Capital Cruises boat on Lady Bird Lake. Taken with iPhone.

Christmas Village

We went to a Christmas party last night where several very large tables held a miniature snowy village with three churches, shops, homes. It was all lit up and decorated for the holidays. Lots of work. This is only about a third of the village. The owner said that after this season it was all going to his children.

Taken with an iPhone in available light.

Our nod to Christmas decorating

We've never been into having real trees for Christmas-- but Linda went to the trouble of carrying a huge container of bendable Santas and other little guys up from the storage unit a few days ago. I found this tree in it and put it on our counter. Hey, it's pretty festive!

The grackles are coming!

Here's a shot I took at twilight a few nights ago. For some reason, flocks of grackles seem to like alighting on the top level of the parking garage across the street from our condo tower. They remind me of that Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds."

Upward bound

I was walking back from errands Tuesday morning and had my camera on me, so I shot this photo of our neighborhood. (I was about a half block north of our home, the 360.) In the foreground, you see big equipment for the site work on the new federal courthouse. The building in the middle with two cranes poking out of it is the W Hotel, which is just about topped out. The tall building to the left is the Austonian (56 stories), which will be ready for move in around mid-2010. We'll be glad when we get a lot of new neighbors in these buildings.

Something Missing

A deer with part of its rack missing was browsing for tasty goodies in my Dad's backyard the other day.