day o' vacation

monday was my day o'vacation. i stayed at mel & dan's sunday night and headed home monday morning.

my day o'vacation started with crunchcakes from lynn's paradise cafe. mmmm. lynn's is, of course, not as busy on a monday morning as they are on a sunday after church. but they were busier than i expected. several good-sized corporate groups were dining that morning. i'd enjoy meetings more if they took me to lynn's for them.

eating at lynn's (and the traffic into the city) slowed me down enough to put me at the edinburgh outlets just as the stores were opening. i bought myself a couple of clothing items - finally replacing my denim jacket, yay! bethany, i waved to the coach store for you. :)

as i went north from edinburgh i decided i was going to finish filling up my memory cards for my camera. i only had room left for 26 pictures. yes, i have almost 2gig worth of memory cards - and i'd taken enough photos to practically fill them. so i figured i just finish off the job.


this one's taken through my sun roof. i realized i'd never done that before. next time i may actually open it before taking the pictures.


driving through indianapolis.


not too far out of downtown indy there was a sign saying that all northbound lanes were closed at mile 137. not the best news. but i figured, if it was true that i'd have to stop 10 miles up the road i was going to use the opportunity to swap out memory cards. (i had 11 pictures available one card and 15 on another.) i'm fine with taking photos as i drive, but i'm not sure swapping out cards would be entirely safe. so i started taking a photo at every mile marker.

turns out the northbound lanes were not closed at mile 137. so i didn't get to swap out cards. but i still took a lot of photos. and when i got home i had enough room for a couple of cute shots of my niece. yay.

puppies!

meet james & damien. james is a black lab. damien is not. :) they are quite the best of friends.


of the two, james is more likely to run after a toy when it's thrown. damien is more likely to watch james run after it, and then pounce on james as he returns with said toy.


of the two, james is also more likely to entertain himself for a moment or two with a toy. damien is too rambunctious for that.


damien's the ornery one. but they're both so stinkin' cute. and friendly. and excitable. and cute. :)

thunder - part 2

you can't have the biggest fireworks display in the country without it being pretty stinkin' cool. they shoot off fireworks from two general areas on the river - one on each side of the bridge - as well as from the bridge itself. i want to say it's the second street bridge, but i don't really know. i just know they do very good work with pyrotechnics in louisville. very good work, indeed. see the fireworks along the bottom of the bridge in the last photo? they make a fireworks waterfall off the bridge. streaming "water" of fireworks. fantastic.

i shot something like 340 photos of the fireworks. most of them, of course, look like poorly taken fireworks photos. but i enjoy the possibility of getting a couple of good ones out of the masses. so i just kept shooting. i'm a big fan of the photos that show the colors streaming like fingers of energy. but, then again, i'm just a big fan of photos period.

thunder - part 1

the drive to louisville went well. i was a little late getting started. but it seems when i'm out late not playing bunco at a bunco party that i have a hard time getting up the next morning. :) and then there was a little congestion just before crossing the river, but not as bad as i was expecting. actually, i wasn't expecting it at all until we starting slowing down. and then it occured to me there might be some congestion, and i started expecting it. and then it was over & i was able to make good time.


we had lunch at the cheesecake factory. my first time there - i had their sante fe chicken salad, which comes dressed with a spicy peanut vinagrette. yumm-o. i also tried their white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake. also very good. and the godiva brownie sundae, which is not a cheesecake. the service was kinda crummy - first he was really anxious to take the order, then we had to flag him down for refills, then he brought our checks before bringing the desserts (what if we wanted coffee, too? he'd have to re-do the checks.), and then the dessert was wrong - that led to a fiasco. anyhow ... good food, good company, good times.







so we got downtown and met up with george & jodie for a few minutes. there were in town meeting up with some street-evangelism folks, so we were able to them back to their car & chat for a bit. then we headed down to the river to try & get a good spot.


i think i was told there were 800,000 people at thunder last year. given the fact that this year's weather was GORGEOUS, i'm guessing they had at least that many people there again this year. and the majority of these people get the river front early in the day to stake out their little piece of property for viewing the fireworks. so we didn't head to the river until after 6 p.m. - that's late if you want a really good spot. but, as you can see from the photo, we got a fabulous spot. the bridge to the left is where they shoot off a lot of the fireworks ... and we had like a dozen people to our left and probably two dozen in front of us. it was great.



so we had a good chunk of time to people watch. there was an airshow going on, but it turns out i'm not a big fan of airshows. or at least, not military airshows. so i people watched. of note: the child standing on his father's hand & trying to get balanced enough to let go and the mullet-headed fellow who looks like he could totally be related to someone i know.


sunset. not only does that mean the sun's going down (i'm not a big fan of being in the sun, especially getting burnt by the sun), but it also mean it's closer to the start of the fireworks. and that's the whole reason we were there.

roadtrip, anyone?

consider this your official invitation to spend this saturday & sunday in louisville. not only would you get the pleasure of 8 hours in a car with me (round trip. 4 hours each way), you'd get quality time with dan & malissa beamer, good food (maybe lynn's paradise cafe ... maybe buca di beppo ...), and a great view of the biggest fireworks display in the country. we'll leave early saturday morning & be back sunday evening. that's 36 hours of fun, excitement, good friends and pyrotechnics. AND PUPPIES! did i not mention that mel & dan just got two puppies last month? c'mon ... fireworks & puppies. this will be good. they've got two spare bedrooms & a couple of sofas ... i can fit 3 extra people comfortably in my car, 4 if you don't mind being close in the back. who's in?

photos from thunder over louisville 2004:

walking downtown

the chandelier is actually an outdoor piece at proof on main, but i left it out of yesterday's photos. the carter dry goods building is now the science museum, and i think the very top of the building looks like a large-breasted peacock. i bet you could broast those breasts & serve 'em at a truck stop if you wanted. :) and the last one is a garbage can - fancy, eh?

proof on main

proof on main is a restaurant, bar, hotel and 24/7 art gallery. how could we pass that up? the gallery was larger than i was expecting - they had some really interesting works. at the hotel elevators was "text rain". seen in the first two photos, "text rain" is an interactive display where the viewer's image is mirrored on a screen, and letters fall down the screen, landing along the edges of your body. if you get a line across the whole screen & hold still long enough, a full sentence forms. it was great fun. i want one for my house. :)

other exhibits included a large umbrella, puffs of cloud rings, a hairy deer, a refrigerated boat frame, a peacock made of a feather duster & pipe cleaners, mildly disturbing photos of young boys in tree houses and a small army of red penguins. the penguins were quite photogenic, i think.