been very busy....

and blogging isn't what pays the bills (somehow, I don't suspect that surprises you).

Finally got a break in a very long weekend and I took the opportunity to start working on my photos from our trip to Istanbul. Still have a way to go, but I've worked through the food and market themed photos... here are a few:

Carpets - Istanbul, Turkey

Lamps - Istanbul, Turkey

Schawarma in the Making - Istanbul, Turkey

Turkish Delight - Istanbul, Turkey

The Evil Eye - Istanbul, Turkey

Medusa in the Baslica Cistern

I did think of it earlier...I just didn't generalize from underground and indoors darkness to the darkness after sundown...

The Basilica Cistern was well worth the visit. Pretty cool how they light it in modern times. I'm sure it was an engineering marvel in its time too. All the way back in the corner are two pillars with Medusa heads at their base. I took these photos just moments before hoards of tourists literally gridlocked the walkway around them.

Medusa - Istanbul, Turkey

Medusa - Istanbul, Turkey

Second Medusa - Istanbul, Turkey

Istanbul at Night

I wish I'd thought of this earlier...just putting the camera on the ground to hold it still with the 16-35mm wide angle on it, a real small aperture (f22), slow shutter speed etc. Unfortunately, I only started messing with it on our last night there. Here are some night time shots of the Hippodrome with the Obelisk of Theodosius aka the Egyptian Obelisk, and with the minarets of the Blue Mosque playing a supporting role.

Obelisk of Theodosius - Istanbul, Turkey

Hippodrome - Istanbul, Turkey

Back From Vacation

And our luggage made it too...apparently that is an uncommon miracle when flying though Istanbul's Ataturk Airport.

Lost Luggage - Istanbul, Turkey

Lost Luggage - Istanbul, Turkey

Lost Luggage - Istanbul, Turkey

Rust and Iron

Via the wayback machine....from 25 June 2006...I can't believe I've had my camera for over 6 years!

Rust and Iron - Antigua, Guatemala

A Little Bit of Green

It has been a month, insert the usual excuses here:________
A bit of green from our visit to Hawaii in the spring.

Valleys and Waterfalls - Na Pali Coast - Kaua'i, Hawaiʻi

Waimea Canyon - Kaua'i, Hawaiʻi

Waimea Canyon - Kaua'i, Hawaiʻi

Photos From Our Greek Adventure

Finally finished with my photos from Greece. I ended up with 146 or so, which is too many and I still may cull a few. So if anyone wades their way through the entire slide show, and sees ones they don't like, tell me and I may remove them. Here are a few teasers. The full slide show hosted on Photobucket can be seen HERE.

Column Details, The Acropolis - Athens, Greece

Grand Vista & Monasteries - Meteora, Greece

Water Taxi - Hydra, Greece

White Columbine

In Our Front Yard

Butter, Lost in Translation

Churn the corn milk and get...Butter! I'm not guessing when I say it wouldn't pass my sister's taste test...the sign used to just say "Homemade Butter", but now they've come clean and defined exactly what they are churning here.
"Butter"???

Action Scenes From Car"cass" IX

Here are a couple of my cellphone shots from the scene. At this point the occupants of the vehicle on the right had been removed, and the fire was extinguished.

Bystanders

Smoke and Haze

Car"cass" IX - Ear Witness

I haven't done a "Carcass" series in quite a while...more out of laziness than for lack of subject matter. However, I couldn't pass on the the remains from an accident I witnessed last night.

Last night on my walk, a few minutes after seeing two consecutive cars pass by with ~2 year old girls hopping up and down in the front passenger seats on their moms laps, totally unrestrained...I heard the short squeal of a car sliding and the big boom of a big impact. The accident was not even a couple hundred yards away on the other side of the highway and immediately people were running to the scene. When I came upon it, the two cars were side by side as if they had backed into adjacent parking spots in a parking lot except they were in the middle of the road. The cars' front ends...obliterated. People were frantically trying to open a passenger door, eventually resorting to using a flag pole to pry the passenger door open and get the passenger out as the car began to burn. Bystanders were everywhere yelling and trying to get the fire out and the people out. Eventually some came running with fire extinguishers, most of which were promptly used improperly and ineffectively. I even saw a couple extinguishers being sprayed willy-nilly 20-30 ft away as the person carrying them ran toward the car. But the fire was suppressed and the passenger removed from the car.

In the confusion of the night, the lights, the yelling people everywhere, the smoke from the fire and haze of the fire extinguishers, I walked away. I got back to the apartment 10-15 minutes or so later. I was left with the following in my head and emailed my sister my basic thoughts:

How did they have such a forceful head-on wreck on a one way road in such heavy traffic when neither car was traveling the wrong direction?

The ambulance took at least 30 minutes to get there, weaving thru at least 1/2 mile of stopped dead traffic, I figured all occupants probably died, unless airbags are miracle workers (in general, only Americans and a few select other westerners wear seatbelts here).

This morning I happened to drive down that stretch of Gulf Road and noticed that the vehicles involved have been pulled over about 100 yards down and to the side of the road, but still in the same relative positions to each other. I walked down a little later and took the photos below. I also learned a little in the light of day:

This is about how the cars came to rest relative to one another but out on the road itself.

Carcass IX - Evidence Exhibit A

Looking at it's windshield, I'm still thinking the occupants of the Marquis considered themselves very skill drivers and so weren't wearing their seatbelts and probably did not survive.
Shattered Windshield - Exhibit B

The Marquis' pried open passenger door.

Pried Open Passenger Door - Exhibit C

The Marquis' deployed driver side airbag and dashboard broken in half.

Deployed Airbags - Exhibit D

The Marquis' passenger side, In the light of day, I don't think the main impact was head on...not that it explains how it happened though.
Evidence to the Contrary

Epilogue:

The Honda Accord's airbags, both front and side-curtain were also deployed. Except for a small crack where the review mirror is attached, the windshield was intact. In retrospect, none of the panic of the people was focused on the Honda....although they may be a bit bruised up and shook up, I now believe the driver of the Honda was probably not so confident in his skill as a driver and so was wearing a seatbelt...and survived.

Started working my way through the photos from Greece. It is going to be tough cutting them down. In the end, they'll show up as a link to a slide show over on the right. I've already chosen over 100 photos and still have quite a number to go through. In the meantime, here are a couple photos from Metéora (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) that are a bit different from the others that have made the cut so far.

Shadows and Clouds - Meteora, Greece

St Stephen Monastery - Meteora, Greece

Typical Post Card Shot

Diamond Head, Waikiki and Surrounding Area - Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi

Back...

After another nice break which included visiting one son in Hawaii (and playing tourist) and another son's graduation from college...now I need a vacation to recover from the vacation. Considering all my travels, I really didn't take a ton of photos. At some point I'll go thru and put together something from Hawaii. In the meantime, here is one I took of a flower in the bouquet I gave my wife for her birthday.

Stamen and Pistil

A Day Later...

I realized I published this without a title...

Finally finished going through photos from England, I even have them uploaded to Photobucket with titles and everything:
England
and I separated out the gravestones, they would have overwhelmed everything else.
Gravestones and Cemeteries
...next up Greece...then Hawaii...then...

Crocus

Edward - Southam Road Cemetery, Banbury

Lower Slaughter, Cotswolds

I'm still working my way through my photos from England. I'm hoping to knock them out in the next day or two and also make a significant dent in my Greece photos. Here are two from the England set that I took in Lower Slaughter in the Cotswolds.
Reflections in the River Eye - Lower Slaughter, Gloucestershire, Cotswold District

Lower Slaughter - Gloucestershire, Cotswold District River Eye in the Foreground, Steeple of St Mary's Church in the Background

Poseidon - A Greek Vacation

Got a chance for a nice vacation in Greece. There is so much to see and do there that the initial planning was overwhelming and it was hard to decide. In the end, we let our friends we visited there lead the way to the things they thought we'd like in and around Athens. Mid-week, we rented a car and took our own side trip to Meteora and Thessaloniki. It was a great time and the weather was fabulous. Here are a few photos from our first afternoon, right off the plane....as you can see, our friends took good care of us

Temple of Poseidon - Greece

Temple of Poseidon - Greece

Temple of Poseidon - Greece

Temple of Poseidon - Greece

Sun Sets on Our First Day - Greece

The Oxford Canal

The beautiful weather lent itself to walking along bits of the Oxford Canal. The narrow boats and life on the canal is fascinating to me. Maybe some day I'll walk the entire 78 or so miles it covers from Oxford to Coventry, or take a canal cruise. There is heaps of information out there about the canal, currently it seems to be in a period of renaissance.

• The Canal Guide
  
• The Canal Line
  
• The Oxford Canal
  

Are but a few.

Below is a small sampling of the photos I took. Eventually my entire set of photos from England will make it to a slide show linked on the right side of the blog.


Bridge 183, Oxford Canal - North of Aynho, England

The Tow Path, Oxford Canal - Banbury, England

New Laid Eggs, Oxford Canal - Banbury, England

Dog Guides His Boat, Castle Quay Drawbridge 164, Oxford Canal - Banbury, England

Avebury - Wiltshire, England

Spent a little vacation time with Elesa in the English country side. The weather was beautiful except for the 3 or 4 hours we were in Avebury where we had driving snow and rain. My camera and I were soaking wet by the time I was finished wandering among the stones.

Avebury is part of the "Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites" World Heritage Site. The Avebury prehistoric stone circle is the largest in the world. The stone patterns there encircle and pass through the village. The accompanying circular ditch/mound is over 1 kilometer in circumference. A large number of the stones were destroyed in the middle ages and into the 17th century even as some of the early researchers did their work. Now, markers are placed where they know stones used to be. Unlike Stonehenge, visitors can wander pretty freely among the stones and mounds, although most of the mounds were roped off when I was there due to erosion concerns. As a bonus, just a mile or so away is Silbury Hill, at about 130 ft high, it is the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe.

The weather didn't make for great photographs, everything was dull and grey, but here are a few none the less.

Stones Through Avebury - Wiltshire, England

Stones of Avebury - Wiltshire, England

A Marker Marks a Missing Stone - Avebury, Wiltshire, England

Silbury Hill - Wiltshire, England