Zero Dark Thirty

I saw Zero Dark Thirty with a friend in the theater Monday. It is a powerful presentation of a significant event in history. I was glad the torture scenes were not too gruesome but left some to your imagination. The actual capture of Osama Bin Laden was presented much like I had visioned though that is only the last 30 minutes of the movie. The main story is the persistence of one woman that led to the finish of our worst terrorist. I recommend the movie. The Pakistani villages, homes and people reminded me of West Africa.

John Carter

Last night I saw the movie John Carter from Netflix. A fun sci-fi based on the Edgar Rice Borroughs book A Princess of Mars the first in his Barsoom series. It was okay but not great or as good as his Tarzan stories. It was the first time I had heard this story or any in that series.

Backyard Birds

One of my daily adventures since moving to McKendree Village is watching birds come to my feeders while I eat breakfast. Today I saw a Blue Jay but did not manage to get a photo. Another new one today was a European Starling of which I got a so-so photo. See it and the several other birds I have photographed on my Nature Notes blog, which is the blog I come closer to posting on daily. Enjoy!

Giant Helicopter Moves Sign

I got to church early today and got to see this spider-like helicopter removing the US Bank signs from One Main Place building which they sold and are moving to the AT&T Batman Building. Guess they will use the same copter to put their sign on the other building. It was surreal!

Merlin

I just finished Season 4 of the British fantasy, sy-fy, action-adventure TV series on Netflix. Season 5 just ended on TV in December and it is the last. But it is not on Netflix yet. There are other online sources and I will probably watch those since I have gone this far. I really liked it at first, but it's getting a little predictable and tiring now. But I have to see how it ends! :-)

If you don't know about it, the story is that the young Wizard Merlin (20ish) is disguised as Prince Arthur's servant and has been told by a dragon that his purpose in life is to protect Arthur Pendragon and see that he becomes the king he is meant to be. But of course Merlin is not allowed to let anyone know that he can do magic, talk to dragons, etc. It is a fun fantasy show which this season saw Arthur become king of Camelot and pull the sword out of the stone.

I don't know why I like fantasy stories, but I always have! This is one of my armchair adventures!

Lines Lesson

Steel Sculpture in downtown Atlanta

I like both images, but the full view at right is very busy to me and not as pleasant as the other.

By focusing in on a part of the work, I have a smoother, simple and pleasing image with as much drama as the full image but with a more pleasant visual of the lines.

This is an old photo I pulled out for the class, but I have current ones too. 

My Friday Weekly Adventure

I am a volunteer Docent at Nashville Zoo

Doing Education Activities each Friday

Caribbean Flamingo Today

And a new perspective on the Damara Zebras

"Lovers & Pranksters" Concert

I enjoyed the Classic series concert today featuring Richard Strauss, Don Juan; Szymanowski, Violin Concerto 1;  Mozart, Symphony No. 39; and Strauss again with Till Eulenspiegels.  All of the music was beautiful and occasionally strange. The Nashville Symphony is so good and they are doing at lot of neat material in every concert. I have a season ticket to the Classic Series B, half or 7 of the years classical concerts plus some extras occasionally. I love our world class orchestra in a world class symphony hall that will remind you of Vienna's.

Andrew Jackson

In celebration of the Battle of New Orleans, the Hermitage (Andrew Jackson's home) had free admission today, so I went and ran into Andrew himself!  (The Hermitage is about 3 miles from my house.)

1-Building-3-Lights-3-Colors

Silver and Blue is how it usually looks. The Pink and Gold were 10 minutes apart this afternoon.

Amazing what sunlight can do!

I started an online "Photo By Design" class today with Kim Manley Ort  and this first week we are studying light and the difference in can make in photos. This montage is one of my homework photos I submitted. The two on right I made this afternoon. I will report here some of the exciting developments in the class.