Photo: Wooden Roses

Wooden Roses
Originally uploaded by lcf1976

A couple weeks ago was the Pecan Street Festival. The most interesting thing I saw were these wooden roses. They were made out of these paper thin slices of wood and painted in bright, pretty colors. They were really pretty...

Town Lake at Dusk

Downtown Bridges
Originally uploaded by lcf1976

This must be one of my favorite pictures of the downtown/ Town Lake pictures. It was taken at dusk just as the sun was going down. The lighting is just right!

Visible is the Congress Ave. bridge, the 1st bridge, Silicon Labs, the CSC building, the brand new AMLI apartment towers, as well as a large tower under construction (I don't remember the name at the moment). Also visible is where I currently live, the Milago, which is visible in the distance. Behind it is Legacy at Town Lake, which is going to be a luxury apartment complex.

This was shot on a Yashica 6x6 medium format TLR on Fuji Velvia. I might get this drum scanned and printed big! :)

Texas State Capital

Texas State Capital
Originally uploaded by lcf1976

I love this shot! This is my best picture of the Texas State Capital so far. It was taken close to sunset and shot on my Nikon D70 from the 360 Condominium tower. What is unique about this photo is the vantage point and perspective.

I used my decade old Nikon 70-210 mm AF f/4-5.6 lens, which has been a very sharp lens. The capital is made up of red limestone, which is very beautiful in the right light. I adjusted the white balance from the default to make it warmer.

Rio Neon Sign...

Rio Neon Sign...
Originally uploaded by lcf1976

I was walking home from downtown and I noticed this pretty neon sign. It's also a pretty good Mexican restaurant. The story here is that this space was used to film MTV's Real World when it was being filmed in Austin. I never quite understood the appeal of watching a bunch of young people getting drunk, however.

Shot From The 360...

Here is a beautiful shot of downtown Austin from the top of the 360 condominium tower. This is currently the tallest building in Austin. The view is spectacular here! You can see all of downtown Austin in a 360 degree field of view. I just love the feeling of being high up in a skyscraper. It's a feels peaceful and exhilarating observing everything that is happening in the city from that vantage point.

  

Celebrating the Opening of the 360 Tower...

The 360 tower celebrated its opening last Thursday. It was an invitation only party for the owners of the building plus their guests. I found out about the party thru AustinTowers.net and I knew my neighbor at the Milago purchased a unit, so I used his ticket to get in and bring a couple friends. The building has been an amazing success. They have sold out all 430 units and have a waiting list of 215 units. It's success has been the result of good timing, a great location, and good pricing. The building is 44 stories tall and now is the tallest building in Austin, beating the Frost Bank tower by 50 feet.

Also, the Shore condos has opened to residents as well. This is a 22 story building near the Milago where I live. Austin skyline will be undergoing some major changes over the next few years.

The picture on the left shows the completed 360 building. The building towards its left is the Monarch, which is a brand new luxury apartment complex that is nearing completion.

Last Day at Dell

So it's finalized! My last day at Dell will be March 14th. I have been contracting at Dell since March 26th, 2007, so it means I will have been here just 1 week shy of a year.

I just did a technical interview yesterday with Compass Learning, which is an educational software company located in downtown Austin. I think I did pretty well. I got just about all of his questions right, although I did have to take an educated guess as to when a table variable is slower than a temp table. I'll see if I can get an in person interview next week. If they give me a good offer, I'll probably take it as I believe you have to make the money while you can, not when you have to. If I don't get this offer, I'll probably try to take some time off, although that might be hard since the Austin job market is still quite strong (although it's probably weakening since the economy is going into a recession) and there are a lot of good opportunities out there at the moment.

Austin RV Show

This weekend, the Austin RV Show is going on at the convention center downtown. The lifestyle has some appeal to me. The idea of staying in one place for several days or weeks then driving off to another location with all your stuff sounds like a great way to travel. It's like having a moving home. However, the economics of it doesn't make sense. The cost of an RV far outweighs the cost of staying in hotels. Where it does make sense is in remote locations where there aren't any facilities or being able to stay in a location where it is very hard to access. An example are race car drivers. They just park their RV on the inside track and can stay close to the track. Another example are remote national parks where there aren't any facilities. But there are still so many places I can go that have facilities that it doesn't really make sense to buy an RV yet. I think people buy these to live a certain lifestyle. Still, I enjoy looking at these things.

What Happened to Ringers?

What happened to Ringers Sports Lounge? I heard from the grapevine that it has been such down because they didn’t pay their alcohol tax. This is one of my favorite hot spots in downtown Austin. I go there to play poker on Wendsdays and Fridays. I’ve met a lot of cool people there. It’s a friendly, laid back crowd, beautiful waitresses (I had a really bad crush on 2 of them), and a well run tournament run by Lone Star Free Poker. Now, it’s gone. :( The poker has moved to One-2-One, but that place is not nearly as nice as Ringers. I may have to start going to Third Base more often, but that’s on the west side of downtown.

Ringers is one of the more popular sports bars in downtown Austin. There was always a large crowd there whenever there was a big game of any kind going on. But many nights were pretty slow especially if there wasn't poker going on. Oh well, I hope they get to reopen. I'll be bummed if they are really gone for good.