Some excitement in the neighborhood

While sipping on my morning cup of tea I heard sirens wailing somewhere in the vicinity.  I said a quick prayer for the person or people who were in need of such urgent aid and then forgot about it.  A few minutes later I left for work but didn't get very far because the road was blocked by 5 fire trucks and two additional emergency vehicles.  Our neighborhood is usually very quiet and fortunately not the scene of many high speed crashes.  The most that happens as a rule is that kids after having had a little too much to drink like to take out mailboxes with their pimped out pickup trucks.  Anyway, all this morning activity resulted from a kitchen fire which fortunately was soon brought under control.  Since I had my camera in the car, I passed the time waiting for them to move the hoses out of the road by taking a few shots.

Philadelphia Alley

Great evening for a walk downtown.  Everywhere there are signs of spring - just a couple more weeks ..

Visit to the Charleston Aquarium

I took Gideon to the aquarium about a year ago when he was barely toddling.  Now he's all over the place so yesterday was quite a different experience.  I was pretty tired after chasing him for a couple of hours.  He had a great time though, and here are a few of the pics.

Lazy Family Weekend

German lessons from Pops

Logan - never far away

Gideon and omlettes for lunch

Our precious Evie - 3-1/2 months old

Leigh and Josh

There was lots to do, and the rain on Saturday was almost a blessing because there were no excuses for getting stuck into the "honey do" list, and it is a long list.  We had Gideon stay over on Saturday night which meant an early start on Sunday morning.  I have a new toy - a 85mm Sigma F1.4 portrait lens so here are some pics from my initial test shots.  It's capable of wonderful images, but you have to nail the focus, otherwise you get the dreaded fuzzies.

Life has been quiet lately ......

Please understand I'm not complaining.  Life, I have concluded (no great profound revelation here) is a series of seasons, good, bad, and so-so.  The only thing you can count on is that they will change. I am busy enough not to be bored, but the pace is sedate enough not to be at all stressful.  My family is also probably grateful for that because I'm not very nice and not a lot of fun when I'm stressed.  I believe we are in for a lot more rain tomorrow and the weekend, so I recorded this fair-weather scene at dawn this morning; first light on the Stono (or Paul Gelegotis) Bridge.  Who is/was Paul Gelegotis?

The French Quarter Inn

This morning I spent a few hours shooting some detail images for The French Quarter Inn on Church Street downtown.  It was hardly a chore seeing that it is one of the nicest hotels in Charleston.  Here are a couple of them.

Lava Lamps

I'm playing catch-up I know, but these are some images from a visit to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Aquarium in Myrtle Beach last weekend.  Honestly, I think our Charlston Aquarium is just as good, if not better, but it was fun, and photographing such different subject matter under such different environmental conditions was a challenge.