Project 52 - The Goblin Tower

This week's theme was the Goblin Tower ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goblin_Tower ) and yes my submission is a little late but it was Thanksgiving here so I beg your forgiveness in lline with this holiday :)

When I was reading the plot summary of this weeks theme I had a few ideas but I really did like the last line of the summary which said that "the end of novel finds him starting from scratch to recoup his fortunes by telling stories on a street corner". Even though he was technically back in his old world I could see him still in this world selling his stories on a street corner. And as he'd be starting from scratch I kinda saw him as a hobo. I'd also had some ideas for taking photos but due to my holiday slackness this is purely a collage. On to next weeks theme!

Project 52 - Emergency Landing

So my talented and most wonderful brother has embarked on a photographic (and for Ed videographic) project to create a new themed work each week and I've butted in on the project to create my own work while bending a few of their rules because I'm a complete amateur and thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it so :PPPP. Ed's submissions can be found here: http://parallax6x6.tumblr.com/  and Seb's can be found here:  http://sebastianbecher.com.au/ and um, mine can be found here obviously.

The rules are:

One week allocated to each theme (Monday to midnight Sunday) (which for me with the time difference is actually Sunday to Saturday) - no jumping ahead and working on other weeks topics before the allocated times! (and I have the list of themes) 

• Must host final photograph/video/animation in a blog space (ie tumblr, wordpress...). - that would be here for me
• Freedom to interpret the topic/theme - but try and stay focused on the article title to provide inspiration. If it is too tangential to the article title or requires deeper reading of the article to be understood, provide a brief synopsis/statement explaining the connection. 
• Any photo size/dimension. Maximum of 3 photographs per topic. 
• Up to 5mins duration for video/animation (no minimum). - that means Ed although I might be inspired... 
• Must be all original work including original audio. 
• Videos can exceed 5mins and have non original music if they are a music video. 
• If due to exceptional circumstances a video/photo may be submitted by midnight the following Monday at the latest (the decision to submit on Monday must be agreed to by both parties). 
• Small amount of stock photos/video footage may be used if personally sourced footage is not practically feasible. 
• All photos must be accompanied by a lighting diagram.  - and that does not apply to me cuz I have no idea wtf that is lol

So herewith is my first (rushed) interpretation of Emergency Landing which is not what I had orignially intended but didn't manage to get to where I wanted to so :PPPP build a bridge. My interpretation of the theme Emergency Landing is this magnificent red kangaroo, whilst bounding his way across the plains, stubs his toe and crashes into this bush, thus requiring an emergency landing on his flight across the plains... um.. okay its a stretch but remember that bridge right hehehe. I'll try harder next week, I promise.

Mystery items

So what exactly is Churn Spread or Half and Half? That would be butter and milk American Style. I'm wondering exactly what Half and Half is half of? Milk and what else? It did have some sort of additive but I can't remember what it was now as that was breakfast and it's now dinner time. Just thought I'd share  :)

The Arboretum and Airlie Gardens

Went to two gardens today as it was really nice weather - went to the New Hanover Arboretum which was tiny, not at all what I expected and took about 5 mins to see it all so I went to Airlie Gardens which was huuuge. There was also a "Glass Bottle Chapel" which was made by artist Minnie Evans and I managed to catch it at just the right time of day to have the sun shine through it. Very pretty. They are also home to the Airlie Oak which dates back to 1545 and is the North Carolina State Champion Live Oak, whatever that is. Was a nice place to spend the afternoon so I took lots of pics for ya

I found the Loch Ness monster! It's in a pond in North Carolina haha. This is at the Arboretum

they had a small japanese garden area at the Arboretum along with a japanese teahouse that was built by the volunteers.

Squirrel!!!

It must have been feeding time as all the coi in the pond were clustered in this corner nosing up looking for chow.

This is the start of Airlie Gardens and the Airlie Oak (466 year old tree)

These 3 swans were digging around on the riverbank for ages but of course wouldn't strike a nice pose for me... geez

And then they buggered off

A gannet

pretty snapdragon

This is Minnie Evans' Bottle Chapel

In the centre of the chapel is a tree that has little metal birdies in the branches

One of the bottle faces on the outside of the chapel

One of the other faces

Hotel Art - Wilmington, North Carolina

I was looking at last night's art and I swear I've seen it somewhere before but after going back though my posts I haven't got a photo of it but I'm pretty sure I've seen it at a hotel before. Anyway tonight Days Inn brings you this lovely watercolor.

 

Not too shabby for hotel art.

Weird hotel things

There are some weird things about American hotels that I thought I'd share. In every hotel that I've been to there is a marble strip on the floor that divides the bathroom from the carpet. Even the crappier hotels have had this strip so I'm not sure if it's part of the building code or something but I just thought it was odd.

The other thing is that most full length mirrors are strategically placed so that you can see yourself on the crapper. I dunno if people have a weird fascination for seeing themselves while on the loo but in probably half of the places I've been in thats where the mirror has been. There is stacks of wall space in the room to put it somewhere else but noope!

Weird.

Hotel Art - Wilmington, North Carolina

For some reason my phone isn't synching to the laptop properly so I can't show you last night's lovely artworks from the EconoLodge so you'll just have to make do with tonight's art from the Ramada.

Tornado!

Yup tonight when I got home from my day out they'd issued a tornado warning for my county and all of the counties surrounding me. I don't think it's going to happen as there is no wind right now, it bucketed down with rain for a while but right now it's stopped any everything is calm and there hasn't been any more broadcasts on the TV about it so I'm assuming the warning is over. Interesting though :)  [and in a PS as it's a day after I started writing this, there was no tornado here, just a bucketload of rain although 6 people were killed in Georgia storms so I count myself lucky I guess]

Today I had a really nice day out, went to the Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens and had some really nice animal encounters. It's been really hot and muggy today so I headed off to the State Museum for a bit of air conditioning after that and actually got my learning on. Photography wasn't allowed in there but I did sneak a photo of the massive shark jaws that greeted you as you entered the building. Shawk! loved it so I just had to :)

And of course here are some of the zoo pics and comments :)

Spectacled owls!

iddn't he cuuuute???!

A touch of home and there were keepers in there and I actually had a long talk to them about kangaroos and Australia. Pretty funny really, never knew I was a kangaroo expert :)

Not actually dead, just sunbaking. I'm used to seeing them like this on Hindmarsh drive ;}

a toucan baby who kept peeking round at me from behind the pole, too cute

This is Mike, and not his best side.

He was just lovely, he was sitting about 6 feet away from me just separated by a pane of glass and kept posing for me. I have stacks of photos of him but am only uploading the better ones as it takes forever to upload!

As he was sitting there he kept wiggling his toes, was so cute.

thats literally how close he was from me. Amazing and scary at the same time.

His keeper was standing next to me telling me stuff about him like he's 19 years old and will be 20 on Christmas Eve and that he's the cheeky one of the group and likes to bang on the glass to scare little kids cuz he thinks its funny. She was signing to him too which was interesting to see.

And then he walked off and just plopped himself on the ground like I was dismissed.

This gal was taking a drink, sucking it up from the pond then squirting it in her mouth.

And this cheeky bugger was scrounging for snacks over the fence. Not much there as you can see that they've done it before as there is almost no shrubbery within trunk range.

Peekaboo I see youuuu

Spot the Gila Monster....

Spot the leaf lizard

My worst nightmare

This lil cayman was just sitting there watching me watching him

There is actually a head in there somewhere... somewhere...

A rhinoceros snake!

Caught this guy mid yawn or something, got a whole series of pics but this is probably the best.

These are called inside out jellyfish. They were really neat looking, kinda like suction cups

Another touch of Australia (they also had kookaburras, galahs and wallabies - was tempted to ask the keepers where the dropbears were haha)