Stuff Portrait Friday: Cruisin' the 'Hood

The eyesore of the neighborhood
A photo taken secretly
The most interesting/funny sign in your area

These are the 3 items we are to photograph this week, as per Kristine's instructions.
I had a tough time with this one, mostly because I waited until the last minute, and can't find suitable shots of the subjects I had in mind. But anyway, here we go.

1. The eyesore of the neighborhood.(I almost chose Pascal for this one, but decided he was more of an EARsore.)

I pass by these antennas every day. The photo only shows 4 of them, but there are 13 more of various heights and sizes clustered together. I can't begin to imagine what would possess the people who bought homes on this hillside to pay the insane prices they paid to have a view of this. Plus, they'll probably all get cancer. (On the upside: they did make excellent an driving point-of-reference when we first moved here and I was continually lost. I have ZERO sense of direction.)

2. A photo taken secretly
I will just have to explain this one, as our PC is not hooked up, and I can't get to the photos on it. When our second son was just a few weeks old, and Daddy McAustin was still on FMLA leave, I took a picture of him and the two boys sprawled out on the den floor fast asleep. It was as if they each had just run around until they could run no more and then collapsed on the floor. It's a really great shot of sleeping bliss.Not my photo, but you get the idea.

3. The most interesting or funny sign in my neighborhood.I pass by this bumpersticker each time we take our kids for a walk. It makes me smile every time. And as we've seen just this week, the moronic hits just keep coming with this guy. Sometimes I'm embarrassed to admit I'm from his state.

4. Since I cheated on some, I thought I would do another for extra credit. There is a gardening/landscaping shop called Pots and Plants at the corner of the large intersection just down from the entrance to my neighborhood, and their gimmick is their pink flamingos out front. Hundreds of the suckers covering every square foot of the roadside approach to their large corner lot. During special events they sometimes mix it up with different birds/animals. It always gives me a smile to see what they come up with.

As we drove by one day last month Critter yelled out "yellow flamingos Mama!". He's usually pretty much correct in his descriptions, and he does know all his colors, but I told him that no, they were the pink flamingos. He says, "no, Mama, it's YELLOW flamingos". I looked back and what do you know? They WERE yellow! Even though we had been watching OLN coverage, I didn't make the connection with the Tour de France until the next day (duh...). Lance Armstrong is our local hero in Austin, thus the change from pink to yellow and the one on the bike. They don't call me "Snappy" for no reason....

This has been one of the hottest weeks of the summer, and they have had penguins out, and even though I wasn't able to get a good shot of them, Critter made sure to point them out....and I believed him. You know that billboard showing the guy driving in his car while eating a burger and the caption reads "World's Deadliest Restaurant"? Well this shot could go on one that reads "World's Deadliest Photography Blind". Traffic was heavy, the light just turned green, and I had to make a left hand turn, so through the window while moving had to suffice.

Did you play? If so, leave me a comment then run on over to Kristine's, let her know, and check out everyone else's 'hoods.