Another picspam to forget my troubles

[cornerofmadness]

a couple months ago my sister in law said that the day we went out Christmas shopping someone got her credit card numbers. I didn't see anything on MY account until today when I've learned a few of my cards have been preemptively canceled and reissued (nothing like taking 6 months)

The stores that got their database stolen TJ MAxx, Marshalls, Homegoods, AJ Wright and 'related stores' just in case you want to take a look at your cards.

So...picspam
Franklin Conservancy photos

Japanese Lantern

no idea what kind of palm it is but it looked freaky

Dale Chihuly art in the desert room

what I aspire to create some day

Now entering the Butterfly zone in the Tropical room

More Chilhuly glass in the koi pond



Butterfly

Butterfly

Butterfly

Butterfly


And now for my special captures

I just liked the staghorn fern in the background

Same butterfly up close This bugger actually sat on me for a while

The next one has a history. There were two butterflies I chased for over an hour (because I'm a patient hunter) the Scarlet Mormon (a 4 year old ruined that shot) and the Common Morpho which has brilliant electric blue wings. I chased and I chased this fellow. In the process I got lots of pictures of some ulgy brown dude with frilly edged wings. FINALLY the morpho sets down next to me and folds up those beautiful blue wings...and he's the butt ugly brown butterfly I've taken a dozen shots of. Argh

Common Morpho

Common Morpho meets Chihuly

Orange Cthulu

350+ year old Buttonwood

the next section is mostly for trixiefatcat and other orchid lovers

Orchid


Orchid

Orchid



Orchid

Orchid

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

oooo, pretty...and that Chihuly glass...*sigh* That stuff is just plain weird.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

it really really is weird

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

That boat full of flames or whatever it was we saw that time just disturbed me.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yes, that's what I mentioned to wildrider

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah.

I see silvrethorn is talking about that funky palm we saw at Universal. *grins*

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yes she was

[ishte.livejournal.com]

Hey that second one lookes like a lttle man with um... goatskin chaps on stuck his head inside the mouth of a monster growing on the tree and got STUCKEDED!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

snort, that was just a weird tree

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

That orange Ctulhu glass was crazy. Nice flutterbys. :)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Almost everything Chilhuly does looks like that (to be honest while i like his work I find it very repetitive) and thanks

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

If only--if only--that Morpho had opened its wings while it was sitting on that orange Chihuly sculpture. What a picture that would have been. And that palm tree: Who knew Cthulhu was actually plant life? ELD and I saw a wonderful palm tree at Universal, by the way. It looked like a gigantic maidenhair fern grafted onto a palm trunk. I want one.

In vaguely related news, some yo-yo recently grabbed a bunch of Chihuly glass reeds from an outdoor exhibit and threw them over a fence, breaking most of them. People are such morons.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that damn morpho didn't flutter its wings at rest. I WAITED to that too.

Hmmm i wouldn't know what that palm you're describing is either but it sounds cool.

and geez...if you're gonna steal GLASS....

[0-mother-0.livejournal.com]

Wow, gorgeous pictures! Thanks so much for sharing those.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

no problem. glad you liked them

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Pretty pictures!

The second I saw that Cthulhu I knew the artist - he does all the glass work at the Bellagio (the flowers on the ceiling of the lobby), and he has Cthulhu-like chandeliers hanging at the Gold Nugget in downtown Vegas. There's one of his sculptures at a glass-art store here up at the Biltmore. It's totally cool stuff!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Chihuly is amazingly prolific (I didn't know about his stuff in the places you cite) I first saw his stuff in Orlando's art museum. I like it but as I said to someone else, it's rather repetitive at least the stuff I've seen, a bit odd too but i like it.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

It IS somewhat repetitive (at least, those Cthulhu-type sculpts, and the flowers), but it's quite fascinating, as well as distinctive. As soon as I saw the chandeliers at the Italian Grotto (Golden Nugget), I knew who made 'em.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

definitely distinctive and yes definitely fascinating. The exhibit in Orlando was quite large and at times, disturbing

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

What fantastic pictures. I love the butterflies.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

thanks. i did too

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

These are great! Now I want to go to the zoo and the conservatory!

[mulzrule.livejournal.com]

I hope things straighten out with your credit problem. That really sucks. On the bright side the gardens look really cool. I would never be able to get my family to leave that place. Yay for butterflies!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

well there isn't a problem, this was preempotive

it's a very neat botanical garden in Columbus

[mulzrule.livejournal.com]

cool

[trixiefatcat.livejournal.com]

I always find it interesting that Dale's work inevitivly winds up in a garden somewhere - Cthulu's answer to Garden Gnomes?
Thanks for the orchids - oddly enough, I have samples of nearly every one of those - including a dendrobium I got for a buck off of the discount rack last November - which has put up one immense bud against all expectations. Hurrah, I'll finally find out what color this thing is!
Either that or you're going to be getting emails that say something like "Feed me, Seymour!" in the near future.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yes it seems that is where his work goes. There was more of it there I just figured I'd bored everyone enough.

That's cool about the orchids. Mine is starting to fail a little. sigh. I'm not sure if I'm overwatering, not watering enough too much sun, not enough sun. hopefully yours will have an interesting color to it

[trixiefatcat.livejournal.com]

The triple Bonsai should be fairly easy to do - the raw materials can be found at any Lowe's or Wal-Mart dirt cheap - which means that if you kill the first three or four attempts, you're only out twenty bucks not counting the gas you burned to get there.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

i'm thinking I need to shop where YOU do. I actually went to Lowes yesterday with that in mind and/or to get an azalea. I couldn't touch anything under 20$. Guess I have to wait for everything to burn nearly to death in another month before they put it on sale (and sadly the smallest azaela they ha were 2 gallon ones which are already a tad large. Any other time I can find small ones...)