Attached to a gift from my brother this afternoon.

This was my back yard yesterday afternoon. It got worse later (after dark when I couldn’t take any more pictures). The ivy bed and all of the grass shown in the photo was totally submerged by 10 PM, as were the bottom few inches of the shed’s front door.

I was lucky — no flooding inside the house. Some of my neighbors were not so lucky. At least one had their basement flood all the way to the ceiling, and spent most of today running a pump to drain it. Several houses have big dumpsters out front today, full of furniture and so forth.

Look at the area to the left of the shed, and you’ll see Kellogg Creek, which is one of the main routes of water drainage around here. It is normally not visible from this angle, as it runs in a bed several feet deep. But it flooded its banks, and that’s where all of this water came from.

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Shallow.”

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Furry.”

The Parliament building in Vienna, Austria.

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Government.”

Submitted for Macroday challenge “Dark.”

While in Poland, we visited the salt mine at Wieliczka. Miners have been working here for hundreds of years, starting in the late 13th century.

Not all of the salt in a mine is of commercial value. Some is too intermixed with other minerals and rock to be harvested. At Wieliczka, the miners have a tradition of creating elaborate sculptures out of this unusable salt. One chamber we visited was stunning — an entire chapel carved out of salt, complete with pews. This picture shows one wall of the chapel.

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Crystalline.”

At the 2001 Cleveland Grand Prix.

Submitted for Photo Friday challenge “Red.”

Vienna, Austria. I believe this building is the home of their national Parliament.

My wife has corrected me — it is actually an opera house.

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Curves.”

Our tour guide in Skagway Alaska, posing for a cheesy tourist photo at the town’s oldest cemetery. The oversized marker is that of the local hero, Frank Reid.

Submitted for Photo Friday challenge “Feminine.”

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Enchanted.”

Budapest, Hungary.

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Dusk.”

In the mid-90s I worked with a lawyer named Mark who had a statue like this on his windowsill (minus the clock). He told us they are common in businesses in Asia, where the cat supposedly beckons the customer to come. Years later, while visiting my employer’s offices in Florida, I saw a beckoning cat in the lobby. Only just now did I realize that this was after we were bought by a Japanese company.

I don’t know if our cat brought us any business. I do remember that one late night after battling with a Telebit router for a few hours, Jamie and I sacrificed a blown ethernet card to the beckoning cat, mostly just to see what Mark would say the next day. And partly because we had been at the office too long.

Anyway, when I saw this little beckoning cat clock in a gift shop in Alaska, I just couldn’t pass it up. He lives in the bookcase next to my desk.

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Clock.”

Submitted for Photo Friday challenge “Pink.”

Submitted for Macroday challenge “Kitchen.”

An Alaskan salmon heading upstream to spawn. The majority of them will die along the way. At the point in the river where I took this picture, this one was very close to the end of the run. I can’t swear he (she?) made it to the end, but it’s a decent bet.

Also, of some three dozen shots of this point in the river, this is the only one where I actually can see a fish in the picture. So this picture was a minor success for me that day.

Submitted for Photo Friday challenge “Success.”

A rainy day in Krakow, Poland. I couldn’t resist taking this picture of Joseph. He and his wife emigrated from Germany to Canada decades ago.

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Weather.”

Artwork on a piece of the Berlin Wall. This depicts a kiss between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German leader Erich Honecker. The car they are in is crashing through the wall; it is a Trabant or “Trabi”, the most well-known type of car in the German Democratic Republic. Its crashing through the wall symbolizes liberation (which is why the license plate indicates 1989, the year the wall came down).

I believe this work is a remix of two other famous works, shown below.

Copyright © John Pham. Used with permission.

Public domain image. Source: Wikipedia.

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Travel.”

Submitted for Photo Friday challenge “Best of 2005.”

Submitted for Macroday challenge “Candy.”

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Architecture.”

A fawn getting some rest in a bed of ivy in my back yard.

Submitted for Lens Day challenge “Nature.”