Nerd alert

My first lunar eclipse.  

I got up pretty early in Victoria Texas, to see what it was all about and thought it was pretty nice. 

As I understand, the next one will not be until April 2015 and the next after that won't happen again for another 20 plus years.  If I'm still around by then, I probably won't know it or even care.

Also, there's supposed to be a partial solar eclipse on October 23 of this year.

Bootfest Victoria Texas

As summer winds down and the days become more tolerable, lots of towns put on some sort of festival and Victoria, Texas is no different, hosting it's own Bootfest.

(clicking on the photo increases the size and resolution)

It's pretty much the same as other and the idea of a Boot festival in south Texas is like having a Southern Drawl festival in Hattiesburg, Mississippi...everyone has one.

Young and old gathered, some young enough to be in strollers and others old enough to be in wheelchairs and walkers.  Around the square, the usual booths were there such as funnel cakes, barbeque, ice cream and of course, ... beer.  There was a line up of bands and of the couple I heard, they were pretty good.

One group from Cuero was a blend of country, hiphop and rock with a heavy dose of Mexican thrown in with the front man singing and speaking Spanglish   Another band played a mix of 70s music and country. I was really enjoying them until they tried make Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl into their own style.  That ended it for me.  Don't be messin' with Brown Eyed Girl.

Other venders included home crafted art, leather, boots and t-shirts.

What I found most interesting was the car show.  There was the usual restored 58 Corvette, 66 chevys, sports cars and trucks but what really stole my heart was a generous exhibit of Rat Rods.

Here's a few of my favorites that should be right at home on the set of Mel Gibson's Mad Max.

Never forget 9/11/2001

There are events you'll always remember where you were when it happened.

For me, I was arriving at my office in Baton Rouge, finding long line of people were waiting for the Tuesday Morning store to open just before 8:00 AM..  Two or three people had just received cell phone calls informing them that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings.

After logging on to my computer, I walked back to my break room and flipped on the TV to check the news.  Sure enough the crash event was on and I saw smoke billowing from one of the buildings.  Of course, my mind was racing on how in the world such a tragedy could have happened when I looked and saw the second airplane hit.

It didn't take long to process that and know, I had just witnessed an attack on America.

At that point, our lives had changed forever.  I'll never forget.