The camera kept wanting to focus on the screen, so I tried getting pictures through screenless windows, though I didn’t have as direct a view through those:

Nevertheless, it was a really pretty sunrise.  It was also transient – less than 10 minutes after I took these pictures, the sky was just gray.

As I recall from when I first heard of this day’s designation, the reason for this being a day of online deals is that people would return to work after 4 days off and would do a lot of shopping online, presumably because they have better Internet access at work than at home (FWIW, the Wikipedia article on the day bears this out).  I would guess that a lot more Americans these days have Internet connections at home that are perfectly fast enough for shopping, but now that the day is established for marketers, it probably will be a special designation for many, many years.

Here’s what I find confusing: offering all these deals would seem to encourage workers to spend their time buying stuff rather than working.  In other words, on this day each year, one segment of the business community – retailers – is attacking the productivity of the rest of the business community.  Are there employers that resent this marketing?  Have they tried to put any pressure on retailers (and would it do any good, since promotions like this seem to be very helpful to retails bottom line?)?  Do lots of employees run afoul of computer use policies today?

I googled a few news stories on this, and it seems like businesses do seem to lose a lot of productivity on the day, but they have different ways of coping with it.  Some places probably don’t have an issue, simply because they keep a tight rein on what sites can be visited from their network.  Nevertheless, this is one issue where the business community is certainly not of one mind (alth0ugh that community might be less monolithic in general than I give it credit for).

These lights tend to be pretty bright, but some are rather directional, and aren’t necessarily angled in an optimal fashion.  One light that shines outward from a pillar is in the area I usually park in, and one day I noticed a bunch of webs had been built in front of it, and they were occupied.

I would guess that this is a good location for catching moths and other light-attracted insects.  This is in the lower level of the parking structure, so it’s always dark there.  It must be good eating for these individuals.

First off, back when the weather was warm (mid-September) I heard a small noise on the sliding door to our deck, as though something had hit the glass.  One of the cats ran over there, so I thought I would see what was going on.  I turned on the deck light (which is on a motion detector), and saw a large praying mantis:

That’s not a great picture, but I could see that the bug was 3 or 4 inches long – bigger than most mantises you might see.

I went outside to get better pictures of it, but the light wouldn’t cooperate.  I managed to get this one pic with the light still on:

After that, the light went off and wouldn’t come back on, even though I moved around in front of its sensor, and we tried flipping the switch off and on again.  I got some pictures in the dark with the flash, but they were even blurrier.  Still, it was nice to see the thing, as praying mantises are my favorite type of insect.

Tonight I came home in the later evening, and as I got out of the car, I spotted movement near the garage door.  It was a salamander, perhaps 3 inches long including its tail.  I’ve only seen salamanders once before, and those were much smaller.  This one wanted to leave the garage (perhaps because of the light and noise that resulted from my driving in), and so I re-opened the garage door that I had just closed to let it head out.  I didn’t have my normal camera handy, and my cell camera would have been useless in the low light, otherwise there would be photographic evidence here.  In any case, I hope the thing manages to be warm enough this evening (the low temp tonight will be 34 degrees).

This individual was seen a lot in April and May:

Here’s a dove, on the table where we often scatter birdseed:

And we sometimes see a flicker pecking at the lawn:

More posts to come on other topics.

I’m musing on this week’s puzzle given by Will Shortz on NPR.  It is as follows:

“What is the longest familiar phrase, title or name in which the only consonants are N and T, repeated as often as necessary? The other letters are vowels. Try to think of an answer with at least 18 letters.”

I’ve come up with a few 18-letter phrases that fit the bill, except that they aren’t familiar at all.  Nonetheless, the words might be used to make up the answer.

I was thinking that longer words would help, but it could be that what’s needed are several short words.  Here are words I’ve come up with that only use those 2 consonants:

• attention
• nation
• attenuation
• inattention
• tone
• note
• nine
• in
• at
• to
• into
• tenant
• tint
• tiny
• intent
• intention
• inane
• inanity

Anyone have other words to suggest?  Note: if you know the answer, or an answer, don’t post it – I don’t want it spoiled.

Fortunately, it held still for a couple of cell phone pictures.

One of the first pieces of statuary I came upon was this set of 5 tigers:

Here are closeups of a couple of them:

A bit further along, I came upon a pair of pants and a skirt (inspired by a Dada piece):

Near that was a Tower by Sol LeWitt:

The steps spiral all the way around, so it was tempting to climb up it.  However, for almost all the sculptures, the plaques say “Please do not climb on the sculpture.”   This one was no exception.

This twisty, wormy one had a name that didn’t have to do with worms, or tubes, or any such thing.  It’s called “Reflex”.

At a few points, there were installations almost hidden by trees.  This is one, and it was also among my favorite pieces – it’s called “Pine Sharks”:

Yes, it’s three shark sculptures suspended from trees, as though they’re circling in the air.  No, they don’t move, except for swaying a bit in the breeze.

Moving on, I came across this very teal “Hand”:

And another cool one made entirely of pine (and other tree) cones and wire (simply called “Cones”):

There is at least one motorized piece there.  “The Merry-Go-Round of Hidden Agendas” has a windmill at the top, which powers a set of figures who have word balloons and pass through several ‘houses’.

Here’s a closeup of the moving part:

Those are the works that I found most interesting, though there are several others that are neat and fun.  You can actually see pictures of many of them on the museum’s web site, like these, which I failed to take my own pictures of.

Graceland seems to consist of 2 parts.  There is the mansion itself, with its grounds and other buildings, and across the road, where all the parking is, there are a couple of restaurants, Elvis’ car museum (he owned a number of vehicles), and at least 6 different gift shops (each selling a different theme of memorabilia, e.g. music-related stuff, movie-related, etc.).  When we actually went to tour the mansion, we rode across the street in shuttle buses (even though it would have been a 3-minute walk).  Each person was issued an audio player with the tour guide recording on it.

Here are the gates to the estate, seen from near the gift shops across the road:

The front of the mansion, with attendant lion statues:

No flash was allowed for photography inside the place, so some of my pictures are dark and/or blurry.

Here is the front parlor/music room:

The stairway (the public isn’t allowed up to the second floor):

The dining room:

The kitchen, which looks like a lot of 70′s-era kitchens, really:

From there, the tour went into the basement, where things got a bit weirder.  Here is Elvis’ TV room:

Note the mirrored ceiling:

The room is all done in yellow and navy blue, and it has 3 TVs because Elvis wanted to be like Lyndon Johnson, who purportedly watched all 3 networks at the same time when he was president.

Just after that, we saw the pool room, in which the walls and ceiling were decorated with many, many yards of fabric:

We then ascended to the “jungle room”, at the back of the house:

This wall has water trickling down through the stones:

We then went outside to visit some other buildings.  Here’s the back of the mansion:

The bulk of exhibits of Elvis’ stuff is in the Trophy Building.  This includes a gold lame suit (I don’t remember when or where he wore it):

All of his gold and platinum records hang here:

Here are items of clothing from some of his concerts:

Just before I left the building, there was this interesting painting:

We then proceeded to the former racquetball court, which held more memorabilia:

especially more jumpsuits:

After that was the shrine where he and his family are buried.

Here’s the King’s grave itself, followed by his mother, father, and grandmother:

The King is watched over by the King of Kings:

And thus conlcuded my visit to Graceland.  Parts of it were more garish than I’d expected, but parts looked like almost any other American home from the period.  It was certainly an eclectic mix.

Next post: a different King.

There were 3 of them in the nest, though you can only see 2 of them in these pictures:

The mama was watching me from a safe distance:

I discovered that we could see them through a living room window, and they didn’t see us, so they’d be more lively (and the mother would come to feed them).  Unfortunately, taking pictures through the window didn’t work so well.

About a week after the photos were taken, I found the nest empty.  I’m guessing they all learned to fly and went about growing up.