Sunday, September 20, 2009

San Antonio Day 4 -- Wednesday 16 Sep 2009

Wednesday ... the day of my big presentation. After working until 3am on the slide deck, I got up at 8 and began again. *sigh* ... this was not fun. I shot an image of the room for no reason I can think of ... but here it is.


At 11:30 I was done. I could not type another sentence. I had 40 slides and lots of examples ... this was as good as it would get. Since I was on at 3:10, I thought I'd take a look downstairs and see what was for grub. It was some kind of fish and corn meal mush or something. Not bad ...

Afterward, the fellas wanted to go to the Alamo again since the meeting would not resume until 2 and I thought I'd tag along. Can't get too many images of that place, right?


I got the clever idea to photograph my coworkers, but they began calling to Corey to join them just as I pressed the button.



After touring the usual buildings etc, they walked into an area I had not yet seen. This was great as there was something else I could shoot ... starting with this really lush scene. These ferns look nothing like what we grow here in Canada.


There was a lovely pool (meditation perhaps) under a great big tree. A real challenge to capture without blowing out the background but the little cam barely held on ....



The guys were in a chatty mood, but Dave caught be getting the image ... again, dappled sunlight is just brutal. Barely got a usable image ...


Some of the scenes in this part of the grounds are really gorgeous. Lush plantings everywhere ...


This trellis to the street is really nice ... here, I've zoomed int it, as it is much longer than this.


The tunnel area is lit at night ... must be a bit spooky here.


Caught Dave in animated conversation ... went to black and white because he was silhouetted and that wrecks colors ...


On the way back, we stopped at the front of the Alamo again briefly ...


A detail shot ... pretty stone work.


And then it was off to the hotel. Jim wanted to check for deserts, but when we got to the hotel, we entered on the lower level and someone pointed out that Blue Bell is the best in the world ...


Whether true or not, it was great :-)


And after we were finished, it was off to the meeting. We tried to grab coffees, but they did not bring it in time, so we had to go without until 6pm ...


I got some shots of the fellas ...






Hereabouts, I gave my talk. 30 minutes and it was all over. I actually turned to the Questions slide as Jim held up the "0 minutes" sign. Amazing ...

I got two thumbs up from my colleagues, and that's as good as it gets.

Two more presentations and it was done ...



And off we went to the hotel (this meeting was across the street at the convention center.)


Of course, neither rain nor hail nor sleet nor snow will keep me from photographing out that window on the 6th floor :-)


Notice the little bumps on the horizon behind that building on the left? I zoomed in on those and was pretty impressed with the detail ...


Look at the clarity of those two buildings and that tower. Wow ... I sure hope that Fuji repairs my cam and does not send me another. This one is unbelievably sharp.

So a while later I went for another long walk with the customer I'd gone with the evening before. Not much left to photograph at night, but this wicked fountain did catch my eye. Fire and water ...



And that ends Day 4. The slides may have cost me weeks of sleep, but the end result was worth it all. And we stopped at one of the Italian restaurants along the River Walk (can't remember the name, but they have a long porch with tables) and I had the best Bolognese sauce I have ever eaten ....

1 comment:

crazyfootballmom said...

Very nice pics.