Charlotte Motor Speedway - NASCAR Racing

Though headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida, NASCAR has always had a strong bond with North Carolina, especially Charlotte. Even today, all but a handful of NASCAR teams are based in or around Charlotte. Charlotte Motor Speedway hosts some of the more prestigious NASCAR races including the Coca-Cola 600 and Sprint All-Star Race.

Watching a NASCAR race is quite an experience. With the advent of the racing season, thousands of racing fans descend on Charlotte, making it their home for the next couple of months. Camps are set-up, fires lit and the aroma from the cooking pots wafts through. There is a general festive atmosphere all around. If you are in Charlotte during the race season, it's certainly a must see event. And don't forget your ear muffs :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on the 17th of March every year. The St. Patrick's Day parade is an annual tradition in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was fortunate to witness the 15th Annual St. Patrick's Day Parade last year. More than 60,000 spectators had gathered on both sides of the street to watch the parade. Crowds cheered and cameras flashed as the parade marched through the heart of the city to the sound of bagpipes. The combination of flags, floats, kids and pipe band music made everyone smile and be Irish for a day.

It seemed the city had turned green. Most of the spectators had sportively dressed up in green for the event. They even had green wigs and green jewelry. Some were dressed as leprechauns with fake orange beards while some had shamrock shaped sunglasses. Many kids could be seen sporting some bobbly, antennae like shamrock headgears.

Inside the Basilica!!

Another one of my old pictures. This one was taken inside the Basilica of St. Lawrence, Asheville, NC. In a previous post, I have mentioned about this beautiful minor basilica of the Roman Catholic Church.

It was quite a visit and still gives me the jitters. It was my first visit to a church when I carried along a tripod. And I was kind of wary of the looks I might get from other patrons. Fortunately, there were very few people around when I entered the church. The priest was a very nice man and just smiled down benevolently at me. Inside the church, Ela and I spent some time at the altar and then went around admiring the beautiful stained glass windows and other artifacts.

Apart from the well-known stained glass windows, the inside of the church is also adorned with exquisite statues of saints imported from Italy. These include St. Lawrence, St. Cecilia, St. Rose of Lima, St. Patrick, and St. Peter the Apostle. The high altar is made from marble and is decorated by a fresco painting of the Last Supper. Above the high altar in the sanctuary, there is a Spanish wood carving of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John, the Beloved Disciple, mourning at the Crucifixion of Christ. Behind the wood carving are polychrome terra cotta ornamental partitions of the Four Evangelists and two of the Archangels, St. Raphael and St. Michael.

After completing a round, I then started setting up my tripod to take a few pictures of the interior, the beautiful dome and the stained glass windows. For some reason, the tripod decided to give me a bad time. It was making awful noises that seemed to reverberate in the silent building. It reminded me of the sound you hear sometimes during change of gears in heavy vehicles like tractors and trucks. Couple of patrons turned around to look at me. Ela inched away and kept as much distance as possible from me giving an impression that he wasn't with me. Feeling very conscious, I continued with my work and finally managed to set up the tripod with my camera on top. I breathed a sigh of relief!!

I focused on one of the glass windows, made some adjustments and then pressed the shutter. And immediately almost jumped out of my skin. The shutter sound was magnified multifold and sounded like shots from a gun. I realized, I had set it up to automatically take 3 pictures at different exposures. In the silence of the church, it sounded like the staccato fire of a machine gun. Gulping down, trying to give the appearance of a diligent photographer, I turned the camera to capture a few more pictures before silently exiting the building with Ela following me at a discreet distance. Phew!!

Basilica of St. Lawrence

The Basilica of St. Lawrence is a beautiful Roman Catholic Church in Asheville, NC. Built in 1905, this is the only basilica in Western North Carolina. It is reputed to have the largest free standing elliptical dome in North America. The interior of the church is exquisite with a lot of marble and wood work. However, it is best known for the elaborate stained glass windows which were made in Munich, Germany.

There are ten semi-circular windows, just under the dome, depicting scenes representing The Annunciation, The Visitation, The Nativity, The Child Jesus Teaching in the Temple, The conversion of St. Paul, The Marriage Feast at Cana, Raising to Life the Daughter of Jairus, The Calming of the Wind and Waves, The Agony in the Garden, and The Appearance of the Risen Savior to Mary Magdalene. The two large windows on the left and right walls represent Christ Healing the Afflicted and The Transfiguration. The large window in the organ loft portrays the Resurrection. There are couple of lower windows depicting St. Paul and St. Peter as subjects. Smaller windows above commenorate the four Fathers of the early church and the four Evangelists.

Carolinas Aviation Museum

I give Ela credit for most of my Photography ventures. This one is no different. One evening, on his suggestion, we went over to the Carolinas Aviation Museum. This place is less than 3 miles from the place I stayed in Charlotte but had not been there. Still late than never. The visit was entertaining as well as educational.

We were treated to a good collection of aircrafts and helicopters, both civilian as well as military. Among the exhibits is a Douglas DC-3 which is an award-winning classic example. It was restored and flown by Piedmont Airlines in original airline configuration to air shows and other public events before being sold to the aviation museum.

The above picture is of a Harrier aircraft, or the Jump jet as it was informally referred.
It is a British-designed military jet aircraft capable of vertical/short takeoff and landing operations. The Harrier aircraft, capable of taking off vertically, can only do so at less than its maximum weight. In most cases the aircraft does a short take off where it gains forward speed and thus aerodynamic lift, saving fuel. The main problem for the model was getting it to quickly cool down after landing due to the hover configuration. Redirecting thrust downward from the nozzles generated a lot of heat.

Next to the museum there is a military airstrip. If you are lucky you can catch some breathtaking action as military planes land and takeoff.

The Enchanted Woods!!

October is a symphony of permanence and change. Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods while day by day the dead leaves fall and melt. The changing leaves of autumn colored brightly red, yellow and gold either dance in the golden sun-light or lie on the tired forest floor as a pile of dried up leaves.

A forest of these trees is a spectacle too much for one man to see. Their elegant shape, showy colours, and slow, sailing mode of flight, make them very attractive objects, and their numbers are so great, they easily compensate for the scarcity of flowers. Autumn can be equated to a second spring where every leaf is a flower, blissfully fluttering from the autumn tree.

Listen!! The wind's rising, the air wild with leaves. Leisure summer evenings gone, days grow shorter. Soon it will be dark.
Listen!! With faint dry sound, like steps of passing ghosts, the leaves break free from the trees. And fall.

Stanley Horowitz has said, "Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all". I couldn't agree more.

Downtown Asheville!!

I don’t read music. I don’t write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.

I guess those were the lines going through his mind as he strummed the chords of a fine guitar. The music cast a spell on all passerbys forcing them to stop and listen. Soon a crowd gathered around this little group of unknown musicians, listenenting to their soulful tunes.

This wasn't the first time and I am sure this will not be the last; this has been the norm during many of my Asheville visits. We find a lot of artisans in this little township of Asheville, popular for its cultural and art heritage.

Coffee Time!!

Suave molecules of mocha invigorate the blood, the organ of thought receives from it a feeling of responsiveness and refreshment, you will sit down to your daily pastime which will restore your body and make the day's work easier. Actually this seems to be the basic need of the IT professional in nearly every crisis - a good hot cup of coffee. I just can't get my day in office started until I have had that first, piping extra hot cup of mocha.

I was walking down Wall Street in Asheville downtown with old college friends. The sun had already set and the evening was getting colder. We stepped into the quaint little "World Coffee Cafe" to catch up on things, old and new, over a cup of coffee. A cup of coffee shared with friends is happiness shared and time well spent. The coffee was good and so was the trip.

Autumn in Renaissance Park

A few days ago I walked along the trail in Renaissance Park and was treated to the crunch and rustle of leaves with each step I made. The acoustics of this season are different and all sounds, no matter how hushed, are as crisp as autumn air.

The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the forest slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools. Leaf falling on leaf, on mounds of leaves, falling leaves hide the path so quietly. Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.

Full moon at Lake Wylie

TGIF!! Last day of the week, start of the weekend. With fall seaon in full swing, its natural to head out to catch some colours every opportunity that one gets. Charlotte is always a bit late for fall and it may be two more weeks before we see Charlotte in its full splendour. But there are some places that get colours early. Lake Wyile is one such place.

Swamy, Praveen and myself headed out to the lake to catch some colours before the sun sets. On reaching the place we realized, it was still early for the full fall splendour. But we did have some colours. Much to my surprise and amazement, it was full moon night. It was a beautiful sight to see the moon shining brightly over the colourful tree line. As it was lower on the horizon, it looked huge. I captured some shots of the treeline and the moon separately and later merged them to create a composite image (learnt couple of days back). Not bad for a first attempt!! :-)

In office...on a holiday!!

A day after Columbus Day; it's a holiday at office. And despite my best efforts I end up in office. Huddled togather in a conference room, the whole MDM team has been busy trying to debug the dreaded "deadlock" issue that has mysteriously resurfaced, this time in Production, after MDM implementation.

At the end of a long day during which the grey cells were tested on multiple occasions, I expected to see exhausted and tired faces. But it was a totally different scene that presented itself outside the office building. People made wisecracks and everyone had a smile on their face.

At such times, its difficult to resist the temptation to capture the magic of the moment. This time was no exception.

Sunset at Lake Norman!!

Been a while since I last posted. Actually its been quite a while since I went out with my camera. The past couple of weeks have been hectic. Weekends have been good but it takes effort to get the lazy bones moving. Anyway end-result no new pictures.

So thought why not take the opportunity and post some pictures from my backlog. And I do have a big backlog. This is from a sunset I took on Lake Norman. This is the largest man-made lake in the entire state of North Carolina. To be precise, the photo was taken in Jetton Park on the lake. On previous two occasions I had made futile attempts to reach this location on my motorcycle. Fortunately, I was third time lucky.

Jetton Park has a small artificial beach where kids can be found playing. A nice tree shaded shoreline and a beautiful view of the setting sun.

Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden

Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located in Belmont, one of the suburbs of Charlotte. It includes manicured gardens, natural surrounding areas including woodland trails, sparkling fountains and an Orchid Conservatory. During Christmas and New Year, nearly 60,000 holiday lights are on display at the garden transforming the garden into something ethereal. Just 30 mins from home, we visited the place on a evening. The holiday lights were beautiful but the heavy fog somehow dampened the visit.

Two angles at the entrace welcomed us to the Visitor's Lobby of the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden.

There was some Irish music along with some traditional dancing in the lobby. Some traditional Irish intruments were playing out beautiful tunes.

They had a full christmas tree made up of orchids. But then this place has an Orchid Conservatory.

Managed to capture the holiday lights decorated here from a good angle giving a different perspective.

There were lights of different colours. Some red, some blue, some yellow, some green. And some were white.

The beautiful lighted tunnel leading to the fountain.

Another capture of the lighted tunnel leading to the fountain.

The lights were decorated in the shapes of trees and birds. Saw one in the shape of a large butterfly.

Some christmas lights in the shape of flying birds.

Some in the shape of trees and colourful flowers.

Soldiers standing sentinel infront of lighted christmas trees.

There were some lighting in the Orchid Conservatory as well.

Fall splendor in the Carolinas!!

One more long weekend in October. This time thanks to Columbus Day. Pretty early for fall colours in Charlotte. But the higher elevation of the Blue Ridge ranges always has fall a few weeks early. So Ram, Pattu and I set-out to catch some fall colours in Ram's Grand Vitara. It was a bright day but there were prediction of showers later in the day. As we took to the mountain road and started climbing our eyes were riveted to a beautiful scene. It was like someone had decorated both sides of the road in yellow and red paint. It started raining and this added a surreal effect. This has been one of the most memorable drives till date.

Lovely bright light when starting from Charlotte

But it started raining as we reached the mountains

Roads were slick but the view ahead was beautiful

We saw colours on both sides of the road

Bright yellow and red

The view was surreal

Someone once said, "October is nature's funeral month. Nature glories in death more than in life. The month of departure is more beautiful than the month of coming - October than May. Every green thing loves to die in bright colors." I couldn't agree more.

It was like a natural tunnel of bright yellow and red

Fog shrouded the road on the way back

Driving through these turning roads in the fog was a bit dangerous and a lot exciting