This Old Blog

I fulfilled my civic duty today when I reported for jury duty at the Orange County courthouse. I didn't serve on a jury; this makes the third consecutive time I've been called to jury duty without having really done anything except sit around and wait. This last time was the worst; I was called up to a courtroom with 29 others; during the initial questioning period the questioning was abruptly stopped, a side-bar was convened between the judge and all the lawyers, after which the judge dismissed us because a key witness could not make it. We all marched back downstairs to the jury assembly area; 45 minutes later we were dismissed for lunch. I went back up to the parking deck and got my camera out, then started to walk down Orange Avenue looking for a bite to eat and something interesting to shoot. Here are six shots from that walk-about. Everything was taken with the E-3 and the 12-60mm. Post-processing was done in Lightroom 3 beta. The entire day was overcast, which made for i...

What started this entry was the second failure, this year, of the former KFC store on University Blvd. The store was re-opened as a Chicken Lickin's franchise store in January (top left photo). Then last week, as I was driving down University towards UCF, I happened to look to my right and see that the store was closed down completely again (top left photo). This posting's collection of photos is from stores and businesses on University and around UCF, such as the Research Park. Why is this important? Because there are major defense contractors in the area (SAIC, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon...) as well as the Army and Navy contract houses. Gathered around a state university with well over 50,000 students. In short, a dynamo for economic activity. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Identification of photos, from left to right, top to bottom: Current empty store that housed the former Chicken Lickin's on University (empty again); Former Chicken Licki...