Rolling fields, Iowa

Rolling fields, verdant beneath the structured skies.

Cornfields road, Iowa

Dirt road through the cornfields at sunset.

Hip bathroom, Austin, TX

The most hip restaurant bathroom in the world, sharing sinks in the open foyer between the men's and women's rooms, in the back of an upscale fusion taco place in Austin.

Chandelier, Austin, TX

An neon chandelier in a bowling alley / bar / arcade in Austin, Texas.

Water laboratory, UT Austin

Another piece of the UT Austin water laboratory, this portion set up with some sort of sluice system flowing water down this long box structure.

Water laboratory, UT Austin

A water laboratory at UT Austin, set up behind a chain-link fence for investigations on an industrial scale

TACC Racks, UT Austin

Server racks at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.

Model shack, Austin, TX

In the middle of an random suburban Austin office park, a wooden shack. This is not some preserved hold-over, but a model shack meant to illustrate life in the olden days. I have no idea why it is in this location.

Layers of overpasses, Austin, TX

Layers upon layers of overpasses in a complex Texas highway interchange.

Airport construction, Austin, TX

A new terminal under construction at the Austin airport: it really surprises me that the jet bridges are in before the walls are even up.

Development-to-be, Austin, TX

One final aerial photo from this batch: another development sketched in roads but not yet build.

Horse event, Austin, TX

Some sort of horse event, in a rather small and bare stadium.

Raceway, Austin, TX

The Circuit of the Americas is a gigantic and complex auto racing complex, all done up in patriotic colors.

Toll plazas, Austin, TX

Toll plazas on a highway on the edge of Austin, clearly built more recently since it assumes open-road tolling.

Watershed in farmland, Austin, TX

Another watershed shot: its incredibly straight line shows that it has clearly been shaped by humans in some way, and is not just running its natural course any more.

Watershed in farmland, Austin, TX

The mown by unfurrowed green of a watershed drives a straight line between two fields.

Pipeline awaiting burial, Austin, TX

Working edge of this pipeline project, where construction equipment is placing the segments into a trench.

Pipeline awaiting burial, Austin, TX

Another section of the future pipeline path, curving along the ground.

Pipeline awaiting burial, Austin, TX

A pipeline of some sort, laid out on the ground along its path to be, awaiting burial.

Angling pathway, Austin, TX

An odd paved pathway through the woods, with lots of sharp angles and little bulges. I don't see any large-scale structures, so my best guess is that this is one of those "fitness walk" things with lots of little stations where signs tell you how to do different stretches and strengthening exercises.

Sluiceway, Austin, TX

Sluiceway out of a manmade lake near Austin, Texas.

Radio aerials, Austin, TX

An array of radio aerials all in a row, forming a phased array for broadcast. I can't tell from looking whether they are FM or AM. With AM, nearly the whole height is used for broadcast (1 MHz = 300 meters wavelength, so a 1/4 wavelength tower would be 75 meters tall). FM, on the other hand, is around 100 MHz (3 meters wavelength), and so the active broadcast element is generally just the tip. In either case, however, stacking them together in a line makes for a much more powerful and effective broadcast.

Segmented farm near Austin, TX

Another interesting apparently farming shape: segmented into very distinct curving plots. Usually curves like these indicate an irrigation system, but it seems to be missing here.

Fruit trees, Austin, TX

I couldn't figure out what type of fruit trees these were, growing in tight rows just outside of Austin, Texas, but there sure were a lot of them.

Circular parkland near Austin, TX

Here's another unusual and intriguing structure: a municipal park of some sort, with symmetric parking lot and support building structures, facing off across this vaguely circular region with a path connecting them. Only upon looking more closely was I able to figure out that the rectangles between them appear to be playing fields, whose lines are smeared and faded out of season.

Spidering development, Austin, TX

This development has a very unusual structure, all spidering out down long driveways from a single roundabout.

Two arms of cul de sac, Austin, TX

Two arms of a development-to-be, each tipped with a ball of cul-de-sac.

Half a roundabout, Austin, TX

Half a roundabout in a development near Austin, instantiating one segment at a time as the development it supports expands.

Shop ceiling, DFW

Ceiling of a yogurt shop in the Dallas airport, showing nifty asymmetric design highlighted well by their designer's choice of lighting.

DFW inter-terminal walkway

If you choose not to take the spiffy little automated trains between terminals in the Dallas / Fort Worth Airport, opposing the recommendation of every sign and announcement, then you end up instead on these long near-abandoned walkways between terminals, crossing through the great empty space above the roadways delivering people to and from the airport curb. Unless I'm very pressed for time, I always take this route, avoiding the moving walkways as well as I stretch my legs and enjoy a few minutes of quiet and solitude.

Landing shadow, Dallas, TX

Shadow of my landing airplane, picked out well by the early morning sun.

Washed out road, Dallas, TX

A washed out road on the edges of DFW airport, guard-rails still hanging in space where once they marked the edges of the path.

Sand trap pock marks, Dallas, TX

A cluster of sand traps on a golf course looking like strangely organic blemishes on the face of the earth, like the burrows of some great invasive species.

Shadowed Texas golf course

Golf course somewhere near Dallas, cross-hatched with shadows of its trees in the early morning.

Radiating complex, Dallas, TX

I haven't been able to figure out what this complex might be. At first I thought it might be a theater or a mall, but it's too complicated and space inefficient. I don't think it's a corporate or governmental building either, since those are almost always more unified into larger chunks. I'm intrigued by the complexity of the arrangement of buildings, and my best guess right now it some sort of educational institution.

Dallas bridges

Bridges with arches like sails, stretching over the parkland of the Trinity River just South of downtown Dallas, Texas.

Color coded roofs, Dallas, TX

Another Dallas suburban development, this one from above showing its curious choice of color-coded subdivisions. I wonder if there is a difference in the type of housing stock found in the pink, blue, and red zones?

Suburban construction, Dallas, TX

Another great block of construction South of Dallas, this one high density suburban housing.

Office park construction, Dallas, TX

Another view on the slanting buildings of the new office park, emphasizing their pseudo-rakish angling.

Office park construction, Dallas, TX

Four geometric wedges of commerce all under construction in a new office park near Dallas, each bearing its own angles of odd decorative slanting.

Dallas highway interchange

One of my all-time favorite highway interchanges: just look at the center, where five different layers all swoop and weave together to support a high-speed flow of traffic from one highway to another with minimal slowdowns.

Luminous cloverleaf, Dallas

A highway interchange near Dallas, shining in the early morning light.

Ballfield curves, Dallas, TX

The curves of these baseball fields are matched by the curves of the parking lots surrounding them. The layout is elegant and symmetric, but I can't help but think that every single home run would be a smashed windshield or dented roof.

Water Park near Dallas, Texas

Some sort of recreational complex near Dallas, including a water park near the center, with waterslide loops coming brightly out the edge then back inside.

Joe Pool Lake, South of Dallas, TX

Another manmade lake, this one just South of Dallas and much more wide and blobby, reflecting the flatter land on which it has accumulated.

Missouri manmade lake

I'm not sure which of the great manmade lakes of Missouri this is, backing up a river into deep valleys behind a dam---it's probably either Truman Reservoir or Lake of the Ozarks but I can't make it out clearly enough to tell just which. Still, I like its twisty scraggly nature.

Deicing fluid streaming past the dawn

Normal water is pretty much blown right of the windows of an airplane in flight, but deicing fluid is strong and sticky enough to cohere into long thin streams across my window as it runs backwards along the surface, refracting the light of dawn as it rolls along.

Early morning takeoff, Eastern Iowa Airport

Just two months after my first trip to Austin, Texas, I found myself on my way there once again for a completely separate project and a meeting in a completely different part of the city. My trip down began with a beautiful dawn takeoff from the Eastern Iowa Airport.

Mutant fish, Waller Creek, Austin, TX

This wonderful mutant fish and depth marker were not, so far as I could tell, a part of the show, but rather a permanent part of the scenery in this section of Waller Creek.

Blacklight beach, Waller Creek, Austin, TX

A blacklight beach scene along the creek, cheerfully informing us that there is no lifeguard on duty to protect us from falling into the ankle-deep waters.