Happy Halloween!

Red Maple

This maple tree is a darling of the neighborhood these days, everyone is taking pictures and talking about it. Though half of the tree is on my neighbor's property but these beautiful red leaves cost me few hundred dollars each year :) (for the clean-up). The tree is very smart, blows all the leaves on my driveway and in my front yard. But it is worth every penny to look at it.

Queen Elizabeth Rose!

Yesterday I went to my backyard after a long interval, this lone Queen Elizabeth rose was smiling, glad I cut it and brought along with some other roses. We already have had our first freeze, seems this is the last QE rose of the season.

Best wishes.

Hot air balloon!

On the morning commute saw this hot air balloon right in front. Couldn't resist taking a picture (there were no other cars or creatures in the street). A perfect fall day for flying in the hot air balloon. Calm winds and 40F. 

Windsor Chair

Fan-back Windsor 

In our bathroom we have an old Windsor chair bearing patina of age. The other day sitting on it I just wondered why is it called “Windsor Chair”. So the quest for the history of Windsor chair begun.  Here it is what I found out, In case you didn’t know it too.

It is not clear when the first Windsor chair was made. However there is evidence that around 16^th century chair spindles were made the way wheel spokes were and perhaps the first Windsor chairs might have been born around that time.

As far as the christening of the chair is concerned, it is speculated that by 1724 the bulk of Windsor chairs were produced and marketed from Windsor, Berkshire, (of course Great Britain) therefore they derived their name “Windsor Chair.”

By the 18^th century, steam was used to bend the chair to make the bow of the chair. The chair has since evolved into seven distinctive styles:

1   

     Sack-back

Hoop-back

Comb-back

Low-back

Rod-back

Fan-back

Continuous arm

There are endless choices of Windsor chairs available, you can buy a brand new one for $ 200.00 or an antique one for $19,000.00 + 

Cheers! To the Windsor chair…

A primitive 1790s Windsor through 1stdibbs

18th century bow-back

1790s comb-back

Comb-back

c. 1800 Windsor rocker

Sack-back

19th century American sack-back

Rod-back 

Hoop-back

Riviera by Crate and Barrel

Gilbert by Ethan Allen

Credits: www.1stdibbs.com, www.wikipedia.com, www.ethanallen.com, www.crateandbarrel.com, lonestarmercantile.blogspot.com, www.onekingslane.com. etc

Cosmos!

On a very different note, I'm doing this post on astronomy. Over the years I have developed a keen interest in astronomy and almost every night I check some of my favorite astronomy websites for new discoveries and pictures of deep space. With Hubble, Chandra and other extremely powerful telescopes, we are looking at deep space that was not possible before. Last month Voyager 1, after traveling for 36 years has finally left our solar system and has crossed into interstellar space. It is the first man made object to do so. As I write these lines, Voyager 1 is at a distance of approximately 18.8 million kilometers from earth and traveling away at a speed of 35,000 miles an hour. According to NASA from now and next 40,000 years, there will be no other star or object in Voyager 1's path.

We see millions of stars in the night sky however the nearest star Alpha Centauri is 4.37 light years from us. This gives an indication at the vast distances between the stars of our milky way galaxy and the vastness of our universe itself. It is so humbling and spiritual.

Here are some of my favorite images, a number of them are composite images. (A combination of X Ray, infrared and optical images.) Enjoy!

Earth as seen from the International Space Station

Earth from the space

Saturn with its moons (Photo by Hubble telescope)

Voyager 1's picture of Earth from 6 billion km

The above picture of Earth was phrased by Carl Sagan as the "Pale blue dot". On Car's request, NASA made the Voyager 1 take some of these pictures in 1990. Voyager 1 was at a distance of 6 billion kilometers from earth. These are the last pictures Voyager 1 took.

A composite image of center of our Milky Way galaxy

Super nova remnant

Sombrero Galaxy 50 million light years away

A rose shape made of galaxies at at distance of
300 million light years

Ultra deep view of space by Hubble telescope

The above image of ultra deep space taken by Hubble is of a portion of the sky that was one tenth of the moon. It contains approximately 5,500 galaxies.

NGC 6240 image by Chandra telescope.

Credits: http://NASA.gov, http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/, etc.

Quilted

Burberry at Saks

I don't know if you feel it too that; time is moving very fast or, is it just me. Whatever the case, summer is almost gone and fall is just around the corner. I still have some of my summer projects on the waiting list and it looks like they may stay there till the next summer.

Fall and winter collections of all the designers are arriving fast for quite some time, and I have found "Quilted" is very much in. Here are some random selections, in case you are looking for something quilted. Some of these are very tempting, I will try to resist as mush as I can :)

Barbour at Nordstrom

Nordstrom

Laundry

Brooks Brothers

Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren

Brooks Brothers

Brooks Brothers

Paul Stuart

Paul Stuart

Credits:http://shop.nordstrom.com/,http://www.paulstuart.com/home.cfm,http://www.ralphlauren.com/home,http://www.saksfifthavenue.com/