Showing posts with label sarasota. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sarasota. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Sunrise Sunset or is it Sunset Sunrise

As the sun sets on summer our question of the day is:  Do Sunrises look different from sunsets?  Today we'll see fireworks as the sun sets on summer.  What about tomorrow?

Natalie Wolchover writes:
"You've woken up out of a coma. You yank the IV from your arm and stumble out of the hospital. The sun is perched on the horizon. Can you tell whether it's rising or setting?
Contemplating this scenario while gazing sunward at dusk or dawn, we might feel as if we could sense the difference between the two times of day. But in real life, it's impossible to completely divorce our perceptions of the scene from our awareness of the hour. So, is there any objective way to distinguish an upward-trending sun from a downward one?
According to atmospheric physicists David Lynch and William Livingston, the answer is "yes, and no."

The first is in our heads. "At sunset, our eyes are daylight adapted and may even be a bit weary from the day's toil," Lynch and Livingston write. "As the light fades, we cannot adapt as fast as the sky darkens. Some hues may be lost or perceived in a manner peculiar to sunset. At sunrise, however, the night's darkness has left us with very acute night vision and every faint, minor change in the sky's color is evident." In short, you may perceive more colors at dawn than at dusk. [Red-Green & Blue-Yellow: The Stunning Colors You Can't See]"

To read on see: http://www.livescience.com/34065-sunrise-sunset.html

 

Monday, March 16, 2015

Ringling Museum

At the Ringling Museum

Ringling Museum    


The historic mansion is a delicate beauty, with complex colours and textures in terra cotta, tile, and marble. Built with a similar intent - to create the most striking of private homes - as Biltmore and Hearst, this mansion is elaborate. The antique roof tiles come from Barcelona where John Ringling salvaged them and sent them home, filling two cargo ships. There were too many for the house, so some were sold to neighbours.  One can still see roofs that match Ca' d'Zan's. The house is Venetian in design. In keeping with the theme, Mable Ringling kept a gondola at the dock.

After John Ringling's death, the mansion was neglected for decades.  Its transformation back to its original beauty was completed in 2002, with a six year effort to restore it.

There is the Art Museum, Circus Museum, and also an 18th century Italian theatre on the ground.  It sits inside a new structure.  Ringling had it shipped from the Veneto to Florida in 1930. 

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Sarasota Sunsets

Sarasota Sunset

Sarasota Sunset   


Lido Beach boasts having the best sunset in Sarasota.  People gather after 5:00 o'clock to watch the descent into the ocean.  With the great expanse of beach and ocean, the sunset is wonderful.  Clearwater claims to have the best sunsets on the coast and was voted the best beach town in 2013.  It doesn't seem to matter much, as long as there are great expanses of sand and sea and the clouds are high in the sky.


Monday, March 2, 2015

Salvage in Sarasota

Sarasota Salvage

Sarasota Architectural Salvage 


Just up the street from the house that we've rented in Sarasota are a few antique stores.  They are very large and full of wrought iron garden benches, arches, pergolas, etc.  There are a lot of old garden structures around here.

The Sarasota Architectural Salvage (SAS) seems to find old everything from everywhere.  There are Spanish, Asian, nautical, farm themes in their furniture and accessories.  I enjoyed the former boat wood with many layers of peeling paint used for table tops and chair seats.  It was a whole warehouse of nicely posed peeling paint.  There are old pieces from the Ringling Circus, and columns from the Ringling Hotel that was demolished.  The Mermaid theme is abundant.  It makes one realize how long Florida has been in the tourism business. See more about them here:


http://www.sarasotasalvage.com