Dawson's Rules of Superior Inferiority
1. Don't let your superiors know that your are better than they are.
2. You never know who's right but you always know who's in charge.
I am just frustrated now. I spent an hour typing a really nice post, and before I could click on Publish Post at the bottom, I did some vague keyboard combination, and before I knew it, I was staring at the dashboard, and my post all but disappeared.
Neways, I think this is the gist of what I was typing.
My trip to the Capitol
The
Austin State Capitol is the largest State Capitol building in USA - bigger than the one in Washington.
And considerably less busier. ;)
History about the Capitol is given
here. I am not conducting a history lesson over here, nor do I have any intention to. But all I know is that a lot of restoration has gone into making what what the building is as of now.
The Capitol building is the administrative seat in the capital of Texas. (The business capital is, of course, Houston). It houses the house of Representatives and the House of Senate.
First, go to my yahoo photos at
http://photos.yahoo.com/sathishcj/ and navigate to the Capitol folder. (The other folder collexions are incomplete as of yet.
From outside, the Capitol looks like a perfect replica of the National Capitol building, sans the pure white of it. This is more dull cream in color. And is surrounded by a nice grassy wooded (an oxymoron here?) lawn dotted with a lot of statues of famous persons which I have no necessity to know.
Surprisingly, inspite of its official status, most of the areas is open to visitors. Including the House of Representatives and the House of Senate. The inside is dominated by the great hall under the dome, and the four levels in the building. The two
Houses are located at the second level, on the opposite sides of each other. The third level has the visitor's gallery for these two
Houses (where visitors, mostly press, are permitted during meetings.
For the Holidays, the House of Representatives has been decorated with a very nice Xmas tree. Apart from it, the entrance to the Capitol Grounds had a bigger tree.
Given below are 7 best images of the 73 given there. The best at the last.
A quite majestic pose, against the backdrop of the Capitol - of the Texas Pioneer Woman (Thats what it says)
A group of flowers against the backdrop of the Capitol. What was amazing is that the camera managed to lock on correctly to the flowers, inspite of using the full zoom.
An inner view of the inside of the dome, from the second level. The lighting is just amazing in this.
The inside of the dome. Notice the symmetry in this. If you squint, you can make out the letters T E X A S around that star.
A small flower, against the mighty Capitol - that was what I tried to achieve.
The top of the Capitol, beautifully lighted in the nite. It came out a bit skewed, but it was a difficult shot, given the 1 second exposure that I had to use. I had to sit and take this photo.
My best yet. The detail level is just amazing. And the light reflecting of the star adds the icing on the cake. 
