April 2005 Archives
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I wonder if he's a flickrite.
While I was sitting, people-watching and photographing in Central Park weekend before last, this cute photographer--and a fellow Nikon DSLR user to boot--walked by, and I snapped a few shots of him snapping a shot of the Sheep Meadow.
[best at large or original sizes]
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Just her second day in the city and she's practically a New Yorker herself, sitting with her Bloomingdale bag and Starbucks Frappuccino (her first, ever) and talking on my cameraphone.
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Our weekend in New York with my mother went swimmingly. She had a great time on her first trip to the Big Apple, and wants to go again.
Saturday morning we took a cab--my mother's first taxi ride--to Union Station to catch the train to New York. There we met up with my colleagues and friends Michelle and Tim (Michelle's and Tim's Flickr sites), who were heading up to New York for a long weekend as well, and the five of us sat together on the train.
An hour and a half or so into the trip, Tim and I got up to go to the club car to get drinks for everyone. As we stood up, the train stopped; as we made our way forward, we started hearing announcements over the speakers that the train was going to be delayed for a while, due to having been hit--by a turkey, which impacted with enough force to shatter the windshield, and knock it out of its mooring. Tim and I decided to head back to our own car, and on the walk back heard an announcement that the train would be moving slowly to a commuter rail station a short ways up the track, at which point we would all be unloaded to wait for another later train.
On the way back to our seats, everyone else was getting up and about, gathering their belongings, but we arrived back in our car to discover everyone sitting calmly and quietly. Remarking as we entered the car "Unbelievable!", our folks looked up and someone asked, "What, were they out of diet soda?" The speakers hadn't been working in that car, so no one there had any idea what had happened; putting on a stentorian voice (always the ham, I do a lot of narration and voiceovers for our multimedia applications and distance learning software; truly, I'd love to find more work doing voiceovers, books on tape, etc.), I stood up and made an announcement to the other passengers about what had happened, what was planned, and what they needed to do.
Once the train was unloaded, Tim and I took our cameras and walked up to the front to take some pictures of the accident; the turkey wasn't visible, apparently having exploded pretty much all over the inside of the locomotive, but we were able to get some shots of the broken window.
We had a relatively short wait for the next New York-bound train, this one having originated from New Orleans and, thankfully, relatively sparsely occupied; we had been imagining having to stand all the way to New York, given how crowded most DC-NYC trains tend to be in general and specifically how full our own train had been, especially that weekend with Acela service having just been cancelled.
The rest of the train ride proceeded relatively uneventfully, albeit with lots of turkey jokes, though there was an additional unexplained wait, lasting about 45 minutes, just barely outside the city at what should have been only 10-15 minutes away from Penn Station; all in all, we arrived almost exactly two hours later than scheduled, though at least early enough not to miss any of our ticketed events that day.
We said our goodbyes to Michelle and Tim and made our way downtown to our hotel (very close to the site of the World Trade Center), checked in and had lunch nearby before heading back to midtown in order to walk to the incredible "Ashes and Snow" exhibit at the Nomadic Museum. My mom was a reluctant tourist at this point--the walk to the hotel from the subway, and then the rather longer walk to the museum was tiring, and I probably hadn't made it very clear beforehand what exactly this museum had to offer--but once we arrived she, no less than Jeff and I, was extremely moved by Gregory Colbert's stunning photographs of humans and animals and by the cavernous presentation space itself, almost like a primitive cathedral in its overlarge dimensions and atmosphere of quiet contemplation.
After the museum, we made our way to the theater district to see the first of the weekend's three shows, The Lion King. We loved it; we all had a great time, in fact, at all three shows, the other two on Sunday being Hairspray and Mamma Mia.
Sunday was taken up primarily by one afternoon and one evening show, so we didn't do a lot of other sightseeing that day, but stayed around Broadway and Time Square, along with a little shopping at Bloomingdale's. We also introduced Mom to her first Starbucks--and her first Frappuccino--and took her to Cold Stone Creamery after the evening show for an amazing dessert of ice cream.
Monday morning after breakfast we walked from the hotel down to Battery Park, where the plan had been to take a ferry to Liberty Island. Bad assumptions on my part, though (that so early on a weekday morning there wouldn't be much of a crowd, so I wouldn't need to buy tickets ahead of time), turned out to bite me in the ass, as once we got there we discovered two very long lines, one to buy tickets and another to board the ferries; discovering that each was at least an hour long, we decided to forego the ferry on this trip, and Mom seemed satisfied to be able to see the Statue of Liberty from the park, though I was disappointed that I hadn't planned better.
We then took the train uptown to Central Park, where we planned to have lunch at Tavern on the Green; they weren't able to seat us until 2:00, so we spent the next couple of hours sitting in the park, talking and people-watching. We had a great meal, after which we made our way to Rockefeller Center, where we briefly parted ways, Jeff heading on to MoMA and Mom and I heading back to Penn Station to buy souvenirs for her daughter and grandsons and then to wait for the train. A couple of hours later, I met up with Jeff at the hotel to retrieve our luggage and then return to Penn Station, where our train left at 7:30 and returned us to DC on time around 11 that night; we all slept very soundly after our exhausting but exhilirating weekend. Jeff went back to work on Tuesday, but I took an extra day to go shopping with my Mom, before putting her on another train on Wednesday back to her little hometown, frantically doing laundry and packing for my 6:40 a.m. Thursday flight to Nebraska.
Next entry: Omaha
After two weeks of travel, I'm back home again for a brief respite; this coming weekend is gaming down at Sheldon's in Suffolk, Virginia, and the following weekend Jeff and I fly out to Seattle for three days, making four weekends in a row I'll have been away from home. I've enjoyed the travel, and I'm certainly looking forward to getting back to Seattle, but it will be very nice to have a few weekends at home afterwards before we head out again over Memorial Day weekend.
All this travel coming so close together also means that I have a backlog of photos to process and upload. I put up a few last night and over the next few days more will appear, but the pix from New York and Omaha will be interspersed, along with some still to be processed from DC this spring and even from the wedding last month.
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a (cute, serendipitously) keeper at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha opens the back door, as I'm observing the geckos from the front, and proceeds to sprinkle handfuls of live crickets around the cage
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the base of a war memorial in Battery Park; this close-up, with the sharp contrast and the patterns in the stone almost like brushstrokes, ended up looking like an oil painting, quite serendipitously
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I got really lucky with a window seat on the right side of the plane, flying north out of Washington Reagan National last Thursday.
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I got really lucky with a window seat on the right side of the plane, flying north out of Washington Reagan National last Thursday.
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On April 16, we were taking the train from DC to New York, when just south of Aberdeen, Maryland the train came to a stop. It turned out that we'd been hit by a turkey, which had shattered and knocked out one of the windshields. As the train could only move at a mere fraction of its usual speed without the windshield, all passengers had to be unloaded; we were put on another train a while later (all in all losing about two hours). I got a few pix while we were unloading and waiting for the new train.
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On April 16, we were taking the train from DC to New York, when just south of Aberdeen, Maryland the train came to a stop. It turned out that we'd been hit by a turkey, which had shattered and knocked out one of the windshields. As the train could only move at a mere fraction of its usual speed without the windshield, all passengers had to be unloaded; we were put on another train a while later (all in all losing about two hours). I got a few pix while we were unloading and waiting for the new train.
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While in New York, my mom started to point out potential squared circles to me, and even decided to help me out by taking off her bracelet and ring while we were sitting on a bench in Central Park.
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I got really lucky with a window seat on the right side of the plane, flying north out of Washington Reagan National last Thursday.
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I got really lucky with a window seat on the right side of the plane, flying north out of Washington Reagan National last Thursday.
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I love how the low aperture setting gives me a depth of field that practically makes the wire fencing fade away (especially at larger image sizes), almost as though it were a pattern on the far wall rather than a barrier between me and the kestrel. Thanks, Nikon!
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Oh, the blog year started out so promisingly, with fairly regular entries in January and February, then hitting a brief lull mid-March but making a comeback through the end of the month. Now I appear to be in a fallow period again. Mea culpa. In a not unusual pattern, I've become addicted to yet another new computer game, World of Warcraft this go-round.
On the other hand, I certainly haven't lacked for material recently, as it's been a very busy--though too often, unfortunately, quite unpleasant--few weeks. Though I hadn't written about it yet, you might have seen the photo of my car. Last Thursday evening, after picking Jeff up at the Metro, I was involved in a fender-bender. Jeff and I, and the driver of the other car, all are fine, as was the other car, but the Prius suffered sufficient damage to require a new bumper and hood. It's been in the shop since Monday morning; it was supposed to be ready today, but the shop called earlier to say that they'll need to keep it until this coming Monday. Fine, except my insurance company will only let me keep the rental car until the body shop says my car is ready, so they told me I have to have the rental car back on Monday. But we're in New York on Monday. Fortunately, the rental car company agreed (surprisingly, since I tend not to expect this kind of customer service these days) that under the circumstances, if I bring the car back when they open Tuesday morning, they'll treat it as though it had been returned Monday night, and not count it as an extra day.
Jeff has chronicled the other events of last week, including the Tori Amos concert where my cameraphone arbitrarily was confiscated when I arrived (to be picked up after the concert concluded), so I started off the evening already very angry and upset about a culture that more and more assumes we're all criminals before we've engaged in any untoward activities. My mood wasn't helped by the hour-long wait for Ms. Amos to make her entrance after her opening act finished, nor by the (though eerily predicted by me) spilling of beer down our backs (though, admittedly, Jeff got the worst of it) by the loud-mouthed, boorish, neurosis-ridden lout sitting behind us. Truly, the show might have been great, but I couldn't tell you one way or the other, remembering nothing more than the pounding of blood in my head as I, probably no less neurotic, spent the entire night simmering in my anger, loathing and self-pity.
In the same entry, Jeff also wrote about the "moment of crisis" he and I experienced last weekend. Perhaps not our first such moment, precisely, but certainly the most critical so far, being in some ways just the response, on both sides, to an accumulation of internal imagined conversations. Yes, I'm being cryptic, which has the unfortunate effect of making the circumstances seem dark or salacious, neither of which are true. Rather, it boils down basically to issues with communication; as good as we are at it most of the time (I think), some gaps nonetheless brought us nearly to the brink. Ultimately, and fortunately, this test seems actually to have strengthened our relationship, but it was scarily touch-and-go for a few tense moments.
Jeff also wrote last week about our having seen David Sedaris that Monday (April 4); that, at least, I enjoyed without complication.
This week also has been very busy, in addition to dealing with getting the car to the body shop. On Tuesday, Jeff won free tickets to Ten Unknowns, a play being performed at Signature, one of our favorite local Arlington theaters. And, on Wednesday, we attended an event at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, hosted by the Stanford Alumni Association (pix of the museum and event).
Tonight my mom arrives by train from southwestern Virginia, and tomorrow morning she, Jeff and I head to New York for three days of culture and shopping (her first trip to Manhattan); among other activities, we'll see Mamma Mia, Hairspray and The Lion King; visit the Statue of Liberty, MoMA and "Ashes and Snow," an intriguing exhibit at the equally intriguing travelling Nomadic Museum, and eat lunch at Tavern on the Green.
We get back late Monday night, Tuesday I pick up the car and spend the day around DC with my mom, Wednesday I go back to work, and then early Thursday morning I fly to Omaha--yes, Omaha, Nebraska--for a conference. At least I'll get to add two more states--Nebraska and Iowa--to the list of those I've visited, bringing my total to 38 (I had misremembered it as already being 40, so I'm not quite as close to completion as I'd thought).
We're also making plans, based on information Jeff found out yesterday about amazingly low $59 one-way fares offered by Independence Air to inaugurate their service to the west coast, for a three-day trip to Seattle for Jeff's birthday next month. Our roundtrip tickets ended up being under $140 each, including taxes and fees. The fares were only available for the red-eye returns, but really, for $140, who can complain?
Busy, busy, busy.
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Raven Steals the Moon
Ed Archie Noise Cat (Salish)
cast glass, 2003
National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC
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The Beaver and the Mink, 2004
Susan A. Point (Coast Salish)
Red cedar, paint, copper
National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC
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The Beaver and the Mink, 2004
Susan A. Point (Coast Salish)
Red cedar, paint, copper
National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC
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