Day 365/365 - La Fin, Enfin

And so my 365 project ends as it began, with me standing in front of the Capitol building and sticking out my tongue. When I started this project I fully expected to get bored and give up after a month. Then, when I hit the 3 month point, it started to become a grind. There was no way I was giving up then, however, and rendering the three months of effort to that point worthless. Oddly enough, I think I'm more pleased with myself for not missing a single day than I am for completing the project.

Here's the tally of the photos I took over the course of my project (although given how bad I am at math these numbers are probably more approximate than they are accurate):

Shots featuring me, in whole, in part, or in reflection - 100
Shots taken in restaurants/bars - 25
Shots about plays - 24
Shots at baseball games - 21
Shots including books/magazines/newspapers - 20
Shots about movies - 15
Shots about concerts - 13
Shots in museums/galleries - 12

Plus 4 Navy football games, 2 parades, 2 kickball games, 2 operas, 1 Navy basketball game, 1 circus, 1 carnival, 1 roller derby, 1 Cirque du Soleil and a week in Venice, an Alaskan cruise, four trips to New York City, and one trip to Houston.

No partridge in a pear tree, though. Still, it was a pretty damn good year. Thanks for letting me share it with you.

The End

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Fireworks over DC

For this week's extra photo from my archives we have this shot I took of the fireworks bursting over the National Mall in Washington, DC on the Fourth of July. Given that this was the first time I'd ever tried photographing fireworks, I think I did an okay job.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 270/365 - At the Folklife Festival

This was the final day of the Smithsonian Institution's 2009 Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC, so I had to make sure I got my butt up off the couch and went. Each year the Folklife Festival highlights three aspects of various cultures -- one or two of which are American and the remainder international. This year the three sections were "Giving Voice: The Power of Words in African American Culture," "Cymru/Wales," and "Las Americas: Un Mundo Musical."

Going to the Folklife Festival is always a great way to expose yourself to other cultures without having to leave home to do so. And the food they offer for sale at the various stands is usually really interesting. This year I went with one dish from each culture. I think the Welsh section was the most interesting. They had several arts and crafts displays and cultural presentations. The other two were good as well. The "Giving Voices" part had good storytellers and spoken word performers and "Las Americas" had some fun music and dancers.

The fireworks yesterday and the Folklife Festival today (neither of which cost a dime in admission) are just two of the many reasons why DC is such a great area in which to live and work.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 71/365 - A Capitol Christmas

This is the Christmas tree that stands in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC as mirrored in the waters of the reflecting pool. I set the self-timer on my camera and put it on the edge of the reflecting pool basin and let it do its thing in order to avoid winding up with a shaky, blurry shot. Wish I'd bothered first to make sure I had the camera straight. There were some people there with a tripod though and I was getting in the way of their shot so I tried to be quick about it.

Even though there's only one week left until Christmas Day I still haven't been able to muster up a lot of holiday spirit yet. Once you become an adult you kind of lose Christmas a little and I don't think you fully get it back again until you have kids. You can recapture a bit of it by going home for the holidays, but during those years where you don't go back and spend the day with your family, Christmas just winds up sort of empty feeling.

Tomorrow night though I'm going to see It's a Wonderful Life at the AFI Silver, a really cool art deco movie palace in Silver Spring, and I'm hoping that will help jump start my Christmas spirit. It's my favorite movie ever and I've never seen it in an actual theater before, so I'm pretty excited.

Remember, every time a bell rings an angel gets his (or her) wings.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 63/365 - Washington, DC: Nutjob Magnet

One of the downsides to living in the DC area is having to put up with the kooks and crazies that want to come here, get in the way, and air their idiotic viewpoints. Earlier this week it was the tinfoil hat crowd camped out on the steps of the Supreme Court trying to get it to entertain their conspiracy theory that the President-Elect isn't a natural born U.S. citizen. Now it appears that we have yet another demonstration of intellectually bankrupt ideological carpetbaggers coming to town.

They'll show up, mess up traffic, require the District to pay for a lot of police overtime, make themselves feel like they're doing something, accomplish nothing other than irking the people who live here, and then go back from whence they came. I guess this plague of angry crackpots is nothing new, though. This is the same city that played host to a Million Klan March back in the 1920s after all.

We get a few of these buffoon conventions each year and they're all ridiculous. The demonstrations, marches, etc. are never actually for anything. They just rail loudly and impotently against their personal Satan-of-choice: abortion rights, the Bush Administration, the World Bank/IMF, capitalism, and now the Federal Reserve. Apparently the Federal Reserve was the secret puppetmaster behind the invasion of Iraq, the financial sector bail-outs, and the 'inflation tax,' whatever the hell that might be.

Why stop there? Why not also blame the Fed for Hurricane Katrina, the Irish Potato Famine, the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the musical 'Cats' (now there's a crime against humanity). These yahoos aren't even original. They're basically just recycling the same 'evil bankers are controlling the world' arguments the White Supremacist wackos have been espousing for years with their 'Protocols of Zion' BS.

These migratory nutjobs do a disservice to the occasional worthwhile protests that do come to DC and invariably get lumped in with the limpwits. The First Amendment gives you the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It does not give you the right to be an obnoxious twit who pointlessly aggravates your fellow citizens just to boost your sense of self-worth.

Next month the idiot brigade will spin the 'Big Wheel O' Stupidity' and pick a new cause celebre at which to shake their fists and gnash their teeth. I can hardly wait to see what it will be next. I nominate 'people who clip their nails on the Metro.' That's a scourge I could support eliminating.

(Taken with my Nokia 6133 cameraphone -- because I was stupid and forgot to take my S200 to work with me today)

Day 1/365 - Inauguration

For the inaugural shot of my 365 Project, I decided to use a self-portrait of me being silly in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, DC. My office is two blocks SW of the Capitol and although I've been working in DC for ten years now, seeing that gleaming white dome never gets old.

I've been toying with the idea of a 365 project for a while and thought I'd wait until a special occasion like New Year's Day or my birthday to start, but then I remembered that every day you're alive is a special occasion. Plus, after thinking about it I realized that today is the 14th anniversary of my honorable discharge from the Navy. I don't regret joining the Navy, but I don't regret leaving it either.

I figure my personal liberation day is definitely worth commemorating.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)