Day 69/365 - Colbie Caillat in Concert

Okay, I'll admit it -- I really like Colbie Caillat's CD Coco. Everyone has to have their own musical guilty pleasures and I've always had a weakness for treacly, over-emoted soft pop. If you haven't heard Colbie Caillat's music (which would be surprising given that her single 'Bubbly' got beaucoup airplay), she sounds sort of like a cross between Jack Johnson and Belinda Carlisle. Plus she's hot, and that doesn't hurt.

I have a CD player in my bathroom and I like to listen to it while I'm getting ready for work in the morning. So far my two favorite CDs for getting the morning started are Corinne Bailey Rae's eponymous CD and the aforementioned Coco. They're both really pleasant ways to ease into the day. It's tough to be grumpy in the morning after having heard either Corinne Bailey Rae's "Call Me When You Get This" or Colbie Caillat's "Tailor Made."

Anyhow, Colbie Caillat was live in concert tonight at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC and I went. The shots I tried to take inside the club kept coming out blurry, so finally I just said 'screw it, I'll play around a bit and see what sort of cool effects I can get by slowly moving my camera in different directions while the shot exposes.' The intentionally blurry shots definitely came out much cooler than the unintentionally blurry ones. Turns out imagination can be a fairly effective camouflage for poor technique.

Getting back to the gig, I still really like Colbie Caillat's music but I feel sort of bad that I didn't especially enjoy her show tonight. Her voice was quite good and she seemed really nice, sweet, and earnest -- she was just a rather uninspiring performer. Her on-stage routine primarily involved walking slowly from one side of the stage to the other, with an occasion shoulder dip or shallow knee bend thrown in. Not exactly the most dynamic approach to showmanship. She reminded me of the animatronic robot actors at the old Hall of Presidents in Disneyland. Interestingly, the only times she really seemed to put any oomph into her performance was during a pair of covers -- Bob Marley's 'Turn Your Lights Down Low' and Roberta Flack's 'Killing Me Softly.'

Otherwise she was just sort of unremarkable. Still hot, though.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 68/365 - Elevator Funhouse

I've been wanting to do a self-portrait in an elevator for a while now, but it always turned out that there was either someone in the elevator or I had the angle of my camera wrong and just wound up with a shoot of the elevator ceiling. I'd made a few attempts at this in the elevator at home and the one at work, but no joy. Then this morning in the elevator of my apartment building I finally got lucky -- I was the only one in the elevator and I actually managed to get myself in the picture. Bonus!

Previously I had given some thought to just riding up and down in the elevator until I got an empty one and I got the shot right, but that would've seemed like cheating. It was more fun to just keep trying until I finally got it right.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Beauty Mark Triptych

This week's extra photo from my archives is actually three different treatments of the same photo. This mural of Marilyn Monroe is high on the side of a building in the Woodley Park section of DC. The graffiti isn't an offical part of the mural, but it does seem to go well with it. It is on the top edge of the wall of an adjoining building and is about 30 feet or so from the mural itself. For the top photo, I used the sepia effect in Picasa, for the middle one I used the glow effect in Picasa and for the bottom one I used the negative effect in an old version of Microsoft Photo Editor.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 67/365 - Pub-A-Dub-Grub

There's a sports pub a few blocks away from my apartment and it serves as my neighborhood hang-out. I go there at least once a week, usually on the weekends. I go to watch the Nats or Broncos games, and if there isn't a game on that I want to see then I just take my most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly with me and read that while I eat. Then when I'm done I always leave my magazine behind on the table and the waitresses take it and read it when things are slow.

Today it was a Broncos game. They were playing the Panthers and getting whupped. As usual, the defense sucked. They were down 27-10 midway through the third quarter when I gave up and went home. Oh well, at least I got to scarf down an order of crab dip and some buffalo chicken tenders with cole slaw, all washed down with Backdraft Brown on tap. On Sundays here they put sheets of plywood over the pool tables and turn them into communal dining tables. That's generally where I sit to watch the game. I pretty much have to go here to watch the Broncos play seeing as how all we get on tv in this area are the games of crappy east coast teams like the Jets, Dolphins, and Ravens. Bleaahh.

Given that I was born and raised in Missouri, I'm not sure how I wound up being a Broncos fan. I suspect I might have started rooting for them just to aggravate my big brother, who is a diehard Chiefs fan. Every season when the Broncos came to town he and I would go to the game and I'd cheer for Denver and he'd cheer for KC. Denver usually won back then so he'd threaten to make me move and sit somewhere else in the stadium or threaten to drive off and leave me stranded in the parking lot. Even now, if my team loses on Sunday he calls me to rub it in and if his team loses I do likewise.

Ahhh, there's nothing quite like brotherly love.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 66/365 - Dinner at My Place

I invited my friends Desiree, Adriana, and Chris over to my place for dinner tonight, which meant I had to cook. I decided to go with a comfort food kind of menu, so I made meatloaf, mac and cheese, peas with mushrooms, tomato and herb bread, and chocolate cheesecake.

I was in the kitchen pretty much non-stop from 1:30 to 7:30. I'm not a very fast chef. The only dish I hadn't made before was the mac and cheese. It's made with penne and gruyere and turned out really good. I love this meatloaf recipe. It's not dry, crusty, and dense like my mom's meatloaf (sorry Ma). It's very light, moist, and flavorful. Even my brother, who hates meatloaf, loves it when I make this.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal. After we'd stuffed ourselves, I made a batch of chocolate martinis and we watched 'Wall-E" on DVD. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a great movie and it goes well with both chocolate martinis and chocolate cheesecake. But then again, what doesn't?

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 65/365 - Goodbye, Bettie Page

Bettie Page died last night. She was the all-time pin-up queen and a perfect blend of girl next door and kinky minx. It was a shame her life didn't turn out to be as joyous as she always appeared to be in her pin-up photos.

These are a group of Bettie Page magnets I have on my refrigerator. Normally they're scattered across the surface of my fridge, holding up an array of photos and comic strips. Tonight they're drawn together in tribute to a beautiful but troubled woman who seemed the ideal embodiment of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.

Good night Bettie, wherever you may be.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 64/365 - String of Pearls

I liked the way these raindrops looked clinging to the branches of the trees growing in the courtyard of my apartment complex, so I grabbed my camera and an umbrella and headed outdoors. It was the first time I'd been out of my apartment all day. I have an appeal response I have to file Monday, so I lugged a bunch of files home with me last night and spent today working at home.

There's nothing quite like practicing law on your couch in a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. I'm lucky in that my boss is really cool about letting me telecommute whenever I want. I always manage to get way more done at home than I would in the office. It's partly because of fewer interruptions, and I think partly because I feel less inclined to take a break at home. At work I'm almost always looking for an excuse to take a break.

It's been rainy and grey here for two days now, and yesterday it was uber-humid. It's been more like Spring in Washington state than the verge of Winter in Washington, DC. It's December -- it should be snowing rather than raining. You can't make a rain man or rain angels or have a rain ball fight. I want a white Christmas, not a wet Christmas.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

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 62/365 - Spoon Portrait

As you can probably tell by this shot, I didn't have much time at work today to think up a cool shot to take and now that I'm home I'm tired and I just want to read for a bit and then go to bed early. So that's how I wound up standing in my kitchen and shooting a picture of myself reflected in the back of a slotted spoon for this week's self-portrait. Ta da!

Why is it that your reflection on the back of a spoon is rightside up, but your reflection on the inside of a spoon is upside down?

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 61/365 - Office Away From Office

We have a Starbucks adjacent to my office building and when I need to really focus on something and blaze through my review of it, I take files down there and work. Today it was a grant announcement I'd promised to get reviewed and returned to the program office by COB. This is my favorite table. There were a couple kids sitting there when I entered, but by the time I got my chai they'd left and I was able to claim my usual spot.

I've always been one of those people who focus and concentrate better when there is stuff going on around them. I could never study in complete silence. My mind tends to start wandering if there isn't something going on in the background. Some people need absolute quiet in order to concentrate and others of us are just the opposite. In school I always had to have the radio or tv on when I was studying or doing homework and even now I listen to music in my office.

It seems counter-intuitive that you'd need noise and commotion in order to avoid distractions, but that's what works for me.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Blood Orange Blossom

For this week's extra photo from my archives we have a shot I took of a flower I saw at the zoo in San Diego. I have no idea what sort of flower it is, but I think it looks cool. I like shooting flowers for some reason. They're kinda like prettier versions of Rubik's Cubes -- lots of colors and shapes going on. And they tend not to move much, which makes them easy to shoot.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 60/365 - At the BB&T Classic

Well they couldn't quite pull off the double dip this weekend. Navy's basketball team played Virginia Tech in the opening game of the BB&T Classic at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC. The temperature inside the Verizon Center was much more pleasant than that at Lincoln Financial Field yesterday, and the subway ride into DC was much quicker (and cheaper) than the Amtrak ride up to Philly.

My seat pretty much sucked, though. I was behind one of the baskets about fifty feet from the court, so I spent a lot of time watching the game on the jumbotron. On the plus side, however, I was right across the aisle from the Midshipmen seating section and they're always a fun and lively bunch. Plus the Navy cheerleaders were right behind the basket so even when the team was playing ugly I had something nice to watch.

Navy led at the half but wound up losing the game to Virginia Tech by a score of 79-70. Navy played hard, but not particularly smart, basketball. They kept playing physical defense even after it became obvious the refs were going to call a tight game and as a result they sent the Hokies to the free throw line far too many times. Also, the Mids were too reluctant to take shots as time wound down and just kept passing the ball around while the clock ticked their chances away. When you're down by ten points with less than four minutes to play in the game, it's not the time to be passive and unselfish. It's time to take things into your hands and be aggressive. Otherwise, you lose.

Oh well, at least I got to see one Navy victory this weekend. Next stop on the Navy Sports Express for me -- the EagleBank Bowl at RFK on December 20th. Go Navy!

Day 59/365 - Go Navy, Beat Army!

I took the train up to Philadelphia today to watch Navy's football team put a 34-0 whuppin' on Army in the 109th playing of the Army-Navy Game. This marks Navy's seventh straight victory over their arch-rival. I was actually worried that this might be the year Army took one from Navy. Army had been playing better this season and Navy had been up and down. I should've had more faith in the Midshipmen.

Unless you're a Navy fan like me, it probably wasn't a very interesting game given that Army never really even came that close to scoring. I thought it was great, though. The weather was cold but the end result made it all worth it.

Now if the Navy basketball team can just beat Virginia Tech tomorrow the weekend will be doubly awesome.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 58/365 - Flotsam & Jetsam

This is the shopping arcade at Union Station in Washington, DC. This, along with the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, is one of my favorite buildings in DC. Before they turned the train station into a mall and food court, this room used to be open at the ends and the trains used to pull into it like a carport. This is where passengers would board and disembark the trains that were taking them to or bringing them from the far reaches of the railroad.

I had to stop by Union Station after work today to pick up a train ticket. Tomorrow morning I'm day-tripping up to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy game (Go Navy, Beat Army!). I kinda wish they'd restore this part of the station back to its original use. The place where you catch trains now has all the dark, drab, concrete charm of an office building parking garage. Keleti train station in Budapest still uses the old carport style approach and I like it much better.

I really love train stations, airports too although they don't have quite the same sense of nostalgia and romance. I like getting there early before a trip and marinading in the excitement of going somewhere. It's just such a vital and vibrant place to be with people bustling to and fro like salmon swimming upstream, either rushing toward or pulling themselves away from someone they love.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 57/365 - Decorations

These are the military sort of decorations rather than the Christmas kind. These are my ribbons, medals, and rating insignia from my time in the Navy. Only one of them is actually of any significance. The others are what's known in Naval parlance as 'geedunk' (i.e., junk food) awards.

Starting from the right, the red and yellow striped medal and corresponding ribbon is the National Defense Service Medal, known colloquially as a 'ketchup and mustard stain' or a 'Ronald McDonald medal.' You get it for happening to be in the military during a period of armed conflict, regardless of whether you actually participated in that conflict. I received this for being in the Navy during Operation Desert Storm, even though all I did during that conflict was just go through training.

The maroon medal and ribbon in the middle is the Good Conduct Medal, also known as the 'Good Cookie Medal.' You get it for completing four years of military service without ever getting caught doing anything particularly bad (i.e., not going before captain's mast or a court-martial).

The green and orange striped one on the left is the only one that counts. That's the Navy Achievement Medal (NAM). I got mine for various acts of service to my command during my four years aboard ship. I was actually shocked as hell to get it. It came in the mail a few months after I was honorably discharged. A Captain only gets to give out a few NAMs each year and so normally they just give them to sailors who are staying in the Navy because they count as a bonus point on the rating exams you have to take in order to get promoted to the next rank. Giving one to someone who is getting out of the military is pretty much unheard of so, to steal a British expression, I was 'well chuffed' when I got my NAM in the mail.

The patch at the far left is a Petty Officer's rating insignia, also known as a 'crow.' The two chevrons indicate the rank of Petty Officer Second Class, which I believe I may have mentioned before is equivalent to a sergeant. The symbol in between the eagle and the chevrons is an arrown and an oscilloscope (which was an early form of radar display) and denotes that I was an Operations Specialist.

The thin, curved patch above the rating insignia is called a UIC, which stands for 'Unit Identification Code' even though it's the name of my ship rather than an actual code. I was stationed aboard the USS Mississippi (CGN-40) during my four years in the Navy. The blue, white, and yellow ribbon with the two 'E' pins on it is a Battle E or Battle Effectivness award. You get it for belonging to a Naval command that scored highest in the year-long combat readiness/competency evaluation for that class of combatant.

And that's the sum total of my military decorations.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 56/365 - Experiments in Bokeh

This may look like an old school Lite-Brite, but it's actually just an out of focus shot of a tree trunk that was wrapped in Christmas lights. I cranked up the shadow level in Picasa to strip out everything except the lights. This is a great time of year to play around with bokeh shots.

Usually I forget to try and bokeh a subject and then it strikes me after I'm reviewing the downloaded images that "dang, that might have looked cool as a bokeh shot." This shot is really too busy and crowded to make good bokeh, but I still kinda liked the way it came out.

Tonight the outdoor shopping area near my apartment was having an open house with free horse and carriage rides, giveaways, and a special Santa for animals to get their pictures taken with (although some little kids did wind up horning in on the Kris Kringle action as well). I met up there with my friends Chris, Desiree, and Adriana. Chris and Des brought their dog Chewie with them and dressed him up in his reindeer costume so he could get his picture taken with Santa.

Can't wait to see how that comes out. Hopefully Des and Chris will post the shot on Chewie's blog shortly.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 55/365 - Arrrhh!

This skull-and-crossbones is tattooed on my upper left arm. I got it done when I was in the Navy. I thought about getting a second tattoo on my right arm to balance things out, but I never got around to it. So now I'm lopsided.

I've wanted to be a pirate ever since I was small (although there was a period around the time that 'Star Wars' came out that I modified that slightly and wished I were a Corellian Space Pirate). My friends and I would play pirate all the time. I always got to be the captain, of course.

We used the jungle gym in their backyard as our pirate ship and got some old costume jewelry from my mom to serve as our loot, which we kept in a cardboard box we painted to resemble a treasure chest. We sailed that jungle gym all over the Caribbean, raided a thousand ships, and pillaged a hundred ports without ever leaving our neighborhood.

Years later when my youngest niece came along I got her into playing pirates (it beat the hell outta playing with Barbies) and she and I made treasure maps out of old paper sacks, spyglasses out of empty paper towel rolls, and a pirate ship out of my sister's couch and I resumed my career as the Scourge of the Seven Seas.

Now I need someone else to hurry up and have kids so I can go back to playing pirate. It's much preferable to playing lawyer. There are rich merchant ships prime for the plucking and wealthy port towns brimming with gold. Time to teach those scurvy dogs to once again fear the name of Captain Kevin.

Arrrhh!

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 54/365 - It's Christmas Time, There's No Need to Be Afraid

These are the little Christmas trees in front of the U.S. Botanic Garden Conservatory at the base of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. I spun my camera around on my finger while the shot was exposing just to see how it would turn out. I think it came out pretty cool.

Now that Thanksgiving has passed and December is here, it's no longer too early to start thinking about Christmas. Tonight 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas' (the excellent cartoon version, not the crappy movie version) is on tv and Wednesday they're going to be showing 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' and for the first time ever it will be in HD. I'm pretty stoked about that.

While we're on the subject of Christmas, I'm prepared to argue ad infinitum that there are only three acceptable Rock & Roll Christmas carols -- "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid, "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee, and "All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey (which is still one of the only songs that will get me to dancing in the shower whenever it comes on the radio).

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Peek-a-Boo

This week's bonus photo from my archives is a shot I stumbled upon as I was leaving the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History one day. This little puppet on a popsicle stick thing was peeping out from the shadows in a groove on the base of one of the columns at the front of the building. I really liked the juxtaposition between the colorful, playful toy and the grave, grey formality of the column. It seemed to me like a good illustration of the double nature of DC -- the serious, workaholic, bureaucratic/wonky side and the fun, silly, arts-and-culture side.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 53/365 - Confessions of a Retro Boy

This is a replica of an old GE cathedral-style radio from the 1930s. My parents got this for me as a Christmas present years and years ago. I've loved big band jazz and old-time radio (or OTR as it's more familiarly known among we geeky collector types) programs ever since I was in high school. When everyone else at school was getting into Poison and Motley Crue I was discovering Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman -- music that was already old by the time my parents were my age. Even though I'm a self-confessed dance-phobe, I really wish I knew how to swing dance. That looks like fun.

It's a bit blasphemous to admit this, but I think I like OTR better than tv. Old radio programs are like tv shows without the pictures, kinda like the opposite of silent movies I guess. I think imagining the action going on in the program in your head even beats HD. There are many different genres of radio shows, but mostly I focus on collecting the adventure, spy, and detective programs (albeit with a few children's, western, science fiction, and horror programs thrown in as well). I have nearly 200 different programs comprising several thousand individual episodes in mp3 format in my collection. They're great to upload to my iPod and listen to at the pool or when I'm travelling. My favorite programs are probably Jungle Jim and Orson Welles' run on The Shadow.

This is probably my single-most nerdy area of activity. It doesn't get much geekier than collecting OTR. I don't just stop there, though. Noooooo. I also design album covers for each program I collect. I enjoy that almost as much I do listening to the programs themselves. Why settle for being simply nerdy when you can be absurdly nerdy?

BTW -- if your curiosity has been piqued, you can find a huge inventory of old radio programs available for free download from the Internet Archive.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)