Day 220/365 - Got a Plane to Catch

Catching a flight to Texas this morning to go to my niece's wedding. She will be the second niece of mine to be married. The nephews are standing pat. Few things make you feel quite as old as having your nieces get married, especially when you're still single.

There are times when I do feel a bit like an unclaimed suitcase going round and round on the luggage carousel, but whatever. My life is still pretty damn good, even if I am usually the only person in it.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 219/365 - Dream House

This is one of my favorite buildings in the world, even though I've never been inside it. It's the Smithsonian Institution's Arts and Industries Building. It was built in the late 1800s after the Smithsonian's collection outgrew the Castle that was its original home. For the next 70 years or so, this building then displayed the entire holdings of the Smithsonian until they started segregating the collection by subject matter.

The Arts and Industries Building has been closed for the past several years. The interior is in poor condition and they haven't yet come up with a plan or the funding for renovating it. It was still open and being used as an occasional exhibition space when I first came to the DC area and I figured there was no hurry about going inside it. I figured I'd have plenty of time later. Wrong answer.

I really love the way this building looks. I love the design and the shape and the colors and the patterns and the materials of it. I don't much care for any buildings that were constructed after the 1940s. They just seem bland and cheap and soul-less. If I was a jillionaire, I'd like to have a home that was a scaled-down version of the Arts and Industries Building. That would be ideal.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 218/365 - Drinking Double

Had two happy hours to hit tonight. The first was a charity fundraiser happy hour at McFadden's in Foggy Bottom hosted by my kickball league. The second was a friend's happy hour at Porter's Dining Saloon in Dupont Circle. After three Jack and Cokes and a free shot of Cuervo's new Silver Tequila (for which I got to keep the souvenir shot glass and which was verrrrrry smooth btw), all I can conclusively and accurately state is that Porter's has pretty good mini burgers and tater tots. Anything I said that required more mental effort than that would be very subject to skepticism at this point.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 217/365 - Next?

Bad day for DC's sports teams. The Caps got knocked out of the NHL playoffs in a blowout loss to the Penguins and Nationals' third baseman Ryan Zimmerman's 30-game hitting streak came to an end in San Francisco. Oh well, at least the Nats won for a change.

This is one of the statues in the sculpture garden at the Smithsonian Institution's Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art in Washington, DC. I stopped by there today during my lunch time walkabout. This piece is called "After Balzac" and it's by a woman who's name I can't recall.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 216/365 - Wolverine

Chris, Adriana, and I went to the movies in Georgetown tonight to see "Wolverine." It was about what we expected from a comic book movie. It's a bit long and meandering without much in the way of a tightly-constructed plot, but there are some good action sequences and some suprisingly good performances, particularly by Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber. It deviates a fair amount from the comic books, which I found a little distressing given that Wolverine was one of my favorite characters from back in my comic collecting days. Adriana particularly enjoyed all the half-nekkid male eye candy. Unfortunately for Chris and me, there was no female equivalent to balance things out. Life is so unfair.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 215/365 - What's Cooking?

Real men wear aprons ; )

This week's self-portrait is a shot of me taken from the perspective of my oven. I wasn't actually baking anything today. I meant to go to the grocery store but it started raining yet again, so I just had some leftover cold pizza for dinner.

I enjoy cooking and especially baking. It's kind of like edible carpentry. You start out with some raw parts that aren't good for much by themselves, measure precisely, combine them carefully, and you eventually wind up with something really good. But unlike the case with a table or bookshelf, you can eat the final product.

I'm pretty good at baking cakes, pies, muffins, and quick breads, but I don't know how to make yeast breads. The whole kneading and rising and punching it down thing seems awfully complicated, so I just cheat and use a bread machine. One of these days I'd like to take a bread baking class though so I could learn how to do it the old-fashioned way.

The other thing I can't bake is cookies. I've tried and tried but I always make a mess of them. They invariably end up either over or underdone. Cookies are my baking kryptonite.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - The Little Church in the Desert

In honor of Mother's Day, this week's bonus photo from my archives is a shot I took when I went to Arizona to visit my parents in 2007. This little church is sitting all by itself in the desert just outside of Yuma.

(Taken with my old Canon PowerShot S400)

Day 214/365 - Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my Mom and to all moms everywhere.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)