Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Happy Venezuelan Independence Day

In honor of our Independence Day neighbor, Venezuela, (and Adri and Des) this week's extra shot from my archives is a photo of an order of arepas (a traditional Venezuelan appetizer) that I took when my friend Pia and I went to dinner at Zengo, an Asian-Latin fusion restaurant in the Chinatown section of Washington, DC. The dish in the background is an order of Won Ton Tacos. Both dishes were delicious.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

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 269/365 - Happy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day, everyone -- from a guy born and raised in a town named Independence. I'm not going to any cookouts today, but I did have a hot dog, beer, and cheeseburger at the ballpark this afternoon. I love going to Nats games on the Fourth of July. The national pasttime should always be played in the national capitol on the national birthday. Period.

To make things even better, the Nats pulled off a 4-run comeback in the bottom of the 8th inning today and hung on to beat the Braves 5-3. Now if I can just manage to get some decent shots of the fireworks tonight it will be a perfect Independence Day. Fingers crossed...

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 268/365 - Summer Reading List

This is the stack of books I'm planning/hoping on reading this summer. I've already finished "The Miracles of Santo Fico" and I'm nearly done with "The Angel's Game." Like everything else about me, my taste in books can be pretty eclectic. There's a mix of fiction and non-fiction, class and trash in this stack. Not to mention the obligatory pirate book. Arghhhhhh...

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 267/365 - Jazz on Jackson Place

Tonight I went to the Jazz on Jackson Place concert at Decatur House just up the street from the White House. It's a great deal. For $25 you get all the beer/wine/soda you can drink, all the appetizers you can eat (tonight it was empanadas, cuban sandwiches, and chips with salsa, guacamole, and 7-layer dip), a jazz performance, and a tour of historic Decatur House. They host it at 6:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month between May and September. Tonight's concert features a pair of excellent tango musicians from Argentina teamed up with some locals playing bass, keyboards, and fiddle. It was a good time.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 266/365 - 99 Problems

Hurray for Day 266! That means I'm down to double-digits now and I only have 99 more days and nights to document. Assuming my math is right, anyhow. That's always a dicey proposition at best.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 265/365 - Warhol Self-Portrait

For this week's self-portrait I decided to do an Andy Warhol-style piece. I took a self-portrait with my Nikon D90, used the stamp effect on an old version of Microsoft Photo Editor, ran it through Picasa to add the tints, and then put the four versions together with Microsoft Publisher and saved it as a jpeg. Voila!

Day 264/365 - Confessions of a Retro Boy, Pt. 2

I've already confessed my love of old movies (which really should've been the first retro boy confession) and old radio programs, so it should come as no great surprise when I confess that I also love old comic strips from the 1930s and 1940s. As with the radio programs, I don't care so much for the old comedy strips. It's mostly the old adventure and detective strips that draw my interest.

Terry and the Pirates and Jungle Jim are two of the best adventure strips and Dick Tracy is unequivocally the best detective strip of all time. Tracy is also my favorite comic strip, period. The contemporary version of the strip is pretty dreadful and not worth reading, but the classic Dick Tracy strips had it all -- action, mystery, romance, melodrama, suspense, high tech gadgetry, fiendish death traps, and larger than life characters. I got hooked on Tracy when I was in high school. At that time, the contemporary strip was still pretty damn good.

When I went away to college my parents would save the comics sections from the newspaper for me so I could catch up on my Dick Tracy reading when I came home. Then, after I joined the Navy, they would clip the strips from the paper and send me an envelope stuffed with them every month so I wouldn't have to go without my Tracy fix. Now I love collecting and reading reprinted editions of the vintage Terry and the Pirates, Jungle Jim, and especially Dick Tracy comic strips. As with most examples of popular culture from that time period, they have a tendency to be casually racist. It's astonishing how the mainstream America of that era had no qualms about employing slurs and stereotypes that make most modern audiences cringe.

I love the old comic strips despite their flaws, although being a white guy probably makes it a lot easier to overlook the racist elements they contain and just focus on the slam-bang stories. There's more than a little guilt associated with this guilty pleasure.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Don't Touch that Dial!

For this week's extra photo from my archives, we have this shot I took of Zeus the French bulldog when I was dogsitting yesterday. He had been curled up beside me on the couch with his head resting on my lap, but when I got up to get a drink he scooched over and snuggled up next to my backpack and rested his paw on the tv remote.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 263/365 - International Gentleman of Leisure

After a day spent wrangling dogs and a night in Adams Morgan I decided today called for something a little more leisurely, so I grabbed blanket, book, and iPod and headed to my secret spot. Down the street from my apartment there is a little park filled with fountains and other water features. On weekends there are always people standing in front of the fountains having wedding/prom/quinceañera photos taken. At the back of the park, a paved path winds its way up and around a grassy knoll. Few people go up that way.

I like to lay there on the hill and forget the world exists. The feel of the pages under my fingertips, the fluid poetry of Puccini on my iPod, the softness of the blanket, the smell of the grass, the coolness in the air, the sound of the water from the fountains, and the thrum and rattle of trains passing on the backside of the hill all formed a perfect equation of relaxation.

For a few hours today, this little patch of grass was my own private desert island.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 262/365 - Adventures in Dogsitting

My friends Des and Chris had to be away from home all day today so I agreed to dogsit their miniature Australian shepherds, Chewie and Wicket, and the French bulldog Zeus they were watching for a friend. Walking three dogs at once is not an easy feat. They kept getting all tangled, twisted, and twined around my legs. We had a pretty nice day, though. We went for a few walks, sat on the grass in the sun for a while, watched a couple movies, and played Lego Batman on the Wii. Well, I played and they watched in between naps.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 261/365 - Air and Space and Ballet

I've been wanting to visit the annex of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum at Dulles airport ever since it opened years ago, so when my friend Chris said he was taking the day off today to drive his visiting cousin out there and asked me if I wanted to go along I jumped at the chance. It's the quintessential 'boys and their toys' kind of museum, jampacked with stuff they couldn't fit into the Air and Space Museum on the Mall -- commercial and military aircraft, rockets, and even the Space Shuttle Enterprise. No airships, though. We were kinda disappointed in that. Seems like a perfect spot for a zeppelin or blimp.

It's a very cool museum, although the $15 parking fee is a bit absurd given that it's in the middle of nowhere and parking isn't exactly at a premium out there. I finally tried the freeze dried ice cream they sell in the Museum gift shop. I opted for the ice cream sandwich. It's rather dry and hard, but it does taste like ice cream.

After we got back from Dulles late this afternoon I had to upload my photos of the museum, iron my shirt, change clothes, and head off to the Kennedy Center to catch the Royal Ballet's performance of Manon. I hand't been to the ballet in over a year, and this one turned out to be really good. It stems from the same story that served as the source of the opera Manon Lescaut. The plot involves a young girl forced to choose between two suitors -- one a poor student who loves her deeply and the other a rich nobleman who covets her possessively. Dazzled by the nobleman's gifts (and at her slimy brother's urging), she chooses comfort and security over love and passion and of course everything goes to Hell in a handbasket as a result. This was an excellent production with top notch dancers and the music was wonderful.

Ballerinas always amaze me. They seem to belong more to the air than they do to the earth. I love when they float across the stage with a fluttering of tiny, tiptoed steps. I have no idea what that step is called, but it's very cool. I've wondered for some time if there is a way to write down choreography. Can dancers read ballet the way musicians read music? It seems like there would have to be a way to transcribe the choreographic arrangements. Otherwise no ballet would ever be performed the same and great old ballets would be lost or corrupted over time, only the score would remain the same. That can't be what happens.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 260/365 - Third Game's the Charm

Tonight was the only one of the three Red Sox vs. Nationals games for which I held a ticket, and if I was only going to go to one of these games then this was the one to go to! Man, that's a convoluted sentence. Anyhow, after dropping the first two games in the series, the Nats put a 9-3 whuppin' on the Sox tonight. It was the largest crowd in Nationals Park history with 41,985 in paid attendance. Given that the ballpark's listed capacity is only 41,888, that means they sold nearly 100 SRO tickets. That should help fatten up their bank account so they can afford to sign Strasburg. Fingers crossed.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 259/365 - I'm All Ears

For this week's self-portrait we have my left ear. The only difference between it and my right ear is the fact that it's double-pierced, although it is a bit hard to tell that from this shot. I stopped wearing my earrings a couple years back and now my holes have partly closed up. I didn't want to be that old guy trying too hard to be hip, so I decided it was time to let go of the earrings.

I got the first hole pierced when I was a freshman in college. I was out at the mall with my Mom and one of my sisters when I mentioned that I thought it would be cool to have a pierced ear and my Mom said she'd pay for it if I really wanted to get it done, so I took her up on her offer. After I got home though I was worried that my Pops wouldn't approve so I took the stud out. It bled like crazy. When my Pops found out, he said he didn't care whether I got it pierced or not; it was my ear and as far as he was concerned I could do what I wanted with it.

So then I dug my stud out of the trash and went to put it back in, but I couldn't manage to find the backside of the hole. After trying for a while with no success, I just said 'hell with it' and pushed it through. I got the second hole pierced when I was hanging out with some friends while I was on leave during my first year in the Navy. There was no drama or angst associated with that one.

For several years I wore two silver hoops in my ear that were almost the circumference of a quarter. I did (and do) want to be a pirate, after all. Then after a few years of work at my current gig I decided it was time to bling things up a bit so I bought myself a set of diamond studs. I got a couple years use out of them before I gave up on the earrings thing. Now they're just sitting in my dresser drawer collecting dust.

Maybe if I ever have a daughter I can hand them down to her. It's kind of an odd hand-me-down to get from your father, but what girl or woman can say 'no' to diamonds?

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 258/365 - SpongeBob Squarepopsicle

I've seen these SpongeBob ice cream treats at the vendor carts around the National Mall for a while and today I finally splurged and bought one when I was out for a lunchtime stroll. Turns out they aren't very good. First, the manufacturing process seems like it could use a few quality control tweaks because SpongeBob looks a bit mutated. Second, they don't taste like anything recognizable. Third, they melt almost instantaneously.

I had to drop mine in the garbage when I was only about halfway done because it was rapidly reverting to a liquid state and dribbling on my pants. I didn't really mind dumping it, though, given the drab taste. I would have liked to have found out what flavor the gumball eyes are, however. Assuming they actually had one. I should've gone with one of my childhood favorites instead -- either the orange push-up pop or the strawberry shortcake bar. They never disappoint.

That's one SpongeBob treat checked off anyhow. Now if I could just find myself a crabby patty somewhere.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 257/365 - Merry-Go-Nowhere

Not much to say about today's shot. The weather tonight was halfway decent, so I carpe diem'd the opportunity to walk home from work. This is the carousel on the Mall. My path home takes me right by it and when I saw that some of the horses were roped off with caution tape I thought I'd take a shot of it.

Don't know why they are in quarantine. Did they catch the swine flu? Were they getting rowdy and biting the kiddies? Were they laid off due to the economic slowdown? Odds are that it is the much more prosaic answer that they were just in need of a repair job.

I love merry-go-rounds. I don't think you're ever too old to ride them. I just wish they still had brass rings like they did way back in the day.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Fathers, Sons, & Baseball

In honor of Father's Day, this week's bonus shot from my archives is a photo I took of a father and son at new Yankee Stadium on my recent jaunt up to New York.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 256/365 - Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my Pops and to all fathers everywhere. Everything I am that is good I learned from him. Everything I am that is bad I picked up on my own.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 255/365 - Some Dim Sum

Met up with some old friends for a dim sum lunch today. We all started work at the agency at around the same time and they put us all together in a single room in the basement. We were only supposed to be there for a couple months while they built out a new suite of offices, but it wound up taking just over a year for the new space to be ready.

We got to be pretty tight during that year. We went out for a lot of happy hours and went a bunch of other places together. In the ten (OMG, ten!) years since we all met though, two of us have gotten married and had kids, one left to work at the FBI, and one moved on to become district counsel in Baltimore -- so we don't see each other much anymore.

Once a year we try to get together for lunch somewhere and this year it was dim sum at Good Fortune in Rockville. It was yummy and I ate loads, though I couldn't tell you what half of the dishes I ate were. I can tell you that I'm not a big fan of the turnip cake, however. It tastes pretty much like it sounds.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 254/365 - Stranded in New York

So to resume from yesterday's entry, I missed the last train back to DC due to a rain delay at the Nationals-Yankees game and the next one wasn't until 3 a.m. That left me plenty of time to kill in New York City in the wee hours of this morning. I wandered around Time Square for a bit and spotted a couple of movie theaters. One was closed, but the other still had one show playing at midnight -- "Year One" with Jack Black and Michael Cera. I had been hoping to catch a screening of "The Hangover," but figured 'what the hell, it's a way to pass a couple hours.' Ugh.

DO NOT go and see this movie. Not to be unduly flippant, but it's the cinematic equivalent of waterboarding. If someone you know mentions the possibility of going and seeing this movie, beat them about the head with a rolled up magazine until they come to their senses. Based on the previews, I figured "Year One" would be about 25 percent funny. However, even my lowered expectations overshot the mark by at least 15 percent. It's dreadful.

It did successfully throttle a couple of hours to death, though, so I guess I got what I wanted from it. After that, I ambled back over to Penn Station to wait for my train. I was expecting the station to be full of freaks and derelicts at that time of day, but it wasn't. It was largely empty except for a cluster of weary travelers waiting for their trains to come.

Mine finally came and after fidgeting and squirming in my seat for about an hour, I was able to doze off for the rest of the trip. We pulled into Union Station at 7 a.m. this morning, 23 1/2 hours after I'd caught the train up to NYC the previous day. I metroed back to my apartment, brushed my teeth, and collapsed into my bed.

Home at last.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 253/365 - At New Yankee Stadium

It was a simple plan: take a day off work, train it up to NYC, catch the Nats afternoon game against the Yankees at their new ballpark, train it back to DC, and get to bed in plenty of time to go to work the next day. So much for the plan.

It was pouring down rain in the Bronx when I got to new Yankee Stadium. That led to a 5 1/2 hour rain delay. I nearly threw in the towel and went home a couple times, but I stuck it out. I passed the time until the game started seeing Monument Park and the Yankees Museum, walking around the stadium, browsing the team store, reading, listening to my iPod, napping in my seat, and having lunch (a hot dog and order of cheese fries) and dinner (two big slices of cheese pizza).

And then the game finally began and it all turned out to be worth the wait as the Nats beat the Yankees 3-0 and took the series 2 games to 1. The new Yankee Stadium is a nice ballpark, apart from the outfield section which seems a bit half-ass and unfinished. It's a pretty good place to watch a game and I much prefer it to the Mets new ballpark.

After the game I headed to Penn Station to catch the train back to DC only to discover that the last train of the day left 45 minutes earlier (at 10:00 p.m.) and the next train didn't depart until 3:00 a.m. So much for going to work the next day. With no other real options, I bought a ticket for the 3:00 a.m. train, wandered up to Time Square, had a couple cups of coffee and a ginormous slice of cheesecake, and tried to come up with something to do to pass the time for the next 4 hours.

To be continued...

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 252/365 - In the Bag

I shamelessly stole this idea from Mr. T. in DC, but here are the current contents of the bag I take with me to work everyday:

-- Eagle Creek Vagabond series bag
-- Let's Go! map/guide of Washington, DC
-- Tide stain pen (I tend to be a messy eater)
-- Blue ink pen
-- Mini Mag Lite
-- "Old Man"-style change holder (my Grandpa always carried one of these)
-- Flashing red light (for when I walk home after dark along the Mt. Vernon Trail and don't want to get run over by cyclists)
-- 80 GB iPod Classic with hard shell case and Bose earbuds (got 'em free by using my debit card points)
-- Box of matches (I don't smoke, but you never know when they might come in handy)
-- Washington Nationals pocket schedule
-- Blistex lip balm
-- Listerine strips
-- "Peter the Brazen" book by George F. Worts (collection of old pulp magazine stories from the 1920s about the adventures of a wireless telegraph operator serving onboard a variety of steamships sailing to the Far East)
-- Cheap sunglasses I bought at CVS (I lose/break/scratch them far too frequently to spend much on sunglasses)
-- Steno pad (never know when you might want to write something down)
-- Keys and Washington Nationals keychain
-- Wrigleys Extra peppermint gum (I'm addicted)
-- Ricola cough drops
-- Anacin tin holding Excedrin aspirin
-- DayQuil cold medicine
-- Alavert allergy medicine
-- Nokia cellphone
-- Today's necktie in case I had to go to a meeting (I didn't, thankfully)
-- Reusable water bottle
-- Nikon Coolpix S200
-- 4 GB USB drive
-- Engraved business card case (gift from one of my sisters on the occasion of my being admitted to the Bar)
-- ESPNZone MVP card
-- Hand sanitizer
-- Harris Teeter, CVS, and Borders membership cards on a key ring

And that's what I lugged with me to and from the office today.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 251/365 - Tying One On

This week's self-portrait is a shot of me standing in my office at work trying to tie my tie before heading off to a meeting. If I don't tie it standing in front of a mirror, then I have to look up at the ceiling and kind of zone out while I try to remember how it goes. Hence the vapid, vacant expression on my face. BTW, this is the tie I bought to go with my Dick Tracy Halloween costume from a couple years back.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 250/365 - Modern Day Drive-In

The Business Improvement District in my neighborhood stages an outdoor film festival every summer. They erect a movie screen on a grassy sward in the courtyard of an office complex and show movies for free every Monday after dark. Last summer they showed all the James Bond movies. The theme for this summer is superhero movies and tonight's show was Superman II, so I decided it was high time I put in my first appearance at this year's festival.

Superman II is my favorite of the Superman movies despite all the logic holes, such as:

-- Why, when the villains drop the flags after attacking the lunar expedition, do they immediately fall to the surface of the moon rather than drifing down slowly?
-- When Superman uses his laser vision while in his Clark Kent disguise, why doesn't he burn holes through his glasses?
-- After being stripped of his superpowers, how do Clark and Lois make it back to civilization from his remote Fortress of Solitude?
-- How does Superman get his powers back after his mom tells him the process of removing them is permanent?
-- And just how does his amnesia-inducing superkiss manage to neatly erase Lois' memory of his secret identity?

In the final analysis though, who really cares? It's still a fun movie and seeing it makes me feel like a kid again, just like sitting outside to watch a movie makes me think back to when we'd go to the drive-in theater when I was little. That's worth overlooking a few gaffes.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Alaskan Sunset

This week's extra photo from my archives is a shot I took on my recent cruise to Alaska. This was the second night after we left Seattle and the sunset at sea was pretty spectacular.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 249/365 - Ballin'

We had our last regular season kickball game today and we lost as usual. The round of jello shooters we did before the game didn't help us play any better, but the round we did after the game made us feel a little better anyhow. This was the first game I'd been able to make in quite a while. My team did manage to win two of the games I missed -- one by forfeit and one legitimate victory -- so at least we didn't go all season without a win.

We stepped it up at the bar after the game though and were the flip cup all-stars. We were so good at it we started inventing variations on flip cup to keep ourselves challenged. I think the funniest one we did was "drink, spin around, do an '80s dance move, and then flip your cup." That was the highest of low comedy. One guy even dropped down on the floor and did the worm. I lost track of how many pitchers of beer we went through. I think we must have drunk enough beer tonight to float a battleship.

Our next game will be in the division championship tournament two weekends from now. In that one, you play until you lose. In our case, that shouldn't take long. We've already christened ourselves the "one and done" crew. Don't think I'll stay as long at the post-game happy hour next time, though. I'm definitely getting too old for those kinds of shenanigans.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 248/365 - At Artomatic

Tonight was "Meet the Artists" night at the Artomatic exhibition in Washington, DC and since I hadn't been yet to check out the show, I figured I'd go. Several of my Flickr contacts had works on display and I wanted to see their walls. Going also gave me a chance to finally meet Stacey (who brought delish pasteles), Ramune (who brought yummy chocolate peanut butter crispy squares), Kerrin (who brought zesty tomato and mozzarella skewers), and Lindsay (who brought Kevin -- who, given that he's a Kevin, is naturally a treat in and of himself). It was great to meet all of them and to meet up again with some of the Flickr folks I hadn't seen in a while.

The show itself was quite enjoyable. It occupies eight floors of an unfinished office building and is essentially an artistic free-for-all. There's something of everything there, and something for everyone. Rather more nakedness than I was anticipating, though. Apparently it's fairly easy to get women to pose nude for you. Based on Artomatic, it seems that all you need do is buy a nice camera, tell a woman the photos are for artistic purposes, and then 'bang!' -- her clothes fall off. Too bad I shoot mostly buildings, places, and objects. Just my luck.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 247/365 - At the Eye Doctor

"Which is better, 1 or 2? 3 or 4?"

Had my annual visit to the eye doctor today. Thankfully my eyes haven't gotten any worse. Last year was the first time she had to up my prescription in the 9 years I've been going to her to get checked out. I sorta wish she'd get some new eye charts, though. At this point even if I couldn't see it I'd know that the smallest line read "E V O T Z." Guess lying about that would kind of defeat the point though.

I was curious so I asked her once what she did with people who were illiterate and she said she has charts with pictures of objects on them instead of letters for people who can't read, recent immigrants from places that don't use the Phoenician Alphabet, and kids who don't know their ABCs yet. Another of life's imponderable mysteries solved.

I want to get some new glasses this year, so any recommendations for Metro-accessible places with cool frames in the DC area would be much appreciated. Thanks!

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 246/365 - No Beer Goggles Needed

The Nats actually won! It had been so long since that happened that I had forgotten what it was like to be happy at the end of a game. And there wasn't even a rain delay. Go figure.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 245/365 - Intern Happy Hour

Tonight a bunch of us from work went to Bullfeathers on Capitol Hill for a happy hour with this year's crop of summer legal interns. They seem like a good bunch. The two interns for my division are from my alma mater, so they better be good. We've had some, shall we say 'entertaining,' interns in the past. There was one who liked to call Westlaw and have them do case law searches for her and email her the results. There was one who quit after a week because he didn't realize that he couldn't afford to have a summer job that didn't pay anything. There was the one who wore basically the same clothes every day and slept at his desk. And then there was the one who wound up dating the Deputy General Counsel after the summer ended. None of us saw that coming. She was young and hot and he was a bald, nerdy guy who looked like the eggheaded little bird in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Who knew that was what it took to be irresistable?

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 244/365 - Little Lump of Love

My friends Des and Chris recently adopted a little sister for their miniature Australian shepherd Chewie. Her name is Wicket, after the ewok from Return of the Jedi, and this is her resting in my arms (thanks to Adri for an assist with the photo). She's a warm, soft, little bundle of fluffy fur and needle teeth and so far sleeping seems to be her favorite pasttime. She's much more mellow than Chewie, although she does have a sense of adventure. While I was holding her tonight she climbed up my shoulder and onto the top of my head and then moved from there to walk across the back of the armchair like a cat walking a fence. I thought Des was going to have a panic attack when Wicket pulled that stunt for fear that she'd fall to the hardwood floor. Only eight weeks old and she's already a daredevil tomboy.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 243/365 - Scruffy Looking Nerfherder

This week's self-portrait is a shot of me sporting a week's worth of vacation stubble. I haven't shaved since last Tuesday morning before my cruise ship docked in Juneau. My face hasn't been this hairy since I shaved my beard off about three years ago. If I'd given it any thought beforehand, I wouldn't even have packed my razor and just gone the whole cruise without shaving. After all, if you can't be scruffy in Alaska then where can you be scruffy?

BTW - The title is a geeky Star Wars reference.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Back to My Own Bed

This week's bonus photo from my archives is a shot of my bed. After being gone for nine days, it was nice to get back to it.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 242/365 - All Ashore That's Going Ashore

My Alaskan cruise came to an end today when we returned to port in Seattle. It turned out to be as amazing as everyone says. The scenery routinely sliding past the ship was phenomenal. The ship was very nice, although I like Carnival better than Norwegian Cruise Lines. Carnival has better food, bigger staterooms, better quality service, and much much better onboard entertainment. Two-thirds of the performers onboard the Pearl (both in the theater and in the lounges) were godawful.

It was still well worth the trip, however. I saw glaciers, mountains, eagles, seals, whales (briefly), and porpoises, hiked through temperate rainforests, rode an old train, had beer for breakfast, flew in a floatplane, won $44 playing roulette, went undefeated at Scrabble, and got clobbered at shuffleboard. Never did get around to climbing that rock wall.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 241/365 - In Victoria, British Columbia

Our weather good fortune finally broke. Today it was cloudy and foggy and cool all day. Still, given that we had six days of unbelievably perfect weather I can't really complain. We made our last port visit today, to Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. I went on an Orca watching boat tour. It involved lots of wind, cold, and watching, but no orcas. We did see two harbor porpoises off in the distance and got a quick glimpse of the back and dorsal fin of a minke whale, but other than that all we saw was water, kelp, logs, and other whale watching boats. It's sounding like I should've gone for the tour of the city gardens instead. Everyone that came back from that tour was raving about how gorgeous they were. Oh well, three out of four ain't bad.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 240/365 - In Ketchikan, Alaska

Today we had the next-to-last port visit on our Alaskan cruise -- Ketchikan, Alaska. I went on a crab and beer feast/mountaintop flightseeing excurstion. The crab and beer feast part sounded much better until you realized it was at 7:15 in the morning. Still, it was pretty damn tasty. If you're drinking beer for breakfast then you're either on vacation or an alcoholic. Or both. After stuffing ourselves with dungeness crab, Alaska Amber ale, and blueberry cheesecake, we boarded a DeHavilland Beaver floatplane for our sightseeing flight over the mountains and waterways of Ketchikan. It was awesome. The views were excellent and the flight was a lot smoother than I expected, although landing on water is a bit bumpier than on land.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 239/365 - Cruising Glacier Bay

This was our second day at sea, and what a day at sea it was. We visited Glacier Bay and the scenery was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The mountains and the water and the clear blue sky were phenomenal, and then there were the glaciers. We stopped by three of them -- Reid, Margerie, and another one whose name I can't remember. Sheesh, not only am I bad with people's names, I'm also bad with glacier's names. The glaciers are miles-long, hundreds of feet thick tongues of blue ice that run from the end of narrow inlets up to the mountains. The ones we saw are called calving glaciers because chunks keep falling off of them into the sea, kinda like cows giving birth to calves.

Margerie was the best of the glaciers we saw. I saw a couple little landslide type calving incidents with it and then got to see one good-sized chunk splinter off and topple into the water with a boom. Glacier Bay is a U.S. National Park and we had a group of National Park Service rangers board our ship and narrate our tour of the park over the ship's public address system. It was like watching an Imax movie, but in person. The weather is still picture perfect. The ship's crew and everyone we talk to in the ports tells us that it normally isn't nearly this nice. Most of the time up here it's cloudy and cool and rainy, but it's been sunny and in the low 80s/high 70s for our whole cruise. And not only has it not rained, we haven't even seen hardly any clouds. So far we've hit the weather lottery. Here's hoping it holds for the rest of the cruise.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 238/365 - In Skagway, Alaska

Second stop of the cruise today -- Skagway, Alaska. It's a pretty cool little town. It's pimped out for tourists, of course, but it's still nice. Much better than Juneau, which was just sort of drab as cities go. I rode the historic White Pass & Yukon Route train up to Denver Pass and then went for a hike through the Sawtooth rainforest. This hike was shorter than yesterday's, only about three miles. I lollygagged it along the trail this time, too. The bulk of the excursion party charged on ahead, but I hung back with one of the other guides and a woman who had gone for a bike ride that morning and so wasn't in the mood for a power hike. I hiked a bit faster than she was going, so I was able to spend most of the hike on my own on the trail. It was great to enjoy the peace and quiet and calm in the woods. After the hike, we waited back down at the Denver Pass stop to catch our train for the return trip to town. The guides broke out the cooler and we sat there in the sun and drank beer until the train came to get us. It was running late, but I didn't mind that at all.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 237/365 - Moonrise over Alaska

We hit the first port on our Alaskan cruise today, the capital city of Juneau. I went for a six mile hike on a mountain alongside the Mendenhall glacier. The trail started out pretty easy and then got really steep. The views were great though and it was nice to be out in the woods. The weather was amazing. It's beginning to look like I packed the wrong sorts of clothes. I packed longsleeved shirts and turtleneck sweaters and jeans and I might have been better off packing shorts and t-shirts. It was sunny and in the 80s. Not what I expected from Alaska. I'm not complaining though. It was much better than hiking in the rain and the clear skies make for much better photos. This shot was of the moon rising over the mountains ringing the Inside Passage after we left Juneau to head further north to Skagway. The sun didn't set until 10 p.m. tonight. Now that is what I expected from Alaska.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 236/365 - Self Portrait at Sea

We are currently steaming our way toward Juneau, Alaska. We’re going to be at sea this entire day. I spent the first part of the day sitting near various windows in sundry parts of the ship looking out at the passing scenery, listening to old radio programs on my iPod, and reading (as you can see in this week’s self-portrait). It was deeeelicious. Then this afternoon, my brother and I went bowling (there are four bowling lanes in one of the bars onboard the ship) and played a game of Scrabble whilst seated at the stern as the mountains rolled past on either side. We have port calls the next two days and then another full day at sea, followed by two more port calls before debarking in Seattle. I think my brother and I will try out the rock climbing wall on our next day at sea. Gotta do something to burn off the steady stream of desserts.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Seattle Cityscape

This week's extra photo from my archives is another shot I took of Seattle from the top of the Space Needle today. Can't believe how great the weather was. The visibility from up there was amazing.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 235/365 - Getting Underway

We couldn’t board our cruise ship until noon, so this morning I walked over to the Space Needle. Even though I’ve only seen two of the most touristy parts of Seattle (Pike Place Market and Seattle Center), it seems like a cool city. I’m going to have to come back here when I have more time to spend. The nerd boy in me really wanted to check out the Science Fiction Museum, but I ran short on time. The view from the Space Needle was pretty spectacular. I could even see my ship tied up to the pier.

Once we got aboard, I spent about an hour just wandering around and taking photos of every nook and cranny. My cabin is pretty cramped and there are four of us in it. I’d like to have gotten a balcony room on my own, but it was easier for my brother to afford the trip if we packed four people into one room, so that’s what we did. There are two regular beds, a roll-away bed, and a bunk that pulls down from the wall. I claimed the folding bunk. It’s my own little penthouse.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 234/365 - In Seattle

After a 2.5 hour flight, a 2 hour layover, and a 3.5 hour flight, I finally arrived in Seattle this afternoon. Once I got checked into the hotel, I met up with my brother and the rest of our small herd (there are 8 of us all together – me, my brother, my sister-in-law, some of their friends and some of her relatives) and we headed down to the Pike Place Market (that’s it pictured above) to get a bite to eat and wander about for a bit. It was a rather touristy spot, but still kinda cool. Some of the street performers were interesting. There was one guy who kept four hula hoops spinning while playing the guitar, balancing a second guitar on his chin (and occasionally reaching up to strum it), and blowing on a harmonica. I had to tip him after that. I figured he earned it. Who says guys can’t multi-task?

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 233/365 - Post-It Note Impression No. 6

I was long overdue for another installment in my occasional series of Post-It Note impressions, so here it is!

Quick, who am I this time?

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 232/365 - Ready to Ship Out

Saturday morning I'm catching a flight to Seattle so that the next day I can board the Norwegian Pearl and get underway on a 7-day Alaskan cruise. I am 'redtago" (ready to go). Well, mentally ready to go anyhow. Still haven't started packing yet. I think I've picked out the shore excursions I want to do, though. In Juneau there's the Mendenhall Glacier hike, in Skagway there's the vintage railway scenic tour/Sawtooth Mountain rainforest hike combo, in Ketchikan I'm leaning toward the floatplane mountaintop sightseeing and crab feast outing, and in Victoria it will be the killer whale watching boat trip.

The excursions sound cool, but I'm still not sure how much I'm going to like this cruise. I've been on two Caribbean cruises before (not counting the half-dozen times I deployed there in the Navy on various ops) and my favorite part of those cruises were the days at sea where I could just lay in the sun on the Lido deck and read and listen to my iPod. Don't think there will be much working on my tan on this cruise given that the temperature is supposed to be in the mid-50s. Guess I can just sit by a window and read and listen to old radio programs, though. I've got one mystery series I recently loaded onto my iPod called "Passage of the Tangmar" about a group of heirs onboard a ship steaming from Australia to Jamaica to inherit a millionaire's estate and who are slowly getting bumped off one by one before they can reach their destination. It should be cool to listen to on my cruise. Plus I have a few books set on ships or at sea that should make for good reading.

This cruise was my brother's idea. I sent my parents on an Alaskan one last year and they raved about it, so my brother decided he wanted to go on one as well and he invited me to come along. This wasn't my first choice of vacations, but he and I usually have a lot of fun when we take trips together so I figured 'what the heck.' If nothing else, it's a week away from work and an excuse to take lots of photos. As if I really needed an excuse for that.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 231/365 - Legacy of Light

Tonight I went to see the new play "Legacy of Light" at Arena Stage's substitute venue in Crystal City. This piece was specially commissioned by Arena from local playwright Karen Zacarias and is having its debut a half-block from my apartment. It's always exciting to see a brand new work, although about half the time the play turns out to be disappointing. Most new plays are more along the lines of rough drafts when they premiere and still need a fair amount of shaping and polishing.

That's not the case with "Legacy of Light." It's an absolutely brilliant, fully-realized play. The story takes place between and betwixt two sets of characters in two different centuries, Enlightenment Era France and modern New Jersey. In each setting there are four primary characters, two men and two women. The Enlightenment cast consists of historical figures such as Voltaire and pioneering female physicist Emilie du Chatelet, her daughter, and her young and impetuous lover, while the modern cast is composed of a female astrophysicist, her schoolteacher husband, and a struggling young woman and her brother.

The characters move around each other in various orbits and while initially they are confined to their own eras, as the play progresses the Enlightenment characters also appear in the modern setting. Whether these time travelers are ghosts, hallucinations, or something else is never fully addressed and surprisingly it doesn't really seem to matter. Their simultaneous existence in both the 18th and 21st centuries further reinforces two principles of physics discussed in the play: first, that energy is not destroyed but persists (an idea first put forth by Emilie herself) and second, that time is not constant but varies as energy increases (an idea which Einstein derived from Emilie's work).

The plot of the play focuses chiefly on women scientists who are simultaneously on the verge of important discoveries and the verge of motherhood, but it is not about just that any more than the dictionary is just about words beginning with the letter A. The writing is razor sharp and the play is dazzlingly smart, consciousness expanding, and utterly original. If you have a brain and a heart you'll enjoy it a great deal. If you're deficient on either count you probably won't care for it much, and more's the pity for you.

The set design is facilitative and unobtrusive and the costumes are, in the words of one of the characters, amazingly amazing. Many of the actors play two roles, one in each of the play's eras, and the peformances range from excellent to merely adequate. Interestingly, some of the dual performers are excellent in one part and merely adequate in the other. Standouts among the cast include the actresses playing Emilie and Olivia, the astrophysicist. The performers portraying the modern sister-brother pair are also quite good.

As if you couldn't tell by now, I enjoyed this play immensely and it's something I can't recommend highly enough. Beg, borrow, buy, or steal a ticket but by all means go. GO!

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 230/365 - Clean and Dry

This week's self-portrait is the latest in a series of shots where I ask the timeless question -- "hmm, what can I put my camera inside of now and turn on the self-timer?" Following in the wake of such 'classics' as "Inside the Fridge" and "Inside the Oven," I now bring you "Inside the Dryer!"

Where will my camera go next? Stay tuned and find out!

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 229/365 - Memorial Day

In memory of all who have given their lives so that others might live -- military and civilian, wartime and peacetime.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Clouds of War

This week's bonus photo from my archives is another shot I took on my trip to Philadelphia today, this time illustrating the 'war' side of the equation. This is the battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62).

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 228/365 - Art and War

I Amtrak'd it up to Philadelphia this morning for a day trip to tour the battleship USS New Jersey and check out the Cezanne exhibit going on at the Museum of Art. It was an interesting juxtaposition of the power of destruction and the power of creation, not to mention the machina and the deus.

When you think about it, creation and destruction aren't opposites as much as they are different points along the same continuum. They're both forms of affected change, ways of altering the world either through addition or subtraction. That being said, art generally doesn't kill or maim anyone -- so the world could do with much more of the former and considerably less of the latter.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)