Amazing how much difference some light makes…
2 minute read
August 26, 2013, 10:59 PM
So today was the first day that my regular pool, Olney Indoor Swim Center, was open following the two week annual maintenance period. This maintenance period usually involves completely draining the pool and scrubbing it down and deep cleaning the building. They also tackle any other maintenance work that would be too disruptive to do while the pool is open, like lighting repairs, resurfacing the water umbrella in the kiddie pool, and welding some pieces back together on the pool that had come apart over the years. They also replaced all of the lane ropes, which introduced a touch of red into the pool (the previous ropes were blue and white – the new ones are red, white, and blue).
But by far, the most striking change was the lighting. For the past several months, the pool has looked like this:
Continue reading…Surprised that more people aren’t outraged by this…
6 minute read
August 22, 2013, 9:15 PM
Yesterday evening, I attended an event described on Facebook as “Emergency Protest of Whistleblower Bradley Manning’s Sentencing”. For those not familiar, Manning (now Chelsea Manning) is a former US Army soldier who, according to Wikipedia, “was convicted in July 2013 of several violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after releasing the largest set of restricted documents ever leaked to the public. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison and dishonorably discharged.”
I really don’t understand why more people aren’t outraged by this. This is your government and mine, and it operates, at least in theory, by the consent of the governed. That requires an informed public, and people are all too willing to allow their government to harbor secrets about human rights abuses and other vile acts done in our name. Government should have very few secrets, if any, because the best disinfectant for government is sunshine and transparency. The government, out of anyone, is the entity that should have “nothing to hide”, because it is funded by our taxes, and therefore we are all stakeholders with an interest in its activities that are being done in all of our names. Thus why it really concerns me that people are more up in arms about the fact that material was leaked and about the person who blew the whistle vs. the content of what was leaked. People really should be more up in arms about what their government is doing in their name, and about protecting the messenger – not shooting the messenger.
That said, Manning should be held up as a hero and walking free rather than imprisoned. And thus the message of this demonstration was simple: Free Bradley Manning.
Categories: Activism, Washington DC
And who managed to dump themself out of their kayak in the first thirty seconds? That’s right. Me.
5 minute read
August 21, 2013, 1:46 PM
On Sunday, August 18, Melissa, Doreen, and I went down to the Key Bridge Boathouse (historically Jack’s Boathouse) right under the Key Bridge in Georgetown for a kayaking adventure. This was a long time in coming. We bought a Groupon voucher for this back in May, with the intention of going on May 19. However, come May 19, the weather did not cooperate with those plans, giving us a cold and rainy day. We ended up rescheduling, and this was the day we eventually settled on to reschedule. It still ended up being a rainy day, but at least it wasn’t cold.
Doreen came along for our outing as well, and her participation ended up being something of a surprise. Originally, Doreen didn’t want to go out on the water with us, and was going to be our designated photographer, using my real camera from the dock to photograph us. Once we got to the dock, she decided that she wanted to go in the water, and so all three of us ended up going kayaking, and we just photographed using Duckie, which was securely clipped to my life jacket.
After signing all of our waivers and putting on life jackets, we got going. First, Doreen got into her kayak:
Categories: Melissa, Recreation/Exercise, Washington DC
Chicago 2013…
10 minute read
August 9, 2013, 8:10 PM
At the end of July, Mom and I took a trip to Chicago. We took the Capitol Limited, like we usually do, leaving DC on July 25 and returning July 30. Not a bad trip, but I believe that there was something pivotal about this particular trip: Chicago was becoming a regular thing. This isn’t a bad thing by any means. It doesn’t mean that I enjoyed the trip any less, though, it’s just that it’s become something that we do every year, and that’s fine. With the trip’s becoming something of a regular thing, this is the only thing you’re goign to get that’s specifically about the trip. There’s not going to be a Journal entry for each day like I did in 2011. No special photo set about the trip like I did in 2010 and 2012. And that’s fine. That’s not to say that there’s not going to be a photo set from the trip, though. But it’s going to be a regular photo set, in Photography, about the Chicago Botanic Garden. That photo set’s going to be what I describe as “flower porn”. Seriously, I got very close to a lot of flowering plants, and got detailed photos of them. When I used the term “flower porn”, Sis commented that it was also accurate, as I was photographing the reproductive parts of flowers. So there you go.
On the outbound trip, Mom and I were in a roomette. Second car back, room 14. That’s a lower level roomette. Mom and I were surprised to find that we felt like we didn’t have quite enough space on this trip. That came about mostly in regards to legroom, as neither one of us really could extend our legs very far without getting in the other person’s way, and sitting diagonally was a little uncomfortable for both of us. Having only one electrical outlet was also a problem, as we had several devices that we needed to charge: my laptop, my phone (which we were also tethering for Internet access when we had service), Mom’s phone, and Mom’s iPod Touch. And one electrical outlet. It was a shame that, when the Superliner I roomette panels were updated around 2011 or so, they didn’t add at least one additional power outlet. What we ended up doing was plugging in the laptop and charging everything off of that. It didn’t work as well in this capacity as I would have liked, however, we were asking the computer to do something that it probably was not designed to do, i.e. be a mobile charging station for three devices (vs. just one).
Meanwhile, the ride out was at times like visiting familiar places. This was not just because this was our fifth round trip on the Capitol Limited. Realize that as of this trip, I had visited all of the towns where we made a station stop between DC and Cumberland. DC, Rockville, Harpers Ferry, Martinsburg, and Cumberland. Now mind you, it’s been eight years since I last visited Martinsburg, and even longer since I was in the part of Martinsburg where the train goes, but it still counts. Then I added Harpers Ferry earlier in the same month, and Cumberland in April.
My newest piece of fitness equipment…
6 minute read
August 4, 2013, 12:47 AM
So I have a new piece of fitness equipment:
Yep… it’s a bicycle. Specifically, it’s my sister’s old bicycle – thus why it’s a female bicycle. But no worries. I’m secure enough in my masculinity to use a women’s bicycle, and besides, the only difference is one bar, and that lower bar means it’s easier to get on and off since I don’t have to lift my leg as high to get over the horizontal bar on a male bicycle (so there). When I wanted to get a bicycle for myself, I asked my parents, thinking that all of the old bikes were still in the shed in Stuarts Draft. Thus I was hoping to get my hands on my old bicycle (the “baby elephant“, as it was), which was a green Huffy mountain bike that cost $110 at Walmart’s “Sample Store” in Bentonville, which I got in 1992. It was a very nice bike, though as one of my childhood friends mentioned, that bike was too big for me at first (I later grew into it). Surprise: my parents got rid of my old bike. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t ride a bicycle for more than a decade. Don’t know what happened to it, but it’s gone. However, Sis’s bike was available, so when Mom came up recently for our trip to Chicago (more on that in another entry), the bike came up with her. This is a Mongoose Threshold mountain bike. Not bad.
A very upbeat goodbye…
7 minute read
July 22, 2013, 11:28 PM
You may have gotten a hint from the notes in the July 14 photo feature, but this past Friday, July 19, was my last day working at Food & Water Watch.
On my last day, we were having an ice cream social in my honor. I wanted to make it a celebration of me rather than an emotional goodbye, so I made a slideshow of photos to go through and talk about with the folks gathered. Many had never seen these photos before, and I was sure that the photos would garner some laughs and rekindle fond memories.
On the evening before my last day, though, I was a bit nervous. I was somewhat uptight about how my emotional state would be when I finally said goodbye. I didn’t want to cry on my last day, but I was really afraid that I might. I even went to far as to post this Facebook status at 1:44 in the morning:
Thinking about my last day at Food & Water Watch on Friday. Wondering how the mood will be when I finally say goodbye, and thinking about it in terms of the ending theme for an episode of Today’s Special. I think it could go one of three ways:
1) A very upbeat end to the day. That would warrant the regular ending theme.
2) A more emotional ending that might have me in tears at the end of it. That kind of end would call for the flute theme that was used in “Butterflies”, “Babies”, “Wishes”, and “Phil’s Visit”.
3) Considering that I have a slideshow with old photos planned, it might be a celebration of days past with mixed emotions of laughter and sadness. For that, I would lean towards the ending theme used in “Memories”, the series’ last episode, which was a continuation of that episode’s final song.
We’ll see how it plays out on Friday, but I’m rooting for the day to warrant the regular ending theme.
Categories: Friends, Schumin Web meta, Washington DC, Work
Can’t believe that I forgot this…
2 minute read
July 9, 2013, 10:46 PM
I can’t believe that I completely forgot to mention this in the last entry discussing the July 4 trip to Harpers Ferry and Winchester. Pete and I spotted this scene along Route 7 in Clarke County on the way back to DC, and had to stop for photos:
Categories: Friends, July 4, Photography, Places, Recreation/Exercise
And then we visited Winchester…
7 minute read
July 8, 2013, 11:50 PM
So in our last episode, I was discussing a trip that my friend Pete and I made to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and to Winchester, Virginia on July 4. I got as far as the end of Harpers Ferry, when I realized that the Journal entry was running quite long, so I cut it off and promised to continue at a later time. And now for part two.
Leaving Harpers Ferry, we soon came to Charles Town (not to be confused with Charleston, the state capital). For those not familiar, Charles Town is the place where people in Harpers Ferry go to go grocery shopping. For out of town folks, it’s also the home of the Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. I’ve never been gambling before, but it might be fun to do one time. But in this case, Pete and only stopped for lunch, and then it was at a Martin’s grocery store, where we each got salad. Funny how you can get pretty decent food on the go from grocery stores these days. But we did just fine at Martin’s. They had a decent-sized salad bar, and there was also an eating area. All in all, not bad.
Then from there, we continued along to Winchester. That took us on Route 340 to its intersection with Route 7, and then we took Route 7 the rest of the way into Winchester. When I first made a close pass to Winchester some time in the 1990s, I was a little bit underwhelmed by the size of the town. Understand that Winchester is listed as a control city for I-81 for quite some ways – more than 100 miles when traveling northbound. In my experience up to that time, I had only seen bigger cities as control cities for highways, like Little Rock or Richmond. Thus I figured that Winchester was a really big city. Surprise: Winchester is, while by no means tiny, also not a big city by most measures. It’s comparable in population to Staunton.
Categories: Friends, July 4, Photography, Places, Recreation/Exercise
Here’s a tip for you: don’t go hiking in flip-flops.
7 minute read
July 7, 2013, 11:58 PM
First of all, I hope everyone had a lovely July 4. I know I did. I got together with my friend Pete (whom you may remember from the Confirmation Demonstration and White House to Quantico photo sets), and we went on something of a road trip. We both figured that with living in the Washington DC area, and considering how July 4 is in DC, that was a good day to get out of town.
So we decided to go on a trip to Harpers Ferry and Winchester. Prior to this trip, I had only been to Harpers Ferry by train, and then only passing through. As far as Winchester went, I had only been to Winchester once prior, and that consisted of driving around at night trying to find the downtown area, and a stop at the Apple Blossom Mall and the local Walmart. So this was going to be fun.
I met up with Pete at Glenmont Metro, and then we were off. To get from the Aspen Hill area where I live to Harpers Ferry, you drive up I-270 to Frederick, and then from there, you take I-70 for about a mile, and then take US 340 (yes, that 340) the rest of the way to Harpers Ferry. The drive is beautiful. The first bit of beauty is just outside Frederick, where there is a “Scenic View” wayside on 270. We wouldn’t ordinarily have stopped there, except that was a good place to stop and put the phone into GPS mode for the remainder of the distance to Harpers Ferry, since we were both kind of fuzzy on the exact way to get there. While we were stopped, I got a few photos of the area:
Categories: Friends, July 4, Photography, Recreation/Exercise, West Virginia
Your Montgomery County tax dollars at work…
5 minute read
May 30, 2013, 6:42 PM
Yes, fellow Montgomery County residents, your tax dollars pay for what I’m about to describe here. First of all, let me show you what the original problem was:
Yep… a bulb on a traffic light is out. This is the corner of Veirs Mill Road and Edmonston Drive in Rockville. It’s the solid green light on the left turn signal for northbound Veirs Mill drivers turning left onto Edmonston (right here). I consider a light out on a left turn signal to be a very serious matter, because in many cases, there’s only one of them, and it has many different combinations that can be displayed that all mean different things. It can be a very dangerous situation if part of that light isn’t working, and therefore unable to signal drivers on how to proceed, since its operation is more complicated than a conventional signal. Plus, there are usually at least two conventional signals at an intersection anyway, so if one is not working, the other one picks up the slack. But when there’s only one left turn signal, it has to be running at 100% all of the time.
Categories: Rockville, Some people
And then there was Baltimore…
5 minute read
April 20, 2013, 12:54 AM
The day after my trip out to Annapolis, I was back in the car again and headed out to Baltimore. It’s kind of funny how things work out. This vacation kind of reminded me of spring break in 2002 and 2003 back when I was in college. I planned out the vacation week with five or so different destinations in the eight days that I had available. In 2002, my destinations were (in this order) DC, Richmond, Norfolk, Charlottesville, and Roanoke, with a day in between all but Richmond and Norfolk (which involved a hotel stay). Then in 2003, I did (in this order) DC, Richmond, Norfolk, Covington/Clifton Forge/Lake Moomaw (one outing, all three destinations), Roanoke, and Charlottesville/Blue Ridge Parkway. I only took two “off” days in 2003, between DC and Richmond, and Norfolk and Covington. Now, ten years later, I had the luxury of spreading it out over two weeks, and did Stuarts Draft (intended to do Roanoke, but it got snowed out), DC, Richmond, Cumberland, Annapolis, and Baltimore. I also scouted out Glen Echo Park as a potential photography destination (spoiler: not high up on my list). And with two weeks and a few destinations planned, I kept a close watch on the weather, and that affected my plans. Richmond was moved up a day to take advantage of sunnier weather. Cumberland was similarly scheduled to take advantage of optimal weather (that’s how Glen Echo Park got included – to fill a gap in the schedule from Cumberland’s placement). And then Annapolis fit the schedule, though weather was less important there, since it was mostly to get a feel for the area and determine further location work (probably).
And then there was Baltimore. I was out exploring Fells Point on this particular day. I chose Fells Point based on an episode of Bar Rescue. One episode featured J.A. Murphy’s, which was located in Fells Point. That bar, renamed “Murphy’s Law” during the show’s makeover, had closed, but I knew that going in. No worries, though. I wanted to explore. I parked on the street (in front of Dogwatch Tavern, also featured on the episode), and went to work. In getting the lay of the land of this area, I ended up dividing it into three sections. First area was south of Thames Street. This was the harbor area. Then the next area was Broadway from Thames Street to Broadway Market. The street around Broadway Market was a bit of a choke point due to construction on either side of the building that took away the sidewalks. Then the third area was the block of Broadway between Fleet Street and Eastern Avenue. I could have gone further north, I suppose, but owing to time considerations, I cut it off there.
Categories: Baltimore, Photography, Travel
I went out in search of places with harbors…
6 minute read
April 13, 2013, 5:54 PM
And this is the rest of the photo stuff that I did while I was on my vacation a little more than a week ago. I wanted to do something related to water on my vacation, as I had already done snow and Stuarts Draft, suburban places, urban places, and mountainous areas. The early plans for this involved a trip up to New Jersey to do this, but I determined that New Jersey was more than I wanted to pull off, owing to the other trips. One day, perhaps, I’ll do the Jersey shore. Stepping down from New Jersey, I thought about day tripping it out to Ocean City or Rehoboth Beach, but realized that if I was going to go all that way, I might as well just go to New Jersey. That brought me to looking at Maryland locations that didn’t involve going over the Bay Bridge. I narrowed it down to Baltimore and Annapolis, and then decided that with two days available, why not do both? So I did. I went to Annapolis on Thursday, April 4, and Baltimore on Friday, April 5. Not bad.
In going to Annapolis, I was kind of surprised at what I encountered. I knew that Annapolis was a smaller town as state capitals went, but exactly how small it was surprised me. Realize that every state capital that I had been in or through (Little Rock, Richmond, Boston, Providence) has been its own metropolitan area. Annapolis reminded me of Staunton, Virginia with a harbor on it. It was a cute town, for sure.
By the time I did Annapolis, I had done a lot of photography. By my accounting, by the time I set foot in Annapolis, I had taken 1,971 photos. So I had pressed the shutter button quite a bit. I wasn’t that interested in doing a cohesive photo set, though if I ended up getting a cohesive photo set out of it, that would be a plus. Honestly, I was just looking to see what caught my interest and looked interesting to photograph. What I ended up doing was wandering through the downtown area a bit, wandering around the harbor, and then going around the Maryland State House. I had a good time, photographing signs, architectural details, birds, some boats, and (of course) fire alarms. I feel as though I probably took more fire alarm photos in Annapolis than I did anywhere else on my two week vacation. The reason was that in Annapolis, unlike in other cities that I photographed, a lot of buildings had fire alarm notification appliances on their exteriors. Most were just bells, but I did spot one horn/strobe on the exterior of a jewelry store.
Seeing Cumberland from the ground…
11 minute read
April 7, 2013, 12:28 AM
You may be familiar with Cumberland, Maryland. Whenever Mom and I go to Chicago, we take the Capitol Limited, and that train travels a route that goes through Martinsburg, Cumberland, Pittsburgh, Toledo, and South Bend, among other locations. When I take train trips, I like to look at the scenery. Some of it intrigues me, and it leads me do more research on it later. Take the Koppers facility in Green Spring, West Virginia. I always found it interesting to see these piles of neatly stacked lumber along the tracks. I researched it, and I enjoyed learning a bit more about what I had seen from the train. Towns are a similar idea. These little towns that the trains either pass through or stop in make me want to do more research. Unfortunately, many of these little towns are beyond my reach without incurring a lot of travel expenses, but for the places that I can reach, if they interest me enough, I’ll pay them a visit.
Cumberland was one of those places. The Capitol Limited spends a lot of time in Cumberland. Going west, the first thing that they do is a crew change, where they exchange engineers. Then they continue a little further west and do the passenger stop. That stop takes about ten minutes, and is also a “smoke stop”, where passengers who smoke are permitted to get off of the train and have a cigarette. While on the train waiting through the crew change and the longer passenger stop, I got to take an extended look at Cumberland. And I liked what I saw. I saw a town with some character to it, and I saw a few places that I would love to explore more deeply. I saw houses, I saw churches, and I saw the WTBO sign on Wills Mountain. And I was sure that there was much more that was interesting beyond what I could see from the train.
So this past Tuesday, I did exactly that. I grabbed the camera bag, got in the car, and headed off to Cumberland. This, by the way, is not exactly a short trip. Amtrak gives three hours and nine minutes to take the train from Union Station in DC to Cumberland. Google Maps gives two hours and 123 miles driving from my house in Aspen Hill to Cumberland Amtrak station by car. That’s going via the Intercounty Connector and I-370 to Gaithersburg, I-270 to Frederick, I-70 to Hancock, and then I-68 to Cumberland. I’ve done the drive on I-270 to Frederick a number of times in the past, and so I knew what to expect there. Interstate 70 through to Hagerstown took me over a number of hills and past the Appalachian Trail. I had taken I-70 west the rest of the way through Maryland when I went to Breezewood in 2006. Then I-68 was really awesome. The first thing you do is go through a highway cut through Sideling Hill, and then you go over a number of mountains before you arrive in Cumberland – directly in the middle of downtown.
Categories: Amtrak, Cumberland, Photography, Railroads, Travel
Richmond was fun…
6 minute read
April 1, 2013, 11:05 PM
So on Saturday, I headed down to Richmond to visit an area that I had not visited in about ten years: the Canal Walk. You may recall that I first featured the Canal Walk in 2002 in a three-part set in Photography. Then I visited the area again in 2003 for the Richmond portion of An Urban Comparison. I photographed the Canal area again with Big Mavica since I was already in the area, but I never really did much with the photos. There were three Photo Features from that day: one of the Reynolds Tobacco building, one of the skyline, and one of Riverfront Plaza. Now, ten years later, it was time to get new photos. I didn’t expect that the Canal area would change much, but I had changed quite a bit. My Canon Powershot SX10 IS is a far superior camera to Big Mavica, and my technique has also improved. I also have a polarizing filter that I got in January, and I wanted to give that another spin. The Sandy Point photos that I took in February (photo set from this on its way before too long) came out wonderfully using it, and so I wanted to give it a spin again in a city environment.
I did the same thing that I did ten years ago, parking at the east end of the Canal and walking to the other end. Like in 2003, I walked down the Canal and then headed over to the Belle Isle pedestrian bridge. I also explored Belle Isle just a little, which I had never done before, as I had previously just gone to the end of the bridge and then turned around.
The biggest take from this trip was that the Canal area had grown up in ten years. There were some new buildings, and there were new businesses in some of the older buildings. The area had flooded in 2004 due to the effects of Hurricane Gaston. I also noticed a lot more character in the area. One semi-enclosed section of the Canal Walk now had all sorts of murals painted on it. There was also a lot more life along the Canal itself, with recently constructed housing nearby, and shops and restaurants fronting the Canal. Previously, the Canal was somewhat disconnected from the surrounding neighborhood, with not much to do on the Canal Walk except to walk. Not anymore.
Categories: Photography, Richmond, Travel
I can now add “commode critic” to my resume…
4 minute read
March 28, 2013, 12:44 PM
So I got back Tuesday night from a trip to Stuarts Draft. That was fun, though not the fun that I was expecting. I got to visit my friend Bergit in Charlottesville, and then spent two days spending time with my parents. The original plan was to go to Roanoke with Mom on Monday and also visit friends and see transportation-related stuff, but that unfortunately got snowed out.
But first, though, in case you’re wondering what the deal with the title is, let me explain. My trip started out with proof that my kidneys do great work, and that having a cup of coffee before a three-hour road trip is inadvisable. Yes, I took far more restroom breaks on this trip than I normally would. I ended up stopping at the rest area on I-66 near Manassas, Sheetz in Madison, the new Trader Joe’s in Charlottesville, and then the rest area on I-64 near Ivy. Usually I can make it on one restroom break. But, noooooo… my body decided that this was the perfect time to unload a bunch of water. And I was not shy about discussing restrooms on social media on the entire trip. This from the Sheetz in Madison:
And I accompanied this on Instagram with the following caption: “This road trip has been brought to you by the letter P, and by the number 1.” Yep… that kind of day.
Categories: Driving, Family, Stuarts Draft, Winter weather