Too bad I don't eat canned foods that often...

I had seen this idea a while ago (from the New York Times), but thought I would share it here as well. I love the idea of using tin can lids as decor, but unfortunately, it would take me years to save up enough lids to do anything like this.

(Photo courtesy of the New York Times)

Thomas Circle

So I was walking home the other day past the statue by Thomas Circle. For some reason, I had never fully looked at it, and I was pleasantly surprised by the burst of color in the mosaic.

Inaugural Ramblings

So I had made this cool google pedometer map of my route, but I couldn't figure out how to get it into my blog. So boyfriend was crafty and figured it out for me. I walked just about 8 miles, but you can be sure it took me a whole lot longer than it would have normally. Oh, and I also took lots of fisheye pictures, but I have to get them developed. Stay tuned for those.

The View From Below - A Short Person's Take on the Presidential Inauguration

So after deciding not to either flee the country and take the train to Montreal (way too cold) or fly across the country to visit a friend in Seattle (too much work to deal with getting to and from the airport), I reconciled myself to staying put in the midst of the craziness that was the inauguration. Most of the weekend I sequestered myself in my apartment, but I did see the crowds swelling. I didn't venture down to the Mall until Tuesday, and it was quite an experience when I did. Boyfriend had a ticket, so we left the apartment at 8 am and went down to meet up with our friend who also had a ticket, pretty much as far away as you could get on the Mall away from my apartment. After they went their merry way, I wandered back down towards the Lincoln. At this point though, the crowds were starting to get bigger and bigger and the majority of the time, I was unable to actually see anything, as I happen to be a short person, and I was completely hemmed it. At one point there was quite the traffic jam and we were stuck for a while, and people around me said that a bunch of buses had to go by which had the band members for the parade in them.

My view for about a mile - the back of people's heads

I eventually made my way down to the Lincoln and checked out all that was going on around there, and then made my way back up to the Washington Monument, stopping to take a peek at the World War I memorial, which I had been wanting to do for a while, but hadn't yet.

I played "Spot the Secret Service Sniper" wherever I could




World War I Memorial

Life, liberty, and a porta-john for all

By the time I managed to find a spot by a jumbotron though, everyone else had already staked out the prime viewing areas, so I forced to do the awkward hop and peer around heads if I actually wanted to see anything. At least I could hear though, and everyone around me managed to block the wind a bit.

I expected to see lots of crazy outfits, but this guy was about it.

It was pretty cool to be there in the middle of it all and I was glad after all that I didn't try and get away for the weekend. Unfortunately though, I didn't have any choice about whether or not I wanted to stay and listen to the end of the ceremony after Obama's speech though, as every person in the crowd was determined to beat the other 1.8 million people off the Mall. It was an admirable effort, except for the fact that the general flow of traffic landed us all in a dead end corner hemmed in by porta-johns. Luckily, everyone was quite jovial, and so there wasn't too much pushing. After climbing through bushes and over jersey barriers (I felt terrible about joining the millions of people destroying my city) and after only a little more than an hour, I was able to escape the crowd and go home.

Because the inauguration planners miscalculated, the several blocks around my apartment were turned into bus parking lots. The one below was definitely my favorite.

Bad logos, anyone?

So I have been mystified by this sign for about 2 years now. This is on a a school located on 16th street, but I just look at it and think immediately - boobs. Honestly, who thought this was a good logo for a school?

The chocolately goodness of...Iwo Jima?

So I dragged boyfriend against his will to the UT reception during the TRB conference last week, despite the fact that the Steelers were playing and it was like the only chance he had to see them all season. He's such a good boyfriend. :) Anyways, he had seen this statue a while before at the Marriott hotel, so he had to show it to me. Who doesn't want an Iwo Jima statue made out of 100% pure dark chocolate?

Who's driving my train?

It's my personal belief that Morgan Freeman likes to drive Metro trains, and takes a vacation to do so every now and then. The other day, I was taking the metro to work, like I do every day, and I noticed that the voice of the driver sounded familiar. It took me from Farragut North to Van Ness, but I eventually realized it sounded exactly like Morgan Freeman. I mentioned it later to Boyfriend, and he said that he had had that same experience a couple of years ago.

Don't Be Crabby

In a desperate plea to warm myself up, I am continuing to peruse my Puerto Rico pictures. I have a suprisingly large number of photos of crabs, I discovered.

From Puerto Rico to DC

So I was walking down the street in Dupont Circle the other day, and I passed this little shop that has great photographs in the window, which I see all the time and I love. For some reason, I had never noticed until now, that one I really liked was actually a street sign from Puerto Rico that I had seen when I was there. In Old San Juan, the street signs are tiles on the sides of buildings, and frequently have pictures to go along with them. The one that was in the store was of Calle de la Luna, but it was a better picture than the one I have of it. That one had a picture of the moon. After my brutal walk in the cold wind this morning, I want to be in Puerto Rico right now. Ahhhh....I'll just bask in the imaginary sunlight for a little while.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

After going to TRB sessions, squeezing in some actual work, attending our company open house, dinner with co-workers, and then out with UT peeps, yesterday was a busy day. So don't be surprised that I am drawing on my backlog of photos. These are from the great, relatively undiscovered wonder of DC that is Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens.

A Grey Day

This week is TRB, a conference which is mecca for all transportation-related people in the world, so my posting frequency will probably go down. But this is a picture I took about this same time last year, and I liked the way the light was behind the Washington Monument and the coloring.

Ikea Jumps on the Bandwagon

So I've been contemplating this post in my head for a little while, but due to my self-imposed rule of never taking pictures during my work commute, it hasn't happened and Apartment Therapy beat me to it. So Ikea has all these ads up in the metro station which capitalize on Obama and political change, and so on, but it just makes me mad. Seriously, what does a Swedish cheap furniture company have to do with American politics? Maybe if they weren't plastered over every surface in the Farragut North station so I have to stare at them twice a day, five days a week, it wouldn't be so bad, but it just makes me angry. But alas, it doesn't change the fact that half of my apartment is furnished by Ikea, and I will continue making my pilgrimages out there. So I guess the ads are effective in that they get people talking, but they really are not influencing my spending behavior, which is kinda the whole goal of advertising. So take that, Swedish cheap furniture company!

Smeg

So a while ago, I came across a picture of a Smeg refrigerator. Apart from being awesome-looking fridges, they happen to share a name with a commonly used expression on one of my favorite TV shows, Red Dwarf. Don't be surprised if you don't know this show. It is a British comedy from the 80s that is a combination of Star Wars and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and it's amazing. I just happened to find it on Netflix one day and I have since watched all eight seasons multiple times. Anyway, I just thought I would share the joy that is smeg for your viewing pleasure.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

As I typed that title I had a feeling of deja vu, so it's entirely possible that I've already posted pictures of lions, but I'm going to do it again anyway. After murals, one of my next favorite photography subjects is statues of lions. I don't know why, I just really like them.

The lions at the Corocoran Gallery are what started it all.


I think my personal favorite lions have to be these two by a shop in Georgetown. They were supposed to have been moved a while ago, but I haven't been down in a while to see.

Murals: DC Edition #2

I thought I might as well continue the theme of murals. These are once again, all from Adams Morgan.

While blog-hopping, I learned that this mural was painted over. It's a shame, I really liked that one.


I'm not a huge fan of this one, but it's large and very close to my old apartment, so I passed it all the time.

One of Many Back Burner Projects

So I've lived in DC for two years now. For a large portion of that time I have had a project in mind, but it just never seems to get done, and instead grows in size. It all started because I lived in Adams Morgan. Every day I would walk by the Marilyn Monroe mural on my way to the metro and I loved it. Two others soon joined the list - the Madam's Organ mural and the Sombrero Man on 18th street. The first variation of my project was merely to take a nice picture of each and blow them up and hang them on the wall. For various reasons, I somehow managed to never fully accomplish this, be it I never had my camera with me, it was winter and crappy looking, and so on. I finally have 3 pictures that I like, but they still aren't printed and framed.

The project continued to grow, despite my lack of work on it. I next decided I wanted to do a coffee table book of DC murals. I do have a slowly growing collection of mural photos, and every now and then I do a burst of research and add to my list of murals, but it's very far from completion. By the time I move away, maybe it will be done.

My favorite picture of 18th Street.

Madam's Organ


Sombrero Man


Marilyn Monroe




The closest I've come to achieving the first step of my project - a photo collage of Marilyn at night.


This print was my Christmas present last year - I love this artist, Joseph Harrison Snyder , who does these amazing watercolors of DC scenery. This one is of 18th Street, so I guess I have to get a Logan Circle one now.