A Snowy Evening

We had our first real snow of the year yesterday. I took these of the trees next to our building out the window in the living room.

Christmas in NYC

Last night I did the New York equivalent of driving around to look at people's Christmas lights. I walked from work, on 30th St., to the Time Warner Center. Some of my pictures did not live up to my standards and I hope to go out at some point with my tripod and Clay to act as bodyguard and try again. And before you ask, the tree at Rockefeller Center is being lit tonight so I'll have to visit it later as well.

They put these out every year and I always wonder who came up with this concept. It's cool, but really odd.

The lone wolf

I'm sure this is at least somewhat festive in the day, but at night with all the shadows it's really creepy.

Because of the huge windows in the Time Warner Center you can see these stars all the way down 59th St. They change colors in time to the Christmas music playing inside. It's actually pretty cool to watch.

Election 2008

Last night Clay and I went down to Rockefeller Center to visit the "Election Plaza" before heading home to watch the returns. As people who watched MSNBC will know they were running streamers up the building to indicate the number of electoral votes for each candidate. There were also giant screens on either side of the building showing MSNBC and NBC so we were able to watch the 7:00 states come in. It was fun, but I prefer watching the bulk of the returns in my pajamas at home.

NBC's Election Plaza at Rockefeller Center

The Skating Rink Map

Keith on the big screen!

Vermont for Obama and Kentucky for McCain

An Election Retrospective

I just want to say a quick apology for my complete lack of posting lately. Life has been busy and tiring and still not having a new laptop tends to keep me from writing. The sad thing is there is a handwritten review of Cell waiting to be typed, but right now I just can’t seem to do it. I’m delving into the purely narcissistic portion of blogging for the first time today. This is not a book review and at this time there are no accompanying pictures. I’ve been thinking a lot about previous elections during the run-up to tomorrow and wanted to get some thoughts down. If you care about my history as a voter read on, if not I should have some new pictures in a couple of days.

The first election that I can remember was in 1984, when my kindergarten class voted by making X’s on a piece of poster board. I’m sorry to say that I voted for Reagan. I didn’t know which one to vote for and one of my friends pointed to Reagan and said I should vote for him. He easily won Ms Cowsert’s class with only a handful of votes going to Mondale. In 1988 I was in the fourth grade and my only real memories are Amy telling me that I shouldn’t vote for Bush because he wanted to, “Take all of our nuclear weapons and blow up Russia,” and being disappointed when Bush took Rosa Taylor Elementary in a landslide.

1992 was the first election year when I was fully aware of what was going on and had some knowledge of the candidates thanks to my Mankind teacher Ms. Rogers. Unfortunately being better informed did not lead to my being any smarter about the whole thing. I’m going to go ahead and admit that I voted for Ross Perot in the Kids Voting election. I honestly don’t know what I disliked so much about Clinton, but I think I really liked the idea of saying that I was “wasting my vote on Perot.” That was also the first year that I stayed up to watch the election returns, again thanks to Ms. Rogers. In 1996 I was supporting Clinton and really angry that I couldn’t vote because I didn’t turn 18 until three days after the election. It was the first time that a lot of my friends got to vote and I was very jealous.

In 2000 I got to vote for real. I transferred my registration from Macon to Athens so I didn’t have to vote absentee and I was very glad that I had, as I finally got to vote on the lever machines. When I was a kid Mom used to take Jenny and me to the polls with her, but she never let me pull the lever and I’d always wanted to. While I’d considered voting for Nader, by the time Election Day rolled around I was convinced that Gore needed my vote, even in Georgia. A group of friends and I gathered to watch the results that evening, which turned out to be quite depressing. I went to bed that night at about 2AM when CNN called the race for Bush. About 6:30 I awoke to a knock on my window. Clay was standing out there babbling something about the election and not knowing who had won. That is the enduring moment of that election for me, going to bed thinking, “oh well” and waking up to find that everything had gone completely insane.

The 2004 election marks the first time I got particularly engaged in primary season. Clay was the head of the local Howard Dean group. We were in Columbus watching on TV when he made his infamous cry in Iowa and both felt that he’d just blown any chance he had. That was the cause of a huge blowup at the next Wataugans for Dean meeting where a woman accused Clay of being unbalanced for saying that things did not look good for Dean. After Iowa I changed my loyalties to Edwards. We moved to New York in the late summer of 2004 so I voted absentee in North Carolina for John Kerry. Because I didn’t get an “I Voted” sticker I made my own and passed them out to people who came into the bookstore that day.

This election season feels as though it has lasted forever. I was again supporting Edwards in the primary and was very disappointed when he dropped out before Super Tuesday. This was the first time that I did not feel as though there was an obvious choice for me. I spent a lot of time researching both Clinton and Obama’s positions trying to make up my mind between them. On primary day I literally stood in the booth wavering between the two levers before ultimately deciding to vote for Obama. It’s been a long time since Super Tuesday and I’m looking forward to voting for him again tomorrow. It seems as though practically everyone I know has already gotten to vote and I’ve felt some jealousy, but I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t have voted early even if I could. There’s something very exciting about voting on Election Day. I just hope they give me a sticker, because I haven’t made my own this year.

Ballpark in Arlington

One of my pictures from our trip to Dallas last spring is being used on the Schmap guide to Fort Worth. This is entirely thanks to Stephen who uploaded the picture to his Flickr account and generally did all of the work. It's kind of silly, but it really makes me happy.

To see it click here and mouse over the "Ballpark in Arlington" entry. You'll have to use the arrows to scroll through the pictures until you see the one below.

Venice Beach

I was going to say something about how one can't go to LA and not go to the beach, but then I remembered that I have been to LA many times and only been to the beach there twice. In any case we did go to the beach this time and it was beautiful!

Getty Garden

We took the Central Garden Tour at the Getty, which was fun, but I missed a good bit of it because I kept stopping to take pictures. Most of what I heard was "...and now we're going to move on to..." I don't know what most of the plants are because there are no signs in the garden due to aesthetics. My favorite part was the azalea labyrinth.

Fountain of Youth

This is three pieces of the same fountain at the Getty Center. It starts at the far end of the first picture, goes through the runner and goes into a pool. In the middle of the pool is a drain, featured in the second picture, that allows water to drip down in to another pool. I liked that the lower fountain looks like a spring one might find in an old monastery, while the top is very modern, like most of the Getty.

The Lone Wild Bird...

Rise and Shine!

Rent: The End

Stephen and Anji came out to New York for the final Rent performance last weekend. They actually had tickets, but we decided to go enter the lottery to see if Clay and I could get tickets. None of us won, but it was fun to go and see the very enthusiastic people. I heard many people say that it was insane, but I thought it was pretty calm. There were many, many people there, but process was orderly and well done.

The final lotto crowd.

Waiting for a Train

Breaking Dawn

I picked up Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer almost a week after it was released. However, I still managed to stay spoiler free until I finished. It just feels like an accomplishment. If you want to stay spoiler free you should not continue to read.

Breaking Dawn begins with Bella and Edward's wedding. Jacob returns from his self imposed exile to see Bella one more time and nearly gets into a fight with Edward when he finds out that they're going to try to have sex while Bella is still human. After the wedding Edward takes Bella to Esme's private island for their honeymoon and, as promised they finally consummate their relationship. After a couple of weeks Bella realizes that she is not only pregnant, but appears to be a few months along already. They race back home where she refused to allow Carlise and Edward to terminate the pregnancy in spite of her failing health. Once the baby is born and Bella becomes a vampire they learn that they will once again have to face the Volturi.

I have an overwhelming feeling of indifference towards Breaking Dawn. I didn't like it very much, but I didn't particularly dislike it either. As usual many of the plot elements were predictable and contrived. As soon as the child vampires were brought up it was pretty clear where the story was headed. This time the story was just not good enough to make me look past the problems, but on the bright side it was still better than New Moon.

The section that was narrated by Jacob was better than I thought it would be and it was nice to get a clearer picture of the wolves lives. I hoped for a little while that something might happen between Leah and Jacob, but that would have been too interesting. Having Jacob imprint on Renesmee so they could all be one big happy family is awfully convenient and really creepy. Meyer spends a lot of time assuring the reader that imprinting is not a sexual thing and that neither Jacob nor Quil is a pedophile, but all that aside that still means that he is going to be Bella's son-in-law. He intends to marry the daughter of his previous object of affection. It's all so very creepy!

It was good to get a look at some of the other vampires outside of the Cullens, but there were so many that I had some trouble keeping them straight. There were more interesting new powers introduced and then not really used. Renesmee's ability to share her thoughts and Bella's power to block the talents of other's are the only one's that really mattered in the end. It was nice to see Bella so empowered after being the human that everyone had to protect for three books, but the big confrontation with the Volturi was so anticlimactic. That's the thing that made the book so problematic, there were no real stakes. One vampire, who has only be talked about before and who caused the whole problem, dies. Everyone else escapes and there's never really any suspense to make the reader think that they won't.

As I said before Breaking Dawn was not all that bad, it just wasn't all that good. Everything was just tied up too neatly with everyone paired off and happy. For the entire series Meyer set up the triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob. Imprinting, no matter how well established as a plot device, feels like a cop out.

Eclipse

I actually read Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer while I was in Washington and wrote most of this review on the train, but between all the posting of pictures and some general laziness I haven’t taken the time to sit down and finish it. I’m planning to pick up Breaking Dawn this weekend so I wanted to get this done before I get influenced by the rest of the story. Anyway, the Twilight series was recommended by Stephen and Sylvie and, as always, spoilers follow.

Wow! Let’s start with wow. Eclipse is so many light years better than New Moon. This is the sequel I was looking for when I finished Twilight. How wonderful it is to regain the sensuality that made me love the first book. Sure the characters are still thinly drawn, but the story is too good for me to really care.

Eclipse picks up soon after New Moon left off. Bella is still grounded for running off to Italy and having a motorcycle and her father is still unhappy about her relationship with Edward. Soon she and her father come to an agreement, he’ll let her leave the house if she’ll spend more time with her other friends. This is complicated by Edward’s distrust of Jacob, who her father particularly wants her to see. After trying, and failing to keep Bella away from Jacob, Edward agrees that she should be allowed to see him. Reports of deaths and disappearances from Seattle complicate things and eventually warrant an uneasy alliance.

First of all I was glad to have a least some attempt to give Bella a reason to not want to get married. “I’m just not that girl,” is not the best reason in the world, but it worked well enough for me to go back to willfully suspending my disbelief.

I was worried early on that I was going to find Edward as irritating as Bella was in New Moon, but once he got over his refusing to allow her to see Jacob, I fell right back in love with him. Jacob spent a lot of time being annoying, but that’s his character so I can let it slide.

There was more interesting lore from both the vampires and the werewolves. Back stories were revealed for Rosalie and Jasper and Bella got to hear the Quileute tribe’s story of the werewolves’ origins.

The story was much less cliché and predictable which is not to say that is wasn’t at all, it was quite obvious that Victoria was the one coming after Bella and that there would have to be a vampire/werewolf alliance, but having Bella genuinely conflicted about her feelings for Jacob was nice. No, I never thought she would choose him, but I liked seeing the choice actually be made. The teasing at their chemistry was one of the few things I liked about New Moon and I welcomed its return. And that was quite an impressive kiss. I’m sure thirteen year olds everywhere are still swooning.

Just One More

The Vietnam Memorial

Tom's Memorial

The number of tries that it took for me to get this shot made me realize that, although my tripod is a pain to drag around, it may be worth it.

A couple of guys fishing in the Tidal Pool. I think they had 6 or 8 fishing rods between them.

Korean War Memorial

A couple of birds bathing in the Memory Pool

The Memory Pool

This friendly squirrel shared my pretzel when I took a break.

Holocaust Memorial Museum

One of my main reasons for making the trip to DC was to see the Holocaust Museum. I have had a mild obsession since I first saw The Diary of Anne Frank when I was 9 or so. It was also my main reason for going on the trip alone. Sure Clay can't get away for the weekend because of work, but it was all about going to the Holocaust Museum alone. I can't say that I enjoyed it, because it's not something to enjoy, but I learned a lot and was profoundly affected by the exhibit, which I spent 5 hours exploring.

The two part sculpture outside.

The sculpture's marker.

This is the magnet that I bought at the museum. It's a picture of the eternal flame in the Hall of Remembrance. I made it through the entire exhibit without any tears, but this is where I broke down. The flame is on top of a block that contains dirt from 38 of the concentration camps in Europe.

Some New Discoveries

In my wanderings I ran across a couple of landmarks that I hadn't seen before...

The Summer House at the Capitol

The Grotto at the Summer House

The Summer House Fountain

There is a Memorial to the Signers of the Declaration of Independence near the Vietnam Memorial. All of the signers' names and signatures are carved on granite blocks. George Walton, Lyman Hall, and Button Gwinnett are three names that I will never forget thanks to 8th Grade Georgia history. Mrs. Rogers suggested that we think of George Walton walking down the Hall while Buttoning his Gwinnett. It worked.