New Yankee Stadium

The Mets weren't in town while Mom was here so we had to settle for a Yankees game, which was a chance to check out their new stadium. I never made it to old Yankee Stadium, but I was not particularly impressed with the new one.

I kept thinking about the poor people whose buildings are probably lit up most of the night by the stadium

The Brooklyn Bridge

Mom coming for a visit last week was a perfect opportunity to do some fun touristy things. I'm finally going to be able to cross some things off of my list of Things I Should Do Before I Leave New York. Number 1 on the list is walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, which I finally did on Saturday.

The Manhattan Bridge

The Empire State Building hiding in the clouds

We also went to Chinatown the same day, but I don't have any pictures from it. Since none of us wanted any knock offs of designer handbags we weren't there very long.

CitiField

Clay and I went to a Mets game to see them play the Braves and because we wanted to see the new stadium. We were both very impressed by CitiField and very happy to see the Braves win.

CitiField

I love that you can see the trains go by behind the stadium

Go Braves!

Future Home!

We're in Bowling Green, Kentucky looking at apartments for our upcoming move. After a long day we wound up downtown. I see some very exciting picture taking opportunities in my future.

Sunshine!

At long last we had a sunny day in NYC!

An Unexpected Bouquet

Not only did I receive unexpected flowers on Saturday, but they were also covered in rain. All the better for the picture taking!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Two things stand out in my mind when I think about reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the first time. The first is going to see The Fellowship of the Ring and getting the Ringwraiths mixed up with the dementors. The other is that I was sitting on the couch in Clay’s apartment reading when he walked into the room and asked me to marry him.

Prisoner of Azkaban is when the story really takes off for me. We have the introduction of the Marauders, the beginning of Harry’s relationship with Sirius, Harry’s relationship with Lupin, and lots of twists and turns along the way. The Marauders are fun and tragic at the same time, it’s fun to read about their antics at school and the friendship that they shared, as long as their contemporary circumstances are ignored. I love that J. K. Rowling gives her characters so much depth and allows them to make mistakes. Sirius did not betray James and Lily, but he has no qualms about hunting Pettigrew down to kill him. Lupin is a wonderful teacher and friend to Harry, but he does not tell Dumbledore that Sirius is an animagus (granted that would have really screwed up the plot, but it’s still not what he should have done) and is just as willing as Sirius to go ahead and kill Pettigrew.

Prisoner of Azkaban is full of twists, Sirius is innocent, Scabbers is not only person, but also responsible for the deaths of Harry’s parents, Lupin is a werewolf, there’s little that can be taken at face value. The constantly shifting story is probably at least partly to blame for some of the more incredible theories that were subscribed to by fans, such as “Ron is Dumbledore.” The use of the time turner is well done and allows the reader a very shocking everything may not be okay moment.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

I have been trying and trying to write this for a week and it just won't work. That's my disclaimer.

I don't remember much about the first time I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I devoured most of it on the plane to Denver, I think I was about 3/4 of the way through by the time I got there. It's my least favorite of the books. I don't necessarily dislike it, it's just not on the same level as the others.

I noticed this time around just how much the whole flying the car to Hogwarts scene bugs me. I was so annoyed with Ron and Harry for their complete lack of foresight and judgment. I know they're supposed to be 12 (and that they are fictional), but it seems like such a leap to not wait two minutes to see if anyone is able to get back through from the platform.

Spoiler if you still haven't read Deathly Hallows

What I do like about the book is just how much of the overarching plot is introduced in it. Chamber of Secrets includes the destruction of the first horcrux, the first appearance of Godric Gryffindor's sword, the first bit of Voldemort's back story, and the introduction of the theme of how choices affect one’s life. The book is full of bits of information that will be more and more important as the series continues.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

I’ve read the Harry Potter books far too many times to actually review them, but I wanted to just write out some thoughts. The last time that I read all of the books was in the summer of 2007, right before Deathly Hallows was released. Before that I read them about once a year so it’s interesting to come back to them with a little distance.

I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the first time in December of 2001. I had been pressured by many people, including my family and friends, to read them and finally decided to cave and borrowed Jenny's copies. I was taking a trip to Colorado to see Clay and figured that they would work well as airplane books. I started reading Sorcerer's Stone about a week before my trip because with work and finals I thought it would take about that long to read it. I was very, very wrong about that. It took about two days and I had to hide the rest of the books from myself so I would be able to save them for the trip.

What can I really say about this book? As the first book in the series Sorcerer's Stone is the reader's introduction to the wizarding world. The entire book exudes a sense of wonder and magic. I love that the characters are complex and realistic. Harry has a wonderful snarky quality that makes him so likable. Sure there are some plot holes, but the whole books is so much fun that I really don't care at all.

Cell

A rough Fall lead into a worse December and a very busy January, but I’m going to try to do a little more posting this winter. I’m rewarding myself with a Harry Potter reread so I’m going to try to go back and review the books that I skipped last year. To really illustrate what a slacker I’ve been, I picked up Cell by Stephen King at the train station in Washington back in July. Entertainment Weekly gets credit for luring me into this one; I read the first chapter in the magazine back in 2006 before it was published.

Cell is about a group of people who survive after a “pulse” turns anyone who uses a cell phone into, for lack of a better word, a zombie. After an initial burst of violence the zombies begin to flock and exhibit characteristics of a hive mentality. The book follows Clay Riddell as he attempts to travel from Boston to Maine to find his wife and son.

The use of the flocking and the zombies’ slow evolution are what save the book from being a simplistic zombie story. The Dark Man is quite scary and there are many suspenseful moments. The problem is that King has done this story before and much, much better in The Stand. I spent most of the book thinking about The Stand and how much it better it is. The other problem is the very abrupt ending. I’m all for an ambiguous end, but this felt like ambiguity for ambiguity’s sake.

All that said I found Cell to be truly scary, but most of my goodwill was corrupted by the weak ending. I don’t like to say that one shouldn’t read a particular book, but if you’re only going to read one Stephen King book there are many that are much better. I’d go with The Stand, It, Bag of Bones, Carrie, or Hearts in Atlantis instead or as well.

Dalek Attack!

For about a year now Clay and I have both had a mild obsession with Doctor Who and Torchwood, that has reached new heights in the past couple of months. Clay decided that he required action figures so he can make up his own stories. Since the first few arrived he's been creating tableaux in the living room every morning and evening.

The Doctor, Jack, and Rose have apparently apprehended the Dalek (the Snapple bottle) that managed to invade the TARDIS earlier this week. The thing behind them is not a stacked up bottle of Advil, wireless adapter and candle, it's the TARDIS console.

As you can see the figures are very detailed and actually look quite a bit like the actors.

Perfectly Safe

I took this on the way out of town for Christmas before the plane was deiced.

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.