Post Office Pavilion Tower

Rail Yard, Union Station

Escalator

Cattle Chute

Dorothy, Karlee, and I went downtown today. We spent a good while in the Natural History Museum, mostly looking at sea creatures and the rocks and minerals collection. We particularly liked the fossils of crinoids and some brightly colored rocks, like rhodochrosite (MnCO³). I took some good pictures of stones but didn’t select any for today’s post.

From there we went to the American History Museum to look at their trains. Karlee is working on a photography assignment and we thought we might find some good pictures there. We took quite a few pictures and some that I like quite a bit but again, I didn’t put any of them in the post, either. You’ll just have to imagine.

On the walk back to the car I took the first of these pictures, the tower of the Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Avenue. I asked if they wanted to go in and get something to eat but Dorothy wanted to eat at Union Station, which was our next stop in any case. We parked on the third level of the parking garage and took pictures of the tracks heading out to the north of the station. We tried to get some that showed motion by using a slower shutter speed so that the moving train would be blurred but Karlee’s camera didn’t give us a lot of control over shutter speed.

We went into the station and the next picture here is of the girls going down the escalator in the parking garage. If I had brought my tripod (which was in the other car) I could have blurred them a bit more as well as having the rest of the picture a bit sharper, but I like the color and the lines of this one, anyway.

We walked all through Union Station. I had been here a couple weeks ago (see White House and National Christmas Tree, December 18) so I knew my way around pretty well. There is a pretty huge food court in the bottom of Union Station and since Dorothy found out that there was a Bojangles she’s been talking about eating there. When we got there, however, she decided to have a gyro instead. I joined her in that and Karlee had a couple slices of pizza. We had a nice (late) lunch and enjoyed watching all the people.

As we were heading back to our car we looked down on a line of people moving through the cattle chutes they use to organize the chaos of boarding the trains. I love watching motion and was able to take a few photos including the last one here, showing the flow of people. Again, a tripod or bean bag would have helped but I’m pretty happy with the results. Having stood in these lines it brings back the feeling of being herded (and wanting to make mooing sounds).

We made one more stop at the Maine Street fish market, where I bought a dozen large clams and one huge octopus.

Octopuses

As a gag, Dorothy brought some frozen octopuses as her contribution to the gift exchange at X-Factor on Friday night. Once the game was over, I traded some pop-tarts for them, so the poor guy who got them wouldn’t go home totally empty handed. I had them for lunch yesterday, boiled and then sautéd in butter and olive oil and served with yellow rice. They were delicious and I thought I’d use them for my banner for a little while.

White House and National Christmas Tree

For her birthday we gave Dorothy four tickets to a Grouplove concert at the 9:30 Club on Tuesday, October 30, 2012. If you recall, however, Hurricane Sandy rolled through on Monday evening and much of Tuesday. The concert was postponed and rescheduled for tonight. With Dorothy’s exams yesterday, today, and tomorrow, this wasn’t the best night for us, but she’s doing well in her classes and we knew she’d have had all but the last two of her exams. One friend who had planned to come couldn’t but Dorothy was able to find someone else who could. So, I drove them down in the evening and then spent a few hours wandering around DC. I took pictures of the Capitol, Union Station, and the White House, including this one of the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse. This is actually three images with different exposures combined into a single high dynamic range (HDR) image using Photoshop. It’s still not perfect but it’s better than any of the three individual images turned out.

Rain Jewels

Not a lot going on this evening and I didn’t take many pictures today. When I walked out to my car after work the windscreen was glowing a sparkling gold. I was parked under a lamp and the light was reflecting off the hundreds of tiny drops of rain that had accumulated there. They were big enough to cover the glass completely but not big enough that they started combining into larger droplets and rolling down, leaving streaks down the glass.

Santa’s Early Visit

T.K. With Light Wands

In our neighborhood, Santa doesn’t want to take any chances of not knowing where all the kids are so he makes an early run, just checking things out. He doesn’t bother with looking at chimneys or roof tops and the reindeer are still resting up for the big night that is just over a week away. For this trip he uses a bit more modern transportation and he brings some elves with him to help distribute a few goodies to boys and girls who have been suitably good.

One nice thing about this trip is he’s not so silent as he is on Christmas night. In fact, if you are quiet, the music can be heard for many blocks — to say nothing of his “ho, ho, ho!”

This was the first time our new neighbors, Jimmy and Katie and their three kids have seen Santa making his early rounds. Apparently where they used to live he either didn’t feel it was necessary or it was a much quieter affair. In any case, they were excited to go out to see him. Of course T.K. and Piper were here, visiting their grandmother across the street from us. They’ve seen this pretty much every year, so they know how excited they should be. As you can see from the second of these pictures, T.K. has been especially good and got not one but two light-up wands.

Is he excited? Yes, he is!

The Cabin and Pond

Dorothy Cutting A Tree

Dot Looking at Jewelry

We drove up to Pennsylvania with mom to get Christmas trees today and as usual we stopped by the farm. As we got out of the car we startled two squirrels, who ran up the side of the cabin and into holes up at the ridge line. It seems they have been doing a little chewing inside, destroying one chair, but not as much damage as they could have done. There’s not a huge amount we can do about it. If we had time and a long ladder we could put hardware cloth over their openings but that might not do more than slow them down a bit. Still, probably worth doing in the spring.

It wasn’t as cold as some years and there was only the smallest amount of ice on the pond, just at the edges. It was actually a beautiful day with enough clouds to make the sky interesting while still being basically clear. We walked around the pond and I took a bunch of pictures. We haven’t planted Christmas trees in way too long so there are none there worth considering for our houses. We didn’t even go look this year because even the smallest trees will be way too big.

From the farm we drove to Seven Springs Tree Farm to get three trees, one for mom, one for Ralph and Tsai-Hong, and one for us. We got smallish trees this year. Because of that and because there were only four of us in the van we were able to fold the back seat down and put them in the back of the van. That’s even easier than tying them on the roof. In this picture the tree Dorothy is cutting down is in the process of falling. Got to get those action shots.

We went into the shop for hot chocolate and to listen to the little band that was playing folk music inside. The third picture here is of mom looking at jewelry in the shop. She knew I was taking it but didn’t realize that more than her arm was in the picture. Sneaky, eh?

We went to lunch after getting our trees. This is the third year in a row we’ve gone to the Ott House Pub in Emmitsburg. It’s a friendly place with pretty good food. The onion rings were excellent.

Going to get our trees is one of those traditions that I don’t really want to give up. It’s definitely not the cheapest or easiest way to get a tree but it’s worth the extra time and expense. It’s a shame that Dorothy’s friend Kendra wasn’t able to come with us this year, but it was still fun.

Frosty Morning

The temperature has been up and down quite a bit the last few weeks. We’ve had wonderfully warm days in the 60s and a few cold days that made if feel like winter was here to stay. This morning it was cold again and there was a touch of frost everywhere. The grass was a whitish-green and was crunchy under foot. The azalea leaves had tiny ice crystals all over them. This picture is of oak leaves in the pachysandra. I love the way the leaves are outlined in white.

Heinz Potato & Leek Soup

Dorothy has been working for a while on this screen print in her art class at school. It’s printed on the back of a faded blue shirt and I think it turned out very well.

The assignment was to take an every day object and make it ironic in some way and to do it in the style of Andy Warhol. Clearly this makes you think of his Campbell’s Soup cans but with the twist that they are Heinz and the soup is thick potato and leek instead of tomato.

It was actually a pretty ambitious design because of all the colors used, taking 20 screenings in all.

Now I’m a bit hungry. I think I’ll go have a bowl of soup.