Inauguration Day

The view from our spot

Friends from Hawaii had an extra ticket to the President's Inauguration, so I made plans to brave the crowds and weather. While in a colleague's office, my friend called and said he had two more tickets to offer. My wife was still out in Oregon, so I asked my co-worker if he would like to go, and his wife as well. The offer was accepted and turned into a breakfast invitation at a row house in the NOMA-Gaulladet area of D.C. north of New York Avenue just off of Capitol Street. I parked at Landover Metro Station as I usually do, but was surprised at how few cars were there before me at 7:30 AM. I rendezvoused with my friend and we made the walk to his house and breakfast. By the time the three of us ate, packed up their baby, and walked to the street entrance for where we should

A common spectator pose

go through TSA security, the crowd was huge and we wondered after waiting for 40 minutes and not seeing the queue ahead of us move whether we would ever get to the reserved area west of the Capitol where we were to watch the festivities. Eventually the pack of folks ahead of us made it through the processing area, and we were let in to be processed. We finally got into the general viewing area that our tickets allowed, just in time to see the Vice President take his oath, soon followed by the President. We stood among a lot of people, but past knowledge told us that were were much closer than most who stood out in the cold that day. As the proceedings were broadcast on the giant Jumbotrons, many photographs were snapped at the same time. Rather than glow sticks held high during the playing of an anthem at a rock concert, the images of hands held high hoisting digital cameras above the sea of heads was the image that was fixed in my mind's eye.

Australian Television

Australian Broadcast Corporation Studio

During a recent work trip to Australia, I ended up being interviewed for a few television and radio broadcasts. There is a lot of interest in the potential for biofuels for the airline industry, and the sponsors of my trip saw to it that there was press coverage of all the related activities around the Australian International Air Show. The United States Studies Center at the University of Sydney made all of my arrangements, and saw to it I arrived at the right times, or was ready to receive calls when scheduled.

United States Studies Centre Website

For all of the effort arranging an interview at the Australian Broadcast Corporation's Plant America, the timing was such that my interview did not show up when intended - such it is. It was fund going through the exercise and was good practice for the two radio and one more television interviews. The second TV interview was at the air show, and ended up being a business news report. I heard that my grand kids picked up my voice right away when my son showed them Grandpa on TV. The report can be view by clicking here. The United States Study Centre has been compiling the reports from the different interviews (click here).

ABC interview setting

It was impressive how prepared the reporter was - she rattled through a series of questions for the five of us that were interviewed. Each person was queued in a different place so the background varied for each of us. No make up here - plein air style - unlike back at the ABC Studios the week before. For all the tape time recorded, it is amazing how such edited short sound bites end up telling a pretty good story of what all of this is about. Same as the link above, the view of the interview is found here, and other information is posted about the activities at the United States Study Centre. The radio interviews were done over the phone - like a conversation across the table, just without eye contact. You can listen in on the interviews with Radio 2GB Sunday Business and ABC Radio National Breakfast. 

Different Bird Sounds

I arrived late Thursday morning in Sydney, and with the threat of poor weather on Saturday, I made a point to get out of my hotel right away and see some of the sights around the Circular Quay Sydney Harbour area. I knew of the Royal Botanic Gardens before leaving Maryland. My driver from the airport had earlier offered some of the points of interest near my hotel - I was pleased to hear the Sydney Opera House, the Bridge, and Gardens were all in walking distance of the Marriott. So after a late lunch, I shed my sport coat, picked up my camera, and walked down Pitt Street to the Harbour area.

The weather was in the 80's and humid. The Sydney Harbour Bridge was just off in the distance, and the Opera House to the right. As I walked around the harbor and keeping the Opera House to my left, a walled abruptement rose above the sidewalk across the street from me. There was vegetation spilling over the top of the wall - must be a park up there. The gardens are expansive, and the specimens marked with signs. The water in the bay is clear - remarkable for such a densely populated area. Lots of paved roads, and lots of birds. Below is a sampling of those most commonly seen in the middle of a summer afternoon in late February.

Rainbow Lorikeet

Australian Magpie

Australian White Ibis

Noisy Miner

Silver Gull

Royal Garden Duck Pond

Dusky Gallinule

Australian Wood Duck

Mustang Island, Texas

Corpus Christi Airport Photo Display

We traveled to Corpus Christi to watch our no-longer-fledgling gain his full plumage on his wings. While there, we drove with some friends out onto Mustang Island to see the sights - and me get in a little birding. South Texas is a birder's paradise - this our second trip there. Even in the Corpus Christi Airport, there is a nice display of wildlife photographs being displayed.

Roseate Spoonbill - Photoshop

I have found, that different species have different tolerances before fright-flight. A flock of Roseate Spoonbills launched themselves when I came into sight of them resting in a wetland just off the main road through the island. When blowing up the image to the right, it was pretty grainy because of the distance the bird was away from when I took the shot. So in the spirit of the art display at the airport, I used the Photoshop software Artistic/Watercolor feature to make the image presentable. As an added feature, off to the upper left of the picture is a front-on spoonbill standing on the bank of the pond - its spoon-shaped bill can be obviously seen. This kind of gives the composition a bit of a naturalist artist appearance.

Below I am posting a series of bird photos taken from the break water south of Port Aransas, and a few from the wetland south of where I saw the spoonbills. (Identification will come later.)

Brown Pelican

Ruddy Turnstone

Great Blue Heron

Black-necked Stilt

Boat-tailed Grackel

Redhead Duck

Hurricane Sandy - Good Night Irene

Path of the storm

No reporting to work today, or tomorrow. Lots of wind and rain, but doesn't seem any worse than a summer rain storm - just cooler, wetter, and lots of wind with really roaring gusts of wind. It is not the same as a year ago September when Irene stormed through. We went to bed the Saturday night Irene was to hit - that was a new experience. Tonight will probably be the same: I fall asleep right away - Jan records the blow-by-blow in her memory wide awake.

This afternoon around the 5:00, the wind gusts were picking up. The funny thing was the only activity on the street was the U.S. Postal Service delivery truck making its rounds through the neighborhood. The old Postal Service saying goes: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Our carrier was not daunted - carrying out the spirit of his creed while Sandy makes her way to landfall.

I wasn't able to find a song about Sandy, but there is the old Grateful Dead tune, Good Night Irene - that can set the mood for a stormy night - watching the news updates, and reading a little Walt Whitman - the World Series over so quickly, with the Giants sweeping Detroit in four games.

Walt Whitman - No Baseball Tonight

No baseball tonight - it's the travel day from SF to Detroit. The West Coast games get over between 11:30 and midnight - that's too late when having to get up at 5:45 AM. But the games have been great - Sandoval record-tying home runs in Game 1, and Small-ball last night for Game 2. Reading the news accounts on-line; hearing some of the NPR Morning Edition short report this morning before getting out of my car before an appointment, and then listening to the whole thing this evening on my computer. I think I will read some my new book of Walt Whitman poems - he liked baseball: "it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game."

True Conquerors

Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,)
Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck,
Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and scars;
Enough that they've survived at all - long life's unflinching ones!
Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all - in that alone,
True conquerors o-er all the rest.

(1888-1889)

Cambria Time Capsule - Sculptor in Residence

Jean-Marie Bonnard - 1960's

As promised, my friend Mathias in France sent some photographs of his father from back in the 1960's at the site where Ellie Bogardus built her house. His whimsical wooden sculptures that were erected there were reminiscent of some of the characters in her paintings. The sculptures were made in the garden of the house - at that time he and she lived in a converted garage on the property. Mathias also mentioned that Ellie's aunt was the first Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles - I tried to find record on line, but wasn't able to find any information specific to the 1960's. The photo at the bottom of the series shown below was taken from the cliff area to the north of the house above the beginning of Moonstone Beach. Today there are no vacant lots between the original site of Ellie and her aunt's homes and the small state park on the cliff below where my parents' house further down the street.

Close up of the sculpture head - a self portrait?

Sculpture head and stand

The completed piece

Another sculpture - symbols of things to come

Ellie's Aunt and Jean-Marie

The housing compound - 1960's