Brooklyn Botanic Gardens

From April

From April

I tried to invite my little from Big Brothers Big Sisters out for a Saturday photo shoot. By the time I got there I didn't see her around and called, only to find that she'd forgotten and didn't think she could make it before the free hours were over. Undaunted, I called around to find some Brooklyn-ite to join me. I got ahold of a friend that went to ASU, Ricardo who happened to be around and apparently is a super fast shower-er. He got dressed and walked over to join me in record time. We got to stroll around the gardens enjoying all the amazing spring flowers and then he took me out to lunch afterwards like a true gentleman. I will forgive him for not letting me take his picture :) The gardens were a paradise for anyone who wanted pictures of people taking pictures, haha and there were a bunch of Chinese ladies singing in a circle, and some really cute kids who loved the flowers. Ahh now the weather has turned dreary and cold again. I miss my taste of spring.

From April

From April

From April

From April

Ice Ice Baby

I've been pretty busy lately with all kinds of things. I find that this time of year is just like that. We had a nice time last night with a few friends who came over for a poker night. I tried my hand at making Wassail which I have fond memories of my mother making. I love the smell of the cider, cinnamon and cloves all simmering on the stove. I didn't have a recipe just a general idea of the ingredients but it turned out pretty well. Scott and I are not so good at getting into Christmas. With no one but ourselves around the idea of putting up Christmas decorations only to take them down again just isn't fun. Especially since we won't even be around for Christmas. We put up a couple stockings and called it good. I am more interested in the smells and food that go along with the season than all the decorations. I'm sure someday we'll do all that fun stuff, but for now we're a little scrooge-y :) I did finally get the last two bunny shots done. I forget what the final captions were. Something like "Ok guys we're going green" for mine or "Trust me, green is the new pink."

From Bunny Edits

This is in reference to the fact that the person in the picture with me is in charge of Sony's environmental initiatives. The other picture is in the Sony Club, the restaurant at the top of the building reserved for people of my boss's boss's rank or higher. Since the calendar is for her we got the people to help us out with the carrots etc. I think that caption will be something about the carrot and stick method of management.

From Bunny Edits

The "big storm" we had last week was interesting.

From Ice Storm

The media sends everyone into a panic about how much snow and ice we'll have and it usually turns into a few flakes. There wasn't much besides some hail and sleet in the city, but when I got home and went to move my car there was a quarter inch thick sheet of ice coating the side windows.

From Ice Storm

It looked pretty neat. It was strange what the ice stuck to. For instance, my front steps weren't very slick, but the railing was coated all the way around in that layer of ice. The trees looked pretty and sparkly in the morning.

From Ice Storm

From Ice Storm

Altercations

I know time is flying when I look at the last Blog post and that was Tuesday, and I'm already almost to Sunday before I even start to think about writing the next one. Well I've thought about writing another but haven't had a moment to get any further than that....

Thursday I had Big Brothers Big Sisters, and I took my camera so that I could get pictures since we went to the "little's" school. I even had a mini photoshoot with my little, and she took my current facebook profile picture. It was great to share that with her, since usually we're concentrating on other things. After that I had to run to my rescheduled photo class.

Friday night I went with Scott to a first year grad school student party. The school gives them money to throw a party for the incoming students. We had a good time teaching these East Coast kids how to play King's Cup. Scott nearly got into an altercation with the police when we were walking to the subway, they asked him to step aside so he did, but not as far as they wanted him to. I dragged him far far away from them, not wanting to have anything bad happen. It's been in the news lately that the cops shot a teen boy armed only with a hairbrush. Understandable if the kid was threatening to shoot them, but they did fire 20 times. I certainly didn't want to take any chances.

From 2007.11.17

Saturday I got up and headed into the city for my last Saturday photography workshop. I sat at the front of the Path train to get some pictures of the tracks. I was looking out the window taking pictures when a lady conductor came up to me and told me that I was going to have to delete my pictures of the train. I tried to just put the camera away hoping that she'd see I wasn't trying to do anything bad, and she insisted that I delete them. I tried confuse her with a little bit of technical jargon about formatting cards and fragmentation and how I didn't want to lose my other pictures, but she was having none of it and went to call security. So I took my card out and stuck it in my camera bag, she came back and still insisted that I hadn't deleted anything and I couldn't delete things with my card out, so I reached into my bag and pulled out my other card that didn't have anything on it, and acted like I was going to delete stuff. It ended when I finally told her that I had "the utmost respect for her and her position" and that I certianly wasn't trying to do anything malicious. She finally seemed satisfied and walked away without ever seeing me delete anything. I think she must have just been on a crazy power trip, but I was shaking like a leaf. I am not a fan of confrontation. It was definitely more the principle of the thing. Taking a picture is harmless, the MTA subway system lets you take pictures all you want. I know, I looked up the rule and memorized that it is Article 1050 section C. Ha, it made me laugh that the lady was giving me this whole speech about how I couldn't take pictures because they wanted to preserve what little security they had. That didn't make sense to me at all, especially since the part of the tracks we were on could clearly be seen by walking alongside the tracks from a public sidewalk. I may have to write to the Path train people about getting that rule changed. It's really ridiculous and not worth me or anyone else having to be harrased over it. People who want to do harm won't get any more info from pictures they can take from a car since it's obvious that anyone can see everything that would be in that picture anyways.

From 2007.11.17

If that wasn't enough, I left the Path train and hopped on the subway, I saw an open door that I thought looked interesting and I took a picture. A maintenance man came up to me and asked if I was taking a picture. I said yes. He said I wasn't allowed to! I promptly recited the article and section where it said I could and he started yelling at me telling me that he didn't care that I couldn't take a picture back there etc. and to get on the train. Which I was happy to do since it pulled up just then. A sympathetic bystander asked if the guy was yelling at me for taking pictures and shook his head. That made me feel tons better since I was starting to feel really accosted.

From 2007.11.17

I mentioned my experience to my professor who has consistently told us that we are within our rights to do these kinds of things, which is true since we're in public spaces. A perfect teaching example came about when we were walking with him taking pictures and he stopped in the street to take a picture of the back of a hotdog vendor cooking at his cart. When the guy turned around and noticed he got crazy angry and got right in the teacher's face yelling and screaming that he was going to call the cops. So my teacher said ok, call the cops. So the man gets on his cell phone and finally out of my teacher's face and so my teacher took some more pictures of him! I think it was to prove a point, but it was a little antagonistic. By that time we were done there so we decided to move on and the guy kept walking with us for 5 or 6 blocks, staying on the phone with the cops who I assume were telling him that we were doing something perfectly legal. We finally ducked down into the subway to ditch the guy.

From 2007.11.17

Phew, I won't need any more confrontation for at least a year. I don't know what's so intimidating about a camera. I can understand someone asking nicely that you don't take a picture, like some construction workers did, then my professor talked to them and the guy that was waving us away started posing and getting his buddies to pose too. I'm more than happy to respect people's wishes, I just don't want to get yelled and screamed at. I think New York makes people a little crazy.

Trivia for the day: (I learned this in college) You have a greater chance of being killed by lightning than a terrorist.... which means people should stop freaking out about me taking pictures!

New York City Marathon

I went to NYC today to send an e-mail that I'd forgotten to send out on Friday, then while I was in the area, I decided to walk over to the bottom of Central Park in order to see some of the runners from The New York City Marathon. I was happy at the way some of the shots I took turned out today. I didn't think there'd be that many good shots to get, but it was a really good place to practice my technique. The same thing happened over and over, so I could just stand there and practice. It was nice that there was still something different about each runner. Looking back through the shots was neat. I was standing at about the 23/24th mile out of 25. It was interesting to see how people who had all run the same race and were at the same place, were still so individual. Some people were bounding, some were limping, some were smiling some were grimacing some people ran with stiff arms some people swung their arms back and forth etc.

From NYC Marathon

There were hundreds of people there lined up to cheer the runners on. These weren't people they knew, but people who just wanted to be supportive. Some people had their names written on their shirt so you could call out encouragement to them specifically. It was kind of a rush to see people at the end of their endurance and to shout out postive encouragement with the crowd. Some people even had phrases written that they wanted you to yell at them, and everyone did. it was a lot neater than I thought it would be. I'm glad I went.

From NYC Marathon

I also tried to take a picture from the platform of a bag lady who was surrounded by bags, gathering them up in an empty subway car. So as I had my back to her to set up the shot and turn around to take it, I saw a guy sleeping. Unfortunately he was waking up and the train was about to leave so I got a little flustered and it came out blurry, but it's definitely one of my favorite sleeping in public shots so far except for the blurriness. I was proud of the composition, I didn't have to crop it at all in the computer, at least I got that right.

From Sleeping in P...

Fall Adventure

It's been awhile, but I've been busy. Lots of good news to report. Last week we won all three sets of our volleyball game. Whooo hooo! No games this week, so hopefully we don't lose our momentum. This weekend Sky, Anna, Scott and I all went on a road trip to Salem. It was great! A nice fall trip. The leaves hadn't really started changing too much yet since the weather has been so warm, but it was still nice to see the New England Coastline. Salem is about 10 miles outside of Boston, and it's a funny little town. Of course it's famous for the Salem Witch Trials where they burned a lot of innocent women at the stake for being "witches." These days it's just a nice town that really likes Halloween. There were people already dressed up in costume just because it was October. We went to the psychic fair, Scott got his Aura read, and Sky and Anna had a Tarot card reading. All very amusing. We saw a historical play where we were the audience/jury for a witch trial. Then in the end we convinced our hotel to bake a pumpkin pie that we brought them since Anna really wanted some and we couldn't find anywhere but the grocery store to buy one. The next day we tried to visit a cranberry bog but didn't quite succeed.

From Salem Fall Tr...

Instead we walked around in a corn maze, even though there was no one there for us to pay. I'll have to try to find a cranberry bog next year.

From Salem Fall Tr...

From Salem Fall Tr...

After traveling through 4 states we added a new one to the list, and stopped for lunch in the 5th state, Rhode Island. Providence is a nice town and we found the Brown University Campus and relived our college days sitting on the lawn. The buildings were all quite beautiful, and it made me think for half a minute that it would have been nice to go to school there. Then I remembered that it would be cold in the winter and was glad that I didn't. All in all it was a fantastic weekend. We love hanging out with Sky and Anna who are so fun and such great friends. This last picture is of a sign post that I saw in Providence covered with staples from flyers that have been posted there. I thought it looked neat.

From Salem Fall Tr...

Oh one more good thing. I heard from the camera repair people that they would fix my DSLR under warranty. Now I just hope it gets back to me in time for my class.

Monkey no More

Last Saturday we went climbing at a rock gym, well maybe not me, but Scott, Kenway and Brian all went climbing and I watched. Then afterwards we went to some random all you can eat Indian Buffet. As we were finishing our meal the phone rang and it was someone from Scott's lab calling to say that his monkey wasn't doing too well. For those of you who don't know, Scott works with 2 monkies in his lab. It turned out that the monkey had some kind of stroke and was so debilitated by it that it had to be put down. Definitely a sad day. That night I babysat for a super cute 11 month old boy. He was only awake for 1 of the 4 hours I was there. I think that's what made him so cute. Since Sky and Anna are out of town they graciously offered us their apartment for the week and we stayed in the city. Sunday we woke up late and went out for a very nice brunch. It's the thing to do in Manhattan. There are a ton of little trendy brunch places, but it's tough to do very often since well Manhattan prices are what they are. We saw a few interesting but random sights, such as a very empty store front with a humongous and gorgeous flower display in an old bucket, there was another very similar looking one off to the side, but the flowers were all dead in that one. I had no polarizing capabilities so the glare off the window really obscures the picture, but I tried to capture it for you. The other random sight was an old car with some cones on top. It just looked kind of funny. Finally, for all you who aren't in NYC, I took an obligatory 9/11 at the World Trade Center picture since I go through there on my commute fairly often. I'll catch up some more later.

Reach for the Top

Here are some pictures from this weekend. Mostly climbing, with a random assortment of things I saw or noticed.

This was a nice weekend. Friday, Scott and I went out with friends from his lab namely Kenway, Maggie and Eric De Witt (not to be confused with Eric Bryant) for Pizza. I happened to have a bottle of wine with me from an event that I worked earlier in the week, so we enjoyed that as we watched a crazy squirrel steal a huge slice from the trashcan. This particular pizza joint had a back garden where we sat and watched the squirrel try to keep the slice which was bigger than him, away from the competing pigeons. I think he also may have been frightened by the various camera wielders coming at him from every direction. Sorry to say the best shot I could get to share with you all is the tip of his tail as he runs away with the pizza. Perhaps Eric got a better picture. After that we went out to a few other places and eventually made our way over to Sky and Anna's new apartment, which was fantastic. I'm very excited for them to have a little more space in the new place. They also generously gave us their leather couch and large Sony TV, so we've upgraded our furniture a little and I no longer have to explain to people that I can't afford a Sony TV even if I work there. I'm still not sure if our house has room for the couch. But it may get to stay for a little longer.

Saturday we met up with Brian and Kenway to go climbing at a rock gym. I'd gone before with my roommate at the time Valerie, but only once or twice. Kenway was a great teacher, very patient and thorough. You could tell he put safety first, which I would guess anyone would appreciate in a climbing partner. You don't want to slip and find at the last moment that someone didn't tighten a strap or double back on a halter. He also belayed for us all, which was good since I didn't feel confident enough to do any belaying, and I didn't really want to take the time to get "certified." If I go again I probably will, but I hear they're closing for renovations soon so it may be awhile. If I ever get good enough it would be fun to go climbing out in the wilderness. I climbed some easy routes, and almost make it to the top on others. Scott seemed to have a slight (read huge) advantage with his massive reach. Maybe someday I'll grow up and have long arms too. It was a lot of fun though my forearms are sore today and I'm minus a decent sized chunk of skin. I now sport evidence of having played softball and gone climbing, perhaps if I get a paper cut tomorrow anyone looking at me can determine every activity I've done for the week by my small injuries. I think if I were slightly more graceful I would have fewer injuries. But I can honestly say no one has ever suggested I change my middle name to anything remotely resembling Grace.