The river was indeed fairly high (just over six feet, even higher than the last time I recorded a Potomac high tide), but still not swamping the riverside as I've heard it's done in the past. The floodwall protects the sunken restaurant-and-fountain area which sits beneath the waterline, but also blocks my route to and from work, so when it's up I have to circle around the Harbour to one of the side streets -- which slope up to K Street, in case you were wondering about the flood being able to go up those to.

Photos were taken with my Nokia 6120c in panorama mode.

Additional visual ouput from the weekend: short time lapses of sky, clouds, Capitol, fountain, and trees from Bartholdy Park and the Summer House. These were taken with the Canon Powershot SD1000 sitting on a table or atop a brick ledge, snapping frames at 2 second intervals. (Background music is one of Chopin's Nocturnes but I kind of botched the audio fade-in and fade-out. Sorry.)

Saturday was a pleasant but somewhat atmospherically unsettled day, alternating between warm sun and chilly gray as a northerly breeze blew scattered, dark, but non-rainy clouds across the sky. After looking at UAVs, we dropped by Bartholdy Park and the Summer House to take in some garden ambience. The large photo is of hens and chicks growing in a tray of succulents at Bartholdy. There's also one non-garden photo above: the study of James A. Garfield's monument silhouetted against gray stratocumulus clouds.

Update: Aforementioned monument/clouds photo is in today's DCist morning roundup. Hurrah for the ambidextrous preacher president who could write in two classical languages with either hand simultaneously.

UAV exhibit at Air and Space. I stitched this panorama from a 3x4 matrix of photos from the second floor, leaving ragged borders uncropped to keep the full range of view. Visible here: RQ-7A Shadow 200, RQ-3A DarkStar, MQ-1L Predator, X-45A J-UCAS, and RQ-2A Pioneer. Larger image, and official NASM press release.

After admiring Alex's coffee filter installation, we went around the place, but didn't have the time or energy to go through everything; so we did just floors 9 to 12, saving the remaining exhibits on lower floors for another weekend. Along the way, I picked up an artist's card each time I saw something that had something special to catch my attention. Without further commentary, I offer a dump of the links gathered, and leave it to you to deduce what attracted me about each artist's (or gallery's) work:

• Jennifer Maben Bishop
• Criomatic
• Sheer Design
• Butler Fine Art
• Brandy Gruner
• Emily Greene Liddle
• Bryanna Millis
• Peter E. Harper
• Justin Patterson
• Rita Elsner
• Matt Dunn
• Gregory Ferrand
• Laura Peery
• Bill Mould
• Tiny Ghosts
• Lou Janesko
• John M. Adams
• Joan Belmar
• Anna Stein
• Pamela Clifford
• Rebecca Katz

There was also an installation with a pedal-powered zoetrope installed in an old television housing which would alternate between applauding and booing the pedaler, but I didn't get a card and couldn't try it out because so many other people were crowding around it. The peace dove shadow thingy was fun too. And I loved the Victorian decor in the tattoo parlor even though I would never get a tattoo myself.

So next weekend we'll try and do the other floors. Anyone else go? How'd you like it?

At left, Amy on the couch with Pandora on her lap, and at right, Pandora rests her head on her paw on her catnip mat.