First photo with my new Nokia 6600. Of course it’s of my cat.
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Sky as Subject
I walked home from work today, passing by the White House to check on the Treasury Duck (update on that here), but she wasn’t nesting when I dropped by, so I moved on. Lots of lovely sky scenery:
Traffic light at North Capitol St and E St near Union Station, with altocumulus translucidus clouds overhead.
A fading contrail over the Well-Dressed Alley.
John Witherspoon turns his back to the camera and faces the altocumulus floccus clouds above.
Recent Reading: In The Presence of My Enemies
In the Presence of My Enemies, by Gracia Burnham. Remember the Burnhams? Missionaries on furlough, they were kidnapped from their beach resort by Abu Sayyaf thugs in 2001, and were held hostage for more than a year before a tragic rescue attempt, in which Martin was killed and Gracia wounded by “friendly” fire.
Gracia’s account of their time as hostages is written in simple and natural language, interspersed with flashbacks to her Christian upbringing, marriage to Martin, and ministry work in the Philippines. Frank and brutally honest about every aspect of the hostage situation, Gracia’s story describes problems from disease and diarrhea to struggles with faith and morality. Gracia readily admits points when they behaved in less than a Christian manner, giving in to faithlessness, despair, distrust, and hatred; yet always finding themselves brought back to faith by little miracles which saw them through to the end of the ordeal. They dealt with struggles of faith as we all do, and were never always perfect, but were constantly reminded that God watched over them, and had called them to live and die for his purposes.
By the way, there were parts where I couldn’t help but smile at how Filipino the story was, from the onomatopoeic first line, to descriptions of food and drink, to retooled vocabulary words and other cultural quirks. In some ways the book is as much a look into the Filipino psyche and culture as it is a kidnap-and-hostage story.
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Let Sleeping Ducks Lie
Sleeping well past the quack of dawn outside Union Station.
The End of Cherry Blossom Season
Fallen, withered cherry blossom stems litter the walk around the Tidal Basin. The cherry trees are simple green-leafed trees like any other now, and will be so till next Spring.
High tide and pre-storm river surge have swollen the Potomac so that the Tidal Basin has flooded its lower-lying banks near Jefferson Memorial. The poles sticking out of the water mark what should be a waterside walkway.
Oregon Scientific DS6628
I just impulse-bought a new camera at the Discovery Store: a blue Oregon Scientific Thincam DS6628. It’s about the length and width of a credit card, but a few millimeters thicker. Image quality is just barely okay — a bit fragmented and faded, which I expected — but it’s comparable to my old Pencam SD, and quite decent for a tiny camera. Additionally, and unlike other tiny cameras of its genre, the thincam comes with a plugin flash attachment, which helps immensely for indoor and night photos which most other non-flash-equipped tiny cameras would be unable to capture.
Here’s the first photo, taken at night in my room with just indoor lighting and no flash. (Click to view it larger on Flickr.)
Proactive Utilization of Synergistic Vocabulary
Spring Around Dupont Circle
Little green maple flowers budding from a tree on 21st St NW.
Anchorage Building at Conn Ave and Q St NW. Higher-resolution counterpoint to this older photolog entry.
Escalator descending into the cavernous maw of the Dupont Circle Metro south exit.
A Walljm Visit
Jason Wall came over to DC on business, and we’ve spent the last two nights on photo safari, doing the whole tourist thing around the National Mall and the Tidal Basin. My photos here, his photos whenever he comes out of hiatus.
Over Under II
Under the Union Station Metro station balcony, a higher-resolution counterpoint to this older photolog entry.