Headed to DC

I will be here in 2 days! I can't wait to see the Capitol all dressed up and decorated for the big shin-dig. They've been working on the platform for months now & planning all the security measures around DC.

I opened the mail the other day and freaked out. I thought I had received my tickets to the inauguration by some miracle. It was a nice 8x10 ticket printed out on really nice paper, but I was very disappointed to discovered it was a "commemorative ticket" that was sent to all Obama supporters.

Then on Thursday we received the real ones in the mail!! Also a fun fact about this photo is that it was one of the first ones taken with my new camera!!

A super-awesome friend of mine contacted me a few weeks ago and said she had 2 extra tickets. She's a regular blog reader & knows how long I've been planning on coming to DC for the inauguration. I was jumping for joy when she offered them to me & I'm even more excited to be one of the 240,000 people with tickets to watch history being made.

I think this might be an old map, but I have blue standing tickets in the South Standing zone, which happens to be yellow on the map.

We've packed all our suppies, cameara, guidebooks, maps, extra baggies and most importantly- LOTS of warm clothes. I'm proudly sporting my new long underwear, scarf and ear muffs in front of my Obama poster.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I'm am so excited! It's going to be such an adventure and so amazing to watch history first hand.

PS: Finished the marathon in under 5 hours!!

Everything Else DC

After fighting the crowds since 5AM, we finished off our inauguration day at a hibachi grill with some Appletinis. I've still got my long undewear on, my long sleeve shirt, my Obama shirt and my scarf! Don't ask my why it looks like I have a crown on my head...

In the frantic rush to flee the Capitol after hours of standing for the inauguration, the streets were packed with people making their way home & vendors hawking all types of paraphernalia.

We did walk by many beautiful buildings, lots of fir coats and not many people dressed in camo.

I was surprised at how close the Supreme Court was to the White House. I'd love to go back and take a tour one day.

We ate twice in Chinatown & had good luck finding restaurants that weren't packed to the rafters.

Leaving the ceremony, we walked past the back of the capitol and could see the staging grounds for dozens of motor buses and military personnel and ambulances.

I thought this was a gorgeous photo that H captured the night before the inauguration.

I'd never seen so many buildings that were old, stately and gorgeous in the United States. I'd seen lots of them in Europe and South America, but it was neat seeing this giants here finally.

The guys having a drink at Capitol City Brewing.

H & I all bundled up for the cold & I'm proudly sporting my Obama-gear.

One of my favorite parts of the trek to DC was getting to meet up with some old friends- her and her. We'd have had a great time anyway, but this overly-friendly bartender took it upon himself to order us a round of Grand Marnier every time we ordered a round of mimosas!

I was totally fascinated by the Metro. It's been a while since I've rode on nice public-transit & the engineer in me loved all the under-ground tunnels.

I think it freaked H out a bit everytime we went down the escalator several hundred feet.

Just some beautiful buildings cause they were there when we were taking a lovely stroll in downtown DC.

Who knew the Department of Commerce was so beautiful?


I'd love to go to the Holocaust Museum one day, but the lines were out the door and around the block when we walked by on Wednesday.

Even the Agriculture department has a beautiful, old building.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: All technology upgrades are completed, now I just need to learn how to use them!

The Inauguration of Barack Obama

I wanted to share some of the more fantastic photos and websites that documented the day, especially since I didn't really get any great shots of my own. The video of his speech can be seen here and I'll be buying a full DVD when it's out.


The shot is really neat because it's the first time this angle has every been captured. It was done by putting a camera on a remote mechanical arm that sat at the front of the podium with the other equipment.

Another set of wonderful photos can be found here at The Big Picture. The photos showing people around the world watching are pretty neat too. I loved Michelle's outfit and especially her green shoes. It was great to see them out walking down Pennsylvania Avenue & I wish we'd have had the energy to wander over to the parade route after the inauguration.


Another one of the most amazing photos is this ENORMOUS panorama composed of 220 separate images stitched together. You can check out the original here and zoom in to see some amazing details. People have been having fun spotting celebrities and other shenanigans going on in the crowd. Can you find Clarance Thomas asleep?


This image provided by GeoEye Satellite Image shows Washington D.C.'s National Mall and the United States Capitol (top), in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 taken at 11:19AM EDT during the inauguration of President Barack Obama. The image, taken through high, wispy white clouds, shows the masses of people between the Capitol and the Washington Monument.


You can see a nice collection of newspaper covers from around the world here. I collected a few magazines and a few newspapers from DC on the morning after the inauguration.


I'm especially excited that one of the first executive orders Obama issued with closure of Gitmo within one year and the reigning in of various forms of "enhanced interrogation" techniques that the government has been using to torture people.

I'm so excited about what President Obama will mean for so many people around the world and for the interest he has been able to generate among young people throughout our country to care about politics again and become engaged in civics.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Off to Phoenix today, with a scenic and frosty drive up to Flagstaff.

Life Travel Log

Sort of along the same vein as my wine bar compendium, I wanted to create a permanent list of my past travels and future travels that will sort of help me stay organized. I've blogged about some of these & this will be a good reminder to blog about the rest in the future. I'll keep it updated as we travel.

**All links are to blog entries**
**Updated May, 2010**

1987-1998 Colorado Skiing: Winter Park, Breckenridge, Steamboat, Vail, Wolf Creek

High School Summers (1995, 1996, 1997)- Kayak Boundary Waters in Minnesota, Hike Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, Canoe Delaware River between NY & PA with my church youth group

1999- Atlanta & Savannah, GA (college in Georgia)

2002- Cruise Alaska with Gram (Part 1 & Part 2)

2004- Lake Tahoe with Hubby (Part 1 & Part 2)
Ecuador Mission Trip

2005- Miami, Florida (H's law school)
Italy & Greece (Milan, Venice, Rome, Santorini, Mykonos, Athens)

2006- Puerto Vallarta for a Scouting Trip

October- California Coast, Santa Barbara & Big Sur

2007- Puerto Vallarta (Wedding) & Los Cabos (Honeymoon, Food, Entertainment)

Colorado Rocky Mountains (Red Rocks, Breckenridge, Winter Park, Rocky Mountain NP)

2008- Brazil & Argentina (Buenos Aires, Paraguay, Iguazu Falls, Parati, Rio de Janeiro)
Detroit, MI
Sarasota, FL
Manitou Springs,CO (hiked Pikes Peak & Railway)
Joshua Tree National Park

2009- Washington, DC for Inauguration
February- Cozumel Mexico
March- Walt Disney World (Epcot, MGM, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom)
April- Austin
April- San Antonio for Fiesta
May/June- South Africa Trip: Dubai, UAE, South Africa (Cape Town, Kruger National Park & Johannesburg), Mauritius
August- Chicago
October- Austin

2010
February/March- New Zealand
June- Seattle
July- Pittsburgh & Philadelphia
August- Columbia, South Carolina
October- Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

STATES I'VE VISITED

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia

STATES TO VISIT

Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Wyoming

COUNTIRES I'VE VISTED

Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Italy, Greece

COUNTRIES TO VISIT
Peru, Ecuador (Galapagos), Chile, New Zealand, South Pacific Islands


GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I have a VERY serious travel problem, and that's FANTASTIC news ;)

Clashing Concerts

This month we've attended two very different concerts- AC/DC and The Eagles. Let me start by saying that the Eagles were rescheduled from a concert that was originally to take place as Hurricane Ike hit town.

AC/DC was loud and rowdy right from the start- including this giant train engine that was smoking on stage most of the night.

I know a few of the very popular songs, but wouldn't really consider myself a huge fan. I was highly amused by the very talented guitarist who proceeded to strip from his *unusual* outfit and then play the rest of the concert in only his shoes & shorts.

Lots of fire & lots of very loud! Despite their age, these guys were still rocking and rolling like there was no tomorrow.

Near the end the had a very special klassy blow-up doll with ripped garters, an array of tattoos and money sticking out of her bra.

The place was packed & there were some very excited concert goers that night. The show ended with a row of giant cannons repeatedly firing off shots.

And then we had the Eagles concert. It couldn't have been any more opposite in style and substance. Nice happy scenes like this backdrop for Hotel California and a bunch of very mellow old men.

They put on a great show & sang more songs than I remembered them singing. It was enjoyable, but a bit low-key.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Merry Christmas Eve everybody! We're visiting lots of family & eating lots of food this evening.

LOVELY LENSES

OH OH OH! Such a good Christmas for photography! I had succumbed to the dreaded lens lust with my Amazon wish list, so I had a wide array of lenses on there for every occasion. I was lucky enough to receive 2 awesome lenses for my pure photographic indulgences. My wonderful mother in law gave me this beautiful Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 Macro EX DC SLD ELD so I can take some real Macro Zoe shots, instead of just cropping.

Yes- all those letters really are necessary. First, I can focus on fun stuff at 7" and also use it as a normal 18-50mm lens with a fast aperture. ELD & SLD mean special low-dispersion glass- which sounds great, whatever that optically means. EX is their top build quality and I think that DC denotes that it has a digital crop factor for compressed (not full frame) sensors. All that to say, it's a really swell lens! Expect some fun macro shots soon :)

My other treasured gift from Christmas, Part 4 was a super-fast prime lens for everyday and low-light shooting. This sweet piece of equipment is a Nikon 35mm f/2.0 AF lens. I had owned the Nikon 50mm f/1.8, which is an awesome, fast, cheap prime lens, but I'd just found out that it was too much zoom in small places (my house and all the wine bars). I'd asked for this lens to replace that one and give me some wider-angle shots.

OH- I'm in lens heaven. Now I just need more time to go out and shot. Or I need a really awesome vacation to take all my fun gear out on.

And not to forget my other favorite gift of Christmas- a new Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW messenger bag to carry my beloved camera gear. I really needed something that would work well on our trip, but still allowed me easy, quick access to grab my camera every 4 minutes without taking the bag on and off. It's so fun so far, I just need to go out and use my camera on some fun photography field trips and maybe another Photomarathon.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I'm all ready to take some more awesome photos!

New Camera

I'd been noticing a decline in my photo quality from my other camera & decided that it had served me well over the last 2.5 years. From it's first scouting trip to Puerto Vallarta for our wedding in June of 2006 to our Big Sur trip to our wedding & honeymoon in February of 2007 to tubing down the river in the fall of 2007 to baseball trips in 2007 and 2008 to running the marathon with me last year to underwater fun and river rafting in South America for our anniversary in 2008 to SCUBA diving this past summer. This camera has worked tirelessly for me & was with me everyday in my purse, and it's of course attended many concerts. I'll be keeping it around as a waterproof/weatherproof camera to use underwater, but I thought it was time to upgrade my technology.

I did lots of research and debating about what sort of new camera to get. There are some new fancy models of the Olympus Shock & Waterproof line, but their picture quality is just OK and I will keep my old camera for use near/under water. I really wanted something that took great photos, was ultracompact and had a great zoom lens. I settled on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5A, which will be a big upgrade from my 3x to a 10x zoom- one of the best offered on a camera this size.



Especially after reading the very through review on Digital Photography Review and glowing reviews on Amazon. I have a dSLR if I wanted to do all the fancy manual setting and such, but I just wanted a great camera I could whip out and point-and-shot. I will be giving it a good first workout as it will be my main camera for the inauguration, because I can't bring myself to lug around my D-80 without a camera bag for 12 hours in the cold.

You can see both of my cameras here & that my Panasonic is a little longer and a little thicker. It's going to take me a while to learn all the new features, but I'm loving the super-zoom lens so far.

Being a total photography freak, I think we'll have all 3 cameras with us in DC for the inauguration. We'll take various ones on different days depending on what we are seeing, how long we'll have to carry it and what the weather looks like.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I'm meeting up with lots of friends in DC today.