A Week Without You, Thought I’d Forget
So if once upon a time you read this blog and enjoyed its bi-weekly posts, well clearly you’ve been let down for a while. After taking the squirrel picture seen below, I went to San Francisco for a week. I had all these plans to photoblog about that when I came back, and I never got around to it. I think I was still hungover. And then you know how inertia is - you just start not doing something, and it becomes easier and easier to not do. Does that make any sense? Anyways, I’m back with a quick recap of my summer. It’s sort of a homework assignment: What I did this summer, by Danny G. Enjoy.
"When the Lights Go Down In the City" - San Francisco, June ‘07
Steve and I took a trip to California. That’s what I told people, because to say we went to San Francisco was just too gay. We did go to Oakland and Berkely, to be fair, and my flight stopped in Los Angeles. So that counts. While we had plenty of good times, I think the trip to Alcatraz was the most fun. This was my third trip to The Rock, and it really is awesome. The tower shot to the left there is the guard tower, which looked striking against the late afternoon, partly cloudy sky. We took the audio tour, which makes the place sound really quiet with people shuffling about in silence. The best part of the tour was when we left it, and started walking around on our own. While it was amazingly cold, the views of the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the San Francisco skyline were amazing. Definitely worth walking off the tour. We also ran into some birds which were kind of pissy. Like they were too good to be birds or something.
Seen below:
1) View of the Golden Gate Bridge from Alcatraz. Big thanks to Amish Matt for all his tourguiding in general, but especially for taking us over the bridge and to Sausalito. Good times.
2) The view of San Francisco’s skyline from Alcatraz. I like the part of the tour which says when the wind carried the sound right, you could hear the sounds of the city in the prison. Which made life for prisoners that much tougher: freedom was so close.
3) Riding cable cars is way too much fun. You couldn’t build these things today. Too many ADA rules and safety rules. But they rock. Definitely worth the transit pass we bought to ride them as often as we wanted.
4) While I nearly froze to death sitting by an exit row on the flight home, and the woman next to me appeared to be watching some kind of Greek soft core porn, this was my view out the window. It was cool.
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"She’s Got Legs… She Knows How to Use Them" - RFK Stadium, June 24
So I went to the Nationals/Indians game this Sunday. I decided I wanted to go early to see batting practice. As I walked into the stadium, I remembered that when teams play a day game after a night game, they don’t do batting practice. Which bit. But I had a good time taking pictures of the Indians and Nats as they walked up and down the right field line. But the best part was the Cleveland fan pictured here. What’s that in her hand, you ask? It’s a prosthetic leg. And it’s not hers. It’s her son’s. She made her young son - he was maybe 8 or 9 - take his leg off in public and she tried to get it autographed. So long as I live, I will always get a smile and a laugh when I think of her yelling, in that darling Northeast Ohio accent, "Hey Sizemore! Sign my son’s leg! Hey Hafner! Sign my son’s leg!" Standing next to her, I tried to distance myself from this insanity, while still getting a picture. The players looked aghast at her. No one signed the leg. Poor kid.
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"The Boys Are Back In Town" - Chicago, IL - July 27-29
The 4Guys reunited for LouRob’s bachelor party. We opted for Chicago, as we always have fun there and we always have good weather and, well, it was easiest for everyone. The trip was awesome. It wasn’t a "traditional" bachelor party, although no one seems to have those anymore. Usually, when a dude is on the verge of marriage, he’s seen plenty of adult material and he doesn’t need to be taken to the strip club for one more fling. Instead, it’s turned into a weekend with the boys, playing golf or going to the casino or just sitting around playing cards and drinking beer, which is what we did. Of course, I tried to get Lou to go "see some boobies," as Steve put it, but he wasn’t game. Hey, it’s his party. Seen below:
1. The Bean. I love it. It’s an amazing chrome, stainless steel, warped piece of public art in Chicago’s Millennium Park. It is simply beautiful and oddly attractive. It almost looked better with the hazy grey sky.
2. Clipper Ship on Lake Michigan. We took a lake boat tour, and we happened to pass by this tall ship. It was really cool. Every time I go to Chicago, I see amazing boats on the waterfront. This photo is also noteworthy, because it got me posted on the Chicagoist blog. I’m still waiting for DCist to pick me up. Bastards.
3. There’s a Frank Gehry inspired bridge over Lake Shore Drive, right by Millennium Park. It’s this weird stainless steel bridge with shingles that just suck you right in. The whole area is Gehry, with the amazing ampitheatre, all flowing well into The Bean. Chicago does such amazing stuff with its public spaces.
4. Hancock Tower in the Haze. Caught this one at the end of the boat tour, as we pulled back to Navy Pier. It was just a breathtaking shot. The low flying cloud really was indicative of the entire weekend’s weather. I think I was cold and sweating the whole time, but not in the bad malaria way.
5. Jon is funny.
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"Then I Go Outside to Join the Others. I Am the Others." - Random Assortment
1. I was walking out of work one day, just happened to have my camera, and caught this shot of Broadcast House. It just looked like a cool shot, with the building reflecting upon itself. I liked it.
2. I started volunteering at the National Air & Space Museum on the National Mall. It’s a lot of fun for four hours every Monday, even if the people I work with can be a little kooky. Kooky in a good way, I mean. I’m also trying to learn to say "I don’t speak X language" is as many languages as possible. Je ne parle pas francais.
3 & 4. After a gut-busting Long Island wedding, I traveled to Boston via the Orient Point-New London ferry. It really beat sitting in the car for an hour, and was worth every penny. The view was beautiful, the sea air amazing. I am still thankful to those Harley riders who moved their bikes around so I could get my car on board. Did you know you have to make reservations for this thing? Bah. I like this shot from the top deck because it looks like all the cars are going to fall off. And the second shot is from one of the Orient Point lighthouses.
Title is from the song "Vacation" by The Go-Gos. In order, the subtitles are from "Lights" by Journey, "Legs" by ZZTop, "The Boys are Back In Town" by Thin Lizzy, and "As Cool As I Am" by Dar Williams.
