The archived ramblings of my time as a world traveler up to my current life in Washington, D.C.
So after all my rambling about the leaves, I walked outside today and realized I can see through the forested park behind my house all the way to the horizon. This is a first; the trees have turned into a bunch of sticks thrust vertically into the ground. It can only mean any redeeming qualities the local nature may have are in hibernation, and I can only look forward to the damp bleakness of the D.C. winter.
Another photo showing off the fall - this one is better larger, so click on the photo to get a better view of the Washington Monument through the trees.
Have to say, for all that's wrong with D.C., catching glimpses of the monuments and capitol as you drive around is still quite a sight.
D.C. sucked me in when I first arrived back in April by greeting my stay with two months of wonderful spring conditions, including warm air, low humidity and colorful plants everywhere.
A few miserable months of summer gave me insight into why the District has a reputation for miserable weather. I hoped fall would provide another lengthy buffer zone before what I'm assured is going to be horrible wet and cold-but-rarely-freezing winter conditions. (I would far rather deal with 20 degrees and snow than 33 degrees and rain).
A few weeks have given me the fall I was looking for, but it certainly hasn't been consistent as spring. A week of hot and humid, followed by a week of nice crisp weather, followed by wet rain, back to hot, repeat. It didn't help when Daylight Savings went away, and the sun is now leaving the party in the early afternoon.
Yesterday I was out walking at about 1 p.m. and thought to myself how it was a perfect day - jacket weather with some crispness to the air, but calm and sunny. Then two hours later I was walking home in a heavy rain, and before I went to bed I looked outside to see a 30-mile-an-hour wind blowing trash up my street.
I have a feeling the nice days are going to get rarer from here on out. But we still have the lingering effect of one of the nicer aspects of the past few weeks - the trees turning.
Washington and its surroundings actually host a large number of deciduous trees, all of which have been showing off their color-changing abilities. It impressed a recent visitor from Ireland (not so many trees left on the island) and has made a few long, slow drives around the city a bit more bearable. Of course, the leaves are starting to disappear, making the journey to the ground and gutter in preparation for the miserable months ahead.
And not the basketball episode. At a recent George Washington basketball game, the pep band broke into the theme from The Office during a timeout. In my experience, pep bands' exploration of the TV theme genre generally consists entirely of the Sportscenter music. Perhaps The Jeffersons' "Moving on Up."
The Office strikes me as an odd choice. There's no message behind that song that could possibly be construed to push your team to greater accomplishment. Of course, I'm guessing the band didn't intend any message beyond "this is a cool show and its music easily lends itself to instrumental arrangement."
Tonight I'm at Howard University for a men's basketball game. Eight minutes before tip-off, and there are not quite 40 people in the stands. It's probably the sparsest crowd I've ever seen for a game, and I covered plenty of Southern Miss women's games. Unfortunate. I don't know if there's any past tradition here, and I'm sure the Thanksgiving break has something to do with it, but I always hate to see a team playing in front of empty seats.
My first clue they weren't expecting a huge amount of people? There weren't any ticket takers at the door. There wasn't anyone at the door. Just walk on in and have a seat.
UPDATE: A few more people did just that. It appears the crowd is now easily in the triple digits.
I just realized I never finished the story started in my past posts.
I obviously didn't end up with tickets, but for Game 3 Tom and I made our way downtown and found a spot in a bar just across the street from Coors Field.
For most of the game, it actually looked like the Rockies might have a chance. When the Red Sox broke it open late, we decided to see if we could find a soft spot in the stadium's defenses.
We wandered across the street around the eighth inning and walked around toward the back of the stadium. A few fans were starting to leave, but most of the gates were still well-guarded against the ticketless like us. We did find what looked to be a possible weak point, with a large open area between the fence/gate and the actual stadium. The ushers were some distance from the gate, and Tom and I managed to step just inside the fence. When we actually moved for the stadium, the ushers caught on. They intercepted Tom. I was in front and had a chance of getting in, but figured I'd stop as well (I would have had a hard time getting back to his place without him).
So we didn't get in to see the game. We did get to watch the game with a buzzing atmosphere, although the spirit was considerably lessened the next day looking at a 3-0 hole (and then a 4-0 loss).
Unlike most of the Smithsonian museums, it's not easy to just swing by the Udvar-Hazy center, which is a branch of the Air and Space Museum. The giant open hanger features a number of notable aircraft, including an SR-71 and the space shuttle Enterprise.
There are obviously far more planes and the like on display, everything from old crop dusters and home-made ultralights to an F-14. Since the displays consist of lots of parked aircraft and almost nothing else, it can get a bit monotonous, but the hanger held my attention for a few hours, at least.
I had been thinking of stopping in at the center for a while, but since it's all the way out at Dulles Airport - about a 45-minute drive into Virginia, depending on traffic - it wasn't quite worth a drive for itself. This weekend, however, I found myself headed out toward Dulles for the final weekend of my Ultimate Frisbee league. After a morning loss, I had the afternoon free to check out the planes.
The obvious, featured planes are cool to see - the SR-71, the Enola Gay, the Concorde, the shuttle - and the sheer number of smaller planes kept my interest longer than I'd anticipated. I wish they'd done a bit more with one or two of the planes - I wanted to see the inside of the Concorde, rather than just stare at it from a few feet away. One of the coolest exhibits tucked away on the sides, at least for someone who grew up in the Top Gun generation, was an F-14 sitting right across from a MiG-21. (The MiG-21 wings are unbelievable short. Even more than most fighter planes, it looks like a rocket with a cockpit on the top. The wings are little more than small fins on the side - the entire wingspan is only about 20 feet across, which means the wings themselves are only a couple meters long.
The center also features a tower with views of the incoming Dulles traffic - the museum is maybe half a mile south of the airport's runways, so you can see the smoke kick up with each landing and look to the sky to see the planes lined up one after another until they disappear into the distance.
The tower also has a mock-up of an air traffic control center, complete with radio chatter and a radar screen. The radar and audio comes from Newark airport and it seemed to be about a 15-minute taped loop. I'm not sure how often the radar and audio is changed; I was doubtful it was ever changed at all, but the attendant commented on how they had to edit the Newark traffic. (He said the Newark airport was often disrupted by U.N. diplomat helicopters who didn't bother with the niceties of following the controllers. I have no idea if there's any truth to this.)
Since, I've found myself every so often putting on live Air Traffic Control chatter in the background. I don't know why; I can't really follow it, but I like the sounds.
