Pretty Standard Saturday

I put in some miles, went to some sporting events, and snapped some photos.  I'll leave you with those in the order they were taken this morning.

Severn River sea wall on a clear and rapidly warming late summer morning

The weather was spectacular, but I was a little over dressed in an UA Heatgear long sleeved shirt.  I started a bit later than I normally do, and the unusually cool weather we've been having decided to take a brief hiatus.

Santee sailboat basin

I've probably mentioned it before, but if I haven't, one of the things that I've gotten over the last several thousand miles of walking is an appreciation for the reflections of objects in other objects that are prone to reflection.  Now while that is not a very Hemingwayesque sentence, I really do like to see all of the richness that reflections bring.  Before walking, I had a tendency to be moving fast enough that I didn't really notice that part of the day.

Naval Academy Chapel

I'm not quite sure what triggers Google Photos to drop a black and white picture on me from an original color photo from time to time.  If I had to guess it is due to high contrast in the original color snap.  I'll have to do some experimentation to see if I can narrow down the possibilities that range from something quite scientific and deliberate to totally random selection.

A Short Posting to Wrap Up a Long Week

Today was a pretty good day in the walking arena.  I put in 15.3 miles on the day, and although I'm a little tired, overall I feel pretty good.  Additionally, early this morning, I finally pushed the right buttons or pulled the right levers to get the algorithms at Google to spit out the panoramic shot of the Capitol Building that I've been trying to get.

Capitol Building Panoramic shot just before sunrise

It's probably a little obsessive to pursue this shot over the course of two days, but I really do like the way it finally turned out.  It's a good enough photo to end a long week on, and hopefully, a more diverse inspiration will strike facing forward.

If at First You Don't Succeed...

I like to try to capture photographs in an order that encourages Google Pictures "Auto Awesome" feature to create panoramic views.  This morning I was attempting this endeavor on the scene shown in the following photo.

Yes, I know...Another shot of the Capitol Building

For whatever reason, the algorithm that selects the automatic enhancement of photos decided to turn a perfectly good series of photos taken at slightly different angles into an animation rather than a panoramic view.  It's not even a particularly good animation.

Daunted, but not defeated, I returned to the same viewpoint during my lunchtime walk to attempt the panoramic shots again.  This is the result.

Panoramic view of the Capitol Building

Success!  At the end of the day, there really is not a whole lot of difference between the field of view associated with each of these photos, but it was slightly fulfilling to have gone back and accomplished what I'd been trying to capture earlier.

If at first you don't succeed....

Busy Day, Busy People

Back before the internet had been invented, and just after I was born, Tibor Gergely wrote Busy Day, Busy People.  Rory Conlan tells me that he literally spent hours reading me that book.  It's the first book I ever "read" although it seems more likely with a little bit of hindsight that I had probably just memorized the words that were associated with the fantastic illustrations that went with the storyline.

For reasons that I can't quite put my finger on, I remembered that book today during my afternoon walk and wondered if it might be time for an update and republishing effort.  It's a great book for kids, and I really loved every page of it.

Busy Day, Busy People

From the book, I remember the farmer and the policeman, the firefighter, and the steam shovel operator.  

Today on my walk as I passed the postman, the crane operator, the concrete saw operator, the policeman, the office of the politician, the landscaper, the fork truck operator, the window washer, and the tour guide I was reminded to appreciate the fantastic place where we live.

Change...Diet Edition

Earlier this morning, I was casting about for something to write about, so I took this photo of the Capitol building from the east to west centerline of the Washington mall.

Capitol Building from the Washington Mall looking east.

I think it's a pretty striking photo, and it's clear that the restoration of the Capitol Dome has made quite a bit of progress over the last several weeks with some of the staging and Tyvek coverings coming down.  On the other hand, this is not the first time you've seen me lead with something like this, so you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled across this seven ounce container of rosemary in the international food aisle of a local grocery store.

Large seven ounce container of Rosemary

A little background is probably in order.  Recently one of my roommates ordered the Anti-Arthritis, Anti-Inflammation Cookbook:  Healing Through Natural Foods by Gary Null, PhD as a change of pace for our diet.  It turns out that the book is a vegetarian cookbook which was not clear to me when we ordered it, but nevertheless, it's a really good book.

I was at a local grocery store that I've found has a good selection of produce at reasonable prices and also has a very robust international aisle with a large selection of beans and legumes I was interested in perusing for incorporation into some of the recipes in from the cookbook. 

During my browsing, I came across this large seven ounce jar of rosemary that was selling for $2.49.  That seemed like a very low price for me, so before I bought it I double checked the baking needs aisle.  What I found there was truly stunning.  Both the store brand and major national spice brand for spices were peddling a small jar of rosemary for $5.99 for one ounce of rosemary.

That price differential equates to about a 1600% premium being charged for the smaller quantities in the non-ethnic section of the grocery store.  Needless to say, I went back to the international section to fill my order.

The situation where there could be that sort of pricing disparity, in the same store, surprised me greatly.  Not only are immigrants (legal or otherwise) coming to the North American continent to pursue economic security and take away jobs, they also have the audacity to be importing the affordable...much more affordable...price structure from their country of origin.  I think it's great, and I welcome the change.  There is a lesson in looking past brands, never assume price parity for similar items in a grocery store, and this is a place I will return to for any additional spicing needs on my vegetarian journey.

Shorter Days and a Hint of Fall

In keeping with the theme of change from the last several days, this morning's walk was truly a glorious weather related experience.  On a whim, I threw a long sleeved UA Heatgear shirt in my bag, and it was just about perfect for the fifty five degree temperatures that greeted me as I struck off along the river.  In the last couple of weeks, the darkness of the early morning has been growing noticeably deeper and longer lived.  

Although that sign of a waning summer has been incrementally growing in magnitude, the warmth of the previous afternoon and the damp mugginess that comes when you build a city on a wetland (i.e. swamp) at the confluence of two rivers had persisted.  Today was the first day that the deep breathing of summer heat grew shallower and less stifling.

Sol rises cooly over the Capitol dome from the steps of the National Art Gallery

The transition from the foggy elephant like sauna of the summer has broken.  Oh, I'm sure that it will come back again for another round or two, but as of today the irreversible march of the season toward fall came out of the blocks and lept forward with a welcome burst of acceleration.  The signs that a mere twelve weeks from now I will have made the transition from summer weight exercise gear to the warmer embrace of long sleeved tops and fleece watch caps accompanied by the rustle of fading leaves and a brisk north wind were evident.

Of all the seasonal transitions, I find the movement of the northern pole of our planet away from the life giving flux of the sun most pleasant.  It ushers in the deep chill of the winter, but these next several weeks are some of my favorite time of year.  There's a nip in the air that is gently pushed back by a warm afternoon, but the air is much drier.  Every day is the best day of my life, but I particularly look forward to the weather associated with the coming weeks.

  

Four Bridges Loop

Yesterday, I was trudging through my walk thinking that I could do with a change of scenery.  I had made a bit of a ramble out of the morning walk which was a welcome change, but that little taste of a different perspective didn't quench the desire to see a different view of my normal routes.  It's not that things were getting boring.  As I talked about yesterday, every moment of every day is truly an act of creation, so boredom really isn't possible.  I guess the real reason is that the mind, as useful as it is, sometimes gets a bit pragmatic and begins to filter out those things that are more routine than others.  It's a very useful trait for physical survival, but I find that I'll get to be a bit less observant and 'in the moment" than I'd like to be living.

It dawned on me yesterday that there are four bridges in relatively close proximity to each other that cross College Creek in Annapolis.  I'm not sure when the moniker of this body of water was changed, but even today some maps refer to it as Dorsey Creek.  It's a bit of research that I'll have to undertake...just not right now.

After some quick math, I calculated that the route over the four bridges would be between five and six miles with some obvious on ramps and off ramps along the way, so I decided to conduct a bit of pedestrian experimentation this morning.  One of the real advantages to walking known routes is that the timing and distance are known quantities, so this was going to be a very small leap into uncertainty, and that was just what I needed to re-direct my routine.

Bridge placards from the four bridges over College Creek, Annapolis, MD

The route went well.  Based on the turns that I made, the entire loop (shaped like a ladder back and forth across the creek) amounted to a little over six miles.  I was pretty excited starting out, and even though I'd passed all these bridge placards at one time or another, I didn't know where to find them all.  I happened across the first two, and I sought out the next.  It sounds pretty routing, but it ended up being just the sort of thing I needed to add just a twist of adventure to my pedestrian routine.  The change of route changed my perspective just enough and reignited my observational focus.  The changed route also made the prospect of writing this posting just a bit more exciting than it has been in the last several days.

Hubbard Hall looking downstream from the County Bridge on King George Street

I even gave Google Photos the chance to make panoramic views looking upstream and downstream from all four bridges.  I got lucky, but not as lucky as I would have liked, when it put together both upstream and downstream views from the County Bridge on King George Street.  It's a fortunate location because it is the most photogenic place along the route to see all four bridges from one location over the course of the route due to the geography of the stream.  You can see all four bridges from Hill Bridge as well, but the vantage point is not quite as good in my opinion.

College Creek Bridge on Rowe Boulevard looking upstream from the County Bridge on King George Street

All in all it was a good, if slow, walk this morning that serves an important reminder that the way I act can change the way I think about a particular topic.  In this case, the action I took to change my route had been available to me at any time over the last eleven months, but for whatever reason I did not recognize it as a viable option to cover the general distance that I wanted to cover until yesterday.  Even then, I could have ignored that possibility as stuck with my routine.  I would have not been as fulfilling as taking the action to change things in a way that worked for me.