The Value of Writing

Almost every day, I come to this site and write a little reflection on the day that's about to fade into memory. In the beginning, I had visions of grandeur and imagined that somehow...someway...someone was going to stumble upon these random musings and fall a little bit in love with seeing what got put down on the page. They'd keep this page to themselves for awhile and then, one day, something would strike them from a particular angle and they would forward it to one of their friends. Soon, this humble set of musings would go viral, and I would achieve an anonymous fame if only for a little bit of time.

Crepuscular Rays over the Anacostia Waterfront

I suppose I really just wanted someone to notice the things that I saw and did and experienced. It has been beautiful.

Needless to say none of that fantasy has played out. Almost every day I come back to write, and almost every day I have a very small handful of bot visits, but other than that, everything that's gone up on this site has passed without notice to the wider world.  Oh, there was that one brief period where I experienced double digit site visits for the better part of a week from Russia. I suspect someone or something was passing by and and decided to use some of the photos I've posted as part of their profile on the Eurasian dating site that seemed to be the entry point for most of the views. Whoever they were, and whatever they were doing, I certainly hope they got lucky.

Silly visions of fame aside, I've come to enjoy the time spent trying to capture the thoughts and feelings that I encounter along this journey of life. The writing practice certainly has helped me become more proficient in executing my responsibilities at a job, that if I'm honest, doesn't hold the same appeal for me that it once held.

This space has also given discipline to my thoughts, and the photography aspect has forced me to be more present throughout the day.  As I said, the journey certainly held more than my fair share of beautiful moments.

Tomorrow I will return again to practice some writing, but the visions of fame have slipped away. Tomorrow I'll write for the sake of writing, observe my life more closely because that's the only real way to live, practice militant optimism, and be open to surprises as the creativity that is at the heart of everything in the universe expends its energy in the bringing of life. It's going to be a grand experience.

Yea though I walk through the valley...

Today at approximately 1440 (according to reports), Larry Russell Dawson was shot by a Capitol Police Officer in the Capitol Visitor Center after setting off a metal detector and removing what appeared to be a gun from his clothing. I saw none of this even though it happened along one of my frequent walking routes.

Before heading out on a glorious spring afternoon, I captured the DC skyline from the top of the parking garage that I frequent.

DC Skyline from the top of Building 28

Apart from the striking blue of the sky (the dark ages are finally over, I think) with a scattering of cumulous clouds, I noticed that more of the scaffolding put up in support of the Capitol Dome restoration project had been removed over the weekend. I headed out to try and capture some panoramas of the dome as the process of the unveiling progresses.

On my way up Capitol Hill, Rory Conlan informed me that there had been a shooting at the Capitol earlier in the morning and that a police officer had been injured by a self-proclaimed "prophet of god." Rory also suggested that the security situation might be tighter than I have become accustomed to experiencing. When I walked up East Capitol Street, the area had been secured by yellow tape emblazoned with "Police Line, Do Not Cross" and there were a number of Capitol Police Officers about in numbers that were slightly higher than normal. Other than that there were at least five television broadcast vans and ten camera and lighting setups with various reporters talking about what I presume to be the earlier incident.

The police tape did keep me far enough away from the Capitol that I couldn't get a very good angle to see the work on the dome since the sun was setting as a backdrop. This is the best that I could manage, and the tree in the foreground really takes away from what was really a pretty neat view.

Capitol Building with Scaffolding being Removed

I'll have to give it another "shot" (no pun intended) tomorrow. I would like to capture a semi-comprehensive set of photos documenting the transformation of the Capitol from restoration site to fully unmasked in the coming weeks.

I managed another safe commute to and from work today, and I'm grateful that the most dangerous activity that I participated in all day (the commute) came off without incident. We'll see what happens tomorrow. It's been an interesting several days already.

Wrapping up the Week

It's been a pretty long and tiring week.  It's the good kind of tiring, and not exhaustion.  I'll keep this short and let some photos speak for themselves.

Early Morning, USS Barry

My morning string of panoramas was broken this morning when Google delivered this stylized photo.  It's not my favorite, but it's at least interesting.

US Capitol Building

I'm not quite sure what the person in the foreground of the photo is doing, but since it was the afternoon, this is a pretty rare shot with people.

USS Barry in the afternoon

Not to be denied, I got the panorama I was looking for this morning just a little bit later.

It's been a great day to wrap up a great week.

Frenetic Friday

Rory and I were talking this morning about the unfolding of the holiday season and how our propensity for cramming a fairly large number of what would normally be enjoyable events into a rather compact time frame associated with "the holiday season" works at cross purposes to the relaxing camaraderie that those events should generate.  Today was a little like that, so instead of boring you with the gory details of trying to stuff too much fun into to small of a fun bag I'll let a couple of pictures tell the tale of the more enjoyable parts of the day.

Unsurprisingly, these are photos taken during two of three pedestrian periods I fit in around the baskets of holiday fun.

Anacostia Sunrise

This morning, the stillness of the air was perfect for capturing the reflection of the sunrise and the ex-USS Barry in the surface of the Anacostia River.  If you had asked me to draw or paint this scene a year ago, I strongly suspect that I would not have even noticed the reflections in the water much less been able to capture them in my rendering of the scene.  Today, though I still would struggle with representing the reflections, I definitely notice them all around me.  I attribute this "sensitivity" to observing the reflected directly to the time I"ve spent out on the trail plodding along.  I see reflections everywhere now, and not just while walking.  They are beautiful and exponentially increase the interest of any particular scene in my opinion.  If I hadn't slowed down a little,  I truly believe that in the interest of brevity my brain would have continued to filter this "excess" data being collected through my Mk 1 Mod 0 I-Ball.  I'm glad I slowed down.

Anacostia River Afternoon

On my lunch time amble, I tried to capture the same scene from this morning with afternoon lighting.  I think I did a pretty credible job of it, but I beleive the morning shot was probably taken a little (though not much) farther east than the afternoon shot.

As can be seen by the flag and the wind ripples on the water, the breeze had kicked up, and although I like the afternoon shot the muddied reflections off the water make the scene a little less interesting to me compared to the morning scene.

In spite of the drive to maximize fun to the point of fatigue, today was another enriching experience, and I look forward to another.