Learning and Reiterating

Today I think I learned that stirring rhetoric recorded from the Justices of the Supreme Court are much rarer than stirring rhetoric from actors, authors, politicians, and others.

Supreme Court at Daybreak

I was looking for a caption to go along with this photo in a Facebook post, and I had a pretty hard time finding a quote from a Supreme Court Justice that seemed to fit the bill.  Ultimately, I was successful, but the search took awhile. To a degree I find that heartening. To be a widely recognized public figure and to have the discipline to keep truly remarkable quotations to yourself in this day and age is quite a feat. I'm sure that they try in the interest of maintaining the court's long held reputation as a place non-partisan institution. Be that as it may, the discipline to pull off that sort of accomplishment is nothing short of remarkable.

Capitol Building in the Waning Dark

Given a short notice tasker to "gist" about six pages of single spaced, font 10 text into six sentences, I discovered that the writing I've been practicing here on a fairly regular basis really is paying dividends that I did not anticipate. Jut on the mechanical side, my typing, which was already reasonable fast, has gotten quite a bit better. I can't quantify the improvement, but I know that speed has improved, and I'm less prone to mistakes. On the more creative front, I didn't really find it too difficult to digest the information and churn out an acceptable product in less than ten minutes. It was an assignment that I would have struggled with several months ago, but today the words seemed to flow through the fingers.

That development was another heartening event. Given the readership here (hint, there isn't any that I can discern), I sometimes find myself wondering if this effort is serving any purpose at all. Today, the benefit manifested itself in some unanticipated ways.

As is my custom, I'm looking forward to what the sea of tomorrow will bring in with the tide of dawn.

Easing Back Into a Routine

I don't like to admit it, but I am a creature of habit. While I like to think of myself as adventurous and free thinking, if I am honest about the way things really are, I am most comfortable when operating in a world of small adventures within a routine.  I once again made it through the relative chaos of the Christmas season with the disruption of normally scheduled events and the compression of months worth of expectations down into the space of twenty four to forty eight hours.

The last five days have been surprising, a little unsettling, busy, and even fun, but now that I'm easing back into my more familiar routine, I find that I can feel more centered.  Concentration and appreciation for smaller variances is simpler, and I just feel quite a bit more content. I don't think I'm a grinch, but I'd prefer a more experiential holiday experience than the retail fueled maniacism that the winter festival seems to have become.

All that aside, it's good to ease back into the routine.

Anacostia Morning with the USS Barry

Speaking of routine, I'm happy to report that the ex-USS Barry is still moored in the Anacostia River, and I fully expect it to be there tomorrow as well.  While there seems to be a new pier going in just downriver from this location, the ship is not yet being prepared for it's final tow down the river  from the Washington Navy Yard.

Supreme Court of the United States

As far as people watching, this time of year in Washington, DC yields a sparser set of diversions than the normally bustling metropolis when the Federal Government is truly up and running at full speed. I did receive one of the warmest greetings in reply to what I hope is a friendly salutation offered to just about everyone I pass on the street. My "Howdy" was met with a big smile and a wave from a fellow pedestrian traveller who was taking a break against one of the many wrought iron fences that adorn the front of the numerous rowhouses and townhouses in the vicinity of Capitol Hill. That passing of a greeting and a smile put a spring in my step for the final three miles of the day.

Another good day passes into the books, and another one looms on the horizon if I'm lucky.

Mark 1 Mod 0 Wednesday - The Best Day of My Life

I'm pretty sure I've told the story of the response this one guy at the gym gives me every time I ask him how things are going.  He says, "This is the best day of my life."  It took me a little while to pick up on the pattern, but after I started picking up what he was laying down, I decided that his statement is both true and very useful.  From the outside looking in, today was a pretty standard Mark 1 Mod 0 Wednesday for me, but even though it felt fairly routine, it was the best day of my life. The past is history, the future a fantasy, but whatever happens right now is just as it should be and pretty glorious.  I wish I hadn't spent this long figuring out that truth, but here we are.

The Google panoramic shots from yesterday finished navigating the ether, and greeted me this morning on my commute into work.

Anacostia Sunset

Not the most spectacular sunset, but the waves from the wake of a boat really caught my eye and caused me to capture the images that made up this view.

United States Supreme Court

I spent some time trying to get the right shots to center up a theoretical panoramic mash-up, and it looks like things turned out about right.  The first panoramic that I captured of the Supreme Court was offset to the right of the picture a little too much for complete satisfaction.  This one is much better I think. This morning at about 0630 there was a larger than usual crowd lining up to attend the oral arguments centered around questions of affirmative action at the University of Texas.  I enjoy the fact that I get to see where the news that I hear on the radio at the end of the day happens.

Capitol Building

I had a really difficult time capturing a good image of the Capitol Building both yesterday and today.  This picture is a pretty far departure from some of the higher quality shots of the past, but it's the best I could get in the bag yesterday.  It's still pretty cool, and I'm still looking forward to the construction staging coming down later this winter.

Capitol Building from the second cross street west on the Mall

I took a little shorter route than my normal walk this morning, and it put me on the second cross street west of the Capitol Building on the Mall.  I had high hopes of being able to capture a good shot of the Capitol Building from a slightly different perspective, but I was thwarted to a degree by the fuzziness of the dome that I've been battling for the last couple of days.  Not bad, but not spectacular either.  

Submarine Sunset

The sun setting behind the submarine sail monument on the Washington Navy Yard has been a favorite view of mine for awhile, but this is the first time I've tried to photograph it for reasons I don't completely understand.  This may become a more regular feature going forward.

Ancostia Sunset

Yet another Anacostia sunset to round out the day, and since I've been plagued with slow photo download response during the missive this evening I'll finish out the best day of my life and I'm looking forward to the next.  It's going to be fantastic.

One of the Most Effective Antidotes to Fear is Action

There is quite a bit of nuttiness in the air right now, and my hypothesis is that the irrationality of it all is being principally driven by fear. There have been people killed. They've been killed in a violent and sudden manner, and it's brought out every tin pot mini-dictator that can garner a platform to tell the world that they should all be afraid. The fear peddlers are out in full force because they've read their history, and they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if they can drum up enough fear they can capture some power.

The most dangerous thing I did all day was commute into work. In today's day and age, even that isn't too terribly dangerous thanks to good folks at places like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) working to use science and engineering to bound the risk. Even though pulsing down the highway at the sporty pace of seventy five miles an hour was by far my greatest risk today, that's not what the fear peddlers told me to avoid.

If one chose to listen to these fear based power consolidators, you would have heard dire warning of the inevitability of further shootings and bombings. You would have heard them tell you to avoid places with large crowds that might prove to be a tempting and easy target for the miscreants skulking around just waiting for the opportune time to send you to the great unknown at the wrong end of an "assault style weapon" or pipe bomb.

Instead of listening to their breathless predictions of the potential dire consequences and their solutions for things that I have no hope of solving as an individual, I exercised my right to make them be silent and metaphorically pressed the Off button on their hyperbolic rantings.

Instead, I got outside, and in an act of rebellion to their terrible advice, I went to one of those heavily populated places that they seem to dislike enough to target.  This is what I saw...

Center Arch Christmas Wreath and Fellow Traveller
With a Pizza at Union Station

Union Station is a spectacular place. The architecture competes well with other monuments in the area, and the dynamic environment of a major transportation hub is exhilarating. A friend reminded me that there is a display of model holiday trains just inside the door behind me from where this picture was taken, and I'm saddened to report that I didn't go in to see it this evening.  They were just setting up the display when I popped in several days ago, so another trip seems to be calling.

Same Wreath from the Outside Looking In

I'm happy to report that nothing bad happened.  I didn't see anything suspicious, so I kept my mouth shut. I was blessed with participating in life on a spectacular autumn evening, and the anxiety dealers were still trapped in their little television shaped cells.

Supreme Court of the United States

I was heartened to see that I'd been joined by a host of like minded citizens intent on exercising the freedom that our system and institutions protect. Come join me outside in the midst of our fellow travellers who refused to be cowed by the miscreants and the fearmongers. Action is the Antidote to the poison they're pushing.

The Secret of Connectedness and Contentment

Over the last several months, I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't on a quest to track down the secret ingredient of connectedness and contentment.  Today, on a relatively quiet and beautiful fall day, the secret was revealed to me.  There is no secret to connectedness.  We're connected.  It's just that simple, and whether we acknowledge it or not the fact remains that we're tied together by strings that run through time and space. Now capturing the feeling of connectedness, well, that might be another story all together that will probably require continuing practice.

On my afternoon walk this afternoon, I also managed to capture the feeling of connectedness as well as the intellectual acknowledgement of the fact of connectedness.  It was exhilarating.  I started off on one of my standard routes, but deviated from it a bit at about the two mile point.

Supreme Court Building

As you can see, the weather was beautiful, though a bit cooler than yesterday.  I meandered my way back to Union Station and this time took some time out of making progress to go inside.  Truth be known, I was looking for a restroom.  Failing to find one, and not willing to ask, I exited the main entrance and came upon this view.

Center Arch of the Main Entrance to Union Station

Although I've seen this view from the opposite side a couple of times, I really didn't imagine it would line up this nicely from the inside looking out.  The lighting was wonderful, and when I walked out the door this sight stopped me short.  I pulled up and just about caused the woman exiting behind me with a roller bag (it is the supposedly the busiest travel day of the year after all) to run into my newly imobile backside.  I let the exiting traffic clear a little, and then lined up slightly left of the center of the door to snap this picture.  I didn't want to impede folks on their way, and have botched the symmetry just a little. Be that as it may, the flag gently blowing and outlined in the wreath was an remains a sight to behold.  One thing that I plan on doing relatively shortly is returning to this magnificent train station after dark to see what the blackness and lighting will reveal. With any manner of luck, there will be more pictures to follow.  There are just too many interesting aspects of the station to not explore them a little.  It's the gift of breaking up my routine, and I'm glad that whatever moved me wander on down here had the wisdom to know what I needed to see.

Failing to find a bathroom, I headed up toward the United States Botanic Garden. This place is a real gem located just south and west of the Capitol Building, and perhaps more importantly it has one of only a few easily accessible restrooms on the Washington Mall.  I made it there with twenty minutes to spare before closing, made my way through the main exhibit hall, into the primeval forest, through the section representing Hawaii, into and through the desert, and finally into the best public restrooms that federal tax dollars can buy. On the way back out, I noticed that the main hall had what amounted to a model of the Washington Mall running down the length of the hall.  There were stylized models of the major buildings rendered in a bronze colored patina and lit from within. These were surrounded by a collection of plants meant to invoke the feeling of the holidays. Mirroring the actual mall, the east end of the hall hosted the model of the Supreme Court Building.

Model of the Supreme Court Building

Seeing the model of the United States Supreme Court caused me to capture that feeling of connectedness that I've been walking around for the last year trying to track down. If I hadn't needed to find a restroom, I wouldn't have gone into Union Station where on exiting I was treated to a view I hadn't imagined existed. Failing to find one, I hot footed it over to the Botanic Garden where I saw a model of the area I've been walking around regularly for the last year.  I had no idea that this display was here, and it wasn't here the last time I came in the garden.  It's almost as if I was being led by an invisible hand to see what I needed to see and I felt the connectedness and contentment that I needed to feel today.  Sounds a bit daft, but it felt pretty good.

On the way back to the starting point, the cars in the lots surrounding the Capitol Building had largely cleared out and the Botanic Garden had closed to visitors. The lights on the inside of the garden caught my eye, and I was able to capture a panoramic photo of a scene that I've walked past countless times but was still somehow new.  A slightly different perspective where the Gardens and the Capitol were linked visually in a way that I've never noticed before.

Light show at the United States Botanic Garden and the United States Capitol

The walk was the perfect way to kick off the Thanksgiving weekend and I'm grateful to have experienced the journey. The sights I took in ended up being beyond my most optimistic imaginings of what would unfold, and it happened in a way that was unforced and organic.  The path didn't have the geographic symmetry that I've become accustomed to on these little jaunts, but there was visual thread that wound through it all.