Old blog posts
Yay! Thanks to a post on the DC Web Women listserv, I was able to figure out how to import the posts from my old, dead blog here. Thanks, wrrls!
Last Year at the National Zoo
National Zoo – Red-fan Parrot
Originally uploaded by etacar11
I took a trip to the National Zoo last year and saw some stuff I hadn’t seen in a while (or maybe ever).
The Asia Trail I’ve seen many times over the last couple of years. But I don’t remember the last time I went into the Bird House. A lot of the birds were, of course, hard to get good shots of. But the Bird House has both indoor and outdoor flight exhibits that actually allow you to get very close to them, with no barrier in between.
Summer of Music
Oh, my sad, neglected blog. I’ve been to a bunch of concerts recently, so I thought I’d write about them. Yes, I took that picture of Trent Reznor myself, more on that below.
I hadn’t gone to any rock shows [except for one Pet Shop Boys show with Rob] for quite a few years, until last year, when I saw Nine Inch Nails play twice, once in Philadelphia and once in Atlantic City. Since Trent Reznor announced this year that he was retiring from touring, I jumped at the chance to see NIN play one last time, this past June at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. The summer NIN tour in North America was called the NIN/JA tour, because they played with Jane’s Addiction. Since Jane’s broke up in the 1990’s and I hadn’t seen them play since 1991 (I skipped an SAT prep class to go to that show!), that made the whole thing even better.
Valley Forge
It wasn’t REALLY on the way home exactly, but close enough. I made Rob take us to Valley Forge after we saw Nine Inch Nails in Atlantic City. He didn’t mind.
I had been to Valley Forge once before, on a junior high school field trip. Can’t say I remember much, though.
It was a dreary November day but the fall colors were out. We drove around to a lot of the stops on the driving tour. The National Memorial Arch (seen here), a covered bridge in the park, some of the old quarters. Washington’s Headquarters was closed, unfortunately. Looks like I will have to go back again.
History of the area: This is where the Continental Army under George Washington spent the winter of 1778. Conditions were horrible and the army was poorly trained and equipped. Prussian officer Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was brought in to remedy the training part and he succeeded in turning our boys into a force with a fighting chance.
New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge Day 2
What did I learn from doing the NJ Lighthouse Challenge? Climbing lighthouses = great cardio! In fact, my legs are still sore. The weather was a little bit better on Sunday than on Saturday, much more sunny. But it was still chilly and windy. We only had four lighthouses left, so it was a much shorter day than the first day.
Our first stop was the Twin Lights of Navesink, a two-towered structure that sits on the Highlands overlooking New York Bay. I climbed one of the towers (they aren’t very high); there are good views of New York City. Interesting historical note: Marconi sent the first wireless messages from the site in 1899.
Sandy Hook Lighthouse is just a few miles from Navesink and was the logical second stop. It was built in 1764 on a tiny strip of land several miles long stretching out into the Atlantic (a serious navigational hazard for those entering New York Harbor). The Americans tried to destroy the lighthouse during the Revolution, to keep it out of enemy hands, but they failed and the original light still stands today. Amazing. The view from the top had even better views of New York City than Navesink did.
Next was Sea Girt Lighthouse, further south down the coast. It’s a beautiful redbrick Victorian building. Very windy, just across from the beach. Mom and Dad managed the easy climb up the tower. There was a long line and a narrow ladder but they did just fine.
The final lighthouse was Barnegat, on Long Beach Island. It’s a tall, red and white structure but I wasn’t able to climb it, unfortunately, due to the high winds (they had closed it). I was disappointed. I guess I’ll have to go back someday. Our actual last stop on the challenge was the Barnegat Light Historical Museum, where the original Barnegat first-order Fresnel lens is housed. We got our challenge completion cards and they even gave us a special card for doing the Long Island Challenge too, though the card actually said New Jersey and Maryland. Oh well, the thought is all that counts, I guess.
So my second challenge was fun. My sights are set on the Maryland one next September.
New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge Day 1
My parents and I did the Long Island Lighthouse Challenge last May. We enjoyed it immensely, except for the horrific traffic getting to and from Long Island. We missed the Maryland one due to me being in Philadelphia at the time. This weekend we’re doing the New Jersey Challenge.
Our first stop was Tinicum Rear Range Lighthouse in Paulsboro, on the Delaware River across from Philadelphia. It’s a steel tower light and one of the volunteers explained how it’s used by pilots in the river in conjunction with a forward range light to stay in the center of the channel. The top of the tower gave a great view of Philadelphia, including the airport.
The second lighthouse, Finns Point Range Lighthouse in Pennsville, is also a steel tower, almost identical in appearance to Tinicum. It’s a part of the Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and used to guide ships between the Delaware Bay and River.
East Point Lighthouse in Heislerville on Delaware Bay was our third stop. My mom and I were going to take the tour and go to the top (it’s not very tall), but the line was long and didn’t seem to be moving. We gave up, since we were behind where we wanted to be at the time, and left.
Next was Cape May Lighthouse. It was a good climb, although I of course had to do it myself, since my parents are getting on. I think my parents had been to it before, since they have vacationed in Cape May in the past. It’s a nice little town, I wouldn’t mind visiting it again and spending more time. There’s a nice beach near the lighthouse, which is in a state park. The next stop was not a lighthouse at all, but Cape May County Historical Museum in Cape May Court House. The reason? They have the first-order Fresnel lens from the Cape May Lighthouse. Those first-order lenses are humongous…
Hereford Inlet Lighthouse was the next stop, in North Wildwood. It’s a Victorian style lighthouse and looks very similar to Point Fermin Lighthouse, which we visited in July in San Pedro, CA. Wildwood was pretty sparse of people, but there were hardly any parking spots around Hereford Inlet. All the lighthouse goers were clogging up the place!
Late afternoon took us to Absecon Lighthouse in Atlantic City. Man, it is a bitch to get there! The traffic in that town is awful. I’m returning to Atlantic City in a couple of weeks for another Nine Inch Nails show but I definitely don’t like the looks of the place. It’s the tallest lighthouse in New Jersey. I took the climb in stages.
We considered ending the day after Absecon, but since the next lighthouse, Tucker’s Island in Tuckerton, was open for night climbs, we decided to cross it off our list before heading to our Saturday night hotel. It’s located in one of those “historic” seaports. Can’t speak to the quality of that, since it was dark. But it was interesting to see one of the lighthouses outside of normal hours.
It looked to be a chilly, but sunny, day at the beginning but it clouded up and even rained a little. Hopefully tomorrow will be an improvement.
Trying this again: Philly and more…
Ok, hopefully Flickr will like my new blog better.
I visited Philadelphia again in September, just a couple of weeks after going there for the Nine Inch Nails concert. What can I say, I can’t get enough of the place. This time it was for the MEETin Celebration. I was staying just a few blocks from City Hall, one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. It was a fun three days. The highlights included visiting the Barnes Foundation, a great museum full of impressionist paintings; and running through the haunted house at Eastern State Penitentiary.
The day after I returned from Philly, I had to go on a business trip to the New Orleans area. I hadn’t been down there since 1991. I didn’t have much chance to sightsee but we (me and some of the other attendees of the meeting I was at) did take an evening to visit Bourbon Street. It was fun, but kinda gross considering that it seems like every other place on that street is a strip club. If I get sent down there again, I’ll have to take a couple of days and see the real sights of the city.
Tomorrow, my parents and I are doing our second lighthouse challenge, the New Jersey one. Last May we did the one on Long Island. Maryland’s unfortunately was during my trip to Philly. Maybe next year.
The death of this blog
I discovered last night that Flickr stopped allowing me to post photos to this blog. I’m not sure exactly why this happened. I erased the link in my Flickr account and tried to re-add it. Didn’t work. It kept claiming that my username and password were invalid. This despite the fact that I can obviously log in to the blog itself with them.
I started suspecting that it might have something to do with the fact that this site uses Wordpress 2.0.2. The latest version of Wordpress is 2.6. So, I tried to upgrade. Well, that didn’t work. Must be too many intermediate versions…things are hinky. Luckily, I backed up the old version files and was able to reinstall them. But, of course, that didn’t solve the original problem: not being able to post photos from Flickr.
The only solution I’ve been able to come up with is starting another blog. So that’s what I’ve done. It’s not completely set up yet, but I’m working on it. All new posts will go there. If I can figure out a way to migrate all the old posts here to the new blog, I will. I might have to ask around on some Wordpress forums. We’ll see…
Hello new blog!
Yeah, I’ve got to pay attention to updating my Wordpress software or my blog will die.
In Philly for the Greatest Show Ever
Ok, the pigeon is just a random photo I took in Rittenhouse Square. I didn’t smuggle a camera into the Nine Inch Nails show at Wachovia Center. I should have; the security chick barely glanced in my bag. On the other hand, fiddling with a camera might have detracted from my enjoyment of the concert. If and when the band posts some shots of the show on their Flickr page, I will post one here.
The day didn’t have an auspicious start: Rob’s car wouldn’t start (we later found out that he had been given the wrong type of battery two weeks prior) so we were delayed in getting to the train station. Then we got caught in a massive traffic jam on I-95. We were forced to call Amtrak and change our tickets to the next train. No way we would have made our original one. But once on the train everything went smoothly and we got to Philadelphia around 10am.
We bummed around for the afternoon, walked over to Rittenhouse Square and down to the Schuylkill River. It was drizzly and not that nice a day but whatever. I didn’t care!
The Wachovia Center was an easy shot down the Broad St. subway line. Our seats turned out to be great, five rows up from the floor of the arena, on the left side of the stage. It took a while for the place to fill up, but I think it was pretty near capacity by the time NIN came on. I was pleasantly surprised (and I think the feeling was shared by many there) by the opening band, a bunch of trippy English dudes called Does It Offend You, Yeah? I didn’t expect much from them, but they turned out to be pretty cool and worthy of a closer look.
I had only seen Nine Inch Nails live once prior, in 1994 at the Universal Amphitheater in LA. I was in college at the time and NIN had just broken big with the Downward Spiral album. During the Fragility tour in 2000, I was living in Hawaii and few bands ever play over there. NIN wasn’t one of the few. In 2005, I was living in New York City when they played two shows there. I tried to get tickets for both and failed each time. That left me quite angry and resentful. But I’m over that now…
The show we saw last Friday night, the show Nine Inch Nails is playing every night on the Lights in the Sky tour, is simply the greatest show ever. Ok, maybe I exaggerate but it’s definitely the best show I’ve ever seen, hands down. The music itself was amazing enough. And it would have been a great show with just that. It was the lightshow that really made the night. What they did is really hard to describe, mainly because I don’t know how any of it works. But I can say there were at times screens in front of and behind the band. Sometimes opaque, sometimes transparent. Lots and lots of stuff going on throughout the show. Damn, words just fail to convey how cool it was. Trent Reznor sounded amazing. You’d never know he’s had some throat/voice issues on this tour that led to the postponement of two earlier shows. His speaking voice did sound a little off, that was the only hint. Did I mention he had the magical power to control what the screens were showing, just with touch? AWESOME.
Anyway, two hours of visual coolness and lots of great songs from the NIN catalog. I hated to see it end. Now I’m trying to figure out how to see it again. There’s no DC date on the upcoming Fall leg of the tour. The closest is in Charlottesville, VA. A little farther than I am willing to drive but maybe (fingers crossed) a DC date will be announced later. Please, please, please!
