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I’ve been working on a new template for the ol’ blog here, which is coming along nicely. I’ve also been playing with my new camera, which has had me so excited that I’ve neglected to post any of the pictures I’ve been taking. There’s an irony in there somewhere.

I was wooed back to the homestead this last weekend with the promise of two-day old chicks. And boy did those little guys ever deliver on the cuteness. If the G20 Summit had involved chicks, in whatever adorable fashion deemed necessary, I bet things would have gone a whole lot smoother.

After a week of anticipation, my new Canon XSi arrived on Friday complete with a shiny new wide-angle lens. I expected to be frustrated with the new camera as I learned it, which was the case. So, of the few photos I’ve put up on Flickr, I’m not entirely happy with any.

However, I’ve been fiddling more with it and have been more successful in capturing what I want. The cats, the default subjects for my learning, were rather displeased with the two hour photo shoot that interrupted their eighteen hour sleep schedule yesterday.

I am posting a picture from the National Portrait Gallery - and not the cats - because it still manages to be more interesting than a pissed-off feline.

The weather last weekend was unseasonably warm, allowing us to gladly escape the confines of our apartment.

There is a new waterfront area over in Georgetown, where they’ve installed a labyrinth. We wandered by when the sunlight was just setting on the horizon, offering a radiant back light to the energetic kids as they frantically circled the network of lines.

I captured this deceptively quiet moment in an otherwise boisterous mishmash of cars, children, boats, and conversation.

There’s not much I could really say about today that hasn’t already been said by my mom. Tasman passed today, and he was truly the best dog I’ve ever known.

She summed it up best:

Someone who came by the farm one day said that there were seven great dogs alive at one time in the world. He told me that he thought my dog was one of them. I had to agree.

Goodbye Tasman. You were the greatest.

I have no excuse, really. “Busy” would be an understatement in describing the past few months.

But I finally broke out my camera again and wandered into the zoo to see DC’s new baby gorilla. I did get a shot of him, but I was really struck by some of the other inhabitants in the Gorilla House.

The apparent sadness in their eyes was mesmerizing and I wanted nothing more than to better understand what they were thinking.

I’ve recently fallen in love with the National Cathedral. Walking up Massachusetts Avenue, past embassies and mosques and the woods of Rock Creek Park, I feel like I’m taking a walk through history. I pass the Naval Observatory, where some swanky event was taking place last night. Turn the corner and the majestic towers and buttresses rise up, looking out over DC.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I inadvertently found myself attending service with Sara’s family. The original intent was just to  show them our newfound Fortress of Solitude, but I somehow neglected to realize that on Sundays, folks tend to go to church. I spent a good part of the service taking in the sweeping ceilings above me, lost in thought. There is true beauty and faith in the mortar of cathedrals. These are those rare times when I begin to understand the nuances of honoring God.

Here I was, attending service, meditating on life, humanity, and faith. Maybe I did get something out of that accidental trip after all.

I sometimes wish there was a way to manifest the flow of my creativity as a physical object. A tap that I could turn on or off when needed, when convenient.

As of late, I find myself inevitably seeking creative inspiration and finding none. And strangely enough, I have absolutely no excuse for this absence. I’ve found balance, a purposeful job, room to breathe financially. The sky is the limit and yet I gaze at this white hallway of doors, waiting for a door to open and the colorful burst of creativity to pour out.

There is no rhyme or reason to creativity. Any artist, musician, writer, poet, thinker, chef, or businessman knows this. Creativity, by definition, is not purposeful. It is innate. An uncanny ability to be suddenly inspired, so much so that the only response is to manifest it in some physical form.

So now I’m sitting here, waiting for one of those doors to open.

After wandering through a new exhibit featuring art from Pompeii at the National Gallery of Art, Sara and I exited by the glass pyramids between the two Gallery buildings.

Now that the cold weather has scared most of the tourists off of our turf, it was much easier to play by the installation. I especially loved this one because you can’t actually see her shadow, so she appears to be floating above the cobblestone.

If you look closely, you can see me snapping the photo in the reflection.

Another visit to the Hirshhorn, another series of re-appropriated art.

Photographing Sara in front of a projection. Our eyes didn’t see what the camera did - the rapidfire flashes of color that made up the muted skintone of the film.

One room featured a blue glow, giving the space an indiscernable depth. There were footprints leading back, relieving us of guilt for our awkward steps into the piece.

I love neon signs. I will continue to place a neon “AWESOME” at the top of my Christmas list until one finally adorns my wall.

This guy was not a part of the gallery, although he did set up his home nearby. Perhaps a mere appreciator of the arts, we do know that our rodent friend was upset at our presence as he tried to find his evening meal among the crumbled remnants of tourists’ lunches.