Baron’s Blog

Boudin Cafe at SFO

 

Okay, so I didn’t get to Fisherman’s Wharf but they did have a Boudin Cafe at SFO where I could buy a loaf of bread for the trip and a bowl of chowder.

Chowder in Boudin sourdough bread bowl. No Anchor Steamer, this was breakfast.

 

Posted via WordPress for iPhone. WP rocks.

Fog, not vog in San Francisco.

 

GPS and Lake Mead

Heading towards Lake Mead and the Nevada-Arizona border. I bought that GPS for the trip and it worked well. It didn’t lead me to any cliffs at night or leave me stranded in the desert.

 

Dam bypass

Sometime in the future the bypass to drive over instead of on top of Hoover Dam will be completed and America will be safe. When driving on the dam you have to go through Homeland Security checkpoints to make sure you aren’t going to, you know, blow up the dam or some crazy terrorist thing. I’ve seen the movie The Dam Busters when I was a kid on late night TV and let me tell you I doubt my little rented Ford Focus would even chip away anything important from Hoover Dam. Most likely it would just be a stain on that solid, though they keep saying it’s still drying, piece of concrete.

 

Lake Mead

Water level getting low?

 

Arizona Highways

Blue skies, open road and a few hundred miles to get to Flagstaff. A long drive but pretty easy to get there. Note to self next time, stop at In-N-Out Burger in Kingman or Rosies on the Arizona side of the border. When I drove into Kingman I got some gas, bought a Powerbar and started eating that, then drove past the burger joint and wish I had known and eaten there.

 

Abbie

And when I go to Flagstaff I got a standing ovation from Abbie!

Looks like Honolulu International Airport had their Departures flight screen experience a Windows computer crash. It’s a good thing the rest of the airport doesn’t run Windows…or does it?

Yesterday was blue and beautiful, today was grey, rainy and humid. Looking over the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument the weather probably cut down on the amount of tourists walking around, more likely they’ll be taking air-conditioned bus rides.

Near the west end of the Reflecting Pool is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Flags, photos and other mementos honor those who fought in that war. Hopefully the color is okay, I’m still dealing with a broken graphics system on my laptop.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial felt most appropriate in the weather since these statues were wearing ponchos along with their weapons and packs.

Another photo of the figures in the wet DC weather.

And at the west end of the Reflecting Pool is the Lincoln Memorial with honest Abe sitting high above everything amongst huge columns.

The Gettysburg Address inscribe into the wall of the memorial. When visiting these monuments and memorials you’ll hear people speaking languages from all over the world as they see what America is made of and to be a part of that while they visit.

I didn’t do too much touring as I discovered this morning that I’m coming down with cold. I thought I had dodged getting sick for the entire trip. Hopefully I can beat it and enjoy a few more days off back in Hawaii.

If you look good maybe you can see Dubya eating a bag of pretzels. Because as Americans we have to continue our normal lives, or else the pretzels win.

These guys are near the entrance to the White House, looks like they have some kind of Halo 3 hardware.

The Lincoln Memorial beyond the Reflecting Pool in DC.

The Capitol building from the National Mall. They’re working on the top of it with some scafolding.

The National Museum of African Art is a very cool place to visit and part of the Smithsonian Museums. The one bummer about the descriptions with the art pieces is they only say ‘wood’ when describing the artwork material, or ‘wood and iron.’ Why don’t they say what kind of wood is being used? I wrote a comment and stuck it in the comment box, I’m sure they could figure out what kind of material is being used.

And if you’re an aviation buff visiting the National Air and Space Museum is a must visit. Here the Spirit of St. Louis, SpaceShip One (by Burt Rutan) and the X-1 rocket plane hang from the ceiling. Lots of stuff to see here, Apollo 11 capsule (and a bunch of other Apollo stuff) along with lots of real planes. Seeing the space shuttle launch in Florida then all this stuff was a treat as I grew-up in the space race age.

The L.E.M. (Lunar Excursion Module). This is the the thing that landed on the moon, it also had some lifeboat duties for Apollo 13. We once interviewd a guy at North Hawaii News that said he worked on the maneuvering rockets for the L.E.M. He said a typical day at work was to take the rocket motor to a test area, fire it then carry away the pieces and figure out why it blew-up. He claims the design is one of the most efficient rocket engines ever built. You can see the nozzles for the engine he designed about halfway up the L.E.M. above the astronaut.

It was a beautiful day to walk around DC, clear and sunny but with a cooling breeze. But the late afternoon sun heated everything up a bit though nothing like the heatwave images shown on CNN a few weeks ago.

As I promised PF I headed to B&H Photo-Video in Manhattan. This is mecca for photographers, kinda like how the Apple Store is for Mac geeks.

Where to go? They have pretty much everything here, they even have a big selection of darkroom supplies for old-school film users.

And of course and entire selection of camera gear by Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sigma, etc. A person could go broke here. I showed remarkable restraint, I only bought a $12 camera bracket but almost bought a Variable Friction Magic Arm, if you’re not a photographer that last thing won’t make any sense.

Just down the street from B&H is the Empire State Building. If you visit I suggest buying your tickets online and workers said the opening hours are the best to visit. I went during lunchtime.

The lobby as folks pose for photos and stand in line to go up to the observation deck. The wait for me was at least 1 hour but it’s not unusual to wait 2 hours. I suggest having something cool to drink and something to snack on while you’re in line. For most of the line they have repeaters to use cellphones in the building, so you can pass the time surfing the net or SMS’ing folks to keep you busy. It takes two elevator rides to go up, one to the 80th floor, the second to go to the observation deck on the 86th floor.

Once you get up to the observation deck you can stay as long as you want. There isn’t a lot of room up here and everyone hands their cameras to others to have their photos taken, I took photos of about three sets of people with their cameras. See that criss-cross fencing? There’s no glass there, you could stick your hand out there and accidently drop something. I stuck my camera out and took a photo straight down expecting to see busted open cameras, sunglasses, hats, etc but the outside landing had mostly a bit a trash, not much.

The obligatory city view, you can see the Chrysler building. Click on any photo to see an enlargement.

The World Trade Center site, ground zero of the Sept. 11th attacks. I had never been here when the buildings were standing but it’s a bit sad to think about what happened here.

Times Square, a good place to grab something to eat and people-watch.

Posters in the subway. It is very easy to get around New York thanks to the Metro. You pay and ride the train in/out then pay for the subway and you can do as many subway transfers as needed to get where you need to go. Once you figure it out it’s pretty easy.

That’s it for New York! Mahalo to Jeanne and Trevor for letting me stay over and to PF and Gabi for the cooking and singing respectively (I’ve never heard PF sing). Washington, DC here I come.

A glimpse of Central Park as I made my way to the mecca for all Apple users.

The flagship Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. It’s a beautiful store, big though I must admit too many iPhones on display for my taste. And I didn’t cave, I didn’t walk out of there with an iPhone or new MacBook Pro, though I would have liked a new laptop.

A view of the glass staircase looks like an iPod ad inside the store as people ride the glass elevator.

Real New York cheesecake at Lindy’s. I already took a bite before I remembered to shoot a photo. I’m told by Jeanne that what makes it ‘real’ New York cheesecake is that the crust is made out of white cake and not graham cracker like most recipes.

Grand Central Station in New York. Public transportation here is excellent, no need for finding a parking space in the city. Though I still need to make sure I catch the right train and subway when I go to the city. Mahalo to Trevor for the excellent website link to http://www.hopstop.com/ where you can figure-out what train to catch for where you need to go. If you’ve got a PDA or iPhone it will format the information for you.

Bruddah PF drove over for a BBQ at Jeanne’s house and we put him to work cooking up some seafood kabobs. A beautiful sunny day, plenty of food, good company, lots of free consulting between each other on tech, photo and video topics. I was told by PF to make a pilgrimage to B&H Photo-Video while in New York even if I don’t buy anything and just marvel of the spectacle like a visit to Grand Canyon. I owe it to myself to visit as a photographer.

Tita and da Bruddahs say aloha. And for the record, I tested a Tom Tom GPS unit to get to Jeanne’s house, it failed and left us at least a block off and on the wrong part of the road. PF used a Garmin and it got him right to the house. So folks, although the Tom Tom got me all around Florida for accuracy you might want to get the Garmin.