The first destination was the Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum.  For those not familiar with the Washington, D.C. area, this museum isn’t on the National Mall.  Instead, it’s out near the Dulles Airport.  In many ways, I like this museum better than the Air and Space museum on the mall.  The buildings are large airplane hangars and so the place is just full of aircraft from various eras.  There are famous ones, too, such as the Enola Gay and the Enterprise space shuttle.  It’s really quite fascinating and every time I go, I attempt to capture the fantastic images that are there.  Most of the time, I fall short of the task, but occasionally, I get an image that I’m satisfied with. The rest of them just serve to document the day.

When we were done at the museum, we drove to Great Falls, VA to have a picnic lunch.  Neither of my parents had ever seen this place…considering it’s one of my absolute favorite places in the greater D.C. area, I had to show it to them.  I have spent many hours on the Maryland side of this park hiking and biking.  The Virginia side is less familiar to me, but it has the easiest access to lookout points to the falls along the Potomac.  It was a nice day, and hearing the water roaring by is always a relaxing way to spend an afternoon.

The second full day they were here turned out to be a busy one.  First stop: Arlington Cemetery.  All of us had been to the cemetery once before to see the Arlington House and watch the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  However, none of us had been in town over Memorial Day weekend when they put the U.S. flags on every single grave. I had always wanted to see this, so we got off the metro at Arlington Cemetery and walked around for a little while.

After walking through the cemetery, we headed over to the Iwo Jima Marine Memorial. This memorial is not a far walk from the cemetery and was a nice sight to see on the way to the Rosslyn area for lunch.  The walk between the cemetery and the memorial also provides great views of the city looking down the memorial bridge and to the National Mall.  Many of the city’s memorials and monuments are visible from this vantage point.

After lunch, we took off on the metro and headed towards the National Zoo.  What is it about a zoo that’s so fascinating?  Occasionally, I love a good stroll through a zoo.  Something about seeing the animals so close up is awe inspiring.  The National Zoo has several fun exhibits to see…the pandas and the tigers are two of my particular favorites. We also were able to get up close and personal with a peacock in one of the aviaries.  They are such beautiful birds…but boy, do they know how to kick up a ruckus.  You can hear their call over the entire zoo!

After two very full days, we weren’t quite as active for the last two days of their trip.  Sunday, we all attended church together — I even twisted their arms into joining me in the choir that morning!  Sunday afternoon, we spent a little bit of time at Gravelly Point watching the planes land at Reagan National Airport.  (This is a really neat thing to do, by the way…when they’re landing from that side of the strip, it looks like the planes are going to end up right on top of you!)

That Sunday evening, we went to the Memorial Day Concert on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol building.  I was slightly disappointed in that concert for two main reasons:  1) we got there too late to get a good seat and I couldn’t see anything and 2) I was expecting a bit more “concert” and a little less “memorial.”  That last sounds awful, I know…but I love music and there was more reading and story telling than there was music at this particular event.  Oh well…it was an experience: I can say I’ve done it and check that one off my list.

The final day my parents were there, Memorial Day itself, we decided to take it easy…we didn’t even really leave my house until it was time for them to go to the airport.  Instead, we just had a nice cookout lunch and relaxed from our busy weekend.  I really enjoyed their visit (as always).  If you want to see other pictures from this weekend, use the following link: http://gallery.creationsings.net/Photography/CloseToHome/Memorial-Day-Weekend-Adventures-2011

Now, technically, this new mode isn’t true full-screen because it doesn’t make the browser window fill your monitor; it only fills the browser window with your editing.  I like this, though, because in general, I’m not a huge fan of true full-screen apps.  They kind of defeat the point of having a huge monitor!  (I mean, really, who wants to play bejeweled full-screen on a 27 inch monitor?  Talk about your crazy long mouse movements!)

All in all, this new editing mode is great! It actually makes me want to write more blog posts — and I’ll take all the encouragement I can get in that department!

Today, I am biking one of my favorite trails in the area: the C&O Canal towpath. I am currently sitting at my halfway point about 20 miles in and thought I’d try out the wordpress app that I downloaded to my android phone.

I am probably the farthest up the trail that I’ve ever been and it has been a bit of an adventure. The further away from civilization I got the more the ride became an exercise in dodging small sticks and mud puddles along the trail.  Needless to say, I am currently very mud splattered and will need a nice shower when I get home!

Now this wouldn’t be a very good test of the software if I didn’t attempt to upload a picture. Luckily, I have one or two that I have taken along the ride today.
Every time I ride this trail, I get excited about fall because this area is absolutely beautiful with the changing leaves!

Edit: Having looked at what actually got uploaded for my post, I must say I’m a bit dissatisfied in the android app.  There weren’t enough ways to format the appearance of the post. I tend to be a bit anal when it comes to aesthetics…I want things to be just like I want them!  My biggest problem was with the images:  The mobile app wouldn’t let me choose to show just the thumbnail, but automatically inserted the big image into the post.  It also wouldn’t let me choose where to insert the image, instead, putting all the images at the very beginning of the post.

I guess it would do in a pinch, but I can’t see me using it on a regular basis.

The first ting we did after arriving at the visitor’s center was to get our tickets to go through the museum, watch the informational movie, and then see the Cyclorama.  It was all very impressive and I must say the movie was very well done.  It was informative without being too stiff (if that even makes any sense).  I was particularly impressed with the Cyclorama — a 27ft tall painting that depicts a 360 degree view of the battle field having a circumference of 359 ft!  The detail was amazing and I can’t even imagine the time it must have taken the artist to complete it.

After exploring the visitor center and the museum, we hopped on a tour us for a guided tour around the battlefield. I was able to snap a few pictures while we were moving down the road — one of those pictures is to the right here.  We didn’t get to stop much while on the bus tour, but the narrative was informative — though some may disagree with me here!  Since it was my first time at the battlefield, however, it was nice to be able to hear what the guide had to say about the sights.  We got out once at Little Round Top, but were only allowed to stay about 15 minutes.

Since the bus tour did not allow us to truly explore the area at our own pace, once it was finished, we got back in our vehicle and proceeded to drive around the battlefield again.  We took our time and stopped at the various sights and monuments along the way.  It was fun to walk around and explore.  There were even several groups or reenactors spotted in the area.  The group shown in the picture to the left was particularly impressive.  They almost made you feel like you had been transported back in time and had come up on a group of soldiers preparing for the coming battle.

I would have a hard time choosing my favorite experience of the day.  The scope of the battlefield and what took place there over the course of 3 or 4 days many years ago is a bit overwhelming.  There is something about walking around that area that is really sobering and impressive.  If you’re interested in the rest of the pictures that I took that day, they can all be found  in my gallery at  http://gallery.creationsings.net/Photography/Travels/Gettysburg-June-2011.

One thing this trip made me realize:  There are many places within a short distance of where I live that I should take the time to see.  I think I need to start making a list so that on free weekends I can get out and go sight seeing and not have to think too hard about where to go.

Now, don’t get me wrong: Facebook has its benefits.  I love the fact that most of my friends are on there — my real friends, not just my “Facebook friends” — and it has become a nice central hub for communicating  with others.  Quick messages and updates are passed back and forth with an ease that isn’t easily achieved through “conventional” methods.  Most people check Facebook, these days, more often than standard email, so I can sometimes reach people faster on there than other methods.

What I don’t like about Facebook, and what I’m just coming to realize in a way, is just how “noisy” it is.  Strange, huh, to think of a digitally printed medium as being noisy, but to me, that’s exactly what it is.  As soon as you log on, you’re assaulted with the details of everyone’s personal lives:  grievances and frustrations, happiness and joys – it all ends up as a quick one or two sentence “status update” on the Facebook news feed.  I’ve been guilty of it.  But how much can you really learn about your true friends in that method.  Okay, maybe for some people, you can learn a bit more than you’d really like to…but I’d venture to guess that most people censor their status posts to either the most exciting or the most sensational areas of their lives.  For me, this has started to negatively affect my outlook on my own life.  I find myself reading all the posts and thinking, “Wow! That person has such an exciting life…I’m a bit boring compared to that.”  Or, “Oh, look at the cute couple and how happy they are.  What must be wrong with me that I’m not in that place yet.”

So, here is what I’m thinking…I’ve had this blog set up for quite some time now.  Usually it is an infrequently updated thing; with me only writing new posts when I’ve got something to say about some of the pictures that I’ve taken recently.  But with my recent thoughts about Facebook and my urge to express myself using devices longer than 2 sentences — some might think that strange — maybe, just maybe, this blog can be a tool to help me break free of the social media addiction.   Now, before you go getting excited about frequent updates (who am I kidding…like there’s anyone reading this), you should know that I’ve had similar thoughts to this before.  I’m really not much of a writer, and the discipline that it takes to construct something meaningful is sometimes beyond me.  However, I’m kind of hoping that anytime I feel the need to mindlessly blast out some factoid about my life on Facebook, I can turn here instead.  Here, I’ll be forced to consider a few things first:

• does it have merit?
• will I be embarrassed about this later?
• does anyone really care? (okay, maybe this last one won’t have high priority…after all, this is the world-wide-web where people post all kinds of things regardless of the general level of interest)

He’s still working on me
to make me what I ought to be.
It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars;
the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.
How loving and patient He must be.
He’s still working on me.

While it was a somewhat strange thing to have going on in my head, it was a great reminder and a nice encouragement.  I am very grateful that God hasn’t finished working on me yet; that He hasn’t lost patience when I do the idiotic things that I am often wont to do.  It’s nice to be reminded that the way things are isn’t the way they will always be.  If I seek after Him, He will continue to make me in His image.

I took matters a little further as well and modified his code so that the links that are generated use the embeditem gallery3 plugin (see site here) instead of a hard link to the image path.  That allows me to freely rearrange my gallery without having to worry about breaking links here in my blog.  This is the connection for which I’ve been searching for a while now.

I still would like to take steps to unify my web design between my blog and my gallery,  but at least I can easily post my images now.  Makes me happy! And just because I can, here’s a random image! Ha!

Oklahoma City, Near the Memorial.

I’m still searching for the best way to integrate my photo gallery into my site as seemlessly as possible.  I’d like for both this blog and the gallery to feel like one site, not two. Plus, if I can get the photo integration correct, then I can start turning this site into a photo journal (which is really what I intended from the very start).

To celebrate the move to the new host, I’ve updated my theme to have a nice spring feel to it.  The picture of the cherry blossoms was taken by me back in 2008 during the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC.  That was my first cherry blossom festival…I still try make time each year to get up into the heart of things while the festival is going on.  It’s starting to feel like a tradition!

Right now, I’ve only customized the most basic things.  I’ll gradually be tweaking it to make it more “me.”  Right now, it’s too similar to its parent…this child needs to grow up and become its own thing!