Out and about in DC

I really like getting to visit our nation's capital frequently, which means I can get at least somewhat familiar with (parts of) it. In addition to the museums, landmarks, and other sightseeing magnets, it's just a fun city to visit, walk around in, ride the metro in, and eat in!

My recent visit was at a particularly nice time of year. In spite of the fact that the cherry blossoms were done, there were lots of other gorgeous flowering plants on display, Like these, which I glimpsed near Judiciary Square, on my walk to purchase a senior metro pass (which will be very nice to have on subsequent visits!).

Of course everyone knows about the imposing government buildings. But there are also a lot of pretty churches in the city, too. 

Also lots of interesting residential buildings, too, like this one, near my hotel...

This neighborhood goes by the catchy name "NoMa," which means "north of Massachusetts" (the avenue, not the state!). 

It was a very nice area, with plenty of amenities, like a handy upscale grocery right next door to the hotel. It's a Harris-Teeter, and it has a somewhat surprising claim to fame ...

I mentioned eating earlier. Boy, do I eat well in DC! I didn't sample the street food advertised here, but I was intrigued enough by the reference to a Texas region that I had to take a picture:

But I did have some great meals on this visit, as I'm used to. One of the more memorable was a crab quesadilla (chosen in lieu of the usual obligatory crabcakes) at Kramerbooks. (Yes, it's a bookstore, but also a great restaurant!)

Kramerbooks is near the DuPont Circle metro, a charming neighborhood that I hadn't visited before. Next time, I want to go there again and spend some time taking a look around, which we didn't have time for. But as we headed back to the train, this lovely scene was on display...

Neat buildings, lovely clouds, great food and good friends...yes, all of DC is a great place to visit. Of course, the main attractions remain near the Mall, where I'll take you in my next post.

Hanging out in a landmark

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I periodically have the pleasure of visiting our nation’s capital on the University’s dime. I was supposed to attend a meeting there last fall, but children [ie, Congress] behaving badly put the kibosh on my, and many other folks’, plans.

The conference was rescheduled for late April instead. Cherry blossoms were all pretty much down (which, actually, is a good thing, since I understand hotel prices go through the roof when the blossoms are at peak, and those prices are high enough as it is!) …

…but it was still a great time of year for a visit. There was rain the first two days I was there, but then things cleared off gloriously. I stayed an extra day or two for sightseeing and family visiting, and will talk about these activities later. Today I want to highlight the venue of the conference.

Normally we have these shindigs in an area hotel, but this year we saved taxpayers beaucoup bucks (you’re welcome!) by meeting in the Government Printing Office’s own shop.

It’s a fabulous old building just a few blocks from the capitol (with NPR up the street a ways, and C-Span down the other side!). You can read more about the agency’s history here, but the main takeaway is that it’s been printing government documents in this location, for citizen edification and information, for more than 150 years. And it was a treat to meet there and soak up some of this history, as my profession works to adapt to a fast-changing information environment without losing our core values. (For instance, they want to change the name of the agency; see more about that here.)

As in any older building, the architectural details, even in spaces as prosaic as meeting rooms, were a joy to notice...

neat decor, and a good place to work!

glancing up from note-taking, I see this beauty

classy additions to nice views of the city

Our main meeting room was called Harding Hall, quite possibly the best, if not the only, dignified location named for this president who doesn't usually make the 10 best lists...

Here's a photo of the space all dolled up for a more festive occasion, a dance in 1941...

Isn't that cool!? There's a whole collection of these old-timey photos showing the human side of GPO's history, and they make good use of them in the halls we traversed going back and forth to various meeting venues. If you want to see more, here's a link to them.

I wasn't a speaker at this conference, but I did do a poster for that session, and it led to my having a picture taken with no less than the head of GPO herself, the Public Printer of the United States! Some of her charisma must have rubbed off on me, because I hardly ever photograph this well! That's my poster, on using QR codes in the stacks to link to online government information, in the background:

The meeting, as usual, was hard work but rewarding. And the subsequent sightseeing was, although also hard work (!) a nice change of pace. I took some interesting pictures out and about in DC, as well as thoroughly documenting a couple of museum visits. Stay tuned!

Wordless Wednesday: where the magic happens

Wordless Wednesday: new babies!

The exotic and the familiar in A-Town

Here's something you don't see every day when you look up into a tree in South Texas...

...but, then, Austin specializes in things you don't see every day in lamer parts of the state.

After our viewing and playing with the art installations at Laguna Gloria, that I told you about in my last post, we stopped by a nearby park, Mayfield Park and Preserve. Specifically, to see the peacocks! 

And they were spectacular, as I guess they can't help but be.

Even when they're not all fanned out, it seems:

But the small park has other charms as well. From lovely, lovely flowers of all kinds, like this one,...and these...

...and even some other neat animals. Can you spot the teeny-tiny turtle?

Turtles are the familiar in my title. (Does anyone remember these guys?) Who wants to bet we might eventually see a peacock on the river?

Mayfield even has medieval-looking towers! Is there anything cool that Austin doesn't offer weekend visitors?!

Multi-cultural

Everyone knows that Austin is a hip cultural hotspot. And last weekend we got to sample some of the varieties of culture on offer there with our hip, cultured kiddos.

First on tap (no pun intended, although when you're out with these beer-snobs, there's always something on tap) was the Great American Pastime...

...college style. Long-time readers of this blog will remember my much-enjoyed visits to the Junior College World Series. So it was nice to get to hear that "tink" of aluminum hitting horsehide again.

The UT Longhorns have won a few series of their own, as signage proudly pointed out...

But they weren't so lucky this weekend, losing all three games to TCU, including the middle one that we saw. They were in first place in the conference when we arrived, but probably not by the time we left. However, the game was fun, the weather perfect, and the company delightful, so the score didn't matter all that much.

We did feel a little out of place, not wearing burnt orange, which was the color of choice for a majority of our fellow fans...

...but fortunately that was not held against us. As you can see, we had great seats, right behind first base. Where, we realized after an inning or so, we were pretty close to a celebrity...

note also bright orange "dirt" around the bag

Well, at least a celebrity's relative. That's Kacy Clemens, one of the sons of the [in]famous Roger. He's a freshman at UT, his pop's alma mater. Pretty Kool. (All of Clemens' sons have odd names that start with K, the scorekeeper's symbol for a strikeout. Which he was pretty good at doing to opposing batters for a pretty long time.)

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Thanks to those of my readers who don't consider baseball high culture for bearing with me so far. The rest of the post might be more to your liking.

Saturday we made a return visit (it was a return for me at least) to the Laguna Gloria branch of the Contemporary Austin, a modern art museum that featured installations by Charles Long both there and at their downtown location. Both were very interesting and entertaining.

I was at Laguna Gloria just about a year ago, but the fun sculptures we saw this time are not permanent fixtures there. The installation as a whole was called "Pet Sounds" (not, it seems, totally unrelated to the Beach Boys album of the same name), very appropriate since the oddly shaped metal objects made all kinds of interesting (and sometimes alarming!) sounds when touched. (Except for the gray one on the right, which seemed to be out of order.)

Unfortunately I can't reproduce the sounds, but I hope you can get an idea of the fun nature of the sculptures...I didn't see anyone, of any age, touching them and not smiling with child-like delight!

silent pink...bubble gum?

Travis makes bubble music

Henry and friend

we think the pipes had something to do with the sound production

a duet

Of course the grounds are lovely even without the fun art, and their permanent items are cool, too...

...as well as Nature's contributions to the scene...

A good time was had by all!

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Later that afternoon, Henry and I used our two-for-one ticket to see the Long installations at the downtown museum, and were well-rewarded for foregoing our afternoon naps.

The small museum has two floors and there were related, but also strikingly different, installations on each.

Downstairs were some fascinating and beautiful plastic pieces representing icebergs...

Beyond their striking beauty, they were doubly interesting because of how they were made. The artist took random datasets (for example, 40 years of monthly gold prices, numbers of unprovoked fatal shark attacks since 1900, number of Lamborghinis sold since 1990, for example; like I said...random!) and somehow used a 3D printer to generate the neat shapes you see here from these sets of numbers. 'Way cool!

I stooped down a little to show a more edge-on view

Then, upstairs was an extensive black-lit landscape of more ice-berg-looking objects, but with smoother contours. They were covered with jersey-like sheets (and you could sit on them) and lit by a varying levels of illumination from two video screens showing interesting video effects...more really beautiful and interesting stuff!

The museum building itself is simple in its design, but quite attractive. I was taken by these little green window-like apertures...here seen from the inside...

...and here from out on the street...

Trés hip, non?

That's a long enough post for today, but I've left out yet another attraction (not to mention a run-down of all the hip food consumed). I'll save that for next time.

Wordless Wednesday: what else can I say?