Scribbles and Photos

I have been meaning to post some photos of the gardens at the Hotel Bel-Air  where I stayed with the intrepid Nancy B (aka the B) on my recent "mini-cay" in southern California. The gardens definitely offered an opportunity to re-acquaint myself with an older (and more cantankerous) camera -- the Olympus Utz.  For the record, it still has a mind of its own when focusing and it still performs just "so so" in low light.  On the positive side, it's a lot smaller and easier to carry around than my usual travel companion (the Olumpus 520 DSLR). I've waxed rhapsodic about the Bel-Air in a review,  Oasis in a Big City , on TripAdvisor.  It is a great hotel that came out of a two-year renovation ready to host the Hollywood elite -- and folks like me -- for another decade or so.  As for the flowers -- it's clear that a lot of hard work goes into the gardens and grounds and that work pays off in a big way. They grow them big and showy in southern Califo...

Sunday, I headed West to Riverside Park to check out the restored section of Hudson river walk (between 96th street and the Boat Basin) and see what was up with the 69th street Transfer Bridge.  Since discovering Central Park's Conservatory Garden, I hadn't spent any time in Riverside Park in well over a year.  I was reminded that the walk along the river is one of the best in NY -- particularly the section below the boat basin which has been restored to feel like a boardwalk meandering among sea grasses. Much to my surprise and delight, the 2012 Model to Monument (M2M) show had opened on Thursday.  Brought to us by the Art Students League of NY, M2M has art students working under Gregg Wyatt (sculptor in residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine) to learn how to create site-specific public art on a monumental scale. Of the seven sculptures ( map ), my favorites are Cope (Damien Armondo Vera) and Proceeding Being (HakSul Lee). Cope The only angle you...

Selected photos from the Conservatory Garden in NYC's Central Park (and an experiment with linking to Picasa rather than importing photos so just click not the photo below and enjoy). Spring Garden

Yet Another Coronado Sunset By now, you likely have heard of Pinterest -- the online community for organizing and sharing, well, just about everything one can find on the Web as long as there is an image (or Video) to share!  Pinterest aims to connect everyone in the world through things we (you and me that is) find interesting.  That is a BIG goal. Famous people who are pinning include Barack Obama  (while his campaign is pinning for him -- you don't really think the leader of the free world has time to pin do you?).  Nicholas Kristoff was pinning for a while but his Boards seem to have disappeared.  Perhaps he got a little antsy about the copyright ownership polices  (which are better  than they were).   Like Facebook, there are a lot of "fake" famous people (e.g., Lady Gaga and Britney Spears each have multiple boards).  Artists are using it to share their work and marketers are busy figuring out how they can tap into all those...

Gingko Shadows There’s not many things I do on impulse these days particularly when it comes to purchasing anything that has an on and off switch (other than lamps).   Usually, I read endless reviews, I wait for the 2 nd generation (and sometimes the 3 rd or 4 th generation!), I watch for sales and I resign myself to never, ever being the kid on the block with the coolest new toy. This morning, for the 2 nd time in as many months, I succumbed to impulse.  The first time had been for the Lytro Camera -- it just seemed so cool to me that this little camera would let me snap a picture without worrying about focus – capturing all the light and leaving me to play with focusing the image after the fact and at my leisure OR not focus the photo at all and let other people play with the image.  Sure there are drawbacks (proprietary software for one) but this little camera is probably going to transform photography as we know it.  As an inveterate shutterbu...

I was wrong about the tulips -- they survived the cold and the rain of a couple of weeks ago.  Indeed, some had seemingly just emerged.... Others, were making a glorious exit this year -- as beautiful in their final unfolding as they had been upon their initial unfurling....

African Morning Web It’s a week later and I’m another plane flying towards home.   This time my TV works and I’m happily watching Law & Order, it’s the perfect show for a mind that appears to have been wiped clean of any coherent thoughts.   My mind, in case you are wondering.    It’s an episode that I’ve seen and the contours of the story are starting to take shape as we round the turn to the side of the show that is owned by Jack McCoy.   If I were a lawyer, he is the lawyer I would want to be.   In the end, they’ll prove that the blond teenage daughter convinced the mentally unstable man to murder her mother.   Law and order – all neatly sewed together   in the space of hour. It’s been a long week of meetings and corridor confabs.   I’ll be glad to be home and tomorrow I have a spa day planned.   Then, I think, it’s off to DC (I really should confirm that though) for another couple of days of meetings.   S...