MLK

I love it when people visit because it gives me a good excuse to wander around the National Mall.  Two days after Alison's birthday and only one full week after it opened to the public, I stood in front of a towering Martin Luther King, Jr staring at me with a stern look on his face that could only mean: our work in this country to improve civil liberties is not finished.

Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope

It was crowded, and probably the most diverse crowd I've ever seen in a National Park.  I most enjoyed bumping into our favorite ranger, who had wandered over after a failed attempt to gather people for a bird hike.

Ranger Nathan King who gets asked often if he is related to MLK.

That day we also discovered a great place to cool our feet and relax...

 National Sculpture Garden Fountain

...and Alison enjoyed wandering around the FDR memorial with her grandparents.

Maybe next time I'll be able to successfully talk someone into paddle-boating on the tidal basin with me!

Newseum

The Newseum is a privately-run museum in DC and despite its $22/adult price tag, I'd always heard great things about it.  For the first time in its history, it was free last weekend to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of September 11th.

There are a couple of sites around DC where they very clearly have money and aren't afraid to spend it.  The Newseum is one of those.  It is seven floors of news, news history, movies, interactive games, and shops with a giant glass elevator running from the basement to the 6th floor.  At the top they have a terrace with an amazing view of the Capital.  Inside there were a few gems and a few things that made me angry.

First, I should preface this with the disclosure that lately I haven't been very happy with the media.  While I wholeheartedly support free speech, I also support fact-checking and honest reporting.  Sensationalizing every little story just to sell it has driven our economy deeper into recession, further polarized the country, and is just plain fear mongering.  I think our media is out of control and it's time for them to self-regulate a little better.   One trip out of the country and you'll realize how self-centered and off-center our media really is.

The Newseum generally reflects this industry standard by devoting huge areas of the museum to their most successful stories, mainly September 11th and Hurricane Katrina.  They praise themselves throughout for using their right to free speech for good, "Look at us, we trudge through the backcountry and risk our lives to bring you the news.  We're the first ones to get to the biggest stories.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah."  I was not impressed, but it did get more interesting as it went along.

There are a few things well-worth coming to see.

First, they have the largest chunk of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany.

 Berlin Wall

They also have the broadcast antenae from the top of one of World Trade Towers set in front of a backdrop of worldwide front pages from 9/12/01.

 9/11 - The Newseum's favorite subject

There is a memorial to journalists who have died in action with some interesting details about where they were and why.  My favorite room was probably the News History room, where they have front pages from newspapers dating back to 1455 (you can see the front page from when the Spanish Armada was defeated!).  I also enjoyed this exhibit on worldwide freedom of the press.

  It turns out in addition to having the best education, quality of life, and health care system, Finland also has the most freedom of the press.  Should we move?

Alison liked the tour of a real-life news studio (ABC Weekend Something...) and the exhibit on the presidents' dogs.  There are also theaters galore, including a 4D show (which I was scared would include very lifelike paparazzi running after you), and an entire floor of interactive news games where you could report on your own story and post it to youtube (for a price).

By the time I was done, my anger at the press had subsided and I was happy to have seen the museum.  Was it worth the $22?  Not unless you've already seen ALL of the free museums and are incredibly hungry for some drama.

National Gallery of Art

Last Sunday my mom and I went to the National Gallery of Art.  I had been there once before, with only enough time to view the first wing I came to.  I thought it was neat, but was unimpressed by the barrage of French, Dutch, and Flemmish artists I had never heard of.  Alison fell asleep.

This time, we happened to start on the lower level at a temporary exhibit, From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, and walked straight into famous artist central.  The gallery may not have anyone's most famous piece, but they have a lot of big names and if I'd studied Art History, I may have been in heaven.  As it were, I have studied Spanish art and was excited to see several Picassos (one from his blue period, one from his cubism stage, and the others were earlier works), a room filled with El Greco, one Dali, a couple Velazquez, and a Goya or two.  In short, more Spanish art than I've seen since my last trip to Madrid going on eight years now.  Here's a sampling of some of the more interesting works they have at the gallery.

Degas - First painting you see in the Chester Dale Collection

Picasso

 

 Monet

 

 Da Vinci - The Gallery's crown jewel, this is the only Da Vinci work in the United States

The entire building itself is art, with marble columns, ancient wallpaper, gardens, and fountains.

It's a great place for babies who love to look and learn!

Earthquake Spam

It's true that when something happens to the East Coast, that's all the rest of the country gets to hear about on the news.  It's because we (I mostly mean the East Coast-based news media) are all pretty self-involved and a bit over-dramatic.  We had an earthquake this week and thanks to all the facebook spam from your friends on the East Coast, you know.  So, while Peru just had a 7.0-magnitude earthquake which blows ours out of the water, I'd like to obsess about our 5.8er this week.

I was in my cube on the 4th floor of our 7-story building on Tuesday (prime earthquake flattening location now that I think about it), when things started to shake.  I'd asked someone when we moved if we ever got earthquakes here.  They said no, so my my train of thought went something like this:

Whoa.
Are we in an earthquake?  No. They don't have those here.
Oh crap, I'm in DC, probably a bomb.
Well, I'm still alive, so that's good news.
I'm sure they would have bombed the National Mall, but Nathan's at MLK - he's probably OK.
Um.  What the hell? This thing is still going?  Holy sh*t this is getting bad.
Holy sh*t what do I do in an earthquake?  Doorway!  Wait, get out of here?
I never learned where the stairwells were in this building.  That was stupid.
No time to move if this thing is going to collapse it'll do it before I leave.
Doorframe, get to the DOORFRAME.  Could this building collapse?
HOLY CRAP IS THIS THING GOING TO COLLAPSE, I NEED TO LEA - phew, it stopped.

We evacuated.  (What I should have known to do right away.) 

Our street during the evacuation.

No phones worked, no internet.  It was pretty hard to get information.  Having never been in an earthquake, I guessed it would be about a 4.0 based on the fact that everything was still standing.  When I found out it was closer to 6.0, I felt kind of proud that I'd been through that.  It was thrilling, in retrospect.

Luckily, in a city ill-equipped for earthquakes, not much damage was reported except to the National Cathedral and Washington Monument, a structure Nathan says he won't go back into unless they give him an option to buy more life insurance.  Lovely.  A few things fell off the shelves in our house and pictures were skewed, but luckily Alison and Grandma went right outside and Alison really enjoyed seeing everyone in the building in one place.

Photo Credit: Nathan King

It took me two hours to get home.  In order to inspect the entire Metro railway system, trains moved at 15 mph for the rest of the day.  I stood on the crowded platform at Farragut West and watched three over-crowded trains go by before I decided to go the opposite direction, then get on at a less-crowded stop.  That worked.  Just as I thought my commute couldn't get any worse, however, there I was, stuck in a super-crowded railcar going 1/4 of its normal speed when I saw it.  The largest spider I'd seen since Kansas crawling up the girl's skirt next to me.  I couldn't move away - too many people.  This might be very close to my worst nightmare, but it wasn't the scariest thing that happened that day.

So, today, as Hurricane Irene creeps up from the South, I'm creating an emergency/evacuation kit.  I guess you can never be too careful.  It's also my opinion that you can never have too much SPAM.

A New Leaf

It's Saturday and I finally know what it feels like to be disappointed that it's the weekend.  OK, that's not entirely true.  I am REALLY excited to spend the entire day with Alison, but two weeks into the new job at National Geographic and I can safely ask myself: why did I wait so long?!  I am now a Project Manager on a team that updates the http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ website.  If you haven't visited lately, bookmark it.  It is forever packed with amazing information.  Don't worry, we're working on getting that flyout to settle down.

I have two reflection topics to share about my first two weeks:

1. My commute rocks.  It takes me 45-60 minutes one way, walking, then riding a bus and train.  That sounds horrible doesn't it?  I know!  So why do I find myself looking forward to it every day?  Probably because I get to catch-up on the news first thing in the morning via the free commuter newspaper, The Express.  I also get to walk around downtown, through Farragut Square, and basically feel like I'm back in Sevilla again enjoying an exotic land.  Maybe the fun of it will wear off, but this sure beats driving.
2. National Geographic rocks.  You know what they do and no one does it better, but did you know their culture permeates through to how they do business every day?  Their buildings are LEED Gold, there's a compost bin on each floor and they recycle just about everything.  There's a photo gallery at the street level of my building (that anyone can walk in and see for free).  If you look up, there are the stars, situated in the exact same configuration that the founders would have seen on the day Nat Geo was founded in 1888.  There is a constant stream of National Geographic-funded explorers giving talks and presentations (that are also usually open to the public, I should add) and they just added a bee hive to the roof.  If all that doesn't make you happy then maybe you're not me!

Life is good.

Mount Vernon

Since it's not run by the National Park Service, I suspected Mount Vernon, George Washington's Estate on the Potomac, would be either lame or over-commercialized.  It was only slightly over-commercialized, but it is a great day trip if you've been all over downtown DC already.

 Washington's Mansion

The cost is $15, but you get to tour Washington's mansion, see his tomb, view several gardens, enjoy a brand-new state-of-the-art museum, and be oriented by Pat Sajak in colonial dress.  They also have a farm with animals and a distillery where Washington made a ton from his homegrown whiskey, but we didn't make it that far.  Instead, we were thoroughly schooled in the awesomeness that was our first President.  Nathan was right when he pointed out that the museum was "not exactly balanced".  For instance, an entire room was devoted to Washington's dentures, with no mention that his teeth came from slaves (they were not wooden).  They did talk a lot about the slaves he kept, but continually reminded you that they were freed upon his death.

 View from Mount Vernon

That tree (near the middle) existed during Washington's time.

Lower Gardens - Stocked with heritage plants set-up the way they were in the late 1700s

Upper Garden & Greenhouse - Washington had lemons and oranges year-round

I don't think there is much you can complain about when it came to the personal and political life of George Washington (his wife burned all but three of their love letters to avoid them becoming public in the future).  He was a pretty good guy with hundreds of towns, schools, and monuments named for him.  His true brilliance really came in stepping down voluntarily after two terms.  He could've been King, but decided to set a precedence that only FDR ignored.

Rest in peace Washington, you have a very nice estate, although crowded during tourist season, on which to spend eternity.

Practice Run

OK, I'll admit it.  Being nervous that I would have no clue what I was doing during rush hour in the Metro Transit System, I did a practice run of my commute on Thursday.  As I suspected, there was really no need for this because DC has the BEST public transportation system ever and I easily got from home to work in 45 minutes and 1/4 of a book later.

The trip really only served to convince me of how awesome my new commute really is.  The bus is clean and quiet, trains come every five minutes, I walk through a park (which had people in full business dress with no shoes doing yoga before work), and I pass no less than four places willing to sell me a hot breakfast for under $4.  Not only that, but my commute ends at National Geographic headquarters!

This is where I report on Monday.

This is a view of the building next to mine, the National Geographic Museum:

Yay!