Archive for November 2003
Thomas Circle Sunset
This was the view south from Thomas Circle last Friday. I was coming home from the gym when I saw this spectacular sunset. Fortunately I had my camera in my gym bag. It’s a good thing it was still there because about two hours later I discovered that while I was working out someone had managed to open the combination lock to my locker and steal my credit cards. The thief left the expensive camera behind, but given that the thief had run up about $3,000 in charges by the time I had called to report the cards missing, I suppose the camera was small change.
I am almost certain I know who the thief was. There were two people in the locker room when I left to go work out and one of them I’ve always thought was a little sketchy. But I have no solid proof. The gym, Thomas Circle Sports Club, doesn’t really care that it happened. I told them I was switching gyms over it and they just shrugged their shoulders. The decent thing to have done would have been to offer a free month to have me stay. I probably would have let the matter drop and bought a super-duper lock to use in the future.
Now I know why they have these signs all over the place saying they aren’t responsible for theft. Oh well, the place was dirty, overcrowded, and obviously insecure.
Posted by clifburns on 11/24/03 at 10:14 pmCategory: Uncategorized | Permalink | No Comments »
Total Eclipse of the Moon
There was a total lunar eclipse tonight over the East Coast. People were standing in the middle of 17th Street looking up at it, as people have been doing for thousands of years.
This picture was taken just after the total eclipse. The red color in the shadowed area is the refraction of the sun’s light through Earth’s atmosphere, the same refraction that creates a sunset. In some sense, the moon is reflecting all the sunsets on Earth at the time of the eclipse.
Every now and then something makes us realize that life is bigger than we are, that we are on a planet that is a tiny speck in the universe, and that there are things that will persist even when we are gone.
Posted by clifburns on 11/8/03 at 9:48 pmCategory: Uncategorized | Permalink | 1 Comment »
Brrrrr!
I’ve repaired the site completely tonight since the server migration. Woohoo! It looks like everything is working and there are no more broken links.
It’s been unseasonably warm, and my 8th floor condo is roasting. Which is what a friend told me who dropped by a little earlier tonight. The building air conditioning is off, so I’m relying on cross ventilation, which just is not working. So, I decided to post a picture from the storm last President’s Day to feel a little cooler. That, of course, is Fanny wondering what’s up with all this cold white stuff. I’m sure when we have the cold white stuff again in a few months, I’ll be complaining but right now it looks pretty nice.
Posted by clifburns on 11/6/03 at 12:13 pmCategory: Uncategorized | Permalink | No Comments »
Franklin Park fountain
I left work early today to sneak off to the gym, and as I walked by Franklin Park I saw that the fountain, which has been out of commision all summer is working again. This is one of my favorite fountains in town, even though it is notoriously unreliable. As you can see, only the central part of the fountain is working, but still the backlighting through the trees of the park makes it a beautiful sight to behold.
The underground stream that runs through Franklin Park used to be the source of water for the White House. Arnold Schwarzenegger rode a horse through the Franklin Park fountain in “True Lies,” or rather his stuntman did. I’m renting a horse to do the same thing so that maybe I can be governor of California too.
Posted by clifburns on 11/4/03 at 2:12 amCategory: Uncategorized | Permalink | 1 Comment »
