Chinese steel

I shot this picture on May 11, 2006 in Beijing.

With the Olympic Games beginning on August 8, the Chinese spent many man hours over several years constructing structures, including this one.

The Olympic torch arrived today in Macao, and makes its way to the mainland. Over the next three months, the torch will relay through every Chinese province. I wonder how much of the relay will be on foot, as much of the nation is desolate.

I wonder if my above picture is for an athletic venue or a peripheral lodging structure.

Hole

Last weekend, Jen moved into the vacant apartment above me, and earlier this week, I noticed a small leak from my kitchen ceiling. Her shower was above it. Coincidence?

I called the landlord and left a message.

A plumber was dispatched, and it was determined her shower drain needed replacement.

So, I have a hole in my kitchen ceiling this weekend:



Allegedly, a carpenter will patch it up on Monday. In the meantime, I hear the plumber tapping away upstairs and I noticed the water is shut off today to a trickle. Grreat, where to take a shower?

Mystic travel

About two weeks ago, I convened a meeting in Newburyport City Hall with state officials from the UMass Center for Health Care Finance and Policy to talk about federal reimbursement options under Medicare and Medicaid. In response, and based on cost analyses I performed on Medicare insurance, I drove down to Charlestown today to meet with them at the Schrafft Center.

Before driving over this bridge and getting stuck in 10-minute-per-mile traffic on Route 1 in Saugus, I shot this picture of the Tobin Bridge, as seen from the north outside the Schrafft. It was cloudy, foggy, and about an hour before dusk.

Quiet night

During the first significant snowfall since I moved here, I donned a hat and scarf and wore a heavy wool coat and ventured into the drifting snow around 8 p.m., curious to see what downtown Newburyport looked like at night in the snow. There were a few other people out, a couple restaurants and bars open, but otherwise the streets were reserved for numerous snow plows of all sizes and shapes.

I jaunted down to the river, following a trail of earlier footsteps only half-buried by later snow, and shot this picture looking east along the boardwalk, next to the Merrimack River:



Maybe because it was so dark out or because there was a lot of snowfall, but it appeared as if Plum Island was completely dark. Power failure?

Israeli pics are up

I uploaded about 20 percent of my 600+ Israeli pictures to this Flickr set.

Other pictures, which I'm purposefully not making public due to other people shown, are on a shared Picasa server.

Among my favorites are:

A rose by any other name in Haifa.


Trinkets in Jerusalem's Arab marketplace.


The sun's halo from Masada.


A foray into rock music photography, with the guitarist of Ethnix at a private show.


The Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv, with the beach facade designed by famous artist Yaakov Agam.

Views

With a fast Internet connection at my cousins' home in the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood of north Jerusalem, I figured I'd share a few images of the promised land.

First up is a view of the Baha'i shrine in Haifa. The 5 million global members of the Baha'i comprise the world's second largest religious faith. Notice the lush green vegetation that grows on the hill. I didn't visit the shrine, but we did see it from both below and above.


About halfway between Haifa and Tel Aviv, Herod the Great built Caesarea around 25 B.C. These columns represent a structure that existed in this maritime historical park.


Viewed from the peak of Mount Scopus, where we promptly recited the Kiddish and recited the Shehecheyanu upon arrival in Jerusalem, and before checking in at the hotel. The Dome of the Rock shines mightily in the summer heat.


We are readying for Shabbat, with sundown in some four hours. My cousin Matat with her husband and three kids are here now, and two non-family members are also going to stay over. I can already hear the noise from the kids. Still, it's more peaceful than the whirlwind of the past two weeks.

Whirlybird weirdness in Somerville

I've lived at this Somerville address for about a year now, and tonight was the first time I recall a helicopter flying so close to the ground. It woke me out of my online stupor, thinking there was some fire or bomb scare nearby. It seemed to be about 50 feet above neighborhood roofs, and I thought it was a MedFlight copter about to land.

I shot some pictures below. The bird appears to have the triangular State Police emblem, but who knows. Weird, though.

Sland is your land, sland is my land...

I recognize that times are tight and state funds are low, but I doubt it costs more than a dollar or two, including labor, for someone to paint an I where it peeled off, can it?

Looking for vivid colors

I'm on a hunt for catchy colors (to borrow the name of a Flickr photo pool) to photograph in and around Boston. Aside from flowers, I've noticed a lack of vividity in the city. Why is that?

Uncommon in Boston Common

I walked around with my camera this afternoon in Boston Common and I noticed things I never saw before. Despite hundreds of walks in years' past along the same foot paths, I never had the time to really l-o-o-k.

The Parkside at 170 Tremont Street, for instance, was recently remodeled but I never looked up at its shiny windows.



With my naked eye, I noticed what looked like a light post or a security camera on the roof. Indeed, it's a security camera.



Maybe there's a roof patio I don't know about, but why else would the camera be there?

As I stood on a patch of grass not far from the Boylston subway station, I switched my eyes from the sky to the ground and observed, at first what I thought were MBTA markers, a series of manhole covers for the Boston Water and Sewer Commission and the much-older Boston Water Works. (I posted several of these archaic covers here.)

Keeping my eyes to the grass, though, I didn't really notice where I was walking until I found myself about halfway between the Parkman Bandstand and one of the baseball fields. Looking up, I saw a crypt-like structure.

At first, I thought it was a war memorial but there were no markings. It was near several of the Boston Water Works' markings; could it be an old BWW building? Or a mauseleum for the old burial grounds? An MDC guard shack? The trapdoor next to the structure also blew me, but the fence was rusted and also padlocked.

What is it?