ReinDog Parade, McLean, VA

Today was ReinDog Parade, a McClean, VA celebration and competition. The Hoang's kept up their tradition by borrowing a dog, adding a lot of bows to their son & wagon, & inviting a friend who looked like a turkey. It was a winning recipe to win the "group" prize from the McClean Board of Commerce & Channel 9 News. Congratulations!


Beckham Hoang

William the Turkey

The point of the parade is a competition for the dog, but this entire family dressed up as the Nativity, with their dog as baby Jesus.

The winners!

(Anthony H was out of the photo, filming.)

IntLawRvw

I've had a dearth of international law interactions, due to my new consumption of everything conservation.

Like any American, I decided the best way to connect back to the subject would be through a source with 3 tones of pink and a title composed with extrrra consonants, & abbrev's.

If you need the same, try:

IntLawGrrls

voices on international law, policy, practice

http://intlawgrrls.blogspot.com/

Cotter Family Christmas Photo!

Those 2 lil' bookends to this photo are the newest editions to the Cotter family! (Paul & Owen) They did a good job wearing "grandchild red," providing a poinsettia affect to what would otherwise look like a funeral theme.

I'm most impressed with how the Waterford entrance awning makes us look like we're wearing one giant crown/halo. The Cotters are angelic & perfect. Rulers, really. Merry Christmas from Leawood, KS.

Sorry A Cappella

What I Blame:

• myself
• the microphone
  
• the echo/Y generation
  
• books

What Happened:

This weekend AG & I went to see an elite DC U's A Cappella show (rhymes w/ Orange Brown).

First, it was pretty strange of us to attend a university singing show (Express Night Out events weren't enticing, so I slummed it & looked to the U site & we decided to try some free undergrad singing!)

It was VERY ENTERTAINING & very lame.

While the beat-boxing was excellent, the student solos were intriguingly pathetic. No one put their mouth to the microphone. It was passive singing, on pitch. It was like someone who could juggle a soccer ball, as sort of a skill, but couldn't figure out that the point was to move the ball toward the goal.

The room was tiny w/ a stage the size of a kitchen (held an audience of 110), yet the voices hardly went past the 3rd row (you could hear them, but you couldn't FEEL them.) The sound system was sub-par, but that wasn't the reason their gig-presence had the affect of someone practicing in the corner.

It was a series of soloists blandly mimicking the lyrics to A.Morrisette, Hanson, Death Cab & Obama campaign songs, in a nice "I memorized these words for my 'choir team'" sort of way.... w/ a weird 10 person entourage of humming-finger-snapping 18 year-olds as backup. Is this normal for the East? (When I visited Duke one weekend, most buildings I saw had a "circle of standing ppl" gathered in practice, which I was told was the "A Capella rave.")

I mention books and the Y generation, because this was the downfall of the Fall concert, I think. These students were too smart to be good singers. Secondly, they grew up in a "team-achiever" generation & didn't know how to punch a solo-performance.

What I appreciated:

• thinking about Andy Bernard
• the guy in the hockey jersey who sang an awful solo but broke stereotypes
• Miami's amazing A Capella choir, probs fueled by our lack of presence as a"world power political" feeder
  
• DC free events

Why did I write about this? I have no idea. I do know I will be attending the next Orange Brown singing show, because 1/2-ass talent by some of the most elite minds in the nation was wonderful.

Newseum & Map of Press Freedoms

Yesterday I finally visited the Newseum, a brand new DC museum whose facade brandishes the First Amendment 6 stories high & whose content I'm sure you can surmise.

It's high-tech (you can create your own newscast to take home) & not free ($20), but outstanding... as it is a place to view (1) a wall of 60+ of the day's front pages; (2) ALL of the Pulitzer prize photos; & (3) montages of famous historical events & debates, sorted by decade & allowing for the viewer to select her desired database of video-clips, though everyone - including myself - keep uploading the summary of the 2008 election.

One floor is dedicated to the First Amendment. An entire wall displays a world map, tri-color-coded as to each country's press freedom. (see above). I was entirely surprised to see that 1/3+ of the world does not have free press (the purple countries). I'm naive. Maybe I've thought about these countries' limitations on freedom in other contexts, but seeing this map was startling. (code: green is free press; yellow is partly free; purple is not free).

Interactive Press Freedoms map online.

The exhibit on 9/11 was the most memorable. Along with more three-dimensional tributes, the museum has a set-off room to view a 12 min video of the footage from the day's events. It's told in a chronological format, so that the viewer watches the destruction in the timeline as it happened - using the best video footage in the nation that documented the event. powerful and haunting. It makes you really re-live the day's events, undesirable as this is.

There's also a faux Berlin wall, a sappy but enjoyable orientation video showcasing how news covers "love, hate, war, peace" & an exhibit on journalism ethics.

Newseum

Sailing the Schooner Virginia

I never imagined law school would lead to attending a "Downrigging Festival," but surprise (!), working for a conservation firm leads to all sorts of outdoors adventures.

This weekend I sailed the Schooner Virginia, at an event celebrating something about old boats (hey, I'm from Missouri; I don't know boat-speak).

We sailed from Chestertown, MD, on the East side of the Chesapeake Bay.


My firm worked on the first water Nat'l Trail (i.e. like Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail), and they've created the John Smith Nat'l Chesapeake National Historic Water Trail. It traces 3000 miles of historic routes taken by John Smith from 1607-1608 in Chesapeake Bay. Link: http://www.nps.gov/cajo/ The Sultana was John Smith's boat. A recreated boat sailed in the festival.

Map for John Smith Nat'l Chesapeake National Historic Water Trail

More photos from sailing:



Sultana (above)

Dear East Coast, Your Fall Is Somewhat Very Disappointing

I always, always considered the #1 reason to move East was the Fall.

Unfortunately, I have spent my October reminiscing about the beautiful foliage in KC, OH, & CO because the Fall in VA has been a hot mess. Boring earth tones & everything being arrogantly green too long because of the prolonged warm weather. A pathetic display of death. Nothing POPS. No cherry red oaks, no electric oranges or yellows.

And I *tried* to find the Fall. I went to Harper's Ferry, WV (where I could see WV, VA, and MD at the same time); Gettysburg, PA (there's a ski resort in So. PA; get your passes now!); Shenandoah Nat'l Park (apple festival & Shenandoah skyline drive); and Chestertown, MD (there's a bookstore called "Idiot's Books.")

The most salient thing I observed was not the Fall colors but the non-diversity at the apple festival. There were about 10,000 ppl there. All 10,000 were white.

Here's some photos of WV, VA, MD:

Harper's Ferry Nat'l Park, WV


Harper's Ferry Nat'l Park, MD side.
Harper's Ferry is the confluence of the Potomac & Shenandoah Rivers. I have no idea which river this is.

Shenandoah Nat'l Park, Skyline Drive

Apple Harvest Festival, Graves Mountain, VA

Are you a Picasso or Cezanne?

Are you a Picasso or Cezanne? A T.S. Eliot or a Mark Twain?

Actually, you're probably none of the above, but the *good news* is that MALCOLM GLADWELL has a new article about types of geniuses. Picasso and Eliot were prodigies, Cezanne and Twain were late-blooming talents.

Gladwell opines about why we tend to think geniuses must be precocious, and how this may be off-the-mark.

"The Cézannes of the world bloom late not as a result of some defect in character, or distraction, or lack of ambition, but because the kind of creativity that proceeds through trial and error necessarily takes a long time to come to fruition."

It took Mark Twain over a decade to compose Huckleberry Finn.

I like the opening page of Gladwell's article, that lists the "top 11 poems" of the literary canon, and ranks them by age of author.

The top eleven are, in order, T. S. Eliot’s “Prufrock,” Robert Lowell’s “Skunk Hour,” Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” William Carlos Williams’s “Red Wheelbarrow,” Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish,” Ezra Pound’s “The River Merchant’s Wife,” Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro,” Frost’s “Mending Wall,” Wallace Stevens’s “The Snow Man,” and Williams’s “The Dance.”

Those eleven were composed at the ages of twenty-three, forty-one, forty-eight, forty, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty, twenty-eight, thirty-eight, forty-two, and fifty-nine, respectively.

I don't think I'm either type of genius, but it's fun to analyze the creative process. Now, I'm off to read the top poems (after I watch Gossip Girl...)

Painting by Cezanne, "Portrait of Gustave Geffroy"

The Long Trek of the Nat'l Trails System

I've been trying to identify this "new feeling" that's come over me lately. Tonight, I finally identified it. I'm NOT OVERWHELMED. It's the first time in EIGHT YEARS, so that's why it felt so unfamiliar.

It's been a long hike to get here. That is a really bad pun to transition my post's theme: "National Trails System." In sum, who knew that trekking through eight years of uncertainty, teaching 6th graders, & litigating airplane crashes would lead me to a sweet conservation job?

Tomorrow is the 40th Anniversary of the Nat'l Trails System. I'll spend all day at the Nat'l History Museum, celebrating. (= I love my new job). Click here to find your favorite trail (Lewis & Clark? Sante Fe Trail? The AT?) http://tinyurl.com/4z328m

Museum House

Now that I'm near D.C., I have the benefit of the Nation's best art museums.

Fortuitously, one of the trendy art spots in NoVa is near my home. In fact, it is *within* my home, a craigslist gamble. See gold framed collection below.

I am hoping no sorts of Clue-murder-mystery-Nat'l-Treasure-DaVinci-Code ppl break in to carry on ancient ceremonies here.

More viewing avail by ordering tix online to personally visit my townhouse.

Admission includes viewing of many fancy inlaid wooden tables, Russian china, & not-so-artsy glass figurines.

Last Week In The Mountains

I will no longer face the temptation of picking the Columbine flower, subject to a hefty fine. I just spent my last week in Colorado. My next blog entries will most likely not have the following headlines:

KAYAKING


I kayaked the Colorado River with some amazing international law women neophyte boaters, which included losing the purple boat down river for 30 min's, after a rocky flip, & thankfully rescuing it.

GARDEN OF THE GODS


I visited Garden of the Gods & couldn't remember how they were formed, even though Jane has told me 18x.


ROYAL GORGE


I rode the sky-tram at The Royal Gorge, mainly b/c when I was studying law & thinking of other fun things I could be doing, I often thought, "Why is it I never drive down to RG & ride the cable-car-sky-ride thing?" So I did.


WESTERN SHOOT-OUT


I saw a Western mock shoot out, which was inane, so we left early.

CANDY SUSHI


I did make the candy sushi, like I promised.

WOODEN RACQUET TENNIS TOURNAMENT


Annual tradition.

Quarter-finalists!

GOING-AWAY PARTY


I was in total denial that I was leaving, but other ppl showed up believing it was true. It was.

No one in DC will be my long-time-friend & almost have my same name (like Kelly Trotter, center)!


Jane & Hayes coincidentally wore the same brown plaid Western shirt with gold thread, which made my last day in Denver the greatest ever.

Bryony, Dana & I spent the last 2 weeks adventuring through a 100 hours of political and/or outdoorsy Colorado activities. Too bad my Colorado pre-work vacation is over.

Chris & Sean both wore sweaters, which for some reason I found rlly enjoyable. Look, we are doing something besides studying.


Thanks to Eric & Meredith for planning the party, buying me a cake, streamers, beer, & food...& for a very nice speech. Totally unexpected & very meaningful night!

I'll mention again that Jane & Hayes wore the same shirt! Will ppl in DC do that for me?

St. Mark's Coffee

My new move East means I will no longer drive 20 minutes most days to be caffeinated & highlight text amongst a room full of losers. I will really miss that. (I'm not referring to the ppl who may read this blog). Take care St. Mark's. I hope to find a new place teeming w/ waterproof messenger satchels.

I thought about writing a "Denver Top 10" highlight list to close out my stay, which may have included STM, but I read someone else's blog recently who posted a bunch of lists, and it was rlly boring, so I won't do that.

Another thing that was boring was studying at STM while the ppl next door & outside were having fun. Now I'm a person outside. Yay!

Goodbye Best Friend

This post deserves a video montage, but sorry, scooter, this tribute it all that you get.

Goodbye scooter! You were broken and a bunch of crazies wanted to buy you, so now I am going to buy new clothes rather than get you fixed for $1000.

Remember that time you almost accidentally ran into Governor Ritter at the foot of the CO Capitol steps? Sorry about that!

I should have more of a "senior picture" type photo for you, leaning against the tree at Wash Park, but I don't. It was a fantastic 3 years. Goodbye.

Photo of Kristine & Scooter. Wash Park & Pathways Church ride.