"Recreation Yard door, Alcatraz," September 2005

Recreation Yard door, Alcatraz

On one side of the door you had the rec yard with its high concrete walls, the ballfield and the open sky above. The brisk San Francisco Bay wind brought the scent of the salt air high above their heads, a promise of what lay beyond.

On the other side of the door in the wall, a view. The Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, straight ahead. The city of San Francisco to the left, Sausalito, Berkeley and Oakland around to the right. The cool, blue, churning waters down the steps and the rocks below. Tempting, for sure.

"Village view," New York, October 2007

Lunch in the Village

When I took this shot, I did so because of the crystal-clear afternoon, the strong light on the buildings and tree, the blue sky, the illumination of the window and the colors coming through the transparent lettering in the name. The post in the center of the frame was an imperfection I'd have to live with. I didn't look at this photo as anything outstanding; it was just a moment of an afternoon.

And then I noticed the jagged top of the photo, the roof of the corner entry to the restaurant, and the M.C. Escher-like effect it has on the scene, particularly the building on the left, and I love it a little more.

"Double portrait," October 2007

Double portrait

Even after I'd moved out of my parents house, whenever I returned, I tended to look into the windows of the room closest to the driveway as I walked across the patio to the kitchen door. I was looking to see if the cat, Oreo, was surveying the landscape. If I was stopping by when no one else was home, I'd search him out as soon as I got inside. Even after he was gone, for months I still found myself looking in the windows on my way to the door or waiting for him to come trotting up when I was inside. It took quite some time to shake that feeling of his presence in the house.

Now, finally, my wife and I have reason again to sense another presence around the house, even if one of us isn't home at the time. Lenny and Harry have made themselves at home, and though we lived there for four months -- and together for five years -- without the two cats, I've found that after just two months with them that I can't imagine the house (and life) without them now.

Lenny, five months old when we got him, is an affectionate, playful tiny ball of terror. He'll be fast asleep at any hour of the day or night -- and I often come home in the wee small hours -- yet as soon as he hears a door, he's up and investigating in little more than a minute. And you can't sit on the couch for too long before he's in your lap.

Harry, at three years old a wise and more stoic cat, certainly marches to his own beat, but he'll put his 14 pounds of heft onto your lap when the mood strikes him. He'll also throw his weight around to open most doors in the house that aren't latched or otherwise securely closed. And should Lenny start antagonizing him and wrestling, Harry simply pins the little guy to show him who's boss.

"Final miles," New York, November 2006

NYC Marathon series, Central Park

The New York City Marathon is coming up again on Sunday, so what better image to depict strength? (OK, one that has the principal subjects in focus.) But even with that minor flaw, I like the contrast in this shot -- the two runners on the left, relaxed, chatting; the one on the right pushing, straining through the final miles through Central Park, the finish line only a few minutes away.

"Desolate street, Lower Ninth Ward," January 2007

Desolate street, Lower Ninth Ward

January 4, 2007: The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans remained chillingly silent. Help is still slow to come to the city's poorer -- and minority -- neighborhoods, with local and religious groups doing more to help than the government -- which was pretty silent from the beginning. Instead, Brad Pitt has had to come in to help rebuild those parts of the city.

"Fifth Avenue reflected," October 2006

Fifth Avenue reflected

I took a plane, I took a train
(Ah, who cares, you always end up in the city)
-- "Myriad Harbour," The New Pornographers

Around here, "The City" only means one thing, one place, one city. New York.

New Jersey has its own cities and its own highlights, but if you say you're going to "the city" or were in "the city" over the weekend, you mean New York. Most of the time, we're only talking about Manhattan. The other boroughs are referred to by name, but the big island gets the singular title.

The City.

What else do you call a 301-square-mile metropolis with eight million people? Taking Manhattan alone, it's 23 square miles -- 13.4 by 2.3, at its widest -- with 1.6 million people on it. Who knows what the average number of people in New York at any one time is when you consider the commuters and the tourists.

One thing's for sure, though -- if there are one million people in Times Square, 999,832 of them are tourists.

Chicago stories: The Crown Fountain

Wet ones

On a brutally hot day, the Crown Fountain brought relief. Not for us, of course, because I wasn't aware of the opportunity to soak myself, so I was in shorts and a shirt and socks and sneakers. No bathing suit or flip-flops for me. So I got close enough for the mist off the water to feel good and trained my camera on the scores of families taking full advantage of the cascading -- and spouting -- water coming from the two towers at either end of the plaza.

The public refreshment is an updated -- and architectually noteworthy -- take on the mid-century summer cool-down ritual based around the fire hydrant on the block. The kids come out to play together, to have good, wholesome summer fun in the middle of the city, their parents happy to let them run around and burn off energy, the children thrilled to cool off on a blistering afternoon. To be honest, I was a little disappointed that I wasn't better prepared, and I even contemplated various scenarios in my mind in which we could go back to the hotel, change, enjoy the fountain and still knock off the rest of our agenda that afternoon. But we'd gotten too late a start and the Garfield Park Conservatory was only open so late, so it didn't happen. Next time, though.

Note: This photo was tabbed as noteworthy for Photo Friday's wholesome challenge.

"On the old highways of America"

The road to myself

"On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk -- times neither day nor night -- the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and it's that time when the pull of the blue highway is strongest, when the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself."

-- William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways

Chicago stories: The Bean

Extreme saturation

Officially, it's called Cloud Gate, but everyone knows it as The Bean. It's Anish Kapoor's installation in Millennium Park in downtown Chicago, and on an extremely hot day in early August, it drew people to the shade it provided. Standing underneath it, looking up at your distorted reflection, you're cooled by the breeze that glides through the arched opening.

I'm a sucker for distorted reflections, shooting any and all angles to ensure I don't miss a view I'd wish I had later. The sun didn't fully cooperate since we happened to visit the park near midday, and with the heat, I was too lazy to make the extra movements necessary to pull the graduated neutral density filter out of my bag. So with this shot, I pushed the saturation up to the max to exaggerate the sun's white-out and give it a bit of a painted look while creating a sharp demarcation of The Bean's edges. Other shots from the plaza show the installation in truer colors, but considering how heavy the air felt that afternoon, I like how the enhanced colors add some weight to the image.

Chicago stories: Hopleaf

Perfect on a warm day

Oh, man, the beer selection at Hopleaf was amazing. I can still taste this one now, and not in a bad way.

Our trip had two main purposes: to see the Mets and Cubs upon our arrival and to eat and drink our way around Chicago. The city's got some great restaurants and bars, so in between museums and baseball and sleeping, we hit what we could.

But this one. Woah. It was our destination on this afternoon, a bit out of the way from anywhere else we were that day. And it's not like we went there for a liquid lunch -- it was strictly for the comfort of beer. If it wasn't for our dinner reservations that night, we might have stayed and used the menu as a checklist.

Drunk (and nearly drunken):

1. 3 Floyds Gumballhead, Munster, Indiana
2. Dogfish Head Festina Peche, Lewes, Delaware
3. De Konick, Belgium
4. Lagunitas Sirius Ale, Petaluma, California
5. 3 Floyds Alphoa King Ale

The De Konick was described as an "ale with pilsner malts and Saaz hops brewed over direct flame" -- refreshing!

Chicago stories: Riding the El

Doors open on the right at Randolph & Wabash

"Let's say you're in Chicago and you're rattling along on the El" -- Rhett Miller

We rattled along on the El all weekend. No need to rent a car in this city. This is the Randolph & Wabash station in the Loop, the stop where Sandra Bullock's Lucy worked in a token booth and saved Peter Gallagher's Peter when he fell onto the tracks. But that's not why we went there. We had been in Millennium Park and this was the closest station.

Anyway, our trip began with the hour-long rattling ride from O'Hare to downtown on a Friday morning, just as Lollapalooza was getting under way. Just after we passed a treatment plant of some kind -- probably water, but maybe I thought it was sewage at the time -- and two high school stoners got on the train, I remarked to Casey, "I think I smell the sewage plant." Two stops later, Casey corrected me: "I don't think it was the sewage plant you smelled." Stoner 1 and Stoner 2 didn't spend much time focusing on their feet, though they were sure to hydrate themselves before a day in the sun at Grant Park, stuffing bottled water into the pockets of their oversized shorts.

But the best part, and the reason I'm recalling them here, is their inability to learn from their mistakes. Seriously, kids, behavioral history is filled with accounts of even the simplest animals learning from unpleasant experiences so that they do not repeat the actions that illicit those painful reactions. Not these boys.

The car we were on had different doors from what you'd expect on a subway. Instead of two panels that slide to either side, they had four-paneled doors that opened in a bi-fold fashion, much like you might find on a closet in your house. They fold in, so that if you are standing within about a foot of the door, you're going to get hit by it.

Guess where Stoner 1 and Stoner 2 insisted on standing. They spent the whole trip within bi-fold distance, with one of the two in particular getting whacked repeatedly. Yet as exasperated as he got, he never made an attempt to stand closer to the interior of the train.

When we finally reached our stop at Clark and Lake, they were standing in front of the door that was about to open. With our suitcases -- and the ridiculously short time the doors stay open on the Chicago MTA system -- I wanted to ensure we got off the train quickly, so I asked them to move as we pulled into the station, saving him another bruise.

But I'm sure he got whacked again before getting out.

Chicago stories: Lou Malnati's

Big honkin' glass o' water

(I could basically chronicle our trip to Chicago last weekend in each of my three blogs -- my baseball blog, because we went to a Mets-Cubs game at Wrigley; my general blog, because that's where I tend to record everyday stuff; and this one, because my original plan with this was to post photos with some frequency and tell the stories behind them and whatnot. As I was browsing through them in my Flickr account, I decided to explain this one, then came up with the idea to post the photo and account here. Seems like a good idea to do with other pics from the trip, so we'll see how well I stick to that plan.)

[Photo by the wife.]

So we wake up slowly on Saturday morning after sleeping in and miss the free "breakfast" (Lender's bagels, yogurt and boxed cereal) offered by the Hampton Inn Downtown. "No problem," we say. "We'll just go straight to Lou Malnati's for deep dish on an empty stomach." (Which was a perfect plan, by the way.)

It's a warm day -- not terribly humid, like Sunday would be -- and when we sit down, we're given small glasses of water, as one usually is upon being seated at a restaurant. The waitress takes our order, and while Casey has an iced tea, I say I'm fine with the water for now. Yet when she returns with Casey's tea -- in a huge glass like this one -- she also brings me this water.

Casey and I just stare at each other, bewildered. My plan (and I stuck to it, too) was to order a beer upon the arrival of our pizza. Throughout the course of our lunch, I drank the beer and thwarted the bus boys' attempts to refill my tiny water glass, pointing each time (I think three different bus boys came by) to the bucket of water I had that hadn't been touched.

By the end of the pizza, I'd emptied my pint as well as the small water glass. Just before leaving, I wanted one last sip. It was a prolonged sip, and here it is.

"Postgame exodus," South Bend, October 2006

Postgame exodus

The quad becomes quite busy after the end of the game.

"In the country," Montana, May 2006

Sepia-toned history

For Photo Friday.

"Postgame at the Grotto," October 2006

Postgame at the Grotto

People line up for a chance to light a candle or kneel at The Grotto on Notre Dame's campus, hoping to find a little comfort, ease a burden or experience even the smallest of blessings.

"Turnstiles, Hinchcliffe Stadium," Paterson

Overgrowth at Hinchcliffe

At one time, fans passed through these lanes on their way into Hinchcliffe Stadium. The entrances are now gated, the walls covered in graffiti, the concrete steps on which the bleachers rest cracked with holes and gullies through which trees have been growing for years. It's another crumbling relic of Paterson, hard by the Great Falls, just like the abandoned factories and mills that line the Passaic River of this once-pivotal industrial city.

"Morning light, Florida," February 2006

Morning light

The morning was as warm as it looks. The blinds were drawn to within two feet of the floor on this floor-to-ceiling window, and as I knelt to pack my bag for the flight home, I noticed the light coming through the leaves on the plant. They weren't even necessarily that pink, but they came across that way at this time of day. It was among the last photos I took on that trip, getting in a few more shots before the drive to the airport and a few hours confined to the plane. It's one of those shots that, to me, doesn't show anything of note, yet I still remember the mood and the feeling of that morning.

It's been nearly a month since I've taken the camera out and captured anything fresh, and I'm growing restless, itching to do so again. Today would've been perfect had I had more time when I headed down by my parents, where they got more ice than we did and the trees were encased in ice and glistened in the sun as if they were glass. With the light at the right angle, the trees twinkled as if strung with lights at Christmas. Gorgeous.

"Speed on the bases," August 2006

Welinson Baez, originally uploaded by DC Products.

I could've easily doubled up on yesterday's image for some thing fast, but since this is the eighth day in a row I've posted fresh photos (I'd intended to get through one week submitting to a different challenge each day), I wanted to wrap it up with another new shot.

-----

November 2007 update: OK, so I'll double up on this one for motion.

"Rodeo Drive ride," February 2003

What you'd expect to see on Rodeo Drive, originally uploaded by DC Products.

Wealth is abundant -- and flaunted -- on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

"New home, Lakeview, New Orleans," January 2007

Rebuilt in Lakeview

Much of New Orleans remains devistated, but in otherwise flattened neighborhoods, there are a scattering of new houses. In some cases, the new homes are the only ones on a block -- or a series of connected blocks -- to which the owners have returned: New Orleanians in a neighborhood without neighbors.

"Bone crusher, San Diego Zoo," April 2006

Eurasian bearded vulture, originally uploaded by DC Products.

I was thinking of talons or teeth for something sharp, and then I came across this big guy. I wouldn't want to face that beak without a cage between us. I'm shuddering a little just looking at it.

"Beer here," August 2006

Cheap eats at Trenton

Minor league baseball -- a cheap afternoon or night out and, often, cheap eats. (Ironically, the beer isn't usually that cheap, but I guarantee you that it's cheaper here, in Trenton, than it is in the Bronx or Queens.)

"Lilac No. 3," New Jersey

In mom and dad's backyard.

Winter hasn't quite hit New Jersey yet, but it's on the way this week. We're due for steady temperatures in the 30s, and that first snowfall can't be too far behind. We've barely had so much as a flurry. Other than a light dusting on December 26 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the last time I saw snow was in May in Wyoming.

Beyond winter lies spring, and with it the perfume of a new beginning, the smell of the lilacs that sprout up all purpley in yards and gardens and remind us to air out the house.

"Blame it on the Tetons," May 2006

In Wyoming, May 27, 2006

On an overcast late-May day in northwestern Wyoming, the clouds hang low over the Grand Tetons, which dwarf the bison grazing in the fields. I have no shortage of images that would fit the category of "peaceful," but most are stored away on negatives in albums on a shelf in the spare bedroom. My grand plan to sort through the vast -- albeit mostly mediocre -- archives and try my hand at scanning them in has yet to begin.

I can already picture some of the, well, pictures that would work for this theme. There's one of me sitting on a rock, looking out over a frozen pond deep in the Maine winter. There's Notre Dame's grotto at night, the candles illuminating the rocks in the alcove in a soft, yellow light. There are numerous snowscapes in which you can feel the cold and sense the silence of the muffled scene.

Just one more item for the to-do list.

"Cherry blossom day, Newark," April 2005

Cherry blossom day, Newark, originally uploaded by DC Products.

Every spring, everyone talks about the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., but Newark's Branch Brook Park actually has more of them. Or so I'm told. They're gorgeous enough, but we didn't actually get to all of them on this day, so maybe there was a nicer setting. But I don't know if any location can compare to Washington's Tidal Basin. Still, Newark's park is pretty nice, and on the trees that didn't hold their white blossoms, they carpeted the ground like an early spring snowfall.