Taken at Historic Jamestowne.

Looking up at the chandelier in the rotunda inside Jamestowne Settlement. I’ve spent a lot of time there of late.

I, along with much of my family, had the flu down there. But really - there are worse places to have the flu.

The first few days were foggy. That’s okay. I like foggy beaches.

And then it was windy, and then it was calm. Very, very calm.

More photos are on Flickr.

I lived in the DC suburbs for five years. In all that time, I think I went in to the city as a tourist more than three times. I’d visited the sights of DC more often when I lived in other places than I ever did as a resident, sadly.

Which is really too bad, because DC does show well.

I’d been to most of the memorials before, but never to the FDR Memorial on the tidal basin. It was a pleasant surprise, with the story of his presidency unfolding as you walk through the site.

Of all the memorials I visited that day, the FDR seemed to offer the most hope for our present situation.

Given the number of cherry trees in the area, I imagine that this is stunning in the springtime.

The grey skies lent themselves to the Korean War Memorial. The faces rising out of the black wall seemed to fit the cold, wet day.

More pictures at the Washington DC 2008 set on Flickr.

I took the opportunity to tag along with Merrystar as she went to work in Charlottesville at the NRAO this week. I had gone up for the NRAO 50th Anniversary Symposium last year, but never actually got to the NRAO offices.

They are perfectly nice offices.

That’s the funny thing about astronomy: it’s incredibly cool science, but it’s still a job. There are budgets and offices and management just like your job. The trappings of the job just don’t have much to do with the actual work that’s done there. Yes, there’s a big TV running video news of recent advances in astronomy instead of CNN. But it’s still a place to work.

About the only real difference between it and a technology startup was that there are no cubicles or open-space work areas: it’s all offices.

Well, that and the fact that practically everyone has a PhD.

I spent some time wandering the UVA campus. The stadium is very nice, but I couldn’t get in to take some of the obviously good shots. (I’m sure there are non-obvious good shots, too. But it’s a moot point.)

I went up to the McCormick Observatory, which was very quiet and peaceful. Saw two Pileated Woodpeckers, but didn’t get decent photographs of them.

The clouds rolled in so I didn’t stay. I went down to wander the university campus proper instead. The light was just not good once the clouds arrived, and I felt like I was forcing a lot of shots. This one — totally cliché, I’m sure — is one of the better ones. I took a lot of shots of the rotunda which just didn’t work.

It was honestly frustrating to see the picture, have the composition in one’s head, but have terrible light. Oh well.

So I gave up and went and got a burger.

UVA has an order of magnitude more students than my alma mater, so I was really not ready for the crowds streaming across the campus at 10:55. I took refuge in the rotunda and warmed up.

I headed over to Monticello after lunch. I wasn’t sure what to expect, to be honest. It’s very pretty, but I was a little disappointed not to meet people running around in period dress.

(What can I say? Living in Colonial Williamsburg definitely spoils you for historical recreation.)

The clouds also finally cooperated as the sun was setting, so I got pictures to turn out the way I wanted. Froze my fingers getting them, though.

More pictures at the Charlottesville 2008 set on Flickr.

This is one of my favorite pictures from November, of two Canadian Geese coming in for a landing at the Newport News reservoir. It’s a cameraphone shot off my iPhone, run through CameraBag to look like a Holga film camera.

Yeah, I’m having a lot of fun with CameraBag. I’m okay with that.

I got the Eye-Fi Share this week. It is generally great, but has some quirks.

Pros:

• Uploads to local folder/iPhoto and Flickr
• Easy to set up
• Dead simple to use
• Does just what it says

Cons:

• Slower writes than other SD cards
• Can’t do burst photography
• Movies are limited in length
• Only works on one wifi network
• Burns out batteries pretty quickly
• Photo uploads hammer network
• Camera is yet another thing to check

Overall, I’m happy with it. The burst mode thing got me at a birthday party, but I got over it. It’s really simple to use, and making me consider Flickr as a primary photo repository.