Trafalgar Square

Hi Everyone,

I've been working on this post for a while now, this one and a few others that are almost finished. I've come to the conclusion that the longer I work on a post doesn't really make the post any better but at least it keeps me occupied.

This post is full of pictures of what is probably the most visited and photographed place in all of England. Smack in the middle of central London is Trafalgar Square. I would imagine that if you've been to London then you've been here.

I think the picture above is an absolutely great picture. Unfortunately its not mine. I borrowed it from the Bike Radar site at some point last year. I've cycled all over this area, trust me on this, it is a crazy, busy place. Sometimes I think it would be great if all of the people in London, before being allowed to drive their cars, taxis, and buses had to ride a bicycle around Trafalgar Square for a week. This city would be a much nicer place to live and even ride because they would have experienced their London in a new way and gotten a little knowledge of what cyclists might be thinking as they pull along side that huge red bus. This picture says to me that you should try to see the world from a cyclist point of view. Of course to get this particular view the cyclist would had to have fallen off the bike and been sprawled on the ground but that is being way to literal. The moral of this paragraph is (isn't it cool when a paragraph has a moral) is get out of your cars and get on your bikes and see the world a little differently. Either that or just give a cyclist a smidgen more room than the day before so he doesn't ever have to look at the world through his back tire again.

Since I'm talking about a picture from Bike Radar, I might as well mention that they recently acquired cyclingnews.com. I pretty much visit this site everyday in order to keep up with what is happening in the cycling world. You get all the race results plus a whole lot of great photos. This week (and the next two) is The Vuelta a Espana. Sunday the Tour of Britain starts here in London. I will be there and will hopefully get a few pictures. No rain, please.

So where was I, distracted already, not a good sign. Oh yeah, Trafalgar Square. The picture above is looking at the square from Piccadilly Circus. Below is pretty much the same view but you can see one of those cyclists over there on the left.

As you can tell, I liked to take pictures from this spot. No I'm not standing in the middle of the road, ok maybe technically I am, but I'm on a traffic island with a nice steel fence to protect me from the cars and the people (there is a crosswalk just in front of me and hordes of people cross when the traffic lessens or the light turns).

Now before we actually see some of my pictures of the square it's time for a history lesson. You can't just come to my blog and look at the pictures. You also have to put up with me trying to learn a little more about a place than anyone really needs to know. Ok, I guess I can't stop you from just scrolling through all this but you would be missing out.

The square was completed in 1845. The name commemorates a British Naval victory during the Napoleonic Wars, the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

The guy on top of the column is Admiral Horatio Nelson. Horatio, you would think, would be a much more common English name than it curently is. Not sure why it didn't catch on. Anyway Horat's Column, see not a good nickname (Rat's Column didn't work either, and Hor's Column, well we just won't go there). Anyway Nelson's Column looks south toward Westminster Abbey. The picture above is from the steps of the National Gallery.

Across the street to the east of the National Gallery, that is to the right in the picture above is St. Martin's-in-the-Field Church (below). They just finished a large part of the restoration work and it is once again open to the public. Just so everyone knows, Leicester Square is basically just behind the National Gallery.

Below is Admiralty Arch which leads to the Mall and Buckingham Palace.

Ok now it's time for some more pictures. The horse police people and horses in the above picture were great at slowing down the traffic around the square. They (the police people) did quite a lot of yelling, mostly at taxi drivers and dumb pedestrians that wouldn't pay attention to the lights. I saw a few drivers that looked like they just wished they would get out of the way already.

I bet you would have never thought that you could ride a Lion in central London. Its actually been pretty tough to get a picture of the Lion's without a tourist or two on them. Just for those of you that are curious. The four Lions at the base of Nelson's Column were designed by Edward Landseer and finished in 1867 and apparently ridden by tourists ever since.

This is a statue of King Henry IV. Notice the pigeon on his head and that spire really isn't jutting from his back. The feeding of pigeons in the square was banned completely in 2007 and their numbers have been getting smaller and smaller. The flock had reached an estimated 35000 birds at one point before most people had finally had enough of them. My source for most of this stuff is of course Wikipedia, it's a very useful site.

A lot of events and rallies take place at the square as well. For the 2 weeks of the Olympics you could watch live coverage and replays throughout the day and all the way until 9 pm. I went a few times after work and on weekends, when it wasn't raining it was a fun place to sit, eat, and watch. You can tell from the size of the crowd that the rain had just started again and people are heading for cover.

That is Michael Phelps winning another gold medal and setting another world record. It was a pretty impressive accomplishment and seeing it on the big screen in Trafalgar Square was also pretty impressive.

That's all for now.

Happy Anniversary

Hi All,

Cheryl and I are celebrating our 5th Wedding Anniversary today. This is our first (and hopefully last) anniversary apart. In honor of that wonderful day back in 2003 I thought I would pull out a few of the wedding photos that were taken by family and friends. I might try to add more if time permits.

Cheryl's Maid of Honor Edi and my Best wo-Man Karen.

Jeff and Judge Darrel

The parents: Jerry, Anna Lee, Nan, & Joe.

I want you to know that this was the only piece of cake (it's a butterfly of course and obviously the best part so no complaints here) I got on that day. I don't remember what the comment was that made me look over like that.

Below you can see a few pictures of Cheryl and I through the years.

This is Cheryl and I back before we were married. I believe this was New Years Eve 2001. Cheryl's dad took this picture. I know we were in Chicago but can't remember the name of the restaurant.

Cheryl and I, on the 30th of August 2003, at Cheryl's parents house in California.

Cheryl and I at Akaka Falls, Hawaii in 2003. No not on our honeymoon, we lived there for 3 years.

This one above is of us in September 2007 at 2 Amy's Pizza in DC. The picture below is me before I've had my coffee and my morning hug. I miss you Cheryl. I'll be home soon.

Actually the picture above is from our honeymoon in Costa Rica. I'll probably share a bunch of those at some point in the future.

Cheryl, its been a great five years. Who would have guessed all we've done over that time and all the places we've been. I can't wait to see what else our future has in store for us. Love You,

Dave

Oh Yeah, Happy Anniversary to Adam and Janet as well. They have been married for absolutely ages.

Cambridge

A few weekends ago I ended up in the small college town of Cambridge. This must be a pretty cool place to go to school except for all the tourists. Two of the the things I noticed about this charming little town were that you never seem to be alone here and I always felt like I was being watched. Not the London kind of being watched where your every move is recorded on CCTV (I've always wondered what good all of those cameras are doing as whenever you see footage the criminal always looks the same. It's always fuzzy pictures of the same guy wearing a hood. Oops lost track there). Where was I, oh yeah being watched, I'll get to that in a bit.

Cambridge University, in which the town was built around, is a conglomeration of some 31 different Colleges. I know it doesn't make any sense to me either. There is no central campus like you would see at universities in the states. The picture above is of Kings College. The pictures below show the Kings College Chapel.

Most of the colleges were pretty impressive but a few were just wow. Kings College, Trinity, and St. Johns were the most impressive. I believe that's Trinity College to the left of the Chapel (looking at the Chapel from The Backs) and The Senate to the right (go to this website to learn more about Cambridge and its buildings).

Speaking of Trinity, the college of Sir Isaac Newton (apparently there is an apple tree in the courtyard that is descended from the one at his home in Lincolnshire where the whole gravity thing took place), has what is called The Great Gate. The gate which leads into the college grounds (seen below) was built in 1530. Above the gate is a statue of Henry VIII.

If you look closely at King Henry, I like to call him Hank, he is holding a chair leg. That's odd. Anyway the story goes that a few students decided to steal Hank's sceptre and replace it with a chair leg. Nobody knows where the sceptre is now and I would imagine that they probably can't find the chair with the missing leg either. So if you happen to know an old Cambridge grad have a look around their attic, you never know what you might find.

Well after looking closely at good ole Hank, I kind of felt I was being watched. The two lion like things holding up the coat of arms (ok you have to admit they are a bit funny looking) seemed to be following me with their eyes. Ok maybe it was the sun getting to me, but as I looked around the town I noticed there were a lot of really nosy statues looking over me. Here are just a few.

This trio probably has a story behind them, in fact all of these characters probably have stories. Ok I don't know those stories so feel free to correct my assumptions (you knew they were coming). Well these guys above are apparently up to no good. If you look closely you can see their eyes are scanning the crowd. I figure once they find the unlucky soul, I'm sure they are going to throw those objects that they are holding at him or her. Punishment for making them wait around so long. I'm happy to say they didn't throw anything at me.

This is one of my favorites. I don't know why she is standing on this poor guy but he must have done something really awful. Notice she also has something to throw, they were an angry lot.

I almost caught this one staring at me but her eyes glazed over when I took the picture (I get that look a lot so didn't think too much about it). I actually did catch the guy below just staring, he didn't even look away when he knew he was caught. Don't worry I didn't hear any voices, that would just be crazy.

There were hundreds of these little statues hanging around on the buildings. Pretty cool stuff, I wonder what their real stories are. I'm sure I could find out but that would take too much time.

This poor little guy wasn't feeling very good when I took it's picture. I did feel sorry for it but what could I do.

A few more things about Cambridge that you should know. You are never more than 100 yards from a church, a former church, or a chapel. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little but not much.

I think this is the Roman Catholic Church called the Catholic Church of Our Lady and The English Martyrs. Not a 100% sure about that since the one from the other side of town (below) looks somewhat similar. I'm still looking for the name of the one below.

Ok, I'm running out of time for this post. It might be getting a little long and I have so much more to say. So stay tuned for part two where you will find out more about St. John's College and my night of choral music and even a Shakespeare play. I'll leave you with one more statue with something to throw.

He kind of looks like Robin Williams in one of his not so good movies.

Birthday Wishes to Me

Hi All,

I had a birthday just the other day and thought I should share the video made by Joe and Deb featuring the monster children. Somehow I had managed to fly to Virginia to be a co-star in this video although I seem to have gotten shorter and my hair is a bit longer. I think I'm looking more like one of the members of ZZ Top. I love the impression of Slam. You can really tell he loves the monster children. I also have included a don't miss video of the monster children that I might have mentioned before but thought I would put it here for easy access.

Also since I figure only family members will have read this far I have put up a bunch of pictures at another site. Lots of family pictures (the latest are of Charli and the Grandparents) (hopefully more soon), lots of Jean Steinberg's pictures, and crazy ramblings from me (not so much of that yet but I'm working on it).

Video: DSCF0458



Video: Family

I Want To Believe

On Wednesday, I decided to attend the UK premier of the new X-Files movie in Leicester Square. Well I guess it wasn't exactly attending the premier since I didn't have tickets for the movie but instead I got to see a bunch of people walk around on a red carpet. Some of these people were even famous. Well, to say the least I wasn't alone. There were thousands and all of them had cameras and/or things to be autographed.

I used to be a fan of the series although I have not seen all the episodes (yet). For those of you that don't know the last show of the series was on TV some 6 years ago. The series ran for 9 seasons starting in 1993 and ending in 2002, they made 202 episodes (read more about it here). Well in any case there are much more obsessed fans out there than me. A lot of them were here and from what I heard they started leaning on the barricades at noon.

These people were still a good distance from all the TV cameras. I was a bit further away than that but as it happened I wasn't too bad off. So let me say that first of all if you are going to do something like this get there really early or have a great camera with a big lens. By the way, thanks to Cheryl and all of the Braunstein and Pollock like people for the birthday present, I've now got a great camera and a lens (Thanks Jerry) that allowed me to show up at 5:15 for the 6:00 pm start.

Once the stars started showing up, the whole area in front of the casino and even where I was turned into a very loud and crazy place. I could barely hear myself scream over all the noise everyone else was making.

First to show up was Chris Carter, the shows creator and the biggest reason the series and this movie were made. After he got out of his car he walked in pretty much the only direction where I couldn't get a clear shot. Luckily for me he got a call from his mom and I was able to get this shot before he had to run inside in order to hear anything. He did come back out to sign autographs later but not anywhere near me. But that's ok, this guy below arrived shortly afterward.

This is David Duchovney who plays Fox Mulder in the movie. He did a lot of autograph signing and actually seemed to enjoy the screaming where as I thought he would be a little too cool to put up with all of this for very long. Whenever he would turn, the crowds in that direction would scream even louder to try to get him to come over and on most occasions it seemed to work. Notice I have been successful in framing all of my shots between peoples heads, it's really not that easy, especially when they get farther away.

So I decided at this point I should probably just take a few photos without other peoples heads framing the subject. Here are a few.

Gillian Anderson who plays Dana Scully arrived shortly after David, unfortunately I couldn't get much of a picture. She didn't work the crowd anywhere near where I was but she also had a pretty good excuse as she is over 6 months pregnant. Here are just a few of my attempts.

I don't think she meant to be this hard to photograph so I didn't take it personally.

If the lady in white wasn't so rude this might have been a good picture. But since this is the X-Files we could just say that Scully has found a way to climb out of this ladies head. Notice the lady on the right sticking her head out of some ones shoulder. Maybe this is just a preview of the next movie and it just took a keen eyed photographer to catch their subtle hints.

Another of the major forces behind the X-Files is Frank Spotnitz. He came along somewhere in the 2nd season as a story editor and stuck with the program until the end and even beyond where he was also a major part behind this movie.

I'm not sure who this is so if you have a name please send me a note.

The guys below apparently belong to a band called McFly. No, I've never heard of them but there was a lot of screaming when they came by so I took pictures of them too. I figured that if you could wear such a cool shirt under a suit jacket then you couldn't be all bad.

So that's it for me from the X-files Movie premier. I'll actually go and see the movie sometime later today. I can't wait.

If there are still a few of you out there that want more premier stuff here is a You-Tube video from http://www.youtube.com/user/elizabethtoni. It was taken from much closer to the action than I ever got. It's not bad, a little long, check it out only if you are interested.