Damn Yankees

Looking toward right field from our seats at the Yankees game. This is the last year for the current Yankee Stadium. You can see the upper lip of the new stadium in the background.

Even though it looks like blue skies in the picture it was dark-ish and cloudy when I took this picture. I think that's a result of the lights. Judging by the fielders, the Mariners are up to bad. Not that we were able to do much. Although our 4 errors in the first three innings means we were worse in the field than we were on offensive. Not a great game.

Day in NYC

This is from the roof garden at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Central Park is in the background.

Vieques: The Full Trip

Mary has assembled a Picasa album of our trip to the Puerto Rican island complete with handy explanations of each photo. Looking at it I already want to go back ... sigh ...

When, O when, will my alley be clear?

This alley was closed since the summer of 2005. And before that it was closed since 2003, after the fire of the Cambridge Apartments. It was open briefly for the summer, but since then Prium has had it fenced off, first with their construction crane in it and second with their work trailer.

But over the weekend the work trailer disappeared. The fence is down. All that is left is a Honey Bucket and a dumpster, which actually may be part of the Walker project. It's clear for pedestrians, but not yet for cars.

So the question is, will it be open soon? I hope so. With the alley closed for two years, the alley has become overgrown, kind of scary, and a veritable dumping ground.

Still Life: Redefined

An artist has figured out a way to drop clay statues and photograph them breaking so that they appear to be totally still right at the moment of impact. He leaves the shutter open in a dark room and then the vibration of the impact turns a strobe on for a brief instant. Even with a very good camera it would be impossible to take this kind of picture because too much would be blurry. But by just capturing the light during the strobe, it is a devastating effect.

Lots more cool pictures here.

The geography of my life

I've been playing around with Google Earth for a bit today. At some point it dawned on me just how incredible it is to have access to satellite images of the entire globe. So I started typing in places I've seen to check them out by air.

And that's when I was inspired to find the satellite images of every place I've lived and see what my life looks like from space.



Stonewood sub-development, University Place, WA - 1980 - 1987
Many formative years on this cul-de-sac



Geiger Street, Tacoma, WA 1987 - 1998 (then summers after than until 2002)
The home street. With my grade school's ball field and gym in the top right.



Carleton College, Northfield, MN 1998 - 2002, with lots of breaks for summer vacations and study-abroad trips.
Dorms included: Watson, Meyers, Hager, and Burton.



Sea Education Association, Woods Hole, MA - Jan & Feb 2000
On my first study-abroad I lived here at the Sea Education Association campus in Woods Hole, MA.



Port Royal, Roatan, Honduras, 2 nights in March 2000
Legitimately I wasn't here that long, but it's the best satellite photo to represent the six weeks I spent cruising on the SSV Westward. We anchored here for 2 nights. I hiked that dirt trail you can see that crosses the island with Alison and Mark.



Avalon Hotel, Cartwright Gardens, Bloomsbury, London, England - 10 weeks in the fall of 2000
My second study-abroad trip. It was a pretty awesome place.



St. Helelns Ave, Tacoma, WA - 2002 - 2007
I've lived on two different pieces of St. Helens for the last 5 years.

Is there anything to be gained by the exercise of looking these places up? I don't know. It's a shock to see some of them and find out even how vividly a satellite image can bring back memories. And it's surprising how much you can learn by looking at the surrounding environs of each photos. Suburbs for the first two; rural town for the second; eventually to an urban core by the end.

If you don't have Google Earth, I recommend the free download. It's a pretty awesome world out there.

STL

Fun day out exploring the town -- a tour of the incredibly massive theater The Fox (with an incredible 4,300 seats). A good lunch in the Central West District, which is an awesome neighborhood. Followed by an afternoon wandering the Missouri History Museum (which was really the St. Louis History Museum, but that's ok).

Tomorrow we're venturing into Illinois across the river. Although we were there on the 3rd, too, to watch the fireworks from East St. Louis (picture above, without the fireworks).

We hear the weather has been awesome back home--one of the nicest 4ths in a long time ... ah well. It's only 90 and sweltering here.

Erik believes he is clever

So let's say that you are in a monstrosity of a parking garage, similar to one in Las Vegas and you don't know where to turn.

You're on floor 5, which is color coded blue (not that you'll remember that later) near post 21H.

How do you remember these trivial details after a few hours of shopping and fun?

How about this:



Yet another easy use of the cell phone cam for practical purposes.

Feel free to use my idea in any parking garage you find, but you must give erikemery.com credit. It's only fair.

Sleepy Lions

Great times so far in Vegas.

Walked past many things today and saw the sights ... late night last night, but out by 11 this morning. For now, here's the MGM lion sleeping on top of the pedestrian walkway.

He's a biggggggg cat.

A night in Seattle

A great weekend so far, and it's just Saturday night!

Friday night started with a nice trip to downtown Seattle for the Beautiful Angle art opening at SVC. Good to see so many Tacomans there with T Town Pride.

We spent the night in Magnolia with friends in a beautiful mansion (long story there) and then this morning it was a long breakfast after waking up to some good ol' fashioned summertime sunshine.

That was followed by a sunny walk at the new Olympic Scuplture Park that SAM opened in January.


Tacoma would do well to create a beautiful sculture garden modeled on SAM's Olympic Sculpture Park or the Walker's Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis.

After lunch followed a beautiful ferry crossing to Bremerton and then to the Lake, where we get to enjoy a great night with the fam.

It's a weekend away, and a full one at that. Said Erik at 9:39 Saturday night. More to come, I hope!

Summer Lovin' ...

Nicole and Mary and I decided that rather than risk the waterfront and the chaos of Ruston Way we decided to walk downtown and get drinks.

We ended up at one of truly undiscovered places ... at least for locals. The Vertigo Lounge on the 26th floor of the Sheraton Hotel ... enjoy the view courtesy of the Motorola cell phone cam.

Cherry Trees in Bloom

I nearly November I posted a cell phone photo of the Bellarmine cherry tree. It looked pretty good then, but--like all cherry trees in our area right now--it looks pretty great with the blossoms.

Yeah for spring!

Our Stage

This picture gives a pretty good idea, I thought, of what the theater will look like when we open Thursday night. You can click on it to blow it up and make it a little bigger for better detail. The stage looks great, the audience is on a few different levels for good sightlines, and up in the shadows you can see the lighting equipment that we installed on the beams of Commencement Bay Coffee.

I hope you'll come check out the space and see the show! (Tickets available on-line here.)

Hannah Heights - In the Snow, From My Deck

Snow Pics

I'm not in Tacoma right now (this is a little light blogging between flights here in Chicago) so I am appreciative of ThriceAllAmerican publishing some winter pictures of his walk to work this morning.

Thanks, Jamie!

Sweetness

I have no reason to suspect this picture is a fake, but it's so cool it seems like it could be. Anyway, witness the launch of the space shuttle, as seen from the International Space Station.

Sweet.

Where I found the pic.

Another Cherry Tree

This one at Bellarmine. I forgot how pretty it was. Of course, what the picture doesn't show you is how incredibly cold it's been.

Brrrrr!

A few more of The Bean

It does crazy things with reflections. I'm in this picture a number of times, actually.

See my pictures!

Finally got them to work. Sorry about that!

I've thrown in a couple more below. Remember when the Project for Public Spaces was in town? They would have loved this Corporate Plaza. A Picasso scultpure...


An eternal flame (helping the pigeons, of course) ...


And a halloween fountain.


I guess Chicago really likes to dye their water. Orange fountains at Halloween and a green river in March.

Something Tacoma could learn from Chicago

Think big.

Visiting Millenium Park in Chicago was like a wake-up call to me about the potential of open public spaces in Tacoma. The park is beautiful, the location is perfectly placed between the Loop and the Lake, and the art is great. Great and big.

Cloud Gate (AKA The Bean) is a great blend of art and appreciation of the city's architecture and skyline. The picture below is pretty clear why. The Bean shows off the entire city.


And the fountains below, while a little odd and unorthodox, followed with the same idea: think big. (If the fountain had been on there would be a spout of water coming out of the guy's mouth, right in the middle of the LCD screen that created him.)



They've created a wonderful public space with just these two pieces of art. There are many other things to do at the park, of course, but their good use of art stood out the most.