Me at the Morning Shows

I stopped by two of the morning shows. You didn't get to see much of Good Morning America but you got to see more at the Today show. Even the hosts came out. I'm not sure if I ended up on camera but it was fun to do.

An Epic Fail From Megabus

When I arrived in New York this morning, I got an email saying my bus back to DC had been cancelled. I called the number given to me in the email. After waiting on hold for over 15 minutes. I got someone and they said that the bus was a go. It had not been cancelled.

I called back between shows and was told again the bus was a go. I also used their app and it said the bus was on time.

I show up at the stop no bus. Call the number again and again am told that the bus will come. This is with less than 10 minutes before we are supposed to leave. There were about a dozen people waiting around at the stop. No one from Megabus is there to say the bus had been cancelled.

One of the people waiting for the bus has a friend who works for Megabus. She calls them and is told Megabus is done for the night.

I'm taking the train back. I could get really upset about it but seeing Phantom and Mamma Mia were just wonderful. So I'm not going to let it upset me. But Megabus will probably be getting a less than nice call from me later today. Maybe tomorrow since I'm seeing Elaine Paige tonight.

What a strange and yet amazingly wonder couple of days. Oh I got to see the Harry Potter exhibit too!

Let's Get Building with Lego

Such a fun and incredible store to go to. Here are a few pictures of the Lego version of Rockefeller Center.

Phantom on Broadway

Phantom of the Opera was fantastic.

But then again I think that each time I see it.

It is celebrating its 25th anniversary on Broadway. And I'm celebrating that anniversary too. Actually it's been longer than that because the first time I saw it was in London. So it's been 26 years since I first saw. Amazing still after all these years.

A Question of Getting Back Home

I got an e-mail from Megabus saying my bus back to DC had been cancelled. I called them and was told it had not been cancelled as of yet. I was told to call back later and see what the status of it is.

I figure I'll call after I see Phantom. For right now I'm not going to worry about it. I'll get back one way or another.

For right now, I'm going to worry about where I'm going to have lunch.

Scenes from New York

It's a blustery and over cast day here. I we t by the Today show. I might have been but not sure.

Here are a few pictures from my travels.

New York Wakes Up

I made it to New York. Had a little rain on the way up but it stopped north of Baltimore.

Then no problems.

Here are a couple of pictures of Times Square waking up.

Plan B to New York

Well I decided I needed to take action to make sure I got to New York. It sounds like tomorrow morning will be a complete mess. Rather than show up tomorrow and have the bus cancelled. Or worry I'd miss a show if the weather slowed the ride up. I decided to change my plans every so slightly.

I'm taking the midnight bus up to New York. The estimated time of arrival is 4:40am, but it will probably be a little later than that.

I have a place already picked out for breakfast. And it's part of my frequent flyer dinning program so I'll earn miles. I'm thinking of having the French toast special.

So I'm off to NYC to see my two favorite shows!!!

Getting home might be a little problematic but I'm worrying about that later.

Going to New York in the Snow?

Wednesday is my trip to New York to see my musical double header of Phantom of the Opera and Mamma Mia.

And what's coming along? What have we not had any significant accumulation of entire winter? Why that would be snow of course. And, when you might ask is the snow supposed to show up, why late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. It is still too far away to get an accurate idea if DC will actually get some snow or if will just be rain. The kicker is that it will probably all be gone by Thursday since temperatures should be in the 40s maybe even as high as 50 on that day.

But as things are trending, so far, it looks like DC could get snow. Each weather update the models point to that. It looks like the I-95 corridor could get some snow as far up as Philadelphia. New York won't be hit by any of this. So it looks like if I can get out of DC, I can probably make it to New York. The rub of course is, if there is snow, how much will there be and how much of an impact it will have on the trip up. I don't relish sitting on the bus watching time tick by and realizing I'm going to miss one of my shows.

Therefore, I have come up with a Plan B which I think will make it possible to get to New York in plenty of time to see both shows. Right now I hope I won't have to use it but again it looks more and more likely that's what I'll have to use. I'm going to leave what Plan B is right now because it is a little bit on the crazy side.

I'll have to make my decision when I get home from work on Tuesday.

For someone who likes snow, here's hoping DC doesn't have any at least on Tuesday night into Wednesday of this week.

2Political Episode 83

 






2Political Podcast Episode 83 is now available. You can listen to it or download it from the podcast site, 2political.com. You can leave comments there as well as download or listen to any episode (you can access the five most recent episodes from the list on the right side of my blog).

So far, the new recording schedule is going pretty well! We begin today with Jason's trip to the Open Day at the Library of Congress—and to a real estate open house.

When we begin talking about current events and politics, we talk first about C. Everett Koop. Then, we move on to the sequester. Then it's on to the Republicans and their obsession with destroying democracy. Charter schools—clearly one of Arthur's pet peeves—also gets a look in. All of that leads us to talk about instant runoff voting, of all things (Arthur suggests watching the video in the links—it explains it much more clearly than he says he did). While it wasn't the best explanation, the system nevertheless could be part of the way forward.

Please leave a comment (anyone's welcome—agree or disagree!), or you can ring the 2Political Comment line on 206-350-3982.

Links for this episode:
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born February 25, 1841
Tex Avery was born February 26, 1908
The Alternative Vote Explained – C. G. P. Grey’s video that Arthur recommended
Arthur’s blog, podcasts and videos can be accessed here.

Get 2Poltical Podcast for free on iTunes

A Perfect Cartoon for Sequestration

Wow. I came upon this cartoon just today. I think this really and truly shows what Congress especially the Republicans must be thinking about sequestration. 

Why I can even seen Speaker Boehner adopting this as his official motto. Come to think of it his actions certainly show that he has.

Odds and Ends

A Great Book on Presidents

The books called Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents by Kenneth Davis. This is of course part of the Don’t Know Much series of books. I find this one to be very enjoyable.

There are short biographical sketches about each of the presidents. A section called milestones which are the important events in the president’s life. Fast facts which cover religion, military service, political party, wife and kids. They the biography itself. At the end of each sketch, there’s a grade given in what’s called Final judgement. After that is administration milestones.

There’s not a huge amount of depth in any of the sketches but there is a whole host of useful information about each president. One thing I find interesting is the firsts that take place in the White House. First inside plumbing, first time central heat was installed. It gives a good idea of how the country was progressing.

I’m in the early 1900s. I should probably finish the book in the next couple of days. I highly recommend this if you want a great snapshot of each president and what he did or in some cases did not accomplish.


C. Everett Koop

In the upcoming 2political podcast Arthur and I discuss the legacy of Dr. Koop. What he did about AIDS and smoking was certainly unexpected. When few important people in government were talking about AIDS he was.

From the Post:

Dr. Koop, however, believed information was the most useful weapon against HIV at a time when there was little treatment for the infection and widespread fear that it might soon threaten the general population. In May 1988, he mailed a seven-page brochure, “Understanding AIDS,” to all 107 million households in the country.

“He was a guy who surprised everybody,” said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was Dr. Koop’s chief tutor in AIDS matters and became a close friend. “People expected one thing, and they not only got another thing, they got someone who was amazingly effective.”

Open Houses

One of the things I like to do is go to open houses on Sunday. It is a great way to get some exercise especially if it is a nice day out.

I went on Sunday to one such open house. It has 7 bedrooms, five full baths and a half bath too. It is a huge house. It is three stories. 4,785 Sq. Ft. in all. Finished basement. In fact it would be huge house if it was only two stories.The price $775,000.

There is a deck on the back of the house. It is on all three levels of the house. It is in the back of the house.

I went up to the second floor and looked at the bedrooms. The master suite is truly impressive with a huge walk in closet. A fantastic master bath with a huge shower and an immense tub. It is a rather a unique looking tub and I wish I had taken a picture of it. There is a small version of the master suite on the third floor with a smaller version of the tub too.

Now here's the interesting thing. There is this great balcony on both floors. There is just one very small problem with it. There isn't any door on either floor in which you can go out on to the balcony. There are a couple of doors on the first floor but none on the other floors. At first I thought I was missing something so I asked the other people viewing the house. They didn't find any doors either. And they thought it was just as peculiar as I did.

You figure for that price they could have put in a couple of doors.

Library of Congress Main Reading Room

A little more about the Library of Congress.

Recorded a total of 155,357,302 items in the collections, including:

• 23,276,091 cataloged books in the Library of Congress classification system
• 12,638,773 books in large type and raised characters, incunabula (books printed before 1501), monographs and serials, bound newspapers, pamphlets, technical reports, and other printed material
• 119,442,438 items in the nonclassified (special) collections. These included:
  
  • 3,420,599 audio materials, such as discs, tapes, talking books, and other recorded formats
  • 68,118,899 manuscripts
  • 5,478,123 maps
  • 16,746,497 microforms
  • 6,589,199 pieces of sheet music
  • 15,704,268 visual materials, including:
    • 1,354,126 moving images
    • 13,640,325 photographs
    • 104,270 posters
    • 605,547 prints and drawing

Views of the Library of Congress

Over the next couple of days I'll play catch up with my trip to the Library of Congress.

From the outside you really would not know just how incredible the inside of the building is.

Here's a little about the Library from its web page:

Today's Library of Congress is an unparalleled world resource. The collection of more than 151 million items includes more than 34.5 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 66.6 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America; and the world's largest collection of legal materials, films, maps, sheet music and sound recordings.

The main entrance to the Library of Congress

The main lobby of the Library. The far door way is to the main reading room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the stairs that go to the observation balcony where you can look down on the main reading room.

The ceiling

Ann Hornaday at the Newseum

I got to go to the Newseum yesterday and hear the Washington Post' film critic, Ann Hornaday, talk about the Oscars. This is the second time I've gone to this. This time I even asked a question.

I asked her if she thought expanding the number of best picture nominees was a good idea. She thought it was good because it allowed other types of films to be nominated. Also getting a best picture nomination helps the financial bottom line of many of the pictures nominated which might lead Hollywood to make more of those types of pictures.

She also said she thought 2012 was a good year for films across the board. What was popular and made money matched up to what critics thought was good. Something that doesn't always happem

From one of her articles in the Post today:

But 2012 also included the terrific action thriller “The Grey,” starring Liam Neeson; Steven Soderbergh’s playful and tone-perfect male-stripper comedy “Magic Mike”; Rian Johnson’s wildly inventive science-fiction thriller “Looper”; and the franchise installments “The Avengers,” “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Skyfall” — all of them exceptionally smart, good-looking and well-crafted.

I went down early and walked around and saw some exhibits and had a wonderful lunch.

In all just a great day.

My Passport Arrives

When I applied to renew my passport, I'd signed up to receive e-mail updates on the status of my passport renewal.

Wednesday I got an automated e-mail from the State Department saying: Thank you for submitting your application for a U.S. passport book! It is currently being processed. It went on to say that applications take 4 to 6 weeks to process.

Thursday I got this e-mail message: We have finished processing your passport, and it has been mailed to you. It went on to say I should receive my passport around February 26.

Then yesterday in the mail I received my passport.

That means it took a little over three weeks to send it in and get it back. Here's my post on when I sent it in.

So now I'm set to travel the world of course I have to figure out where to go first.

Sequester = Epic Fail

That’s the best way to put what is about to happen. An epic fail on the part of our elected officials. In both parties. In Congress. In the White House.

As the Washington Post in an editorial put it yesterday:

... neither party has staked out anything like a serious negotiating position. Last year, the GOP-led House passed a bill to replace the defense sequester with cuts to funding for Obamacare insurance exchanges, nutrition aid, social service grants and other Democratic favorites. Since then, the Republicans have agreed to postpone the sequester for two months as part of the year-end “fiscal cliff” avoidance deal, but otherwise they seem to have concluded that allowing the sequester is in their political interest. Even ill-advised spending cuts are more base-pleasing than none, apparently.

A plague on all their houses. But probably more on the Republicans than anything else. They just continue to stand for blocking everything proposed by Obama or the Democrats and not coming up with any ideas. They say over and over and over again that the sequester is President Obama’s sequester. Except for one small problem the Republicans in Congress agreed to it. They voted for the provision in the law. So the sequester is just as much their’s as a Obama. But both parties seem to love to act like 10 year olds and play I’m rubber you’re glue.

The most annoying thing is that, as always, this will impact everyone but the politicians. Here’s an idea Congress has been doing less with more for years. It’s time that that is stopped. I think that Congress and its staff should take a 10% pay cut. Then there should be a 10% cut in Congressional staff. Maybe then Congress will get an idea of what the public as a whole has been going through.

But that’s not going to happen. Congress will do what it does best pontificate and “stand up” for their principles while everyone else suffers.

Yes indeed an EPIC FAIL!

Me in New York

Here's a picture of me from my trip to New York City in January.

This is so very appropriate because I'll be going to Mamma Mia on my next trip to New York which is two weeks away!

Library of Congress Open House — The Card Catalog

Before computers came along the way you looked up a book was using the card catalog. The card catalog used to be in the main reading room at the Library of Congress.

I remember using it when I was doing research when I was in college. I especially remember doing a paper on The War of 1812. I used the card catalog and got books about it. Several were from the mid 1840s. I thought it was so cool to be holding in my hand a book that was over 130 years old.

Here are a few pictures of the catalog. It is stored just off the main reading room. It is still used. You can also see that not all of the books in the Library of Congress are in English. Many in fact are in other languages as you can see from the the last picture. I did over hear one of the librarians say that because of budget cut backs fewer foreign language books are being purchased.

A Blast from the Past at the Library of Congress — A Rotary Phone

While looking around during the Library of Congress Open House on Monday, I came upon these. It was in the area where the old card catalog is stored. I saw these old rotary phones. For people of a certain age, we got a huge kick out of seeing these. Many people took pictures of them. Then there was a group of people who walked by the phones and didn't notice them at all.

As I was heading out, I said to one of the librarians that some people really enjoyed the fact the phones were there. She laughed and said she forgot that the phones were rotary.

More pictures from the open house later.

Tuesday Smile

Here's a funny series from Peanuts where Linus decides to become a polled Hereford rancher. Enjoy.