Newt Gingrich made a great point earlier this week: he first mentioned how the U.S. constantly makes sure we don’t offend any other nation with our stances and policies. That much is a given. He continued on, however, to make a point which I had never considered… that being that we never concern ourselves with why the rest of the world couldn’t care less if it offends us. We’re so wrapped up in ensuring we don’t do or say anything that may rub any other nation the wrong way that we fail to consider that we’re the only ones that act that way. Since when did national self interest become something about which we had to defend ourselves?
Two photos this week. One is a super duper processed shot of my dad and Eva in my parent’s condo in Chicago. It’s HDR and textured. The other is of the cobblestone road leading up to the porch of my parent’s first house in Aspinwall, a suburb of Pittsburgh.
Chicago, IL, Eva, HDR, Pittsburgh, PA
Talking about our soon to arrive puppy:
Rick – “I really don’t care what color he is… black, brown… doesn’t matter to me, as long as he’s healthy. Kind of like a baby.”
Eva – “What if I had a brown baby but it was healthy?”
Such a comedian. Excuse me. Comedienne.
The picture today is of the Washington Monument and the front of the mess hall at West Point.
HDR, West Point, NY
Speaking of Kanye West… do you think he’ll stand up at the Grammys and declare that President Obama doesn’t care about white shrimp fishermen? Doubt it.
The shot this fabulous day is of train tracks through a fence on a bridge in Seoul.
HDR, Seoul, Korea
The shot today is, quite apparently, of the Capitol Building in D.C. I took this in January, two or so weeks before President Obama’s inauguration. If you look at the columned dome, you can see what appears to be freedom emanating in the form of light. It’s not. That’s actually liquified tax dollars being jettisoned into the atmosphere. Pretty soon, people will be able to get a free breakfast and lunch at their local public school (this is an existing program in El Paso, TX mind you), march on down to the neighborhood McHospital with full tummies and get free health care, then gallivant on down to the supermarket and use their welfare and food stamps to buy dinner. Oh well… we can afford it. It’s not like we have a national deficit.
Today a bunch of extreme bikers and skateboarders came to FOB Hunter and did all sorts of wacky things. It was quite entertaining. I’ll have photos up of that in the next couple days.
HDR, Washington D.C.
“In the wintertime, it is the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty; the cold though, doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?” – Sarah Palin
Yikes. She really bugs me. What, pray tell, was McCain thinking? Honestly, if it wasn’t for her we might not be facing a nationalized car industry which should have been allowed to fail, and a pending, seemingly imminent poorly planned and forced nationalized health care system which will also fail. Or it will just trudge along ineffectually for decades, mired in bureaucracy and stagnated by an incomprehensible national deficit which, in all honesty, can’t afford the trillion plus dollars that nationalized health care will cost. Nationalized health care. Darwin is rolling over in his grave.
This was the view from Eva’s apartment in Seoul, looking west. I’d say that in less than 5 years, this view will be gone and in its place will be gigantic apartment buildings much like the one from which I snapped this photo.
HDR, Seoul, Korea
For your enjoyment, here are two interpretations of one tree. The top photo is the tree as a silhouette and the bottom is an HDR composite of the same tree. The silhouette is cropped some, but it was taken from one of the HDR source images so it’s technically the same photo. I took these near White Sands during the day-trip Eva and I took there.
That being said, Dennis Miller is spectacular. I listen to him almost every day on AM 600 KROD here in El Paso. I listen to him and Glenn Beck on that station. Glenn Beck is also good… a little on the loony-toony-nutty crazy right wing side, but good just the same. D Mils, however, is truly legit. Yea, I call him D Mils. In fact, I called him to clear his new nickname yesterday; he said it’s straight. Didn’t you D Mils? Oh, and he reads my site. He calls me his muse. Whatever. (Good muses are indifferent.)
Abstract, HDR, White Sands, NM
Light streaming through the mountains which border White Sands Missile Range.
So the countdown begins. Eva and I embark on a global trek on April 21st. This excursion will last approximately 1 year, and leads us to Mesopotamia to effect peace and democracy on a more or less helpless and hapless people (though the situation has admittedly changed dramatically). I would love to tell you exactly where we’ll be and what it is we’ll be doing, but 1. we don’t even really know and 2. it just wouldn’t be all that prudent. So, what’s the point you ask? I thought I covered that… effecting peace and demo… oh, what’s the point of telling you this? It’s really more or less a disclaimer. Starting April 21st, I can’t exactly project the uniformity of my posts. I’ll update when I can of course, but no promises. That being said, expect many pictures of Kuwait and Iraq to follow. With commentary. Oh and don’t worry… I packed my xBox.
HDR, White Sands, NM
This is a shot of the modern art museum in Vienna which I mentioned in my post yesterday. Picture this: you go up to the elevator, you push the up button, you get in the elevator, you push 2, the elevator goes up, you get off and turn right, you see the video of the prone coughing man in a box. And yes, I certainly did talk about this two days in a row. Look people, the coughing box man changed my life, and not in a good way.
HDR, Vienna, Austria
This is a textured HDR shot of a creepy sign near Eva’s Mom’s house in Woodstock, MD. It once welcomed you to an amusement park of sorts, all with rides and mazes and attractions and such based on old childhood nursery rhymes. Eva swears it was quite fun. Eva’s Mom agrees. I’ve seen it and it looks creepy. Granted it’s quite dilapidated and out of business now, but still… look at this dude. Creepy. And he’s not even pointing towards the Enchanted Forest. He’s pointing at a Chinese restaurant… maybe that’s why it closed.
HDR, Washington D.C.
It occurred to me today that actors shouldn’t get involved in politics. Profound huh? Let me elaborate. Actors are generally uneducated; I generalize because for the most part, actors leave home and run off to Hollywood or somewhere similar in their attempt to “make it big.” If they are educated, it’s generally in… acting. This doesn’t really qualify them for much. Either way, as far as actors go, some make it, but most don’t. Those that do make it are idolized and held on pedestals, admired for their greatness while they bask in their own magnificence and spout moronic “beliefs” drenched in gross self-importance and profound uninformed idiocy. The other actors (read: the vast majority) are unemployed, waiting tables, or living paycheck to paycheck trying to make ends meet (read: “struggling”). The difference between these two groups? Luck. Luck in that they are “discovered” or luck in that they are well connected and/or “discovered” through nepotism. So that’s the baseline for why they shouldn’t get involved: a sheer lack of qualification.
None of that is new however. Everyone seems to realize this except E! and Larry King. My reasoning, however, is based more on their generic personas. Actors, by definition, pretend to be other people. They establish themselves by not acting like themselves. What does this mean? This means that they are either incapable or unwilling to generate a substantive persona based on their own ideas and merits. They say what other people write while acting like someone else, and their merit is entirely based on the amount of times they’ve done it and how well the DVD recordings of these pretending sessions sell. My assumption as to why actors of entertainment gravity decide to involve themselves in politics is an inate need or desire to validate themselves. They realize their profession and fame are a mirage of substance and feel the need to get “involved.” However… they’re still unqualified to do so. Their managers (moochers), agents (moochers), peers and friends (other idiot actors), and fans (star-struck nitwits), all lead them to believe otherwise. This perpetuates.
Basically Sean Penn just pisses me off and needs to shut-up. Nobody should listen to Jeff Spicoli.
This is a pretty interesting article illustrating this qualifications theory.
So… that being said… this is a shot at the top of an escalator in the 63 Building complex in Seoul. The 63 Building is my favorite building because it’s giant and bronze and gaudy and emblazoned with the phrase “Love Your Life, Love Your Dream” in massive, magnificent letters. The bronze building through the windows above the escalator is the side of the 63 Building.
HDR, Seoul, Korea
meaningless title. thought it up, thought it was witty, posted it.
HDR–Washington Memorial
HDR, Washington D.C.
These are Bradley Fighting Vehicles under a rather dramatic sky at the Korean Training Center in… Korea. Bradleys suck. I shot this while I was a Battalion S-1 for the Manchus. Being S-1 sucks worse than Bradleys. Apples and Oranges you say? hahaha… civilians.
I shot this in the middle of the afternoon. Some photographers say the only times worth shooting are the morning and the evening. They’re wrong.
HDR, Seoul, Korea
This is the street in front of the house where my parents lived in 1982 when I was born. It’s in Aspinwall, a borough of Pittsburgh. My Mom was 21, my Dad was 22. My grandparents Ann (Mimi) and Denis (Denny) Dice owned it. Denny does not like to be called Grampa. By the time my parents were 25 they had 3 kids. I remember being on the playground at St. Mary’s Catholic elementary school in Bellevue, Nebraska and telling my friends that my parents were 29. How insane is that?
HDR, Pittsburgh, PA
Vienna is teeming with these things. France is teeming with French people. I ask you this: which is worse? Trick question. Nothing is worse than French people.
Today my boss had to pick me up at the police station. That sounds more exciting than it was.
HDR, Vienna, Austria
Eva told me that this shot looks like something out of a Korean Nail Salon, hence the title.
This is from the Seoraksan National Park in Korea. We stayed in a hotel inside the national park with a complete British theme. By complete I mean complete, all encompassing, thorough and over-the-top. Photos of Princess Di everywhere. Family photos of Prince Charles and Princess Di with their sons. Relics once owned by the Royal family. It was just very bizarre and out of place. The only thing missing was a full-scale diorama of a smashed up and smoking Mercedes surrounded by French papparazzi.
Too soon?
HDR, Seoul, Korea
It was so weird. I flew to Ireland just to see this castle. Ballina, Ireland in fact, just north of Lough Conn. The gothic structure, built in the 1530’s by expatriated Lithuanian sharecroppers, housed Karl Marx’s estranged daughter from 1869 to 1882. She died March 14th, 1882 (exactly 0ne year before her father) when she was inadvertently killed by small pox transmitted by a supply package of contaminated food sent to her by a subversive Russian group which called itself simply ‘Roch’ and would eventually serve as the model for the KGB. Ironically the outbreak in her castle was simultaneously contained by the inherent secrecy of both her mere existence and location. The flags in this photo were preserved as discovered by the Nazi explorer (and arguable catalyst of two Indiana Jones films) Otto Rahn in 1936. It’s now known Marx’s daughter, (whose name is yet a mystery), was estranged for her refusal to accept the tenants of Communism as well as for her profound love of the faraway fledgling republic of the United States. She never visited the U.S. while alive. Her deathbed wish was granted, however, and she was buried in an unmarked grave under the “US Center Chapel” in Lebanon, Kansas–the geographic center of the United States of America.
HDR, West Point, NY
First of all, the photo today has less to do with my commentary than it usually does, which is impressive. Eva and I went to 7 Springs Ski Resort in Pennsylvania to ski. It was a lot of fun, except for the fact that I got some kind of hellish flu. 102 degree temperature=horrendous. Anyway, we get to 7 Springs and unpack a little bit and hang out with the family for a bit. It gets late, and since we’re trying to get out skiing early the next morning, we go downstairs to get ready for bed. We were sleeping in bunk beds with my mom and dad. Eva and I were both on top bunks. So we’re getting ready for bed, and we open up my toiletries, and there’s my toothbrush. But not Eva’s. So then Eva says: “Oh man, I can’t believe we forgot my toothbrush.” WE. Makes the flu worth it.
The pic is of my old tank’s track in Korea at the Korean National Training Center.
HDR, Seoul, Korea
I’m just kidding… it’s not novelty.
HDR, Munich, Germany
Another shot of the Lincoln Memorial. Snagged this HDR on my D.C. expedition. I like the title because it’s funny. Of course she hated the play. Tom Taylor never wrote anything worth a durn.
HDR, Washington D.C.
This is the view out the northern facade of Dongducheonjugong Station, one of three stations close to Camp Casey, all of which were stops on the blue line, and all of which would take me to Seoul. Seoul is like Narnia. Camp Casey is like Detroit.
HDR, Seoul, Korea