Saturday reflections

A ceiling at La Guardia airport earlier this week.

When I was planning this trip, I expected that airfares would be higher than last year, but I was surprised by how much. So I dithered and delayed, and—surprise, surprise!—the flights didn't get any cheaper. And I've used up most of my miles and points, so I ended up booking Delta flights out of La Guardia because it was the cheapest option. Both of the flights had connections, which makes for some long travel days, but I'm still leery of Newark, though I haven't heard of any major delays there recently, and JFK is just so far away, so I was happy to have the option of La Guardia.

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then the TSA delays started, and the lines at La Guardia were of course the worst of the three New York airports—3-4 hours the day before I left, even with TSA Pre. Standing in line is unpleasant under the best circumstances, and is really, really unpleasant with a bad knee, so I was, um, stressed.

But I dutifully arrived at the airport four hours before my flight, and got through bag check and security in less than 30 minutes. I indulged in breakfast at a nice restaurant with comfortable seating, where the scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, juice and coffee cost me $45 dollars and was worth every penny.

Urban poetry

A fire escape on the Lower East Side a few years ago.

Saturday reflections

I am not sure what building this was, but I think it was probably the old Governor's House or one of the other buildings in the Dowlat-Abad Gardens, in Yazd, Iran.

Travel Flashback: Urban poetry

Motorcycles parked on the street in downtown Tehran in 2015.

Many of my pictures from the city streets were taken from inside a moving car, so they're often a little blurry, but they capture the sense of the city the way I remember it.

Travel Flashback: Tehran reflections

Travel flashback: Tehran

Outside the wonderful Malek Library.

Travel flashback: Golestan Palace

Some pictures from 2015 of the Golestan Palace complex in Tehran.

I read this week that it's been damaged by bombs as part of the stupid and unforgivable war we've started, and I've been looking at old pictures and feeling grateful that I got to visit Iran back when it was still doable. I've been lucky enough to visit many wonderful places, and this is still one of the best trips I've ever taken.

Urban poetry

The view from my living room a few weeks ago.

On Tuesday it was 80 degrees. Yesterday it snowed. I miss having actual seasons.

Sunday bird blogging

I haven't taken a long lens to Central Park in a long time; it's just too heavy to lug around when walking is already problematic.

So this grackle is from a few years ago. The picture is noisy, and not as sharp as it could be, but hey, it's a bird. And I do love those mean yellow eyes.

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

The Tenth Avenue bus yesterday. That snow bank was not as daunting as it appears in this photo; there was a path behind it for getting on and off the bus.

Snow

What I woke up to yesterday morning after a long night of blizzarding. It snowed until mid-afternoon, but fortunately we don't have the freezing temperatures we had after the last storm and it's already melting a little.

Saturday reflections

(Posted late because last night I felt like lying flat on my bed and watching television was too exhausting.)

The Church of the Holy Trinity on East 88th Street—not to be confused with Holy Trinity Church a few blocks south—as a winter afternoon slides into twilight.

What this photo lacks is the soundtrack of drip drip drip from snow melting off the eaves, which was an unpleasant reminder of what was going on at that moment in my apartment a few miles away (now apparently resolved, though I still have some painting/repair in my future.) Another blizzard is on the way, with up to two feet of snow expected. Can I just say—Yuck!

Urban poetry

(I thought I must have posted this one, but if I did I can't find it.)

A row of brownstones on the Upper East Side last August. It's very February today, gray and rainy, so this picture looks especially attractive to me. And it's no longer raining inside my apartment, so I can actually focus on other things.

Snowmelt

I'm still here, though dealing with a leaking ceiling in my bedroom from a malfunctioning radiator in the apartment upstairs for most of the past two weeks has stretched my patience to the breaking point. I'm calling the constant plop-plop-clank into the bowls and trashcans lined up next to my bed the Hell's Kitchen water torture.

It's also drip drip drip outside as the snow is finally melting, uncovering all the treasures that were embedded in the snowcrete.

Snowcrete

That's the half-joking name for the masses of snow that have lingered for the two and half weeks since the big storm. It's been so cold—zero degrees Fahrenheit Saturday night—that the little bit of snow that that has managed to melt has quickly been refrozen into something you'd need a jackhammer to remove. If, say, you wanted to drive one of these cars on East 89th Street anytime before April.

I took the picture of the car on the right last night, and realized that I'd already taken a picture of it, a week ago. You'd have to look very closely at the two pictures to notice any difference in the amount of snow.

Urban poetry

This is something you see a lot in New York's older neighborhoods—below street level commercial spaces. This one on West 44th Street is vacant at the moment, except for the snow.

Welcome to the working week

Today was the first time since the big snowstorm that I woke up to temperatures in double digits (higher than -12 degrees for the Celciosi). It was a toasty 11 degrees, and it's supposed to get up just to the freezing mark later this afternoon.

It's been so cold that none of the snow from last week has melted; although the sidewalks are mostly clear and there are passages cut through the snow at intersections, there are piles of dirty snow lining every street. It's been so many years since this has been normal that I think we're all a little shellshocked.

Astronomy Tuesday

This recent image of Jupiter taken by the Juno spacecraft has had the color and texture enhanced to show off the cloud patterns, making the familiar planet look like a polished globe of some rare and priceless mineral.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Processing and License: Thomas Thomopoulos

Sunday bird blogging

We're in the middle of the latest Snowmageddon (though our part of it seems to be more sleet than snow now—I'm not going to go out to investigate) so a penguin seems appropriate. This gentoo was dancing around the whale bones at Mikkelsen Harbor.

Saturday reflections

Windows on the Upper East Side, down the street from those snowy lions.

Abstract

We haven't had much snow yet this winter, but this bus window still needs a good cleaning. With the sun shining on the glass, First Avenue was just a gritty abstract.

Snow in the city

Pictures from a few years ago, just to help get me in the mood. Actually I would rather have snow than the strong winds and bitter cold we've had way too much of this winter.

The other kind of ICE

There's a big winter storm headed our way this weekend and, assuming it doesn't change course, we are supposed to get at least a foot of snow on Sunday. I'm old enough to remember when that happened multiple times every winter, and also old enough to be grateful that I don't have to be anywhere until Tuesday. (The ice in the picture was in Cierva Cove, last January.)

Astronomy Tuesday

“Today the key features of the Copenhagen interpretation can be more easily explained, and understood, in terms of what happens when a scientist makes an experimental observation. First, we have to accept that the very act of observing a thing changes it, and that we, the observers, are in a very real sense part of the experiment—there is no clockwork that ticks away regardless of whether we look at it or not. Secondly, all we know about are the results of experiments. We can look at an atom and see an electron in energy state A, then look again and see an electron in energy state B. We guess that the electron jumped from A to B, perhaps because we looked at it. In fact, we cannot even say for sure that this is the same electron, and we cannot make any statement about what it was doing when we were not looking at it.”

—John Gribbin, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat

I'm going to be studying cosmology at Oxford this summer, assuming my knee cooperates, and in preparation I've been re-reading some of my old books on astronomy and physics before tackling the class reading. Of course quantum physics describes things on the atomic and subatomic level, while much of astronomy looks at things that are incomprehensibly enormous—the Medulla nebula, for example, a supernova remnant in Cassiopeia, which is still expelling radio waves and gases 10,000 years after it blew up.

Image Credit: Pierre Konzelmann

Snowy day

Yesterday was the first day of intake testing for spring classes. The forecast on my phone said rain, possibly some sleet, so I wore sneakers that were completely inadequate for the slushy sidewalks left by hours of light but sloppy snow.

One picture is from the bus on Fifth Avenue looking into a Central Park that was blurred by focus-grabbing droplets on the window. The photo isn't black and white but might as well have been, as you can judge by subtracting the taxi and streetlight colors from the other photo, taken on the other side of the park after I got off the bus.

I managed to get home without breaking any bones, which is the important thing.

Urban poetry

When you just need a break from doomscrolling.

Cars

I've always loved the details on cars. Here are a few that have been sitting in the folder forever.

Saturday reflections

I need a lot of soothing these days, and these tranquil blues and greens are doing their best.

Urban poetry

There are a lot of alleys in lower Manhattan, but you rarely see them festooned with clotheslines and laundry.

I didn't look closely when I took this picture, off Walker Street last summer, and thought that the towels and undershirts were banners or pennants of some kind. But it's very festive!

Badland detail

That harsh geology looks better in black and white.

How about some of those bad Badlands

Since I posted pictures of the Painted Canyon badlands in North Dakota, here's another look at their southern cousins. Similar geology, very different landscape.

Welcome to the Corn Palace

Thank you to Mary Kay for providing such a cheerful welcome, and letting me take a picture of her and the Fourth of July flags in her hair.

And for the popcorn, which ensured that when you walk into the Corn Palace, you smell...corn.

I also want to mention that I didn't eat any popcorn because we had just had really excellent Mexican food, which I did not expect in Mitchell, South Dakota.

Inside the Corn Palace

There are more murals, and exhibits covering the history of the building. The combination auditorium/basketball court that takes up much of the building also serves as the gift shop.

The Sydney Opera House, in corn

This closeup of one of the mosaics shows how they do it. Twelve different colors of corn, grown locally, are used and the designs are created by local artists. The corn cobs are split lengthwise and then nailed to the walls.

The Corn Palace

The Corn Palace, in tiny Mitchell, South Dakota (well, tiny by my standards—its 15,000 inhabitants make it the seventh largest city in South Dakota) is the last of what was once a series of “crop palaces” across the Midwest, built to promote their cities and the local agriculture.

All of the art on the facade, depicting the wonders of the world, is made out of corn. The theme changes every year, and new corn mosaics are created.

Astronomy Tuesday

When galaxies collide! This image from the James Webb telescope shows two spiral galaxies (IC 2163 at the upper left, and NGC 2207,the larger galaxy in the center and lower right)

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

A closer look at those two bison in the video

Some bison

 This herd couldn't decide which side of the road had better grazing, so we sat in a line of cars and waited for them to make up their mind.

Painted Canyon

The badlands in North Dakota are greener and more appealing than their counterparts in the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. This overlook is in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

The rock formations are similar, with the different types of rock stacked in colorful layers, but I'd actually like to ride a horse down through those trails, while in South Dakota I didn't want to get any closer to that harsh geography than I had to.