Paris

I've been doing some spring cleaning and sorting and compiled a few photos from my trip to Paris last month.  Please enjoy a few shots of the Lourve, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Notre Dame and Arc de Triomphe. It was a lovely trip. 

Tilting

I have recently become addicted to TiltShift Maker, a free online tool which lets you edit photos so that they look like miniatures.  Below are a couple photos from travels last year edited with this fabulous and free tool!  I am still very much a beginner at it, but it's very fun to play with and see how to tweak the focus on the images.

Mosque in Istanbul

Boats on the Bosporus

Athens

Germany

Romania

High Line

Over the weekend I visited some of my dear friends in New York. The weekend was full of many great experiences. I watched one of my closest friends get ordained at a rabbi, met a friend's new baby, basked in the sun in Central Park, and went on a historic scavenger hunt in the financial district. One of best places that I visited was High Line. A garden park on the West Side of Manhattan that sits on an old elevated train platform. You can read about the history of the park here.

Only a portion of the park is finished at this time, but it is well worth a trip. I plan to make another visit on my next trip to the city to see the new section that is due to open in 2011.

Back to reality...

You don't have to be Peter Pan to have a distaste for getting older. For the most part I have loved getting older (and hopefully a little wiser), but I do have one complaint. The lack of vacation time.

Every June, I feel like I am missing something. It gets harder to go into work as I know kids everywhere are getting let out for summer vacation. However, this summer I was able to remedy that a little bit. I took vacation for 2 1/2 weeks to Norway and France. This is the longest vacation I've had since 2002. It was a great relief. I haven't fully gotten back to Seattle time, but I am working on it.

Here are a few photos from my time in Norway.

National Cathedral

I was in Washington DC over the weekend and visited the National Cathedral for the first time. I found the whole building breathtaking. Growing up in Seattle I haven't seen many buildings of such grand scale.

Literary Journal Publication

One of the photos I took on my recent trip to California was published in Wanderlust, a great new online literary journal focused on travel. You can see a larger version of my photo in Wanderlust here.

For information on submission guidelines read the FAQs here.

Wine Country Snaps

Florida Photos

Please enjoy a few miscellaneous photos from my trip to Florida

Not the best photo, but there was a pod of dolphins with a baby offshore.

New Hampshire in the Autumn Time

Please enjoy a few photos from my trip to New Hampshire and the Pumpkin Festival in Keene!

For the Mighty, Mighty Bulldogs

Today I went to the Garfield High School Re-opening. I took photos for friends who are not in Seattle and my fellow Bulldogs who are spending their weekend remodeling their bathroom. Enjoy!

The new gym and performing arts center.

The cafeteria/commons area is in the area that used to be the stage.

The library.

They still have Jimi's head!

The stairwells were still intact with the original steps and wood banisters.

Some of the hallways are still very narrow.

No more purple lockers.

The courtyard is a little different. Also the 2nd floor on the far wall is the new hallway that connects the annex with the 3rd floor - crazy! How will the freshman find the 4th floor pool?

The new greenhouse.

The view is still pretty awesome.

The new aforementioned annex connector.

Lopez!

Be prepared to be shocked ladies - there were about 10 bathrooms in the school!

And they have stall doors, oh the insanity!

I have not thought about the attendance office in year - oh the good times!

The new construction shop is where the ladies locker room was in the school.

Alder!

Parking on Alder?

Notice something missing? No more smokestack! What will the seniors do?