Murders in Boston

Mashups and Google Maps allow interesting visualization of data, making things suddenly more concrete. Dorchester has a reputation as being one of Boston's toughest areas: this map of 2008 murders in Boston brings it home.

Cambridge has a relatively low murder rate, though I haven't been able to find a similar mapping of murder stats. From a quick search, anecdotally I think it's been a couple of years since the last murder in Cambridge, though there have been recent homicides which appear to be accidental. Somewhat bizarrely, someone originally from Cambridge was recently killed in Salem. The method of murder?... being run through with a sword.

Spring Rain

Spring in Cambridge certainly lives up to the adage "April showers bring May flowers". Today was a lovely April day and in between thunder storms I captured some cloudscapes.

Well, mostly between showers. That black cloud at the top of the "Spring Rain" shot got me :-)

Washington DC

The Washington DC photos are now all up. If you looked at them the other day, scroll down since I hopscotched around in history when posting.

Recent Travels

Our most recent trips were to Tucson for Seline and Dylan's wedding, and I went to DC to buy an application form for a new passport. The latter is a long story...

On the topic of Tucson, we missed our original departure from Boston to [Dallas Fort Worth] Tucson due to the never-ending delights of the TSA. There must have been at least three hundred people in the security line: even the airline staff were wondering out loud what the heck was happening. People ahead of us whose flights were due to depart after ours were allowed to skip the line, but we were told to keep standing in the queue... and eventually raced to our gate to see that the jetway had just been pulled back from the plane. The people who'd been allowed to cut the line (whose flight was due to leave ten minutes after ours) ended up with a delayed flight, so they had to wait airside too. Fortunately the staff of American were helpful, and Peter's BA status got us into the Admirals club lounge, where a star by the name of Maureen re-routed us through Chicago. We arrived only a couple of hours later than originally planned: good thing we were booked on one of the early flights [though if we had been flying later perhaps the TSA would have been more manageable?]

As for DC, the passport tale isn't done yet so rather than jinxing myself I'll wait to tell the story until I am able to travel internationally again. The upside was that I saw one of my business school classmates, Faheen (and her eight month old son Zain), and after all the embassy hoo-ha had a beautiful autumn afternoon of wandering around DC to see the White House [tourists + protestors] and war memorials [more tourists + a massive school group]. I have posted some photos and will post more over the coming days.

Oh, and there was *no* line at the TSA in DC, though I had hours of time to spare before my flight. The TSA staff manning the checkpoint I went through told me they'd been on duty for almost an hour and I was the first person they'd dealt with that day [they were a few checkpoints down from the end of the line]. Perhaps Dulles could send some of their extra TSA staff and scanners to Logan?

Regatta, Rugby, Red Sox

While Peter was in soggy Vancouver I had a very sunny weekend of sport in Cambridge.

• The 43rd Head of the Charles regatta was held on October 20th and 21st (photos).
• The Springboks won the Rugby World Cup... I had to text score updates to Peter who was turned away from apparently the only pub in Vancouver showing the match. I am very impressed that he turned into a rugby fan after only watching a couple of matches - goes to show he really is an african at heart.
  
• The Red Sox came from behind to win 4 games in a row and turn a 1 - 3 deficit into victory in the ALCS.

The Red Sox are playing again tonight - Game One of the World Series.

(even as a baseball fan, I still think it's daft to call it the World Series when only [north] American teams compete)

August update

We haven't been travelling much recently, though April brought a wedding in South Carolina, and July a short jaunt to Montreal for the Jazz Festival.

Peter went to Kentucky overnight for work, and I made a trip to New York for visa purposes - both were all work and no photos. Otherwise I've been puttering around taking photos close to home, often of the earth in bloom. Yesterday we went to a local farm for a glorious if windy day outside. We returned with loads of fruit, and lots of photos of bumblebees busily pollinating sunflowers - quite a feat (for bees and photographer) considering that the sunflowers were waving wildly in the wind. Good to have a fast lens!

As noted before, I've been very pleased with the images from the 18 - 70 AF-S DX Nikkor lens. The Quantaray zoom left a lot to be desired and quite frankly wasn't worth carting around China. So I am very excited (though until it arrives a little apprehensive) that I've just ordered the reputedly wonderful 18 - 200 mm AF-S DX VR Nikkor lens. Apparently Ritz Camera has them in stock right now, though they sell above list and sell out really quickly from all reputable vendors. For Nikon enthusiasts interested in more on the lens and where to buy it, see Ken Rockwell's site.