Author: Steven

The Jim Henson Statue and Memorial Garden

On By StevenIn The D-M-V14 Comments

A few months before I moved up here, I learned that there’s a statue and memorial to Muppet Creator and alumnus Jim Henson with Kermit the Frog at the University of Maryland. Jim created so much of my childhood that I knew I had to go see it when I had a chance. I made a note and tucked it away in my geographic to-do list until I could go to UMD.

Flash forward to last weekend- the weather was really nice, sunny and clear, so I decided to make the pilgrimage to Maryland. Even with the heavy traffic into DC for people celebrating Biden/Harris winning the presidential election, it only took me about half an hour to get onto campus.

I had the foresight to check a map for visitor parking before I left, and I was able to find a parking spot right across from the Adele H. Stamp Student Union, easy as you please. From the parking lot, it was a short walk back around to the front of the building, where the Jim Henson Statue and Memorial Garden is located. It’s really quite easy to find, not hidden away at all. You can see the sculpture as you approach.

A small plaque is visible on the low wall to the left of the sculpture. The memorial and garden were the idea of the class of 1998, after the 1997 event, “The Muppets Take Maryland” which featured an exhibit and workshops with Cheryl Henson. Some of the other classes from the 1990s helped with funding for the memorial, and the statue and garden were dedicated on September 24, 2003, on what would have been Jim Henson’s 67th birthday. There’s a great deal of making-of photos on the Muppet Wiki’s page about this sculpture.

The bronze statue is 450 pounds of bronze attached to a red granite bench. It was created by Jay Hall Carpenter after a national contest to select an artist and a design.

Here’s a closer look at the detail on the sculpture. It looks like Jim and Kermit are deep in conversation. I think this is just wonderful- I like to think of Jim still having these deep conversations even after his passing beyond the rim. Kermit touching Jim’s wrist is a really nice touch.

Here’s a little bit more of the detail… check out the frog belt buckle on Jim!

Of course since the sculpture is set on a bench, the whole place invites you to sit and join them for a little bit. Please excuse the mask hanging off of my ear; I should have just taken it all the way off for this photograph. (Or asked someone else to take the picture. I’m used to doing it selfie-style.)

Kermit is one of my favorites. I love his optimism in the face of unbridled chaos.

It’s a wonderful tribute to Jim Henson.

Since I was already at the front door of the student union, I decided to peek inside. Their Terrapin mascot is masked but their food court is open. The stadium was visible just past my parking lot, but I was there a few hours before their game against the Penn State Nittany Lions.

Have you ever been to the Jim Henson statue at UMD? Who’s your favorite Muppet?

32/52 (and 11 of 30!)

Maybe it was the “Enchantment Under The Sea” dance.

On By StevenIn Life At Home15 Comments

My dad would have been 82 years old today. It’s been roughly a year and a half since he passed beyond the veil, and it’s still a little weird that he’s gone.

I realized when I was writing my last post about my Dad that there was an awful lot I still didn’t know about him. I was learning new stuff about my dad all the way up to his funeral.

Beleaguered Servant posted a “mom and dad” picture all the way back on day 2 of Nano Poblano, and it got me thinking about this photo:

I’ve had this photo of my mom and dad for years and I still don’t know exactly where they were or what was going on. I can’t tell for sure if it was Halloween or New Year’s Eve or just a random costume party that had nothing to do with either holiday. For all I know, it could have been a normal party and that’s just how they dressed back then.

I do know that I have no memories of the two of them being that happy together. I know this is many years before I was born- it might even be before they had kids at all.

I also know that this is the only photograph of my Father where I can see my own face in his. In every other picture, we look like two very different people. In this one, I see myself.

I would love to be a time-traveling fly on the wall, to be able to observe them at this point in their lives. I wonder what else I might learn about my parents, after all this time.

Do you have any old pictures of your parents from a mysterious time before?

31/52 (and 10 of 30!)

Black Lives Matter Plaza, November 8th, 2020

On By StevenIn The D-M-V6 Comments

On Saturday, when the news outlets called the Presidential race for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, thousands of people flooded into downtown DC. They came in by car and by metro, gathering in celebration at Black Lives Matters Plaza.

I wasn’t there. I saw pictures of the crowds later, and I saw the traffic going into the city as I drove past it in the other direction on my way to Maryland. Why did I go to Maryland? You’ll have to wait until Wednesday’s post for the answer to that question.

Nevertheless, I was really curious to see what it was like in person though, so I went the very next day, on Sunday the 8th of November. I took the Metro to McPherson Square, which put me back on the street only about a block or so away from all the hubbub. It was not as shoulder-to-shoulder crowded as the news showed it on Saturday, but it was a warm and sunny day and people were still coming by to see. Also there were a lot of reporters doing reporter things. I walked past a guy with a Reuters camera a bunch of times, so if any of you see me in news footage of the day, please let me know.

Some people held up protest signs, some were just there like me to see it in person. A lot of people were there with their children, showing them history in progress.

Here’s something I never realized about Black Lives Matter Plaza before- it’s gigantic. The painted letters are two full blocks long. In the pictures below, I was standing at the intersection of BLM Plaza with I Street NW. In the first picture, I’m looking north. That’s where the street says BLACK LIVES. The second picture is looking south, toward the White House, and that’s where it says MATTER. I didn’t truly realize just how enormous those painted letters really were until I was standing on top of one.

At one point, I put my phone camera right up to the opening in the chain-link fence that runs along H Street. This is as close as you can get to the People’s House right now, and this is two full blocks away as seen through a zoom lens. Pennsylvania Avenue has been closed off since the protests last summer, and Lafayette Square remains fenced off so nobody can come in.

Speaking of that chain link fence, it was just absolutely covered in protest signs, posters, and artwork for most of the distance between 15th Street and 17th Street, anywhere it touched Lafayette Square.

I’m going to skip my usual thing where I intersperse all the photos with commentary and interesting factoids because I don’t think any commentary is really needed here. No context is missing, and no subtle background details need to be filled in.

These are the protest signs of an angry, stressed out, massively divided country finally allowing itself the chance to have a small sigh of relief. I didn’t see a single pro-Trump thing all day until I got back home and looked at Twitter again.

Enjoy the photos, friends.

Did you see any interesting celebrations this weekend where you live?

30/52 (and 9 of 30!)

The DMV in the DMV (and how I chose my custom license plate)

On By StevenIn The D-M-V22 Comments

I’ve referred to my new home in a couple of different places online as the DMV. Since I’m likely to use that term a lot in the future, I thought that it might be a good idea to explain why this doesn’t mean the Department of Motor Vehicles (except for when it does.)

Part of moving to any new place is learning the ways that the locals refer to things. For example, many people who live inside Washington DC refer to it as The District. Similarly, people who live in this geographic region sometimes call it the DMV because it’s comprised of three very close-together places- DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

As for the place most commonly known as the DMV, that was a challenge. Since the pandemic started, the local DMV has a reduced capacity and is appointment only. I arrived in Arlington on August 8th, and I went online to make an appointment for my Virginia driver’s license on August 10th. The first available appointments were in mid-October, and I set one for October 15th.

In the interim, I was able to change my voter’s registration easily- there’s an elections office a short distance away, and I was able to walk in and fill out that form very easily, no muss no fuss.

While I waited for the DMV appointment to finally arrive, I noticed that there are a LOT of custom license plates in Virginia. I’ve always noticed custom plates more than most people, because they fascinate me. Sometimes they’re hilarious (like the Corvette I once saw with a plate reading ZOOOM), and sometimes they’re just completely obscure and ineffable.

I have since learned that part of the reason there are so many vanity plates here is that it’s really inexpensive to get them customized. When I realized how cheap it was, I decided I was going to get a custom plate. I started work-shopping possible plates with my friends. Here’s some of the contenders:

  • Every possible version I could think of for my name was taken, except for STG42 and STEEEV. (Hilariously, STEEV was already taken, so I needed the extra E.) I considered this one to the very end, but ultimately chose not to use it because I don’t even call myself Steve. I’m a Steven, through and through. I also considered BLOO42 because I like the color blue and the number 42.
  • DRFATE and MOGO – two of my favorite less frequently used DC Comics characters, and both were inexplicably available. I liked both of these as potential plates, but not quite enough to go with them on my car.
  • UNGOTH – this plate tickled me a lot and it very nearly won out.
  • WHMSY – I have said on numerous occasions that my resting state is whimsy, so this would have been appropriate. NERFECT was also available, as in “Pobody’s Nerfect.”
  • WHTSTR, NLSHOK, and BBYLON were all available, in case I wanted to go with my Babylon 5 fandom. I like to think of my car as a Whitestar, so it was tempting. Notably, both ZATHRAS and NOTTHE1 were both already taken.
  • SISYPHS was available, and it appealed to my sense of futility. Also, I live on a hill so this would have been extra funny to me and only me.
  • “GZIP SUV” is available. This is extra funny to me, and I might have gone for it, except that by the time I thought of it, I had already chosen and ordered my plate.

I also considered multiple different iterations of the number 42 and “Don’t Panic,” but every iteration I could think of was already taken by somebody. At the last minute, before I went to the DMV, I tried one last option, and it was miraculously available. That’s how I wound up with this plate:

The actual DMV visit wasn’t much worth writing about. They only let you in ten minutes before your appointment, there are no walk-ins, and their capacity is very much reduced. That being said, I was able to get my Virginia driver’s license, car registration, and license plates sorted out all in one visit, so I’m making a note here, “huge success.”

Do you have a custom license plate? What does it say?

29/52 (and 8 of 30!)

Local Tourist, Day One… er, Three

On By StevenIn Life At Home, The D-M-V9 Comments

Let’s time travel, dear friends, back to the day I arrived on the Amtrak. The train arrived early on Friday, August 7th, and I was on the platform by twenty to nine in the morning. It didn’t take them long to unload my car, and I was on my way to my new apartment pretty quickly. Once I arrived, I unloaded the car, taking multiple trips to do so. I snuck in a brief but fitful nap to try to offset the mediocre sleep from the train, before my first visit to Harris Teeter I described in yesterday’s post.

On Saturday, August 8th, I waited for Verizon to come and install my Internet – a process that took all of 90 seconds once they were here. Afterward, I drove to a nearby Best Buy and acquired a new television- my previous TV committed Seppuku about two weeks before the move, so I needed a screen. I also drove by a local friend’s house to pick up a small table and chair that she was willing to part with so that I didn’t have to use my toilet as a desk until the movers arrived. I also made my first visit to a new favorite place, a local Irish pub with delicious food. The corned beef and cabbage was delightful.

Which brings us to Sunday, August 9th. The first day in my new city that I had no specific goals or plans in mind. I decided, after a little waffling, to take a Capital Bikeshare over the Potomac and check out the National Mall. I’d seen it all before, of course, but not as a local! Here’s my local tourist afternoon in eight photos.

Photo the first: After blundering my way through the Arlington roadways on my rented bikeshare with the help of my phone’s little mapping robot, I made my way to the Arlington Memorial Bridge. I stopped about halfway across to look at the boats on the Potomac, and the pretty stellar view of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument.

Photo the second: There was a rack for the the bikeshare pretty close to the Lincoln Memorial, so I made the decision to re-rack my bike and walk the rest of the way. This gave me time to poke around the Lincoln for a little bit.

Photo the third: Walking east from the Lincoln Memorial, I moved along the Reflecting Pool, enjoying the fact that although it was still a hot day, the breeze was actually cooling me off. That never happened in Florida.

Photo the fourth: Just past the Reflecting Pool is the World War II Memorial. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know much about this one- I know there’s at least a dozen different Memorials that I haven’t seen before, but this is a big one. I probably saw it on a previous visit, but it didn’t make an impression until I stumbled across it on this day. This is a big place. I bet it gets really crowded on especially hot days.

Picture the fifth: Continuing east, I reached the Washington Monument. Somehow in all the times I’ve been by here over the years, I never noticed before that there are two different colors to the marble, starting at about 150 feet up. This is because construction halted for about twenty-three years for a variety of reasons including the American Civil War. When they resumed construction in 1877, the marble came from a different source so it has different shading.

Picture the sixth: Still the Washington Monument, but the sun and clouds were doing neat things and I thought it would be an interesting photograph.

Picture the seventh: I continued east along the National Mall, past several of the Smithsonian museums, and toward the Capitol.

Picture the eighth: This is where I concluded my tourism for the day. I stopped at the Smithsonian metro station beneath the National Mall, and took the metro back to the station closest to my apartment. I’m very happy that I can walk a few minutes from my apartment to the Metro, and then take a fifteen minute train ride directly to the National Mall.

When post-pandemic life resumes and there’s more cool stuff going on in the city, I think I’m gonna be doing that a lot.

Have you been to the National Mall? What’s your favorite thing to see there?

28/52 (and 7 of 30!)