HoodedHawk

Saw Jane Monheit at Birchmere tonight. She is awesome! Kirsten and I really enjoyed her show. Such a lovely voice! She sang for about 90 minutes, doing a lot from her latest album, “Taking a Chance on Love”, her previous albums, as well as some unrecorded songs. One of the songs was first performed live (by her) tonight; it was by a Brazilian artist, and in Portuguese (“I have no idea what the words mean, but it sounds so lovely!”)

After the show she came offstage and did a signing. She signed our ticket stubs as well as my notebook. She commented on my Moleskine notebook – “Is this a moleskine? I can’t live without mine!”. So there you go; it must be cool to carry one around :) . Had I known she’d be signing, I would have brought my cd with me! Birchmere only had a few copies of cd’s in their shop. BTW, Birchmere (in Alexandria, VA) is a great music venue. It’s sort of like a huge dinner theater – holds a lot of people, but the acoustics (and seating) is great. Good food too (try the chicken enchiladas). Get there a bit early if you want a table near the stage…

(picture from my camera phone – but better than nothing!)

Hola!
Kirsten and I are loving our honeymoon! We spent the first two days in Urubamba, Peru (the Sacred Valley) at a wonderful hotel/resort, Sol y Luna. One of the days Kirsten spent at the resort spa, while I went on a full-day horsback ride up into the mountains, visiting the Inca ruins at Moray as well as the Inca salt mines at Salinas. Wonderful day, despite the splitting migraine I had by the end (that I attribute to the altitude).

We then took the train to Aquas Calientes (where I´m writing this at a local internet cafe). After checking into our hotel, we caught the last bus up to the ruins at Machu Pichu, and spent a few hours there.

Today we got up to the ruins (you take a 20-minute bus; nice tour-type buses) earlier, and explored some more. Kirsten went back down early to do some shopping, and I stayed at the ruins until the last bus around 5:30. We just finished dinner at Inka Wasi restaurant (I passed on the Guinea Pig and went with pizza :) )

I´m going to post a complete travelogue (to date) tomorrow, but those are the highlights.

This quote was on the side of my Starbucks coffee cup this morning:

Everywhere, unthinking mobs of “independent thinkers” wield tired cliches like cudgels, pummeling those who dare question “enlightened” dogma. If “violence never solved anything,” cops wouldn’t have guns and slaves may never have been freed. If it’s better that 10 guilty men go free to spare one innocent, why not free 100 or 1,000,000? Cliches begin arguments, they don’t settle them.
[Jonah Goldberg, Editor-at-large of National Review Online]

I’m catching up, so I’ve posted more photographs on the Photography page, including shots of the Fireworks this 4th of July, the National Zoo, the Museum of the American Indian, etc.