May Pictures 3-1

I'll give you fair warning: I'm in a very economist mood tonight as I write.

Finland



Scenes that caught my eye in Helsinki.















New York City
There are a bunch of vendors in the park line that winds its way to the boats that take you to the Lady. They all sell the exact same pictures. I confess I spent some time during this anniversary pondering their business model. Are they atomistically independent sellers all crowding into the same area or are they all part of the same franchise? What keeps them from differentiating their products even slightly? I didn't see them in other parts of New York where we went. While I'm familiar with Hotelling's theories about why similar businesses cluster, there are other clusters, other "beaches" in New York City. Whether they are multiple businesses or one, I'd have to think one of them could earn higher profits moving to Chinatown

My brother and I also enjoyed discussing the photoshopping in the pics. The Twin Towers are in the first picture, disappear by magic in the second picture, and return in the third; oversized boats appear and disappear; the island to Miss Liberty's right (our left) disappears and reappears at random... all the same angle, variations on coloring to let you know the sunset is Totally fake.... Strange business model.

Okay, enough economics.

We spent a good deal of time in Chinatown after visiting the Lady.


Our ladies were fascinated by the street vendors and the restaurants that wanted to display their meats. We tried to identify them, but with little enough success (another strange business model?). I bought a pound of grapes for a dollar that were delicious, shared them around our party and gave a bunch to a fellow who was hungry.

We wandered the stores, bought very little, and grabbed some dinner from a sit-down restaurant that only took cash. Another strange business model?



One of the billboards in Times Square featured the leader of Iran. I was mildly interested, so took a picture. Those billboard spaces have got to be EXPENSIVE. Does the UANI really believe this is the most cost-effective way and place to advertise? It certainly has the potential to be seen by millions every day - not bad - but it's one of hundreds of flashing, changing signs in a teeming mass.

The real reason this got posted is that when Hyrum saw it, he pointed and said, "Daddy!" I decided that the best way to respond to that would be to revise upward my opinion of his looks and take it as a compliment.



The New Amsterdam Theater where we saw Mary Poppins has some amazing well decorations. No one complained as I filmed them before the show started. Here is Progress.



Corning Glass Museum


Blocks upon blocks of glass, all of them with interesting shapes, bubbles, trees, designs, and patterns.

Random May Picture 2

Another example of Finnish architectural touches.








NY skyline from the Statue









At the Statue they have a series of small statues of famous people involved in her design, construction, and placing. Among them is Monseieur Eiffel (and his tower) who designed her support structure so that her skin can be moved independently but she still remains upright.




Joy tried to look serious like the Lady, but couldn't keep from smiling with her carrot-torch.








I mentioned that Times Square has an M&M store. Check out their greeter.










The prime attraction in New York was going to see Mary Poppins on Broadway in the New Amsterdam Theater off Times Square.

Here is Joy, believing in the magic.





Memorial Day, we joined my parents at the Corning Glass Museum, which was our second date ever back in the day. This was one of Joy's favorite pieces. The vases/spheres were three dimensional in part because the glass is and in part because of multiple layers of glass held suspended within other layers of glass.






I liked this piece of glass because of its shadow. Even though it's just a hook holding up a piece of blue glass, it looks strikingly to me like a woman selecting a dress to wear.









If you don't want to spend the money for a ticket, the gift shop by itself is worth a visit. This is all glass. Move over plastic fruit: here comes the glass dessert tray.






And another Hy-5.

May Pictures 1

Far too many wonderfully fun, interesting, exciting, picture and note and blog-worthy things have happened in the last month so we've had no time to blog about ANY of them properly. Just a couple pictures of Hyrum to keep the grandparents mollified. ... And I still don't have time to do anything justice (I really wish more people had my problems) so here are some random pictures of our adventures this month. A faster way than trying to remember and comment on everything.

FINLAND - Derrill's work conference, May 14-16




An example of the architectural touches and colors that are everywhere (in the part of the city where I wandered anyway).






In the city hall (where we had dinner one night) is this fascinating interlocking finger statue.







The roof of the dining, exhibition, cultural hall of the city hall. It was actually my least favorite dinner there - too many very unusual spices: I couldn't have more than a bite of the tomato salad and I was with a Hindu friend who couldn't eat the meat (oversalted salmon and beef) so I pondered what a South Beacher does when the only thing he could really enjoy is the bread....

NEW YORK CITY - For our 5th anniversary, Joy and I left Hyrum with Pop and Boo (Thank you!) and joined Steve and Emilee (thank you!) for a day in the Big Apple.



Attraction #1: The Statue. We had a lot of fun in line listening to the steel drum players, the trumpeter with a stereo system for accompaniment, the contortionist, and the proselytizers. Tickets to the crown are sold out months in advance, so we missed out on that. But I got to touch the base of the statue! Look for pictures of everyone posing as The Lady a bit later.




Miss Liberty's Book: July 4, 1776. A pretty good book. Have I mentioned I like my camera's zoom?





We wandered randomly around Chinatown. Each of us took turns choosing which direction to go when we came to an intersection. We explored stores, bought local foods, gave some grapes to a guy who was hungry, and had fun soaking it in for a little bit.




We made our way to Central Park where a family who didn't speak any of the 5 languages we speak took our picture.






Times Square. A more wretched hive of scum and villainy I hope I never meet. But we did explore the M&M store!




To the Subway!

SIX FLAGS
And here's some more fun for Hyrum at Six Flags.

The Cathedrals of Helsinki

The (I'm guessing) Russian Orthodox cathedral rests on top of a small hill looking over downtown.









With a good view of the other cathedral across the way. The rest of the pictures in this post are from this other cathedral.

I would like to acknowledge the good weathermen of Helsinki for predicting rain the entire time I was there and instead providing me these wonderful, varying skies to shoot against.

A peek between the columns

The Resurrection. Another mural next to it depicts the crucifixion, but my shot wasn't as detailed as I'd like it.






I wish blogspot would let me arrange these pictures so they lined up. Oh well.