Today is Blog Action Day and this year’s topic is poverty. An estimated 1.4 billion people in the developing world are in poverty while 36.5 million people are in poverty in the United States. I am no means an expert on poverty but I have certainly lived there.

Many people equate poverty to hunger but poverty to me is not only the lack of access to food. I would say it’s the lack of access to healthy food, clean water, adequate housing, health care and a safe environment among other things. Simply providing these things is not the answer. Providing aid is noble but making people dependent on that aid does more harm than good. It’s only part of the solution; education and training is also needed. One way that education can improve one’s life is the obvious – college or vocational school will improve one’s ability to have better employment choices. Another aspect of education and training is in the area of skills needed to live. This would include such topics as how to replenish the soil when growing crops, how to properly clean water for drinking and medical training. Self-sufficiency is key.

Some organizations that focus on education are:

• UNICEF
• Save the Children
• One Laptop Per Child

In the DC area, the following organizations are always looking for volunteers and/or donations:

• Coaching for College
• Capitol Hill Computer Corner

VolunteerMatch should be able to direct you to organizations in your locality.

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I have never seen a presidential candidate on a tabloid before but there’s always a first time I guess. It’s normally some photoshop’ed photo of Oprah, Tyra, Brangelina, Ben and Jen (pic one) or whoever. I can’t believe people believe this stuff.

When I snapped this photo, I didn’t even see the disrespectful “Death Watch” headline. That’s just fowl.

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I think this shot is great (if I must say so myself). Here we have three generations playing Rock Band. What’s also great is that the girls jumped right in to play. Now for me to get over my issues with Rock Band (I suck at it).

The title of this post was supplied by MrVersatal and JayMoney.

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I’ve posted photos from last week’s trip to the Dominican Republic on Flickr.

I’ve got several photos of the beach (La Playa de Boca Chica) and the pretty blue water. I also have some photos from the Santo Domingo city tour and the “safari” tour.

My only regret is that I did not have a chance to check to make sure I had cleared my second memory card. I didn’t so I was forced to use my other camera after visiting the waterfall.

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• February 16, 2008 -- Another Look: Sky

Derek W. (flyddw) from Twitter, Pownce, and MIX revved up a few of my Cherry Blossom photos. It completely looks like a different day and the blossoms look much better than they actually do!

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• March 30, 2008 -- Cherry Blossoms, Kites, and more…

Even though I’ve been in the DC area for more than 10 years, I have never gone down by the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms. I’ve been to the Cherry Blossom Parade (in 1995) and I’ve also been stuck in traffic for hours on multiple occasions near the Tidal Basin due to the Cherry Blossom Festival and “seen” the cherry blossoms before but I’ve never gone down there specifically to see the cherry blossoms.

Yesterday we drove down to East Potomac Park because I heard that we could park at Hains Point and take a free shuttle to the Tidal Basin. No such luck. I ended up instead parking my car at work and we caught the metro. That was certainly an experience. When we got off at the Smithsonian station we were the midst of wall to wall people (seriously). There was nowhere you could go or be where you weren’t touching some stranger. It was similar to the time I got caught up in the aftermath of the immigration protests in 2006. We were only moving a few inches at a time to get off the platform and out of the station. (I got video but haven’t looked at it yet.)

When we finally got out of the station we caught some of the kite festival. It was kind of dreary and very chilly but the cherry blossoms were lovely. Most pictures I have seen of them don’t do them justice. Because they are so pale they tend to be washed out on photos. I was disturbed by the folks who were accosting the trees and breaking off flowers and pulling down branches to pose with them. I have never seen anything like that and now understand why there are signs at the botanical gardens saying not to touch the flowers.

The crowds were crazy too and I probably won’t be going to see the blossoms next year. I continue to be amazed at how inconsiderate some people are. This dude bumped into me and looked at me like it was my fault that he bumped into me. I was just standing there composing a shot. Also, while I was trying to compose my shot of the BF, three or four people walked into the shot behind him. The funny thing was he was standing pretty close to the edge of the water so if he had suddenly turned around certainly they would have taken an unexpected swim.

We stopped by the World War II Memorial as well. We had been meaning to go since it was completed. We didn’t spend as much time there as I would have liked and will have to go back when it’s less crowded.

The sun finally did show up and even though I had been annoyed earlier I was glad that we went.

See the photos on Flickr.

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I stood out in the cold for about 30 minutes to capture these images. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to capture this since it was cloudy all day. While standing there the clouds pretty much just kept rolling through. (Click the photos for better view.)

For this one I left the aperture open so long that the moon moved by the time it was closed. The streak across the sky is a passing plane.

Special thanks to the BF for picking up a camera remote for me and for carrying my tripod.

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I was looking through my Flickr stream for photos of myself for something (contrary to popular opinion there are some in there) and I ran across the following photos that I hadn’t noticed before. Sure I took them but when I’m on vacation I tend to take a lot (and I mean a LOT) of photos so some slip through the cracks.

The photo at the top is from the Grand Canyon West in Peach Springs, Arizona. The other photo is from the Patagonia region of Argentina near El Calafate. I think the sky is very interesting in these photos.

I have more sky photographs on Flickr as well. I have more than a few but not too many.

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I took a mini-vacation to Seattle this past weekend. I used two free flight vouchers that I got last year that were due to expire this month. In addition, I used Marriott points for the hotel in Redmond. Yay free!

Anyway, we arrived there Friday morning. It was a clear sunny day and the air was crisp and clean. From the airport, we went to the Space Needle (touristy I know but we were tourists). It was chilly – no it was cold – at the top and I was amazed that many people were wearing shorts. I had on layers and was shivering. Although the day was clear, we were not able to see Mount Rainier.

The next day we took a ferry to Bainbridge Island. I was all giddy because I had never driven onto a ferry before. I remember taking a ferry on a field trip in kindergarten but that was many many years ago. On Bainbridge Island we pretty much just drove around and then walked around even though it was rainy. The town was really cute. The BF wants to move there. He would live in Redmond too.

On Sunday we went to the Seattle Aquarium and the Science Fiction Museum/Experience Music Project. The Aquarium was packed full of screaming children but still enjoyable for the most part. No photography was allowed in SFM/EMP so I only have photos from the outside.

The only thing we had time for on the last day was to pose for a photo with the Space Needle in the background while filling up the rental car.

See more photos on Flickr.

Tags: seattle

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I have been contacted by Schmap again regarding permission to use one of my photos from Flickr – this time for their Schmap Turin Third Edition. The photo they would like to use is of a copy of the Shroud of Jesus. The photo has been shortlisted meaning they are considering it for their guide. It may or may not make it in should I give them permission to use it.

Surely I have better photos to use than that one. I love sharing my photos with anyone who wants to see them but I’d rather share the better photos. I guess it being a travel guide they are just looking for photos of the sites they are recommending instead of me trying various angles to make artsy photos.

As a side note, Yahoo! Photos will close on Thursday, September 20, 2007. (I never liked it so there’s no loss for me.) They have set up processes to easily move photos to Flickr, KODAK Gallery, Shutterfly, Snapfish, or Photobucket. Since I use Flickr, I chose to have my Yahoo! Photos moved there. As a result Flickr gave me 3 extra months on my Pro account. Cool.

Tags: schmap flickr yahoo photos turin photo inclusion

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