HoodedHawk

My wife’s family was in town for her grandmother’s and uncle’s birthdays (happy 92nd birthday, Margaret!; happy birthday, Paul!) so we all went to the Freer Gallery of Art in DC. Preston fell asleep in his stroller (but not before some very loud “OUTTA HERE!”s echoed off the gallery walls). The rest of us enjoyed it. :)

I spent most of the time in the galleries of ancient Asian ceramics, and bronze. I’ll definitely be going back for a more leisurely visit, but not around Preston’s naptime.

Some highlights below (click any image for a slideshow), but a lot more via the photography page.

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Preston at Freer Gallery of Art

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

BAB, the Ikea Baby. From a pdf file the artist created for an expecting friend.

Preston, Dylan and I went to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History yesterday. Preston just loved the Insect Zoo. No way was Dylan going to hold a bug, but it was hard to keep Preston away. He also held a big beetle, but I couldn’t get a picture as I had to help keep Preston from squishing it.

Click any picture below for larger slideshow…

Preston holds a Giant Caterpillar at the Insect Zoo, Natural History Museum

Preston at the Insect Zoo, Natural History Museum

The new Ocean Hall is quite good. Even Dylan was impressed by the giant jellyfish (seen in foreground). Full-size right whale hangs from the ceiling, and videos of ocean scenes line the walls. Lots of informative exhibits about the ocean.

Ocean Hall, Natural History Museum

Mural and Skeleton, Natural History Museum

T-Rex, Natural History Museum

A 3-D image of Cleopatra has been rendered by computer imaging based on images from ancient artifacts.

Egyptologist Sally Ann Ashton of Cambridge University says the image(s) reflect the Queen’s Greek heritage. Cleopatra was born in 69BC into an Egyptian – Greek dynasty. She took the throne at 17 and by 20 had seduced Julius Ceasar…

Xylocopa has a set of Alphabet blocks engraved with pictures of all the equipment and training a budding mad scientist will need:

A – Appendages | B – Bioengineering | C – Caffeine | D – Dirigible | E – Experiment | F – Freeze ray | G – Goggles | H – Henchmen | I – Invention | J – Jargon | K – Potassium | L – Laser | M – Maniacal | N – Nanotechnology | O – Organs | P – Peasants (with Pitchforks) | Q – Quantum physics | R – Robot | S – Self-experimentation | T – Tentacles | U – Underground Lair | V – Virus | W – Wrench | X – X-Ray | Y – You, the Mad Scientist of Tomorrow | Z – Zombies

Also:

…the blocks have a super-secret built in encryption function – if you rotate any block 180 degrees, it’ll encode to ROT13. If it’s good enough for Adobe Acrobat, it’s good enough for Mad Science!

-via BoingBoing