Michael's Piece of the Web

Jan

2018

One Liberty Place Observation Deck Photos

The new observation deck at One Liberty Place has been open for a while now, but too often, you don’t think of going to tourist attractions near home. I finally spent a day heading to the top of the formerly tallest building in Philadelphia to check it out. I was pleasantly surprised. After lunch a little Belgian place in Center City, we went up once during the day and once after dark. The views were impressive and they do a nice job of interpreting all that you can see from the 57th floor. I even learned a few new facts despite living here all my life. We also checked out the ice rink at City Hall’s Dilworth Park which was a nice way to get into the holiday spirit.

Check out the photos here.

Nov

2017

Photos from a Fall Train Ride

We’re always looking for things to do in the Fall since it’s one of the best times of the year to be outside. This year we took a Fall foliage ride through the Red Clay Valley on the Wilmington and Western Railroad. Thanks to the terribly warm weather we’ve been having, there wasn’t too much color but it was a fun trip nonetheless. We upgraded to the open air car which gave me a better opportunity to test out my brand new camera, a Nikon D5700. Yes, I finally replaced my trusty D90. I’m very happy with the new camera and there will be MANY more photos to come!

In the meantime, take a look my first photos from the Wilmington and Western Railroad.

Nov

2017

Photos from the Rockies – My Colorado Trip

For our late summer trip this year, we decided to go to Rocky Mountain National Park. We started in Estes Park, the eastern gateway to the park. Once we’d settled on this, we did what we always do. We mapped out everything there was to do for about 100 miles around and laid out a plan to hit every one of them. We changed hotels every night or two, but we managed to do everything on our carefully planned itinerary in Estes Park, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Canon City, Cripple Creek, Pueblo and Denver. We’d never spent much time at high altitude before so we weren’t sure how much it would slow us down. As it turned out, it didn’t slow us down at all. We walked over 50 miles and climbed more stairs than I can count (don’t worry, my FitBit did count all of it!). We saw innumerable wild animals and took in some of the most breathtaking scenery of any of our trips.

It’s taken a few months but I got all of the photos from the trip sorted and you can check them out right here.

Sep

2017

Hot Air Balloon Festival Photos

While looking for someplace to go for a day trip, we stumbled upon a balloon festival in North Jersey. Since hot air balloons always make for great photos, I couldn’t pass it up. We bought tickets and headed to Readington Airport. Unfortunately, the day was pretty overcast and there were scattered showers throughout the day. Some of the traditional balloons were able to launch but all of the larger shaped balloons either inflated and stayed tethered or just didn’t inflate at all. As it turned out, the unexpected part that made the price of admission worth it was all of the companies that were there handing out samples of their products. It was a bizarrely eclectic mix of stuff. From Advil to Minute Rice to flavored milk and on and on, we had to make the long muddy walk to the car twice just to offload all of the stuff we’d been given! It was a fun day and we managed to stay mostly dry while watching the balloons that were brave enough to take off despite the questionable weather.

Check out the photos here.

Jul

2017

Savannah & Daufuskie Island Photos

I just posted 2 new albums of photos. One is from our trip to Savannah and the other is from a side trip that we took while in Savannah to Daufuskie Island.

The Savannah photos include a week of Forrest Gump, traditional southern food, bucolic streets and squares lined with live oak tree covered in Spanish moss, old mansions, civil war sites/memorials, old forts, lighthouses, a historic plantation and a cemetery.

The Daufuskie photos are of a place that you may not heard of, but was the highlight of our trip. It’s a small island near Hilton Head Island. You take a ferry to get there and then travel by golf cart. Check out the my photos for a slightly more in depth description of the island.

The Savannah photos are here and the Daufuskie Island ones are here. Enjoy!

Jun

2017

Finally put tons of photos on Flickr

I’ve had a Flickr account for 12 years and a paid Pro account for about 5. Mostly, I’ve only used it for sharing photos with family members semi-privately. They’re photos that I don’t care if others see, but I also don’t want to bore you with photos of kids opening Christmas gifts, etc. I used to use Google’s Picassa Web Albums for this, but they went the way of the dodo a few years ago.

Up until now, the only photos in my public Flickr stream were photos cross-posted from my Instagram account so that I have an exit-strategy from that service since they’re now owned by Facebook and using any Facebook-owned property makes me a little (ok, a lot) queasy. Plus it gives the photos a some extra exposure.

That has changed change. I’ve spent the past few years tagging the photos from my website and preparing them to be uploaded to Flickr. As much as I’d prefer to drive traffic to my site, cross posting them to Flickr will get them a some more exposure and, if nothing else, make me feel like I’m getting my money’s worth from my Flickr Pro subscription.

So, I’ve posted almost 8000 photos in my Flickr feed over the past week or so. They’re broken down in albums and further separated into collections by year, so you’ll be able to navigate through them if you wish.

Enjoy the photos, and feel free to share them and comment on them which is something you can’t (currently) do on my website.

Jun

2017

Photos from the Final Tour of the Circus

The last time I went to the circus when it rolled into Philadelphia, I was in elementary school. When we heard that Ringling Brothers was shutting down the circus for good this year, we decided that we should go see its last hurrah. We splurged a little and got seats in the second row. There were two separate touring shows this year. The one that came to Philadelphia was “Out of this World.” (The other being “Circus Xtreme.”) Wow, what a difference from the last time I saw the show. I remember seeing Gunther Gable, elephants and a unicorn. I probably don’t want to know what kind of animal rights violations were committed in the production of the unicorn, but I did miss the elephants. As for Gunther, there was a big cat trainer there who was also quite good. The other surprising part was that besides the acrobats, clowns, contortionists, dog trainers, etc., a portion of the show was also performed on ice. Add some horse stunts, motorcycles in a steel sphere and a menagerie of animals including a kangaroo and you have quite a fun spectacle. It’s really sad that this will be the last year that anyone will get to experience it.

Relive the circus experience by checking out my photos here.

Jun

2017

Philadelphia Flower Show Photos

Despite living in the Philadelphia area my entire life, I’ve never gone to the annual Philadelphia Flower Show. I’m not necessarily a flower enthusiast, but I’m a photographer and have spent plenty of time photographing flowers elsewhere like Longwood Gardens, the Macy’s Flower Show in Chicago and many other places. This year’s theme was Holland and tulips are my favorite flowers to photograph so how could I resist? Despite it being a damp rainy day, we hopped on the train to Center City and spent the day indoors enjoying the sights and sounds (Dutch techno light show, anyone? See the video below.). It’s truly amazing to see what the Philadelphia Horticultural Society builds inside the convention center. Besides flowers, the amount of stuff they load in there, trees, landscaping, tons of dirt and mulch, art exhibits, etc. is beyond impressive. It made for a fun (and colorful) day.

Check out the photos here.

Mar

2017

Review: Eleni’s Greek Taverna – Springfield VA

Eleni’s is an authentic Greek restaurant with some Greek Diner mixed in. I could probably end this review right here because who could pass up that winning combination? As soon as you walk in, the atmosphere and décor are unmistakably Greek. Then you notice the counter and realize that they serve breakfast all day long along with a big selection of classic diner sandwiches, etc. I’m sure the breakfast and sandwiches are good, but we were there for the Greek food so that’s what we ordered.

We started out with a trio of appetizers. The saganaki was flambéed tableside, just as it should be and it was delicious. The spanakopita and tiropita we equally as good. The portion sizes of all three dishes were much larger than we expected! After eating my salad (which was also surprisingly large), I had one of my favorite Greek dishes, pastitsio,. It too was delicious. It was baked just right. The bechemel on top was properly browned without being dried out and the meat/pasta was properly spiced. All of our dishes came with a side of fasolakia (string beans in tomato sauce with oil and herbs).

Add a very friendly staff to the incredible food and my only complaint is that Eleni’s is so far away from home. Although it’s probably good for my waistline that they’re 150 miles away!

Speaking of location, one note on getting to this place… It’s tucked in the far back corner of the shopping center facing the back of another building, so it’s not easily visible from the street. Just turn into the Concord Shopping Center and you’ll eventually find it.

Mar

2017

Twenty Years Already?

Everyone likes milestones that end in zero. Whether it’s a birthday or anniversary counted in years, months or days, if it ends in a zero, people like to celebrate it. So, I feel only right to mention that this website has been hanging around on the web for 20 years now. What started out as a free set of webpages on AOL when I was in high school has slowly grown over the years. I don’t pay as much attention to it as I did years ago; haven’t revamped in quite a while and I still maintain it using mostly static HTML pages (except this blog section which runs on WordPress), which no one really does anymore. I keep saying that I’m going to redo the entire site using a content management system, but I don’t know when I’ll get around to that for real. It certainly will make managing the huge photos section easier.

Speaking of the photos on the site, they’re the main reason it still exists. They’re what most people come here to see. At last count, there were about 7500 photos spanning 18 years of travel, family events and any of photos that I felt were worth sharing at the time. Why aren’t there 20 years of photos? Well, prior to that no one was using a digital camera! Hell, when I started posting photos I was actually using a camera that took floppy disks! Read more about that here.

Anyway, if you want to feel nostalgic about how old this site is and how far it’s come along, take a look a page that’s having its own 10th anniversary. I created it commemoration of another round number anniversary, 10 years. It shows what the site originally looked like and how it progressed during its first decade. If you think the site seems dated now, take a look at what it used to look like! I would make another retrospective for 20 years, but honestly, it hasn’t changed much since then. It’s just grown some.

As always, thanks for checking out the site. As long as I continue to hear from enough people who enjoy it, I’ll keep maintaining it and will try to continue to keep it going for another 20 years.

One Liberty Place Observation Deck Photos

Photos from a Fall Train Ride

Photos from the Rockies – My Colorado Trip

Hot Air Balloon Festival Photos

Savannah & Daufuskie Island Photos

Finally put tons of photos on Flickr

Photos from the Final Tour of the Circus

Philadelphia Flower Show Photos

Review: Eleni’s Greek Taverna – Springfield VA

Twenty Years Already?

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Categories

Archives

Meta

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Categories

Tags

Archives

Meta