saturday

yesterday was a terrific madison saturday.

the day started out at the farmers market.

the evening culminated at the terrace.

spring is definitely here, and the marquette neighborhood festival season is right around the corner. we can't wait.

sparkly!

eiffel tower, 10:00pm. sparkly!

georgian dublin

we stayed near st. stephen's green in dublin, a beautiful park through which we walked mulitple times daily. waking through the park always brought a particular tune to mind. more on that later. anyway, the area around st. stephen's green is considered to be the georgian area of the city. georgian architecture apparently means big awesome doors. here's a bunch of the doors from the 'hood.

curious about st. stephen? here is some information about him.

jenny lewis

jenny lewis will be performing at the barrymore theatre next thursday (june 4). it promises to be a great show, and i'm really looking forward to it. i somehow doubt elvis costello will show up, but one never knows.


we'll have those europe pictures posted soon

home again

we went to dublin and paris last week. it was a wonderful trip, and we've got 500 photos to prove it. it will take a while to sift through pictures, emerge from jetlag, and compose a proper blog post. until then, we wanted to share a little bit of the trip with you. here is a short video of the chiming of the bells of the sacre couer basilica in montmarte; a beautiful church, a beautiful sound.

chicago

we spent a warm, sunny afternoon in chicago last weekend to celebrate our friend steph's birthday. happy birthday steph!

we also strolled through millenium park and the art institute.

the art institute was celebrating the opening of their new modern wing, so we took a peek, along with thousands of other modern art fans.

que magnifique!

criterium

this afternoon was the annual wheels on willy criterium bike race. due to some road construction on spaight street, the location was changed from the williamson st. neighborhood to the capitol square. it was a beautiful day to sit on the capitol lawn and watch the cyclists go round and round.




we decided to venture up to the observation deck of the capitol building to get a bird's eye view of the action. we didn't get very good race photos, but we did find some interesting items in the capitol. this is often the case when one ventures into new regions of the capitol.

a golden badger sitting on high

"a free citizen in a free land"

a bust of the great american progressive "fighting" bob la follette.

chicago manhole covers

we were in chicago for the day yesterday (more on that trip to come). we did a whole lot of walking around the city. while we walked passed, over, and around many many manhole covers, i didn't discover too many very unique ones.

there are a lot of these

and these

this seemed to be a rarer find. i actually like this one quite a bit.

if you are in chicago and come upon a spiffier manhole cover, let me know. now that the manhole on halsted is gone, finding a good one in chicago is a bit more of a challenge.

science!

an advocate for the sciences wrote in area of wet pavement on the bike path recently. we don't know who did it, but we sure do like it.

indeed.

průlez deska

a reader of davidandmarta.com, we'll call him pedro, was so kind as to send us this lovely photo of a manhole cover from prague. my czech is a little rusty, but i believe the czech term for manhole cover is průlez deska.

thanks for the photo pedro. i'd like to encourage folks to keep sending photos of good manhole covers. worthy covers will definitely be posted.

all across the universe

we successfully combined physical activity and science education by riding our bikes from the sun to pluto. thanks to the university of wisconsin space place, bicyclists in south central wisconsin can visit our entire solar system by traveling along a scaled-down model erected beside madison's major bike trails. the model is scaled down by a factor of 200 million to one. that means the sun (located along the capitol city trail at monona terrace) is 24 feet in diameter, and pluto (located along the military ridge state trail in downtown mount horeb) is the size of a marble. happy international year of astronomy!

of course, the sizes are imaginary, as the planets are marked by uniform signs that provide the intergalactic tourist with information about these heavenly bodies. the signs are spaced along the trail to represent relative distance from the sun. saturn, uranus, neptune and pluto are shockingly remote.

david, don't look directly at the sun!
mercury
venus
earth. of note, on earth day, some folks hung a bunch of brightly colored balloons on this here earth signpost. several days later, the shriveled deflated balloons hung weather-beaten from the posts, reduced to mere litter. ironic? or just poor follow through?
mars
ceres, some asteroid. i'm not sure why this one made the cut, but i know very little about outer space.
jupiter
somewhere between jupiter and saturn, david got a flat tire.
saturn
uranus
neptune
pluto

david enjoys a well deserved sandwich and beer at the grumpy troll in mount horeb.
then we headed home, towards the sun, with the wind at our backs. it's a great ride. if you're into science, biking, and the beautiful splendor of rural wisconsin, check it out. here's the route.

our 'hood

mr. rogers goes to washington

here is one of my favorite clips of all time. it features mr. fred rogers testifying in front of congress to convince them not to diminish funding to pbs in 1969. it is moving.


i absolutely love this man. david does too.