Hello From Richmond, VA!

Maybe it's just the breezy late summer weather, but while walking around Richmond's cute little shopping district, Carytown, it suddenly struck me how much of a beach town it seemed like -- like a more natural and lived-in Seaside. Granted, I think I had this epiphany while strolling past a rack of sale bikinis, but it really does hold up. The shops -- especially the two story, row house ones -- seemed strangely scaled (boutiqued, I guess), there's a typical overabundance of women's clothing shops, including one solely devoted to bras, some corner antique stores, and . . . well, maybe all those things are everywhere now, not just touristy beach areas.

In any case, the other parts of town I glimpsed yesterday as Anders and I went out shopping for groceries and a grill seemed far more typical of your burgeoning cityscape, if also belying the town's agri-center past: lots of old processing plants, including one that made vanilla extracts and ice cream, being chopped up into lofts and stores.

But to backpedal a little, I spent the latter part of last week and the weekend in Washington, D.C. Well, mostly in the Virginia suburbs, but I did go to the Natural History museum and saw a 3D Imax movie about sharks and other oceanic life. It was too preachy, I think, even though I basically agreed with their message. Plus they undermined that message (sharks aren't really a threat to people, we shouldn't be scared of them, we should protect their numbers and habitat, etc.) with their actual presentation of sharks like the Great White, which they soundtracked with -- you guessed it -- scary, ominous, threatening music. I mean, not that they should have used Yakkity Sax or anything, but they could have tried something a little more neutral.

The best footage -- in the sense that the 3D stuff seemed to work the best -- was of a sea turtle gliding gently over a reef. It's size and speed allowed for a lot of slow pans, and all the coral and sea floor bric-a-brac added lots of layers in the background. The filmers wasted too much time beneath creatures, pointing the camera surface-ward. Without any real background, it hardly looked different than TV. I would also sometimes get the sensation that I wasn't far away enough to focus on whatever they were trying to get me to focus on, but maybe that's my fault. It sometimes felt like trying to decipher those Magic Eye pictures, which I was never really good at.

So I'm in the process of firming up my Boston plans, but I bet y'all will hear from me again before I leave Richmond. Anders and I will try to get into some interesting trouble for everyone to be amused by! See you then!