Out for a bit

The Canes took the Habs and Jersey down in dominating fashion. The Sabres series isn’t going quite so well. But in lieu of paying attention to hockey over the next couple of weeks, or fixing that annoying left/right justify bug on the title page, I’ve got…

…other plans.

BTN’s going to be dormant for a couple of weeks. (Yeah, I know, what’s the difference from normal?) To keep y’all occupied, check out a few semi-new Flickr sets that haven’t been featured here yet:

• Arizona+MN 2006: visiting Amy, catching some hockey, and a layover-length visit to downtown Minneapolis in winter
• Hockeyfest 2006: mid-March, Quebec and Ontario, 3 2 games in 3 nights, with action photos courtesy new camera of awesomeness, plus geographical oddities you’ll only find on one of Josh’s solo adventures
• DC Sports Apr-06: more action from Canes-Caps and Nats-Mets

Back in a while… and you’ll probably get more pictures then too. Photoblog anyone?

More Randomness!

The Fill BTN With Random Stuff ‘06 campaign continues this week, as we again wander North America through the text of a blog.

Up in the True North, Canadians elected a Conservative government for the first time since 1993 on Monday. Prime Minister-designate Stephen Harper immediately provoked a minor spat with the USA by announcing plans to outfit three new naval icebreakers for Arctic duty; Canada claims sovereignty between the lines of longitude of its northernmost points of land all the way up to the North Pole, a claim generally ignored by everyone else on the planet; the Arctic was a submariners’ playground throughout the Cold War, and various countries have continued to sail below the icepack since. For my money, this is, as usual for Canada, a domestic political play thinly disguised as a foreign-policy dispute. Firing off a few small-caliber shots at America never hurt a Canadian pol, and Harper is in a tenuous position as the leader of a minority right-wing government that will have to work point-by-point coalitions with three opposing left-wing parties: the traditional rival Liberals who they forced out of power, the wacky near-socialist New Democrats, and the separatist Bloc Québécois. The Liberals in particular knocked Harper off in 2004 by trying to paint him as “George W. Bush-lite”, and cut into a once-big Tory lead this year the same way; being mildly irritating to us before he even gets into office is probably sound strategy. It’s vaguely disappointing, but Harper merits withholding judgement for now; if he can stay away from the spite that characterized Canadian Liberal governments’ transborder relations, he’ll be a major upgrade for both countries.

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Photos: ESPN College GameDay for VT-UM

BTN readers who haven’t had the opportunity to see ESPN College GameDay live in person may be interested in some of my photos from today’s show in Blacksburg before tonight’s Virginia Tech-Miami showdown.

For the record, Kirk Herbstreit picked the Hokies and Lee Corso donned the Miami ibis head for the first time in Blacksburg.

Opening Day in Washington

Flooding out of Metro
Originally uploaded by behindthenet.

I tried something a little different with my Opening Day photos: instead of simply exporting from iPhoto to static pages on BTN, I’ve opened an account at Flickr. So clicky to check them out; you can wander through individually or even view as a slideshow.

The event itself was pretty good — no major disturbances, nothing particularly unusual. The president was mostly cheered, though there were some boos that made the people cheering get louder. Photographically, the lesson of the evening was that 4x digital zoom is simply not enough from all the way down the left field line; fortunately, my usual seats are above first base. Metro was indeed a madhouse, particularly postgame, but driving would have been far worse.

The nice part is that I have tickets for 20 more regular-season games.

They're Here

My time is tracked, my computer is locked, and it’s time for something new and different…

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I’m just minutes from Dunn Loring Metro, the Orange Line and RFK — pictures and full report postgame. GO NATS!