Admiring the architecture of our home office in Washington, D.C.

- mike lee -

Baby Cianna now combats carseat boredom on our morning commute by janking her socks off, giggling triumphantly and then flinging them.

- mike lee - i-95 south

It's a perfect night to be photographing Celeste in and around the Giant Buddha.

- mike lee - baltimore

I took a walk to see a little of the Smithsonian's opening day activities for the National Museum of the American Indian. Situated between the National Air & Space Museum and the U.S. Capitol, the museum is the 18th and last major museum on the National Mall.

The building's majestic curved terraces are clad in Minnesota Kasota stone veneer. The 26,000 sq. ft. structure contains a million tribal artifacts. 3 million visitors are expected annually (Air & Space attracts 9 million).

There's a large week-long festival of performances and presentations on stages and in tents surrounding the museum and down the Mall. I headed straight to the museum and only made a quick circuit around the base of the building where there are some exquisite water fountains and gardens. I will have to venture back over the next few days during lunch to see more of the festival.

Funny thing: though I am first generation Chinese, many have thought I look Native American. In fact, three different people struck up conversations with me about the museum at various stores around our office.

In addition to the Smithsonian web site, National Geographic offers a good page of Fast Facts, and they are producing a book about the design and construction of the museum titled, Spirit of a Native Place.

- mike lee - washington, dc

I made one more visit to the art school tonight to check out the lighting situation in and around the buildings at night. I didn't end up shooting here Sunday, and will hopefully work with a model at the buddha tomorrow night if she doesn't cancel on me. I know I'll need a really long extension cord to hang out of the ceramics studio, and blankets and a coat because it's going to be chilly.

- mike lee - baltimore

I'm no Ken Foreman, but I am quite proud of myself that I got my wife's Palm SDIO Wi-Fi card configured on her Tungsten T3 without any hassles. The card was rumored for a long time and has finally shipped. Now she too can enjoy shortened battery life and manually reconnecting to the network after device sleep. But she'll be able to get up from the computer and surf from the bathroom along with her Nokia phone and Blackberry, both of which have web browsers too.

Happy Birthday honey!

- mike lee - baltimore

My friend Victor found that Studio Taktika, the product design firm that developed the look of the Sidekick II, just posted some new photos in their portfolio area. Nothing new here, but it is interesting to see that this is the same firm that worked on some interesting unreleased projects for Apple including the large format Newton, QuickTake 1000 digital camera and an MP3 light player.

- mike lee - washington, dc

I just got home from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. What a soaring cinematic realization of a comic book-inspired adventure story! My wish coming out of the theater is that the engineers of today could have more of the megastructures imagined in the movie as giant robots, huge flying platforms and sleek silver rockets. Take a look at Yahoo's nice collection of production stills and concept sketches to see what I mean. And Cinema Confidential has an interview with the 29-year-old director. I can't wait to see the movie again.

- mike lee - baltimore

I just noticed this picture in my Sidekick photo gallery taken by my wife as was photographing crabapples floating in the Naiad fountain in Mt. Vernon Place Park. Baby Cianna was on my back wishing I would hurry up with the shot.

- mike lee - baltimore

Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse is opening soon at the corner of St. Paul and Madision, two blocks from where I had an office in the late 90s. The place is run by a collective and will, most importantly to me, offer a free computer lab and wireless. It looks like it will be a good place to hang out on cold winter days.

- mike lee - baltimore