King me

For some reason, there's an article on Yahoo! Travel today about the World's Most Beautiful Castles. Since you wanted to know, my immediate reactions were these:

1. This is the perfect travel piece for the depths of the Great Recession! Thanks, Yahoo!! (And, by the way, since Yahoo! comes with its own exclamation mark, I assume that's the proper style for when it appears at the end of an exclamation, right?)
2. Damn, I'm really looking forward to Yahoo! Travel's article about the World's Ugliest Castles.

I don't really care much about castles unless they're white and serve small hamburgers in cardboard sleeves. But I read a few parts of the story anyway. And I'm glad I did, because I learned about Bavaria's Newuschwanstein Castle.

The good folks at Newuschwanstein must be very proud indeed, because the writer claims that Neuschwanstein was "a major inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland." Which I think is like saying that Monet was "a major inspiration for Thomas Kinkade: Painter of Light."

For the art of it

As some of you know, in my younger years, I really thought I was going to be the next great photojournalist. Photography was my life.

Until, well, I burned out. I've been missing my photography days a lot lately, and get irritated with myself when I don't take time to get out my camera and take at least a few shots. And, when I do, I rarely capture something worth sharing, since I'm my own worse critic. But this shot I took when Jon and I went to Maine last month rose to the occasion of sharing. I think I'm going to have my mom paint this for the new house.