It had been way too long since I'd last been back east to visit my family or my NYC friends, and I wanted to visit Boston again. As I listed it all out, I realized that I'd need a full two weeks to do proper visits, and that I was very much overdue for spending an extended period out of town and away from my job. (I dearly love both L.A. and my job at the RAND Corp., but everyone needs a break from even their favorite things every once in a while)

I purchased a digital camera (an Epson PC650) back in April, and it's turned out to be the perfect camera for me. I've never been one for taking photographs, mostly because I'm rarely in the mood for fussing with film and developing, nor with figuring out what to do with all those pictures once I get them back. With a digital camera I don't have to deal with any of that- just upload the JPEGs to a computer. If I want to spend time creating web pages, I can. If not, the images are still there for me to look at, and they're not piling up around the house collecting dust.

So here 'tis- the first vacation I've actually documented.

07/23/00 - Pictures taken at my parents' house in Paramus, NJ.
07/24/00 - Columbia University. Can you call it an alma mater if you didn't graduate?
07/24/00 - Dinner with NYC sysadmins, or more accurately, the drinking that went on after dinner. I didn't have the camera out during dinner.
07/25/00 - One of my favorite places to spend an afternoon, the Egyptian exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I didn't get a chance to photograph any of my visit with my friends Arthur, Bernadette, and Kevin in Yonkers. It was even raining too hard to photograph Bernadette's garden.
A handful of photos I couldn't fit anywhere else- a fannish dinner in NYC, my brother and one of my nephews in PA (forgot to take the camera when we went to Valley Forge), and a few shots of my old bedroom at my parents' house.
08/02-04/00 - Various photos from my stay in Boston.
08/04/00 - Some photos taken while I walked the Freedom Trail
08/04/00 - The U.S.S. Constitution. The oldest U.S. Navy vessel still in service. You might not find these terribly interesting if you're not a wooden ship fancier/modeler.

Created by Lee Ann Goldstein on 20