What better way to celebrate this great country we live in than with some national pastime enjoyment on a sweltering, and I mean swelterrrring, summer day?! On Saturday we went with my pops to watch the Nats, his first time visiting the new stadium. The Nats made a major comeback to beat the Mets, scoring 3 runs in the bottom of the ninth inning off what looked like a walk-off grand slam by Dunn. After review, the umps called his centerfield near-homer as a double. But Rodriguez followed with an RBI single to score the winning run for the Nats. Take that Mets fans!

We went to the Nats game last night with Matt’s company tickets, and I will say it’s the first good game I’ve gone to, of about 5 or 6 attended so far, at the new stadium. The team held onto their lead to beat the Florida Marlins 5-4, apparently putting them on an 8-4 run in their last 12 games. Which is pretty good, for anyone who knows how dismal the Nats can be.

Highlight of the evening for me may have been watching the 3 men sitting in front of us – three generations of baseball fanatics, all with blazing red hair. Grandfather and father both wearing full Nats gear and earphones (undoubtedly listening to the radio broadcast of the game), and the 6 or 7-year-old son, wearing his little league uniform down to the cleats, Nats hat, and giant grey sunglasses that bordered on goggles. Dweeby but so cute! Only a picture of that lineup would do it justice, but I wasn’t that creepy. So you’ll just take my word for it that some of the best people watching is in the stands.

Nice weekend here in Washington, though it was punctuated with some rather hot weather and a pretty good thunderstorm Saturday night. We tried to pay a visit to the recently opened Eatonville restaurant on Friday night, but got there just after midnight and they were already in shut down mode (we blogged about the “interior decorating” before). The space looks amazing and I know they had a big competition to pick out a chef, so I am still very interested in giving it a try.

In other openings around town, the “The Bullpen” is now open for business at National’s Park. While it is billed as a “beer garden,” it amounts to not much more than a fenced-in parking lot with a tent, stage, some games, and picnic tables. The Bullpen is a welcomed addition and starts to fill in the huge “there is nothing to do before or after the National’s game” gap that will remain until the market loosens up and more construction on Half St. SE can begin. The Nat’s unfortunately lost to the Phillies, but it was a high scoring game and we were able to score seats in the 2nd row — directly behind home plate — so that helped to take the edge off.

The opening of Artomatic is a mere 12 days away. Lori and I went in on Sunday night, after our visit with the Wasilewski’s to the always popular Dumbarton Oaks, to work on my wall. It is ~95% done (sneak preview here) now all I have to do is actually hang my photos. I’m eager to get my work up on the wall and not have to think about it anymore. There were A LOT of blank walls, so I expect it will be a last minute crunch to get all the work done before the opening on the 29th. But alas the weekend has come to an end, one more day would be lovely, but it is not to be.

   
   
Today mark’s the first of many future posts discussing and promoting the 2009 Artomatic show.  Artomatic was held last year in NoMa at the Capital Plaza building which was conviniently located across the street from my job site (which we posted about frequently last year).  This year it is being held at Half Street’s 55 M St, SE in the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood.  For those familiar with DC, it is the building that you come up underneath when you exit at the Navy Yard metro station for a Nat’s game.      
   
For 2009 the AOM folks have over 1,000 artist of all mediums (from photography to fire dancing, and fine oil paints to tattoos) lined up and they are expecting ~70,000 people to attend.  MAKE SURE YOU ARE ONE OF THEM!  Artomatic will run from May 29 – July 5th so unless you are like some of those people over in France that take entire months off for vacation durring the summer you should be able to find some time.  Oh, also…it is free to the public and they have multiple bars and bands on the weekends (just taking away excusses not to go left and right arn’t I?).   
   
Last year I exhibited ~25 pictures but this year I am choosing to have a much more edited and  themed exhibit (more in the realm of 6 – 8 pictures) with the working title of “White Wash”.  It will focus on urban abstracts of white walls, fences, sheds, etc. and the effects of time, decay, exposure, and wear on the once crsip white veneer. We will post more details closer to 5/29 about specific events, opening times, etc.   Half Street’s 55 M Street, S.E., in Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Riverfront neighborhood