Politics!

I know that my blog is focused on style and design... however, the life/liberty parts dictate a small amount of irrelevant happenings be featured as well. Additionally, this will explain what has taken most of my time in the last two months:

First, I was present to celebrate both the re-election victory and swearing in of my friends to Gaithersburg's City Council.

The unofficial results of the election are being read

Taking a closer look at results

Coucilman Jud Ashman and myself  right after the results were announced

~

Secondly, I'm currently running to be on the board of a local political organization. My goal is to become Director/VP of Communications. Unfortunately, the deadline to register as a member if you wanted to help has passed by a few days! However, needless to say, the campaign has definitely put a strain on my available time. Despite this, it's been a rewarding experience so far, and I'm hoping both myself and the friends who have joined our slate will win in January. For those on both the left and the right who have questions about what is going on with my political projects, please message me directly, so I can explain anything you have questions about! :)

Also, we would love if you joined our facebook page... www.facebook.com/ydreboot

This is me at one of our meetings, photo by mariostylianou.com 

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas to all my friends, family, and blogger universe!

I will have substantive posts coming up soon. I've been really busy with life, work, politics, etc. and rather tired from trying to do too many things at once! I apologize for disappearing for over a month here; I'm going to try and see if I can get back on my schedule of at least one post every week or two. Due to the delay, there are a number of catch-up posts which have been sitting in the back of my head for some time. 

--Justin

Europe 2011: Part 5, Panoramic Louvre

This post is fairly self-explanatory: these are mostly all panoramic photo experiences that you can drag around and look at to feel as though you were with me on my travels. This first installation is obviously the museum of the Louvre. I have additional ones from both France and England to come soon.

Additionally, I have plenty of other posts that will be coming up as I have been quite behind on my blog writing! Please enjoy these in the meantime as I collect everything and get back in gear!

Stairway by the Winged Victory of Samothrace

Staircase near various galleries and cafe

View of the outside from second story in museum

The following ones are from the Carousel of the Louvre (the shopping area underground):

Ground level

Atop the staircase in the pyramid

This is the view from the staircase

Lastly, I have standard photo panorama shots... you may wish to click on these to open them larger. Hopefully they run off the side of the page a bit so you can see them larger, as they do contain a good deal of surface area.

Ceiling in carousel by ticket offices

Carousel after hours as seen from escalators

Carousel after hours as seen from floor level

Additional area in the Carousel near a set of function rooms that can be rented out

My International Week in DC!

So... this is a brief interruption in my Europe travel series... but interestingly enough, still involves Europe! As it turns out, this week has been filled with internationally-themed events starting with the French Expat Meetup on Tuesday:

Click here for more pictures!

Then it was on to the Waltz lesson practice for the Eigth Anniversary Gala and Masquerade Ball on Thursday:

The room for the ball is beautiful! (National Museum of Women in the Arts)

Look at all the details in the woodwork! (And the chandeliers were awesome)

Another item of note, is that half of what you see is made of faux-finishes

Dance lesson, after which my feet ended up hurting so much that I could still feel it when I went to the ball on Saturday! (Stone floors with simple loafers on are not a good combination for dance! Thankfully, I wore different shoes for the ball)

And back to France on Friday with a visit to French soil at the Embassy of France to hear a presentation on the financial crisis and investment strategies (Conférence: CRISE FINANCIÈRE: Vos finances au sein de la crise). My friend Ivan from the French meetup was one of the panelists, and it was quite enjoyable! Presentation was entirely in French and was organized by Union des Français de l'Etranger and Chambre de Commerce Franco-Américaine de Washington:

Seated panelists, from left to right:
YANN COATANLEM, CITIGROUP, Directeur, Think Tank Club Praxis
IVAN ZABALOIEFF, MS, Conseiller en Gestion de Patrimoine, AMERIPRISE FINANCIAL INC.

French Embassy consulate where the presentation was held

And Finally, yesterday (Saturday) I had the Eigth Anniversary Gala and Masquerade Ball at the Grand Ballroom of the National Museum of Women in the Arts:

Choreographed dance, it was really beautiful

Live waltz band on the right background of picture... chairs on left background for latin band that played second half of the evening.

Only picture of me from the evening, with new friend Q from the ball! 

The ball was great fun and I met lots of new and interesting people in the process. Also, I braved the dance floor a few times and didn't screw up as badly as I worried I was going to. lol. Now for more lessons and more practice!

I even took some panoramic shots of the event! Remember to use a real computer equipped with silverlight to view these, you'll have to click on them to start the viewing experience:

 

During the dance

After the dance was over

Europe 2011: Part 4, Musée du Louvre

Next stop in Paris was visiting the Louvre.... but on the way I needed to take care of some stuff at the Apple Store. Yes, it's true... I can actually locate one anywhere I travel! I think this time I mostly just bought a battery charger. 

Now, I must say using these rechargeables in the the emergency battery charger I got off of Amazon works amazingly. Instead of getting 30% extra charge, I was finding myself reaching 60% or greater. 

Inside the Apple Store

Charging my phone outside of the Apple store

Anyhow, enough about batteries! On to the fun stuff...

They had this really impressive model of what the Louvre looked like during the medieval period 

Foundations for the Medieval Louvre

Notice the scale compared to people... it must have really been huge!

And of course, the Winged Victory of Samothrace

Stairs leading up to Winged Victory... lower level has sculptures, upper paintings

This time I paid special attention to the Regency/Empire paintings and I have a selection of them for you now...

I think this picture is in every book about men's fashion from the regency/empire period!

I love this painting... I may get a print of it for my home!

Again, Coronation of the Empress by Jacques-Louis David. Notice how large it is compared to the people. There is another copy of this painting at Versailles. I think this one here is the original.

This year I'm a huge fan of sheer materials... look at the sleeves!

I believe this is the last painting of the Empress Josephine before she passed away

Look at the exquisite detail of the material!

I'm also really impressed at this neckline's construction... whoever came up with that had to be a genius, because it doesn't look easy for it to work right.

Note the fashion of hand placements... there is a famous painting of Napoleon much like this

Nice regency style with cravat, etc.

I love the sheer again here... the construction of this is dress is so simple and delightfully elegant

This is a great musical portrait

I believe this is the dauphin, King Louis-Phillipe's son.

This man's outfit is intense... the amount of cravat and shirt frills is impressive!

I think this was for Napoleon III, but could be mistaken... what's interesting is that instead of carving the designs, they painted them in apparent 3 dimensions.

The Louvre Pyramid as seen from inside the museum

The usual republican piece... :P

I love this staircase! I will have a better view of it in the next post, which will have panoramic views of the Louvre

They have a little cafe up here... isn't this lovely?

Throne chair... I think for a temple, but I do not exactly remember

I love how they hid the outlets!

The fountains are surrounded by a bench and are a lovely place to sit and have conversations (particularly if you had someone to talk to)

And what it all looks like at night:

 Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go back again and reshoot some things I saw two years ago, but I plan to return in the near future! My next blog post will have panoramic shots of the Louvre that you can navigate on your computer. Stay tuned!