Light City 2018, Baltimore, April 21, 2018

For the third year in a row I went to Light City in Baltimore (which is also the festival’s third year). (You can read about my previous visits in 2016 and 2017.) The first year I went I basically just took the Charm City Circulator bus as far as the Shake Shack (which is located across from Harborplace) and I underestimated how big this festival was. The second year I had an animation that was showing at Light City so I took the Charm City Circulator until I got to a stop that was as close to the On Demand area (where my animation was being shown along with other film shorts) and I still have memories of sitting outside for two hours waiting for my animation to show up on screen as the temperature kept on getting colder and colder as time went on.

This year I decided not to submit anything to Light City so I could begin my tour anywhere. I also ended up going on the last night of Light City. I couldn’t get there earlier in the month due to scheduling conflicts so the final night was my first and last time that I visited Light City 2018.

I drove my car to Linthicum and stopped at a Royal Farms store so I could pick up a chicken dinner and a diet soda for only $7. (I know from previous years that many of the restaurants, fast food outlets, and food tents tend to draw very long lines during Light City. It was easier to just bring my own food to Light City.) I parked my car at the North Linthicum light rail station and took the train to the Camden Yards station.

I had the idea of taking the Charm City Circulator bus all the way over to the other side of the Inner Harbor near where Little Italy is located. When I arrived I found that this area has been heavily built up. There’s a new complex called Harbor East and I took some photos there along with some photos of Little Italy. I took so many photos that day that I decided to break up this year’s Light City entry into two. Yesterday I wrote about Little Italy and Harbor East. Today’s blog post is about Light City itself.

This year I shot video footage of some of the Light City exhibits. Here is the resulting video showing the highlights of that festival.

Here are the still photos I shot at Light City. When I arrived at the Inner Harbor the first thing I did was to eat the Royal Farms chicken while viewing the Harbor East marina at the beginning of a sunset.

I walked along the Inner Harbor where I saw the beginnings of Light City.

There were Fireflies Pedicabs that provided a service to give people a ride along the eastern end of the Inner Harbor. They were very colorful to look at.

I arrived at the first Light City structure called Pulse Portal by Davis McCarty. Even though it was still light outside when I was there, I managed to have fun shooting the Inner Harbor at sunset through the colored glass of the structure.

When I was there a couple were preparing to get married by that structure.

Mr. Trash Wheel was docked along the Inner Harbor.

The Herd by Kelley Bell consists of a flock of inflatable blue creatures floating in the Inner Harbor.

Octopus by Tim Scofield, Kyle Miller, and Steve Dalnekoff is a giant animatronic octopus whose tentacles were slowly moving while it was changing colors and playing very calming electronic music. I found it pretty mesmerizing to watch in person.

This Coffee Bar tent was one of many tents that served refreshments to the general public at Light City.

I came upon the On Demand area, which brought back memories for me. Last year I had my animation, The March of Liberty, shown in that area. I still have memories of sitting outside freezing in one of those adirondack chairs for over two hours waiting for my animation to be shown. I was so thrilled when it was finally shown that I shot this quick reaction video.

This year I didn’t submit anything to this festival. It was partially due to laziness and partially because I still have less-than-thrilling memories of sitting outside in the cold for a very long time. Even though I was ultimately happy when my animation was shown, it didn’t really lead to any further opportunities for me. (I had hoped that the showing of my animation at Light City would lead to some kind of a job or career breakthrough for me but it didn’t work out that way.) In contrast to last year, I didn’t spend much time in the On Demand area. I hung around just long enough to shoot these two pictures.

There were a few giant screens that were placed throughout the Inner Harbor that showed random video clips.

Something in the Water by Post Typography + PI.KL + Figure 53 featured some underwater lights that flashed just below the surface of the harbor.

I came upon the Institute of Marine & Environmental Technology (IMET) where a few of the Labs @ Light City were held. I arrived on the last night of Light City so the building was closed when I was there, which is why I was only able to get a few external shots.

Here’s the installation As of a Now by Elissa Blount.

There was another underwater installation called What Lies Beneath by Formstone Castle.

A drummer and a dance troupe performed outside of the Power Plant.

Many people walked through the bridge-like Synesthesia by Surcreative.

There was this line standing outside of the igloo-like The Eighth Art that was so long that I decided to skip it.

There were a few street performers playing for the Light City crowd.

Sun Stomp by the Sun Stomp Collective was this animation that required people to stomp on these nearby metal bleachers. The effect was pretty neat but it provided noise that was so loud that I had to leave quickly before I developed a headache.

This year Light City had something called Mini Light City, which was geared towards families. This elephant balloon graced the entrance to Mini Light City.

There was a tent sponsored by Future Makers where parents and children could make simple projects that involved light. That area was very crowded.

The Mini Light City area had another tent that was easier to get inside. It was sponsored by The PURGG Project and it included hands-on demonstrations using robots and drones.

A WJZ-TV (Channel 13) van parks at Light City.

Light City in Baltimore drew such huge crowds that Harborplace was packed with people. This photo shows why I decided not to buy anything from It’s Sugar that night.

There were some psychedelic-like effects at the installation Colour Moves by Rombout Frieling Lab.

There was a small carnival consisting of a ferris wheel ride (known as The Big Wheel) surrounded by concessions stands.

Many people have fun with rotating the giant prisms that made up the installation Prismatica by Raw Design, Atomic3, Jean-François Piché, and Dix au carré/Production: Quartier des Spectacles, Montreal.

Here’s the bird-like installation On the Wings of Freedom by Aether and Hemera.

The big HMO giant Kaiser Permanente sponsored something called a Thrive Garden, which, as far as I could tell, was a place where people sat down on benches.

Here is Elantica by Tom Dekyvere.

Some vector animations were shown on the outside of the Maryland Science Center.

Club Light City was an outdoor bar and dance area that was very crowded.

And last, but not least, here is the installation Drone Prix.

This year, for the first time ever, I managed to visit the entire Light City area in the Inner Harbor. The key to my success was that I took the light rail to Camden Yards then I walked to the nearest Charm Circulator bus stop where I took the Orange bus to the Little Italy stop then walked through Harbor East in order to get to the very far eastern end of the Inner Harbor then walked west back towards the Maryland Science Center. While I managed to see most of the Inner Harbor attractions, I didn’t see all of Light City. This year the festival expanded to a few outlying neighborhoods such as Fells Point and Federal Hill. I wasn’t able to attend any of these other Light City events due to tight finances and scheduling conflicts. Maybe next year I’ll make an effort to visit at least one of these neighborhoods hosting their own portion of Light City.

As I left the Inner Harbor to go back to the Camden Yards light rail stop I saw this sign announcing a special Lyft pick-up spot for those who went to Light City and decided to use Lyft’s services.

The Inner Harbor Area of Baltimore, November 25, 2017

So on the Saturday after Thanksgiving I decided to go to Baltimore in order to check out the Christkindlesmarkt at the Zion Lutheran Church. I made every effort to get out of the door soon after I finished eating lunch. But then there were a lot of hassles. First I hit this awful traffic jam going northbound on the highway. I made it to the North Linthicum light rail station only to encounter a bit of a wait for the next light rail train.

I got off at Lexington Market in order to transfer to the Metro subway. But I encountered a long wait for the next subway train. I boarded it and made my way to the Shot Tower Metro station. I walked around the Shot Tower area in order to find the church. By the time I arrived at the church, I only had 45 minutes to check out the Christkindlesmarkt until the event closed for the day. So I was kind of disappointed over not having as much time to spend at that event as I wanted so I decided to hop on the next Charm City Circulator bus over to the Christmas Village in Baltimore where I ate dinner and looked around the area. At least I could more leisurely look everywhere compared to what happened at the other event since the Christmas Village was opened until well into the evening.

After I got my fill of the Christmas Village, I decided to briefly walk around the Inner Harbor where I took these spectacular photos of Baltimore Harbor itself both at twilight and after dark.

I noticed that Baltimore now has a bike sharing program of its own. (The DC area has had such a program for the past few years.)

Here’s a closeup of the wheel cover of one of these bikes that shows an illustration of the Baltimore skyline.

Here is one of the lights that were on display near the Inner Harbor.

I went to Harborplace mainly because I needed to use the restroom before getting back on the light rail. The only store I visited there was It’s Sugar because that store is always such a hoot to visit, such as these Christmas and Hanukkah Emojis lollipops that were on sale.

The store sometimes sells items that really reflect the politics of the day, such as the orange-flavored gummy Donald Trump candy.

Of course that store had a variety of Christmas and Hanukkah candy available for sale.

The weirdest thing I saw there was these dinosaur chopsticks where the dinosaur’s mouth moved every time you open and close the chopsticks.

They also had sushi made from candy (instead of fish). They would be appropriate with the dinosaur chopsticks.

They had beer-flavored gummy bears in these beer glasses. What’s more, they had white-colored gummy bears at the top so it would resemble beer foam and amber colored bears resembling beer.

I didn’t buy anything at It’s Sugar this time around since I had already spent enough money elsewhere. As I was walking back to the Camden Yards light rail station so I could take the next train out of the city, I walked past the historic Old Otterbein United Methodist Church. Here’s a shot of the church steeple as it was lit against the night sky.

The church sign had a pretty interesting message for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

So that’s it for my huge trip to Baltimore on the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day.

A Birthday Trip to Baltimore and Glen Burnie, December 15, 2016

 

 

 

 

Last year I planned on going to Baltimore to celebrate my birthday at Christmas Village in Baltimore. I had to scuttle those plans because my birthday fell on a Tuesday and it turns out that the place was closed on certain Tuesdays including my birthday. (I ended up going to Tyson’s Corner instead and I still had fun last year.)

This year my birthday fell on a Thursday so I decided to go to Baltimore, just like I planned last year. I was determined to go there despite the fact that the Polar Vortex had just arrived in my area so the temperatures plunged to below freezing. (I basically wore a heavy winter coat and a hat so I was able to brave the deep freeze.)

On the way to Baltimore I stopped off at a local Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts store to check out the recent sales. I found a bundled pair of slipper socks. The original price was $9.99, which would’ve been a decent price for two pairs of thick socks. But they were on sale for half-price, which meant that I paid $5 for the bundle (or $2.50 per pair).

I took the light rail into the city. I initially went by Harborplace where I saw this ice skating rink.

Since my last visit to Harborplace, I found that the store It’s Sugar had moved from one pavilion to another. (It is now located next to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium.)

I purchased a few things for myself on my birthday. Here is this cute gingerbread man cookie I bought.

I purchased this Pez dispenser featuring Badtz-Maru, one of Hello Kitty’s friends.

I bought myself this Guinness Luxury Dark Chocolate Truffle Bar. It was very delicious.

I took a few photos of other items in that store but I didn’t buy any of them.

After my visit to Harborplace I took a couple of photos of the Inner Harbor area at sunset.

I eventually made my way to the Christmas Village in Baltimore.

I’ve been there other years (see the photos I took in 2013, 2014, and 2015). Some of the same vendors were there this year while there were others whom I had never seen before. I also saw some empty booths but I had no idea if fewer vendors signed up or if it was because I came on a Thursday night and some of the missing vendors only worked on the weekends. I had been looking forward to eating some bratwurst with sauerkraut for dinner followed by a Belgian waffle topped with hot fudge and whipped cream for dessert. Unfortunately the waffle place wasn’t there this year, which was a big disappointment. The German food booth was still there so at least I was still able to eat the bratwurst and sauerbraten platter.

I purchased only one item. It was a pack of incense that I got from the large Käthe Wohlfahrt booth that was located at one end of the main tent. I’ve been lighting the incense each night since then so my home can smell like Christmas. (LOL!)

On my way back to the light rail stop, I saw this homeless person laying down under a thin blanket outside the Baltimore Convention Center. Usually I wouldn’t pay this person much notice other than the fact that the Polar Vortex had arrived and the temperatures were forecasted to dip under 20 degrees Fahrenheit over night. (The following morning my AccuWeather app on my smartphone registered 18 degrees Fahrenheit.) I felt that this person should really be indoors but I didn’t know where to turn since I live 30 miles south of Baltimore.

I took the above picture and frantically did Google searches on my smartphone for homeless organizations in Baltimore. I texted the photo to a couple of organizations while indicating where the person was located. For added measure I texted the photo to the Baltimore Police Department. I even uploaded this photo on my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts using people to forward this to anyone who could help bring this person in from the cold. I don’t know if my efforts helped or not other than the fact that for the next few days I did a Google search for any recent homeless deaths in Baltimore outside the Baltimore Convention Center only to turn up empty-handed. I guess this person somehow survived the Polar Vortex but I’ll never know for sure.

Once I reached the North Linthicum Light Rail Station (where my car was parked) I drove over to Glen Burnie. Last year I found out about this overdecorated house on Delmar Avenue and I saw it for the first time on Christmas Eve. This year I decided to check it out again and, yes, it is still just as heavily decorated as it was last year.

The only difference I could tell between this year and last year is the next-door neighbor’s lighted sign that said “DITTO” with an arrow pointed to the other house. (That neighbor’s house didn’t have any outdoor lights at all other than that “DITTO” sign.)

By the way the house on Delmar Avenue has its own Facebook page that you can view to get the latest news and photos about that house.

Last year I shot a bunch of still photos of that house. This year I decided to shoot a video so you can get a sense of the flashing lights (including an animated laser display that’s shown on the garage door) and the constant Christmas music.

I headed home after visiting that house so that was it for celebrating my birthday in Baltimore and Glen Burnie.

A Night in Baltimore, August 8, 2014

As some of you may know, I have a couple of art pieces in the month-long Station North Salon Show in Baltimore. August 8 was the official opening night and there were going to have a reception at the various locations that are participating in this art show. I decided to go not only because I have two pieces in this show but also August 8 was the one-year anniversary of something that I would really rather not remember and it helped that I had an event to go to.

There were two major obstacles. If I had opted to drive into Baltimore, I would’ve had to drive past the Inner Harbor and I knew that it would be crowded because of two major events. One was a home game of the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards and they would be playing against the St. Louis Cardinals. The other was the first full day of Otakon, the annual anime convention that I decided not to go to this year because last year was such a zoo with over 31,000 people in attendance and I had a hard time getting to the workshops and panels that I wanted to attend because they filled up really quickly. (Not to mention having to push my way through jam-packed hallways all the time in order to get from one place to another.)

So I decided to park my car at the North Linthicum Light Rail Station and take public transportation the rest of the way. The light rail train I rode on was filled with Baltimore Orioles fans on their way to the ballgame but there were a few Otakon participants dressed in costumes. I overheard three of the cosplayers mention that there was a major snafu regarding picking up the passes at the usual Thursday Preregistration Day and they all said that they stood in line for four hours. That’s way longer than last year when I went to pick up my pass the day before Otakon began. I later learned that there was this major computer glitch that caused people to stand in line for hours and the management had to issue a press release apologizing for this incident. Man, that incident definitely made me feel better about my decision to skip this year’s Otakon. (In addition, after the convention ended, someone had put up the attendance number on the official site and it turned out that 34,000 people attended—3,000 more than last year!)

I arrived early in Baltimore and I decided to get off at the Convention Center stop. I wanted to grab a light snack to eat at Harborplace because I wasn’t sure if the artist reception was going to serve food and, if so, what kind. (I’ve been to numerous artist receptions and they range from just cheese and crackers only all the way to serving meats and breads and it was enough food to make a meal out of.) I walked past the Baltimore Convention Center where Otakon was held.

I also thought that I would see plenty of cosplayers outside the Baltimore Convention Center and in the Inner Harbor in general so I would still be able to take photos. I was proven correct. In addition I saw plenty of baseball fans heading towards Camden Yards so it was an eclectic mix of anime cosplayers and baseball fans.

I continued to see cosplayers in Harborplace itself. But that complex has undergone changes in recent years and not all the changes have been for the better. There was a time when the Light Street Pavilion was a place that had smaller stores and fast food kind of places while the Pratt Street Pavilion had a few higher end stores and restaurants. But they’ve made over Light Street Pavilion so much that it’s literally much harder to find an affordable place to eat than it used to be. Most of the few cheap eating places left (like Subway) was crowded with people. I ended up getting a slice of pepperoni pizza and a soda for $5 from some place I had never heard of before (it was called something like “Carnival Food”) because it was the one place that had no lines at all. The food wasn’t memorable at all but at least I had something in my stomach for dinner. In the meantime I continued to take photos of cosplayers both inside and outside the two pavilions.

I took a brief detour to It’s Sugar in the Pratt Street Pavilion, where I noticed that the store had a shelf full of Pocky Sticks on sale in an obvious attempt to make money off of the Otakon participants.

Even though this next shot had nothing to do with Otakon or Japanese culture, I noticed that It’s Sugar had a consumer line based on that Internet celebrity Grumpy Cat.

I went up to the second floor of the Pratt Street Pavilion where I went to the bathroom. While I was sitting on the toilet doing the things that people usually do when they sit on the toilet, the PA system started to play “Let It Go!” from Frozen. Seriously! This happened while I was on the toilet.

When I got out of the bathroom, I walked around the Pratt Street Pavilion where I saw some more Otakon cosplayers.

Not surprisingly, I saw a long line of Otakon participants outside the Edo Sushi.

I subsequently took the sky bridge to The Gallery then walked outside to the Charm City Circulator Bus Stop where I planned on taking the Purple Line bus going north. It was about an hour until the official end of the three-hour reception (which ran from 5-8 p.m.). The LED sign said that the next bus was coming in two minutes so I was initially relaxes. Two minutes came and went and no bus arrived, despite what the LED sign said. Then that sign said that the next bus would arrive in 5 minutes. That one also didn’t arrive. In the meantime I took photos of cosplayers that were walking past the stop just to keep my mind off the bus.

In time there were more and more people at that stop and there were no buses. I’ve ridden the Charm City Circulator in the past and I’ve never encountered problems like this. All in all, I waited at least a half-an-hour until another bus came. (Usually a new bus is supposed to arrive every 10 minutes.) By that point it was 7:30 and I only had a half-an-hour left to go to the reception. The bus was also very crowded due to the fact that the previous buses were all no-shows. I took this photo of a cosplayer who was in front of me on that bus.

By the time I got off the Penn Station stop, I only had 15 minutes until the official end of the exhibition. I decided to go to the Station North Arts Cafe since that was where my two pieces were on display. On the way to the cafe I took some early sunset photos of the area.

I finally arrived at the place only to encounter the locked door in the photo below. I knew that the place was generally opened for breakfast and lunch and it closes at 3 p.m. But I assumed that it would be opened a little bit later just once since it’s supposed to be the reception. (There’s a coffeehouse in my area that usually closes at 7 p.m. on Sundays except if there is a reception for the artist whose works are currently hanging inside that establishment. On such occasions, the coffeehouse stays open until 9 p.m.) But I was wrong.

So I just walked around the area and took some more photos of wall murals.

The next photo is of The Chicken Box, where we all initially had to register our art before our pieces were assigned a venue.

I ultimately ended up on North Street. I walked over to The Wind Up Space, which is not only one of the participating venues but it’s also a place that I’m familiar with because the Baltimore chapter of the Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School holds its sessions there. It was still opened even though it was five minutes before the official end of the reception.

I walked over to Liam Flynn’s Ale House next door, which is also participating in this show. It was after 8 p.m. but the place was still opened since it’s a pub and, well, it is Friday night. I saw more art on the walls there.

I decided to leave soon afterwards. As I was walking towards the North Avenue Light Rail Stop, I saw the moon starting to rise over the twilight sky as the night started to creep more and more.

By the time I boarded the light rail at the North Avenue stop, it was definitely nighttime. When the light rail arrived at the University of Baltimore/Mount Royal stop, these two women boarded the train with a giant standee that resembled Link from The Legend of Zelda video games. That Link standee was so big that he took up two seats while the two women had to sit in the back seats. Of course they were on their way to Otakon, which tended to be opened into the wee hours on the first and second day of the convention, and they left with the standee once the light rail train stopped at the Convention Center stop.

As for me, I basically rode the train back to the North Linthicum stop where my car was parked then I drove home.

Christmas Eve in Baltimore

Christmas Eve has become loaded for me in terms of memories. It was on a Christmas Eve when my fiancee put an engagement ring on my finger for the first time while we were visiting his mother for the holidays.  (This was back when she lived in a small condo in Yonkers during the years between her first and second marriages.) Shortly after he popped the question to me a few months earlier, he took me to visit his mother, who then promptly drove us to visit this family-owned jewelry store that my fiancee’s family had long frequented. We chose the engagement and wedding rings then waited a few months for the orders to finally arrive in time for that special Christmas Eve.

It was also on a Christmas Eve when the fiancee I married pulled something really nasty on me. By December, 2012 I had adjusted to being separated from my husband. I knew that Maryland state laws specifically says that one can’t file for divorce until after the one-year anniversary of the separation. In our case, the one-year anniversary was on December 28. I thought that my husband wouldn’t consider filing for divorce until after the New Year and I also thought that it was possible that we would remain separated for many more months or even years. (I know plenty of people who remain technically married to their separated spouses mainly because neither partner has ever gotten around to filing for divorce.)

I didn’t check e-mail last Christmas Eve and Christmas Day because I had Internet problems so I did other things that didn’t involve the computer (such as visiting my own family). It wasn’t until December 26 when I got an e-mail from my separated husband dated December 24 that included an attachment. That attachment was a divorce petition in a .pdf format. In that e-mail my husband wrote something like “I’m sorry for the timing but it has to be done in order to get the ball rolling.” Never mind the fact that my husband really couldn’t really file for divorce until after the actual anniversary (December 28).

Adding insult to injury, I consulted a lawyer on my own after the New Year who told me that the divorce petition wasn’t real because there was no case number assigned to it. In the meantime my husband was pressuring me to sign the papers and send them to his lawyer because he claimed that I could avoid divorce court if I did it that way. However, that same lawyer I consulted said that getting divorced doesn’t work that way. A judge has to be involved in a divorce proceeding in order to prove that a marriage has been legally dissolved and it usually involves at least one court appearance.

Personally I think my husband sent that divorce petition on Christmas Eve in a total “Fuck You, Bitch!” gesture because he knew that I tended to get sentimental around the holiday season and he wanted to screw me over mentally so I would hate him enough to give him the divorce he said he desperately wanted. Well he succeeded on that front because I now consider him to be a totally toxic person to be avoided at all costs. In my mind he has gone from being a loving husband to being one of my worst enemies.

So on the one-year anniversary of that Christmas Eve missile sent by my so-called “loving” husband, I decided to do something fun. Several years ago I learned that Christmas Eve is an excellent time to go downtown to check out stores, museums, and other tourist attractions because most people are stuck in the overcrowded suburban shopping malls. There’s a huge difference between going to a Barnes & Noble in downtown DC on Christmas Eve and going to a Barnes & Noble in a suburban shopping mall on that same day because the crowds are way smaller in the downtown stores.

I read in The Washington Post about an interesting new exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore involving robots and I decided to check it out. It was a longer commute than usual mainly because there was this horrendous accident on the northbound lane of I-95 where a couple of cars looked totaled. The website said that the museum would be opened until 6 p.m. like usual and there were no announcements of early closings on Christmas Eve. Except once I got there around 4:15 p.m., the clerk at the front entrance told me that the museum decided to close at 5 p.m. at the last minute yet the admission was still $15.95. I was loathed to pay that much for only being in the museum for 45 minutes so I walked along the Inner Harbor for a bit while I took some nice early sunset photos.

I walked over to the Christmas Village in Baltimore, the same place where I went to just a few days ago. This time the weather was way colder (the temperature never went above 45 degrees and it became colder the more the sun began to set). There were far fewer shoppers than just a few days earlier. The outdoor vendors were in the process of packing everything up sine it was the official last day for this Christmas Village.

I went inside the heated tent. Half of the vendors were still there but there were also plenty of empty stalls.

I managed to treat myself to a snack from one of the food booths. I ordered a belgian waffle topped with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. It was delicious.

I managed to buy one more thing at the Christmas Village in Baltimore. It’s a Swedish-made owl candle holder that uses tea candles and it looks really nice. In fact, I plan to use it for other occasions besides Christmas.

I continued walking along the Inner Harbor where I took photos of the U.S.S. Constellation at sunset.

I visited Harborplace but both pavilions were nearly empty even though the stores were still opened.  I managed to visit It’s Sugar and took this shot featuring the teddy bear from the Ted movie and a stuffed effigy of Phil Robertson from the popular reality show Duck Dynasty (and who has been in the news a lot lately for his controversial comments regarding homosexuality and his observations of African Americans during the Jim Crow era).

The front window wasn’t the only time I saw the teddy bear from the Ted movie. There was a version of Ted dressed like a Jamaican Rastafarian pot smoker.

I took a panoramic shot of the store with my Droid Ultra smartphone to give you an idea of how uncrowded that store was despite the fact that it had every single kind of candy available for sale.

I didn’t linger around Harborplace too long because many of the stores were in the process of closing early for Christmas. There weren’t a lot of people around with one exception. I saw a line form outside Santa’s Workshop as kids were making their last-minute wishes to Santa Claus.

I took one final photo of one of the Harbor place pavilions as it was lit up at night. It looked really peaceful with the lack of people around.

Baltimore, Maryland (April 10, 2013)

April 10, 2013 will be one of those monumental days in my life but not for happy reasons. As I wrote in a previous entry, I made an appearance in court to witness the end of my marriage first-hand. The judge granted something called a Provisional Divorce while I would eventually get a divorce certificate via mail at a later date. The whole procedure started at 9 a.m. and it ended around 9:20 a.m.

I was pretty sad. I drove home and stayed there for a couple of hours but I felt restless. I decided to get in my car and just drive. It was only after I was on I-95 that I decided to head to Baltimore. It was the city where I was originally born and I lived the first five years of my life until my parents decided to move to nearby Glen Burnie (where I spent the rest of my childhood and teen years until I went to the University of Maryland).

I drove to the North Linthicum light rail station and took the light rail into the city. (It’s cheaper than the parking garages in Baltimore.) I initially went to Harborplace where I ate a late lunch at a Johnny Rockets then walked around, where I took these pictures. I hadn’t been in Harborplace in several months but I was pleasantly surprised to find a store that’s dedicated to McCormick’s spices. While I can get most of the spices in my local supermarket, there were a few spices I hadn’t seen before like cocoa chili powder.

Harborplace also had this general store that engaged in a bit of seafood humor.

I saw these interesting egg people in the windows of H & M.

I can remember when the second floor of the Light Street Pavilion used to be full of mainly fast food outlets (some were national chains like Subway while others were locally owned yet provided quick meals like hamburgers and fried chicken), small boutiques, and Hooters restaurant. That pavilion has been renovated and only Hooters remains in its original place. Everything else that was on the second floor has been replaced with just two businesses—the second floor of the H & M store and a new attraction that has opened at Harborplace over the past year: Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium.

I can remember when I once visited a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum that is located on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland a few years ago. I went with my now-ex-husband, his sister, her then-teenaged son, and one of her son’s friends who came along with the family on that trip. We went to the museum on a night when we planned on visiting the Boardwalk but it rained so we decided to go to the museum instead. Since I saw the Ocean City one, I decided to check out the Baltimore version just for the heck of it.

Like its Ocean City counterpart, the Baltimore location has a main museum (known as the Odditorium) that features all kinds of oddities. I took a photo of a few of them but there were a lot of oddities that were crammed in that museum. The one advantage of visiting the Odditorium on a weekday afternoon during the school year was that it was mostly empty so I was able to help myself to the hands-on activities that the museum provided. (I can imagine that those activities would be crowded with kids on weekends and during the summer.) I had a good time viewing all of these oddities, including the ones I photographed.

This large statue of a penny was created using actual pennies.

The giant green circle in the next photo is an actual jade coin! The sign invited the public to touch it for good luck. I did so in the hopes that my current bad luck will change for me soon.

The next photo shows a typical room in the Odditorium. As you can see, each room was crammed with an oddity. By the way, that statue of the tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur in the center of the room was made from the foil that wraps Pop Tarts.

The most memorable part of the Odditorium was the numerous models of buildings that were created from matchsticks. Those matchstick buildings included Hogwarts Academy (from the Harry Potter books and movies), the Sydney Opera House, the World Trade Center in New York City (prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001), the St. Louis Gateway Arch, the Eiffel Tower, and the Washington Monument.

The entire Ripley’s attraction had three components. I only saw the Odditorium one since it’s the main part of the facility. There is also a mirror maze and a 4D moving movie theater but those other features cost extra so I didn’t check them out. (I’ll probably check out the 4D moving movie theater at a later date since you can visit that one separately without having to tour the entire Odditorium again.)

After the Odditorium, I walked over to the Pratt Street Pavilion where I visited It’s Sugar, which is basically a candy store on steroids. There are so many different types of candy on sale there that anyone who’s a total sugar addict could easily drop a lot of money buying huge amounts of candy.

It’s Sugar also sells candy and treats in giant sizes, which would appeal to parties, large families, or people with huge appetites. One example is this giant 2 pound version of Rice Krispies and marshmallow squares.

The store had underwear made from candy.

It’s Sugar had a few non-edible items on sale, such as these teddy bears from last year’s R-rated hit movie Ted.

After visiting It’s Sugar I walked out of the Pratt Street Pavilion and towards the Power Plant, where I saw this artist at work.

I also saw a display announcing the creation of a new monument in Baltimore dedicated to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

After a brief stop at the Barnes & Noble store in the Power Plant, I walked on towards the nearest bus stop on the Charm City Circulator’s Green Route. I walked towards the area where Baltimore’s long-notorious red-light district known as The Block is located. One pretty amusing irony: There’s a church located just around the corner (note the cross-shaped sign on the left side of the photo below) from one of the less-than-reputable businesses located in The Block.

Here’s another shot of The Block. I have to admit that The Block has managed to maintain its seedy reputation while other cities have managed to eliminate their red-light districts through urban renewal. (For example, if you really want to know what Times Square in New York City was like before Disney, Sanrio, and other companies moved in, I highly recommend that you rent either Urban Cowboy or Taxi Driver.) The porn theaters and strip clubs managed to stay in business all these years despite the rise of home video and Internet porn.

The Charm City Circulator’s Green Route was located just a stone’s throw away from The Block. I saw this one woman waiting at the same stop who dressed like she was a hooker. (I had no idea if she was a prostitute who had just gone off-duty and was waiting for the bus to take her home or if she was a woman who was just wearing a sexy outfit for the heck of it. I had no intention of asking her either.) Eventually the bus that I was waiting for arrived and I boarded it. I rode it until it reached Fells Point, where I got off.

It has been at least five or six years since I last visited Fells Point so it was really nice to be able to visit the area again. I knew I was in Fells Point when I saw the sign for Bertha’s, a seafood restaurant which is an institution there. (It’s not unusual to see cars in the Baltimore-Washington area with bumper stickers that says “Eat Bertha’s Mussels.”)

I was happy that I had another chance to visit the Sound Garden, a music store that has gotten write-ups in national publications like Rolling Stone magazine. At that store one could find not only current hit CD’s but also music from relatively obscure artists. The store also sells vinyl records and DVD’s. I used to tell my husband “One of these days I gotta get you to the Sound Garden.” (I’ve visited that store previous times on my own.) I knew he would’ve loved that store. However we never got our act together so we never visited Fells Point together so I never got a chance to introduce my husband to that store. Now that we’re divorced, I’ll never introduce him to that store. Oh well. It’s his loss since he’s the one who wanted this divorce.

The next two signs are of an art gallery (charmingly named How Great Thou Art) that had a cool looking sign and an outdoor art piece dedicated to the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

Another art gallery displayed this painting on its outside wall next to the gallery entrance. It’s Edgar Degas’ Before the Race. It’s pretty unusual to see a painting permanently hung outdoors.

I walked past this empty storefront that had this sign that made me glad. Kilwin’s is opening in Baltimore soon. I’ve visited the Kilwin’s that’s located in Melbourne, Florida when I visited the area twice with my ex-husband and I wrote positive praises of the place each time. (You can read them here and here.) When I saw Kilwin’s for the first time, I assumed that it was a locally-owned Melbourne store. I first realized that there was Kilwin’s in other places when I went to the shopping area in Annapolis and I saw a Kilwin’s there. (Since I took that photo below, I learned that a new Kilwin’s had just opened near the church where I attend my weekly support group meeting for people who are separated or divorced. I can now visit Kilwin’s without having to travel to Melbourne, Baltimore, or Annapolis. I now have a new temptation to resist each week. LOL!)

I ate dinner at Brick Oven Pizza, which probably ranks among my favorite pizza parlor. It’s a locally owned mom-and-pop place and what’s really cool is that you can order pizza with all kinds of toppings, including ones that aren’t commonly found in other pizza places (such as spam). I used to tell my husband about this place and how I loved for the two of us to eat one meal there. My husband once even toyed with the idea of the two of us spending a weekend in Fells Point where we would go shopping, eat at local establishments, and go drinking in some of the many bars and pubs in the area but I only heard him mention the idea once or twice and we never acted on it. Now that we’re divorced, my ex-husband will have to go there on his own (or with that other woman he left me for) if he wants to experience the place.

After divorce court this morning but before I headed to Baltimore, I changed clothes into something more casual including this t-shirt that I purchased at Katsucon two months ago that says “Hedgehogs: Why Don’t They Just Share the Hedge?”

That t-shirt was a definite conversation starter at Brick Oven Pizza since the woman who took my order noticed it and we ended up in a conversation about our pets (including my hedgehog and her dog and cat). She had so many funny antecdotes about the antics of her pets that I suggested that she start a blog about them. I think she would get readers, especially if she included photos.

After dinner I walked over towards the Broadway Market where there was an announced meeting I learned via Facebook. Members of Occupy Baltimore and Luminous Intervention announced this joint action where they were doing a public debut of this new video game called Tax Evaders. People were instructed to meet about a block from the place where the video game would be debuted in order to not arouse the suspicions of the local authorities. One of the organizers pointed where we would walk to once the organizers finished with setting up the equipment. That person pointed in the direction of this wall mural that looked so nice that I took a photo of it.

A portion of the wall mural spilled over to this Bank of America building, where we would ultimately meet.

Once the equipment was set up, we walked over to the parking lot in the back of the Bank of America building where activists had set overhead equipment where the video game was shown on the side of the building. The location was selected because Tax Evaders skewers those rich mega-corporations who have gotten away with paying little to no taxes—including Bank of America.

The activists managed to rig the video game with the X-Box Kinnect so people can play the game using their whole bodies as the controller.

I saw the video game in action and I was impressed. I was too tired to play the game myself because of all the walking I did plus showing up in divorce court early in the morning. I took a few still photos with the Canon camera but then switched to the video camera in my smartphone because I realized that video was a better way to show how the whole display worked. Here’s a short video of what the whole set-up was like.

If you like what you see in both the photos and video, you can play the video game yourself online right here.

After seeing that video game, I walked a few blocks to the nearest stop on the Charm City Circulator’s Orange Route. I boarded the bus then got off at a stop that was closest to a light rail stop. I then took the light rail back to the North Linthicum stop (where my car was parked) and drove home. I was totally exhausted and drained by everthing that went on that day so I basically went to bed when I got home.