Caps Scrimmage at Chevy Chase Club

Photos courtesy of On Frozen Blog

The Caps took time off from their regular practice routine to have a little fun last night at Chevy Chase Club. Why am I posting about this? Our family belonged to Chevy Chase and I learned to skate on this ice as a kid. The practice was closed to the general public. I used to work on the golf maintenance staff and for a moment I thought about calling someone there to see if I could get in but I eventually came home and spent the evening with Benjamin as I will be at the Caps-Red Wings game on Saturday.

Here is a video of the scrimmage and Caps Coach Bruce Boudreau addresses the media:



Tarik El-Bashir writes about the scrimmage here in his Capitals Insider column for The Washington Post

On Frozen Blog was there too.

More pictures:


Meanwhile, I look forward to Saturday's Caps-Red Wings game. It could be a preview of the Stanley Cup Finals. The Red Wings won their 4th Stanley Cup in the past twelve seasons last year and the Caps are a serious contender.

If I recall correctly, the last time I saw the Red Wings here was when they beat the Caps in game four of the 1998 Stanley Cup finals. Maybe this is the year Alex Ovechkin and the Caps hoist the Cup like Steve Yzerman did. Long, long time to go though.

More Benjamin Pictures

Here is Benjamin solving a jigsaw puzzle. He loves these and it's fun watching him use his skills to piece these together. In this one he didn't ask for help. When I offered, he said "I can do it Daddy".

Inauguration From the Mall

I had to work today so I wasn't able to attend the Inaugural festivities but I thought this picture from the Post was neat. Click to enlarge.



An image taken at 11:19 a.m. shows dark brown masses of people on the Mall. (GeoEye Satellite Image)

Random Benjamin Pictures

My little artist


Benjamin at play


New D.C. United jersey


Benjamin after writing his name


More pictures with the new camera. Benjamin's just started to write his name as he got a letter tracer and erasable markers. His class has been working on this at day care. For Christmas we bought him an activity table where he can draw on the top with these markers and tonight he decided to write his name. Here he is very proud of his work.

As for the soccer shirt, I missed D.C. United's annual equipment sale so I called their charity, United for D.C. and they had Benjamin's favorite player's shirt available so I made a donation and D.C. United Goalkeeper Zach Wells' jersey arrived today. Yeah, it's a tad big but a cool souvenir for Benjamin. To recap: We were seated near the goal for the 6/29/08 D.C. United- LA Galaxy game and he became enamored with both goalies but since Zach wore blue, Benjamin's favorite color, Zach became his favorite player. A friend of mine who takes sideline pictures at United matches sent me a couple shots of Zach, which I had him autograph at the Meet the Team day.

Benjamin's interest in soccer took off that day and it was very cool watching games with him as the season progressed. He enrolled in a soccer program at day care this past Fall and we love kicking the ball around, even in the basement. I need to check to see if he can participate in any kids kick arounds this Spring here.

New Camera: Benjamin in Black & White

One of the presents I got for Christmas was a Nikon D40 DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera. The small Nikon Cool Pix camera I bought prior to Benjamin's birth has served me well but it was time to get a bigger and better camera. Tonight I decided to shoot some black and white pictures of Benjamin. Here's one where he is stomping me in a game of Candyland.

I'm still learning about using this camera as you can tell by the dark background in this photo. I can't remember the last time I shot anything in black and white, probably in the mid '70's as a kid when I had a Kodak Instamatic. I'm excited I have this feature and I'll play around with it a bit and post the results here.

One thing I've had to adjust to is this camera doesn't have a live view function. Viewing and focusing is done through the view finder.

A couple references that will be handy is the Nikon D40/D40x/D60 Photog Blog and Nikon D40/D40x Digital Field Guide by David Busch.