MY LANDSCAPE

TED.COM

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_preston_on_the_giant_trees.html

Richard Preston: Climbing the World's Biggest Trees

This video was about the worlds biggest, oldest and tallest trees; Redwoods. I've always wanted to travel to California to see the Sequoia trees. The oldest tree on earth is a Redwood that is said to be 3,000 to 5,000 years old. I envy the people that climb these huge tree's and explore their ecosystems in the sky. Preston explained that climbing into the tops of these trees is like diving into a coral reef, many species of micro organisms that live in the tops of these trees are unknown. I also thought that it was very interesting how the Redwood trees reiterate themselves and grow limbs that turn into copy's of themselves and a new full tree grows out of the main Redwood. The tree's also grow limbs that attach themselves to the main trunk to better support it, exactly like the flying buttress' that are built on the old Cathedral's in Europe that we learn about in Art History. 

TRAIN SKETCHES

                                                                       Mystical Forest

News Photo Assignment

shopping trip

We took the subway to South St. to go shopping. IT was a nice day out and the sun was melting the snow, so water was falling off the buildings and roofs making huge puddles on the sidewalks that we had to jump over. I saw some strange guy do a running leap to get over one of the huge puddles. Even in early afternoon shoppers were out walking their dogs and getting groceries. South st. has a lot of signs for stores running all down the street. After walking for a while and getting sick of being rained on by all the buildings we decided to take the Subway into center city to finish our shopping trip.

The Train

I ride the train pretty frequently. I take it to get home and back, which is pretty often. usually i take it out of the city to Lansdale on Friday evening, and then take it back to Temple sunday evening; with all of the other students. This trip i planned on getting the train back into the city monday afternoon. My friends mom dropped us off at the train station, it was about forty-five minutes away from were we lived. i trusted he would figure out the train times and that because his mom provided the ride to the station. i was wrong. we ended up getting on the wrong train going the opposite way, luckily the ticket taker told us to get off before the train was in motion. we waited in the train station for the next, correct train back to Temple. I read magazines and watched the people inside waiting for their trains to come. Because it was monday afternoon, the people waiting for trains were families and other random people. No businessmen or woman, which would have been the case a couple of hours earlier. we got on the right train this time and headed towards the city. I am used to riding the train in the dark, were the lights on the cars make it difficult to watch out the window. This trip i made it a point to get a window seat. The windows on the train are always dirty, with strange splatters of vomit looking shit. It fogged my vision only a little. Looking out the window you can see the backs of buildings; i always think its funny how you can tell your getting closer to the city by the graffiti on the buildings. were i get on, outside of the city, there is only a little graffiti and you see more and more as you get closer and closer to the city. i usually bring my ipod to listen too while i ride the train, but this time i forgot it. i was forced to listen to the annoying sound of a little kids hand held game thing, and the sharp "clip, clip, clip" sound of the septa workers whole puncher that he punches the train tickets with. I also hear the mumbling of the septa lady as she announces the train stops on the fuzzy intercom. I always pity people who are new to the train. i can just imagine them sitting there with a train schedule in their hands trying to figure out te train workers mumbles, and hoping they haven't missed there stop.