Kayaking Sunrise

I was up at 6am on Sunday morning and I had the incredible urge to go kayaking. It looked like it was going to be a great sunrise and I was right. I'm trying to strike while the iron is hot as they say. Why wait until tomorrow? Tomorrow may not come

Dylan, a few days old...

Happy Birthday Kiddo, you're a teenager now.
God help us....
:-)

Black Friday

I went shopping at 5 am today, something I swore that I would never do. I have not been sleeping well lately so when I got up at 3 am, I stayed up and went to go to the WalMart Super Center at 4:40 for the 5 am opening. There were hundreds of people there. I could not believe it. I certainly did not think that I was going to outsmart everyone and have the place to myself, but it was really quite the scene. Most everyone was going for the big screen TVs or the computers. Myself, I was there for the $35 foosball/soccer table for Grif. I also got a CD and a remote control truck. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, after leaving WalMart at about 5:45, I went over to Staples to wait for the 6am opening there. that place was mild in comparrison. There were only about 150 people there. I was there for an $7.95 1 gig flash drive (I already have a 128 mg, 512 mg and a 1 gig but for $7.95 I could not resist) I also wanted to get a 200 gig hard drive for $19.99. I really don't need that either. There were a lot of people waiting there for a 32 " LCD HD TV and/or a $400 laptop. It seems that many early birds got there and they were handing out tickets for those items, so if you got there later, you were out of luck. Someone came out and made that announcement and about 30 people left. Shortly after that, two industrious young men came by scalping the tickets for the TV and Laptop. Two people by me bought them for $20 a piece. Not a bad deal, $20 to save $400-500. I was lucky there and was able to get my HD and flash drive along with a new graphic card for Dylan for his birthday this weekend. After that, I went to Target to see if I could get a few more Christmas gifts. They have this thing called a RoboDog or something. They seemed to be sold out but I saw a group of people sitting around where the display was. Then I saw someone who worked there so I asked him if there were any more. He said they were coming out but he didn't know how many. So I go by the group to wait. One lady said she wanted 3 of them. The guy showed up and said there were only 4 in the box and this guy (meaning me) was getting one of them. I got mine, which was suposed to be $59.99 but was on sale for $29.99 and split. I got a few more things, then went home.
A few hours later I was able to get out in the kayak for a while. I think I need that to chill

Happy Feet

Strong Leonid Meteor Shower Expected This Weekend

The annual Leonid meteor shower could produce a strong outburst this weekend for residents of the North America and Western Europe.
A brief surge of activity is expected begin around 11:45 p.m. ET Saturday, Nov. 18. In Europe, that corresponds to early Sunday morning, Nov. 19 at 4:45 GMT. The outburst could last up to two hours.
At the peak, people in these favorable locations could see up to 150 shooting stars per hour, or more than two per minute.
"We expect an outburst of more than 100 Leonids per hour," said Bill Cooke, the head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. Cooke notes that the shooting stars during this peak period are likely to be faint, however, created by very small meteoroid grains.
Elsewhere people will see the typically enjoyable Leonid display of a few meteors each hour, weather permitting and assuming dark skies away from city lights.

PhotoFront

PhotoFront is this cool site that works with Flickr.com to present photos in a slideshow format. One cool thing about it is that it can be set up to take a sample of color from your photo and use it as it's background. Anyone with a Flickr account can set it up.

One Sheet of Paper

I got this in an email the other day. Blogger won't let you post animated gif files so I had to put it on another site. It's amazing what can be done with LOT'S of time and an x-acto knife.
Check it out

One Man Band Tour Review

James Taylor couldn't have been more at home Friday night with the sold-out crowd at the Beacon Theater in NYC.
He shared snapshots of family and friends on a big screen to the left of the stool where he sat with his lanky frame in the pose familiar to all: acoustic guitar resting on his right thigh.
He rolled up the long sleeves on his plain button-down shirt while singing Mean Old Man and straightened the collar so an audience member could take a photo of him. He made fun of his growing lack of hair, said middle verses in his Line Em Up song are about as valuable as Styrofoam peanuts, and put on a baseball cap tossed onstage. And to top it all off, he sang such 30-year-old hits as Fire and Rain, Sweet Baby James, Country Road and Carolina in My Mind with all the richness and clarity everyone remembers from back in the day. Taylor, 58, who has sold more than 35 million records, played 19 songs in the two-hour show that was split by a planned 20-minute break. He returned to the stage for two encores. He wore jeans and was accompanied only by pianist Larry Goldings.
Some of the photos Taylor had flashing on the screen were laugh-out-loud funny. One was of a man who reportedly had been found mostly intact after being frozen for 100 years. He said it could have been his dad, Dr. Isaac Taylor, who went on an expedition to Antarctica in 1955, leaving his wife and five kids at home. Taylor then sang his The Frozen Man ballad.
Audience members looked adoringly at photos of singer Carole King with Taylor around the time she said he should record her song. Then he sang it: Youve Got A Friend. The crowd clapped and whooped when Taylor got into a bluesy rhythm with Slap Leather and Steamroller.

We went and saw James Taylor last night at the Beacon Theater in NYC. It was a great show. Above is review from another concert he did but the concert we saw was very similar.
We also went to this great place for dinner.
Also, check out my Blog Videos on the side link. I posted two songs that I shot using Dana's camera. The quality isn't great but hey, what do you want?
:-)

Jack's School Picture

Nuns in Transylvania

Two nuns, Sister Catherine and Sister Helen, are traveling through Europe in their car. They get to Transylvania and are stopped at a traffic light. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a tiny little Dracula jumps onto the hood of the car and hisses through the windshield.
"Quick, quick!" shouts Sister Catherine. "What shall we do?"
"Turn the windshield wipers on. That will get rid of the abomination," replies Sister Helen.
Sister Catherine switches them on, knocking Dracula about, but he clings on and continues hissing at the nuns. "What shall I do now?" she shouts.
"Switch on the windshield washer. I filled it up with Holy Water at the Vatican," says Sister Helen.
Sister Catherine turns on the windshield washer. Dracula screams as the water burns his skin, but he clings on and continues hissing at the nuns.
"Now what?" shouts Sister Catherine?
"Show him your cross," says Sister Helen.
"Now you're talking," says Sister Catherine.
She opens the window and shouts, "Get the fuck off the car!!!

Hug Shirt

Remember when PDA stood for something other than personal digital assistant? It can again with the Hug Shirt, a high-tech garment that simulates the experience of being embraced by a loved one. When a friend sends you a virtual hug, your cell phone notifies the shirt wirelessly, via Bluetooth. The shirt then re-creates that person's distinctive cuddle, replicating his or her warmth, pressure, duration and even heartbeat. And, yes, the Hug Shirt is fully washable.
Inventor: CuteCircuit
Availability: Not yet for sale

What's next, a kick in the groin underware?

A Funny Ad I Saw

While reading some Internet news story, I saw an image for an ad that caught my eye. It was a nice pair of peppers. There is a company that is promoting a new bra (or maybe it's an old bra) called Barely There. I guess they make bras that hide the fact that a woman is wearing a bra while not advertising the fact that she also has nipples. Some of the other images they used were a pair of pine cones, some little drink umbrellas and of course the one that caught my eye...a pair of headlights. I'm not fixated on this but I thought it was funny and blog-worthy.

VOTE

Get out there and
VOTE

Random Photos

Here's a bunch of random pictures I felt like posting. The first one is me attempting to play a guitar. It was my brother's first guitar, I didn't really start to play until I was in the 8th grade (around 12-13 years old) The second photo is when I was probably in the 10th grade or so (1973) The next picture is of my bike when I took my first bike trip from northern NJ to Ithaca NY, a distance of about 300 miles. It was 3 days up, a week hanging out in the Finger Lakes region, then 3 days home. I had about 75 pounds of gear, most of it was cassette tapes. The first walkmans had just come out and we had to have music. Screw food, had to have tunes. The next photo is me hanging out with my mountain bike in the county park in NJ. The bike is a Ross mountain bike which I still have and was one of the first production mountain bikes on the market. It cost about $300 at the time (25 years ago?) It's still a great bike. I have another mountain bike, a Univega, that cost twice that but isn't nearly as good of a bike. They've come a long way in bike design but I still like old faithful, the things a tank. I used to bike all of the time. My friend Henry and I would think nothing of riding 80-100 miles in a day for fun. Last but not least is a photo of a snowbow. Yes, it's not a rainbow because it was snowing. It was taken up by New Paltz NY. I've never seen another snowbow since.