Sunday, June 17, 2007

Rail Trail Ride

So I (foolishly) went on a bike ride today, despite having a fairly severe asthma attack that came on last week; I'm on prednisone for it, and I thought I was okay. I was, at least for the first 3 or 4 miles. This is a shot of the Plattekill Creek Gorge, a few miles South of my condo.














The weather was semi-threatening-- here are some Thunderheads drifting South over the ridge.



Hot day-- cows seeking some shade. They were mooing a bit, and the calves came bounding over to the moms and dads.



Overall, it was nice, and I ended up heading back north and then further by a few miles, which proved to be a mistake... I spent the greater part of today trying to recuperate. Hopefully I will be smarter tomorrow, and take it easier. Still, it was a nice ride.
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

wordie

juv3nal at MetaFilter pointed out this cool thing in this thread. I had posted this short list of cool words a little while before.

Thanks juv3nal! (He also has a pretty cool site, here.)

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

LibriVox...

is a very cool site that features free audiobooks within the public domain. Check out the short story and poetry sections.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Went to LI for a week

The estuary behind West Meadow beach in Setauket, NY.



Artesian well-- the water comes out of here cold and wonderful, always good for filling bottles and washing off when you're hot.










Flowah.














Due to the beach's orientation, the sunsets here are consistently good, three seasons of the year. (In the winter, the suns path is further to the south, and therefore sets over local land and not the water. We are looking WSW (almost due west) at Connecticut here.









It was a really nice trip-- I bought a 13' recreational kayak from Boréal Design, (the "Ookpik"-- an inuit word for Snowy Owl) and I took it out in the sound a little bit. It was really nice, and I'm now going to look for people to kayak with up here. I'll post pics of the kayak soon enough.

___________________________________________________

In other news, I finished my first graduate semester here, to the tune of 4.00, and I thank my professors for a wonderful (if psychosis-inducing) few months. Drs. F, W, and U: thanks. Now on to planning for next semester, making up a syllabus, and steeling myself for my first time teaching Freshman Composition.

I also got a 20' x 30' plot at the "Gardens for Nutrition," a community garden right in behind the condo; it originally started out as a place to grow produce for the less-well-off, and now is open to anyone. They have a shed with all the tools one needs, and an electric fence to keep the deer out (like the sonic fence in LOST). I'm hopefully sharing it with a friend (another Grad student and TA), who is growing flowers and herbs. I will be growing lettuce, spinach, green beans, snow peas (sugar snap), tomatoes, and a bunch of other stuff, including basil and some other herbs as well. I have my almanac flagged and noted for the best planting days, so I'm ready.

Otherwise, I'm working everyday at stripping and sanding and gluing and staining antique and not-so-antique furniture over at HFF. My boss is building a house for himself and his wife and baby, so I'll probably be back and forth, maintaining the shop and helping build the house.

In fact, I have to cut this short, as I have to go get ready to head over there right now. More updates soon. Enjoy the weather!
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Don't we all feel this way?

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Caffeine is pretty cool.

In general, each of the following contains approximately 200 milligrams of caffeine:

Monday, April 23, 2007

erf day

The Jolly Green giant and Sprout
at the earth day fair on Huguenot St.











Weirdest mascot ever. It's a cat for UCAT
(Ulster County Area Transit). Get it? CAT for U-CAT? Oh ho, so catchy and clever. And a bit frightening.
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

More flood pics

Taken from the Jacobsen Faculty Tower
at SUNY New Paltz. All that water isn't supposed
to be there-- that's a flood plain.













Note the poles with powerlines,
curving off to the left-- that's Rte. 32.
If you follow it back, you can just barely see the bridge (greenish) on the right.











The red brick building in the lower right is
my complex-- you can see the freestanding
treeline behind there, half under water.




Further along Rte.32.














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skunky skunkster skunkerd


















Our night-visitor, the Skunk. S/He likes to waddle around and eat worms. S/He's beautiful and s/he dances around her/his own tail.

There is another skunk that I'd love to get a picture of, we saw her/him last summer, and her/his colors are reversed! Mostly white with a black shock running down his back, I've never seen anything like him/her.

This double-pronoun thing is exhausting. Anyone know how to sex a skunk from afar?
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Monday, April 16, 2007

Wallkill River Flood

The road is out, the Flats are completely underwater.
The river crests at ~13' and it must be closer to 15' now.
I'm not sure whether it's still rising.






I considered moving into one of these apartments; the landlord said "of course, you'll have to have flood insurance, as we live on a 100-year flood plain."

Needless to say, we didn't take it. A good thing, too, as there have been two major floods in as many years.
It's terrible though--all the folks that live in that entire building have been evacuated at least until Thursday.
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Sunday, April 15, 2007

Grocer's Apostrophe's

and a sampling here, on flickr.

Thank's for looking.

Sunday, and I can breathe for a minute...

This weekend, I presented my paper, "Apocalyptic Alchemy and the Transformative Path of the Shaman: The Modern Mythopoeia of Can't Get No," at the New York College English Association conference.
(pdf of the program is here)

It was received pretty well, I think, although the text itself isn't so well-known outside of those familiar with the graphic novel genre.

Now I can concentrate on all the other things, seminar presentations and papers, all due within a couple weeks.

Today was spent mostly in bed, between sleeping and listening to the rain fall outside the window, clearing my head.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

RUNNING TURKEY

A spooked turkey, running into the bushes. (for Mal)
He saw me and ran for his life.
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moon

it's a face, alright.
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Monday, April 09, 2007