Pictures from Maine

Pictures from the annual family vacation in Maine.



Where we stayed


The rental was beautiful from the outside and weirdly antiquated for, the inside. Actually, it was awesome and very "camp-esque". The owners were obviously several generation of proud Bowdoin alums.


The beach was a bird sanctuary.


A tern at low tide.


Proof that there were some crabs around but we did not see any...


The kids getting ready to use their boogie boards.


My sister, who can be a colossal PitA, at the beach.


Dad relaxing after a day at the...wait for it...beach.


TEA digging something that resembled the Keep on Arrakis (Google it, non-nerds)


TEA can rock the mustache...*


TEA getting his first tattoo. Before you call child and family services, it was henna.


The title for this image is "Sun TEA".


Yes, I got my tan on as well. Like father, like son.


TEA flying a kite at the beach.


A view of our beach



A fire on our last night...

*TEA decided to go with it instead of me. The woman at the store where we purchased them asked if I would put one on and I told her that it wouldmake me look like someone from a Chris Hansen special. She laughed and then complimented my shoes. In hindsight, and from TEA's observation, she was flirting with me. I wish I had the ability to recognize that.

Lost Cat in Mechanicville

Yeah, this is not normally something that I would post, but my sister and nephew are devastated by their cat, Mila, escaping from their home in Mechanicville last night.

Mila, as you can see is beautiful, and she can be very sweet. She is also dumb as a post due to the nature of her parentage (think the banjo playing albino child in Deliverance)and may not be the best animal to survive in the "wilds" of Saratoga County.

She is fixed, has her claws, and as I said, she is not equipped to survive in the wild.

A reward for her safe return will be offered and, more than the reward, you will make a single mom and her son very happy.

Please contact me at ned@afutilemistake.org with any information.

Thanks, and if you could repost this, retweet it, and share it around the interwebs, I will be forever grateful.

Superb Sunday Morning

At a certain age, the best part of waking up is waking up...
One of the best things about reaching a certain age is that after a great, and busy, day spent with people that you love, it is more than acceptable to fall asleep on your couch, beer slowly transferring heat into your hand, while watching baseball. Now there are other things that I would have preferred to be doing, but it was all-in-all an exceptional evening and the Mets won! Bonus!

This did mean that I was wide awake before the weekend alarm went off (7 am for those that are following along at home) and because I am not feeling one hundred percent, I turned on the news and had tea and toast. (More on the toast later.)

A quick note on the #NerdProm and the coverage of the #NerdProm. The jokes were neither shocking nor were they particularly funny. The coverage this morning was fairly banal too. I mean, what Colbert did a couple of years ago was transgressive but, Jimmy Kimmel? For the record, BHO is not funny. Please, do not try to make him funny. The Sunday Morning shows were more irksome than usual.

And I cook...
I cooked on Thursday! (I also forgot to take a picture.) Flash frozen ahi which was coated in white sesame and pan seared, angel hair pasta with a sauce made from fresh baby portabella mushrooms, baby spinach, roma tomatoes, red onion, and crushed garlic. It was okay. The tuna was overcooked because my dining companion preferred their tuna well done. The pasta was good and because I measured incorrectly, I have had a lot of leftovers. The best part was the bread which was still warm when I grabbed it from the bakery section of my supermarket of choice*. With a butter substitute that I was introduced to by HJ77, it was one of the most delicious things ever. The rest of the loaf has also made wonderful toast in the morning for me. See, I told you that there would be more about the bread later.

I feel like J-LO
My father is in town for the weekend, and has a Fiat 500. It is adorable. Even though I am really not of fan of the internal combustion engine vehicle, this is really cute. So cute that even I look good in it.

Well, maybe not good...

Baseball has been very very good to TEA

TEA pitched yesterday and he did well. He was happy with his performance. Upon seeing one of the pictures that was posted to Facebook, Teacher Dave offered to give TEA some pitching lessons. We are going to take him up on this offer. It does make me happy that my son is really getting into baseball. It is more than a little awesome.

For the game, my brother and father decided to watch TEA play. It was great of them to come out and it made TEA very happy.

And after the game, the four of us headed to the Fountain for pizza!

It was an amazing day. Seriously so... it was the capstone on an awesome couple of days. Remember when I wrote the other day that I was about to spend a series of days seeing my favorite people in the world? Yes, that happened and it was great!

An Odd Movie Question
Do you have a movie that you are embarrassed about not loving even though your friends love it and you are supposed to love it?

I do.

Yeah, I hate The Shawshank Redemption.

What's yours?

The App That You Need
You need to download and install justWink. Trust me.

Finally...

It is okay to admit that you do it. I know that I do...for some people. Most aren't worth it with their banality equaling my own.

*Continuing Rant about people and supermarkets and brand affiliation and more asshatedness about this at All Over Albany.

Whining on a Wednesday

Little League
I am happy that TEA loves baseball. (Even though he is a Yankee fan...that is okay, there are Yankee fans in my family. The deal breaker would have been had he been a Cubs or a Red Sox fan. For those of you who are not parents, you want to ensure that your child is in a position to avoid as much pain as possible.) That being said, TEA is once again playing a Little League schedule and I find myself wanting to go but...not today. Yes, this is weather related, but it also related to the herding cats aspect to managing these kids which gives me a headache even on the other side of the fence. Yes, I am whining. I own it.

I do hope that TEA has a great game and I know that there will be a cold and driving rain this evening around six.

The Troy Bike Rescue
The Troy Bike Rescue is having their Annual Fundraiser on May 19th.

If you do not know about the Troy Bike Rescue, here is a blurb from their site, "TBR is a collective of bicycle enthusiasts committed to removing bikes from the waste stream, and putting them back into use." You can find more information here.

All of this started because of a woman named Marla Singer
While I was working on some correspondence yesterday morning, after Morning Joe, I was clicking through for background noise and I came upon Fight Club on AMC. Even though I made a space monkey joke a couple of days ago, I had not really thought of the film in a long time.

I would be lying if I stated that having this on as background noise did not impact the content and quality of my correspondence which makes me even happier that I took a little bit of time to self edit before I sent them out.

Watching this film, albeit in my periphery, I realized certain things about myself that were not complimentary, however I think I exhausted my capacity for whining about myself above.

I may have become a tea drinker
I still love coffee but as part of my changing behaviors (coffee is more of a trigger for smoking than beer is for me...to quote the above movie, "self improvement is masturbation" and I know that you really do not care...) I have had to find different warm and caffeinated to keep me going through the day. I have settled on the one that will be keeping me awake for the long haul.

Stash's Chai Spice Black Tea

I have no idea how much caffeine there is in it or if this will kill me more effectively than coffee, I just know that I love the flavors and I find the nose of it to be incredible. It makes my mornings bearable.

Finally
I am going to have the chance to see and spend time with my three favorite people on consecutive days starting tomorrow. Do you know how cool that is? If you count today, as I suppose you could, I will be able to see my favorite people on four consecutive days. This is awesome.

Geology of the Capital District

Dr. Rudolf Ruedemann was my great great grandfather. (I did not know that he had a Wikipedia entry, but that is a happy accident. I mean it was an accident that I found it and it makes me very happy.)

In 1930, he published the "Geology of the Capital District".

I found this yesterday while looking through some of my grandfather's things (He passed in 2010 and we are getting ready to sell the house.) and I took the time to look through it. It is amazing. I mean, I know nothing about geology but I watch enough weird things on NetFlix that I have a bit of understanding of the language.

The capital district of New York, comprising four quadrangles (Schenectady, Cohoes, Albany and Troy, in their order from northwest to southeast) covers an area of about 900 square miles (877.90 square miles to be exact). It is situated in the subtriangular inner lowland formed between the Adirondack mountains in the north, the Rensselaer plateau in the east and the Helderberg escarpment and plateau in the south. Its geographic center is formed by the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers, toward which point the greater part of the district can be said to slpe and the drainage is directed.

There is a copy of it available on Google Books but there is not an e-book available. That is unfortunate because there is a supplement section that has some wonderful maps and images of the area from the 1920s, long before the Empire State Plaza.

I love this area, and I love my family, and this made me feel a lot of pride for both of them. Oh, and how cool is it that he was both a geologist and a paleontologist? (I just called my mother to verify something and she said, which the Wikipedia entry does not list, that he also had a Masters in Botany. Even cooler.) (Notice in the above writing sample that there are parentheticals being used well...it is genetic, apparently.)

As an aside, I love that Google Books lists the original as being from The University of California. I wonder in the NYS Museum still has a copy of it.

The Monday after Sunday before Tuesday

Mad Men
Do you watch Mad Men on AMC? Which character is your favorite? Over the past two seasons, my favorite has become...wait for it...Sally Draper.

I love the relationship that Sally has developed with her non-custodial father, Don, as well as the more antagonistic relationship that has been nurtured between Sally and her mother Betty. (Not that I am looking at this as a projection of my personal life. A) I am not nearly the "man of his era" that Don Draper is. B) My ex-wife is a wonderfully attentive and caring mother (and wife) who has a very good relationship with her son.) For me, the scenes that I most look forward to, and have since season 3 when she left the suburbs to travel to midtown, are Sally's interactions with Don. There is a sweetness and a realness to them that I find amazing. I would love to see more relationships like this on television.

Easter
What did you do for Easter? I spent time with my family, which was interesting in and of itself, but one of the best things about it was that I had a picture taken with my mom. It made me happy.

Thanks, Mom, for being wonderful.

Radishes
There were no radishes at the TRFM but there were some at Price Chopper. I did not get them (seasonal is important to me) but they were there, tempting me.

Radishes, coarse salt, black pepper and olive oil with a crusty bread and an ice cold over hopped beer...this is a recipe for a perfect afternoon.

Baseball
The Mets are in first. The Red Sox are winless. All is right in the world, at least after the first weekend of baseball.

Every Day is Better with Pie (or Pi)

• Terry O'Neill, President of NOW, was on MSNBC yesterday and when she was speaking of Sandra Fluke, called Fluke a "young woman". Not to be ageist, but after 25, isn't the young man/young woman thing a bit dismissive? Would you mind being called a "young" person?

• Pi Day - 3.1415926535 - I prefer apple.

• Colcannon made yesterday from meh to not-so-meh.

• I did not win the MegaMillions. Stupid tax on the math impaired.

• My brother shaved his winter beard off. This prompted me to create (in my head) a dating site profile for him where his name was Jar Jar Bottoms. It made me chuckle. I cannot, in good conscience, repeat what I decided that his tag line should be.

• Santorum spreads through Mississippi and Alabama. The grin on my face as I made that joke may be worth seeing Sen. Santorum in a general election.

Pictures from the Haunted Capitol Tour

My mother likes doing fun and education related things with her grandsons.  It is her right and occasionally she  invites me along.  Yesterday was one of those things.  It was the Capitol Haunting Tour. (Read about it at All Over Albany and the NY Times.)


The family before the tour


Stuart Lehman, our tour guide


Describing a grisly death in the Capitol Building


The Death of Samuel Abbott (no relation)


My sister standing right where Abbott passed away from the fire of 1911.










Describing the carved heads on the "Million Dollar Staircase"




Yes, the signage will avoid more tragedies.


Honest Abe






A carved devil. Isn't this a scene from the Exorcist?



It was a great tour and an interesting look at the history of the Capitol. I strongly suggest you take the tour when it is available again.

Games

I like games. Not video games. (Aside from Civilization, I do not really play video games. I understand their novelty, but...I would rather read.) Words games and choice based games.

You know...games like F/M/K (or the heterosexual male version "Bro/Bestman/Kill") but I cam up with a new one the other day and it has been floating around in what used to be my brain for three days. Teacher Dave played it with me (and it took hours) and HJ77 played it as well.

I call it Exile.

Here is the supposition that is at the heart of the game:

You are the enemy of the state. This being a progressive country (and because you are popular), you are not going to be put to death but exiled (for life) to a tropical desert island. On this island, you will have all the media you can want, but once you are cut off from the world, no new media will come along. There is enough good food to last for the rest of your life, plus the ability to grow more food. There is beer and liquor as well as a still and the setup of a microbrewery. You will be given a large five bedroom home with modern amenities and two acres of land that has been cleared for athletic fields and the like (including a driving range and putting green). This is a sweet set up, and one of the nicest prisons imaginable, but make no doubt about it, it is a prison.

And part of your punishment is choose four other people to share your exile. If everything is provided for you, and your life is fairly luxurious, how do you want to spend the rest of your life and who do you want to spend it with?

When thinking about my list, I was considering gender balance, personalities, and the ability to get along (or get over things quickly). I was also considering things like who they had out in the world (meaning: kids? spouse?), whether or not they liked hot weather and beaches and such (strangely, a number of people who I considered, like my brother, hate the beach and heat and everything associated with it. Weird, no?), areas of interests. (I prefer generalists to experts.)

Oh, and if they would have a grudge if I pulled them out of their lives and exiled them with me.

Who would be the four people that you would want with you?

I am still working on my list, I have three out of my four. Apart from my father, my list is private and I am not asking you to publicize yours, but...

Who would you want with you forever and would they forgive you for it? What traits would you value? What is important for you?

Stupid Movie Quotes

Every so often (read once a day), my brother and I will reference this scene.



The purpose of this is to state the obviousness of some situation or something akin to that.

Then, yesterday, at ThinkingCup, and this is what our table looked like.

I had to take a picture (to share with my brother) and exclaim, "We landed on the moon!"

A Great Day with TEA

TEA and I had a great day together yesterday. There were comics (yay for the staff at Earthworld for being so patient and kind to someone who will be a good customer for years), cheesecake (If you have not had cheesecake from Cheesecake Machismo, what are you thinking?), the exploration of an old Dutch house (and very special thanks to Ms. Lee for such a wonderful tour) and pizza and root beer! It was such fun.


TEA at Cheesecake Machismo


TEA (wearing a beaver felt hat) and Anya (the best tour guide ever) at Fort Crailo


TEA waiting for his pizza to cool while reading a new comic book at the Hill Street Cafe


"This is the best pizza ever!"