Frogma

Memorial Day in Red Hook, Brooklyn

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 04:37:00 +0000

As I mentioned earlier in the week, TQ and I spent a few hours visiting the visiting ships in Red Hook on Memorial Day. We definitely would've stayed longer and visited more if it hadn't been about a hundred degrees out there on those concrete piers; as it was, we stuck with visiting the ones with the shortest lines, admiring the others from pierside, and agreeing that our next point of interest was one that involved air conditioning and a cold beer well before either of us had gotten too hot and cranky. Timing is everything!

The ships were magnificent and of course I took too many pictures to possibly squish them all into one post, so a couple of nights ago I stayed up WAY past my bedtime putting together another Flickr gallery with descriptions of what we saw. Click here to visit.

Thanks again to Carolina & the rest of PortSide NewYork for taking time off from the search for a home to organize the Red Hook contingent of ships. I really leaned on that great guide to the Red Hook ships in putting my pictures together. From where I was, it looked like the weekend was a great success - hope that was the case!

Trying To Shoot "Manhattanhenge"

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Thu, 31 May 2012 05:20:00 +0000

7:45 PM. Just got off the 6 train at 33rd at Park Avenue. I've come to try to take pictures the 2nd of the 2 days of the 1st "Manhattanhenge" of 2012 - those unusual days when the light of the sun at sunset is perfectly aligned with Manhattan's east-west grid. This looks promising, right?

BTW, click on any picture for a better look.

One block north to the wider 34th street and...hmmm, yes, something tells me that this may be a good spot.

Wow. Now there's someone who's gonna get a good shot if it kills him. Maybe literally, even.

Hey! I'm framin' here! I'm framin' here!

Yes, this will do. This will do nicely.

Early bird continues to line up the perfect shot

At first the rest of us just run in to set up our own shots while we have the walk sign -

but gradually, more and more stay out there with the first guy when the light changes

The crowd grows with every moment

Say "Gnomon!"

As sunset approaches -

a line of photographers begins to form on the painted median strip.

Sun's getting very close to appearing now -

and now there's a solid line all the way down the block.

And ah! the sun appears!

There it is, shining, peeping into view for the quickest moment before...oh nooooo!

slipping behind a low-lying bank of clouds that's been waiting there all along to spoil the moment itself. Awwww!

Still, something of a festival mood has been established, and although the evening's main attraction isn't going to happen, we're not being very quick about relinquishing the street.

Finally the police show up to shoo people back onto the sidewalks - nothing rough, just one pair of officers who work their way slowly down 34th street telling people to get out of the street before they get hit by a car. Almost wonder why the city doesn't bow to the inevitable & just block off a stretch of 34th street for a half-hour or so. At least they DID hold off the shooing away until the sunset was done.

And even without Manhattanhenge really happening this time, it was still a very nice sunset - and watching the people gather to watch (and shoot) the spectacle was a pretty great spectacle in and of itself!

Guess I'll have to go back in July!

Too Wonderful For Words.

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Wed, 30 May 2012 18:27:00 +0000

No commentary from me except, ENJOY! (oh, yes, and thanks, Joe!)

Sebago Canoe Club - Open House 2012

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:37:00 +0000

Click on the picture to go see a very nice set of photos taken by one of our official Sebago Open House Photographers, Chris Bickford (I took a few, of course, but mostly I was helping out with kayak trips). A threat of thunderstorms kept our on-water activities closer to home than sometimes happens, but the rain held off until well after our guests had all gone home and by all accounts, I think the day was considered to be a great success.

Thanks for the pics, Chris!

Happy Memorial Day

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Mon, 28 May 2012 21:40:00 +0000

Hope everyone had a good, safe & happy weekend.

Foodie Friday Follow-up: Fabulous Fette!

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Sat, 26 May 2012 04:59:00 +0000

I can't remember exactly when it was that Baydog and I had an email discussion about Brooklyn restaurants, but when TQ called me Thursday morning to find out where I wanted to be taken for dinner, although I naturally first thought of my local favorites, somehow nothing was really grabbing me. I asked for some time, I went back to my spreadsheets and somewhere during the subtotalling, my long-term memory finally finished rummaging through vague recollections of places I'd wanted to eat and hadn't yet, held up a printout of this old email discussion, said "Ahem. FETTE SAU." TQ's got a car, so I raced over to his place as soon as I could get out of work and off we went to the Wilds of Williamsburgh in search of what is supposed to be some of Brooklyn's best barbeque (if you ignore the cranky people on Yelp, which I always do, what is it about Yelp that makes people so darned cranky anyways?).

354 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn. Look it up on Google and you'll wonder if you got it wrong - what you see in the first street view is an auto repair place. But it's there, shoehorned in to a little sliver of a property next door.

It had been pouring rain on and off all evening. I'd read a couple of reviews, I knew that a lot of their seating was outside, and I was actually ready to drop the idea and beat a retreat back to good old Cortelyou Road if necessary - neither of us are big fans of mob scenes, but I figured that it was worth a try, because maybe the rain would make people stay home. I'd also hurried to get to TQ's early because ALL of the reviews said "Get there early".

I think we got there around 6:30 and we were mostly just in time. Mostly. There were still seats here and there --

And this was pretty much the extent of the line - there were maybe 4 or 5 people between us and 3 customers you can see at the head of the line. Any thoughts about Cortelyou Road flew from my head and were replaced with ideas about coming back for seconds or at least STEVE'S KEY LIME PIE! Oh boy, my favorite!

Meet the meat. Yum.

Now why I say we were mostly on time, mostly, was because you see that big empty tray in the front there? Up until a second before I took this picture, that was where last few Berkshire St. Louis-style barbeque spare ribs had been. TQ had been eyeing them hungrily and then - d'oh - the guy RIGHT in front of us in the line bought them.

TQ was very bummed out. Me? All I had eyes for was that great big hunka meat in the middle tray. Brisket. I'd seen the counter guy slicing some up and it just looked insanely good.

The counterman serves up your meat on a cookie sheet. We got half a pound of pulled pork, half a pound of brisket, and TQ added 2 sausages (consolation for the vanished ribs).

We tempered the sheer carnivorosity of the meal with some nice healthy veggies: German potato salad and baked beans. Now that's a birthday feast!

And we did it justice!

The rolls, which just come with your dinner, were the only things we didn't touch. I like that kind of roll, but why bother? We didn't make much progress on the beans; we had a little bit of potato salad and a little bit of pulled pork shoulder left - I should've put the pork in the beans and brought it home because they were both delicious but I didn't think of it. The pulled pork was good but probably the thing we left on the tray because we both do a pretty mean pernil & this was rather in the same family. The sausages were very good, nicely spicy. As promised, nothing needed sauce - they don't cook the meat with sauce, but there are a couple of kinds of sauces alongside the industrial rolls of paper towels - I don't think I even looked at 'em though. Same as the rolls - why bother?

The brisket was as insanely good as I had thought it would be when we first laid eyes on it. Juicy, tender, a perfect strip on fat on each slice, just enough that if you wanted to be health-conscious you would probably cut it off, but if you wanted to be health-conscious, what the heck are you doing at a restaurant called "Fat Pig"? Tastes like eating the smoke of the sweetest-smelling campfire ever made. TQ wants to go back for the ribs someday (the group sitting next to us actually had a couple more than they could eat and we were whispering back and forth about asking how much they wanted for those ribs - in the end we didn't quite have the nerve to ask so we left without even a taste). Me too, but I'll be after more brisket. Before last night, the best commercially-produced barbeque* I ever remember tasting was at the Salt Lick, out in the Texas hill country near Austin. That was years ago that my sister took us there, and that had ended up stuck in my mind as this mythically delicious ultimate bbq anywhere, and last year when I was agitating for a family trip to Texas to visit my sister & an aunt and uncle who I haven't really seen since my folks moved to NC, a trip to see if the Salt Lick was as good as I remembered it to be was high on my to-do list. Now I need to go back there to see if Fette Sau's brisket actually does stack up to the Salt Lick...I really think it might.

Halfway through our repast I said something about maybe getting my key lime pie to go. TQ said "You'd better go get in line then". I turned around and that was pretty much when I lost all interest in dessert, period. He was sitting facing into the restaurant and had been watching the tables fill up and the line get longer. By the time we left, it was out the door. My Steve's Key Lime Pie fix can wait until the next time I'm in Red Hook - and that's probably Monday (when I want to go tour the ships!). I think we'll be back, though.

Next time we'll shoot for 6:00 or before.

http://www.fettesaubbq.com/

*I have to say "commercially produced" because "Canoe-Buildin' Uncle" has a small flock of sheep at the farm that's now been in the family for 2 generations, and when he has one of his lambs butchered and barbecues it for a family gathering, we are talking about a whole 'nother level of delicious.

Foodie Friday: The 2 Worst Things About My Birthday Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:52:00 +0000

1. Deciding.
2. Not having any room left for dessert.

Best part? Having a really good excuse to try out one of Baydog's Brooklyn recommendations. Thank you Baydog, it was EXCELLENT. More after work!

Blue Drinks 5 23 2012

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Thu, 24 May 2012 11:50:00 +0000

Blue Drinks 5 23 2012, a set on Flickr.

There were some threatening-looking clouds a-looming as I neared the Hudson last night, but they didn't do anything and we ended up having a lovely night for the first Blue Drinks of 2012 last night. Good food, good company, and for the patientest, there was a great fireworks display a bit after 10. Sorry, my camera battery had died by then - but here's the fireworks barge coming up the river around sunset!

Thanks to the HRWA and NYCWTA for hosting another lovely evening on the barge!

Note a few days later - just took out the thumbnail slides because I think this is the post that's pushing my sidebar out of place. Just click on the link above to go to the gallery. What a fun night that was!

Events Events Events!

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Woohoo! Blue Drinks tonight! I'm especially looking forward to this because it's Fleet Week AND OpSail is here - I brought the camera & both lenses because lord only knows what's gonna float by.

And then if you're looking for some good salty fun this weekend, there's a couple of options I know about -

The first one I have to mention is of course near and dear and I shall be there all day. Yes, it's the annual Sebago Canoe Club Open House this Saturday - free boat rides all day, rain or shine! And burgers and hot dogs too! For full details and links to travel instructions, visit SebagoCanoeClub.org

And then of course there are TALL SHIPS and NAVY SHIPS in town & open to the public all weekend. PortSide NewYork has taken a break from their search for a new home for the Mary A. Whalen to play harbor host to the Brooklyn visitors. Here's a great flyer that Bowsprite created showing all the Red Hook guests;

And then they have also put together an incredibly comprehensive OpSail webpage - click here for everything you need to know about visiting the ships in Red Hook, plus links to info about what's going on in the other boroughs, too. Nice work, this is the sort of thing PortSide NewYork does SO well. No news since the "We haven't found anything but we're not giving up the ship yet" (literally!) but my fingers remain crossed that something will come through in time.

BTW, they are looking for volunteers to help out with all the visitors this weekend - if you'd like to help out, check out the details in the gray sidebar on the right-hand side of that OpSail page. I'm hesitating to volunteer because I'm already volunteering as a trip leader all day for the Sebago Open House, but if I wasn't doing that I'd sign up for sure.

Note slightly later - oh, COOL. I missed the big tall ship/navy ship parade this morning because I am covering for 2 co-workers who are on vacation this week, so there's no way I could've gotten the morning off - but for ALL of us who missed it for whatever reason, we have the all day (and all of the night) to watch it on the Earth Cam 24-hour archive! Starts with the 9-10 AM hour - John J. Harvey comes into view in full display just around 9:04 and then you can use the slider to fast-forward. Military ships parade starts in the 11-12 AM file, led off by the Coast Guard barque Eagle just before 11:24. Click here, and have fun! Thanks, Harry, this is great!

A More Serious Post, Possibly By Way Of Apology For Speaking Out Of...er...

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:49:00 +0000

tern.

AUUUUGHHH! I'msorryi'msorryi'msorry! one last leetle pun, ees waffer theeen!!!!

Anyways - it was a busy but sort of chopped-up day at work and I have to apologize for not being able to resist throwing up (and I use that term specifically) that awfully silly post there in the midst of things. Sometimes I just have to.

There were plenty of terns divebombing the bunker in the bay. I did actually get a couple of decent tern shots - like this one was kind of cool (click for a better view) -

-

but for the most part trying to take pictures of them was mostly an idle exercise that I wasn't expecting to work too well. Small, fast-moving, erratically-swerving targets being shot with a much zoomier zoom than I've ever tried using before, from the deck of a moving sailboat? Couldn't quite resist sharing the splash (you can actually see a wingtip in there if you go to Flickr and look at a larger size) but 90% of the tern pictures were the junk I'd expected them to be. Fun to try, but my idea for the bird photography involves putting the camera in a drybag and paddling somewhere where I can quietly sit on a log and wait for the birds to decide I'm not that scary. I'd mostly taken camera and the new lens on Saturday with the thought that it would be good for other boats. That actually went well & I thought I would give you a few of those in full size here. All were in from the "First Sail" post so if you already looked through that, this is a repeat - but if not, here were a few telephoto highlights. Click on any for detail. Enjoy!

The first boat that send me scrambling down below to switch out lenses was this beautiful catamaran - I nearly missed it because I was fumbling with switching out the lenses and the various covers and making sure the short lens was stashed away safely. By the time I finished Vicky was calling "Hurry, hurry, you're going to miss it, it's going away", but I made it back on deck just in time. Isn't that pretty?

Next I went after the Parachute Jump. This is SUCH a Coney Island icon, and you can see it for miles, but I don't think I would have ever thought about taking A Picture Of The Parachute Jump from here - on the Optio, it's such an insignificant little part of the skyline you hardly notice it. So this was fun.

I liked the sparkle, it was a very very sparkly day - weekend, in fact, until the clouds came rolling in just in time to produce that beautiful sunset I posted last night. And I like the silhouetted buoy. You all know how I am about

buoys, right? Here's another shot with the Parachute Jump - this time with a little more activity - a few sailboats, probably out of either the Miramar Yacht Club in Sheepshead Bay or the yacht club out on the Rockaway Peninsula, plus an ocean liner, bound for the Atlantic - another thing I wouldn't bother even trying to shoot with the Optio unless I was several miles further west along Coney Island.

And then I looked back towards the Marine Park Bridge and discovered that I was going to get to try for some shots that Tugster Will might actually enjoy - the tug Crystal Cutler was approaching pushing the barge Patricia E. Poling. Sweet!

Distance shot:

Closeup of the Crystal Cutler. I like the livery - I always think it looks nice when a tug-and-barge unit has a coordinated paint job, and this is actually close to the color scheme I would choose for my kayak and assorted gear if I were to pick a color scheme based purely on aesthetics - I would be all in teals with a white hull. Of course then I'd be invisible, which is why my boat and my lifejacket (and now my drysuit) are all bright yellow. Tugs don't have to worry about being invisible, though.

One more shot as the tug headed past the "castle" (actually a sewage thing, I'm afraid - people are always disappointed when we paddle out to Breezy to go surfing, they want it to be something romantic like an old fort or the footing of a vanished lighthouse, blown away in the great hurricane of 1938 or something and maybe with a good ghost story - "And to this day boaters passing by in the dark of night still hear the moans of the poor lost soul" - but it's not, it's a sewage thing) out towards the Lower Harbor. Norwegian Gem headed for the Atlantic in the distance - same ship as earlier, but in this shot the ship was less backlit and you can actually see the painted gems. Vicky was happy, they enjoy the occasional cruise & she'd especially loved this one. In keeping with the "sparkly" theme of the day, too - here they are, the Crystal and the Gem!

Vicky was very very happy being on her own boat, but she enjoyed watching "her BIG boat" heading out.

Those were pretty much my favorites from the day's telephoto take, and I'm still very happy with the new toy - and I hope that my sharing those makes amends for the afternoon's pun-ishment!

When is a tern not a tern?

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:50:00 +0000

Tern splashdown!, a photo by bkfrogma on Flickr.

When it's a-dove.

New telephoto's doing wonders for my bird photography, huh?

Paerdegat Sunset

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Mon, 21 May 2012 03:08:00 +0000

End of a very nice weekend. Lots of time on and by the bay. Good stuff.

First Sail of 2012

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:02:00 +0000

First Sail of 2012 , a set on Flickr.

Lewis Colam is Still Rowing

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:20:00 +0000

Hanging out at TQ's this morning - he's actually working out of town for a day here so I'm taking care of the dogs while he's gone. I'm going sailing with Vicky and John on the Mischief this afternoon -- that's the sloop I had snapped a couple of pictures of when I was playing with the new lens last weekend (didn't realize it was them until they saw my Sebago regatta pix & said "Oh, we saw them too as we sailed out of Mill Basin - I promptly posted the sloop pix and said "Was that by any chance you?", and it was, and so now my first sail of 2012 will be with them today, yay!) -- but this morning I'm just having a nice quiet morning hangin' with the Catahoulas and catching up with things I'd wanted to read or watch but didn't have time to during the week.

Like this, for example. I've mentioned Lewis Colam, the young Brit who quit his job to come to the States & row from Miami to NYC to raise funds for Alzheimer's research, here & on Facebook once or twice, and I've been enjoying following his adventures & misadventures - one night spending a miserable night getting chased off of docks by policemen who had differing opinions of what "public" means (somehow wasn't surprised to hear that story), another night having dinner at Paula Deen's home, without having the faintest idea in the beginning who she is - it's been quite a ride and he had an awful first week, terrible headwinds (20 kts or more), but he's plugging away, he's spending a couple of days in the DC area right now and should be arriving in NY Harbor in a couple of weeks.

It was an interesting expedition in that the young man didn't have much boating experience -- he claimed none at the start, he did find a mentor in the boatbuilder at Little River Marine, who provided his boat & probably some advice & basic training, but this was all pretty new to him when he started out. The learning curve sounded steep but he's stuck it out.

He'd posted this short video on Facebook earlier this week - I didn't have time to watch it then but I just watched it now, enjoyed it & thought I'd share.

Foodie Friday: Tomatoes Ride the Rails

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:37:00 +0000

How's THIS for Urban Gardening? :D (click for detail!)

Dragonetti's let me down this year - usually they have nice little 6-packs of mixed heirloom tomato seedlings, this year it was cherry, plum, beefsteak and extra-big beefsteak. I got a plum & a beefsteak but for some reason I do like growing the weird old heirloom ones, so today on my lunch break I dashed up to the Union Square Greenmarket, where the nice folks at Oak Grove Plantation had exactly the kind of funky tomatoes I had in mind. I came home with a multicolored menagerie - Green Zebra, Orange Ox-Heart, and a nice red Buck's County (actually a hybrid Red Brandywine, as I found out tonight - dad's side of the family has roots in Buck's County, so it seemed like a good one for me to pick).

Don't know if any of them will be quite as spectacular as this one was, at least until I knocked a hole in that tender, tender skin while trying to work it loose from the vines in which it was entangled. Ironically, 2009, the year of the great Bonnie Plants Tomato Plague (I swear I had nothing to do with that, that was a different Bonnie entirely, she probably doesn't even paddle!!!) was the best year I ever had for tomatoes - this was the most astounding thing my garden has produced to date.

Last year was awful, in fact - too much rain, I think it was. The cherries did OK, they literally grow themselves, but as far as the full-sized ones went, I grew masses and masses of luxuriant tomato foliage but they didn't start fruiting until September or so. Only one or two ripened, and there were enough for a couple of pots of my favorite green tomato rice recipe (TQ's find in '09 actually - he was out in PA & they got the blight out there so he suddenly had to find uses for a lot of green tomatoes - this was the best). But a disappointing year on the whole.

Sure hope the weather cooperates this year. The basil is off to a nice start, and with green, orange, and red tomatoes, just think how pretty the caprese salads will be!

This Is Not Puce.

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:10:00 +0000

It's more chartreuse. The Kokatat designers call it "lichen", and the reason I was looking up "puce" yesterday was that I was asking my boyfriend for fashion advice, used the word "puce" at one point and then realized that I wasn't sure that was the right word for this shade of green.

And the reason I as asking TQ, who lives in jeans and t-shirts, for fashion advice is because I just heard back from Jordan at Kokatat about my drysuit yesterday, and they're sending me a replacement for the replacement they sent me a couple years ago.

Thinking back to my last swim (inflation test for the new hybrid lifejacket), there was more water in the socks than usual afterwards. That was also about the time I noticed that the gaskets were on their last season too - they were "alligatored" (network of fine cracks that latex develops just before it goes) pretty badly and I thought maybe they were seeping. Nope, turns out the Gore-Tex is delaminating again.

Fortunately, with Kokatat's Gore-Tex suits warranty, "lifetime" means "lifetime" - they're sending replacement #2.

Unfortunately, they've replaced that nice plum color (in fact a closer relation to puce than the chartreuse I'd always thought of as puce) with the lichen and gray pictured above. You can get that or the classic mango-and-black. I was on the fence - neither of these are colors that appear in my wardrobe at all. The lichen & grey does have a certain Brooklyn hipster thing going on (not that anyone would EVER accuse me of being a hipster but hey, I DO live in Brooklyn and I do eat artisanal food at least once a ~~week~~ month, so maybe a hipster-hued drysuit would fit in), the mango & black has the definite advantage of high visibility.

I was leaning towards mango but I couldn't decide. I figured TQ's the one who's going to be looking at me wearing it the most, and he does have a good eye for color, so I asked him to make the call. He went for the mango too.

Yellow boat, yellow lifejacket, yellow drysuit...gonna have to warn people to bring shades when they paddle with me in the wintertime.

Learn Something New Every Day

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:15:00 +0000

Today, I learned that puce is not hipster green. It's hipster mauvish-pink. And I will never, ever, ever forget that puce is hipster mauvish pink because I looked it up on Wikipedia, which offered the most disgustingly memorable piece of etymology I have ever seen in my entire life. Go on. I dare you.

Making Things 3: Playing With Clay

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:35:00 +0000

Or maybe it's more 1-a or 1.1 - definitely a followup to Making Things 1, back on May 8th - yes, here it is, Channel Surfing, the final product of the New York International Children's Film Festival Get 'Tooned Cocktails & Claymation benefit. Look out, look out for the Terrible Tiger!

We had a great time making this, and the NYICFF raised enough money to send 20 kids to their various filmmaking workshops on scholarships by giving the grownups a turn to play, so all around, a big success.

On Facebook? There's an album up of the evening's fun - I got a few good shots that I put up here a few posts ago, but the NYICFF staff was circulating with cameras, too. OK, this is a bit vain - but here are my favorites:

Kayaking around New York City | 7online.com (and Blue Drinks OOPS POSTPONED! )

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:51:00 +0000

Kayaking around New York City | 7online.com

Very nice little interview with Kevin Stiegelmeier, author of a brand-new guidebook to paddling Long Island and New York City. A friend called me at work today because she saw it & wanted to know if I knew him - I was happy to tell her that not only did I know him, but friends and I had had the pleasure of showing him one of our favorite paddles in Jamaica Bay while he was working on the book.

Oh, and as long as I'm doing a quick post - don't forget, Blue Drinks are ~~coming right up here, Tuesday, May~~ ~~15th!~~ D'OH! JUST got postponed until NEXT WEEK WEDNESDAY, May 23rd. Full details here (last week's post) - everything's the same but the date, now!

Bird

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Sun, 13 May 2012 22:12:00 +0000

Didn't make it out on the water today because I got a bit of a late start and decided to garden instead (weeded, reseeded beets and chard - the stray cats had scratched up the first round - and planted a couple of tomato plants), but there are birds at the club, too.

The Baltimore oriole was, alas, never in sight when my camera was handy, but this little brown bird* was kind enough to pose for me. Really looking forward to taking some seabird pix out on the islands soon.

*Found out through a Facebook friend later that the bird is actually a Gray Catbird. Looked brown to me! I've heard of being colorblind, maybe I'm neutralblind?

Playing with a New Toy!

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Sun, 13 May 2012 01:49:00 +0000

I got a new telephoto lens this week, and since TQ & I had decided to skip boating today in favor of taking the dogs out to Floyd Bennett Field's "Back 40" hiking area, I decided to take it along for a test drive.

Here are the first pictures. Sebago Sailing Committee folks will particularly enjoy that I started with the Sebago Canoe Club's Spring Regatta (although they probably would've liked us to be out there - sorry guys, next time maybe!). They were at Carnarsie Pier, we were on the north shore of Mill Basin, I zoomed all the way to 200x and although I don't think I'll be printing them for my little hallway "gallery", they're...well, a little over 3x better than I could've done before (max zoom WAS 45X).

Mill Basin Bridge

This was funny - I just took these because it was a sailboat, but it turned out to be our friends John and Vicky, taking out the Mischief for their first spring sail:

A pair of geese who were very annoyed that we were on their beach, kept giving us the stinkeye until they finally decided to go to the beach on the other side of the old building we were next to:

Hot dogs, cooling off:

This was funny - Bella didn't realize that this old piece of flotation wasn't stationary until a wake tossed it just as she walked past it. She spooked, then made a verrrry cautious approach -

And, as a warm-up for tomorrow, when I'm going to take the camera either to Canarsie Pol or the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge (depends on what time I get going) to try to take some actual pictures of birds (which is what I mostly wanted the telephoto lens for), I took a couple of pictures of some of the models that were being flown today. Couldn't get the jet, too fast, and centering sort of just didn't happen, but I was able to catch some half-decent shots

So, a fun afternoon of getting used to the zoom. Wish I'd had it in time for the the shuttle, but when I went shopping the night before the guys at Adorama were friendly, helpful, and told me that if I could wait a week, I could get a great deal - guys at J&R had pretty much mentally checked out by the time I got there, 15 minutes before closing - so between that & a fact that a friend used to work for them until they laid him off in a pretty awful way, I decided to wait for the deal. Think I might be able to have some fun with it! :

Making Things 2: Wood is Good!

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Wed, 09 May 2012 04:34:00 +0000

For ages and ages, I've had a bit of a yen to try woodcarving.

I remember looking at books of whittling and carving projects as early as high school. These days, I look at Bob Easton's blog and find myself thinking "Jeeze, I want to try that!" I said so one time in a comment on his blog - I think it was around the holidays one year and he'd posted these photos of these charming little caricature ornaments he'd made for friends, and I just had to say "Oh, I wish I could do that!"

He was actually very encouraging - I think this was shortly after I'd done my first claymations, and he'd seen my characters and said something like I clearly had a good sense of working in three dimensions and that I should give it a try sometime.

Well, I didn't and I didn't and then I didn't some more.

Woodcarving always appealed to me, but it also seemed a little intimidating and it wasn't particularly something I just wanted to launch into unsupervised. I play with clay on my own, but with clay, all you need is clay, not special tools, and more to the point, slipping up with clay doesn't generally involve pain, blood, or (god forbid) an unplanned trip to the emergency room!

But Chris Raab from Tuktu Paddles comes and does paddlemaking workshops at Sebago from time to time, and on Sunday the 6th, there was finally a workshop on a day when I didn't have any conflicts - so I have finally gotten to try woodcarving, and I really enjoyed it, and although I can't say for sure that it's actually any good until I've actually used it, the paddle I carved under Chris's direction certainly LOOKS like a very nice hand-carved paddle!

Click here if you'd like to see my Flickr gallery of the day!

Making Things 1: Putty in their Paws

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:14:00 +0000

You know how it goes, right? They lure you in...

They ply you with strong drink...

They show you a good time,

treat you like a big star...

and then the next morning you wake up with an empty wallet,

and a tiger in your foyer.

And y'know what? I'll do it again next year! Woohoo! :D Yes, congratulations and a big froggy amphibious air-kiss to the fine folks at the New York International Children's Film Festival for once again putting the FUN into FUNdraiser in the most delightful way with the second not-precisely-annual "Get 'Tooned!" Adults-Only Cocktail Party/Claymation Workshop!

The wallet was empty because they gave it to me and I haven't gotten around to filling it up yet; once again, by the point in the evening at which they asked for donations above and beyond the ticket price, I was feeling too warm and fuzzy to resist. They were giving away these really neat bookbags as a thank-you gift for additional donations; the book bags were recycled from the big, colorful vinyl cloth banners they hang around the city to advertise the festival and they were very, very cool but I was going to pass on that because between working in publishing (where there are a lot of giveaway bookbags floating around looking for homes) and doing swim support (where the schwag bags are always these great little nylon drawstring bags), I could have a side business running a SoHo bag table on my lunch hour. When I said I didn't need a bag, though, they mentioned that they had wallets, too, and that's something I've been thinking about getting ever since a friend gave me a really nice purse for Christmas. My old one was falling apart - the new one is a hundred times nicer than the old one, which was a cheap street-stand knockoff, but it's just enough deeper that cards and cash get lost in the bottom of the pocket where I put them and I'd been thinking a wallet would help in the finding of things. When it turned out that the wallets were made out of Secret of Kells banners (boy, did I love that movie - still waiting for the Seal Wife one that was supposed to be the studio's next production!), well, SOLD. So that's how I woke up with an empty wallet the next morning.

The tiger is about 3.5 inches tall and claims to be harmless, although there was a suspicious scene that took place midway through the evening...

he swore he just found the guy like that, though...

Once again, half the fun was seeing what all the weird and wonderful characters that were created.

Here was most of the cast of characters.

There were some interesting differences between this one and the first one. I don't know if it was because last year (or rather 2010) was the first time we did this and none of us attendees knew what the NYICFF folks had planned for the evening, or if it was because I got there a little bit later this year and people had already settled in, but last time, I'd been seriously entertained by watching all of these grownups (including myself!) walking into a roomful of colorful clay, all for us to play with however we wanted to - I think a lot of us had a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights moment as we tried to remember what it was that we used to do with this stuff.

This year, I got there a little bit later and didn't see anywhere near as much hesitation, but there were a number of us there for the 2nd time and I think most of us who'd come last year came with some thoughts of what we were going to do this year. I was personally wavering between a tiger, a penguin, and a stumpy little monster - could've gone either way but the first clay that caught my eye when I walked in was a lovely tigery orange, so that's what I did, and I thought he came out rather well.

Pre-prep prize, though, definitely went to the repeat attendee who brought wire armatures for her characters, this year, plus props. She's a design instructor and has access to something that I'd heard of a few years ago as being in development, but had no idea actually had come into existence - a 3-D printer! That's right - she designed a wire-frame version of this director's chair using a CAD program - and then she hit "Print". And there you go, one toy director's chair, right there in my hand!

Definitely raised the bar for the rest of us next year!

One more noticeable - and fun - difference from last year? A lot more interaction between the participants and our characters! If you watch the last one, it was pretty much set up that each of us did our own little scene with our own one or two characters -
This year, there seemed to be a lot more team efforts - partly from people who came as a group, like these friends -

This Nessie-meets-rocketship scene was a husband-and-wife team effort -

And this guy came up with a chase scene that involved I think it was five different characters, including my tiger.

I'd originally thought I was going to just do that while I waited to do a solo thingy but by the time we were done we were all totally cracking up at the playback, and I'd had my tiger do just about everything I'd planned for him to do, and I just decided that was enough for the evening's production!

After the animating session was over, there were brownies with ice cream and hot fudge sauce and a little more time to talk, laugh and take pictures of each others creations,

After that, they showed us a great set of shorts that had been produced by the kids in their workshops. There were 3, all very good and very different. My favorite was a combination of stop-motion and live action called "Daydreaming", with a teacher saddled with a classroom full of young Walter Mittys, who tries and tries to rein in their daydreams, until at the end she finds herself falling into the blissfullest daydream of any of them. The kids acted, directed and handled the animation and it was just wonderful.

After we finished watching those, the forms for additional donations were passed around, and then it was on to the grand finale of the evening, a preliminary rendition of our evening's production, "Channel Surfing". Last year's premise was "The Auditions" - this year, the idea was that all of these little scenes were being seen as a person was channel-surfing on a TV set.

Heck, if TV sets had that many channels of pure silliness, I might even go get one - it came out well!

Can't wait to show you the final version, we should be getting it any day now.

Blue Drinks are Back - POSTPONED TO MAY 23!

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:01:00 +0000

Correction to correction - Blue Drinks have just been postponed to Wednesday, May 23rd!

CORRECTION: I'd posted earlier while under the impression that these were actually tomorrow, which is of course Tuesday, May 8th - I posted on the fly this morning because an email had gone around under the subject "Blue Drinks This Tuesday" and I was horrified because I'd fully intended to start posting about it around a week in advance! Here's the same info, and of course that's actually NEXT Tuesday. Thank you to various friends for catching & correcting, hope to see folks there! *******************
Save The Date!

BLUE DRINKS at Pier 66 Maritime
~~Tuesday, May 15th~~, WEDNESDAY, MAY 23rd 6pm

The New York City Water Trail Association invites you to join us for the first Blue Drinks of 2012 at Pier 66 Maritime, aka the Barge at west 26th street on the Hudson.

Modeled after the Green Drinks series which focuses on people in the environmental field, Blue Drinks is a networking party for people involved in public water access for human-powered boats, historic vessels, environmental education, and urban open water swimmers.

Come catch up with friends, see what our partner groups in and around nyc have in store for the summer, find a group to boat with or a volunteer opportunity. We'll have drink specials, some light snacks, and lots of good company.

Groups are encouraged to bring materials to share, postcards, calendars, etc.

All are encouraged to bring friends: boaters, educators, swimmers, access activists, and of course the water-curious.

The more the merrier so feel free to share this announcement with your lists.

Hope to see you on the 15th.

Phil Giller
*********************

Friends don't let friends paddle drunk!

Blue Drinks Are Back!

noreply@blogger.com (bonnie) — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:38:00 +0000

Correction to correction - Blue Drinks have just been postponed to Wednesday, May 23rd!

And boy, did this one sneak up on me! Been busy - making things, doing things, and maybe doing a little work in there too. Anyways, this is this Tuesday, as in tomorrow! CORRECTION - Well, phew, it didn't sneak up on me, it's NEXT week Tueday - the announcement was just sent out with a subject line that made it sound as though it was tomorrow! Here's the latest announcement, posted this weekend by Phil Giller, Sebago commodore emeritus, now of the Yonkers Paddling & ~~Rowing~~ Rolling Club (we miss you Phil!):

*******************
Save The Date!

BLUE DRINKS at Pier 66 Maritime
Wednesday, May 23rd, 6pm

The New York City Water Trail Association invites you to join us for the first Blue Drinks of 2012 at Pier 66 Maritime, aka the Barge at west 26th street on the Hudson.

Modeled after the Green Drinks series which focuses on people in the environmental field, Blue Drinks is a networking party for people involved in public water access for human-powered boats, historic vessels, environmental education, and urban open water swimmers.

Come catch up with friends, see what our partner groups in and around nyc have in store for the summer, find a group to boat with or a volunteer opportunity. We'll have drink specials, some light snacks, and lots of good company.

Groups are encouraged to bring materials to share, postcards, calendars, etc.

All are encouraged to bring friends: boaters, educators, swimmers, access activists, and of course the water-curious.

The more the merrier so feel free to share this announcement with your lists.

Hope to see you on the 15th.

Phil Giller
*********************

Friends don't let friends paddle drunk!