FORAGERS

I almost didn't let Aaron do this...

2009-08-21T12:13:00.003-04:00

but I have no say.

F.Y.I. This is a free standing wall, there is nothing behind him.

Pup Gets Flushed

2009-06-16T13:20:00.001-04:00

I understand the culprit was a 4 year old toddler, but still, I have a hard time with his logic. I am being completely serious...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Yes?

2009-06-09T18:09:00.001-04:00

Most Inappropriate Mother's Day Video Ever

2009-05-10T22:37:00.001-04:00

Sweet

2009-04-29T09:38:00.001-04:00

From the HuffPost: Is it just me or does Denmark have the cutest cops? In the video below we see two members of the Politi stopping cyclists and giving them free helmets and hugs to show they care about their safety. The video has no sourcing, but we can only assume it is a public information ad meant to pull on the heart strings of Copenhagen's notoriously bad bikers.

According to Nancy Keats of the "Wall Street Journal":

No one wears bike helmets. They're afraid they'll mess up their hair. "I have a big head and I would look silly," Mayor Klaus Bondam says. People bike while pregnant, carrying two cups of coffee, smoking, eating bananas. At the airport, there are parking spaces for bikes. In the emergency room at Frederiksberg Hospital on weekends, half the biking accidents are from people riding drunk. Doctors say the drunk riders tend to run into poles.

Aaron doing his thing....

2009-04-28T18:25:00.001-04:00

Nature's Abundance

2009-03-21T22:48:00.003-04:00

How extraordinary!
An undersea Tolgan volcano has been erupting over the last few days creating these amazing images!

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Poconos Weekend

2009-03-20T09:33:00.004-04:00

So other than the NYC Marathon Sunday, "Keenerhausen" in the Poconos is one of my other favorite yearly events....some fun pics from this years weekend event a couple of weeks ago.

Personal History Lesson

2009-03-02T18:41:00.003-05:00

Actual photo

My father always mentioned that he had dim memories of tanks, troops, and fighting during WWII in his Sicilian town of Leonforte...I never really followed up on that claim until now. And yes indeed, but surprisingly, they were Canadian troops:
"Meanwhile, the 2nd Infantry Brigade engaged the enemy in Leonforte, a city of 20,000, near Assoro. In the city's dark and narrow streets, fighting turned into house-by-house combat as the Loyal Edmonton Regiment scattered throughout the town. To help them out, Brigadier Christopher Vokes launched a mobile armoured column of four tanks plus a company of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The assault was so fast and so efficient that the German guard posts at the entrance of the city surrendered. Fierce fighting went on until full surrender of the city and of neighbouring positions."

Worm Infects Millions of Computers Worldwide

2009-01-23T08:35:00.003-05:00

Very interesting tech article...I am waiting for an excellent suspense movie to be made about the worlds best and biggest computer system heist. Has there already been one?

Technology / Internet
Worm Infects Millions of Computers Worldwide
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: January 23, 2009
The infection seems to be the first step of a multistage attack, but experts do not know the form it will take: link to article

2009-01-17T19:54:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T09:49:00.002-05:00

This is an amazing owl!

The owl featured is a Southern White Faced Scops owl from South Africa called Popochan. As soon as it saw the slightly larger barn owl, Popochan will raise its wings high and pump up its plumage to increase its volume to increase its aggressiveness.

However when it was presented a larger Eagle owl, Popochan tries to hide its presence and decreases its volume by contracting its plumage.

Saw this today...

2008-12-30T17:12:00.002-05:00

A woodpecker right outside my apartment on the tree. It was pecking away. Very fun to see, especially since I live in an urban pit. This has been quite a year of animal sightings...some of the more rare incidences...(well it also includes Costa Rica)...
1. A Sloth
2. A Toucan
3. A pair of turkeys (in my Teaneck backyard)
4. A 6 ft. Boa crossing the road
5. A moth the size of a bird
6. Orchid spiders (about 50 of them)
7. A glimpse of a black monkey

Most Polluted Cities in the US...I am surprised NYC isn't there!

2008-12-30T14:15:00.001-05:00

The 2008 Lists:

Top 10 U.S. Cities Most Polluted by Short-Term Particle Pollution:

1) Pittsburgh, Pa.
2) Los Angeles/Long Beach/Riverside, Calif.
3) Fresno/Madera, Calif.
4) Bakersfield, Calif.
5) Birmingham, Ala.
6) Logan, Utah
7) Salt Lake City, Utah
8) Sacramento, Calif.
9) Detroit, Mich.
10) Baltimore, Md./Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia.

Top 10 U.S. Cities Most Polluted by Year-Round Particle Pollution:

1) Los Angeles/Long Beach/Riverside, Calif.
2) Pittsburgh, Pa.
3) Bakersfield, Calif.
4) Birmingham, Ala.
5) Visalia/Porterville, Calif.
6) Atlanta, Ga.
7) Cincinnati, Ohio
8) Fresno/Madera, Calif.
9) Hanford/Corcoran, Calif.
10) Detroit, Mich.

T'was a merry & cozy christmas

2008-12-25T13:30:00.005-05:00

Nice & Simple.

Fall & Winter

2008-12-05T12:30:00.005-05:00

I love all the seasons. But there is something about the fall and winter that I adore. Taking long walks with Aaron along the Hudson is part of the reason why.

From where we are standing, Manhattan is to the right, and the Tapanzee Bridge is the the left. We are actually right by the George Washington Bridge.

CC wanted up.

Saw this pair in the yard today....

2008-11-19T13:36:00.003-05:00

They walked right up to me and CC. They came up to my thigh! Maybe turkey vultures?

Caught CC

2008-11-11T15:26:00.002-05:00

Caught CC resting on our newspaper pile. She just started to go into heat. Woah.

Voting Day

2008-11-11T15:25:00.001-05:00

Voting for Obama. My first time voting in a booth for a president!

NYC Marathon Sunday.

2008-11-03T10:34:00.009-05:00

So, by far, NYC Marathon Sunday is my very favorite day of the year. It surpasses all holidays.
The excitement is unbelievable as the mid-point mark of the marathon runs right down our local street. We cheer people on, give high-fives, and yell out as many countries as we see on their shirts to pep the runners. This year, our friends invited us over for a marathon brunch party...and their apartment window overlooks the marathon.

The front runners in the women's round. They ran about 2 feet from where I was on the curb. They are sick fast. The lady in the front ended up winning...

This part is very exciting as the police lead the way, before the cameras and time trucks.

Natasha, Andy, me, and Val look up.

HALLOWEEN 2008 ROCKED!

2008-11-03T10:28:00.009-05:00

We had a blast on Halloween night...
NYC was in full swing with the fun spilling out all over the streets.

Val was "A Good Time" and Aaron was a "Happy Sailor"

On the subway...

Mikey Bostock and Aaron (& Lander)...going home.

2008-10-30T19:01:00.000-04:00

CC and her squirrel

2008-10-27T11:40:00.002-04:00

cutey patoody

By Larry David

2008-10-22T19:38:00.001-04:00

I can't take much more of this. Two weeks to go, and I'm at the end of my rope. I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up. I'm anxious all the time and taking it out on my ex-wife, which, ironically, I'm finding enjoyable. This is like waiting for the results of a biopsy. Actually, it's worse. Biopsies only take a few days, maybe a week at the most, and if the biopsy comes back positive, there's still a potential cure. With this, there's no cure. The result is final. Like death.

Five times a day I'll still say to someone, "I don't know what I'm going to do if McCain wins." Of course, the reality is I'm probably not going to do anything. What can I do? I'm not going to kill myself. If I didn't kill myself when I became impotent for two months in 1979, I'm certainly not going to do it if McCain and Palin are elected, even if it's by nefarious means. If Obama loses, it would be easier to live with it if it's due to racism rather than if it's stolen. If it's racism, I can say, "Okay, we lost, but at least it's a democracy. Sure, it's a democracy inhabited by a majority of disgusting, reprehensible turds, but at least it's a democracy." If he loses because it's stolen, that will be much worse. Call me crazy, but I'd rather live in a democratic racist country than a non-democratic non-racist one. (It's not exactly a Hobson's choice, but it's close, and I think Hobson would compliment me on how close I've actually come to giving him no choice. He'd love that!)

The one concession I've made to maintain some form of sanity is that I've taken to censoring my news, just like the old Soviet Union. The citizenry (me) only gets to read and listen to what I deem appropriate for its health and well-being. Sure, there are times when the system breaks down. Michele Bachmann got through my radar this week, right before bedtime. That's not supposed to happen. That was a lapse in security, and I've had to make some adjustments. The debates were particularly challenging for me to monitor. First I tried running in and out of the room so I would only hear my guy. This worked until I knocked over a tray of hors d'oeuvres. "Sit down or get out!" my host demanded. "Okay," I said, and took a seat, but I was more fidgety than a ten-year-old at temple. I just couldn't watch without saying anything, and my running commentary, which mostly consisted of "Shut up, you prick!" or "You're a fucking liar!!!" or "Go to hell, you cocksucker!" was way too distracting for the attendees, and finally I was asked to leave.

Assuming November 4th ever comes, my big decision won't be where I'll be watching the returns, but if I'll be watching. I believe I have big jinx potential and may have actually cost the Dems the last two elections. I know I've jinxed sporting events. When my teams are losing and I want them to make a comeback, all I have to do is leave the room. Works every time. So if I do watch, I'll do it alone. I can't subject other people to me in my current condition. I just don't like what I've turned into -- and frankly I wasn't that crazy about me even before the turn. This election is having the same effect on me as marijuana. All of my worst qualities have been exacerbated. I'm paranoid, obsessive, nervous, and totally mental. It's one long, intense, bad trip. I need to come down. Soon.

so much fun...

2008-10-21T12:43:00.000-04:00

2008-10-16T17:34:00.000-04:00

Interesting, but a little too late and too soft.

2008-10-15T09:27:00.001-04:00

Yup - I'm generalizing. This is America.

2008-10-09T15:46:00.002-04:00

height="344">

Halloween 2008

2008-10-09T15:40:00.001-04:00

By Taegan Goddard

2008-10-08T18:59:00.000-04:00

If you want to know why Gov. Sarah Palin drives liberal Democrats crazy -- and is helping Sen. Barack Obama raise money at a record pace -- here's an excerpt from an viral email making its way around the country:

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising two daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

Huh?

2008-10-08T18:14:00.001-04:00

Scary

2008-10-07T09:22:00.001-04:00

I am very very afraid that Obama will be assassinated.
And give extra thanks to Pain and McCain, great honest Christians, for creating and supporting this false terrorist propaganda.

In Fla., Palin Goes for the Rough Stuff as Audience Boos Obama

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gestures during a campaign speech on Oct. 6, 2008 in Clearwater, Fla. (Chris O'Meara/Associated Press)

By Dana Milbank
CLEARWATER, Fla. -- "Okay, so Florida, you know that you're going to have to hang onto your hats," Sarah Palin told a rally of a few thousand here this morning, "because from now until Election Day it may get kind of rough."

You betcha. And the person dishing out the roughest stuff at the moment is Sarah Palin.

"I was reading my copy of the New York Times the other day," she said.

"Booooo!" replied the crowd.

"I knew you guys would react that way, okay," she continued. "So I was reading the New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago."

It was time to revive the allegation, made over the weekend, that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, in this case Bill Ayers, late of the Weather Underground. Many independent observers say Palin's allegations are a stretch; Obama served on a Chicago charitable board with Ayers, now an education professor, and has condemned his past activities.

"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.

"Boooo!" said the crowd.

"And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin went on to say that "Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers's living room, and they've worked together on various projects in Chicago." Here, Palin began to connect the dots. "These are the same guys who think that patriotism is paying higher taxes -- remember that's what Joe Biden had said. "And" -- she paused and sighed -- "I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America, as the greatest force for good in the world. I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as 'imperfect enough' to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country."

"Boooo!" said the audience.

[end]

From HuffPost:

McCain was speaking today in New Mexico, doing his usual personal attack on Barack Obama, as the stock market plummeted (you can see the ticker next to McCain on the screen, an apt reminder of what McCain and his fellow Republicans represent), and McCain asked the crowd "who is Barack Obama?" Immediately you hear someone yell "terrorist." McCain pauses, the audience laughs, and McCain continues on, not acknowledging, not chastising, not correcting. Oh, but McCain does say in the next sentence that he's upset about all the "angry barrage of insults."

I survived!

2008-09-29T13:10:00.006-04:00

My very first bachelorette party for my lovely friend Xiomara. It was very fun.

CC Sleeping

2008-09-24T15:22:00.001-04:00

I bought the little dress as a joke - it was on clearance for $1....but she loves wearing it. So I left it on her. She sleeps on her back, which it cute.

An Open Letter to All Republicans From a Former Religious Right Activist

2008-09-19T12:46:00.000-04:00

by Frank Schaeffer

Dear Republicans: This election all Republicans who love America must vote for Obama. A vote for business-as-usual and a continuation of the Neoconservative/Religious Right/ party of corporate American alienation is a vote against America. As a former Republican activist, I appeal to your patriotism and honor.

Unless you haven't been paying attention to the recent history of the Republican Party you will know that today Republican ideology and energy is derived from three sources:

* The Religious Right,

* The Neoconservative Movement,

* Corporate business interests.

You also should know that when it comes to the Religious Right my late father and evangelist, Francis Schaeffer, was the intellectual voice that made it happen. As his young sidekick (in the 70s and 80s) I helped take his message to a huge evangelical audience.

I mention this by way of saying that even if you hate my guts -- for having dropped out of the Republican Party, for writing novels that make fun of you, and for reregistering as an independent voter, let alone for supporting Senator Obama -- perhaps you should listen up. I happen to know what I'm talking about.

So let's look at the three power centers that drive the Republican Party today.

The Religious Right
The Religious Right came about for one reason and one reason only: it was a reaction to Roe v. Wade and the legalization of abortion in 1973. The Supreme Court essentially created the culture wars. (A state-by-state approach to legalizing abortion would have been better and resulted in much the same situation we have today in terms of the availability of abortion.) Take Roe out of the political mix and there would be no Religious Right.

That said -- certain power-hungry individuals (Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, Rove, Reed et al.) took the energy of our original pro-life movement and used it to build a hate campaign reminiscent of the early momentum that drove European Fascist parties in the mid-1920s through the mid-1940s. Fear of the "other" gays, immigrants, intellectuals, artists, the media, feminists, etc., morphed into a general critique of "the elite" which turned out to be anyone with an education or even big city dwellers. The Religious Right became a crude populist movement pitting the resentful rubes against the rest.

Take a hard look at yourselves. Play back this year's Republican convention and you'll see an all-white crowd of people screaming for offshore oil drilling -- fat lot of good that will do! more carbon! more polution! -- and essentially reacting like starved hyenas when presented with a piece of juicy carrion. At the convention Sarah Palin and others produced nothing more than a snide list of smart ass put downs aimed at the really dumb, with so little substance that former conservatives such the late William F. Buckley, for instance (let alone my late father) would simply have been ashamed to be in your company. You have become a hate-filled rabble proud of your ignorance and resentful of the rest of your own country, resentment that's exceeded only by your maudlin (and false) sense of victimhood.

People that hate half the population of their own country can scarcely be called patriots. On the contrary, people who exult in mocking as their only way to "contribute" to solving our huge environmental, energy, military and economic problems are true subversives.

The smell emanating from your convention was that of a beer hall putsch circa 1930s, not anything remotely like participation in a democracy. Now you all know what it felt like to be in a lynch mob minus the hanging. You should be ashamed. But shame is something that apparently Republicans are no longer capable of feeling, at least when you get together in a mob.

If you could feel shame there would have been a series of contrite public apologies at your convention for the incredible fiasco of non-governing that has typified the Bush administration. My pension, other people's pensions, our homes, jobs and economy are in chaos because of you. Young Americans are dying in Iraq because of you. The world is a more dangerous place because of you. America is hated because of you. Yes, that is you personally. I blame all of you.

You are the people who gave us eight years of Bush. My Marine son fought in his wars. Cowards, where were most of your sons and daughters? The President's daughters were getting arrested for under age drinking and harassing their Secret Service detail. The rest of you were shopping.

Far from saying you're sorry for the state our country is in you're trying to change the subject by reviving a culture war that has nothing to do with the principled fight against abortion of the 1970s that my dad and I began, and everything to do with simply hating people not like yourselves. The ultimate irony is that you're doing this in the name of Jesus Christ, someone, by the way, whom I try to follow as a Christian. You have become blasphemers by dragging our Lord into your political games.

The Republican Party and the Religious Right have become "Christian" warmongers who applaud the use of torture, start needless wars, fight against civil rights for gays and other disadvantaged Americans, and perhaps worst of all, in terms of the long-term impact, have literally turned your hands against God's creation.

You have a little fool for a vice presidential candidate who says she doesn't believe that human beings have anything to do with the phenomena of global warming and the endangering of all human life on this planet. Dream on. This fool claims to know what she knows because of an absolute "I don't blink" confidence in herself. So on top of everything else this fool who says she is a Christian, proves she is not. She lacks any shred of decent humility, the most basic biblical virtue.

The Neoconservative Movement
Let's be honest: the Neoconservative Movement is nothing more than an kill-all-the-Arabs, pro-Israel-at-any-cost, morally bankrupt lobby that actually turns out to be anti-Israel. Why? Because taken to the logical conclusion the neoconservative's position on everything--from illegal West Bank settlements, to making war on Iran, not to mention the absolutely useless waste of life that's taken place in Iraq, warlike preparations against Syria and just about every other Middle Eastern country, no, scratch that, every other country in the world--puts Israel in worse jeopardy than ever before.

Fortunately for everyone, it seems that most Israelis "get" this, as well as most Jewish Americans (who vote Democratic) even if a few Neoconservative Jews, most Evangelicals and all the other Republican zealots don't. (Most Jews also know that the idiot fringe so so-called Christian Zionists like Rev., Hagee, are no friends to Israel, rather they are perpetuating a doomsday nineteenth century Armageddon/ "Rapture" cult ready that wants to use the Jews as cosmic "End Times" cannon fodder.)

Get it through your thick heads: a state of permanent war between the West, including Israel and the United States, and the Muslim world is a war that Israel will eventually lose. Do the demographic math!

Republicans: You have been tricked and misled by; Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney, Jr. Dick Cheney. These neofools have unwittingly set in motion the destruction of Israel (probably in our lifetimes) and have maybe killed America too. Bastards! Republicans: It will be remembered that you embraced these world-hating self-deluded paranoid blabberers and made their twisted sound-bite polemics your own.

Those who, like me, actually believe that Israel has the right to exist should look on the Neoconservatives listed above with the same loathing that we look back on the idiots who goaded Europe into World War I, also in the name of "nationalism," "democracy" and "freedom."

Belligerent posturing is not a policy, it is idiocy. You Republicans have become the party of perpetual fear and aggressive non-provoked war, seeing enemies where there are none and/or provoking former friends to become our enemies, and/or faking reasons for war and/or wasting our soldier's blood in places such as Afghanistan, where our cause was just but you fumbled the ball.

Your moron vice presidential candidate is still at it! While turning her son's deployment to war into a flag-dishonoring political circus stunt she repeated the Bush lie and said that her son was going off to fight the perpetrators of 9/11. This is a barefaced lie and you all know it. Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. The only reason we attacked them is because the fools listed above decided it would be good for Israel and our stupid "president" went along.

Now you belligerent asses are supporting the same idiot (McCain) that helped bring us Iraq. He is now champing at the bit to revive the cold, and maybe a hot war with Russia! Have you gone mad? Can't you see you have an old foolish semi-senile man mired in the bathos of post-Vietnam "we were denied victory" psychosis for a candidate? Don't you know that Bush has made us weak?

You Republicans did to our military what the USSR could not do: demoralize it, stretch it beyond breaking and set it back decades. And now you want MORE wars?!

Corporate Business Interests
The Republican Party claims traditional values. It has propagated a laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests and has -- literally -- stood back and encouraged the rape of the earth. You are the party of the earth-hogging SUV. You have literally sowed the wind and reaped the hurricanes.

This is as self-defeating as it is embarrassing for those claiming the moral high ground, particularly those who say that their philosophy represents traditional Judeo-Christian values. We all live here for crying out loud! Will you now fight our God and Creator too for the "right" to burn the last drop of oil while on a weekend jaunt to nowhere in your all-terrain piece of garbage?

Conclusion
The Republican problem is a systemic disparagement of government, community, faith in our institutions, family, God's creation and the mitigating institutions that put a check on something any party aligned with a religious movement should know all about: sin. Greed is not the only problem. Human weakness and stupidity (i.e., "sin") is the problem! And the genius of the American system is supposedly that we have a system of checks and balances to mitigate our fallen state. You have destroyed those checks and balances.

Bush felt no guilt about promoting completely unqualified people to high posts merely on the basis of social, ideological or political connections. I'll take that a step further: I don't think Bush ever wanted the government to work. You Republicans hate our government as bitterly as our terrorist enemies do. You have been trying to deconstruct it. Since the government is seen as the enemy of freedom by you, if it doesn't work so much the better!

We have met the enemy and he is us! When Islamists tried to destroy our country by flying planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Towers, we rightly called them terrorists. When the Republicans in the Congress and the White House set about destroying our country, our standing in the world, our military and our economy, but much more effectively, you called them statesmen. It is time for all Americans -- including all you who are patriotic Republicans -- to sweep away these putrid earth-consuming, family killing, government bashing "me" worshipping individualistic fools--that or to watch our country be swept away by them. We can't afford eight more years of this willful ignorance. Obama in 2008!

Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

Thanks Jeff & Liz

2008-08-25T19:36:00.006-04:00

THANKS LIZ!!!!!!!!!

I was catching up on my blog reading, and now I am depressed about the depression.
Thanks Jeff.
So I post what makes me happy - my awesome quilt made by quilt master Auntie Liz!

Little Nino and Aaron playing on the quilt.

2nd Week

2008-07-28T14:54:00.011-04:00

On a day trip to a small town about 3 hours away to meet some weavers we will be working with.

The very cool motorcyclists coming through Antigua. I want a ride!

Holiday: Festival of Saint James. a white marching band leads the way with the Saint statue being carried into the church. This is so amazing to see and experience, and it happens quite often. On a sad note, our shoe maker Berto, who has traditionally been raised to celebrate these festivals no longer joins because a pastor recently evangelized him, and he is no longer allowed to participate in this rich cultural tradition....

Cooking in the kitchen...

GUATEMALA!

2008-07-24T11:50:00.013-04:00

MovieTime!
Lats night we saw the new Batman movie which was incredible. And tickets were only $2 for seats in a modern movie theatre that blows any american theatre out of the water!

Aaron and I have been in Guatemala for a week now...and it has been wonderful and productive. We have our shoe production underway, and are excited to be working with artisans we connected with last time here. UPAVIM (www.upavim.org) is one of the organizations we have worked with, and we are so pleased to see them strong and continuing their success. Our shoemaker Berto is also booked with us for the remainder of our stay, and we will be heading over to his home soon to work on shoe design ideas.

Some pics of:

• The grand volcano Agua (as seen from the street in Antigua)
• The view from our home.
• Our office (find the sleeping dog!)
• Our very little home. (It is actually a little room built on a roof, and we share the pila & kitchen with an 86 year old woman called Mena.)

• Aaron in morningtime: Volcano Fuego in the background puffing some spoke into the air.

Bush's Banned Interview: An Insight Into Insanity

2008-07-11T08:41:00.001-04:00

World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems.

2008-07-07T22:48:00.002-04:00

Source: WHO World Health Report -

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
38 Slovenia
39 Cuba
40 Brunei
41 New Zealand
42 Bahrain
43 Croatia
44 Qatar
45 Kuwait
46 Barbados
47 Thailand
48 Czech Republic
49 Malaysia
50 Poland
51 Dominican Republic
52 Tunisia
53 Jamaica
54 Venezuela
55 Albania
56 Seychelles
57 Paraguay
58 South Korea
59 Senegal
60 Philippines
61 Mexico
62 Slovakia
63 Egypt
64 Kazakhstan
65 Uruguay
66 Hungary
67 Trinidad and Tobago
68 Saint Lucia
69 Belize
70 Turkey
71 Nicaragua
72 Belarus
73 Lithuania
74 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
75 Argentina
76 Sri Lanka
77 Estonia
78 Guatemala
79 Ukraine
80 Solomon Islands
81 Algeria
82 Palau
83 Jordan
84 Mauritius
85 Grenada
86 Antigua and Barbuda
87 Libya
88 Bangladesh
89 Macedonia
90 Bosnia-Herzegovina
91 Lebanon
92 Indonesia
93 Iran
94 Bahamas
95 Panama
96 Fiji
97 Benin
98 Nauru
99 Romania
100 Saint Kitts and Nevis
101 Moldova
102 Bulgaria
103 Iraq
104 Armenia
105 Latvia
106 Yugoslavia
107 Cook Islands
108 Syria
109 Azerbaijan
110 Suriname
111 Ecuador
112 India
113 Cape Verde
114 Georgia
115 El Salvador
116 Tonga
117 Uzbekistan
118 Comoros
119 Samoa
120 Yemen
121 Niue
122 Pakistan
123 Micronesia
124 Bhutan
125 Brazil
126 Bolivia
127 Vanuatu
128 Guyana
129 Peru
130 Russia
131 Honduras
132 Burkina Faso
133 Sao Tome and Principe
134 Sudan
135 Ghana
136 Tuvalu
137 Ivory Coast
138 Haiti
139 Gabon
140 Kenya
141 Marshall Islands
142 Kiribati
143 Burundi
144 China
145 Mongolia
146 Gambia
147 Maldives
148 Papua New Guinea
149 Uganda
150 Nepal
151 Kyrgystan
152 Togo
153 Turkmenistan
154 Tajikistan
155 Zimbabwe
156 Tanzania
157 Djibouti
158 Eritrea
159 Madagascar
160 Vietnam
161 Guinea
162 Mauritania
163 Mali
164 Cameroon
165 Laos
166 Congo
167 North Korea
168 Namibia
169 Botswana
170 Niger
171 Equatorial Guinea
172 Rwanda
173 Afghanistan
174 Cambodia
175 South Africa
176 Guinea-Bissau
177 Swaziland
178 Chad
179 Somalia
180 Ethiopia
181 Angola
182 Zambia
183 Lesotho
184 Mozambique
185 Malawi
186 Liberia
187 Nigeria
188 Democratic Republic of the Congo
189 Central African Republic
190 Myanmar

Just back from Maine

2008-07-07T11:19:00.008-04:00

Maine: the way life should be...

perfect weather, family & friends, fireworks from a boat, charades & parades, long boat rides, rock skipping contests, oceans & sunsets, dogs and babies and moonpies!

Farewell Markets

2008-06-29T22:23:00.007-04:00

Aaron and I are officially done with our markets...until Christmas season of course!
We will miss all of our good fellow vendors...
Aaron crossing our street during sunset.

Double rainbow!!!!

Ryan Wilde (Milliner-Hat designer, Georgia (jeweler), Amy (jeweler, with one of Ryan's hats on!)

My super too-cool-for-school nephew...

2008-06-25T19:29:00.008-04:00

He's 4 years old!!! Time flies....

Chants help produce award-winning cheese....

2008-06-25T18:13:00.004-04:00

From mirror.co.uk............
Forget talking to flowers to help them grow - apparently chanting to cheese produces much better results.

The head of an Austrian school for dairy farmers claims that an album of chanting recorded by Gregorian monks has been responsible for their prize-winning cheese.

"Cheese matures with the help of micro-organisms which I am sure also feel vibes. The music is very simple and I think that is what helps," said head teacher Erich Kerngast.

The 'Chant Music of Paradise', which reached the top 10 in the UK charts is clearly number one to these Austrian cheese-makers, who play it on repeat to the two-and-a-half tonnes of cheese as it matures in the cellars of the school.

"We put in a Dolby Surround hi-fi system worth £1,600 and have been playing the Gregorian chant over and over again," said Mr Kerngast.

The dairy farmers are obviously doing something right: the school has won a (cheese) string of prizes for its Grottenhofer Auslese cheese since it began playing the monks' chants to the long-suffering produce.

Occhi & Ninja

2008-06-20T14:49:00.007-04:00

I just found a way to make my angry fish angier.

My neighbors cat, Ninja, is a frequent visitor to my apartment....she just discovered my red, angry, old betta fish Occhi. First, she stared for about an hour, I covered the tank top so she couldn't get to him, and then she staked her territory around his fish tank. If you look closely in the pictures, you can actually see Occhi on the defensive, flared up and ready to attack.

Staking her territory

Occhi on the attack

Ninja trying to get to him.

CBS Shoot

2008-06-18T19:55:00.007-04:00

Another really fun CBS shoot for a "Tony Tanillo" olive oil, vinegar, tomato sauce commercial for the NYC area. Our job was to create a pretty dinner scene, but also one that could be washed out white for the camera.

The frenzy of the production area with clients & producers.

Making sure the product money shot looks gooood.The dinner scene

Belur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar 1938

2008-05-20T11:43:00.004-04:00

B.K.S. Iyengar is the founder of Iyengar Yoga....amazing video footage from 1938.

Funny

2008-05-15T13:23:00.000-04:00

Brooklyn Flea & GQ

2008-05-12T14:54:00.004-04:00

My handsome hubby Fabio a.k.a. Aaron was scouted at the Brooklyn Flea by GQ Magazine to be one of their jean models for an article coming out soon...I don't think he is very interested. They made him "turn around" for one of the spec shots...

Hey Karen....I knew it....RADIAC

2008-05-12T10:53:00.003-04:00

From the GOWANUS LOUNGE:

The story of Williamsburg's Radiac Research Corporation is not a new one. The firm, which is on Kent Avenue, operates as a transfer station for low-level radioactive waste and hazardous chemicals, and has had its share of publicity, including a campaign to shut it down. Yet, it is still there, and the threat it presents in the case of an accident, fire or act of terrorism is sobering especially with thousands of new residents moving in nearby over the next two or three years.

Here's some verbiage from a document prepared by the Rezoning Task Force of Community Board 1 during the Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning debate in 2005:

Radiac, at Kent Avenue and S. 1st Street, serves as a transfer station for both hazardous chemicals and low-level radioactive waste. Because of the spatial inadequacies of the footprint of the facility, Radiac often operates with its doors open during loading/unloading of hazardous chemical and radioactive waste. A Molotov cocktail or a gunshot could set off a calamitous event. Engine Co. 212 was located ten blocks from Radiac and could have handled a fire rapidly enough to prevent a meltdown of the low-level nuclear waste (the EPA standard of cleanup of Radioactive events could lead to a 50-year evacuation and quarantine of Williamsburg and parts of Manhattan or Queens, depending on wind direction). This one facility stores up to critical mass of radioactive waste and flammable liquids, reactives, oxidizers, and explosives (up to 15,000 total gallons of hazardous chemical waste)...

If that's not enough to make a bite of lunch go down your windpipe, here's a bit more background color from an article in Block Magazine a while back:

That inventory, and charges that Radiac has been lax in the care and security of the chemicals, has residents and neighborhood activists pining for a relocation of the business to a less densely populated area. An accident in Radiac could easily trigger one of the worst environmental disasters New York City has ever seen, says Sean Nagle, the health and research director of activist organization El Puente’s Community Health and Education Institute...

We won't even get into the fact that there is nothing--utterly and absolutely nothing other than fate--to stop someone with evil intent from taking advantage of the situation, even if it has been somewhat mitigated. The horrifying possibilities aside, no one that we know of has collected any health data on the facility's neighbors, but it would be interesting to know whether there was any spike in cancers or other illnesses during the 25 years that Radiac has operated.It should be noted that Radiac is now a "10-day transfer facility," meaning that it no longer stores was for up to a year and that they are no longer allowed to store "incompatible chemicals" such as cyanide and acid. However, if you want to see what happened when vbs.tv went by with a geiger counter, click here. One community leaders told GL that "The community has let Radiac slip off the radar since they announced changes in what they would handle and for how long."

Radiac remains relevant as residential developments like Northside Piers, The Edge, 184 Kent and the housing that will likely go on the old Domino Plant site sprout nearby.

CBS Shoot

2008-05-08T12:31:00.009-04:00

Producer Adam D. on the left.

Aaron and I worked another CBS promotional shoot on Monday. It was super fun. I was in charge of wardrobe (don't the girls look fabulous?), and Aaron was the Art Department - Props (see all those shopping bags they are carrying???). Anyway it was shot in the trendy meat-packing district, right in front of Diane Von Furstenberg's store (and Diane herself actually showed in a dark green Bentley (well...she had a driver).

(I dropped my first lint roller in the dirtiest most disgusting puddle...it looked so sad lying there...)

The girl next to me in black is Hair & Makeup

Diane's Bentley

Dog Walking Zen

2008-05-07T16:26:00.011-04:00

I just found this organization called BARC literally blocks from my home. They allow the public to walk the shelter dogs from 9am-1pm and then 5pm-8pm Tues - Sat...it is so much fun! So far I have walked a young Pit Bull named Ruffles who took a shining to Aaron...and I walked an old little muffin called Diego. This is part of our nightly thing now...walking these dogs...it's great. Some more info below on this fabulous organization.

http://www.barcshelter.org/home/index.html

The BARC Shelter always needs financial support to help us help homeless dogs, cats, and other pets. Donations go toward the cost of food, board, vet exams, toys, litter, toys, leashes, collars, training crates, etc. Unless specified under one of the categories listed on this page, a donation is considered unrestricted and undesignated.

The Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition (BARC) is a 501c3 not-for-profit, no-kill, privately funded animal shelter, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Established in 1987, BARC receives no subsides from the city, state, or federal government. We meet the needs of homeless animals through the assistance of dedicated volunteers, revenues generated from the success of our pet supply business, and from private donations from people like you.

The Anxiety of the Middle Class New Yorker

2008-05-01T19:38:00.010-04:00

By Adam Bonislawski

Perhaps it’s just the vestigial influence of my suburban upbringing, but I’ve always felt slightly ridiculous living in New York.

My immigrant forebears arrived here 100 years ago and got the hell out as soon as they could. A century later, I moved back and presently find myself — after five years of fairly constant striving — with some modest savings, a handful of steady freelance gigs and the lease to a reasonably well-priced studio in a rapidly gentrifying outer-borough neighborhood off one of the city’s more notoriously temperamental subway lines. Personally, I’m delighted with the situation, but I’m not sure my ancestors would see this as progress.

To come to New York intending to make great gobs of money on Wall Street is one thing. To come to New York intending to eke out a quiet existence in some more moderately remunerative field (say, journalism) is quite another. The former makes perfectly good sense. Getting rich is a proud area tradition dating back at least to the days of Peter Minuit. The latter, however, is a nakedly bizarre pursuit requiring something in the way of explanation. Being middle class in today’s New York is like swimming the English Channel or climbing Everest without oxygen, or translating the Bible into LOLcats. Sure, it can be done, but is it really worth the effort? A city where the average apartment runs around $800,000 is not a place for those of modest means. In other words, shouldn’t you just move to Austin already?

People have their reasons, of course. Some are here to make art and live within the sort of large community of likeminded folks that exists in few (if any) other places in the country. Some are here to press themselves upon any one of the various industries the city dominates. Some are here because they came for college and now can’t bear the thought of not being able to get sushi at two in the morning. Some (myself) just really like to look at tall buildings.

In any case, it’s an enterprise that rests by and large upon a certain assumption of privilege. That a person feels able to spend their time scraping by in New York City is a sign that, in all likelihood, the demands of sheer material necessity aren’t pulling too strongly upon them. In fact, for such a materialistic town, there’s something curiously post-materialist about middle-class life as it’s lived in New York. If it’s stuff that you’re after you could almost surely do better somewhere else. For the same price as a decent studio in a Murray Hill co-op, you could buy a fully tricked out three-bedroom in a nice Dallas suburb. For the monthly rent on an Upper West Side one-bedroom, you could swing the lease on a new BMW and a sprawling home in one of Atlanta’s best neighborhoods. The decision to live in New York on $45,000 a year entails a sort of chosen asceticism. In the rest of the country a 32-year-old with roommates is a genuine oddity. Here you’ll find one around every corner.

What nags is the question of authenticity. Not authenticity in your traditional existential sense, but in the sense that, looking around New York, comparing the way life is lived here with the way it’s lived elsewhere, considering the relative inconvenience and difficulty of it all, you begin to wonder if you haven’t, perhaps, misread the situation; if the city you’ve been pretending to all this time isn’t actually real but just some anachronism you’ve taken from an old John Cheever story (and even Cheever eventually split for the suburbs).

When I was eight years old my family took a trip to Disney World. I came back wanting nothing more than to live out the rest of my natural life in Epcot’s faux-Viking village. In my more pessimistic moments, the notion of a New York middle class seems to me much the same sort of fantasy. There’s simply something unnatural about the idea, something unsustainable. There’s the bothersome sense that history, entropy, are flowing against you.
Which is not at all to recommend against sticking it out, but simply to highlight the somewhat gloomy backdrop looming behind the gallery openings, the dinner parties, the skyline views, the strolls in the park. At the end of the day, it’s all a very tenuous business. And barring sudden and dramatic changes in the wage structure of your typical corporation, or an utter collapse of the city’s real estate market, eventually many of us are going to have to leave.

Some won’t, of course. The hardcore bohemians will hunker down in Bushwick or the South Bronx or whatever neighborhood is next in line to be pioneered. Your more bourgeois diehards might take the ferry to Staten Island and cling to the city from across the harbor. Here and there a writer might hit it big with a book contract and plow their advance into renovating a brownstone in Sunset Park. Some tech company’s in-house yoga instructor could reap an unexpected windfall when their stock options vest. Bond traders will need spouses and galleryists will become real estate agents and young teachers will leave the classroom for law school and perhaps even an odd bartender or two will see their dreams of minor movie stardom come true. Who knows what might happen? Just last month a struggling novelist snagged an Upper East Side studio for $14,000 through a city housing lottery.

That’s the thing, though. It could all work out, but there’s no particularly good reason to think that it will. Most places, putting together a middle-class life is, if not exactly easy, at least a fairly ordinary accomplishment. You get a decent job, buy a modest house, start a college fund, send your kids to public school, etc. If nothing else, you have the illusion of control, a not unreasonable belief in the efficacy of your plans. In New York, unless your plan is to get rich (which, granted, as plans go, is not such a bad one), sooner or later either fortune will smile or you’ll find yourself in a moving van on the other side of the Hudson. By and large, the rest of the country is designed to let a person exist comfortably within the middle class. New York, as currently configured, essentially demands that you escape it.

The good news? When at last the time does come, you might actually be ready to get out of here anyway. A co-worker recently asked me if I’d ever been to Phoenix. Born and raised in Queens, he’d just come back from visiting a relative in Arizona.

“I don’t know, man,” he said, “It’s pretty nice out there. Quiet. Cheap. Warm all the time. For like $200,000 you can get a big house in a good neighborhood.

“Everyone’s always like, about New York — ‘I want the restaurants. I want the bars. I want the excitement.’ Yeah, sure, whatever. I’m like, ‘just give it a few years.’

“Believe me. You get over it.”

Eames Card a la Aaron

2008-04-29T17:11:00.002-04:00

Amazing!

Friends & Dogs

2008-04-29T14:20:00.005-04:00

It is spring and everyone crawls out of their burrows for a cold beer, friends, and the very special, Little Rock.

At work in our Stu-Stu-Studio

2008-04-24T16:25:00.003-04:00

Laundry Day

2008-04-22T12:26:00.002-04:00

In front of our apartment building.

Passover was very festive in our neighborhood.

2008-04-22T12:14:00.006-04:00

Welcome back...

2008-02-01T15:26:00.001-05:00

I just saw this written on the bathroom wall here at work:
"Artists - always shamelessly promoting themselves"