Friday, April 11th, 2008
I feel like I am reporting breaking news or something here.
I was on my way down to Lowe’s this afternoon when I happened to notice a very large area of black smoke in the sky in Middletown, NY. I kept looking at it, but it was over the horizon, so I couldn’t see what was causing it. I did my shopping in Lowe’s and pulled out of the parking lot. On the way out, I got these photos:
I thought this couldn’t be a good thing. Anyway, I wanted to see what the heck was causing all that smoke, so I checked it out online at this website. Apparently, Lee’s Quality Tire in New Hampton was on fire. A worker dropped a gasoline soaked rag on a light fixture and the place went up.
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Posted in Current Events | 2 Comments »
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
Today, Laura and I had to bring Holly the dog to the vet. She had to have her teeth cleaned and some minor surgery. The vet had to put Holly under (not down, as Rob mistakenly thought today), so we had to burn about six hours of the day. Since we live an hour away from the vet, we decided to head up to Millbrook, NY for a visit. It got to be about 68 degrees and sunny today, so it was the perfect day for a little road trip.
Millbrook is a nice little town in Dutchess County. It has some farms and a nice little main street. I’m sure many people would like it if you brought them there. Believe it or not, I actually know someone who grew up in Millbrook. It must’ve been fun.
Anyway, The first thing we did was to cruise down Main Street. We parked the car and walked down to a little park at the end of the road. Paul would know the name of it. I’m sure he’ll write a comment for me.
I gotta say, it is a very nice park indeed. We walked up the zigzag sidewalk and then back down. Of course, I had to stop to take a few pictures.
There was a nice bridge over a small pond. The pond waterfall wasn’t running though. I am going to write someone a letter about that.
I call this the “chair of thought.” I sat in the chair of thought for about 30 seconds…just long enough for Laura to take this photo of me. I wanted everyone to know exactly how smart I can really look.
After we were done with the park, we walked up and down the main street again to check out all the little shops. I think the town is quite content with itself. Everyone looked very satisfied. That’s a good feeling if you live in a little town. We found a good restaurant to eat in, but they weren’t ready to serve until noon, so we decided to go to the Trevor Zoo at the Millbrook School. This has been on our agenda for some time and we figured it would be a great thing to do before eating lunch.
On the way to the zoo, I pulled over to look at a horse. Then, I thought to myself that a picture of the nearby farm would be a good thing to show my loyal readers. That would be the picture above.
As we drove down the road, I realized that we were coming upon the Millbrook School itself. I had no idea that it was a fancy private school. I was picturing those plastic slides like they have in the backs of some nursery schools. Um, not so much. After we parked the car, we took a stroll up the road because I saw some purple flowers I wanted to take a picture of.
Now, I didn’t know what to expect with this zoo. I even went as far as telling Laura that I didn’t want to go because I feared it would be just some pig in someone’s backyard. She expressed to me how important it was for us to go, so I agreed. This is the second time that I was wrong about someplace and she was right. The first time was Block Island. Boy was I wrong about that one. You know, it really hurts a guy’s ego to be wrong twice in a relationship. Good thing it was only twice.
As we walked up, we saw a nice waterfall and a bridge. It was the entrance to Trevor Zoo. Oh, how neat. It looked much bigger than I thought it would. After we went in, we saw how many animals they had.
They had birds and turkeys…
…and they even had this big bird that wouldn’t put its wings down. I guess he was getting some sun. We also saw rabbits and lemurs, a deer and a bunch of other stuff. There weren’t many people there, so it was really pleasurable. That, mixed with the nice weather was really making this a day after all.
This is just a great last shot I took of the Millbrook School from the Trevor Zoo. Obviously, I am on the other side of the pond.
After we left the zoo, we headed back into town for that lunch I was telling you about. We ate a nice meal and headed out to our next destination…the Millbrook Vineyards & Winery. At this point, it was about 1:30PM, so we were spreading things out nicely.
We rolled up to the winery with some wine tasting in mind. Good thing in was a Thursday in April, because there were only a few people there.
We paid $14 for the both of us to taste seven wines. We also got to keep the wine glasses we drank out of. To follow our tradition, we bought a bottle of wine before we left. I guess that’s what people do. I think we got a Cabernet. I am not such a huge fan of that type of wine, but Laura seemed interested, so again, I agreed. I know, I know…yes, I am a catch.
I thought I would throw those last three shots in there. I had to do something while we were waiting for the tasting guy. Besides, I was trying to show off my “angles” to my lady.
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Posted in Food & Drink, Spring, Travels | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
I went outside yesterday to take a few photos of some buds on some trees. I grabbed a few good ones of our Thundercloud Purple Leaf Plum and the Bradford Pear.
I have to say, this blog has been very handy for me to look at when I start wondering when things are going to bloom. Every Spring I think the same thing…when is this going to grow, when is that going to bud? I asked those questions last year, so I thought ahead. Last year, I began documenting (with photos), right here on this blog, when things start changing. Now, all I have to do is look at the archives on my blog to find out. Pretty cool…
Anyway, here are the photos I took yesterday:
This photo is our Thundercloud Purple Leaf Plum. That’s a pretty cool tree, but the Japanese Beetles LOVE it. Beware. I hope to get some nice growth on it this year.
This is the Bradford Pear that we have in the front yard. It grows kind of slow, from what I have seen.
I will be taking more photos as the season goes on.
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Posted in Trees & Shrubs | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
How We Tweet: The Definitive List of the Top Twitter Clients
Twitter has one of the fastest growing application ecosystems of any web service outside of Facebook. For this post, we looked at 37,248 tweets and found 142 different ways in which people interact with the Twitter service. Some of the results, which follow below, were rather surprising.
Is Ethanol Production Fueling the Size of the Dead Zone?
Every year a New Jersey-size patch of the Gulf of Mexico where no sea life can be sustained is created by nitrogen-based fertilizer runoff. This runoff comes largely from corn production, which is now tied heavily to the production of ethanol in areas of the Midwest where the runoff comes from. So what can we do about it?
5 Best Instant Messengers Compared & Analyzed
5 Winners from the 550 comments on Lifehacker from users of IM services. They are compared and analyzed so that you can select the ones right for you.
World’s First Commercially Viable Cellulosic Ethanol Plant O
Range Fuels Inc. announced yesterday it has secured over $100 million in Series B funding, an investment that could make it the first company to seriously commercialize cellulosic ethanol. The first phase of construction will produce 20 million gallons of mixed alcohols per year by 2009, and has the potential to expand to up to 120 million gallons.
Diesel Grows On Trees, Seriously
Apparently scientists (and some of our readers, surely) have known that we can grow oil for years, and not in the grow-corn-make-oil kind of way. The Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii can be tapped for a natural diesel fuel that requires simple filtering before being poured into a truck. Is it viable for world use?
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