Prelude to Fall

New York City has been experiencing a little taste of autumn these past several days -- my kind of weather! It's been moodily dark, rainy, and deliciously cold for going on 4 days now. Perfect jacket weather. And you already know how I love jacket weather.

It's had a remarkable effect on my mood. Suddenly my spirits are lifted and I feel as if I can take on the world! Wow ... I honestly don't know what it is, but summer heat and sunshine seriously drags me down. I walk around for 3 months generally feeling "ugh!" the entire time.

Well, ok, that's not exactly true. I must admit that after a long winter, those first few weeks in June around here can feel refreshing. Walking around in short sleeves for the first time after many, many months hidden indoors I can all but feel my skin greedily soaking up that vitamin D! And, yes, it gives a heady rush of feel good endorphins for a brief time.

But then summer has the nerve to go on for another two months or more, and that brief love affair I have with it wears off quick. By the time September rolls around, I'm so over her!

And so, yeah, this isn't yet the start of cool, crisp Fall weather around here. It's really just a short-lived taste of things to come 6 or so weeks from now. But it's enough to make me a truly happy camper this one week at least. On my way to work yesterday morning, I lugged my camera with me and took the following atmospheric and dramatic shots on the rainy streets of Greenwich Village:

It's days likes these when the Big Apple truly looks like its DC Comics counterpart -- Gotham City. I'm pretty sure Batman keeps watch some nights from atop that clocktower.

My Happy Time of the Year is Here!

Oh, thank the Seven that September is finally here!

I thought it might never come, what with how blastedly hot and humid it's been around these parts for the past 3 months. This has been a hotter than normal summer for the New York City area, and oh how I've suffered because of it. I hate the heat! Yeah, I'm sure I mentioned it before more than a few times on this blog. But it bears repeating.

Well now that summer is unofficially over thanks to the passing of Labor Day yesterday, that can only mean one thing: MY BIRTHDAY IS NEAR!!!

Yup, it'll be upon me in a few days, and I'll be turning 42. It's the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, oh didn't you know? That number is. So how can I possibly be nothing but thrilled about being 42? Truth be told, I have no hang ups over growing older. I'm happy, successful, and living comfortably. More importantly, I'm still in excellent health!

So basically this means I get to enjoy the day for what it is: a celebration of my life on this planet for the past 42 years. As an eternal optimist, this is the only way I can view the occasion.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more to say after the actual day has come and gone. Stay tuned!

In the meanwhile, this past weekend I traveled upstate to visit my sister living in Hudson, New York. I got up early in the morning and rushed to Grand Central Terminal to catch the first Amtrak train smoking and heading north. The main waiting area, pictured above, was very quiet and subdued for being just before the start of rush hour. I had about an hour to wait for my train, so in the meantime I had breakfast at a nearby indoor diner, browsed a newsstand next, and then finally had some time to snap photos with the camera gear I had brought with me.

See, I was going to visit my sister and to see her baby girl -- my first ever niece! -- who has just turned 6 months old. I had seen her shortly after she was born, of course, but now she would be wide awake, sitting up, and even playing with toys. So I knew I just had to bring my camera for the occasion. I won't post any of her pics here, but suffice to say that my niece is quite the cutie! OMG, she is so beautiful and very adorably chubby! I couldn't be any happier for my sis, and she's being such a great mom. Our mother would be so proud of her if she were alive today.

It was great seeing my family, including my auntie and her husband, again. We all had dinner at a nearby restaurant in town, and it was great to have that connection.

Eventually, though, I headed back to the city. While sitting in the dining car having a coffee by the big windows of the train, I saw so much beauty upon the waters of the Hudson river that I had to pull my camera out and snap off a few shots. Because the train was speeding like a bat out of hell, however, I had to adjust the shutter speed on my cam to a fast enough rate so as to minimize the blur:

Considering that I shot this through a dirty, smudgy window ... I think it came out pretty decent. I love sunset light! It makes every landscape photo look so surreal and gorgeous!

So, now that summer is drawing to an end in an official capacity soon -- what are you looking forward to the most about the coming Fall season?

Me, it's jacket weather. I love jacket weather! I know it may sound silly, but I've always felt most comfortable going out in the world in a jacket or hoodie with big pockets. That's the key, see: pockets! I need to have pockets on me when I go out, and jeans or trousers alone just don't cut it. I have like a billion things to carry, and I detest schlepping along a backpack or satchel to carry them in with a fiery, hot passion. So more pockets help, yes.

Am I the only one who loves jacket weather for this reason?

Do You Remember . . .?

A typical September day in New York's Central Park.

. . . SEPTEMBER!!!

Yup, it's that time of year again. My favorite of them all, in fact . . . the month to beat all months. Yes, friends, my favorite time is finally here! I love September, and now I'm very happy. Happy not just because I was born in this month, but because it marks the end of that most hated season of all -- Summer!

Now, yes, we still have 3 more weeks of official Summer to go, but psychologically flipping the calendar from August is all it takes to get me in the Fall mood. For me, summer is over NOW! And thus commences one of my favorite times of the year, that stretch between Labor Day and Christmas Day. It doesn't get any better.

So where other people are starting to slow down, dress warmer, and prepare to hunker down for a long Winter ahead, my body is just waking up and starting to get the juices flowing. I'm more productive during this time of year, especially mentally. The months of July and August are just one endless foggy gap in my memory that I try to put behind me. Nothing of worth has ever happened to me in those months. Except get married, of course. And on second thought, we all know what a bad association that is for me now, so you can scratch that off the list.

So, yeah, nothing good at all happens to me in the Summer. Blech!

Although my friend Yvonne has beaten me to the punch and already put this up on Facebook -- I don't care! I have to share this video here on the blog. It's a tradition, dammit! Come celebrate with me this favorite month of mine by clicking on the video below. This song perfectly encapsulates how happy I'm feeling right now. In fact, it's seriously making me want to get up and dance:





Yes, you know you can't resist the beat, either. You just KNOW your feet are getting happy and want to move to the rhythm. So go ahead and DANCE!!! It's a joyous occasion.

Hey, hey, hey-eh ...
Ba de ya, say do you remember?
Ba de ya, dancing in September!
Ba de ya, never was a cloudy daaaaaaaaaaay . . .

Storm's Comin

Working from home today because the city is shut down due to "Frankenstorm" Hurricane Sandy currently bearing down on the northeastern seaboard. Landfall is estimated to be a few hours from now, just a little south of Atlantic City, although I wouldn't find it far-fetched if it lands somewhere north of there. Either way that places New York City directly in the path of the hurricane's strongest winds on its northeastern quadrant. Already we're experiencing over 50 mph winds, and the worst won't even come until after 6 tonight when winds are projected to reach anywhere between 80 and 90 mph at their strongest. Yikes!

Of course, the actual worst part is not so much the winds (we've weathered worst hurricanes, wind-wise), but the huge storm surge it will bring when high tide comes. We could see 11 foot waves crashing into lower Manhattan, which is more than high enough to breach the barriers in place down there. And wouldn't you know it, that's near where I work!

Luckily the city's had the foresight to shut down the metro system and tell everyone to stay home. I'm doing fine where I live, as we're quite elevated above the rest of the city and all our power lines are beneath the ground. Living here all my life, we've never once had the power shut down due to a storm. Not once. And so long as I have my Internet and refrigerator, I'm sitting pretty and waiting the whole thing out.

So, in other words: I'm doing fine, my friends. Completed the short story I've been working on last night and looking forward to going back in and pruning about 2,000 words or so. Will be one hell of an edit, but I think I can do it. I want to get the story under 5k words if possible, although that might be too tall of an order for the type of tale I wanted to tell. We'll see.

How are things in your neck of the woods? If you're in the path of Sandy as well, how are you faring?

Lastly, I hope you all are preparing for Halloween later this week. Last year Mother Nature came as a Nor'easter. This year, she's a hurricane. Can anyone top that?

A Driving First

So this past weekend I drove my grandma, sister, sis's boyfriend, and their dog 130 miles north up to my aunt's house in rural upstate New York for a family get together, and in the process experienced a driving milestone that I've managed to go 18 years avoiding. Yes, I got pulled over by a state trooper for speeding!

GASP!

I saw the dude, too, right at the last moment. Parked against oncoming traffic in a tree-shaded ditch just past the shoulder. I had already avoided five similar speed traps prior to this one, and was only 20 minutes away from my aunt's home when it happened. Grrrrr! Ain't that often the case? Well, what the hell would I know? Like I said, this was the first time such a thing has ever happened to me. So I zoomed right past the guy and immediately knew I was in trouble. And so I did what any honest, law-abiding driver would do: I immediately shifted into the right lane, slowed down, and tried to hide among the other cars travelling the road with me.

But I guess these guys have seen this trick before. Because, nope, didn't fool him one bit! Next thing I knew, blue and red lights were flashing in my rearview. Shit! So I pulled over and this very young state trooper dude comes up to my window. My sister's dog is barking nonstop from the back seat, mind you, but this didn't seem to faze the guy at all.

After asking for my licence, he asked: "Why are you in such a hurry?"
Me: "I have no idea."
Him: "Do you know what the speed limit is?"
Me: "Fifty-five?"
Him: "And do you know how fast you were going?"
Me: "Uhhhh . . . seventy?"
Him: "Seventy-seven!"

Ouch! Busted! Yes, sometimes I have a bit of a lead foot, folks. Especially on super long, sparsely traveled scenic highways when I'm bored out of my skull. And especially when I'm almost--just ALMOST--at my destination. But the trooper was a nice sort, and seemed to warm up when I told him of our destination. I guess he was a local and knew the town where my aunt lived. He must have figured I wasn't some out of town gunrunner or something, just blowing through on my way to Canada. My granny certainly wasn't packing, anyway. So he ran a check on my license, found that, as usual, my record was completely clean, and then let me go with just a promise that I wouldn't do that again.

I told him that I wouldn't, and I meant it. I really did. But of course . . .

Anyway, so that was my brief and first real run in with "the law" this weekend. How was yours?

Oh, and before I go, here are some pics of the rental car and my aunt and uncle's property where we had a cookout and even a bonfire going to ward off the mid-October chill. The last three pics are panoramas acquired using the new automatic function on my iPhone 5. Pretty nifty for "cheating" your way through wide-angle shots. As always, clicke for larger views.

The Ford Escape in front of my aunt's house.
Not bad for a Zipcar.

My aunt's driveway, with their newly purchased trailer in the back.

Bonfire a-brewing out back. My sister's dog, Shiva, in the foreground.

Food and beer aplenty out on the patio. One of the guests
brought their own pooch, Ralph, to the party.

As you can see, they're not quite at peak foliage season up in the higher elevations of New York state yet--but they're very close! Of course, down here in the city we won't be seeing those colors until the end of the month or right around Election Day.

Suddenly In The Mood To Re-Watch Game Of Thrones

. . . Because, Winter is HERE!

Okay, okay -- no, it's still Fall. Let me not get carried away. Heck, it's still OCTOBER for crying out loud! It never snows in NYC in October. Ever! And yet it did today.

Many of you know how much I love Winter. And snow. And so today it was like Christmas came early for me. Completely threw my body for a loop! All morning long I kept thinking it was much later in the year than it actually was. It all began shortly after 11 am. I looked out my windows and saw:

Holy HELLS! Now, yes, before some of you start: I know this is nothing compared to the Midwest or whatever. But that's not the point. Trust me, we're not strangers to snow here in New York, either. No, the point is that it is only October 29th. It's not even Halloween yet!

Another thing is, the stupid forecasters got it all wrong. They kept going on and on all last night about how only the surrounding areas of upstate New York and New Jersey would get snow, and that NYC would have mostly rain and ice during the day today before turning over to SOME snow near midnight. Well, guess what? They were WRONG! And not only was it snowing so early in the day, but it started to pick up furiously less than an hour later:

Wow! Now that's what I like to see! I was so happy I didn't know what to do with myself. Fortunately (or, maybe the best word is UNFORTUNATELY, according to my wife), we had to go out in this stuff! Yup, Lisa and I had already made plans for today, and so off we went. I couldn't get over the fact that we were busting out the winter clothes so soon, too -- coats, boots, gloves and scarves! The temp reading was a nice 34 degrees out. In October. Before we left, I took one last pic. You can already see how it's starting to stick and accumulate, despite the fact that the trees and grass are still green here:

All in all, this was a delightful surprise for a Saturday. It greatly lifted my spirits, and at the same time I got to witness some pretty sketchy looking driving on the roads from drivers who should really know better about handling themselves in snow. I drove through not one but TWO freakishly cruel blizzards last Winter and survived, so I felt like I was a master at it by now. Today's snow was great, but in actuality it really only amounted to a dusting. Child's play, really. I imagine it will all be gone by mid-afternoon tomorrow, too. Bummer!

Still, I find myself daring to hope this means we'll be getting an early and ferocious Winter. I honestly thrive on such chaos, it seems. I absolutely get off on it!

Yes, I said it before and I'll say it again: I am WEIRD! :)

Hope all of you are having a fun weekend as well. Unless of course you're Texas Rangers fans, then . . . uh, yeah.

Autumn Is Officially Here

Well, for me that is.

I took my wife apple picking this weekend. The weather wasn't looking too great for it Friday night, pouring rain like cats and dogs and all. But bright and early next morning it looked like a doable day for it, so I took out a Zipcar from the nearby garage and we drove about 90 minutes north of NYC to a family orchard in Warwick. I've never been there before, but it was a quaint little place. The smell of trees and all that fresh air reminded me a lot of my college days spent in the northern wilds of Vermont. And although it drizzled on and off the entire time, it was a very nice day for picking apples.

My favorite apple is the Red Delicious variety. Why? Well, because it's neither too tart nor too mushy--two things I absolutely loathe in an apple. A good Red Delicious has a chewy outer skin, crisp and watery inner, and can be eaten practically to the core without oxidizing too badly and getting all brown and gross. My next favorite apple is the good ole Macintosh. That one's a little more sweet than the Red Delicious, but still very good. It has to be very fresh and not overly ripened for me to enjoy one, though. Which is why I never eat Macs in the city. By the time they reach the fruit stands here, they've usually gone too soft.

Luckily for me, the two varieties that were ripe on the trees this time of year (last week of September, early October) are the Red Delicious and Mac types. So I scored big time by going now. Yay me! The dirt roads in the orchards were very muddy, however, so the Nissan Sentra I had rented out for the day had a tough go at it. Everything was going fine, for the most part. We had picked around three bags worth of apples, and were just leaving the farm when the missus decided she wanted to check out a grove of Concords off the side of the road. Me being an idiot, I drove off the road right up under the trees.

Big mistake.

After we had picked a few apples, we got back in the car and I reversed. Only to find the Sentra going nowhere fast. Sonuvabitch! I got out of the car and found the tires mired deep in mud and loose grass. We were stuck! Why oh why didn't I pick a 4WD vehicle instead, I thought. The Sentra didn't even have a lower drive setting--grrrr!

I tried pushing the front of the car while my wife reversed, but still no go. The tires were only sinking deeper. It was one of the most frustrating predicaments I'd ever been in. At one point, I got so bent out of shape pushing at the front bumper that I slipped almost face first into the mud. Do you know what it feels like to have your clothes completely covered in wet mud, and nowhere to go to wash it off or change into another set? I would've settled for a hose at the back of a barn at that point, actually. Not only that, but the mud smelled like manure. Yep, that's right: I smelled like a cow's ass!

But anyway, that was the least of my worries. I still had to figure out how to get the car unstuck. We were out in the middle of nowhere, and God only knew where the main house was. Luckily, I found a stack of hay bales nearby. I grabbed one and lugged it on over to the car. I then proceeded to stuff hay beneath and behind the tires, jamming it in there really nice in the hopes that I could give myself some traction. After several touch and go attempts--by which I mean the car got unstuck and then stuck again numerous times--I finally managed to push the car to some gravelly ground with the help of a few kind strangers who assisted me in pushing.

Unfortunately, the Zipcar was covered in more mud than I was now. Arrgh! There was no way I could return it looking like this. Even worse, I had no choice but to climb back into the driver seat and muddy up the interior now.

*sigh*

Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.

But, I took it all in stride I have to say. I drove and found the main area eventually. My wife and I sat down with some other pickers at picnic table and had some apple cider (yum!) and apple cider donuts (double YUM!!), and purchased a homemade apple pie to take home. Yes, it was a very apply Saturday for us. :)

But, boy, you should have seen the stares I was getting from everyone. I looked like I had come out of the losing end of a rugby match--YECK! I even had mud caked in my hair. And my shoes were shit! But they were hiking boots so that's what they were designed for, I guess. The whole time I was driving home, I couldn't wait to get out of those clothes, drop them in the washer on the "HEAVY SOIL" setting, and then take a nice hot shower.

But first I had to take care of the car.

Luckily I stopped by a car wash in the Bronx just before reaching home. I paid for the FULL SERVICE option and watched a team of undocumented workers who couldn't speak English go to town on the interior first. Then the car went through the old washer-roo and I watched on the waiting end as it got all spit-shined and polished. Wow! What a difference that made! I wish I had remembered to take pictures of it all, but by this time I just wanted to get home. I tipped the workers generously, though, then hopped in and burned rubber out of there! Got the Zipcar back to the garage with time to boot, then trekked the two blocks home while generating even more odd stares. Funny thing was, they're filming a movie in my neighborhood. The trailers had been set up on my street, and I'm sure someone thought I was some sort of extra or something. I passed by the crafts services truck and the guy working the counter gave me a double take.

Hmmm, on second thought . . . I should have tried to score some free food!

Anyway, I'm home now and I have delicious apple-tastic treats to show for it. Well not show, per se, as I don't want to bother with the camera right now. So you'll just have to take my word for it, but they're GOOD!

It's getting pretty chilly here in New York, too. Temps are now in the 60s for the following week, with nighttime temps even getting as low as the upper 40s here. Sweet! Perfect sleeping weather! I do so love this time of year.

Otherwise, I hope you guys had an awesome weekend. Tell me about it in the comments section, if you please.

Hmm, Signs Of Global Warming?

Nah, I don't think so. Not in only two years' time. However, this *is* a little strange. Check out this photo I took outside my window back on November 7th, 2008:

If you would like to see additional pics from different angles for the same photo shoot, check out the original blog entry from that day by clicking here. As you can see, the leaves on the tress in the park across the street are fully changed over to their Fall colors and had already started dropping. As I recall, that year we had a pretty average Summer with predictable rain fall amounts and no abnormal temp hikes. At the time I did believe that we were experiencing Fall later and later in the year than I remembered as a child, but eventually just took it as the norm. However, fast forward almost exactly 2 years to the day, and here is a pic I just took outside the same window this afternoon:

I also took a larger panoramic of the entire park to give you an overview of how the rest of the trees are faring  (click on the image to see a larger version):

Now, are my eyes deceiving me, or is the foliage nowhere near the same level of changeover as it was during this same time back in 2008? That's a pretty dramatic difference if you ask me, and I honestly don't have any explanation for it. This past Summer was one of the most brutal we've had in a while, with ridiculously high temperature spikes, very little rainfall, and quite a few severe wind storms approaching tornado levels on at least two separate occasions. This was not a kind Summer for trees in the 5 Boroughs of New York City. And yet, judging from the pic above, the trees are retaining their foliage far later into the Fall season than in previous years.

Does anybody out there have an explanation for this? I'm stumped!

Trying Out A New iPhone App . . .

Yesterday I made the long drive up to my Aunt's and Uncle's house, which is way out in the middle of the woods in upstate New York. They had their last outdoor cookout of the year there, and I had a good time. I also thought it would be the perfect opportunity to test out this new iPhone application called "Pano," which allows you to take panoramic pics with your iPhone -- in effect "cheating" a much wider angle than you would normally be able to achieve on any phone's camera. You take around 4 or 5 pics, moving your viewer to the right with each photo taken, and line up your next shot with the previous one to get as close to a seamless stitch as possible. Once you've taken the required number of photos, the software goes to work and blends each one together so that you have one super wide-angle shot. I was impressed!

I ended up taking several panos around the property, which you can see below. Click on each one and to see a larger image:

As you can see, the leaves have already changed and have even begun to fall this far North. By contrast, down in my neck of the woods in NYC -- we've barely begun the changeover process even though it's already October. I provided a pano I took just this morning outside my bedroom window in the Bronx for comparison:

Pretty neat, huh? I'll take another one in a few weeks to show just how long it takes for it to really start looking like Fall around here. Usually, we don't start looking like upstate NY until the end of the month and into the start of November. Although we've had a problem with drought conditions this summer, so I expect the leaves will start turning sooner and more severely than in years past. We'll see.

The cookout ended with roasting S'mores around a bonfire -- although, to be accurate, they were roasted before the fire got as big as it is in the pic below:

All in all, I had a great time and got to meet a lot my Aunt's and Uncle's friends. I left their place around 8 for the 3 hour drive back to the city alone (Lisa was at work). It was a long, boring drive in mostly pitch black conditions along lonely and curvy roads. But I had an audio book to keep me company the whole way, so I was fine. At one point, a fox ran across the road lightning-quick in front of me. Luckily he was far enough away--and didn't look directly into my high beams--that I didn't even have to swerve or slow down. I had my fingers crossed that no deer would attempt to jump in front of my car, though -- and none did. Phew!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Winter Is Coming

That's the Stark family motto from George R. R. Martin's fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. But I think it's rather appropriate to describe the beautifully moody and overcast day we're having today here in the Bronx. I'm so excited that Fall is upon us! This picture taken outside my living room window displays, for me, the quintessential October weekend in NYC. True, we're not yet far enough along to have proper autumn foliage here in the tri-state area . . . but we're getting there. And it's days like today that hit the message home:

Summer is OVAR, people!

*does happy dance*

Ahem. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program . . .

My Favorite Time Of The Year

I'm a cold weather person. The colder the better. If Alaska wasn't such a jacked-off, redneck hunter's paradise, I would seriously consider moving there. I mean, it has so much of what I love -- mountains, nature, solitude, and COLD! And being that I'm more at ease during the nighttime than I am in daylight, I could deal with the whole eternal darkness thing for a few weeks out of the year, too!

And yet, despite all this, winter is not my favorite season. That would be autumn. I've loved this season ever since I was a kid, and not just for the cool colors, but because of all the promise the Fall brings with it. This is my favorite time of the year because the weather starts to turn cooler, drearier, and also cleaner. When the wind shifts from out of the southwest to now from the northwest, the air has that crisp, clean freshness to it that you don't get the rest of the year here in the northeast. It smells of mountains and freedom to me. As a kid, there was also the added bonus of the big holidays -- Thanksgiving and Christmas. This meant time away from school and being with family and getting lots of gifts! :)

Yeah, you can see where my real priorities were.

So each year around this time I start to get excited, although family get-togethers are far smaller and fewer between than before. And of course, I don't get quite the same Christmas haul as I used to as a kid. Still, when the leaves turn that's when my mood changes. I get happier for no specific reason, and suddenly the world's problems don't nearly seem as pressing.

The only downside, however, is living in NYC around this time since the city takes far longer to fall into the traditional Fall patterns than the rest of the outlying areas. I never noticed this oddity until I went to college in Vermont, where the leaves there start to change in late September/early October.

In NYC, they start to turn around Halloween. Even today, one week later, the leaves are only barely midway through the cycle of change and discard. See for yourself:

(I took these pics from our bedroom windows this morning.)

Ultimately, the best thing about Fall is that Winter is not far behind it. I love anticipating the first snows and welcome the truly bleak and blistering weather to come in mid-January and February. When others are cursing the season, I'm grinning and feeling more alive than I've ever felt. This is why I miss Vermont so much. NYC just doesn't cut it when it comes to having *true* winters. All the concrete and crowds just retain too much heat to make it really bone-chilling cold the way I prefer. And of course the air is far cleaner up north in Vermont, too.

Maybe someday I'll move back? Not likely since Lisa, being a true Caribbean girl from Kingston, cannot stand the cold. She would prefer we move to Florida or San Diego -- or even Hawaii.

Blech! I don't know what I'd do without my changing seasons.