Sunday, July 3, 2011

Search for the shirt.

Every time I go to the 1000 islands I take a boat ride to town to look for the American flag shirt that I bought years ago and wore till there was nothing left of it.  Once again, this year they did not have it at the souvenir store near the town dock in Clayton, NY where I bought the thing years ago.  I will certainly keep trying as I have become obsessed with finding another one of these elusive shirts.

So anyway here I am, two weeks later, watching HBO's Treme and the dude in the closing sequence is wearing the damn shirt!  Maybe there is still hope?

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Some pics from the drive up.

The clouds were amazing as I drove up, it looked like I was going towards good weather, then bad, then good, then uncertain, then AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS!!! 








I posted some pics to facebook as I was driving, so fun.  I send the words "happening now" with each shot.   I had gotten a jump on summer and I was gonna brag about it. 


A long needed vacation.



Summer is almost here and work has slowed down a bit so after a week of looking for that next big project I thought I would just take some time off.  I tried to find a partner in crime but after a few friends opted out I decided to go it alone.  I booked a cabin in the 1000 Islands in upstate New York and started packing.  I normally would be very busy this time of year but what the heck I am long overdue for a vacation and I got a great rate as the bass fishing season does not start for another few weeks in NY.  Since I would be alone, I thought I might also start that blog that I have been meaning to write while I am away - just for fun.  Maybe.  As it turns out - shortly after arriving I pulled a muscle in my back as luck would have it and now need to slow down a bit - perfect excuse to get my blog on!  (Insert "The Shining" reference here.)

How did I pull a muscle you might ask?  Well, I will tell you.  I am so overdue for a vacation that I wanted to make it really great - and seeing as I would be alone I brought tons of "stuff to do" - and, I guess, "blog" about doing?  Maybe.  I am gonna "make the best of it" was the plan either way.  Tons of "stuff to do" unfortunately involves "tons of stuff" - which I had to pack, load into my luxurious (not) 2003 Prius and drive the six hours from Chappaqua to Clayton New York here in the 1000 Islands.  Of course, after the six hour drive my stuff had to be moved from my car into the boat that I rented - to cross the St Lawrence to the Island where I am now.  My stuff then had to get from the boat to the dock and finally up the stairs, then the hill, then more stairs to the house - thankfully, my stuff and I are able to stay on the ground floor of this very large cabin - as I have the whole thing to myself.  What a bargain!  We were gonna be all set to have a great time together - me and my stuff, now that the hard part was over.  I yelped a hearty "Yeah baby!" as I cracked open my first ice-cold beer.

With the brutal journey behind me and my first beer can drained I cheerfully extracted my iPod, Bose-donut-speaker, towel, yoga-matte and my red cooler from my stuff and stumbled back down to the dock.  When I got down there I plugged in and punched up a tasty Van Morrison iPod playlist, set my levels just right, pulled up a chair and sat back to enjoy the day.  AWESOME!!!  Happily two beers into my cooler full of ice-cold Budweiser it was time to lay down and stretch my tired back - only to find myself, in short order, unable to move.  The "awesome" was great while it lasted, oh well.  Lying there alone on the dock with the mother of all tons-of-stuff-induced-back-spasms I thought - although I am not working this week, I have been working around the clock for months - which, for my job, involves a lot of sitting and I found myself saying out loud:  "Note to self, get more exercise".  My cellphone was, of course, safely tucked away - with my stuff - up in the house.  Again I spoke out loud:  "Note to self, keep your phone with you when you are alone on an island, dumb-ass."  So there I was, practically paralyzed with no cellphone and alone - as far as I could tell - on this beautiful island.  I took a deep breath then suddenly realized I was looking at the bluest sky I had seen in a long time and as the bright warm sun smiled down on me, I said out loud:  "it could be worse" this time speaking to someone else - but what was I to do?  I decided to pull big red closer and enjoy the sun to Van's Morrison's greatest hits as I dug into my ice cold stockpile of Bud.  I wound up spending the rest of the day there trying to yoga and/or drink myself out of spasm - I was not about to complain but I did really want to get up and go play with my stuff.



This picture is from the dock as I was laying down right before my back went into spasm.