Hudson Cruise

One of the shining moments of the August '08 NY trip was the afternoon boat cruise Dad and I took on the Hudson River. Starting from the Rondout (the restored, historic Kingston waterfront), we rode downriver one hour, turned around, and came back, seeing many historic mansions, monasteries, fruit orchards, and lighthouses along both banks.

Joe at the Rondout

The Rondout: good restaurants, shops, & museums

Our ship, the Rip Van Winkle (we sat on the upper deck)

Wreckage in Rondout Creek

The Kingston Lighthouse, where Rondout Creek empties into the main river

Across from the lighthouse, a shoal covered with roosting anhingas and gulls

Yours Truly on board

The Esopus Lighthouse with an interesting phenomenon, the Esopus Meadows, in the background


The Hudson is tidal up to Troy, 150 miles inland. Most of the river is an estuary, which explains the marshes along much of its banks. You can see tide rise and fall every day. The American Indians called it "the water that flows two ways." At Esopus, south of Kingston, there is an area of the river called The Meadows. The Meadows are actually aquatic plants that grow like a field in this portion of the river. At low tide, it's only about 1-2 feet deep.

The hippie tug that we saw on our way back to dock



Thanks, Dad!!!!!!!

Gnome Sites (Not for the Faint of Heart)

For those interested in pursuing an education about the fascinating "underworld" of gnomes, check out these sites:

Garden Gnome from Hell
in which a deranged gnomophobe describes how the only weapon against the little critters is kumquats...

and Free the Gnomes
which details the activities of the Garden Gnome Liberation front against "oppressive gardening" and "neighborhood tyranny."

Who Left the Fridge Open?

We saw Tropic Thunder on Tuesday night, a Ben Stiller-directed action/comedy starring Stiller, Robert Downey, Jr., and Jack Black. I would say the film was about 75% funny and 25% uncomfortable. Robert Downey does 2/3 of the movie in blackface, and Ben Stiller gets a lot of awkward silence with his full-on retard character "Simple Jack." The least disturbing of the trio is the fat, naked Jack Black tied sweating to a tree in his underwear, screaming to get loose so he can break into the Laotians' heroin processing plant and o.d. If you think you would enjoy Zoolander on crystal meth and don't have an aversion to racist, homophobic, or drug addict jokes, I'd say it's well worth the eight bucks.

Shrooms in Bloom

For the past week I've been in the mountains of northern New York, where shrooms are all the rage. You'd think there would be more varieties of fungus in the tropics, and maybe there are, but most of them must be invisible to the naked eye or live only in your internal organs. Here the shrooms take pride in springing up through any lawn, golf course, forest floor, or bed of moss, and vibrantly displaying their bright colors and bizarre designs, like strange undersea life.

Since I don't know any of their scientific names, I made up names myself:

The Giant Brown Shrooom


The Moon Shroom



The Hallucinogenic Shroom


The Cup Shroom


The White Pagoda Shroom


The Potato Shroom


The Mexican Tile Shroom


And finally...The Coral Shroom!
From the side it looks white...


From the top, orange!

Step Brothers (2008) new Trailer UNRATED

Amazing Old-timey Fun With Character That Sounds Like a Hairy Penis

Straight out of your mother's childhood (and Smethport, PA) comes WOOLY WILLY, "a shifty character" who may be transformed at a moment's notice from "Harry the Hermit" to "Dick the Dude." Read here to find out all about Wooly Willy and the history of his fascinating birthplace.

Goats are the Bomb

Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, head blown off by a shotgun.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

What doesn't kill you makes you stranger.
-The Joker