Independence Day

Jennifer relaxes with Biko after making pickles. 

Said product cools off on the counter after being canned.

The garden whence the pickles came. It's holding up well, though our tomatoes are a tad slower than our neighbor's (they are in the background, over the fence).

Long Dock Park

The name reminds me of my favorite character from Sixteen Candles ("Now I have a place to put my hand!") but Scenic Hudson's Long Dock Park at the Beacon waterfront has been taking shape since last year. It's been called such for a while, and there have been some works there, but this time it is all-out. A celebration is planned for Saturday, July 9th. They have some work to do. Here is the current state of the park as of last night:

For laughs, I took a video of Jennifer's train coming in.

Referring To a Person In the Room With A Pronoun

Apparently this is bad. I did not know this until I was about 22, and my friend Helen pointed it out, but not very clearly. I must have used the word "she" to refer to her when she was within hearing distance, and she said to me, "'She' is the cat." I probably stared at her blankly and she said that when she was a kid, her father would chide her and her siblings for referring to her mother as 'she', specifically if the mother was present in the room. He would say, "'She' is the cat; that's your mother you're talking about."

And if you think about it, he violates the rule in his reprimand by calling his wife 'that'. Whatever.

I told Helen I was sorry to hear she was beaten as a child and blithely lived my life little changed with respect to this usage until I started hearing more and more people speak about it. (About four or five years later when her brother Tom started working where I do, I asked him about this. He said he remembered something about this but wasn't sure).

In any event, it seems that it is rude to refer to anyone present in the room with a pronoun. So if Cindy were in the room and I told Mark that "Cindy just went to Cindy's house to get Cindy's camera bag," in stead of "Cindy went to her house to get her camera bag," I would sound dorky but I would be following the rule.

If you are reading this and YOU have experience with this odd socio-linguistic phenomenon, please post something about it here.

Why Vaclav’s Hovel?

Why Vaclav’s Hovel?

Vaclav Havel is a playwright, the last president of Czechoslovakia and first president of the Czech Republic, and a lifelong fan and friend to Frank Zappa, one of my favorite musicians.

He said:

"I understand, especially when one is looking at me from a distance, that I might seem as some kind of fairy-tale hero who banged his head against the wall until the wall fell, and then reigned. It makes me blush slightly, because I know my mistakes. On the other hand, I do not ridicule it because people need these kinds of stories."

As a tip of the hat to the Dada of Frank Zappa, and the wonderful, surreal, unexpected event of a playwright becoming a president, I created the name one day for a sheep shed, and later for my email addresses and blog names. It now signifies all of my creative efforts.

Vaclav’s Hovel is a tribute to the idea that people can be more than what we expect, that they are not bound by titles, education, class, background, race, and so on. It is a tribute to banging one's head against the wall until the wall falls, for sometimes it takes that effort. It is also a tribute to the memory of Frank Zappa.

If Vaclav Havel ever reads this and takes offense to my use of his name as such, I apologize. I meant it only with the greatest of affection for him and Mr. Zappa.

The MacGyver Award

If I own a real hatchet, I could not find it. So I grabbed a lath hatchet and packed it for our camping trip. I also purchased firewood to take with me. I figured I could rive some kindling, using the hatchet, out of the purchased wood.

When we got to the campsite I saw that some previous inhabitants left some wood, and there was a foot-and-a-half round section of a red oak or similar hardwood tree. How would I split that into nice pieces for the fire? With the hatchet.

The handle broke after one attempt at trying to split the section, so now I no longer have a hatchet, but now a small piece of firewood and a wedge. Do I panic? Get upset? No. (See the movie The Edge with Anthony Hopkins; most people die of shame when lost in the woods, his character argues).

I drove the detached head like a wedge into the log with another piece of hardwood.

With it set firmly into the wood, I drop the log and wedge to a large rock, wedge-end first.

This drove the wedge into the wood. Is it lost?

No. Now I drive a piece of wood into the crack.

This drives the two halves further apart, frees the wedge, and gives me more usable firewood.
I did this repeatedly to the log until I had about eight pieces of firewood.

The lesson? Learn to improvise. It impressed the hell out of my son, and made for a much nicer fire that lasted long enough for our trip.

He might actually admire me now!

More Lake George Pictures

One of the sightseeing vessels that ply the waters.

A duck family visited. Did they steal my bread earlier?

Sunrise on Father's Day.

Dinner the night before.

Best Vacation Picture Yet

Speaks for itself.