Don’t you love finding little rainbows inside of your house?
When leaves fell off the tress in woods near my home it was clear that I’d lost a lot of trees in 2012. We had strong storms all summer, followed by Hurricane Irene toppling trees throughout my neighborhood. Fall wasn’t any kinder. It was wet, it was windy and it even delivered a freak snowstorm on Halloween. Add that up and the trees just couldn’t take it. Many fell down, taking other ones with them, while the older ones, perhaps already dying for years now, rotted away and fell apart.
But it seems like this has happened everywhere. Driving through Stony Brook University the other day I saw just as many trees toppled in woods lining campus. Even driving north a week ago to see my parents I saw dozens of bare tress in Westchester County along Route 684 knocked down and splintered.
The Associated Press picked up on this a few days ago, focusing on the parklands and gardens in the Northeast and New York City that were hit hard.
Uprooted trees and snapped-off boughs were evident after each storm, but not until this month, when surviving trees finally lost their leaves and arborists found hidden cracks and other damage, was the full scope of the devastation appreciated, managers said.
…
Forrest estimated that 3,000 trees were lost or damaged at the garden in the Bronx. In Manhattan’s Central Park, more than 1,000 of the 23,000 trees have been removed or are likely to go, said Neil Calvanese, vice president for operations at the Central Park Conservancy, which cares for the park under contract with the city.
I haven’t seen any local stories on this yet. Have you noticed the same thing?
Below are some photos from my woods so you can see what I mean.
There’s something surreal about this.
There was no going to Bermuda if it weren’t for the Celebrity Summit, the cruise ship that took me from Bayonne, N.J. to the island paradise of Bermuda.
Don’t ask me to review the boat, though. I’ve got no frame of reference since this was my first cruise. The Summit was a great experience, though, a floating hotel like I expected it to be with fun restaurants, good entertainment, great bars (which reminds me that I would love a Dark and Stormy about now) and a wonderful and friendly staff. I did think it was weird that someone offered me Purell anti-bacterial lotion at every entranceway, but I understand why. Luckily, I didn’t get sick because I’ve heard those cruise bugs can be no fun at all.
And while I declined to cram myself shoulder-to-shoulder in that oversized bathtub they called a pool, I did have a great time taking photos of the curious angles and scenes of the Summit.
Enjoy the pics.
On one of my first days in Bermuda, I set off alone on my scooter to explore the attractions along the road from the Royal Naval Dockyard where our cruise ship docked to downtown Hamilton. I didn’t get far before the old stone graves of the Royal Naval Cemetery, a circa-1809 burial ground for those lost at sea as well as British Royal Navy sailors killed by yellow fever, which took a toll on the navy in the mid-19th century, according to the Bermuda National Trust.
Here’s a little more on its history, from Bermuda-Attractions.com:
Royal Naval Cemetery is also known as The Glade. During the second world war, many British Royal Navy personnel died while fighting the battle in the mid Atlantic with German battleships and U-boats. As you go towards the road, you will see graves of many of such Royal Navy seamen who lost their lives in those battles. There are 34 burials from World War-I and 39 from World War-II.
When I visited, the sun was high, bright and hot, and I didn’t get a chance to spend as much time taking photographs there as I would have liked to because I was quickly overheating. And I can also admit I’m not too keen on spending too much time treading upon the remains of the dead. I find it unsettling.
An interesting note: One of the graves I got a pretty nice photo of was for a man named Henry Miller, the name of my favorite writer, a coincidence I found meaning in.
So here are the photos. I think I got a few nice ones.
I’d been hoping to shake some of the dust off my saxophone recently and record a few meditation-type pieces like I have on the piano. Well, tonight I decided to give it a go.
However, this time I recorded myself using Garageband on … the iPhone.
I frankly amazed that I can create multitrack recordings on a telephone, and even more surprised that the little microphone on this phone has such high quality.
The recording’s not perfect, but I like the result.
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In the past few weeks I’ve reported on the glut of empty buildings in my community, taking more than 100 photographs of these local eyesores. It’s a journalistic endeavor on my part, spotlighting what is a big bone of contention in the St. James and Smithtown area. That means all of my work on the subject is bound by journalistic integrity, verification and, above all, accuracy.
In journalism, accuracy in photographs can be dubious, especially in the age of Photoshop. There have been several public photo editing flubs in journalism, many which you can find right here. But where does enhancing color come into play? I’d argue that unnaturally playing with colors, applying monochromatic filters or even giving pictures a vintage look should have no place in journalism because it sacrifices accuracy. A journalist wouldn’t write that it was a cloudy day when covering a local funeral just because that detail might add weight to the scene. It’s not accurate, and for the most part it’s a philosophy news organizations share.
But with this vacancy series, I’ve taken several photos that would lend themselves well to photo transformations to create a more artistic product, and I’ve manipulated a few to share them here. For all of these, while I think the filters add great visual appeal and my speak to a more artistic message that the subject conveys, they are works of art, still life photos, that have become fiction.
I’d love your opinion.
For the second installment of Best Thing Ever, I’m sticking with the iPhone apps – though I was tempted to profess my love for Gyro sandwiches first.
While Hipstamatic might be at the top of my app list, Evernote is definitely tied for first.
If you’ve never tried it, Evernote at its core is a note taking, giving you a place to jot down ideas while you’re in the field with your smart phone. Fire up the app and you can create text notes as well as categories to place them in. You can snap a photo on your phone and save it to a category, and you can even take an audio recording as a note. The only thing missing is the ability to take a video note, but I’d bet that’s on the horizon.
But what makes Evernote the best thing ever is the companion desktop version of the software. You see, when you take a note on your phone, it automatically syncs to a central server so it can be accessed by any Evernote install. So when I open my computer, the notes I took on my phone are right there. It works the same way for the computer. If you create a note on Evernote on your computer it will sync right to your phone.
You can even clip articles straight from the Web and they will sync to your phone for mobile reading.
To get a sense for it, here are a few ways I use the app.
- Taking notes as I think of things. Great way not to forget what jumps into your head. Especially good for a writer. I keep story ideas and observations under their own tag.
- Grocery lists
- Recording live music.
- I create my lesson notes in Evernote, so when I am teaching I can stand up there with my iPhone and scroll through the lesson plans.
- Reading articles found online.
- Clipping recipes from food websites. That way when I am cooking I have the recipe right on my phone.
- Reporting. I’ve taken notes from events or interviewing someone on my phone using Evernote. It’s great because when I open up my computer later it’s all there. I’ve also used it to type notes when I’m reporting in front of my computer, that way I can have them for later.
- Writing. I’ve even started writing stories in Evernote, that way I can use both my phone and my computer to work on them.
For now, the amount of server space you get for free is plenty, especially since I really don’t use the photo note or audio notes that much. But this is a service I’d pay for if I had to.
At the same time, the service continues to improve and add new components. If I were betting, I’d say Evernote will soon update the writing experience so it feels a little more like a documents program than it does now. It has a huge advantage to Google Docs with its mobile integration. Seems a logical next step.
Either way, get it. It’s free and it’s the best thing ever.