One of my personal traditions when competing in the New York State Fair’s photography competition, is that after I have found out how my entries have fared, I celebrate by eating some sort of fair food. Just to be fair, mind you. I’ve already paid the fair to get there, so there. You saw what…
Read MoreBest of our TU Independent Blogs, August 18, 2016: Ten for Thursday
Man, will this super-hot summer heat wave end? Yes, six months from now I’ll probably post one of these and ask … “Man, will this super-cold winter end?” It’s called balance. Balance also means that you have time to enjoy some great independent blogs by the Times Union’s crew of community bloggers. These are the…
Read MoreWeek 7 of the 2016 Graney’s Stout Summer Trivia League
The funny thing about playing competitive team trivia is … you never know what will trigger the correct answer in a team’s collective brain cells. I explain this because most of the teams in this weeks’ trivia game nailed questions left and right. Everybody knew that the film that introduced the “Pizza Planet” restaurant to…
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A deep breath at the Altamont Fair
I’m thirty feet away from the entrance to the Fine Arts Center at the Altamont Fair. Inside that building – the oldest building on the Altamont Fairgrounds – are four of my five artworks. Thirty feet away. And it feels like three miles and ten years away. Here i am. I’ve been greeted by the…
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Competition Season 2016: My Altamont Fair photo entries are…
The Altamont Fair photography contest is, for me, a mixture of wills and won’ts, of cans and can’ts, of yesses and no’s. Yes, I’ve won two blue ribbons in three years at Altamont; but they were in category-specific locales that were not part of the Fine Arts show (The Jumbuck in the sheep photo category,…
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The 2016 “Drive of Shame”
By the time you read today’s blog post, I will be on the road to Syracuse. It’s that road trip in August that I’ve sarcastically referred to as “The Drive of Shame.” Let me explain. When the New York State Fair sends out its postcards of acceptance or rejection for their photography competition, participants must…
Read MoreThe Syracuse postcards have arrived!
Can I tell you it’s been a personally exhausting week, or have you already figured it out? Yeah. It’s been a personally exhausting week. I came home last night, reached into the mailbox, expecting to pull out bills or junk mail or the latest menu from the new pizza-wings-fried chicken outlet that promises to deliver…
Read MoreCaption Time: You had ONE job…
This morning, while eating breakfast with a couple of my friends at Duncan’s Dairy Bar in Troy, the server brought us our beverages – coffee for my friends, diet cola for me. And as I reached for a straw to put in my drink cup… I noticed that something was odd with the straw. Odd…
Read MoreHey phone scammer … sing along with me!!
My tolerance for telephone scammers, robocallers and unsolicited solicitations, varies from day to day. Sometimes I just hang up on them. Sometimes I tell them I’m not interest and hang up on them. And sometimes I want to have some fun. This is one of those times when I want to have fun. Yesterday, I…
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The Perseid 2016 meteor shower photo I’ve wanted for so, so long…
Background. Five years ago, I tried to capture the Perseid meteor shower with my camera gear. And I certainly came close to doing so … but not close enough. Four years ago, in the middle of an unseasonably clear Christmas eve night, I photographed a star trail along the Sacandaga River. And in the middle…
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