Big Apple Blog

A few weeks ago we took this great bike camping trip to Taconic State Park. It was “faux” camping in the sense that we stayed in a cabin in the state park, but the beds were uncomfortable so it sure felt like camping. This great organization, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, turns old rail road tracks into pathways that are closed to motor vehicle traffic. Totally quiet, safe, and smooth. We took the Metro North Railroad all the way to the end and there lies the start of the rail trail. The first 12 miles of the ride is rail trail . . .

The next 12 miles are quiet country roads that are a far cry from the streets and avenues of the Big Apple . . .

Taconic State Park has lots of cabins . . .

And a swimming hole that resulted from an old iron ore quarry. I fished for the first time since I cannot remember when and caught a small trout. Ariel came up blank but we had a great time just chillin’. Nothing like reading a big city fashion magazine while trying to hook one . . .

We went with our good friends Blue and Anna. Blue documented the trip on the Crazy Guy on a Bike Web site.

There is this cool waterfall, Bash Bish, that is just over the border from New York in Massachusetts.

Most of the time we sat around, drank beer, and took in nature. The dude in the middle is Dave, who runs the Deli in the park and hooked us up with almost all of our meals.

And Dave has this cat who is the spitting image of our old cat Goma, just a slightly different color.

Good times. If you have a bike, take it out and let it breath in a bit of nature this summer!

A couple weeks back we took a swing south and hit Philadelphia and Atlantic City. We have some friends just outside of Philly that we stayed with for a few days. Our friends possess these young humans I hear so much about. They are small, but they pack a punch. One young gentleman possesses the ability to fire off about 100 questions per minute. It made me feel both powerful and inept at the same time. We hit some of the major sites like the Liberty Bell . . .

We piled in the car to reduce our carbon footprint . . .

Mini-golf was a kick in the pants, even though I got beat by a 10 year old . . .

What is a trip to Philly without visiting the Rocky statue?

Only one picture of Atlantic City, and not even a good one. The Boardwalk is really the only thing close to a highlight. The town is pretty depressing if you ask me. It’s shame actually because it seems to have a lot of potential being on the beach and all. I think I would only visit again if all expenses were paid, a free massage was included, and there was a bicycle convention of some sort.

Without this man, I would not have embarked on the career I have today. In 1995 one Mr. Jeff Rickey hired me for my first job in higher education. Thirteen years later I have to say that I would not be where I am today (pretty much my dream job) with him. Thanks Jeff! Jeff came though town on a recruiting trip for his current school, Earlham College, and Ariel and I got to have a great dinner with Jeff. You’re the best man!

As seen in Flushing, NYC.

Turns out that I have a connection to the latest NYC crane collapse. No, it was not my building, I am over 60 blocks away. However, one of my good buddy Blue’s best friends apartment was located a mere 10 feet from where the crane hit. The picture below shows his friend Matt on his deck talking on his mobile phone.

Here is Blue’s email . . .

Though he claims to have been at his desk, my guess is that he was sitting on his thrown and it was the smell created that caused the falling crane to avoid his apartment by about 10 feet. You can see (below) the man himself on his deck sporting a lovely bathrobe.

Just F’in relieved we’ve got a crazy story to talk about instead of funeral to attend!

Unfortunately this is not a fake photo. It comes from CNN (full story here). Just a reminder to be careful out there . . .

One fun thing we did back in April was attend the Gen Art Film Festival in NYC. The organization promotes directors you have never heard of. I know I am getting old because Hollywood movies are of less and less interest to me. Studios don’t seem to have any new material so they dredge up old movies and redo them or spin off poorly made sequels for the most part.

If you are interested in possibly checking out some of the films you can peruse their web site. Our favorite film by far was called Night Life. It was a mockumentary about vampire hunters. The hunters are a bunch of Dungeons and Dragons geeks who go on a quest of find vampires, and the vampires are not glamorous, they just lead ordinary lives like the rest of us. It was super funny and very entertaining. The movie came about when a bunch of friends drinking beers talked about the concept and then brought it to fruition over a number of years. The trailer does not really do it justice but here you go.

3487?pg=embed&sec=813487″>Nightlife Trailer from Tim Sanderson on Vimeo.

Gen Art operates all over the U.S. so check them out. Another cool thing was that they had sponsors, such as Stella Artois, and you could drink all the beer you wanted. I just had to be careful not to indulge too much because I did not want to keep running to the bathroom.

I was also happy that we did not sit directly behind this couple . . . but I just had to take a picture.

If you missed Cai Guo-Qiang’s show at the Guggenheim it really sucks for you. It was an awesome show with a lot of different media that was visually spectacular. I particularly loved his technique of incorporating gun power into his paintings and then lighting the powder on fire to finish off the pieces - super dope idea for sure.

The centerpiece of his exhibit was an exploding car that catapults up the center of the museum. A picture does not really do it justice but here you go . . .

I also ran into this shaky video someone posted on Youtube.

One piece featured hundreds of wolves that were running into a clear glass wall. This picture does not really do it justice, but the ones on this page do.

Unfortunately the show just ended but if you ever have the chance to see any of his works, you should definitely check them out.

Americans spent $8.3 billion on plastic surgery in 2005, $2.3 billion more than it would have taken to provide a basic primary education to all of the world’s children. Help eliminate global inequity at www.unmillenniumproject.org

One of the cool things I did get to do during my hectic winter was go to a Mos Def concert. I had never been to a hip hop concert before and was curious as to how it would go. The show was at the Nokia Theater which is like a 10 minute walk from where we live which was quite dope.

My initial impression was disappointment because the show started 45 minutes late and the opening act was quite lame. Jay Electronica was dude’s name and he tried a little too hard to get his message across. What the message was I have no idea because the crowd basically booed him off the stage.

This was my main curiosity about a hip hop concert - it’s basically one dude, maybe two, carrying a show with no instruments, just a couple of DJ’s with bobbing heads and wrist flicks. You are pretty much on an island, and Jay Electronica was voted off the island by the crowd.

It was another frustrating 45 minutes before Mos Def appeared but when he did, he killed it. He truly enjoys what he does and his music is about positive social commentary which puts him in an upper echelon in my book - and you just know a skinny, dorky white dude’s opinion means a lot in the hip hop world.

It has taken me a while but it is time to finish off the pictures from Cotsa Rica. By far the most impressive part of the trip was just observing nature. Enjoy . . .

This was a section of rocky beach that was cool to look at. I’m not sure how the circular pattern developed. My suspicion is a combination of water and intense sunlight.

We saw a few iguanas, both alive and dead. The dead iguana was in the middle of the road, an obvious victim of being hit by a car, and this one was missing the end of its tail. Must not be easy to be an iguana in Costa Rica.

We saw lots of pelicans.

Hermit crabs were everywhere! When the sun set the entire beach was full of them. No joke here, we are talking 1,000’s of them all at once scavenging the beach. It was stunning to witness.

We saw several groups of birds that were migrating.

Most of the beach was sandy but there were rocky portions that made the crashing waves cool to look at.

Ummmm, paradise?

As you can see, the beaches were really, really crowded.

One day we went to a quiet island . . .

. . . and they had a pet pig. Witnessing the pig and being on the island took me back to a high school English class when we read Lord of the Flies. I should read that book again.

And in the somewhat unrelated but interesting category, we were in the airport in San Juan and we saw this kid in line. The note of interest is that she is wearing a Carters Jacket - the company Ariel designs for.

I have been spending time on Bike Hacks but I don’t want to neglect bike related content on Pintglass so expect some cross posts.

Brendon wrote a few days ago about ways to “Ugly” your bike. Because I have to lock my commuter bike outside a great deal I have been practicing the art of deceit for some time. It’s not that my commuter bike is all that wonderful anyway, I only paid $100 for it. Actually, that brings up another hack.

When I moved to NYC I wanted a bike that would get the job done as far as commuting but not attract much attention. After a few days of looking on craigslist I found the perfect “mule.” It is a 1985 Peugeot that had been sitting in some closet, untouched for years. It had a thick coat of dust and flat tires when I went to pick it up and looked as if it had been ridden about 100 miles in it’s 20 year lifespan. Perfect! Old but “new” at the same time.

I decided to mix it up a bit and do a combination of “uglifying” techniques. The first thing I did however was to wrap most of the frame with Saran Wrap. This is a good hack because some day you just may want to take the disguise off and this will ensure that it comes off easily.

After wrapping the frame in plastic wrap, I used a mixture of inner tubes and duct tape. I put tubes where my lock commonly rests on the frame when I chain up and duct tape on various portions of the frame.

The inner tubes are secured with zip ties. Then I moved on to the fenders which you also can see in the picture. Now this is where I do have a bone to pick with the Make Magazine article Brendon pointed to on uglifying your ride. It states:

“A can of spray paint is a good start but choose wisely. Black is out. We’re talking ugly here, not cool. Think orange.”

I happen to believe that orange is beautiful so it’s the perfect match. The majority of the population probably thinks my orange spray painted fenders are ugly while they make me smile. Bonus for me. Here is a picture of the whole ride.

I also have peppered it with stickers and even some stuff I have found on the road like this air freshener. Nothing says irony like a car air freshener on a bike.

A music video for your enjoyment.