Party

Spent the last couple of days since my wrist surgery planning Lisa's 60th birthday. Lots of milestones this year make you reminisce. 25 years of marital bliss on top of her birthday (October 27th).

In planning the party and making the guest list, I found lots of photos (memories) and remembered lots of friends from around the world.




We have invited friends from 5 continents and are broadcasting live to them on Ustream on December 5th! Sitting here racking my brain to see who I might surprise her with and just got a few brainstorms. Bye for now.

Sunrise

Sunrise has so many meanings. Its the start to each day and the first seconds to make the most of it. I have begun to make it a ritual to begin to find amazing spots to enjoy and photograph this most beautiful of events.

The beginning of day, like the beginning of a life is both magical and mystical.

My favorite easy spot is at nearby Peace Valley Park in New Britain, PA.

The first and second of these were taken five minutes apart.

The light and sunrise grows as the day gets older. A couple of different metering tricks can produce different color but waiting will as well.

The last one was taken when a cold front came through and the air temperature was about 20F cooler than the water.

I am blessed to have Lake Galena so close to me.

If you have another great Bucks County location, drop me a line

The Greenville Saga Continues

Just returned from a weekend in Greenville, confirming our love for the area. We stayed in the golf cottages at Cherokee Valley Golf Club. We spent most of the weekend trying to confirm our decision to build there. We visited the lot to see the 6,700 square foot McMansion going up next door.

Now I have nothing against large homes, but on a 0.3 acre lot!!

On top of this we find out that this (Cherokee Valley) semi-private course with intentions to go private sounds like it will be public ad infinitum. We found a house style that we thought we would like to build, a traditional Southern look like the second photo here. But could we make it work.


We set out the second day after taking a ton of photos of our lot to look for a golf club more like the one we have here. We fell in love with Greenville Country Club and then started to think that although the mountains are beautiful, its a bit too remote. I dont know if I can live without proper broadband and 3G wireless. I am spoiled?

Also the commute seemed better if we settled closer to the I-85 corridor since I would be commuting to Shelby, NC area a few days a week to work.

We'd certainly be sacrificing an amazing view to move closer to town, but would we be happier?

We had a great dinner at Saskatoon on Saturday night in town, recommended by new online friend, Trey Pennington. Very unique and good!

We met with a builder, Jason Bergeron of Bergeron Builders, on Sunday via a realtor. We realized that, although building has slowed dramatically, new home costs per square foot have not. So now, we're thinking possibly buying a used home.

Of course to do this, we would need to sell our lot next to the McMansion. Many folks might argue that a home of this value would increase the inherent value in our lot.. We'll see.

All in all, another great weekend Upstate, but one that gives us new information that answered some questions and raised others...stay tuned.

Freezing Sweet Corn

Our annual assembly line in progress!

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thanks to @joehewitt for an amazing piece of work on Facebook for #iphone 3.0!! bravo!

making final plans for LHH network gathering tomorrow at www.redstonegrill.com in Plymouth meeting! Ping me for info.

Reading "Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us" (Seth Godin) http://bit.ly/WQDOG great read on social media!!

Organizing Lee Hecht Harrison alumni gathering in Plymouth Meeting, PA on 18-Aug. http://bit.ly/8qeDt ping me if interested!

packing lightly for trip to Martha's Vineyard! http://bit.ly/rVHFM

Covered Bridges of Bucks County - Pine Valley

The Pine Valley Covered Bridge is located just in New Britain just west of Doylestown. It is on Iron Hill Road and crosses Pine Run Creek. If you want to see and photograph the bridge there is a small community park, the New Britain Civic Association Covered Bridge Park with ample parking just off the south end of the bridge. The bridge is heavily traveled which makes walking through it hazardous at best.


Pine Valley Covered Bridge carries Old Iron Hill road across Pine Run Creek in New Britain Township. It was built in 1842 and is 81 feet long. It is just outside Doylestown.




Below is Cabin Run just North of the bridge with a cool little waterfall.

Video from the Vineyard - 2008

Covered Bridges of Bucks County

A map of the dozen plus bridges is located here. Much of the material here was found on the Scenic Bucks County Website

Given how cool they are and there is a lot of published info on them, I wanted to add them to my blog. I have ridden through all but 1 (Perkasie) on 2 wheels.



The Central Bucks Bicycle Club (CBBC) does an awesome ride through most of them every fall, thus I am familiar with their beauty and serenity.

The first in the series is Loux Covered Bridge.

The Loux Covered Bridge is one of the smaller covered bridges in Bucks County; you come upon it suddenly following Wismer Road as it bends and drops down to cross Cabin Run on the Bedminster/ Plumstead border. At short distance down stream this creek is crossed by Cabin Run Covered Bridge.

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Location: Wismer Rd., Plumstead Twp.
Height Limit: 11 ft. Width: 15 ft.
Length: 60 ft. Weight Limit: 15 tons

History: BUILT of hemlock in 1874, you'll find this bridge is one of two bridges to span the Cabin Run Creek. Nestled in a scenic valley, it was built at the insistence of local residents who complained about the dangers of crossing the creek

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Salmon Fillets Stuffed With Crabmeat

3 large, preferably thick, salmon fillets
1 pound backfin or other high quality crabmeat
1 egg
2 tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp. Old Bay seasoning
3 Tbsp. mayonnaise
3 Tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon


Cut a pocket in the center of each salmon fillet. Either slice through the fillet or make a slit in the middle and then cut from this slit into either side of the fillet. Don't worry too much about this process. You are just trying to get some sort of pocket to hold the crabmeat. Gently combine the remaining ingredients trying not to break up the lumps of crabmeat. Evenly divide the crabmeat mixture and stuff into each fillet pocket. Cut the lemon into three sections and squeeze one section over each fillet. As an alternative, you can cut the lemon into slices and lay the slices evenly over each fillet. Bake stuffed salmon for 30 - 45 minutes in a 375-degree oven, checking every few minutes after 25 minutes. The cooking time will vary depending on how thick the salmon fillets are and how you made the pockets. The salmon is done when the fish is flaky and the stuffing is cooked through.

The Skinny: Use light mayo and your favorite egg substitute.

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85 Iconic Images ruined by Technlogy http://digg.com/d1sH4p #photography

Twitter, Facebook, Digg: Can You Join Too Many Networks?: http://ping.fm/o1huB

Memorial Day 2009

Another great holiday with our friends in Mystic for Memorial Day. Trip started off a little sketchy as the train before ours from Trenton hit a deer and dumped all the passenger on our train. We were sure we'd be standing, but we got seats and were only 40 minutes late.

As usual, lots of eating, cycling, drinking, walking sightseeing, laughing, joke telling (as you can see from this video...in the center Lisa tells her famous "Pretzel" joke for the 152nd and best time!!)



Had some great wine (1997 Grgich reserve and Peju cab) as well as some killer meals. Went out once to Skipper's Dock in Stonington for lobster rolls, yumm!

Rest of the time, my bud David manned the Weber.

Just back now from an uneventful trip home to Trenton. Weather considerably warmer here and headed down to make a nice BBQ meal!!

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up early for a great Memorial Day weekend trip to visit friends in Mystic, CT http://virl.com/7bcf4 #fb

Flocking 101

Just came across a very cool tool to tie blogging and other social media tools together, called Flock by Mozilla.




Very easy to use and keeps track of FB, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Picasa, MySpace, etc.

Drag and drop blog editor (that I am using now) makes life easy as well.

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Will Apple Buy Twitter?

http://bit.ly/WaAEA

Looking Back on Our Vacation

As always, returning to reality is tough after a fantastic holiday! The sights and location was beautiful, but the people you meet really are what makes a trip great. Going through the 3000 photos I took, I stumbled upon these as they were taken from a secondary camera. It was 12 March.

We had decided that we wanted some space to ourselves to shoot macro on Mabul and maybe see a whale shark. So we went back to a site called Stingray City, 10,000+ miles from the one on Grand Cayman.

We saw so many mating nudibranchs and unbelievable critters, but the most memorable were our guides. Trying to stay in touch with them so when the few things I hoped to see and didn't surface, I can see them online (the elusive flamboyant cuttlefish for example.

Heres to Abbie, Froi and Niger (and Richard)!