Scattered Thoughts . . .

A fter arriving at our hotel, the Hilton Midtown, we were anxious to go on our first site-seeing walk of this blustery cold Christmastime trip.   There would be plenty of walking over the next few days but I'm sure this first nighttime walk in midtown Manhattan was the most impressionable for Lukey and Kenzie.  This was a bit of a culture shock for them...  the skyscapers, the architecture, the lights, the hustle and bustle of crowds, the horns, the sirens, the trucks...  this was something different, for sure. We dropped off our bags, dressed warmly for the cold wind whipping off the ocean and through the canyons of tall building, and then headed back down to the lobby so we could make our way out the front doors of the hotel to Sixth Avenue.   Here is the very large, expansive lobby of the hotel... As you step out of the lobby onto Sixth Avenue, there is an old Checker Cab in front of the hotel.  Personally, I miss those unique giant cabs.  I'm not at all fond of all the new

It was a fairly nice afternoon the other day so Sheila and I went for a walk with the grandkids. This was a pretty good opportunity to test my new little action camera so I brought that along for the ride. A screenshot from the video... preserved highlights...  detail in the clouds...   nice clarity...  nice color... nice video!   I figured this would really be putting this little camera to the test... I'm walking with a pronounced limp lately so I knew to expect a bouncy, jerky video... I didn't have any way to strap this camera to anything so I just held it in my hand down at my side... and it was quite breezy out so I knew wind noise would be an issue. Regardless... the resulting video clips look pretty good! I definitely want to make a little homemade wind-cut filter out of open-cell foam to cut down on the wind noise. The primary purpose of this action camera is to use it for recording video of kayaking at the lake and there is almost always some variable winds ou

Although it is quite unusual for this winter, we have some fine, light snow falling outside as this latest forecast 'storm' approaches. While I'm sitting in our warm home, I was looking for some photos on one of my hard drives and came across photos of Lukey and Kenzie from exactly a year ago that I had forgotten about and thought I should share a few here... We started this particular day with a haircut for Lukey... While the sun was rather high in the sky (a terrible time for photos), we went for a walk... They are all in-step! And, collecting pine cones that have fallen off our live Christmas tree in front of the house...

We went for a nice Springtime walk with the grandchildren the other day. The weather was relatively warm, clear and sunny. I think the temperature was in the 40's for a change which is much more tolerable than the freezing daytime temperatures and sub-zero nighttime temperatures we've been experiencing for many months now. With the sun shining and the temperatures well above freezing, Sheila decided it was a good afternoon for a short walk around the block with the kids. The ground, for the most part, is still covered in a foot or two of snow and we still have snowbanks up to four feet tall so there is still a lot of snow to be melted out there. Unfortunately, all this snow makes for a lot of puddles and deep mud as the ground continues to thaw. Much of our walking route around the block was mostly dry, however, there were some areas with water-filled pot holes and streams of water run-off. Needless to say, the kids were attracted to these wet areas like ants to sugar