A Long Fall Foliage Hike On Sleeping Giant

It was the perfect day to take in the fall colors at Sleeping Giant State Park, which is what I did with my friend Harvey.

sleeping-giant-northern-view.jpg

Whatever yesterday was weatherwise today was the opposite! It was sunny, dry and mild. The sky was the kind of blue you see in the desert. It was the perfect day to take in the fall colors at Sleeping Giant State Park, which is what I did with my friend Harvey.

sleeping giant foliage hike.jpgHarvey’s original thought was a leisurely pace up-and-down the Tower Trail taking lots of photos along the way. I had another idea. We’d take two cars, parking one in the main lot and the other on the opposite side of the mountain&#185.

In the abstract this was a great idea. Even while we hiked it seemed smart.

I came home exhausted… and still am even after a nap! On top of that my knees are sore–probably from the walk down where every rocky step was taken with meticulous care. On top of that I carried extra lenses and accessories in a backpack with a small tripod strapped to the bottom.

The mountain was jammed! Parking, normally $7 goes to $14 on October 1.

This is the state renting a parking space. I question whether it’s in our collective best interest to make this a family budget decision.

sleeping-giant-macro-leaf.jpgThe Tower Trail was as busy as I’d ever seen it. We took our time, stopping for lots of photos.

Mostly the colors were yellow and orange. Reds, usually associated with maple trees, were tough to find.

We made it to the tower at the top of the mountain, climbed some rocks for a beautiful view north toward Meriden and headed out on the Blue Square trail.

The Tower Trail is big enough for an SUV to drive to the top (I’ve only seen this once, carrying Channel 3’s Scot Haney and Mike Fisher). The trails we’d take down were more like meandering paths.

sleeping-giant-brook.jpgBefore long we heard the sound of running water. We turned left and picked up the Red Circle trail which parallels a normally dry stream bed.

Not so today! After yesterday’s downpours the stream was full and running strong. It’s never more than a foot or two wide (often less) but there are dozens of small cascades and little waterfalls.

sleeping-giant-brook-waterfall.jpgI took out my tripod and attempted to get some stream shots. With little direct sunlight under the canopy of trees these are tough shots to get right. It’s going to take some quality time with Photoshop to see what can be salvaged.

Harvey originally expected a few hours up-and-back. We ended up on the mountain for five hours!

Later tonight or tomorrow I’ll have some more shots to post. I hope it’s worth the wait.

&#185 – If you lve somewhere with ‘real’ mountains, forgive me. Sleeping Giant is about as close as we get even though the summit is less than 800 feet above sea level.

Our Busy Weekend

We found out his Mac notebook doesn’t have a VGA out port. He couldn’t plug in to the projector. Seriously–no VGA plug? I am surprised even though my friends with Mac always tell me how much they like their machines and how frustrated they are by some tasks they can’t perform or programs they can’t run.

For the Foxes this was a busy weekend. We had events Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday evening was spent with Harvey and Sandy in Woodbridge. They have an annual Chanukah party. We’ve been going most years for as long as I can remember. Ages ranged from 11 weeks to too old to gracefully ask.

We get to Wodbridge totally on smaller secondary roads. At one point we take a narrow 2-lane road twisting along the shore of a reservoir. There’s water on one side and a fence on the other. Saturday evening was extremely foogy. No fun driving in that.

menorahs-w250-h250.jpgDuring Chanukah Jewish families light the menorah each night at sundown. The tradition at Harvey and Sandy’s party is all the families bring their own menorahs and light them at once–which was great because the party used to be early in Chanukah.

Saturday each family lit seven candles plus an additional ‘helper’ candle. Helaine and I discussed standing by with 9-1 dialed on the cellphone. The dining room was noticably warmed by all those candles.

We look forward to the “pigs in blankets” served each year. As we walked in someone was carrying them to the basement. That’s where the kids usually hang out. Did we go downstairs just for the pigs? I’ll never tell.

Harvey always has fun toys to play with. This time he had X-Plane installed. Running on his Mac with a flight yoke and pedals it was amazingly fun to fly. It was impossible for me to easily control.

One of their three grown, daughters&#185 was home. She works in New York as a production assistant on some Bravo productions. Both Helaine and Stef were impressed she was working on Top Chef, which they enjoy and I’ve never seen.

Sunday the occasion was totally different. It was my friend Farrell’s mother’s 90th birthday. Being 90 is a difficult job. Ruth is equal to the task.

I wrote about Ruth in August 2005. She was about to get caught up in one of the biggest news stories of the decade.

I just got off the phone with my friend’s mom in New Orleans.

We’ve never met in person, but she knows me. I’ve fixed her computer by remote control. She’s seen me on TV while visiting her daughter in Connecticut. I’ve known her son for over 25 years and he’s a trusted friend.

She understands I’m looking out for her.

“Leave,” I said. “Leave now.”

ruth_meisel.jpgRuth lives in Connecticut now, near her daughter. Her home was flooded and destroyed in Katrina’s aftermath.

A few days ago Farrell sent me an email, looking for a way to make a slideshow of family photographs. I suggested Animoto. Farrell came with the slideshow in his laptop…his Mac laptop.

That’s when we found out his Mac notebook doesn’t have a VGA out port. He couldn’t plug in to the projector. Seriously–no VGA plug? I am surprised even though my friends with Mac always tell me how much they like their machines and how frustrated they are by some tasks they can’t perform or programs they can’t run.

I found a way to convert the slideshow video to an m4v file (never heard of it before) which was somehow compatible with another laptop–a Dell. We used ‘sneaker net’ in the form of a USB stick to move it. The slideshow did go on.

At age 90 you get a note from your congressman (Rep. Rosa DeLauro) and a proclamation from the governor declaring your birthday as Ruth Meisel Day in Connecticut.

Ruth wore a crown. It’s good to be Queen.

&#185 – Sandy went to the hospital to give birth to their second child. It was only after the delivery they discovered there was one more child in there. Really.

The Modern Desktop Publisher Uses Video

About two years ago, a bunch of my friends got together to make a movie for an 8 hour film contest. One of the participants was Harvey. Harvey is a physician, heavy on the research, whose specialty is getting women pregnant.

He likes to say that. Me too.

One of the things Harvey has devised is a test used to better understand why some women don’t get pregnant… and how to change that. I’m oversimplifying, but you get the idea.

When we made the movie, Harvey knew nothing about video production. Because he had Final Cut Pro on his Mac laptop, and because he didn’t know how to use it, he asked if he could be our editor!

He wanted others, people who did know what they were doing, to teach him the software. That was a masterstroke.

That afternoon, Harvey began to edit. What he did was rudimentary, but before we began, Harvey didn’t know enough to know the extent of what he didn’t know!

I got an IM from Harvey yesterday. He was working on his own video project, explaining a medical test he’s devised for IVF candidates. Would I look at it?

What Harvey brought was a little rough. You could see it wasn’t done by someone who edited a lot. But, it was easy to see there was a really good and effective presentation hidden beneath the rough cuts.

First I, then my weather partner Gil Simmons, watched the video and took notes. Most of the problems were simple things – dissolves versus cuts and how to work around shaky shots. Harvey took it all in.

The really cool part was, Harvey had gotten so close by himself. He shot, wrote and edited the whole production&#185 with no outside help.

We had dinner and Harvey headed home, hoping to begin cleaning the production up. We spoke again at 11:30 PM.

By this time, I was as anxious to make the video a success as he was. I drove to his home and spent nearly three hours with him working on graphic elements.

Final Cut Pro is an amazing product. Just using the tools he had at home, Harvey was beginning to have a very slick looking production. It will end up being burned on DVDs and put on the web as Flash video.

There is a moral to this story. The kind of production Harvey assembled could have cost well into five figures – and it would have been worth it. Now, effective video production can be done by anyone, even a multiply doctored academician from Yale!

It’s true he needed some professional help to get him on track, but he was incredibly close to success all on his own. Non-linear editing tools allowed us to manipulate the project where it needed to be with little trouble.

Video production is the most powerful storytelling medium ever devised by man. It has been democratized.

&#185 – Writing is probably the most important part of video production. A well written story is the blueprint which guides how everything is assembled. Good writers are tough to come by.

The Technology Really Is Amazing

I just spoke with my friend Harvey. He’s sitting in Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel.

I wouldn’t have known Harvey was away, except he saw me, sitting here in Connecticut, my Instant Messenger client open.

He mentioned someone in the conversation but wasn’t sure I knew who he was talking about. So, he sent a photo. We directly connected via IM. It didn’t matter that he was sitting at a Mac, while this laptop used Windows. It didn’t matter if either of us was technically adept.

I’m not bragging , You’ve probably done, or are doing, similar things on your computer.

When I step out on my back porch, I can ‘see’ a half dozen other wireless networks (most unencrypted). This is a neighborhood of 1+ acre lots. That’s a lot of connectivity… a lot of perceived value in networked computing.

It’s amazing the technology exists, is reasonably priced and widely available.

It’s not that my grandfather never expected to be doing this kind of stuff. He could not have even imagined device like the ones we’re using.

Could you have imagined Google 15 years ago?

All those prediction of the future I saw as a kid… those Jetson’s apartment towers and flying cars…. None of that’s reality. The information society we do have was never demoed to me.

Harvey will be home later today. Maybe I’ll track his flight.

Busy Sunday

Another beautiful winter’s day in Connecticut.

Sure it’s Sunday, but it’s also the third night of Chanukah&#185 – the Jewish Festival of Lights.

It is not ‘our Christmas’ – though I sense the hoopla over this lesser holiday is our defense mechanism. It’s tough to compete with Christmas.

Trust me – growing up Stef never objected to eight nights of gifts. She probably still doesn’t!

Every year around this time, our friends Harvey and Sandy throw a Chanukah party. We weren’t able to go to the last few, but said yes tonight.

Then we saw the calendar. The Eagles would be playing the Giants in a meaningful game right as the party was getting underway.

Hey, a commitment is a commitment. We went and had a great time.

There’s a special tradition that goes with this party, though we only knew a few of the 50 or so adults and children there. Along with the people and the food and the being incredibly jealous of whatever new adult toys Harvey has acquired in the past year, there is the lighting of the menorahs.

Each night during Chanukah, at sunset, one additional candle is lit on the menorah (One the first night, two the second, and so on), accompanied by a few Hebrew prayers. I’m not particularly religious, but this is tradition worth keeping, especially with all the kids this year.

Before we left our house, Helaine and I decided we’d record the football game and then try and avoid any mention of it. But seriously, how could a Giants game be ignored here in Giant’s territory?

As it turned out, no one said a word about the game. We were stunned. Does this speak to the athleticism of Jews, or Harvey and Sandy’s friends, or did we just luck out and avoid discussions that were ongoing, but out of earshot?

When it was time to go home, we headed out with the radio off. By the time we picked up this 4:00 o’clock game, it was nearly 9:00PM.

If you’re a football fan, you already know, the Eagles won. If you’re not a football fan, you don’t care. This entry will no game details.

There is one observation I must make. Helaine and I were surprised… no, astounded, to see the Eagles win. This was especially true, since they were their own worst enemy with stupid penalties at crucial times. The Giants didn’t take advantage and the Eagles didn’t quit.

I believe this Sunday was a total success.

&#185 – Chanukah, being a Hebrew word, is only approximated in English. This spelling is one of many. I am of the personal opinion that if you say it right, people near you will get wet.

Good Day To Be Me

I’ll start with an admission. This won’t be my most exciting of entries. It wasn’t an exciting day.

It was a good day… and an unusual day. I had two meals with two friends. I eat dinner every night, but the fact I had lunch at all was out of the ordinary.

Lunch was with my friend Josh. publisher of a string of weekly newspapers.

I woke up ‘early,’ around 11:00 AM, driving to New Haven at 12:45 PM. Today was a day with astounding weather. It got over 60&#176 at my house and well into the 50&#176s in New Haven (closer to Long Island Sound). For mid-February in New England, this was a bonus day!

Normally, in February, I’d park in the garage under his office building. Today I drove to the TV station, parked in our lot and hoofed it the five or six blocks under the Federal Building and past the New Haven Green.

The streets were crawling with people. It was like a spring day and anyone with any kind of pent up winter blues was outside.

The happiest person I saw was the hot dog vendor on Church Street, outside the (usually unoccupied) WVIT – New Haven studio. I’m not sure if the hot dog guy’s out there year round, but if he is, he can’t be this busy most days.

Josh and I had lunch at Basta, an Italian restaurant on Chapel Street. I chose mine from the daily specials the waitress read.

I can’t remember exactly what it was I ordered, though it did have chicken sausage over penne pasta. I do remember, there was so much ‘range fed’ this and ‘organic’ that in her description, I felt ordering it would also commit me to vote for Ralph Nader (if he ever runs again)!

Lunch, and luncheon company, were very good.

I walked back to the station. On the way, a few people stopped me to say hello and kid me about the weather. If there was ever a good day to be the weatherman, today was that day.

Through the afternoon I thought about how I’d avoid dinner. Lunch was plenty. Then, my friend Harvey came on Instant Messenger.

Harvey is a physician – a specialist in pregnancy&#185. Every time I introduce him to someone, I say Harvey gets women pregnant for a living. It’s a cute line and Harvey has never asked me to stop saying it.

We headed out for dinner at the diner – salads.

We both talked about our girls – he has three to my one.

It’s so strange to me to be having these grown up conversations with other grownups. But, I suppose I am one and there’s little I can do to change that.

Actually, at lunch, Josh and I had a similar adult-ish conversation. Growing up is sneaky. I don’t feel old, but when I look around I know I’m older than most of the people I see. And, my life revolves around adult responsibilities.

I just don’t remember exactly when I grew up.

&#185 – Harvey’s medical specialties also includes women’s orgasms. There is no joke here. That’s a heck of a thing to be known for.