So I looked out this morning and the sun was gone, turned on some music to start my day, lost myself in a familiar song, closed my eyes and I slipped awaaaaa… no wait, that’s not right.

On second thought, that WAS how I started my first morning in Boston. Heh. After a hot shower and a quick breakfast at a restaurant next door, it was off to the Boston Commons to begin my walk on the Freedom Trail.

It's beginning to snow at the Boston Commons!

By this time it was already snowing, yet nothing so severe that it would ruin my morning (and the rest of my time here.) I took the T line again and got out at the foot of the famous park, taking a quick walk around to find a few hidden geocaches and then doubling back to start the Freedom Trail.

Seriously, they could have dressed up the beginning of the trail with a bit more fanfare than this.

After a few stops, I eventually found myself at King’s Chapel, and tried to get a shot off at an angle so I could capture the entire steeple of the huge church, when the camera slipped right out of my gloved hands and hit the pavement with a sickening crack.

Bostonians within a block of me all turned their heads in the direction of the girlie shriek they had just heard.

I quickly picked up the camera hoping it was shockproof enough to withstand the impact, but I could see the lens was already cracked. My beloved Canon had just taken what would be its last ever picture.

The last picture my Canon would ever take.

It had to happen RIGHT before getting to Granary Cemetery too, the site of many famous burials, including Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and so many others. My only option was to use my camphone in the meantime, until I could get back to the parking garage to get my older, backup Olympus camera. Thank goodness I thought to take it with me, even though it was old, bulky and slow. Now it was all I had left to use while I was here.

Grave of Samuel Adams

After the cemetery I stopped by the old South Street House and decided to spend a few minutes there out of the cold and the snow. I’m glad I did too. The building was quiet and homey, so I took some time to sit down in one of the pews and relax, amazed that I was in the very same building where Samuel Adams gave the signal that launched the start of the Boston Tea Party.

Taking a breather inside a famous U.S. landmark.

After getting warmed up again, I decided to leave and visit the old State House before getting back to the garage. The state house was also a museum, which included a gallery of old photos in the basement chronicling Boston’s history. By this time the snow had now turned to hard rain, forcing me to conclude the Freedom Trail for the day. I got to the garage and got out my old camera, testing it to make sure everything still worked fine.

And of course the flash was broken.

Walking through history, even in the rain!

Good grief, this was turning out to be one camera killing trip. I grabbed it anyway and headed out again, running as fast as I could back to the hotel as the rain pelted me mercilessly. I spent the rest of the afternoon vegging out in my room, watching the rain outside and and deciding to order in so I could give my feet a rest. Which I might add is a mistake in Boston. Between the delivery charges and the gratuities and the absurd prices for beverages, I was paying close to $40 for a small dinner. What, does Boston have something against introverts who hate dining out? Yeesh.

By now the full brunt of the storm had descended on Boston, but I had lucked out, either due to being awesomely awesome, or being so hot that I kept the entire city warm, because it had never snowed more than an inch. New York had gotten walloped with over 15 inches of snow, but Boston received but a light dusting. The roads and sidewalks would still be free and clear for me to conclude the Freedom Trail and visit a few other sites for the rest of the week.

But for now, it was time to rest and enjoy my $40 dinner. Oh, and do some research online for a new camera.

Tags: boston, Boston Commons, burials, camera, canon, cemetery, church, freedom trail, geocaches, Granary Cemetery, graves, history, King's Chapel, museum, Old State House, photo, Photos, Samuel Adams, South Street House
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Back in October I blogged about my trip through Vermont and New York, and some of the best pictures I took during that trip was a shot of Lake Champlain with the Crowns Point Bridge in the background. That same bridge closed literally a day after I had driven over it, and was finally demolished forever yesterday morning:

As it turns out, there were divers in the water around the same time I had driven over the bridge, and it was since discovered that in some parts the bridge was not even connected to the concrete piers beneath it.

Who knew the picture I took of the bridge would turn out to be the very last one I would ever make before it closed permanently? I found myself truly saddened by its demolition, as another piece of our history is now gone for no other reason than because of the gross incompetence and stupidity of our local politicians. Thanks Albany!

Here’s a photo from my last view of the Lake Champlain Bridge before I drove over. You can also read more about its history here.

Tags: champlain bridge, demolition, Lake Champlain, new york, photo, Photos, Vermont, video
Categories: News Fit To Blog
 
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So aside from the poison ivy rashes (which reared its ugly head once I came home), I had a nice time in Pennsylvania for a few days.

I stayed at the Fulton Steamboat Inn, probably THE place to stay at if you’re ever visiting this area (and I don’t merely say that because of the sweet hotel girl I met here.) As soon as you come near you can hear folksy music playing in the background, and the hotel is especially a treat to the eyes at night:

Look at all the purdy lights!

Awesome rooms too:

LOVE

After catching a bluegrass show the first night, it was off to go geocaching for the remainder of my trip there. One of the things that I should have realized about this pastime is that when you go outdoors, you expose yourself to unpleasant, outdoorsy things. Like say, poison ivy.

And course, only me, would catch a BAD case of poison ivy by looking around for a geocache at a Walmart parking lot. Yes, seriously. A week later the rashes have left me weeping in a corner for several days now, while wishing death and destruction on the idiot douche monkey cache owner for hiding this thing in a jungle of this VILE, EVIL WEED. Seriously, who expects to run into poison ivy at WALMART? Oy.

I did fare better on future cache hunts though, the most rewarding of which was hidden at a covered bridge here:

Wow... it really covers!

You would thinking finding a cache here would be easy right? Well, aside from almost getting mowed down by passing cars who liked to drive 300 miles an hour over the bridge, when I realized where I had to look…

Errmm...

Are you kidding me?

Oh boy. There was a tiny ledge underneath the bridge, but the only way to get to it was to swing under by holding one of the wooden beams. I’m telling you, I came THISCLOSE to falling into the water. I was sure the wood was going to give way and I would wind up spending the night at a hospital with splinters and pneumonia. Somehow though I pulled it off, grabbed the cache while holding on to one of the beams, and swung out. Behold:

Who does your Daddy work for now, punk?

Inside were several items known as swag (trade items geocachers leave behind) and a geocoin that came from British Columbia, which I took as my reward. Due to their nature though I can’t hold on to it, so I’ll need to drop the coin off at another cache soon, where it will continue its worldwide journey.

After that near brush with death and swimming with the fishes, I decided to avoid the more riskier caches and opt for those that took me to various areas around Lancaster, preferably those places that didn’t require bushwhacking my way through the forests where evil, dangerous things like groundhogs lurked. Filtering those out, I ended up finding one near a game farm:

What are YOU lookin' at?

And one near an Amish store, where I bought a homemade sausage pretzel from a pretty Amish babe. Mmmmmm, mmmmmm, MMMM! She can do Rumspringa with me anytime.

But anyhoo, *ahem*, I have to say, geocaching is definitely providing some helpful fodder for my blogging, primarily because it leads me to places I normally wouldn’t go on my own. Usually I’m just driving around aimlessly when I’m unsure of what to do, (which is pretty much the case for me 90 percent of the time,) so it’s nice to finally come across a hobby that can provide some much needed focus to my otherwise meandering and boring life.

I have more pictures from the trip by the way, so if you’d like to see them you can check them out at my gallery or on Flickr. Enjoy!

Tags: Amish, blogging, bluegrass, country, covered bridge, geocache, geocaching, hobby, hotel, Pennsylvania, photo, Photos, poison ivy, walmart
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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So Sunday I crossed the entire breadth of Long Island under the reasonable assumption that if I just drove out east far enough, I would find a completely unobstructed view of the horizon for the harvest moon, as well as get some nice snapshots of the scenery. Under that logic I decided to drive, and drive, and drive, and drive, until I ended up at a place called Montauk, which is about as far east as you can possibly go in the entire state of New York before driving into the Atlantic Ocean.

The trip was nice, until it turned into one lane and I had drivers up my ying yang while the guy in front me of course has to drive 20 miles an hour, because what’s the hurry, really? So I’m feeling myself getting squeezed by tailgaters and slow pokes the whole last hour of driving before I finally and mercifully pulled into the town/village/hamlet(??) of Montauk.

Since I had a couple of hours to kill I decided to explore the area, beginning of course with:

Nothing says small town like a good old fashioned burger.

I walked in and the place looked like it was 100 years old. I placed an order for their specialty burger and watched as a few more people came in, still dressed in summer clothes, all of them barefoot.

Clearly there were hicks in New York too. I waited like 10 minutes for my burger, and when I finally got around to eating it, it tasted a bit… fishy to me. No, I mean it really had a fishy taste to it. Bleh. And I HATE seafood too.

Ah well, I made up for that by having pizza instead.

Californian pizza in New York? FAIL

I took a walk through town, not much to it really, just a few stores sprinkled here and there, though I did find an amusing junk store with these signs on the door:

Heh.

I could live in this store forever.

Also passed by a florist too:

Preeeeetty....

So prettttttyyy...

After walking around town a bit, I decided to chance a quick trip down to the harbor before going out to Montauk Point to set up my camera for the moonshot. As I pulled out, I saw this in my sideview mirror:

Thank you world for all these constant reminders that I'm single. Douche balls.

I found a beach that offered a vantage view of the channel boats navigate through in order to enter Lake Montauk, but the beach was infested with flies. I only managed to get two or three shots off before I decided to flee and get back onto the parking lot.

Why yes, the branch DID have carvings of stupid skanky teen couples professing their love for each other. OMG, can I fricking DIE now??

I didn’t take two steps onto the parking lot before I sprained my ankle and spiraled almost face first into the cement before finally catching myself. Oh my goodness. PAIN. I limped the rest of the way to my car and I just knew this day was going to get worse before it got better.

I could still walk though, albeit a bit tenderly, so I started to drive my way back to the state park about an hour before sunset. The water was really amazing. Everywhere you went you were surrounded by water:

Man, don't make any wrong turns here.

The park included the famous Montauk lighthouse, and after paying $6 for parking(??!?), I was finally able to take a photo of it for the first time:

Gee, it looked a lot bigger to me in the postcards...

That’s when I realized I had a problem. The lighthouse was closed at sunset, and the rest of the area was covered in shrubs and trees. It was almost worse than being in the city. I simply had no idea where to find an ideal spot so I could watch the moon rise. So I went up to the beach and started walking around the lighthouse, carrying my camera with the tripod attached. This is what constitutes a beach in this area by the way:

I'm supposed to walk on THIS?

And yep, while I was walking across, I sprained my ankle again. Not as bad as the first time, but just enough to aggravate me and remind me once again that I suck.

The fishermen apparently LOVE to fish in these areas though:

You'll never catch anything! NEVAH!! Ahhhhhahahahahah!

What the flips is this thing??

For some reason I actually thought there would be a manmade sidewalk because I could see a fence in the distance, so I continued trucking along, gingerly walking/limping over rocks until I finally found myself on a rocky ledge behind the lighthouse. Did I say sidewalk before? Well not quite:

You have GOT to be kidding me.

I was already halfway on this ledge before I realized there would in fact be no smooth-as-silk sidewalk waiting for me, and it actually would have been more dangerous for me to turn back since there was a bunch of snot nosed little turdlings that were hopping the rocks around me and blocking the way. I couldn’t believe how unsafe it was. One slip and your boom booms go bye bye as you plunge 30 odd feet to your certain death. On top of this there were fishermen all over these ledges, tossing back their fishing poles at random moments so that God forbid you had the misfortune of being behind them as the bait and line flew over you. Can you say fish food? Oy.

The sun was already beginning to set now, so I made my way through as fast as I could on this crazy obstacle course, with a twice sprained ankle and a camera + tripod leaning on my shoulder. Hop, hop, hop, hop, OW! *&^%, hop, hop, hop…

I finally made it off the ledge, which of course led to an area where I was now sandwiched between two small cliffs, obstructing my view even more. Sigh. There was an unpaved road that led upwards, so I rested a minute or two to catch my breath, than made my way up the road. I still could not see any moon, just shrubs and trees and cable wires and whatnot. I might as well have been in an Amazonian jungle. I walked and walked, the light of the sun slowly fading away, until I came across a gigantic pool of MUD that covered the entire road. There was absolutely no way around it.

Why, God, WHY?

I just stood for a few minutes and looked at it, before finally letting out my breath and deciding that it didn’t look too deep, so maybe if I just hugged the side enough my shoes wouldn’t go that deep into the mud.

So I got as close to the side as possible, then took my first step.

*SPLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH*

Oh Mommy. The pool of mud was like a foot deep. I was completely submerged up to my ankles. I groaned as I plopped through, one SPLOOOOSH at a time until I finally made my way past the pool.

Squish, squish, squish, squish. And then of course I sprained my ankle AGAIN, almost dropping my camera as I stumbled a few feet before catching myself. Man.

By this time, dusk had finally descended, and yes, of course, I still could not see the moon.

I finally gave up and squished back to my car. Before leaving I decided to see if I could get a glimpse of the moon and finally at long last I saw it, even though it was now past its harvest peak. Since I didn’t want to leave empty handed, I swung around and drove back into the park. I must have done several circles trying to find an ideal spot but I just could not find any, except for one spot that was already taken up by some dweebie photographer, and of course he has a girl with him sitting adoringly at his feet while the man gets himself the perfect moon shot. God in heaven, should have driven off the road so I could nail his bony little …

But anyhow, I decided to just go back into the parking lot and get whatever shots I could from there. This was one of the only moon shots I could manage:

Yes it's fuzzy. Yes it looks like the sun. But it's the moon, I assure you.

As for the rest of the photos, I used a bracketing technique on my camera to get shots with different exposures, then used a software program to merge them all together to create what’s called an HDR image. It’s not perfect, but overall, I guess I could have done far worse considering the day I was having.

Probably the best photo I took then.

The final result. Yes that's the moon, not the sun. Shut up already.

With night fully upon me now, it was time to take the long trip back home. I stopped by a Carvel since a day of having pizza and burgers simply cannot be complete unless it’s topped off with ice cream.

The Carvel was empty, so I walked inside an ordered a chocolate cone. Suddenly it was instantly filled up by 30 people. I’m not kidding, in the space of a minute, it was PACKED, including some weird looking elephant-man type dude who felt it necessary to stand two inches behind me while I was waiting for my order. Finally I looked back at him:

“Dude, seriously, a little space?”

He stepped back once, about 4 less steps than I would have liked. The crap was taking my ice cream so long?

Ah, here we go, sheesh. I grabbed my cone, licked and limped back to my car again, and steeled myself for the long, lonely drive back.

Maybe next year will be better.

Tags: beach, burgers, camera, clouds, couple, day trip, driving, flowers, harvest moon, ice cream, ledge, lighthouse, montauk, new york, ocean, photo, Photos, pizza, rocky, town, water
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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So I’m bored out of my mind at work, and just for fun I decide to do a Google search for “girl of my dreams.” 

One of the hits I happened on led me to a Facebook group started by a British dude who also had a dream about meeting “the one,” and then drew a sketchy (nay, make that VERY sketchy) picture of her after he woke up.  He has been looking for her ever since and even traveled to the States to find her.  Oy.  But what grabbed my interest was the completely random Facebook ad that showed up when I viewed the page:

Tell me that you don't see any similarities here.

Yep, it sure looks like Mr. British was snogging himself a Snorg Tees girl doesn’t it?    But you be the judge.

I decided to email the guy:

Dear Hopelessly Romantic Citizen of the United Kingdom of Weenies,

Take a gander at my site, because I think you dreamt about a Snorg Tees girl.  If that’s the case, I will laugh, and laugh, and laugh and remember to tell this story around the campfire one day for an endless bout of jolly good laughs that will entertain me and all my slim shady friends for additional years to come.  But if it’s true and by some astounding miracle you meet and marry her, I will hate you forever and pray to no end that you will some day spontaneously explode into a puss filled ball of fiery death.

Kindest regards,

Lincoln

I dunno, his group sure seems to have gotten a lot of attention though, and if the photos are any indication, there are some mighty fine bespectacled babes there that all seem to be vying for his attention (this one’s particularly attractive).  Maybe he’s on to something.

Whatayathink? Should I start my own Facebook group based on the personal dream I had and see if Dream Girl comes a-running?  Or maybe someone else can start one for me, that way I can avoid coming across as the desperate lonely man at the end of his rope that I am. 

Tags: ads, british, dream, dream girl, facebook, facebook group, girl, girl of my dreams, google, photo, SnorgTees
Categories: Romance and Relationships
 
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Tags: doom, graffiti, message, photo, usa today
Categories: Photos
 
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