like it really matters . . .

Birds of Sunset Park

Originally uploaded by sefkac

It is not everyday that you see a bird flying with a whole bagel in its mouth. I was at Sunset Park photographing the birds when I saw this bird swoop in and snatch this bagel from the water like it was a fish.

Last weekend I decided to get out of town for a mini-vacation in the Hamptons.  This is a summary of my trip.

Flight to Long Island by sefkac, on Flickr

Friday May 1
Hopped on a jet plane headed for Long Island, NY.
The mission:

• Hang out with my friend, take plenty of photos
• Play some golf, take plenty of photos
• See the sights, take plenty of photos
• Go to a Red Sox/Yankees baseball game, take plenty of photos

As I was waiting for my flight I checked the weather forecast which called for rain for the next week. I didn’t care as I had a good time and the baseball game didn’t get rained out.

Flight to NY was the most pleasant flight I have ever experienced. It was smooth and fast, with a gentle landing, delivering me to my destination a whole hour early. I even got to take some pretty cool sunset photos thanks to my window seat.

Great Rock Golf Club by sefkac, on Flickr

Saturday May 2
As expected, it rained Saturday morning. Booked a tentative tee time for 3pm at the Great Rock Golf Club, if it was raining to hard we would skip it. Spent the morning cruising around the Hamptons. Stopped by a deli owned by a friend of my friend for lunch. Lunch was free. Sky cleared at 2:30 providing perfect sunny golf weather. The course was in excellent shape and I look forward to playing there again. Had a big steak dinner on the way home, ate way too much. Pretty much spent the rest of the evening chilling on the couch watching tv, too stuffed to move.

Sunday May 3
Sunday was pretty much non-stop rain but we didn’t let that slow us down. We set out for the Montauk Point Lighthouse figuring that it would be a good photographic subject. We weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere so we pretty much meandered our way down the island, stopping to take photos here and there. Shortly after we arrived there the rain let up a bit, but it was still raining enough that I had to take all of my photos while holding an umbrella in one hand and the camera in the other. Climbing the tower would be my cardio exercise for the day, well worth it for the view.

Montauk Point Lighthouse by sefkac, on Flickr

Upon leaving the lighthouse, we continued our meandering back in the other direction. The plan was to end up in Sag Harbor for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, however Murphey had other plans for us. Upon arriving in Sag Harbor, I had put down the window to take picture of the boats in the marina. As I went to put the window back up, it stopped midway. Tried about 4 more times, each time the window stopping sooner until finally it was pretty much all the way down. Power windows suck ass when they fail. To further complicate matters, the rain was picking up. After finding a rain poncho to cover the window, we canceled our dinner plans, opting instead to head home and find some tools to at least get the window raised for the night. This unfortunate event at least provided us with an entertaining couple of hours as attempted to dig up the tools necessary to pull the door apart, although it did cost my friend about $500 to get the new door regulator installed the next morning. Our Italian dinner became a take-out pizza which we picked up on the way home.

Monday May 4
Woke up early on Monday to take the truck into the dealership to get the window repaired. We were driving into the city in the afternoon to go to the baseball game so we were crossing our fingers to get the truck in and out of the shop quickly, or at least get a loaner car for the trip. We lucked out, we got the last loaner from the dealership, which of course was a piece of crap but the windows rolled up and the doors locked so we were good.

Despite the rain, we decided to make the most of the day and get in another round of golf, even if it was only nine holes. We decided play Indian Island Country Club as it had the best price for nine holes. On the way to the golf course, the dealership called to say the truck was ready, so we made a pit stop by there to exchange vehicles. The golf course was nice enough to provide us with a covered golf cart so playing in the rain wasn’t bad at all. After a quick change into dry clothes, we were off to the Bronx for the baseball game.

Red Sox vs. Yankees @ Yankee Stadium

Arrived at Yankee Stadium twenty minutes before the scheduled start time. Decided to get a quick dinner before the game at the Hard Rock Cafe inside the stadium. Rain delay was announced after we ordered, so we could take our time. As we were leaving our waitress informed us that the game had been called off. Several other people confirmed this as we were preparing to leave. However, we decided we would go check out our seats before leaving and take some photos of the stadium. After getting to our seats another rain delay announcement was made, so we decided we better stick around in case they actually decided to play the game. At 8:50, they announced that the new start time for the game would be 9:20 and the grounds crew started uncovering the field. Glad we stuck around. Boston dominated the score board for most of the game, however the Yankees managed to score 3 runs off of a pair of pitches which ended up in the stands. The game ended at 1:10 AM with a final score was 6-4 Red Sox. Took a few more photos of the stadium on the way to parking lot. The new Yankee Stadium is quite impressive, I might have to go see some more games there.

Apparently Long Island has an abundance of deer roaming around, we saw about eight herds alongside the road on the way back to the Hamptons.

Tuesday May 5
Got up early to pack for the flight home. Packed, ate breakfast, and headed to the airport. I planned on getting something to eat on the plane in the airport but the lines were all too long. The lady sitting beside me on the plan had a foot long turkey sandwich from Subway. She only wanted half of it and insisted I eat the other half, which I gladly accepted. The flight home seemed to last forever. A strong head wind added an hour to the flight time. During the flight I watched Marley & Me on my Ipod. I was saddened by the ending which made me think about my two cats that died within the last year or so. It still seems strange to not have them running around the house. After getting off the plane I started to put my head phones back in my bag and realized I had left the Kindle in the seat back pocket. Had to run back down to the gate and get back on the plane to get it. As I worked my way to baggage claim I was feeling kinda groggy and started to develop a headache. Got my bags off of the carousel only to discover that one of the wheels had been broken off of my golf bag. At this point I am ready to go home an lay down. Took a little while to find my car in the economy lot because I had written down the wrong row on my parking ticket. After I got home I promptly fell asleep on the couch.

Despite the weather it was a great trip and I look forward to going back soon. I think I will try to do it again towards the end of summer.

Hard Rock Cafe

Originally uploaded by sefkac

This past Friday the Hard Rock Cafe hosted a blogger party which coincided with the Bon Jovi pre-concert party. As you can read from the title, the intent of the party was to engage the Las Vegas blogger community and drum up some publicity for HRC.

Typically my Friday evenings are pretty low key so, HRC’s offer of free food and drink seemed like a perfect excuse to get out and socialize for a while. I don’t know how many bloggers showed up to the party, but several from the BNBLV crowd were in attendance. This was the first blogger event hosted by HRC and hopefully in their eyes it was deemed a success.

Attending bloggers were encourage to participate in the pre-concert party activities which included a silent auction and door prize drawing.

I don’t recall what the list of door prizes included, but the main attraction was a pair of concert tickets for the sold out Bon Jovi show which went to a woman from Overton, NV. Sorry Julie.

I had a pretty good time hanging out with friends and look forward to the next HRC Bash.  My thanks go out to Diana Webber from HRC for organizing the event and giving me a good excuse to get out and socialize.

This even also provided me with a good opportunity to work on my photography skills.  The photo of the HRC Guitar sign was my most successful shot of the night.  I will actually take this a bit further and say that it is probably my best neon sign photo to date.

You can check out my photos on Flickr. Comments welcome!

Thank you Hard Rock Cafe for giving me the only cheeseburger that my fitness trainer won’t punish me for eating.

Las Vegas Strip

Originally uploaded by sefkac

Taken from the roof of the Green Valley Ranch parking garage.

So I decided I would attend the Las Vegas Twestival for charity: water next week (Feb 12). Should be interesting. A bunch of folks from Beer and Blog Las Vegas should be there. Anybody want to meet up for some pre-Twestival dining?

Next Beer and Blog Las Vegas meetup is tomorrow night, Feb 5, 6-8pm @ The Freakin Frog.

I don’t have a whole lot going on right now so I thought it would be a good time to do some digital house keeping.  I have too many hosting accounts spread across several providers.  Managing them all and keeping up with all of the renewals has become a pain in the ass.  Time to purge. I really like my Joyent account, so it now hosts nearly all of my sites.  Life just got a little bit easier.

I had an extra hosting account left over after relocating my sites to Joyent.  It is a prepaid account that has almost two years left on it.  The account lacks some functionality that I deem essential to my development activities, so I decided to install WordPress on it and use it for my blog.

So here it is.

- Enjoy!