Category Archives: Photography

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Niagara Falls – on a cloudy workday

You’re not supposed to visit wonders of the world ad hoc. You’re supposed to plan this stuff out, make a day of it, or whatever. As always though, when work sends you somewhere you need to remain flexible.

I was supposed to be in Buffalo with my boss for two days of stupid meetings. In his typical manner (I don’t like my job) this trip was booked on about two days notice. We get stuffed (for his loyalty points) at a hotel well to the east of Buffalo itself.

We get into Buffalo–Niagara International late Monday morning, and go straight to an office. But instead of taking the allotted four hours, it goes for like 90 minutes. Then the dude looks directly at me and he’s like, “Are we done?” Uh, yeah sure, why not. Don’t have to ask me twice.

So all of sudden it’s like 2pm and I have the rest of the day. I’m in Buffalo, so now what? Hell, Niagara Falls, that’s down the road right? Sure, why not. But he’s got the rental car. Fortunately, he’s probably more of a loser than I.  He just wants to sit in the hotel. So I get the rental car keys he kindly offers. So, apparently, now I’m unexpectedly driving to Niagara Falls. Okay.

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American Falls.

Once upon a time, before cheap discount air travel changed all of global travel, people vacationed or traveled to where a train or car could get them. If you lived in the American Northeast or Middle Atlantic, you didn’t jet set to Cancun or visit London or Iceland. Instead, you drove to places like Niagara Falls. For a good long while Niagara was the number one honeymoon destination on the planet. No more.

As I drove the back roads to Niagara from east of Buffalo I was struck by the starkness of the typical rust belt urban / suburban wasteland I’ve previously encountered. More than half the billboards were for things like opioid addiction, plastic surgery, and the like. It was like driving through other formerly paramount Northeastern tourist destinations that have been gutted by cheap air travel, such as New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

The swankiest looking building in downtown Niagara is (sigh) the freaking casino. Everything else looked burnt out, old, nostalgic from a different happier age. What’s been Cancun’s gain, is Niagara Falls’ loss. I’m not sure what to entirely make of all this, but it is what it is. That being said, Niagara Falls doesn’t disappoint.  It’s an awesome place to visit.

I was there on what turned into a cloudy summer afternoon. I kept fearing it would pour rain but I figured it was worth the risk. It misted a bit here and there, but otherwise the weather cooperated.

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Long distance shot of Horseshoe Falls from Prospect Point.  Note tourist boat getting a good soaking.

Niagara Falls is actually a series of falls. Combine them all together, and depending on how you count, it’s essentially one of the top three waterfalls on Earth.

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Handy map for reference.  Not my shot.

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Looking north down river into Niagara Gorge.  Note Rainbow Bridge, aka Department of Homeland Security parking lot #428.4b.

I ended up at Prospect Point. You can park there for a small fee. Walk over and you’re at American Falls.

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Out of all the places I’ve visited in America, this was the most international I’ve ever seen a tourist crowd. I was one of the only home team members there. Almost everybody else was from elsewhere on the planet. This was on a summer weekday. So my only conclusion is that the international community is more into Niagara Falls than regular Americans. I guess USA folks take it for granted? Or maybe Americans prefer hanging out on the beaches of Cancun over seeing a big waterfall? Not sure.

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American Falls Rapids.

Prospect Point is very crowded. You get a good view of the American Falls though. In the distance you can see Horseshoe Falls. But the best way to go is to walk a bit. Head across the bridge to Luna Island and Goat Island. It’s less crowded and your view of the Falls are better.

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American Falls Rapids with American Rapids Bridge.

You could truly make a whole day at Niagara. Maybe not a whole week, unless it was actually your honeymoon and you were otherwise occupied, but a whole day yes. You could walk the Falls on both sides of the border. You could take the old fashioned boat to get soaked by the Falls. There is also a walkway near the Cave of the Winds where you can get soaked on foot at the base of the Falls. You could also hike all the trails and get a good view of all the preparatory rapids. It’s truly a full day awaiting you.

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American Falls from Luna Island, where your doom over the Falls is literally three feet away from your face.  So awesome.

I was there for a few hours. I’ll be back.

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PS I posted this groundhog a few weeks back. The answer to the riddle was Niagara Falls. This dude was just going about his day about four feet from the edge of Niagara Falls. You can see the mist in the background of the shot. The little guy (or gal) knows his (or her) stuff. I’m sure the groundhog fatality rate at the Falls annually is zero percent.

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Toke up little buddy!

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lunatic (not boring) salad

Life is full of risks. If you take upon your shoulders the profession of Bear Baiter you should expect some high medical insurance premiums. But if you post an unfavorable recipe on your degenerate blog, oh well, you’ll live.

However many years I didn’t post any of my cooking here was due to many things, timid behavior, failure, laziness, whatever.  Only a handful of recipes have gone up, all I’m rather proud of. I’ve still got many more of those. But how about one (of many) I’m not too sure of? It’s all good. It is what it is. It’s food, it’s good, so who cares if it’s not necessarily indescribably great. But seriously it’s still good stuff.

I hate boring salads. There’s no point. You can get nutrition in so many awesome ways. Who wants to get their daily greens via apathy? Not me. On the other hand, places that charge their customers $11 for a lunch salad should be firebombed. It’s just salad.

So we built this exciting main dish salad you can make on a weeknight in less than a half hour. If nothing else, it’s not boring. Whether all the freaky flavors in here will excite you or drive you away is entirely dependent upon your palate and preference. For us, I dig this kind of stuff, so badly.

 

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Let’s go!

 

lunatic (not boring) salad

bags of fresh greens

1 head broccoli, chopped

1 apple, sliced

1 carrot, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

1 shallot, diced

3 fresh cherry peppers, diced or 1/4 cup jarred

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup white wine

1/8 cup sun dried tomato, diced

1 anchovy tin

1 lemon, juiced

1/8 cup sherry vinegar

1 basil pack, chopped

pepper

2 Tbsp mustard

1 pack pine nuts

1 pack pancetta

1/2 cup parmesan / reggiano

in a large bowl add the greens, broccoli, apple, and carrot

in a medium sauté pan heat the olive oil, add the shallot and brown, add the cherry peppers and garlic and brown, deglaze with white wine

add the sun dried tomato and anchovy and cook for about 5 minutes, add the lemon juice, remove the pan from the heat and let cool for a few minutes

transfer the pan mixture to a blender or food processor, add the vinegar, basil, pepper and mustard, blend and let sit

without cleaning the sauté pan, add the pine nuts and pancetta and cook until both are crisp

toss the dressing with the greens, add the cooked pine nuts and pancetta, sprinkle with the parmesan

 

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Let’s begin!

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Just get a big bowl and toss the greens, broccoli, carrot, and apple in there.  Chop them as you please.  Feel free to substitute any fruit or vegetable you desire in your salads or to add more.  It’s all good.  But have at least three fruit or vegetable options in addition to the greens.

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The star of this dish is the vinaigrette and this sauté pan is your tool.  You’ve got your shallots and peppers to brown as you desire, then the sun dried tomato and anchovy to provide some added bite.  White wine deglazes, and the lemon juice to somewhat even it out.  Cherry peppers have some high heat, you can use jalapenos or even regular bell pepper and it’s fine, just cook them a bit longer until they’re soft.  You want almost all liquid gone but no overly dry.

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Process or blend it all up with the sherry vinegar, mustard, basil, and pepper.  Do not, please do not add any additional salt.  The anchovy already has your back on that.  If you left the anchovy out because you don’t like the fishy taste or whatever, you add some salt then.  If you don’t want to dance with sherry vinegar, use red wine vinegar.  You should have a nice dressing at this point.  If it’s too thick, add just a touch of water and blend again.  If it’s too loose, you can add a bit more mustard, or just leave it.  As long as it can coat your vegetables you’re good.

Oh but we’re not done yet.  Because who doesn’t love bacon and pine nuts?  I mean, I guess there might be somebody, somewhere who doesn’t.  If so, they’re probably aliens, report them to the authorities.

Toss the vinaigrette in the large bowl, add in the pine nuts and pancetta, sprinkle over the parmesan and go.

No matter what happens, one way or the other, you’ll not be bored.

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the groundhog knows all

What if the groundhog does or does not see his shadow in August?  What are the consequences of that?

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What if the groundhog taunts you, death, and fate by placing itself in mortal danger but barely bats an eye?

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The groundhog knows all.  Even where work sent us for travel next.  Do you?  If so, the groundhog owes you money.

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San Diego – Cuyamaca Rancho Park

On travel for work?  Got that rare day off?  Get outside, run.  Run away before they change their minds.  They know where you live, it’s how they pay you.  Run!

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Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, about a hour or so east of San Diego depending on whether you exceed the posted speed limit.  The park itself is massive and you could spend weeks there without seeing it all.  I had a day.

I did no research other than just to drive to the park.  The state highway snakes through it and you can get off at various campgrounds, trails, etc.

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Stonewall Peak.  One of the greatest feelings on the planet is to see a mountain and you’re like, “I want to climb that.”  So you do.  A campground sits at the base, you can park there for ten bucks or so with the park rangers.  It’s two miles up and two miles down.  It’s not too difficult if you regularly hike.  I did some other shorter hikes off the highway, but this was the longest and best part.

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The climb for the most part is a series of switchback trails carved into the side of the mountain.

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After a while you get the creepy idea that this place burned in the past.  Turns out I was right.

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In 2003 a lost hiker lit a signal fire in Cuyamaca Rancho and started one of the largest wildfires in California history, which is saying something.  Nearly the entire park burned including just about every long growth tree.

Once upon a time, the firefighters of the American West were dedicated to putting out every fire no matter how natural, no matter where it was.  This was a mistake.  It allowed decades worth of growth to accumulate into the forests.  Nature needs fire.

A forest of the West needs to burn as part of the natural progression of its ecosystem.  It cleans out brush, certain species of plant need the flames to reproduce, etc, etc.  By putting out every fire folks got in the way of this.

So when Cuyamaca Rancho burned for the first time in like five decades.  It burned hot and massive.  If you have a wildfire once every ten years or so, the ecosystem can recover.  That’s the way it’s meant to be.

But it seems when it burns once in a century, that the system can’t recover.  They’ve waited for Cuyamaca Rancho to regrow for these near 15 years and it’s become clear that some species aren’t coming back.  They were wiped out by the intensity of the flames.  So the park service has begun replanting by hand instead.

When you hear people talk about allowing natural wildfires pay attention.  This stuff is important.  It’s also why some folks who build brand new swanky houses up in the forests and then demand the state protect them are in many cases actually doing their surrounding forests genuine harm.

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Stonewall Peak and the nearby abandoned mine were named after Jackson by former Confederate veterans who’d come out West after the war.  What a tale some of those lives must have been.

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Immune to fire.

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At the summit.  The folks who put this up here were the real deal.  They got to the top before proper trails, before online park maps, and so on.

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Just one hill among many.  So much else to see.

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fake smoked salmon sandwich

Everything is apparently fake nowadays. The news is fake, science is fake, happy cat videos are faked, celebrity births are fake, and so on. So we decided to get in on the action, with this fake smoked salmon sandwich. It’s not actually smoked, but it’s ability to fill your body with delicious food will surely be the most realistic part of your day. So climb aboard our mystical journey, in a life where apparently nothing is more fake than the quest to determine your place in this currently destructive world. Wait, what? Let’s begin!

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fake smoked salmon sandwich

 

1 pound salmon filet

olive oil

salt & pepper

1 tsp Old Bay

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp crushed red pepper

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 tbsp capers

1 tbsp tightly packed fresh dill or 1/2 tbsp dried

fresh lime juice

onion, chopped

toasted bread, sliced

basil leaves, chopped

tomato, sliced

arugula leaves

 

preheat the oven to 350 degrees, brush the salmon filet with olive oil, dust with salt & pepper, and sprinkle with juice of 1/2 lime

in a small bowl mix Old Bay, smoked paprika, crushed red pepper and rub over the salmon

wrap the salmon in foil, place the foil in a roasting pan, and bake for 15 minutes

increase the oven heat to 450 degrees, unroll the foil to expose the salmon and bake for 5 more minutes

while baking the salmon, in a small bowl mix the mayo, capers, dill, 1/2 lime juice

in a small skillet add 1 tbsp olive oil, add chopped onion and cook to your desired brownness and caramelization

to make the sandwich, spread the mixed mayo on the bread, add cut salmon filets, top with onions, basil, tomato, and arugula

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After you’ve mixed up the spices, pat them into the salmon.  The oil and lime juice you’ve brushed it with will allow the grains of goodness to stick to the salmon flesh.  Smoked paprika is the top ingredient here.  I’ve used paprika since the beginning of my cooking journey but have only recently discovered smoked paprika.  It has so many delightful uses.

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After 15 minutes in the oven the salmon is mostly cooked, but we now open the foil to expose it to the increased heat.  This will allow your spice blend to brown considerably.  Note the difference visually, I assure you the taste difference is even better.

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Salmon is just about the most criminally easy thing to cook.  So quick to do, and yet so delicious.  I get the idea that salmon was one of those softballs God tossed to humanity after creation.  We basically got left with war, pestilence, turmoil, and an ingrained desire to destroy ourselves.  So God was like: oh, sorry, eh, uh, hmm, okay, here’s salmon.

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The mayo gets mixed up briefly with the capers, dill, and lime juice.  The onion is extra credit, you don’t need to do it if you don’t want.  The greens and tomato just get thrown right on there.  Use your bread of choice.  I went with sourdough, but any good bread will do.  Just flake the salmon to fit the size of the bread.

It’s a quick dish for a weeknight, that’s mostly healthy, and well worth your time.

Enjoy life.

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destroy selfie sticks, ask somebody instead

It’s close to summer, so the selfie sticks have emerged from hibernation with glorious abandon.  Even your dog(s) is in on the action.  They used the selfie stick to take a photo of them attempting to kidnap the partially cut meat off your kitchen counter.  Or so the online video prophets have told me.

I simply have never understood the selfie stick.  Instead of asking a kind passerby to take a picture of you, your friends and family, and said local landmark?  No, no, you can just do it yourself with this partial makeshift club thingy.  Why not just ask somebody for help instead?

My photography (and I take this word very loosely) is amateur garbage hour.  So you can take my opinion as the garbage it is.  But to me, selfie stick shots are the worst thing on the planet.  The human always takes up too much of the frame, the angles are weird, the resolution on cell phone cameras remains crap, and it just doesn’t look natural.

All of this for what?  So folks don’t have to talk to another human being?  Hasn’t online death spiral of human contact taken us far enough down the non-contact-outside-our-own-personal-bubbles-realm?  Why do we need yet another reason not to talk to another human we don’t know.

Destroy selfie sticks.  Ask somebody instead.  Let them take a picture of your special moment.  Let them laugh with you at how awesome it is.  Share the moment.  Actually get a good shot you can remember.  What do you have to lose?

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Milwaukee – Oscar’s

So what does one do after they’ve hiked seven miles, were already tired to begin with, and just want a good meal and few beers before an early bed? Well, you plan ahead and plot a stop between hiking and the hotel at a place that is consistently on every top ten burger list for all of Wisconsin.

And you get Oscar’s

1712 West Pierce Street Milwaukee, WI 53204

http://www.oscarsonpierce.com/

They have awesome burgers. They have dozens of draft beers. They have a great atmosphere. I got in there late afternoon. There was one white-collar office party, one blue-collar office party, a reception for elderly veterans, and a bunch of random folks like me. All were smiling and having fun. Oscar was helping the employees everywhere. Everybody was enjoying themselves.

I got The Big O, because if you’re in a place so highly recommended, you get the flagship menu option. It did not disappoint. This is a really great burger. And it’s a superb place. Parking is available in their own lot. And you should go.

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Wisconsin – Kettle Moraine Forest

We’re back, after an unexplained 13 week absence. During that time we had the pleasure of enduring work, more work, a visit with a self-described crypt-keeper-leprechaun, some more work, and we fought a dragon. Now we’re back to mindlessly telling stories and share the breadth of humanity’s experiences. Because it’s what we do. Side note: don’t ever fight a dragon. This was a bad choice.

Anyways, as part of their desire to endlessly prove their incompetence, I ended up in Milwaukee again for work a whole day early. Rather than tool around downtown again I decided to venture out away from the concrete. So I planned a hike through Kettle Moraine Forest, Lapham Peak Unit. It’s about a half hour drive west of Milwaukee via I-94.

I hiked the Moraine Ridge trail which they clock at 6.6 miles. I broke with my usual practice and didn’t carry any weight. I even left the boots aside and just used my running shoes. I was just too tired to get crazy with anything.

I saw something new in that all the trails are actually made for cross country skiing. In most places the paths are cut through the woods with a very wide diameter. It’s weird. Though they probably don’t have any choice for skiing.

When I was there it was still the end of winter, only the very barest of green saplings were beginning to appear.

The various trails constantly cross each other at multiple points.  Accordingly, the park unit labels each intersection and provides an updated map.  Beyond that they don’t really label the trails at all.  I had to check multiple times to ensure I didn’t take a wrong turn.  Even so, I did actually take the wrong way once and had to backtrack.

Dude is glad winter is ending.

There were many other folks on the trails, but I would not call them crowded.  Like a dummy I dropped my gloves and had to go back and get them at one point.  A couple put them where I could see them after finding them on the ground.  I passed them later and they were happy to see I’d found them.  I thanked them, though was a bit embarrassed.  I was a nice human moment.  I think they were Quebecois.

According to the trail marker, the Native Americans that used to inhabit the park grounds bent these trees on purpose as their own markers.  This one marked the way to a water source.  Here is another example.

Note the difference between the trees just emerging from winter, and the pine trees who laugh at winter.

I didn’t time myself, I stopped here and there.  Again, I was tired to begin with so it didn’t matter.  But I had a great time.  It was a good release from paperwork and all the stuff that doesn’t actually matter.  So nature did it’s job.  Hail nature.

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oh, no

I’ve connected through Houston Bush before, but that was years ago.  So I deplane and as soon as I get out the gate I notice there’s a bunch of small screens everywhere.  The normal waiting areas with rows of chairs were apparently replaced with tables.  Each individual seat had a tablet in front of it.

I didn’t think much of it at first.  I had a quick hour to grab food before the next flight.  I ended up at a place called Bam Bam for Vietnamese.  I sit down at the bar, and I’m face-to-face with another tablet.

Oh, no.

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It’s the future.  Today!

It took me about five minutes to realize no bartender was coming to see me.  I figured out on my own that to get a beer or order food I had to use the tablet.  Then I had to swipe my credit card right on the spot.

Even after you’re done ordering, there’s this still that evil screen right in front of you.  They continuously bombard you with ads, proposed money games, and whatever else.  You can’t turn the damn thing off, at least not that I could figure out.

The beer was local Texas good, they had a great banh-mi, and a so-so salad.  But I couldn’t get over the darn screen.  I want a quiet beer and meal.  And maybe to watch sports behind the bar.  Not get ads shoved in my face.  Note the company logos on the shot above from the many, many usual suspects of the Giant Octopi.  I should have put a napkin over the thing.

I’m an introvert.  So you better believe it’s a legit problem when I say I actually genuinely missed ordering my food and drink from a real live person.  To actually engage in conversation with a fellow human.

I eventually figured out the screen thing, but almost nobody else did.  Other folks coming in were exasperated with trying to work it out.  And they got frustrated as the one poor waiter had to walk them through it.

Business consultants told Bam Bam and Houston Bush that there would be friction during the “initiation period”.  But that eventually customers will get used to using this technology on a regular basis to order.  Then they can save 47% on restaurant personnel costs once all orders are handled in this electronic manner.

This is the future.  Every single moment of your time is one giant opportunity for somebody to shove ads in your face.  Everyone notice the new gas pumps?  Where they throw ads at you in the 49 seconds it takes to pump your gas?

Machines probably won’t totally take over every job.  You won’t see a full blown robot bartender.  Instead you’ll see various aspects of humanity removed from the equation.  Technology will destroy jobs on the margins.  Instead of six waiters a restaurant will have two.  What are the other four newly unemployed humans supposed to do?

If you believe the wizards of the future, technology will free those four people to go become artists, or learn a new trade like plumbing, or whatever.  What I suspect will happen instead is that society will generally continue to become poorer and more unequal.

When traveling, I don’t think I’ll do this again.  If I see a screen like this again, I’m walking away.  I’ll take my cash to a business that employs humans.  And if every bar stool on the planet has a screen one day?  I don’t know what I’ll do, but that’ll be a sad, sad day.

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The future can kiss my ass.

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Mount Fuji, Part Two – Fuji stick

You’re supposed to bring home at least one item from every country if you can, or at least every trip.  How does one do this though if you’re constrained to one backpack?  For this reason and many others, I don’t really have too many corporeal possessions from my travels.

But sometimes you pick up an item that you find a way home any darn way you can.  I think I shipped my Fuji stick home via 1912 British Imperial tramp steamer.  I made it happen.  It cost me 13 pounds, 6 shillings, and a bottle of my finest barley swill.

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If you ascend Fuji, you have the option to take the wooden Fuji stick.  Not everybody does so.  Those who’ve been up multiple times have no need.  Some folks consider it a vicious tourist trap kind of thing.  But I just think it’s too cool.

The idea is you start out with this bare piece of wood.  At various way stations on your journey up, they use a hot brand to burn logos into the stick.  Here’s a shot of mine of a local carrying one up where he’s taken the flag off.

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Of note, whereas I left my Japanese flag on my stick, see how the local has taken his off.  I attribute this to the difference in patriotism between your average Japanese and say an American.

For example, my Parents have always had the Stars & Stripes flying outside their front door.  Always.  You would not see this type of behavior from almost any normal Japanese family.  Patriotism is a very different mindset between the two countries.

The Fuji stick takes this concept into overdrive as the flag that adorns it is not just any flag, but the older Rising Sun Flag of Imperial Japan.  I don’t know why Fuji chooses this over the modern and less controversial single red circle?  But anyways, a lot of locals took their flags off their stick.  Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t matter to me either way, I just find the concept interesting.

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Here’s a close up of one of the stamps.  A torii gate with the year I climbed, 2005.  Man, I’m getting freaking old.

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A few more stamps, one with 3,400 for 3,400 meters.  Then, above it again the year 2005, and 11,000 feet.  Note feet, not meters.  I think that guy must have had two stamps.  One that did meters, and one that did 11,000 feet for the gaijin.

My Fuji stick sits right next to my home desk, always.  You can actually catch it in the background of an old shot I had for a previous post where I talked about beer.  Win.

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