When I told people we were moving to Maine, after the ‘Hope you like lobster’ comment, the next was usually ‘Hope you like snow’. Lobster’s alright, though it seems more trouble than it’s worth. I reckon you burn more calories in cracking it apart to get to the meat than you do digesting it. Like cucumber encased in concrete… I’ll take smoked haddock over lobster any day of the week. Actually, I’d take fish fingers over lobster too. But snow. I bloody loves it.
The Abominable Photographer
It’s feeling well Christmassy what with the 4-6″ we got on Saturday night. It only seems like yesterday that I was packing our fibre-optic tree into the back of a moving lorry in 3 digit temperatures. Now we’re in the cold and I’m back to using centigrade cos 32° sounds like a ridiculously high temperature for water to freeze at. We were up late on Saturday night watching Dollhouse (which has recently become unmissable and is a real shame that they’re going to cancel it) so I had 5 hours sleep and got up at 6 to see Brunswick in all its frozen glory. I was amazed that the roads had already been ploughed, and Bowdoin maintenance staff (bless ’em) had already shovelled and gritted the path from our door to the road. The ploughed bits were really icy and I nearly fell on my arse several times until I realised it was a lot easier to trudge through the unploughed bits and making full use of the boots mum bought me from LL Bean.
I took around 50 photos, half of which are on Flickr in this set. This is my favourite:
Bowdoin Chapel dans le neige
There should be a top-up of snow on Wednesday and if so I’m going to try and get to the coast because I don’t think I’ve seen that particular combination since Cape Cod in 2000 with Matt & Meg.
Also the snow’s a grand excuse for comfort foods here’s DrSita’s latest soup:
We got to Wolfe’s Neck state park as the sun was setting which made for gorgeous views but had to get back to the car as apparently the park shuts its gates when the sun goes down. And it was cold…
Brunswick and Topsham are also connected by this bridge over the Androscoggin River. This is from last week when a day of showers gave way to low mist illuminated by a setting sun, one of those moments when I was glad to have my camera on me.
From Saturday’s Maine Photography Meet-up in Portland harbo(u)r. It’s got decidedly colder since then. Snow/Ice on its way… On the plus side, I’m an amateur photographer with free heating and don’t work on a tugboat…
It’s been almost a week since me mum left town. We did so much it’d be painful for all concerned to write/read about, but suffice to say we now have a near-native command of places to go to when you come and visit us is deepest, darkest Maine. Well I do anyway; DrSita’s been working like, well like the consummate, conscientious, rock-star professor we all know she is and thus had to forgo most of the opportunities to get to know the area better.
Seeing mum get to grips with her new camera & netbook and getting her on Flickr (and picasa and skype and gmail and…)
Also 3 weeks ago I went on my first Maine photography meetup. It’s a vibrant little group and has met every week since I joined and every time it’s been perfect weather every time. Lovely folks all of them and it’s well gratifying getting so many new, active contacts at Flickr. The first was at Wolfe’s Neck, which is well local, then at a cemetery in Portland during peak, and I mean really peak, autumn foliage (I’m calling it falliage, let me know if that gets tiresome), then last Sunday it was down Kennebunk way at a nature reserve. I think the frequency of the meetups now reflects the impending winter when it’s going to be cold…
I’ve been angling for more work/ a ‘proper’ job via craigslist and suchlike which has involved a re-theming of agaveweb.com . I’m going to try writing more articles for it, rather than the usual self-congratulatory, thinly-veiled marketing pitches, and see where that gets me. The first is called 10 tips for your non-profit’s website, since I seem to have a fair bit of experience working with cash-strapped but very worthwhile ventures. I still need to update the portfolio though ‘cos I pretty much let the site fall by the wayside once I started web developing for Lewis & Clark last year.
We’ve bought our tickets to go back to zummerzet, I won’t say when cos I don’t want to give the squirrels notice of when atticus won’t be guarding the house. But I’m stoked (to use the parlance of our recent times). DrSita’s not been back for ages and there are tons of people I ain’t seen for a good long while whom it’d be lovely to catch up with.
"Home for the holidays"
If you’ve read this far, first off, thanks, secondly there’s a new icon at the end of this (and all others) post(s) if you click the + sign next to it that means you “like” what I’ve written. Comments are best of course, but if you’re not feeling that inspired just give it a click. I can be needy at times. Of course a ‘like’ and a comment would be grand too. Can’t quite offer as much as Skippy over at his site, “A kingdom for a comment”…
There was an impromptu shadow puppetry display whilst on Sunday’s Maine Photography meet-up. I missed a shot of “Nixon meets a Duck”, but I liked this one… It’s the textures I think.
From Saturday’s Maine Photography Meetup in Wolf’s Neck State Park, 20 minutes south of here. Just the 5 of us, but it was a grand day for a walk. More soon I hope.
I’ve got me mum visiting at the minute so we’ve put her to work making fantastic meals in exchange for showing her around the Maine countryside. Today we went to Bath and Harpswell. This one’s from the latter. Got to go now, chicken curry and apple crumble are almost ready.
We just got back from a 4-day trip to Los Angeles, I won’t go into details but it wasn’t really for business or pleasure. It went as well as could be expected and it was nice to catch up with everyone on the other side of the continent.
The Real Los Angeles
Atticus still needs picking up from his canine hotel, we could have gone this morning to get him but his massage and pedicure treatment was scheduled for the early afternoon so I’ll be nipping off to the “10 acres of land in beautiful Freeport, Maine” to get him in an hour or two. In the meantime I can actually get some work done…
Our luggage got delivered this morning. It couldn’t keep up with on all three flights. It was problems all the way and if we have the choice of other airlines I’ll be giving Northwest/Delta the widest possible berth in the future. On the plus side, we weren’t travelling with the dog or it could’ve been bad.
This week on the work front: Maine Latino, Belgian cookware, sending off the Fan Club photos to his fans and a few other minor bits and pieces. Time to start drumming up business again.
And talking of business, Moocards had a 3 year anniversary offer to print 50 business cards for free. They turned up and survived the water sodden post box. They’re pretty. I got one of each of my 50 most ‘interesting’ photos on Flickr.
Click for bigger...
Cos they were free there’s a blurb on the front of each one, so I might spring for the actual paid version…
So a new high score on Facebook’s PacMan game early Sunday morning shamed me into leaving the house and exploring the locality a bit. Bowdoin gave its new professors a 4 page “what to do and see” round Brunswick manual and one of the places suggested was Wolfe’s Neck State Park. I drove over and it was definitely worth it. It’s just down the coast and has all kinds of paths round the woods and is surrounded by rocky, seaweedy coastline. I was using my 50mm (manual focus) lens and there was lots of nature and the like to snap. I’ve already got my eyes on my christmas present to myself (or if eBay has it cheaper, maybe hallowe’en), this: Pentax SMCP-FA 50mm f/1.4 Lens . It costs more than your average camera, but I reckon it’ll be well worth it.
Anyroad, Wolfe’s Neck was $1.50 per person well spent here’s a photo:
Keep wanting to call it Will's Neck
We then rented ‘Ne le dis à personne‘ from Bart & Greg’s fine little video shop but the DVD was scratched or something so we watched The Garden, a documentary about a 40 acre allotment in the middle of LA that (Spoiler) gets closed down by greedy landowners and is on one of DrSita’s syllabi. Therein we learnt that polititians suck. There are probably Marxist interpretations too but I missed those. Then we committed a terrible mistake and watched the final of HGTV’s Design Star rather than Mad Men which we’d forgotten was on the other side.
This week, in theory I’ve got a lot of work on. Santa Cruz nutrition e-commerce, new offices for Portland Therapists, finishing up Baked Beans, starting on Maine Latino, & developing a Belgian kitchenware site and finalising a poster for L&C on Southern Discomfort. However all of those are in stasis until I get the next steps confirmed from everyone. I’ll probably work on my new business cards today and update my business blog with recent work and recommendations. And play pacman on facebook.
Sad news about Keith Floyd innit. He was a star. Here’s The Stranglers’ Peaches as a tribute…
(it was the unlikely theme tune to his tv programme)
Also, I cooked yesterday. Without a glass of red in me hand mind. Here’s the results.
Cottage Pie au Fromage
As usual, needed more salt. But that’s better than needing less, right?
There’s no real consensus on how to pronounce Bokeh. For me it rhymes with ‘okay’. Did you know in America the Hokey Cokey is the Hokey Pokey? That’s one of my favourite ‘liddle differences’. From Wolfe’s Neck park again as threatened in my last post…
Today I went off to explore Wolfe’s Neck State Park half an hour down the road near Freeport. It’s a nice mix of coast and wood and I’ll probably post a few more from round that way this week as the gaps in the trees made for some well nice bokehery.
When you’re writing a blog and you’ve lost momentum, added to the general inertia is the realisation that whatever you’re about to write is probably going to be sitting on the front page for yonks. I’ll try and update regularly enough to knock this off onto page two soon, but I’m not feeling massively inspired right now, so here goes nothing.
Our street- Photo by Martin
I’ve been reprimanded by my own mother (Hi Mum!) for not keeping her up-to-date with the goings on round our way at this blog. “It all seems to be just photos and I’ve seen them before”. So here’s an attempt to assuage my critics.
Brunswick’s a small town. Now the students are back its population has swelled a bit, but basically it’s a high street with a park area, a few restaurants, music shops and a dvd rental place. All surrounded by a few streets of housing, a river, forest and then the sea. One of the most popular places was an ice-cream shop that had a queue from opening to closing time but despite the evident sky-high demand for frozen dairy products it’s closed down ’til next spring. Without wanting to be slanderous, I’m guessing it’s some kind of tax evasion/ money laundering operation. It’d be perfect, Who’d suspect an all-cash ‘mom and pop’ lolly emporium? I would. On our tour of Portland, ME, t’other day the guide mentioned that somewhere nearby there’s lobster-flavoured ice cream to be had. Everyone except Sally made a that-sounds-less-than-delicious face. It probably tastes better than tutti-frutti mind.
See anything you like? (Tontine mini-mall- Brunswick)
If you like seafood, it abounds. If you don’t like seafood, it still abounds. It’s pricier than we were led to believe but that might just be because the entire Maine economy is based on tourism (and blueberries. And toothpicks.) and it’s still high season. I’m no expert, but I have it on good authority that it’s quality stuff and can assure you that it’s a fine source for all your omega oil needs. And sodium. And vinegar. We’ve been working our way round the restaurants. My favourite as of yet is El Camino (their website– warning: MySpace). It does a fine line in (almost) Mexican food and the decor looks like something out of From Dusk till Dawn. Though the food is not the most ‘authentic‘, the music in the background was straight out of a proper cantina’s jukebox and I reckon I recognized a fair few of the decorations as coming directly from Tlaquepaque/Tonala.
Trader Joes in Boston. Two states away...
We were a bit worried when we arrived that the town centre was all that was on offer in terms of entertainment and supplies. It’s lovely and all that but sometimes you just want to see a film that features Seth Rogan, aliens or 3D glasses, or you need to buy furniture that isn’t lovingly hand-crafted by Maine’s finest carpenters. Soon after exploring we found all manner of malls, superstores and a cinema a few minutes drive outside of the ‘city limits’. Squint a bit and you could be in Downey, CA if it weren’t for all the trees and the general absence of police helicopters circling. There’s a Borders book shop that stocks Word magazine too, which makes me happy. Trader Joes is sadly absent from Maine but there’s one 10 minutes from Boston airport and it’s looking like we’ll be there on a regular basis. I mustn’t go on because according to some forum or other that DrSita read before we got here, one sure way to piss off Mainers is to complain about the chain stores they don’t have.
IKEA’s another one.
I've tidied up a bit since this was taken. I'm now sitting on that very chair.
Talking of IKEA, my office is full of built-in shelves. I have enough stuff to fill about 2 of them. DrSita has several hundred books so she chose the office upstairs. With no shelves. That’s what I get for not charging enough for my heavy-lifting/removal services.
As if I had a choice...
How’s Atticus you ask? Well he’s settled in nicely. We don’t have much of garden and it’s not fenced but he appreciates the carpeting indoors. It provides the necessary traction for tight turns, rapid acceleration and provides pleasing acoustics for his frequent barking fits. He’s also happy to have a fair few areas where he can run unfettered in the countryside and keep the squirrels on their toes. If squirrels have toes. Claws? Talons? Anyroad, he’s content striking poses for the camera all around the coastline and defending his reduced empire from the likes of pizza delivery boys, Bowdoin college maintenance crews and his old nemesis, the postman.
At Lands End. No really.
That’ll do me for now. Personally I never read posts as long as this, unless they’re written by Stu who never fails to delight and entertain. Right now it’s all text. I’ll spend the next 10 minutes punctuating it with pretty pictures. Maybe I can fit some bullet points in. I’ll try and write again soon, I’ve been pretty busy of late a-localisin’ and a-webdesignin’ and it shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. Which is a good thing.
Thanks for reading this far. And Mum, I expect a comment now. In Spanish please. Using the subjunctive. Twice. Only if you have time between walking Ramble/Jed and Welsh Society bureaucracy though 😉
This pedestrian bridge was built in 1892 to connect the towns of Brunswick and Topsham. In 1999 a study reported it had 5-10 years of life left in it so a small fortune was raised and in 2004 it was rebuilt and now has another 50 years of dangling to look forward to. As to this photoblog ‘What’s new?’ you ask?.. Well… (more…)
