Biking Red Hook in Brooklyn on a Saturday morning …

Today we Jeeped our bikes over to Red Hook in Brooklyn, New York to explore a shabby neighborhood showing signs of gentrification — with an intriguing range of sights, restaurants and shops. It was an interesting adventure!

Urban Exploring: Kings Park Psychiatric Center …

What to do on the weekend? When you’ve done everything else it’s time for urban exploring. On Saturday we decided to explore the ruins of the Kings Park Psychiatric Center in Smithtown. You’d think this could be trespassing but signs to keep people out may have been vandalised along with the buildings. We enter where many have gone before …

Lekker & Liquor: Foodie blogger sharpens her snarky pencil for a fun read …

Who knew that a Summer Shrimp & Corn Salad, sans any red meat, could impress us “boneheaded meat lovers”?

Well, I should have!

I got sworn in as a Naturalized US Citizen today. Yay!

I’ve long thought of this country as my own, so it’s finally very rewarding to have completed the process!

Here Be Dragons: A Thanksgiving ARG for my daughter and friends …

At the risk of letting it go public too soon, I’m posting the link to my daughter’s Thanksgiving Day alternate reality game — so interested family and friends can follow along.

Blogs: What people really read, not the stuff of your dreams …

So here’s a reality check. When you write for yourself, few people read your posts. When you write in terms of other people interests you score a ton of hits. Makes sense, right? When you write mostly for your own circle of family, friends and colleagues you’re not aiming for the hits. So why do I get miffed when a post about something incidental gets fifty thousand hits, compared with a heartfelt note about something I really care about barely scoring twenty?

Cleaning up the Boxing Day Blizzard of 2010 …

The fun ways I get to wreck my back: Cleaning up after a recent blizzard!

Thankfully I get lots of help from Carolyn and Bo-Ashley too! In February of 2010 we cleaned up another blizzard, also captured in time lapse photography here and I brushed 14″ of snow of my Jeep in March of 2009 here.

Crime around uBuffalo: Yikes!

 
Bo-Ashley posts: Just got a text message from UB Alert that reads ‘Robbery at Gunpoint. UB Police report a student was robbed at gunpoint in the vicinity of Hayes Annex on the South Campus.’ Right outside MY studio.

Which got me wondering just how much crime there is in the South Campus area of the University at Buffalo. Way too much I learn from this google maps mashup …

Bridging the gap between home and college with Skype …

Caption: Bo in her studio on South Campus.

Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet: On Children …

One of Bo-Ashley’s favourite night time reads was Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. She would often fall asleep soon after the chapter On Children …

Find my iPhone: It worked for us today!

We traveled back to New York earlier today — from dropping our freshman daughter, Bo-Ashely, off at the University at Buffalo. On the long way back we pulled in to use the loo at a McDonalds in the little town of Cortland, NY — and then promptly left without my wife’s purse, a pink leather backpack. In it was, according to Carolyn, “her life”. In effect a wallet, a bunch of credit cards and her iPhone. We hit the road again and about forty minutes into it she got to wondering where her bag was.

Remembering …

Caption: Alf died one year ago today and is fondly remembered …

This month I’ll be rotating through my profile pictures on Facebook from the past: Circa 1959, 1968, 1981, 1985, 1992 — then one of my brother and I taken on his last trip to the US — then back to a more recent shot of me taken in 2007 just after we last visited South Africa. Life certainly has become lonelier without my brother …

 
Links: Photo Gallery Remembering Alf | Hey Boet: Rest In Peace my good buddy! | In Loving Memory Alfie Brindley 1952-2009 | Geocaching Travel Bug which aims to trace the route Alf would have taken on his last bike trip up through Southern Africa | Alf’s Blogspot on that trip — which ended badly!

Bo-Ashley’s Long Island Arts Alliance write up in Newsday

Newsday article on Bo-Ashley Brindley – May 2010

One year ago today …

Our friend Gisela passed away, one year ago, today: We remember her fondly.

Links Spring Break in Florida with the Everitts! | Gisela Everitt: Farewell to a dear friend who left us today! | Final Journey Home: The story of my Wife’s Last Wish

Hey Wow! This was a fabulous Father’s Day …

Bo brought a tear to my eye with this sentimental card …