Last weekend the woman and I took the Triumph for its first real ride up to Pawling to celebrate our countries independence in the woods. Riding 70-80mph up the Taconic through green woods, over reservoirs, and around tightly packed rolling hills was heaven. Oh and the time up in Pawling was great, too. (Chopping down trees, building bonfires and generally cultivating rough manly hands.)

I need to remember to both visit my friend in Pawling more often and just plain get out there and ride away from the city more often.

(photo by Jay Erickson)

Although I don’t personally do a lot of the traditionally accepted activities to celebrate Valentine’s Day, I do like the sentiment of being a little nicer to someone for whatever reason. So, to help get in the spirit, MyBestDesktops.com will be posting what I hope to be a whole slew of lovey-dovey desktops over the next couple weeks.

Today, we kick it off with Valentine’s Red Rose 1. Keep checking MyBestDesktops.com for the latest and greatest in sweet desktop wallpaper goodness.

In the meantime, I’ll try to remember to keep updating the thing…

My Best Desktops is in the midst of a Halloween desktop wallpaper blowout! Head over there and download ‘em while they’re hot!

For the past few years, I haven’t been making it out to the yearly Mermaid Parade in Coney Island with too much regularity. (I mean, from what I can remember, last year it was raining, right?) Anyway, with the untimely demise of Coney Island as we know it (more here) lingering in the air, me and what seemed like half the city decided to make the trip out to the boardwalk for this year’s celebration of all things Mermaidy.

It was a gorgeous day, full of semi-nude women somewhat covered in body paint and pasties plus a slew of also scantily clad mer-men parading down the streets, then mingling on the boardwalk. We drank beers, shot some photos, and just generally enjoyed the day. I really hope there’s another Mermaid Parade next year, and the year after that, and so on.

On a side note, the coolest thing I ran across while out there for the day was an impromptu limbo… uhm… situation set up by two guys holding a ribbon across a busy street loudly encouraging “just the females” to give their challenge a try. It was one of those great Brooklyn scenes that reminded you why you’ve lived here for so long and still love the place. When the crowd wasn’t producing any adventurous takers, they upped the ante by announcing prize money in the realm of $20. This got a couple takers, but the winner was definitely a surprise!

In the meantime, I gotta remember to head out to Coney Island a few more times before it starts to really change… oh and shoot the freak.

Last day of 2006:

First day of 2007:

Well it’s 2007 and the weather sucks. Not the best start.

Yesterday was Christmas which started with my woman seemingly not loving her presents due to there being no toys in the mix and me absolutely loving my presents mostly due to the new 50mm lens and flash additions to my photo kit. Additionally, my woman managed to craft some delicious buljol for breakfast, we watched Scrooged and ended up having Christmas dinner at my cousins (shockingly seeing my family twice in one year).

One more thing to remember about Christmas this year is that James Brown died. He was slated to host New Years Eve at B.B.Kings in Times Square, but I guess the Godfather of Soul won’t be making it.

Soon after coming home from Thanksgiving dinner, we started to hear a slew of fire sirens heading our way. Taking one look out the window showed what was up. Just past the corner on 4th Avenue at Prospect Avenue there was a huge fire engulfing the small buildings and soaring to over twice their height. From the terrible smell of the smoke my guess was the car servicing center full of tires was going up.

It seemed destine to spread to neighboring buildings and grow larger, but amazingly the firefighters quickly got it under control. Under an hour later it was just steam rising into the sky.

I should remember that firefighters really do kick ass.

(Update: Gothamist ran a story with my photos. Nice! I should remember that I might have a future as a news photographer.)

This year Thanksgiving involved a ride across Brooklyn to enjoy an evening meeting new family and catching up with old family. I should remember to at least try to stay in touch a little more with my family.

(photo: my woman’s calaloo)