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I could have sworn (whoops, pastor wouldn’t like that) that I heard the weather guy say it was going to rain today. It actually turned out to be beautiful with a mild breeze but some nice breaks of sun on an otherwise semi-cloudyish day. The temperature was just right for biking so after I got my work out of the way (funny how easy it is to get work out of the way when a bike ride is called for) I hopped on the bike and headed for what is turning out to be one of my favorite routes. I like this route because for the most part the roads are in good shape and with light vehicular traffic. And this route has some challenging, shorter climbs. Give the route a whirl one of these days…see if you like it.

I had some work to do today for a client of mine in Ithaca. The weather was pretty nice so Linda and I decided to spend the day together in Ithaca. She walked the commons and picked up some goodies for an impromptu picnic for later in the afternoon while I was working. I finished a bit earlier than I had anticipated which enabled us to do a few extra things.

One of our first stops was at a really cool B&B called “City Lights B&B” on Mecklenberg Road. It’s a really unique place with some beautiful gardens and incredible views of Cornell University and Ithaca College. If you’re traveling to Ithaca and need a B&B for your stay, check out City Lights.

After our visit to City Lights, we headed off to Taughannock Falls. This is a great time of the year to view the falls since there is a good amount of water flowing in the Spring. The sky wasn’t very colorful but the falls were just gorgeous and I got there at a good time of day for lighting on the falls.

The day was topped off by a visit to the Cayuga Lake Creamery for the best ice-cream ever. I’m going to have to ride a lot of miles on my bike tomorrow to burn off all the calories I consumed today… but it was so totally worth it. Burp!

Here are some photos I snapped of the day…

The weather has been just amazing the past week. We’re having an early Spring and it’s been pretty much perfect. Temps have been in the 70’s and one day reached mid 80’s. Trees are blossoming and flowers are blooming. It’s been great bike riding weather too. I’ve managed to get 6 bike rides under my belt in the last 10 days. Here’s my route for today… a really beautiful, scenic ride through Skaneateles and Marcellus.

And here’s a few more spring photos…

For several months now I have been diligently filling our birdseeder almost daily. And a day or two later it will be completely drained. Funny thing is that we never see any birds at our birdfeeder during the day. So the question is, who or what is eating the birdseed? I decided to solve this mystery by setting up my camcorder and doing a time-lapse recording all night long. The mystery has been solved!

Long story short, that’s me with accupuncture needles sticking out of my forehead and ear.

So do you really want to hear the whole story? OK, here goes.

I attended an open house this past weekend for “Healing Point”, an accupuncture clinic in Fayetteville, NY. I wanted to learn more about accupuncture and how it works. I had attended a public forum at Crouse Hospital the previous week and Dr Yoo was one of the speakers. He operates the Healing Point clinic.

There were 8 to 10 other people in attendance. The presentation began and after a while, the Doctor asked us if we would like to experience accupuncture. Everyone was interested in trying, some a bit more reluctantly than others (count me in as one of the reluctant ones). I have had a phobia of injection needles for as long as I can remember. It is major trauma for me to get my annual flu shot. So to willingly submit to a guy offering to stick needles into my forehead, ear and hand seemed a bit far-fetched to me. But I did it anyway. Part of my rationale was that maybe it would help alleviate the anxiety I have towards needles (it didn’t). Or maybe that there would be some benefit that would be immediately noticeable (there wasn’t).

What I did experience was the sensation of tapping into the “Qi“, otherwise known as the energy flow in the body. I also learned that accupuncture needles are not the same type of needles that are used when you get an injection…they are not hollow. Accupuncture needles have a blunt, rather than sharp, pointy tip and are more like very thin wire than needles. And when they are placed, they are sort of spun and/or tapped in. It’s a very unique experience.

Dr Yoo explained before placing the needles into the web of skin between my thumb and forefinger, that the needle would let me experience the feeling of tapping into the “Qi”. He said I would definitely feel it and that really put me at ease. OF COURSE IT DIDN”T PUT ME AT EASE! I think I began to sweat. He explained that there would be a sensation and asked me to describe it when it happened. He then inserted the needle into the area between my thumb and forefinger. As he was doing so I really didn’t feel anything…no pain of the needle going in or anything. But all of a sudden there was an instant of total weirdness. It felt like for the briefest of moments there was a jolt of electricity in my hand running towards my fingers. It was there and then it was gone, as quick as that. It didn’t linger. Dr Yoo said that that was the “Qi”. He placed another needle in my other hand and the exact same sensation occurred. I can honestly say it was one the oddest sensations I’ve ever felt. Not pain, not uncomfortable but just… weird.

I am interested in Eastern medicine such as accupuncture because Western medicine is so focused on drug therapy and the treatment of symptoms instead of treatment of the cause. It seems responsible to investigate alternatives. After all, how long has Western medicine been around? 100 years or so? While Eastern medicine has been around for at least a thousand years? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Dewey Neild is a long-time friend and a well-established photographer in Central New York. For several years he has published a calendar featuring some of the waterfalls of the Finger Lakes. Hot off the presses is a brand new, 2009 version of this calendar and it is truly beautiful. Without a doubt the best calendar he has produced…not to say the other calendars weren’t also nice. But this 2009 calendar is spectacular. All the waterfalls in the calendar are located in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. It’s a gorgeous calendar and the photographs are all “frame-worthy”. Check it out here http://www.waterfallcalendar.com/. May I also plug the fact that I built the waterfall calendar web site? Thank you, thank you very much. Web design is one of my passions.

My brother has a HUGE family. 11 children. Now that’s some serious propagation that has gone on in that household. I love all the kids dearly and each child has their own distinct personality. My bro sent me this photo of Marysia and A.J. this morning and it just brought a big ‘ol smile to my face. A.J. has a personality exactly like his expression in this photo. It is so perfect. And Marysia is looking as beautiful as ever. I just love this photo.

I’m kind of lucky to live in a development where the back of our house adjoins to undeveloped land. It’s quite nice to look out the back windows and not have to view other houses, or having to worry about houses ever being there. Because the land is undeveloped, it’s more or less a wildlife sanctuary of sorts. We have lots of deer living back there (don’t even get me started about the damage they do to our gardens and landscaping) as well as other types of wildlife. Yesterday when I was having one of many morning cups of coffee, I saw a parade of wild turkey. Man, they have got to be one of the weirdest looking birds on the planet. I ran for my camera and managed to squeeze off a quick shot before they headed into the woods.

It was a beautiful early spring weekend and the nice weather coincided beautifully with Maple Weekend. This was a new event for me as I had never heard of Maple Weekend before. It is a way for all the producers of maple syrup in New York State, to open their doors to the public. You get to learn and see how maple syrup is produced and if you’re lucky (and we were lucky), you get to taste some of the products made with maple syrup, like cookies, maple spread and all sorts of other goodies.

We attempted to visit three maple syrup producers and had an interesting experience trying to get to the 3 places we had decided to visit. We plugged in the address of the first place into our Garmin GPS. I have a love hate relationship with my Garmin… lots of times it’s extremely helpful in getting around, especially to previously unknown destinations. But the Garmin has a nasty habit of telling you that you’ve arrived at a destination when if fact you have not. And sometimes Garmin will try to take you down a road that is in pretty bad shape (think really bad dirt road) or a seasonal road (which is closed in the winter). Well, that’s what happened to us. We were driving down this really steep dirt road with lots of icy and snowy patches and suddenly we got to where a sign indicated it was a seasonal road and basically closed. So we turned around and found our way back to the main road. Garmin thoughtfully rerouted us to the final destination but when we arrived, we found a deserted sugar shack.

Oh well, onward to our next destination, the Cedarvale Maple Sugar Company. This place had a rustic but cool gift shop. Many maple sugar products were for sale, and there were cookies for sale that were made with maple sugar and my personal favorite, cotton candy made with maple sugar. Yummy.

After indulging in some taste treats we walked to the sugar shack where the sap is boiled down to make maple syrup. Things are pretty high tech these days…gone are the wood burning boilers, replaced by gas fired burners. And also gone are the buckets hanging on trees…these have all been replaced by a high-tech network of plastic tubing strung from tree to tree to collect the sap.

We headed back to the gift shop for a couple more snacks and then hopped into the car and let Garmin get us lost again. Sure was a fun day!

It is a bit unusual for me to work on New Years Eve although this is the second year in a row that I have done so. That is a contradiction I realize, but it really is an anomaly that I would work on New Years Eve even though I have done so two years in a row.

When I got the call from Carolyn in late September regarding the possibility of DJ’ing her wedding reception, I was initially thinking that I might not take the job simply because it was New Years Eve and I wasn’t sure I wanted to work on that night. But after Carolyn told me how many good things she had heard about my service and how much she really wanted to hire me, I decided that I could not say no. It’s always a great feeling to get a compliment, know what I mean?

The reception was held at the Seneca Harbor Station in Watkins Glen. It is located right at the south end of Seneca Lake at the water’s edge. A beautiful restaurant and an amazing atmosphere for this group of about 100 guests. I was told by the owner that the restaurant had actually closed for the season in November, but they reopened just for this wedding! How’s that for accommodation?

The energetic Shai Eynav was the photographer and I always look forward to working a wedding with Shai. His enthusiasm, great personality and excellent rapport with the guests makes working with him a real joy. Not to forget that he is also an accomplished photographer. Good seeing you Shai!

The reception got underway at 8pm and from then until 1am, it was a non-stop celebration. The members of the Bridal party were elegantly dressed; the bridesmaids wore beautiful red gowns and the men were all in tuxes with top hats. After the formal introductions, Carolyn and Philip had their first dance to “Amazed” by Lonestar. Later on, Carolyn and her Mother had a dance together to “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder and then Phil and his Mother danced to “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack.

Once the open dancing started, there was just an amazing amount of dancing going on. I played many different styles of music to appeal to the wide range of guests and apparently what I played was working because the floor was packed all night long.

As the New Year approached, I distributed a huge bag of party favors to the guests with the help of the Flowergirl, Emily. I gave the guests several opportunities to “test” out their noise-makers before the midnight hour. As the countdown began, there was frenzy on the dance floor and then at the stroke of midnight, the New Year was ushered in with as much enthusiasm as you could imagine. It was amazing.

After we all brought in the New Year, the reception and festivities kept on going until 1am and a great time was had by all.

It really was a wonderful way to end 2007 and begin 2008. Thank you Carolyn and Philip! I had so much fun working at your reception and am thankful that I had the opportunity to be a part of your special day.

Enjoy these photos that I took during your reception…