PolarLava::Blog

It really struck a chord with me while reading Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback yesterday.  Being someone who travels a lot, he has an "Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week" in every MMQB article.  And this week's comment really shows that the TSA's silly security rules are nothing more than a feel good moment when you travel:

I am all for rules, airline and otherwise, that protect our safety.  But last Wednesday, after walking through a security line at LaGuardia, I saw the total fruitlessness of this you-can't-take-gels-or-liquids-on-airplanes rule, designed to protect us from those who would take explosive liquids or gels on planes.  A fortyish man, traveling in business togs, put his briefcase, laptop and shoes on the security belt and walked through the X-ray machine.  No beep.  He collected his stuff, walked a few steps down the line, put his laptop back in his case, and then took a tube of toothpaste out of one pocket and a bottle of contact-lens solution out of another, then put both in his briefcase.  That sort of defeats the purpose of the anti-liquid rule and pretty much makes a mockery of it all.

Well, after doing so last year, I guess berry picking is now an annual tradition.  We trekked out to Waterport, NY and Brown's Berry Patch for another round of berry fun.  This is about a month earlier than we went last year and the raspberry picking was definately slimmer, but we still picked 3 quarts of them.  As for blueberries, it was truly insantity.  I basically was just holding up my basket and picking clumps of them at a time.  Thus in the end we wound up picking an astounding 11 quarts of them.  Had we had another basket out in the field with us I'm sure we would have picked even more.  The girls even picked (and ate) their fair share.  Although near the end they discovered it was lot easier to just go over and steal handfuls out of dads basket!

So things have been quiet around here this week because I took the family and headed off to stay a few days at The Sagamore on Lake George in the Adirondacks.

I was very much in need of some time off, although I'm not sure that taking this past week off really was enough.  :(  And of course the weather was less than ideal as it rained most of the time.  But not to be deterred, we managed to have a nice time including going to Lake Placid (Olympic ski jumps ramps are really, really scary high!) and a gondola ride to the top of Whiteface Mountain.  We also took a cruise of Lake George on a paddlewheel steamboat.  Lots of nice, pricey real estate on the water —as usual.  And it wouldn't be a trip if I didn't make it to someplace like the Adirondack Pub & Brewery where I got to tip a couple new beers and pickup a glass and t-shirt.  Other than that, it was a lot of lounging around and swimming.  That's about all for now.  I should have some pictures posted when I get a chance to sort through them.

In a rare night out —the last being my company Christmas party in mid-December, Mary Lou and I went to dinner and the Falletta Competition last night.  First up was an early dinner at Tsunami.  This is a well spoken of local Asian restaurant.  We started with a bottle of Francis Coppola Bianco Pinot Grigio, a Japanese Ginger Salad from ML and a Spicy Tuna Roll for me.  For our main course, ML had the Fresh Island Fish (with an avacado salsa instead of tomato bacon sauce) and I had the Hawaiian Butterfish.  A truly outstanding dinner accompanied by a first class waiter.

After dinner we were off to Kleinhan's Music Hall for the finals of the second biennial JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition.  This concert/competition featured Isaac Bustos (USA), Pablo Garibay (Mexico) and Masao Tanibe (Japan).  All three proved to be truly amazing performers and we had a wonderful evening.  Bustos finished third, although I had him ranked second; Tanibe, who clearly won the Audience Choice Award finished second —he was my pick to win; and Garibay whom I ranked third won both the Buffalo Philharmonic Musicians' Award and the overall competition.  Apparently I missed something!  ;)  But I obviously wasn't alone as Tanibe's passion and performance certainly wowed the crowd.  All in all it was a nice relaxing evening out with my beautiful and loving wife.  And it the end, that's all that really mattered to me.

Several months ago I raved about ig: The Google Drug, and as much as I liked that, I think I'm about to abandon it.  For I'm being lured away by a new net drug Netvibes.  It has a lot of what I liked about ig, but offers multiple tabs and some other things that I've grown to like.  Enough so that after playing with it for a couple of days I may make it my homepage (instead of ig) and see if it has the staying power to keep my interest.  Well worth checking out if you're a portal page person.