Fall Freestyle

October in New England, is both beautiful and kinda sad, because while autumn is possibly one of the most aesthetically pleasing seasons as it goes on the coloring leaves that gave the season so much color start to fall, and along with it, so does the temperature.

Having been through four falls already I now know to appreciate the good days while there around and so a few days ago, when the fall wind and sunshine were at their finest I headed outside with Levi's (he's in the video) camera and managed to catch some fall footage that not only reminds me of how perfect somedays can be, but also how the best things always happen with a 'little help from your friends'.

That said here's some fall freestyle live from Stonehenge  - forgive the rough edit.. I was limited to windows movie maker (which is another reason why mac+imovie  is better than pc)

Thanks and love to this B-town+Downing mash-up crew that assembled to make this happen.

At Present: Listening to, Jay-Z and Kanye West - Gotta Have It Wishing I was, going to "Watch the Throne"

Mac's Got Bugs

So I thing the strongest point in the mac vs. pc argument is that mac's are more resistant to viruses (though a guy at the IT desk recently in informed me otherwise).

Which I why found this little vistor to this macbook keypad an image worth snapping.

Also, if you look back to my '...Bees' post you will, like am I starting to, realize the I have a possible subconcious attraction to bugs. Great.

At Present: Listening to, Tom Hangs ft. Shermanology (Avicii edit) - Blessed Wishing I was, without work to do.

Chasing the Sun to Mt. Wachusett

I'm thinking of changing the name of this blog to 'Porch Adventures' or something along those lines because apparently everything good comes out of hanging out on porches, including my Saturday afternooon hike up Mt. Wachusett in Princeton, MA.

The trip up to Mountain Road didn't start out to promising, the sun that had been out earlier on in the day, contradictory to reports from the weather gurus, started to disappear behind a steadily approaching group of clouds, the directions we had on us didn't seem to be doing much good, and 10 minutes or so in a freak streak of lightning followed by a growl of thunder came directly our way. Yet our leader and driver would not be deterred and I was psyching myself to do my first hike up this mountain soaked to the bone in cold autumn rain. 

We saw brighter skies in the horizon and realized after while that even though we seemed to be going in away from it we wound up on the right path for chasing the sun. As we parked and got off at the bottom of Mountain House trail the sunshine found us, and as it broke through the yellowing leaves our hike became, unintentionally, perfectly timed.  (If you need a trail map check it out here)

We hiked all the way to the top, me straggling behind throughout and kept company by "Mr. Maksymowicz" though everyone was kind enough to wait and play catch up as well. We took Mountain House all the way up  and then switched to Harrington, Jack Frost on the way down and as a result got to do some climbing, walking over bridges, trudging through mud, slipping and sliding, and even made time to dip our hands in some extra cool river shallow stream water.

All pics from via camera phone (Thanks Phil!)

The overall hike was great, though for myself, the journey up and down was a great deal more scenic than the view at the top which, due to some construction and wire fencing is unfortunately not all that it could be. I think the folks on the ski life (which by the way you can only get on at the bottom) probably got a great view up top but my lack of fondness for heights made me happy not to be on it.

Anyway here's a thanks to the residents of B-Stone 207 for letting me tag along for your adventure Saturday.  And today's what I'm listening to is courtesy of their first selection for our ride up.

At Present: Listening to, LCD Soundsystem -Someone Great Wishing I was, right where I am now -blogging on a perfect, sunny autumn day in the space between the library and B-Town known as Stonehenge (Check it out on your next Clark University tour) 

Pie,Harleys,Cheese...and the Company of Bees

Over the fall break I finally, after 5 years in New England,  made it to Vermont. See the thing is, I graduate this year and since I don't know exactly what I will do, or where I will be next, I've made a small bucket list of things to do before I possibly move to another coast or country and my 'to-do's' just happened to experiencing fall in the Green Mountain State.

So this past Sunday a few friends and I drove into Brattleboro, VT  to catch Annual Dummerston Apple Pie Festival (click to view some of this year's pies in the making). We also ended  up stumbling upon a Harley Davidson convention which had converged at the same location, which together left me with quite an interesting first impression of the state.

Afterwards also had time to grab a tasting of Graton Village Cheese  (I recommend the jalapeno cheese, the cheese that tasted like bacon-you'll know when you eat it - and the spinach and arthicoke dip) and find our way through a 10 clue (or 'cornundrum) corn maze. Yet my photo for today is of none of these moments.

During our downtime chilling in our Vermontian (?) host's garden I had time get up close and personal with some bees, butterflies and grasshoppers.

Obviously I pay attention to the little things in life... sometimes....

At Present: Listening to, New Yorker's at Occupy Wall Street on Chirpbug Wishing I was, also eating dinner 

My James Dean

Post a summer's hike up Worcester's Newton Hill, which I discover also doubles as a disc golf playground, me and my best friends return to our porch, cold beers in hand. We went up for  photo adventure, and despite my ol' school manual packing a limited reel of 400 film  I find I still have a few shots left. So as we wind down I snap this one of the 'Greek'.

 Yes, I know smoking is bad for you, I'm on board... but sometimes bad looks pretty good. Just ask James Dean.

At Present: Listening to Benny Bennassi ft. Gary Go - Cinema,  Wishing I was asleep