hudson-valley

I firmly believe that Batteries are probably the closest thing to a silver bullet when it comes to our clean energy future. They are going to be the things that let us deploy a lot of solar, and use it through the night.…

Summer 2021 was different in New York than past summers. It wasn't the relentless brutal heat that we'd experienced the last few years. The heat that finally drove my parents in Vermont to install air conditioning. That…

Having lived in the Hudson Valley for over 20 years, I now get to be one of those folks that says things like: "have you been to that new icecream place? It's across from where that dumpling place used to be, that…

Yawp! YAWP! Yawp! YAWP! Don't fall in the creek. Hudson Valley Tech Ashokan Community. Yawp! YAWP! Yawp! YAWP! Don't fall in the creek. Be as open and present as you can be. That was the chorus of the theme song for…

We've now got quite an explosion of local breweries around Poughkeepsie. So I'm now finding myself wanting to pick up beer on Friday for the weekend. I've got a ton of classic glass growlers but by day 2, the beer in…

One of my favorite things about Poughkeepsie is the Bardavon Theatre , which houses one of the few operational Wurlitzer theatre organs . We are regulars at the Bardavon film series, which typically would have organ…

I love this time of the year from the Poughkeepsie Farm Project .

The moment I found out that someone was running a TEDx in our area, I was intrigued. The moment I realized John Rooney was one of the organizers, I signed up, as I knew this would be good. I was not disappointed. The…

We're now about 2 weeks into the Brood 2 Cicada hatch, which has been covering the Hudson Valley. It's spottier than I imagined it would be, but our neighborhood is clearly good ground for Brood 2, as the Cicada chorus…

As I clock in on my 36th birthday, I finally have started doing something I've wanted to for a decade: ride my bicycle to work. It took another friend at work to start riding as inspiration, and it took planning a route…

Waking up at 5am on a Saturday isn't the most fun thing in the world, but it was worth it And we even got to see what it's like for one to land in a residential neighborhood, a couple streets away from our house. What a…

Love this picture of the fireworks and lightning this year from the walkway over the Hudson.

Coming to your local PBS station this week : Is darkness becoming extinct? When filmmaker Ian Cheney moves from rural Maine to New York City and discovers streets awash in light and skies devoid of stars, he embarks on a…

Every year since I first started volunteering for the Poughkeepsie Farm Project we've had a pow wow in the fall about what would be the right task list for me to try to get ready by the start of the season in May. For…

The metafilter comment that's been circling about what the massive cut to library funding in California really means : Every day at my job I helped people just barely survive. Forget trying to form grass roots political…

I got to see this at Christmas, and it brought tears to my eyes. It was put together by one of the high school students in Rochester, and used as part of his application to college. An incredible piece of work, and…

I'm not sure how to quite even setup this video, just watch it. Irene. from Liam McKinley on Vimeo . This is a preview. Much more work to be done on a final product as Rochester continues to rebuild after Irene. Leave me…

Slightly over a month away, I'm starting to gear up on one of the biggest MHAA events of the year. Last year we had about 100 guests come to our Observe the Moon event at Vassar Farms, so I'm hoping we'll top that this…

While we lucked out with Irene where I am in the Mid-Hudson Valley, Central Vermont took it hard. If we hadn't gotten out in advance of the storm, we'd probably only be getting out of the state now. Facebook became a…

The flood waters here in the Hudson Valley have largely subsided. That 12.8' prediction for the Wappingers turned out to be way off. It crested north of 15' (second highest recorded value, above the 2007 spring flood).…

We're back in NY right now to ride out the storm. There is a pretty constant roar outside as the 40 mile hr winds rumble through the tree tops. My rain guage says it's raining at about 1/2" an hour for the last 4…

While we seem to have 2 (sometimes as many as 5) sushi restaurants in every town in Dutchess County, we've been really lacking on good Indian restaurants. Our favorite up until this week was Tanjore down in Fishkill. But…

One thing I didn't mention about our Day of Service at the PFP is that we had great photography support from Bill Rooney all day. He was there at 7am when we got started, and stuck around till about 3 in the afternoon.…

When I got to the Poughkeepsie Farm Project at 6:40am on Wednesday, there were already two IBMers there ahead of me, eager to start the day. It was a crisp day, barely 55 degrees yet, but with few clouds in the sky we…

Thursday is the IBM Centennial, when IBM as a company turns 100 years old. It's a pretty amazing thing. I've got my own set of reflections on that which will come later, because my brain is currently entirely focussed on…

Last month I was nominated for a Spirit of Dutchess Award for the effort that I've done with the Poughkeepsie Farm Project . It's something I'm very honored by. There are nearly 30 nominees, and all are quite impressive.…

I finally got around to figuring out how to fix Adblock (Chrome or Firefox) with the Poughkeepsie Journal site. Without running adblock, I find their site completely unusable. Because their design team does truly crazy…

Yesterday, a new 6 mile section of the Dutchess County Rail Trail opened. This means that we can now ride out our front door, and in less than 3 miles get onto 8 miles of scenic ride with only 3 at grade crossings the…

Recently the Poughkeepsie Farm Project received a $100,000 grant for the Building Bridges program to attack hunger in the city of Poughkeepsie. This is part of a Department of Agriculture initiative to fund pilot…

Ever wonder where Groundhog day comes from? Notice that it's about 1/2 way to Spring? We are now halfway between the Winter Solstice (December 21) and the Vernal or Spring Equinox (March 20). It's called a cross-quarter…

We've managed to get 2 stories in the local papers about the Mid Hudson Astronomical Association in the last week. The first came from the New Paltz Times : Since 1985, a group of professional, amateur and the simply…

There is a good write up today on the Fahnestock Winter Park (alternate link on NY outdoors blog ), including some expansion plans. I love the idea of making a groomed trail around Stillwater Pond, as that would give…

Of all the things my parents gave me, one of the things I most appreciate is the love of x-country skiing. When I tell people I grew up in Vermont, I'm often asked if I ski. I have to give a qualified yes by saying only…

A big storm around here means getting out to Fahnestock Winter Park as soon as they open for cross country skiing. Mornings are the best times for it, for 2 reasons: it almost always breaks freezing by noon after a storm…

From the Poughkeepsie Journal : Meteorologist Tom Wasula said the Weather Service in Albany has not been able to confirm if the storm can officially be called a "blizzard" in Dutchess County. He said the wind…

Over the past few weeks I've been redoing the Mid Hudson Astronomical Association website. It looks like this: Yes, it's dark, but that's when astronomy happens. The site is built on Drupal, as I've gotten some…

Tonight I'll be giving the Mid Hudson Astronomical Association talk on the basics of celestial mechanics, and what I figured out to make my Where is Io application. The talk picked up the poetic "Tracking the…

It turns out that while I was coming up with the idea of figuring out if we could do an astronomy outreach event at the Vassar Farm , Keri VanCamp (the Vassar Farm & Ecological Preserve manager) was developing a…

🔗💀 Comedy Central video embed

The replacement for the Willis Ave Bridge was floated down the Hudson River yesterday, from it's building facility up north of Catskill NY. To get something like this down river they had to weld 2 barges together, and…

I took this before fireworks this year on the 4th of July, and quite like how it turned out. I love a good sunset.

Susan and I were out black raspberry berry picking this weekend when we can across a type of berry neither of us could readily identify. A camera phone picture, and some internet searching later and we figured out what…

After failing to convince a friend that his statement of "earning potential in the pure computer field in Dutchess county is around $27-30K at best" was both baseless, and entirely made up, I started trying to…

About the time that Susan and I started dating, Susan when to a book signing with a friend for Dare to Repair. It's a basic manual of home repair written to a target audience of the recently divorced woman who'd always…

About 14 months ago I raised my hand to help with a more interactive web presence for the Poughkeepsie Farm Project. This kicked off a large discussion over the course of the year, a web committee, and a great pro bono…

I am super impressed by Central Hudson, our local power company, for their interactive outage map . Really easy to figure out where the worst of the storm is. This is a great instance of exposing your data on the web to…

Via the NY Outdoors Blog : The Hudson River Valley Greenway has announced the availability of an interactive Water Trail map 🔗💀 on the newly updated and re‐designed Hudson River Greenway Water Trail website. The…

We didn't quite intend to do 9 miles, the last half in a snow storm, when we started out today, but sometimes that's how it goes. This is especially true when "Horse Trail" apparently means poorly marked washed…

The big local news around Poughkeepsie recently has been the deer culling at Vassar college. Vassar has a 550 acre wilderness area, with an estimated 100 deer population. For friends in Vermont, or more rural areas,…

Our local IEEE chapter does an annual fall workshop each year. Last year was robots (which I apparently forgot to blog about...). It was quite good, and showed off robots for largely military and educational purposes.…

The Walkway Over The Hudson is an amazing thing. A 1.3 mile bridge that spans the Hudson River here in Poughkeepsie, which just opened this past weekend after decades of effort. We were lucky enough to participate in the…

Last night Jim and I decided to take advantage of the evening and do the 7.5 mile stretch of wappingers creek that runs near my house. There is only one put in, and one take out, between water falls, and it's a one way…

Favorite thing heard at the Winter Sun CSA pickup yesterday: We'll send out an email once the website goes live. We were hoping it would be up by now, but we've been having problems. I never thought that one of the…

Susan is off at the farm right now picking our strawberry allocation for the week. The amounts get set daily, but it looks like due to the heat and fast rate of ripening, she'll probably come back with a quart of the…

Love garlic? Want to try garlic ice cream? 'Nuff said. The Hudson Valley Garlic Festival website has all the details on this event. Susan and I are about to head up there, and are looking forward to it. Update: garlic…

Last week was the first week of cucumbers from the Poughkeepsie Farm Project . There is nothing quite like a vine fresh, picked that day cucumber. Cucumbers are one of the few vegetables that Jay will eat, so we gave him…

Yesterday Susan, Mike, Matt, Pyg, and I decided it would be a good day for a bike ride. Susan is just getting used to a bike with gears, so heading out to the Harlem Valley Rail Trail seemed like the thing to do. It's…

Yesterday, Susan and I went to the Poughkeepsie Farm Project's annual plant sale. The Poughkeepsie Farm Project started in 1999, leasing a stretch of Vassar College land to create a Community Supported Agriculture…

It's pretty pathetic that the 1/2" of snow that came down last night got everyone here excited, but it did. We've now broken the record for latest snowfall in a season in Poughkeepsie (previous record was Jan 14th).…

Last night Susan, Chris, and I headed up to Bard for a lecture / interview / show and tell with David Javerbaum, the head writer and supervising producer for The Daily Show. We did cast the net wider, trying to get other…

Today was our first kayak outing of the year, timed very nicely with the first greater-than-90-degree day of the year. We hit the water at about 2, and got off at 6, stopping twice along the way (including once to visit…

Picture courtesy of Mike Kershaw Yesterday, Susan, Porkchop, Mike and I spent a really great afternoon off in the Gunks. After talking with people at my table during leadership class, I'd realized that in my 8 years in…

Ben posted about this over the weekend, and it made me think a bit. When I was just graduating college, and was asked the question, I had a few answers I thought I could give to that. In 5 years I Would not be working…