In photographs, Maple Ridge Wind Farm is beautiful and beguiling. In person it’s an abomination. When you come upon them straddling rural Route 177 in Lewis County you can hardly believe your eyes. The giant wind turbines stretch as far as you can see on Tug Hill. There are 195 of them. When you see several wind turbines together it is an inspiring sight, but when there are nearly 200 of them it leaves a ravaged landscape —as ugly and out of place as the most unsightly factory. If fact, the towers are considerably worse than many industrial sites, rendering a vast stretch of farmland into a ruined landscape. When I came over the hill and saw them for the first time I had to slow down or else I would have driven off the road. I used to think that the people who opposed wind turbines were cranks —wackos and Luddites standing in the way of something clean and wonderful. After all, look how pretty they are in my pictures. Get out of your car and stand among the monsters and you might not feel that way.
Tag: bad ideas
Neighbor To Neighbor
It’s official: my piece about the Bethlehem Soccer Club’s cool new eagle logo was a hit! Here’s what readers of the Times Union’s Bethlehem Blog had to say:
“As a Bethlehem resident and as a player in the Bethlehem soccer club for the last 15 years I find it absurd and troubling that you would point this out.”
“You are not too bright.”
“Here’s a little bit of advice for you, next time before you write you might wanna think a little bit.”
“Maybe you should spend less time criticizing others that are volunteering their time to help your child, and more time raising your child.”
“Do you have anything better to do with your time?”
I was also called ignorant. Twice. Anyway, as you can see from this picture, kids in Bethlehem -like this unidentified child- are wild about the new logo and have fully embraced its deeper meaning.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Keyboard Krumbs did not conceive, assist in the production, or solicit the creation of the accompanying photo.
Poop Toss
When Zack was little we had a wonderful woman come to the house and watch him every day. Sylvia was in her sixties and she was as sweet and nice as could be. It meant a lot that we could have him stay at home, and we always felt that he was in good hands.
One day Sylvia brought over a little rake so Zack could get out back and make like he was doing yard work. It was the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. Then me and Alex found another use for the rake.
I don’t know how, but we discovered you could scoop up dog poop with the little rake, and wielding it like a lacrosse stick, hurl it over the fence against the barn next door. It would strike with a thud. What we found especially delightful was when it stuck to the wall of the barn. This depended on a number of factors, including temperature and freshness.
Did Zack tell her what we were doing or did she put two and two together, noticing the poop on the rake and the poop on the wall? We’ll never know, but when Sylvia found that we were using Zack’s little rake to catapult crap from the yard, it didn’t go over real well. She wasn’t crazy about Alex, so it didn’t matter to him, but after that things were never quite the same between me and Sylvia.
What’s the point? I’m not sure, but nine years later it still makes me feel bad. She did something special, and in turn, we did something stupid —and if it weren’t too late to apologize, I would.
Boys’ Life
I spent an hour at work yesterday watching YouTube videos of kids blowing things up. It was great! And no, I was not goofing off, I was doing research! It reminded me of when I was a wee lad, burning and exploding things with my friends. We’d build model airplanes and blow them up. We’d build model cars and set them on fire. We’d build model airplanes and cars with firecrackers inside them so they’d blow up when we burned them.
Estes rocket engines were attached to anything and everything. There were rocket cars and rocket boats and once a rocket Frisbee, which was swell until it caught fire. And we didn’t bother with the Estes electronic ignition system, instead we jammed fuses into the end of the rockets and lit them with a match. It’s a miracle I’m not called lefty today.
The strangest thing I remember doing was lighting small fires with my friends and putting them out by urinating on them. A shrink would have a field day with that, don’t you think?
All you hear now is people complaining about the dumb things kids do and post on YouTube, but you know what? The only difference between now and 35 years ago is video cameras and the internet —and a society that seems bent on taking the boy out of boyhood.
The Things We Do For Love
Paul Grondahl’s story in the TU today starts like this: “Jeff Powers died for love.” It tells how Powers, 22, fell thirty feet while scaling the outside of his girlfriend’s apartment building. They’d had a fight and she asked him to leave. He was determined to see her.
You don’t have to look far to find examples of men doing exactly the wrong thing. Last week, two Amsterdam men were arrested after the broad daylight murder of Jose Payano. Police Chief Thomas Brownell called it “a case of jealousy out of control.” In Washington County, a teen was released on bail after being accused of threatening to kill his girlfriend and dozens of classmates at Cambridge High School. A 62-year-old man was charged with unlawful imprisonment and attempted rape after allegedly holding three different women against their will. Yes, 62-years-old.
When it comes to trouble men have tremendous potential. And at the three way intersection of love, rage, and jealousy, some will get hurt, some will go to jail, and some will never go home.
Mother’s Day of Reckoning
Mother’s Day is a holiday that must be approached cautiously, like a wounded animal or something that might explode in your face. Follow a couple of simple rules and you should be OK. This week I’ll try to help you with some common sense tips. Today, gadgets and small appliances:
No Gadgets. Don’t buy a gift that you secretly desire for yourself, like a GPS or big TV. One exception I can think of might be an iPod, but only if you load it up with her favorite music. Giving an empty iPod is no way to show mom or your wife that you understand her amazing uniqueness. It’s saying, “Here take this thing that I bought at Best Buy. I didn’t even care enough to walk over to the Apple Store.”
About small appliances, items that plug in like vacuums and kitchen implements are strictly forbidden. An electical cord is something that you could find wrapped around your neck while sleeping. It can also be used as a whip. This is like your employer giving you a new computer. They don’t love you, they want you to do more work.
Mothers are compassionate, caring, and understanding. If you want to test the limits of these virtues, go right ahead. Coming tomorrow: dining out on Mother’s Day.
Thanks For A Bang Up Job
Last year I seriously considered giving each of my employees a basket of fireworks for Christmas. I even went and bought baskets at the dollar store. Roman candles, sparklers, and things that shoot in the air and go boom are a great way to celebrate the holidays, right? Of course —but they’re also illegal in New York, and bringing illegal stuff to the office and handing it out might have been frowned upon. I wrote this off as another crazy idea until I got my recent e-newsletter from Phantom Fireworks, which has a store conveniently located just over the Vermont border in Hinsdale, NH.
In observance of Administrative Professionals Day, they suggested “Products such as FORTRESS OF FIRE, STELLAR PERFORMANCE, DA BOMB, or WICKEDLY AWESOME to show how much you appreciate your administrative assistant.” See how messed up things are in this state? Secretaries in Pennsylvania can have fireworks, but hard working TV producers in New York can’t. I say it’s time for a change, Governor Paterson.
Liz and Me
One day I walked into Starbucks at State and Pearl and there’s Liz Benjamin tapping away on her laptop. Holy crap! That’s Liz Benjamin, blogging royalty! Liz used to report for the TU and write Capitol Confidential. Now she’s with the News and does the Daily Politics blog. I felt a powerful urge to introduce myself:
Hi, Liz…are you writing a blog post? Really! I used to have a blog. It was called Albany Eye. Ever heard of it? Hey, didn’t I see you at Spitzer’s Day One Run at 6am on New Year’s morning in Washington Park? That was sooooo cool. Did you get one of those Day One hats —or would that be like a conflict of interest to accept a gift from a public official? I wear that thing around now and people laugh and laugh. So, what are you writing about?
Fortunately, I thought better of this and went to get my latte.
Tater Shots
Last week we told you about the local cop in trouble for allegedly firing his potato gun at work. Today the TU has a B1 item that digs deeper into potato gun culture. The David Filkins story -his beat includes dumb guy stuff- makes it clear that spud shooting may be fun, but:
That does not mean penalties are less severe for those who use a potato cannon rather than a gun to commit a crime. Killing someone with a potato instead of a bullet would not mean a lighter sentence.
Interesting. I wonder if Dr. Michael Baden could determine that someone was killed by a potato, even if the potato had decomposed? Anyway, Filkins caught flack last Fall for writing about a Delmar man whose hobby is speeding on the Northway. People will probably complain that today’s story encourages kids to build potato guns —as if there aren’t enough examples of potato gun fun (and mayhem) on YouTube.