Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Fall Foliage in Bethel Me

bethel

Went up to bethel me for a long weekend , maybe the last good one this year. I decided to take a monday off in the middle of my ridiculously busy fall season instead of waiting for that tantrum day , my yearly fall implosions when I scream "I can`t take it anymore" , and throw an absolute fit mid-day at work and storming off for the remainder of the day , vowing never to return , only to return the next day. What a waste , I don`t even do anything fun when I skip out like that.
I figured scheduling that mental day in advance would prevent such wasted emotion and a waste of a perfectly good I QUIT for a day.

Fri night - drove up to Lincoln NH , stayed at the franconia notch motel , got stuck in accident traffic for an 1 1/2 ....which sucked ....but we survived and made good time ....12:30 am - went to bed , up early ... off HIKING
SAT - Drove up to crawford notch 16 and 302 and hit a couple of their roadside waterfalls , beautiful and lots of flow. Lots of beautiful foliage views throughout. We found a number of geocaches.. couldn`t find the crazy up the mountain geocache on one of the cascades. Ripley falls --- Did some hiking.
took route 2 to bethel , me Checked into the victoria inn , bed and breakfast . One of the few times we`ve returned to a particular bnb...coz the first time we had great conversations with the innkeeper who mixed her own tea and had tea service. This was a few years back and started me on enjoying tea. We actually just finished the last of the tea we bought from there and intended on buying more . This time There was no tea service nor was there any conversation with the innkeep. Kinda felt like a motel ...oh well.
We did have a ridiculously wonderful dinner there that night - see memory list
Sunday - Grafton notch tour , moose cave , mother walker falls , step falls - a mile and a half hike. Lake umbagog - wasn`t quite as cool as we thought it would be but the preserve area was closed. Will have to check it out again. Wonderful foliage trip though. I did catch a rainbow trout in one of the few access areas we found.
Sunday night - watched it snow like absolute nuts at the Pats game , was threatening to be icy snow by us but nothing came all weekend . WE lucked out coz the town is dead if our outdoorsy stuff was gonna be rained and iced out.
MOnday - drove down evans notch - hiked up a 1200 ft hill THe Roost - nice little hike there and then mostly did roadside stops at some unbelievable pull-off scenic bluffs. One view was of sheer cliff faces with ledges that peregrine falcons nest in. Another was of 6 separate mountain peeks , Evans notch , down 113 wasn`t on my small whole state maps but was just a wonderful drive. We stopped at the basin , a beautiful bowl area with a small lake and lots of colorful turning leaves. The pics we took cannot capture its beauty. No fish catch here.
Got home in time to catch monday night football kick-off.
Good weekend... back to work sucked but at least its a short week !!!



memory list

Rt 16 in the mountains ... Pma ... Near pinkham notch
ripley falls ....return to jackson maybe snowflake inn ... The trees that dropped leaves look wispy and soften the foliage mountain background
nice dinner ... I had choc port as my 1st cordial ... A bellini and a chateau bianca ...lori loved her pomegranate duck ... Billy joel , les miz amd elton john played by the pianist
caught a fishie ..rainbow trout at umbagog ....found some geocaches

beautiful blue trail near dunn falls but not quite unless wanna get wet ... Take appalachian white trail bext time.

scare crows made up as blue man group ...

Monday, October 05, 2009

Rock Spring Preserve in Scotland Ct

Sunday- mobile journal

SEE AMC's Best Day Hikes in Connecticut - Rock Spring Preserve or see bottom for description

appx 4 mile hike ... Found a geocache (see geocaching.com for explanation) called the Council of the pines where there were a few symmetrical rows of tall pine trees ....neat view especially the way the light came thru the trees .. we were expecting elves to emerge from this ordained to be sacred spot
wonderful trail but a bit overgrown ...avoid late summer early fall on a wet day...Our clothes were official dew collectors ... We could`ve squeezed life giving H20 to quench the thirst of an entire tribe out of our pants.

We had a nice picnic as the sun came out.. We took our blanket out and ate a nice salad with blue cheese and strawberries and some cheese and crackers . TIFLM...
So other than the creepy white fuzzy haired caterpillar that insisted on marching onto our blanket it was real nice.
We drove home up historic rt 169 admiring the changing leaves ....flew down RT 44 home , showered , changed and headed to Shea`s Bar and Grill 4 a beer and Jets football. Would have been the crowning moment of a great day had the Jets won..

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Saturday, October 03, 2009

Its the Economy , Stupid.

An investment manager friend told me that no matter what he does with his clients money , he is always wrong. In our down economy , if he decides to pull 50 percent out of the market and the market does drop: Well he didn`t pull enough out. If it rises , he took out too much. "I wish I had a crystal ball" , wails my friend.
I started thinking about this and decided that he was wrong. A crystal ball would be very bad for the investors !
Sure , it might start off all grand and wonderful , but eventually exuberance will outweigh common sense. (Can you say irrational exuberance) The proprietor of said ball will inevitably get greedy. He may start pulling family and friends in , or selling off safe assets ,or borrowing to invest in the crystal ball infused scheme.
The market will rise in the areas of all the good bets , investors without a ball will inevitably notice how well some stocks are doing and continue to drive up the price creating a bubble. This bubble will burst. Ball holders may anticipate this and pull out in time , but at what expense to the market and the economy and other investors. Eventually that crystal ball will only tell you not to invest in the market that the ball ironically destroyed. Thats NOT a boon for investors.
And how long do you think this crystal ball would remain secret. Come on , Iran can`t even keep nuclear secrets and they are VERY secretive. Iraq couldn`t keep its secrets about hidden weapons of massive destruction......oh wait ...bad example. Obama couldn`t keep the secret that he thinks Kenye West is a jackass despite his abuse of official power attempting to censor the press. "Come on guys , cut the president some slack and don`t print that , I have a lot on my plate today"
So we know that eventually the crystal ball will no longer be secret. The powerful will find a way to benefit at the expense of everyone else , outrageous bonuses will be handed out right after the layoff announcements. Unemployment, High gas prices , queues for bread etc ; will ensue.
Then the chinese will figure out how to reverse engineer it and sell it on the black market. It will be about this time that the burst bubble will become a supernova sucking everything in causing chaos and anarchy and religious fanaticism. The apocalypse is here.
Stupid idea , that crystal ball.