Friday, June 22, 2007

Driving in Great Barrington

I was on my lunch break today and went around the castle street block after picking up the Instant Karma: Save Darfur CD at Tune Street which is a bunch of covers of John Lennon songs to raise money to stop the genocide in Darfur. I wanted something to listen to while painting the interior of Steffen's new bike shop location on State Rd. across from The Pizza House. Town was über-mobbed and coming out onto main street by Berkshire Bank the person two cars before me wasn't inching forward or anything--waiting for a magic traffic light to suddenly appear or something--so I got impatient and honked the guy in front of me and motioned for him to do something about the tentative driver in front of him but he didn't care to extend an encouraging honk to the girl in front of him, just looked at me dumbly as if to say "what am I supposed to do?" so I got of the car, covered in paint, paint in my hair, paint everywhere, and marched into traffic (the traffic was so bad the cars were only going 5-10mph) and put my hands up to stop both lanes of traffic and motioned the little lady to go. She smiled sheepishly and I ran back to my car (there were now cars behind me), giving the guy in front of me a passing glance. He got the picture and followed the girl in front of him into traffic. People's inability to look at a traffic situation and improvise accordingly--especially in overly congested Great Barrington--is a little irksome. I mean, I can't sit around all day and let bad drivers ruin my gas mileage, sheesh!

Trish doing a professional job of cutting in while painting Stoof's new, spiffy bike shop:


Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Bash Bish Falls after hard rain

If you remember this spring we had a little flood. Well, being the Intrepid Dr. Root that I am, I ventured to places where I thought the water would be impressive: Bash Bish Falls. Apparently I wasn't the only adventurous soul in search of ferocious water. I didn't bring my camera but I met a very nice man with his wife taking photos of the falls and he offered to send me copies of the photos. Few people will ever get the opportunity to see the falls the way they were on April 16th. You'll want to click on the images to see them in full size. Remember that in normal conditions, you can walk across the bottom of the falls where there is usually a pool lined with boulders that you can hop from one to another. But here you can see there is no longer even a pool, just a mad torrent of foaming water.





Getting to the falls was a bit of a challenge. I approached from the parking lot above and streams had sprung up everywhere. The creek feeding the bottom of the falls had swelled to a remarkable torrent and I was barely able to cross it by stepping along the metal fence that goes over it where it normally is passable by a small hop over the creek. This was a full on raging river and the bottoms of my feet were nearly being splashed by the rapids. Alas, no pics of the descent to the falls since I didn't have my cam.

The spray from the falls was so bad that you could not go down the steps to take a closer photo. You would be soaking wet in seconds from the tremendous spray pluming outwards with tremendous force.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Barbecue at Jake's

Nori in rare fashion complying to a photo shoot in Guy's Memorial. His birthday was last week.


If I'm the best root above ground, then Harbinder has to be the best Indian this side of... of India. Although it looks like Dan isn't so sure.


It was a beautiful afternoon for a barbecue. (sorry, I don't have photoshop to lighten the foreground)


Nori and Avi loving the spotlight of the camera.


If you would like to know why any pictures of me are conspicuously missing from this entry, perhaps a visit over to Dan's complementary blog is in order... Plus, there are some very nice pictures. Very impressive one of the sky. Wow.

In other news, Vadim and I went for a bike ride up that killer hill by Camp Eisner. Then we hiked up the Appalachian trail a ways and Vadim took 42 thousand pictures. I took a few but I was more interested in just being in the moment than capturing it on my camera for twice. (there was another time but it was a long time ago and I don't really remember when.) On the bike ride back I got up to 43mph. But this is on a mountain bike with knobby tires and my bike wouldn't go into my top gear. I think I will have to borrow a road bike from Berkshire Bike and Blade some time and see if I can't top 60mph.

Vadim clambers up the rocky face.


This wild flower on the trail caught my eye. Do you think it's pretty? I think it's lovely.


I like the halo around the sun in this rather lovely but typical sunset. I remember the sunsets in India. Particularly the ones in Kovalam in the south. Loverly, but the ones in the good ol' Berkshires are nice too.


Stay tuned for 42 thousand more pictures of Vadim and our little excursion coming soon.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Keep the paint where it belongs!

Okay? Don't put it on surfaces it doesn't belong. That is how you end up buying roofs and floors that you can't afford.

Doug walks the plank... (Vadim and my plot failed to get rid of the boss, alas.)


Vadim and Bret.


Doug shows how it's done


In other news...

Sold a couple shawls at the tag sale... but only AFTER I packed them away before the thunder storm came. Nina Thayer was very kind to mention my shawls in the advert for her and my mother's tag sale.


It's important to have a professional presentation when selling high value products.


Friday, June 01, 2007

8 hours of the sandpaper shimmy

and other adventures with paint and ladders coming soon!

For now we turn to some pre-season swimming.

A week or so ago we biked to the stream by Rowe Road.

Nora is pretty enthusiastic about being in the frigid spring water.


Jake is a little less excited.



Yep, this basically sums it up. That's about as far in as I was willing to go.


Nori did end up going all the way in. But I never went beyond my ankles.


Then Dan decided I should go in too.