Author: randyaa

Horseshoe Lake

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Man I love it up here!

There’s three ways into Horseshoe Lake but I can only recommend one of them in good conscience. Riding the railroad tracks is no fun. Not unless they’re groomed. The first few miles from Conifer to Horseshoe were groomed and beautiful. 55mph was nothing. Then the groomer turned around and holy cow, forget it! We toughed it out but I almost wished we’d turned around right there. Washboard the whole way.

If you want to go to Horseshoe I recommend taking 7A right to the front door.

On our way back up 7A (the way we should have come in) we met Wes and Donald. Kinda funny meeting someone you know miles and miles in the middle of nowhere.  We stopped and said hello for a few minutes and then went our separate ways.  Back to Diamond by way of

Not sure what I think about possibly taking the railroad to Tupper Lake to get us to Lake Placid for that trip… we’ll see. might have to wait for a day with some fresh snow and hope for a groomer.

A good day of riding, around 100 miles. Horseshoe is a pretty little lake, but I’d stay off the railroads to get there if I were you.

Miles on the sled this season: 198

The Backwoods Inn

~ randyaa ~ 2 Comments

Dad and I got up late today, had a nice ham and egg breakfast and then headed out on the trails with no specific destination in mind.

As is often the case in our neck of the Adirondacks, we ended up only a few miles from The Backwoods Inn (previously known as Ham’s Inn) around lunchtime.

It’s an awesome little local bar/restaurant. The top of the bar has pictures of the locals embedded in a clear coat of some kind. There’s a Newfoundland that likes to wander around inside and out and greets every snowmobiler that comes through the door.

The menu is just typical American food: subs, wings, burgers etc but the food is excellent and their portions are insanely huge. They have a multiple-pound-burger that’s free if you eat it all. Even their normal sized burger is too big for most people.  Dad had a regular burger and could only finish half of it.  I had a grilled ham and cheese and couldn’t even come close to finishing the fries.

Its located on route 56 in Parishville right near the route 3 intersection. Filled with local flair and great food.  If you’re looking for it from the snowmobile trails it’s on 73 on the eastern most section of 7A right along route 56.

Eat there if you get the chance!

The Right Equipment

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Well, I did it again. I forgot my boots!

Normally I’m a stickler for the right gear. When Rachel and I go mountain climbing we carry day packs and wear zip-offs and fast drying active-wear clothes because I think it’s important. Our packs are filled with matches, filters, fire starters, emergency warmers, first aid kits and pretty much everything else we’d need in case we get stranded and need to spend a night or two in the woods. All because I believe in the right equipment.

Twice this year Ive forgotten my boots. The first time I had to buy a pair on the way up because I was going to be spending extended time periods standing in the woods (hunting). This time I’ll be snowmobiling which for those of you who don’t do it might sound cold, but it’s not too bad while you’re riding. When you stop it might be an issue but I don’t do a lot of that.

I’m gonna try it with my Goretex semi-insulated L.L. bean shoes and a heavy pair of wool socks. we’ll see…

UPDATE: just as expected it was plenty warm while riding. Stepping off the trail into snow banks is another story however. It’ll be good enough to get me through the weekend. I won’t forget my boots again though.

When a Hunter Should Sue

~ randyaa ~ 5 Comments

Most lawsuits I hear about are completely ridiculous and the people are out to get nothing more than a quick paycheck.  That being said…

I think my Father should sue.

One day, about 3 years ago, he started seeing a tiny spot in his right eye if he looked in one specific direction while turning his head in one specific way.  The next day it got a little bigger so he immediately went to the eye doctor who didn’t know what was happening.  The eye doctor sent him to a specialist.  However; the specialist couldn’t see him for about a week.

By the time my father got to see the specialist, the vision in his right eye was almost entirely foggy and blurry.  He could barely see out if his right eye.  The first thing the specialist says?  “The eye doctor should have sent you to the Emergency room immediately.”

Something in the back of his eye started bleeding and the gray foggy spot was the blood spreading over his retina.  If he had been sent to the emergency room instead of waiting for a specialist they could have cauterized the bleeding and he would still have his vision.  It was too late to do anything and unfortunately he is now blind in his right eye.

I didn’t really think much about it until this year.

He’s been hunting for 50+ years with his right hand and eye.  When he first lost his vision he spent a lot of time trying to learn to shoot with his left.  He even bought a new single shot rifle just to practice with.

This year my father shot at a few deer but he didn’t get one.  He took a lot of crap for it too.  My father, the expert marksman, who had officers placed bets on his accuracy while he was in basic training, has gone from getting 5 deer a year to 0.

Before you say it’s because he’s getting old… Bullshit.  He gets around and travels the woods more than most guys in their teens and twenties, myself included.  He shot at more deer than anyone else I know this year too.  He still has issues pulling up on his left is all.  I could go into details but that’s not really the point.

The point is, some screwy eye Doctor doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing and could likely cause someone else to lose their vision too.  A few things just made me realize it’s affected my father more than I originally realized and more than he lets on.

My Father should Sue.

In the meantime, if you see a gray fuzzy spot in your vision, go to the emergency room not the eye doctor!

2010 Goals

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Ok, so my 2009 goals were a bit lame despite my efforts. Here’s to a better set of goals for this year and therefor better results! Some of these stem from what I see as some personal failures in 2009, others are just brand new.

Join an activity group on a regular basis. this can be anywhere from Geocaching to Flickr meetups to the ADK club outings to toastmasters. The point is to do something on a regular basis in order to forge some new relationships. We’ve started with ADK but we didn’t keep up with the meetings.

Don’t hesitate when given an opportunity. If I want to do something, do it, if I don’t, likewise. This is something I really need to work on.  I tend to flip flop and wait until the last minute to make decisions on things like this.

Run a profitable Photography business. Given my goals of last year this one almost seems comical. However my first income will be coming in 2010, and my planned expenses are minimal, just some equipment rental for said income. This probably won’t be hard to do.

Do 2 weddings. Along the same lines as above. I’ve got one booked already and I have another possibility. I’d like to start booking some more but if I can manage 2 this year, maybe I can double that next year and then really get something going. If you know someone looking for a Photographer please let me/them know!

Finish the work in the basement. this isn’t a real finishing job, it just means some cleaning (a LOT), implementing some better storage solutions, doing some wiring work and fixing the lighting situation. Still though, some things I’ve been dragging my feet on and just need to get done.

Buy a new house. We pretty much need a miracle for this to happen without selling our current home(which we don’t want to do). We need to though, we’re outgrowing our current home. Not so much the floor plan, but the yard and the storage. That along with a new member of the family coming soon pretty much necessitates a new, bigger house. which brings me to my next goal:

Do everything in my power to ensure the well-being of our new child. This is pretty self explanatory but something not everyone might think about is:

Lead by example. We can’t hope to have a child with healthy habits if we don’t first develop them ourselves. This applies to everything from sleeping properly to exercising regularly to only watching extremely minute amounts of television. This might seem too broad to be a goal, but the idea here is to simply be aware of my decisions and their implications on my own life and for the little one.

Lose 20lbs by May. Lose Another 20 by the end of the year. The first 20 I’ve done several times and isn’t really that difficult for me. the second 20… that will put me back to my junior year of college weight, and will be far more difficult to do. I don’t think keeping it off will be an issue since I’ll have done it by (re)developing better habits, NOT a diet.

Some carry-overs from last year:

  • increase the size of our emergency fund (again!)
  • complete the first floor of the house
  • sell at least one photo
  • EXPERIENCE one sunsets or sunrises a month.  This means actually watching and enjoying it, not just noticing out a window.

2010 is going to be a really exciting year!

2009 – How I Did

~ randyaa ~ 4 Comments

It’s funny, looking back on the goals I set at the beginning of the year, some of them were kind of silly, others weren’t even goals.  Either way, I didn’t do too bad.

  • Volunteer at least 4 times
    • Didn’t happen.. :(.  I volunteered on the United Way day of Caring and that’s it.  Wish I would have followed through on this one.
  • Quadruple the size of our Emergency Fund
    • Check
  • Take a 3 – 4week vacation on the west coast
    • Check
  • Buy a DSLR
    • Check
  • Win at least one photo contest
    • Sadly, Didn’t enter any…
  • Sell at least one photo
    • Sold my services twice, I guess that counts?
  • Reduce my wardrobe by 25%
    • Check
  • See at least 25 sunsets and 25 sunrises
    • Check, some weeks saw many, other none.  It all balances out.
  • Complete and release Mivity
    • Right… Mivity is canned, the Domain expired and I didn’t renew it.  If you have an idea for it feel free, I just decided I had other priorities.
  • Work out at least 3 times per week for 30minutes at a time
    • Started out the year and into the summer very good on this one, Unfortunately due to other obligations, later into the summer and the rest of the year, I Fell short.  I’ll be picking this up in the new year.
  • Finish the 1st floor of the house
    • Didn’t happen but we’re very close, looking like the middle to end of January.

A Dangerous Thing to do

~ randyaa ~ 8 Comments

1997 CavalierAs we look back on the years we’ve all said the phrase

“man I was dumb”

or

“what was I thinking?”

This one tops the cake, but it happened a long time ago so don’t worry, it’s just a tale of what could have been and almost was.

It was July 25th, the weekend of the democratic national convention in 2004 (Where Barack Obama was to speak ironically enough). My good friend (and roommate at the time) Brian and I were on our way to Boston to see some friends for the Whiskey Company BBQ. We were driving my stupid (pseudo) pimped-out cavalier (pictured at the Grand Canyon). Tinted windows, sound system, headlight covers, mirror-tint Chevy symbols in the rear windows, you get the idea. At about 1:30 in the morning on an empty 6 lane highway somewhere near Boston we got pulled over.

This cop came out of nowhere. I still don’t know whether he was in a turn-around watching for cars or whether he was just driving along. Either way he came up on us at about 90Mph lights blazing. I pulled off to the side thinking he was headed to some emergency but no he pulled up right behind us.

Awesome.

License and registration

“Sure thing” I answered while fumbling in my glove box. As I handed them over I politely asked, “Is there something wrong officer?”

I know everyone says they weren’t doing anything wrong but in this case we really weren’t. I couldn’t even fathom why he had pulled us over. He made some lame excuse about how we had changed lanes too quickly while passing a car and headed back to his car with my license and registration. This couldn’t have been farther from the truth since there was nobody else on the road. We hadn’t even been passed since being pulled over.

When the cop came back to my car it was the only time in my life he came back without a ticket. However he came back up on the PASSENGER side. He then asked for Brian’s license.  He handed it over without question.

The officer then proceeded to pester us both about “items we have in the car which he should be aware of”. After about the 8th time (no joke) I said “look, you can search the car if it’ll make you feel better”. He immediately responded “I’m gonna take you up on that, step out of the car please.”. wow, not the first and definitely not the last, but a BIG mistake on our part.

He had us walk away from the car and sit on the guard rail facing AWAY from the car while he searched.

We’re just gonna stop there for a second, let you absorb this picture.

He comes back to us, twirling my baseball bat in his fingers. ‘What’s this for?’

‘baseball’ I say. not much else to tell…

To be honest I don’t even remember what happened after that. The next thing I remember is driving down the road thinking ‘holy shit what the hell was that about’.

It could have ended a lot worse. a LOT worse.

Don’t ever turn your back on the only evidence proving your innocence.

If you’ve done nothing wrong and a police officer is harassing you, call the local police department or 911. don’t just put up with it and think “holy crap” after the fact like we did. it might not end that well for you.

We were lucky, very lucky.

Three in the Family

~ randyaa ~ 12 Comments

A man and a woman had a little baby,
Yes, they did.
They had three in the family,
And that’s a magic number.

Gotta say, we’re excited. We’ve got a little’n on the way.

Yep, a little baby Aldrich.

Rachel is about 4 months Pregnant right now. Naturally we’ve known for a while but we wanted to wait to share until we had something to share.

Yes we know what it is (maybe you can tell from the video) and yes we have the name picked out. However; you’ll have to wait and see.  That’ll keep you reading though right?

Baby Aldrich @ 18 weeks:

And, the video of when we told my in-laws:

UPDATE: The video of my in-laws might need an explanation.  We gave them a photo-book of our dogs. The first picture had a label on it “The Grandkids” and the last picture was of the pregnancy test.

Good stuff, Pumped.

Littl Blue vs Little Blue

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

IMG_0598Little Blue Mountain: a mountain in the foothills of Blue Mountain in Indian Lake, NY near Blue Mountain Lake with an elevation of about 2,800 ft.

Littl Blue Mountain: a mountain in South Colton, NY overlooking little blue pond at an elevation of about 1,800 ft.

Easy to confuse the two. Lots of people think Littl Blue is spelled Little Blue and don’t even know there IS another (real) Little Blue Mountain. It’s even spelled wrong on lots of maps.

I had the same problem but always thought it was weird that Little Blue Mountain was so far away from Blue Mountain. Now I know why: it isn’t.

I’ve corrected our posts and tags to reflect the proper spelling. Sorry about the confusion.

Mile 0 2010

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Snowmobiling season has begun, and with a frenzy. The Adirondacks have been good to us this year. The snow came a bit later than usual but there hasn’t been a major thaw yet which makes for some ideal conditions, with a good solid frozen base and constant snow.

Mile zero started right where it should, the Toy Shed. Didn’t put on a whole lot of miles today, just 25 around the diamond property, but the riding was phenomenal and it felt good to be out again.

Having the shed will make things a lot nicer. Now that we can properly store at least 4 sleds we can leave them up here all season. Needless to say, I’m prepared for a lot of riding this year.

Plans are in the works to make a (snowmobile) trip to Whiteface Mountain from camp. It’ll be a long ride, but very beautiful I’m sure.

Cant wait for tomorrow’s ride, wherever it takes us.

Miles on the sled this season: 25