I was going to write about SmugMug’s great app “Camera Awesome” and their excellent photo/video service, but I got my favorite springtime phone call. My good friend Tim called and said, “let’s go ramping”! We’re fortunate that we live in Northern Westchester County which is heavily wooded with tons of streams and ponds which is ideal for finding ramps. So with shovel in hand and bags to fill up with our bounty and of course my iPhone in my pocket off we went. I work with technology all day long whether it’s consulting, editing, listening to music or photography. Sometimes one needs to remember that life isn’t all technology and we all need the proverbial “stop and smell the roses” occasionally or in this case the ramps! Tim and I were gone over 2 hours, walked deep into the woods, found tons of ramps and will be cooking them up over the next few days. While trekking through the woods near the croton reservoir we came across the below weird site. Perfectly carved gigantic rocks in the middle of the woods? Remnants of when the Croton Dam was built and left behind, dropped by a UFO or a little StoneHedge type thing…..is that Spinal Tap I hear? So get out, slow down and put the technology away for a few hours and bring the camera just in case 😉

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StoneHedge?

Ramps cleaned and ready to go.

Here come’s a bad segue once again…..slow down to SloPro. My new favorite iPhone app. Did you ever think you could make beautiful slow motion video on your iPhone? Check out the below video I shot yesterday at the dam it’ll give you a good idea of what’s possible. I’m going to explore more with it and report back in a few weeks with some more samples.

Check out this SloPro Video

Just Because: New Music for Old People written by my friend Al Kooper. Great music both new and old.

I saw the Band and Levon Helm at last 20 times over the years, but one of my favorite shows was with Ringo Starr…..You’ll be missed Levon. Also…..”You have to fight for your right to paaarrrrrrtttty!” May have not been on your favorite playlist, but it just rocked the house and helped launch MTV. Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys who made that record died a few days ago of cancer. I came across a quote reflecting on Adam’s death and it reminded me so much of Tommy V’s philosophy of “You’re here for a good time not a long time” that I needed to share it. It’s by Bob Lesetz who signed off his email blast with this final quote about Adam……”Death is final. It creeps you out. Be sure to live while you’re still alive.”