Yesterday we (my family) were in New York City for a wedding – a very, very happy occasion. The wedding was the Faculty House at Columbia University, and I took a photo of this red brick building (Wien Hall) as we walked from the (expensive) parking garage to the wedding. My middle son, who convinced me to take my smaller camera so I would pay more attention to the wedding and less to taking photos, said we would have gotten to the wedding a few minutes sooner if I had not stopped to photograph a few buildings on the way.
At the beginning of a Jewish wedding the groom is marched to the bride accompanied by dancing friends and family and by musicians. The musicians at this wedding were from the orchestra Nafshenu. The groom then checks to make sure it is really his bride (as biblical Jacob got tricked, the groom wants to check).
The red in the photo was in the musicians’ eyes – I selected the red in Photoshop using the magic wand tool, desaturated the red, and adding back in enough color so their eyes looked brown.
On the subject of cameras and photographers, there were many photographers at the wedding (I believe some were friends of the bride and groom). I was jealous of their gigantic lenses, as was my father’s cousin, who said there is no end when it comes to desiring good photography equipment.
In New York City one can pay to park one’s bicycle. The bicycle fees were considerably less than the car parking fees.
We visited Allaire State Park back in early November. Here are some of the doors and windows of that pretty park. The above building in the historical village was closed, but many were open.
Strictly speaking, this is not a door or a window, but it is OPEN – so it’s like a gateway to the bakery. I enhanced the saturation of the colors in Photoshop.
We were able to visit the original home of the Allaire family. As I said on a previous post, we were not allowed to photograph inside, but here’s the doorway to that interesting home. It was said to still be inhabited by a descendant of the original Allaire founder in the 1950’s, and that 1950’s owner kept a horse in his kitchen. Eccentric.
This was a vertical photo, so I increased the canvas size to make it horizontal, and then I used the clone stamp tool and the blur tool to get the main part of the photo to extend a bit into the side areas.
What is that white board that looks like a door but is curiously up too high to be a door? Where there once steps there? I didn’t notice this until today, when I was looking through these photos. Does that happen to you; do you find mysteries in your photos that you didn’t recognize when you were on the scene?
These are windows in the train of the Pine Creek Railroad, which is next to the Historical Village. The train ride just goes around in circles, but we did get to see some deer as we circled about.
For more windows and doors, visit Window Views (hosted by Mary the Teach):
Dinner at East Jersey Olde Towne Tavern
Is this what Thanksgiving dinner looked like in the 19th century in New Jersey? Or a meal on the go when traveling from New York City to Philadelphia? Note the two-pronged sharp fork. We learned at Allaire that’s how forks used to look, until someone figured out it was safer to have a three-pronged less sharp fork. And they ate the food with the knife, using the two-pronged fork to hold the meat steady.
On My Blog
Elsewhere in the Blogosphere
Pesky Settler hosts the Kosher Cooking Carnival. Check out the recipe for sourdough naan bread. That looks yummy.
Eva Abreu is running a New Jersey Social Media 2009 Hall of Fame. You vote via Twitter, use hashtag #NJSM09, and nominate outstanding users of Social Media in New Jersey.
I loved Robin’s Red Hibiscus so much I decided to link to it here!
I have been working at getting interviews with Central New Jersey small businesses, and I plan to start a new series that I have nicknamed “Wednesdays With.” I won’t necessarily limit it to businesses in Central New Jersey, but that’s where I have been asking…hoping to get good, fun responses soon.
New Jersey has many old-fashioned villages, and East Jersey Olde Towne in Piscataway is in biking distance of our home. So my husband and middle son biked out there last week, and my daughter and I came later by car.
Since this is a post for Ruby Tuesday, I focused on photos with a bit of red. There’s the schoolhouse. All of the buildings were moved to this spot from elsewhere in Central New Jersey.
We had fun in the one-room school house, with its pretty red gingham curtains.
Throughout the buildings there are a lot of fake place settings, showing how food might have looked or been served. The buildings are from a variety of periods in New Jersey history.
This sign, with its red border, says the “In the 1970’s, the Indian Queen Tavern was relocated from New Brunswick to East Jersey Olde Town in Piscataway. In 2003, archaeologists uncovered artifacts from the original site of the tavern in New Brunswick.” (On display were a toothbrush, a comb, a shaving mug and a chamber pot.)
On our way out, I photographed this colorful bush, with its red fall foliage display.
The Three Little Pigs is showing at the Forum Theatre in Metuchen, New Jersey. For more information, including times and how to get tickets, visit the Forum website.
Allaire State Park - Re-enactment of vote of 1836
Yesterday we had the fun of visiting Allaire State Park in Farmingdale, New Jersey, including the historic village and the train ride. The historic village featured Election Day 1836 – should women get the vote? The man without a hat was arguing with the women suffragettes to his right that that was a ridiculous notion.
The actors played their roles with great oomph and and in an impromptu fashion – they talked directly to the audience (there was no stage, and we were part of the show). The boy on the right was handing out blue ballots for his party, and he handed them only to the men in our party (my husband and a friend), but not to the women. I joked that I could influence my husband’s vote by telling him for whom to vote. My daughter and her friend, however, wanted the pink ballot party to win, no matter what the agenda, so they kept sneaking into the building to cast ballots for the pink party. They succeeded once or twice, but they also got caught and got a good “scolding” – all in good fun.
I wasn’t allowed to photograph the insides of the Allaire Village buildings – too bad, there was a lot of good history. We took the short train ride near the village at the end of our day. I’ll post the train another day, but here’s a great ghoulish guy at the train stop. He’s just there around Halloween time, have no fear.
For more photos with a little red or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
I took this photo of flowers at Howell Living History Farm in western New Jersey in the middle of the summer. This shot was taken with the sepia setting on my camera.
This photo was taken a few minutes later, in full color.
Mary is celebrating the 50th round of Sepia Scenes. Glad I was able to share in this one. And WordPress tells me this is my 900th post.
I met Sheila of NJ Playgrounds via Twitter (she’s njplaygrounds), and I enjoyed her posts on parks and playgrounds here in New Jersey. She also introduced me to the Atahualpa theme for WordPress, one that I recommend if you want a dynamic theme that will do a lot without creating your own. I admire her for starting a website business while raising small children. Enjoy the interview, and please click on the screenshot at the top of the post to visit her site.
1) How did you get the idea for NJ Playgrounds?
It was simmering for a while. I wanted to find a good meeting place for a bunch of moms from Union County that were posting about a playdate and was surprised to see that the internet didn’t have good information on playgrounds in general. I knew that playground information is helpful for me as a new mom, and thought why not share it when I get it?
2) What did you do before you had kids?
I had graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology with a B.E. in Chemical Engineering, but never practiced engineering per se. I began a career in explosives trace detection involved in everything from product support, training, sales, evaluations, and then right before 9-11, I took the position as the FAA Program Manager. The following years were incredibly active and had to travel quite a bit. I’m glad I was able to do this even though it was so busy, I missed my husband but I was able to work with such great people and it really helped me grow personally and professionally.
3) How would you like to see NJ Playgrounds grow? What ideas do you have for your site?
Ultimately I’d like to see NJ Playgrounds take on a life of its own, and be community driven. Making it easy for people to contribute, but also make sure that the information is what people are looking for. I think that there can be too much information, and filtering it, making it easy for the reader is one of the things I’m focusing on next. One of my pet projects for this fall/winter is getting a summary of all NJ Indoor Playgrounds, play areas, storytimes, children museums in one page but easily categorized. It has started, and we’ve got some great feedback already. Also, just started a Pioneer of the month to highlight the efforts of one person or organization that has transformed their community in NJ. Change isn’t easy and we support those who take it on.
I’m also in discussion with another playground maven who does the paper version of NJ playgrounds. She is an amazing person so I’m hoping our focus and goals line up so we can partner together. As most people can relate, doing everything yourself can limit you, especially when you have your own limits with time and money. I’m hoping to branch out a bit. Some advertising dollars wouldn’t hurt either.
4) Can you give advice to someone who wants to start a blog or website?
Ask yourself some questions first, like
Who is the blog for?
Who is your audience?
What is your purpose?
Are you passionate about it? If yes, write it down, focus, and then let it rip.
It helps to take on something that fills a void. There is nothing wrong with the tons of blogs out there already, but if you do want to stand out, you may want to find a void in a specific area, chances are other people feel that void too. I always think about how will my blog/website service others? And it can be anything, laughter, information, support, music, art, tips…
Once you get the idea, then you can start looking at the mechanics of a blog. Get dreamhost or Godaddy for hosting and domain name, check out wordpress.org, download it and then I just follow @leoraw for my wordpress tips. ๐
On a side note, I completely agree with Hannah’s assessment on WordPress, it truly has been a blessing. I get about 70% of my traffic via search engine. Can be a headache when you own your own site, but you have complete control. It’s been great.
Although I’ve left my work identity behind, I do truly enjoy working with adults and freelancing/blogging has allowed me to kinda stay in touch with the working world. It has helped me stay sane, and as I take my kids to new places, it’s like a bonus that I can share it with others. Raising my kids comes first but offering something that is helpful to other moms makes me feel like I’m contributing to society.
6) What are some of your favorite posts/articles?
Although playground posts are pretty dry, I’ve enjoyed a few biggest and best- highlighting our favorites:
Indoor playgrounds featuring a map that is edited as people send me suggestions.
7) How has Twitter helped your blog/website?
It really has helped me branch out and although I don’t get much traffic from twitter per se I’ve been able to network and meet people who lead me to some solutions and advice. I met my playground twin in CA, OCPlayParks, who I still want to chat with soon. She’s done a similar thing with Orange County Parks, in CA and is quite an amazing person. I learned about the mapping program through her and her site.
