Break out the Festivous Pole and the Christmas Leg Lamp, because it's that wonderful time of year again

May it be "Festivous for the rest of us," or a Christmas where you just might shoot your eye out, it's comin' round before you know it.  For me, I haven't really been feeling the christmas spirit, mostly because it's been dampened by school.  The last day is the 23rd, and I never feel christmasy when I'm still in school....so I only have two days to feel it.  Even when we went out to buy the tree, that was a wake up call for me that christmas is coming, but that put me in no jollier mood because I still had to go home and study for a geometry test the next day.

Most people in school are quite content with the fact that it's the last week of the year, but not me, because so far I've had a test every day of the week and I've had to study every night.  When my dad asked me if I wanted to do some decorations, I had to decline because alas, the Biology exam I had the next morning took top priority.  Just because I haven't felt like Chris Cringle, doesn't mean I can't be him, because the big present I gave this year, (and drained the bank alright) was two tickets to see Johnny Mathis last Sunday for my mother.  She loved the show, and took my father with her.

So, that's the fun life of me, sacrificing the gaiety of the season for good performance in school.  Speaking of which, these last two weeks have been awful, and I've been keeping myself alive on tea, and so far I've been through about 80 tea bags in the past two weeks.

Griswold

Okay, well, I feel bad for not giving you any photos recently, so here's some pictures of Griswold Airport, here in Madison.  This airport was very cool when it was in service.  My dad would take me down Saturday mornings and we'd check out the planes and flying contraptions people built.  The aircraft here had character, like their owners.  What happened was, the airport sold to a developer, but they never did anything with the property, so it went up for sale again.  The town purchased the 9 million dollar waterfront property and is planning on turning it into parks and ball fields.  (but their taking their sweet time)  So, I was able to get in and take some shots, which really made my day!  I'd like to go back, and when I do, those pictures will be here!

There were two of these.  They were small rooms that were for rent during the
airports hayday.  People would fly in and rent a room in one of these cottages,
and visit the neighboring Hammonassett State Park, which is a huge attraction
here in Madison.

This is an over grown small house.  I was in here a while back, and it was
all burned out on the inside.  I believe it had three bedrooms.  Too bad
I didn't have my camera, cause when I took the shot it was padlocked,
like most other buildings on the property now that the town owns it.

This may have been one of the first hangars here.  It wasn't very big
but is quite old

This was one of those flying contraptions.  It's nothing more than a
propeller powered by a lawn mower engine strapped to your
back while you hold a parachute.  Pretty simple.

This was the box from an old box truck.  The truck is no longer, but this box is still here.
You can see where perhaps the state logo could have been.

Old lady Griswold's house.  I didn't go in at risk of being seen,
but hopefully I'll go back before they burn it for fire fighter training.
This was still in good condition.

The terminal building with some large hangars attached, as seen
from across the field.

The "Pilot's Lounge" in the field

This wasn't all to special, but I remember when there was an ultralight fly-in.
Here, pilots flew their makeshift ultralights and set up a tent for the weekend.
Here is where they held their bonfires.

The hangar.  I believe there were four bays on each side.

A close up

Down the runway toward the terminal

Looking down the runway toward Hammonassett

Hangars from the runway

Inside that hangar

Various communication towers

Ya, interesting find in an abandoned hangar

Sssshhh, don't tell anyone, I swiped this fire extinguisher.
On the bottom it reads "Griswold Air Service"

Back when the airport was functioning.

The airport really did bring quite a crowd.

Crewbie! (And sorry, no photos...)

Like any other high school, Danny Hand puts on plays.  One in the fall, and a musical in the spring.  Adam Nuz and I are both in stage crew building the set, and we've been working together on...hm.....well....what have we done?  Oh ya, Ms. Littel (The woman in charge of the stage crew) told  us to built a makeshift bench out of 2x4s that somehow turned into a prop radiator....and a doorstop.  That's what 15 hours of work (and a great amount of bloodshed) produced.  Murphy's Laws state that nothing will work the first time, right? Boy did we find that out.  We also found out nothing will work out the second time. (I can't tell you how many attempts at that doorstop I made...)

BUT ANYWAY, the set is built and the play is being preformed.  The play for this semester is "Up the Down Staircase."  It's about a new teacher who teaches at an inner city school and she winds up helping all the students and they all get along in the end yadda yadda..  (There's no staircase in the entire play, so that name is a little... irrelevant,)  So, this is a great big performance, and Ms. Littel left us in charge of the left spotlight.  Maybe not one of her best decisions, but oh well.

There are fold up seats in the auditorium where we preform, so Nuz and I had to schlep the forty pound Marsha (The spotlight, yes, the spotlight has a name, you'd be better off not asking) up twenty feet to the top back of the bleachers.  For the duration of the play, he's positioned himself in the most uncomfortable position to handle Marsha; sitting on the backs of the chairs.  I'm sitting next to him with a walkie-talkie with a light to help me read the script and tell Nuz his cues to shine the light.  It's a simple task, and not all to hard.  There's not much to do, so therefore not much to mess up, but we'll see what we can do...

Littel also calls on the radio if we're not doing something right.....so she's frequently communicating with us.

Nuz and I are up there in our taped off little corner of hell (Cause it's so hot, and Marsha just vents out heat) in the bleachers chowing down out on Oreos, Swedish fish, Tootsie Rolls, popcorn, and whatever else.  By the end of the play, it's one heck of a mess.  Wrappers, cans, bottles, and the script are sporadically thrown about.  It's amazing how much garbage two guys can accumulate.  And did I mention that we also eat our entire dinners up there, because that just adds to the pile of trash...

Four missed cues later, the play is over.  The cast bow, and point to the center where the sound crew is set up, and Nuz shines the light down at them.....the only issue is that when there's a standing ovation, we get blinded by the light reflecting off of someone's chrome dome.  Then, they point up to us at the spot light, and Nuz preforms his patented figure eight across the ceiling.

There's this reoccurring theme with me being in crew....I have no clue what I'm doing.  I just do what Littel tells me to do, build whatever, rebuild whatever, and not ask any questions.  It was only until a week before the performance that I figured out why we needed a bench/radiator.

As far as a play goes, it's not the best, as far as spotlights, anything but the best, and as far as acting, incredible.  The cast put together and incredible show, and congratulations to them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go build some odd thing for the musical coming up this spring

And p.s, after all the rehearsals and performances, I can just about recite the entire play word for word.

Finals....and a trek

My apologies for the absence of a blog recently, I've been experiencing a DHHS "festivus," so to say.  That's right, they're the dreaded finals.  The only good thing I see in finals is that it marks the end of a trimester, you get half days, and I only need to have half the stuff in my backpack.  Friday the 19th were my first two, and then I've got two more on Monday and Tuesday.  Then another half day on Wednesday, the first day of the new trimester, and the T-day break.  (That'll be a blog of it's own)  I didn't know I need to take finals to be a window washer.....but anyway, here's some pictures of last weekend when BSA troop 494 went on a 9 mile backpacking trek from camp Yawgoog in RI on the CT boarder, to Griswold CT, where we spent the night.  It was a load of fun, and I'd love to share these pictures.

Here we are, getting ready to go

taking a break.......already

If you couldn't tell, we were on the "Nehantic Trail"

Bonfire we had with a neighboring troop

The summit of Mt. Misery.  Not much of a mountain at all (although the name fits)

Dad and I

Chillin on the summet

View from the summet

The Three Amigos....well, they're really just three photographers we ran into along the way

Pics of the Stix

When it comes to my photography, I've got a thing for abandonment, but I can't resist taking some beautiful nature shots of my "backwoods," which are really some old logging trails conveniently located right behind my house.  I've taken hundreds of photos so far because it's so picturesque.  I've got dozens of albums to show.  Here's one, and there's more to come!

One of those old logging roads

An old trailer left here to rot

This was a cool find

That tractor engine again....shoulda gotten rid of the beer can...

Drainage pipe

A lil rock pile I stumbled across

A branch over a waterfall. (Many more to come)

Fire pit

One of the many old roads from the 1800's

Almost walked into this little guy

It says no trespassing, but that's not stopping me