I'd like to congratulate my friend Kyla who has been published by Huffington Post! Here is the article link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kyla-ernstalper/buying-a-home-in-my-20s-w_b_1098290.html?ref=women

Read about how she bought a fixer-upper in Brooklyn and tirelessly renovated the hell out of it. Can't wait to see the "finished" product!

Location: Ranthambore National Park, Rajasthan India.

Camera Body: Canon 60D and Canon 7D

Lens(s): Canon 70-200 L-series and Canon 24-105 L-series

Subject: Wildlife

Photographing wildlife presents an entirely different, and more difficult, challenge from shooting people, structures (ie things that don’t move). Here are some tips I learned while shooting various animals with E-Cast Video’s David Kahn on site in Ranthambore, India.

Animals inherently do not want to be photographed. They won’t pose for you with a big smile on their faces, allow you to set up lights and wait while you adjust your f-stop, or “move just and inch to the right.” We waited close to 2 hours for our tiger to wake up from a nap. He was conveniently snoozing in thick shrubs and only his tail was visible in this time period. When he finally did wake he was only visible for 20-30 seconds, and the optimal shot window was only 5-10 seconds.

TIP 1: Be ready in advance and have patience. Have your iso and f-stop set ahead of time and take a bunch of snaps of the general area to get the desired feel beforehand. If you feel the light changing make sure you are keeping up with it. Use auto focus always, and make sure you have rapid fire shot selected. When you do get the opportunity to click, you don’t want to have to worry about racking your focus to the right spot and you want to take the most shots possible in the small window you may have available.

Animals are rarely right in front of you out in the open. I had a fantastic opportunity to shoot a peacock perched on the edge of a dead tree overlooking a temple. I snuck up with more stealth than the pink panther but of course, it flew away before I could get the shot. I also found myself literally screaming for Dave to throw over his 70-200mm lens when our tiger finally stirred.

TIP 2: Get the right lens. I was shooting with a 24-105mm in both these instances, which I quickly realized made the job far more challenging. Also, when shooting smaller animals, in our case Indian squirrels, lizards and various birds, even Dave’s 200mm lens was not adequate enough, and I recommend using a 400-500mm lens, which will allow you to keep your distance while still achieving the shot you desire.

I was able to get a beautiful picture of a gazelle. The framing was perfect, and the focus was optimal, but the white balance was set incorrectly. No big deal because I had the RAW image.

TIP 3: Shoot RAW in addition to large format jpg when photographing wildlife. Raw files capture exactly what the image chip records, so you are able to extract the maximum possible image quality, whether now or in the future. It allows you adjust various components of the picture with the same results as if you did so before the shot. In the case of the gazelle, the white balance was set to florescent light so the picture did not have that warm feeling it should have. In post, I was able to adjust the white balance to give the photo the proper color temperature. 

Day 1, Mumbai India begins now! What ended up being a last minute trip decision, after 2 full days of a back and forth pinball game between reason and adventure, adventure won. It won because this place is like no other, and when you've been once (I was here in 2006) the land begins to whisper for you to come back. You yearn for your skin to be permeated again by the the heat and smell of Mumbai. Gregory David Roberts, in his novel Shantaram sums up wonderfully that very odor, which fills the air and comforts my psyche:

“The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air. I could smell it before I saw or heard anything of India, even as I walked along the umbilical corridor that connected the plane to the airport. I was excited and delighted by it… but I didn’t and couldn’t recognize it. I know now that it’s the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it’s the sour stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It’s the smell of gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay… It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and loves that produce our courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and mosques, and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers… the worst good smell in the world."

I am overjoyed to be back here, in a place so far away from home, yet where I feel so strangely comfortable and centered. It is truly a place one needs to experience to understand, and not just for a day. Each passing week allows it to penetrate your skin a little more and, when you do leave, a piece of it remains affixed to your heart forever.

Now I have to go open my pores and let some life in. Will update more later, including pictures. Namaste!

I'm writing this from Heaven. Little cherubs surround me and my 40" imac, I am being served one bourbon on the rocks every hour on the hour, and my chair is also toilet seat. It gives new meaning to "cloud computing." Ok not really, because contrary to whackjob heretic Howard Campings, the world did not end today.  His familyradio website (which I refuse to link to) quotes a passage from the Bible "blow the trumpet...warn the people." The only thing this failed boondoggle's blowing is smoke up its victims' asses. I can only hope the "boy who cried wolf" syndrome catches up with Howard and his cronies this time. This poor old man's notion is more laughable than it is irritating, but the deeper seeded annoyance is the peoples' lives he is ruining. Example one, Robert Fitzpatrick, a seemingly educated, right-minded retired engineer who spent his life savings of $150,000 on bus and subway advertisements prophesying the end of the world. In all, Howard Campings' organization received $18.3 million in donations in 2009. Come on people! REALLY? See you all in Hell.

My last post was 3 days shy of a month ago, but when you are stranded in Tahiti for 3 weeks without a passport, blogging is the last thought on your mind...Ok not exactly true, but my home computer did crap out and blog sites are blocked at my work. But in fear of this post becoming an excuse rant I shall begin.

This past weekend I spent the NCAA Final Four games with some engaging people, and my roommate Beilsy. (Beil I'm kidding, you are "engaging" too) Halfway through the night, and 5 beers deep (I did not fullfill my lent promise by the way) I realized that the couple's house we were so happily enoying were much older than I had originally thought. We're talking close to 50 years old. As a result of their many years on this planet and perceived "wisdom" they naturally had strong views on life, politics, and basketball. Waterfalls of conversation, perhaps fueled further by the more than evident alchohol buzz shared by all, ebbed and flowed. One topic that consumed a large part of the banter was Wussification - the trend of becoming an increasingly wimpy society. This particular family's 13 year old twin daughters were spending the night with a family friend who according to the parents "spoiled and babied them." This is where the "wuss" stems from, if you are babied all your life you'll naturally be weak and timid, because dependancy is engrained into your being. For a sheltered, pampered clod, when faced with a difficult or uncomfortable situation, self defense is not a viable option. Instead, first instinct is to run to mommy for shelter. I can point these people out from a mile away and take certain joy in making them squirm. I'm not a bully, I'm just being the parents they never had. I've only scratched the surface of the argument here so give me a call if you want to discuss more. One thing's for sure, You can be sure my kids will be raised to defend themselves, to think for themselves, to be independent, even if this means a few tantrums, explosions, or I hate you's. It's no wonder in the cooking world "coddle" means to cook slowly and gently just below the boiling point. I'll be cooking my babycakes at a steady boil. 

Giving up booze for 40+ days aint easy, but for Lent this is what I'm gonna do. The decision has nothing to do with  a higher power, and my views on the topic of religion align closely with those of Christopher Hitchens. In fact I'm reading his book now (but that's for another post entirely). I'm doing it for the challenge. For clarity sake, and so those reading this don't think I'm this guy, I don't drink much as it is. But on the weekends two or three drinks down the hatch when out on the town make things more celebratory. In honor of giving up the poison, here's a list of my favorite drinks around the city:

The "how are you feeling tonight" spirit @ The Randolph - They make you a drink based on your current emotional state. One night I said I was feeling down because I had figured out New York City is not the epicenter of the world like so many self proclaimed wonks had preached. The drink that ensued included a full egg (including the shell), whiskey, cucumber, and a sprinkling of cumin, shaken for no less than 5 full minutes (the bartender had to take a break afterward because his arm was numb).

The Gold Rush @ Goldbar - From what I can remember (which isn't much) these were delicious.

Pabst Blue Ribbon Tall Boy Can @ Brother Jimmy's BBQ - Will only cost $3.00 and your liver.

Best of luck to everyone with their Ascesis, and we'll all share a drink on Resurrection Sunday. 

I wish I could give a lesson, with my week old beard, overalls, dark green vest with 50 pockets, cigar or blade of grass hanging from my lips, waving my air fly fishing pole with a graceful swoop as I pass by all the hipsters and ask "hows your cast?" I wish I could be this guy. Alas, I have never even touched a fly fishing pole, much less skipped one over the streams and rivers of the big sky country. Come July all this is going to change. my chillest roommate and I are going on an adventure to the "Big Hole" down south of Butte, MT. The true outdoors, the true wilderness. One week of living off the earth, eating what we catch, and kerouacing around a state which is ranked 4th in the U.S. for open space, and 44th in population. That makes even hanging out at the secret speakeasy in Crif Dogs look lame. One simply fails to compare to the other's unbridled open spaces. So let New York throw up it's "cloud of dust and brown steam," while I sit back and thrust into the stream. 

By the way, the guy in the picture attached to the link above is Dan Bailey (1904-1982), father of fly fishing and owner of a little shop in Livingston, Montana, which he started in 1938. Yes, the shop is still in business today, and we'll surely be stopping by for our flies.

From the moment I arrived on the farm midday Saturday until Monday morning, taking only the occasional break for water, food, or sleep, I embodied the free spirited, bucket wielding Northeastern Farm Hand. I chucked, I scooped, I shoveled, I milked, I slaved, I sweat, and I suffered. I am exaggerating of course, because how could I call it suffering if I loved every minute of it. 

Long View Farm, built in 1914: Home to 24 chickens, 3 goats, a 5000 square foot garden, and my parents. When visiting them I can always count on 3 things: homemade organic meals that will fill your innards so completely you'll feel like a heavily inflated Reebok Pump, backbreaking farmwork, and a TV so small you might as well retreat to the corner and watch the show on your iPhone. This all might sound like complaining so far, but as I said earlier, I love every minute of it. Let me walk you through Saturday:

6:00am - wake up, no need for showering, step outside and notice a cord of firewood has been delivered the previous night.
6:30-9:30am - a cord of firewood is nothing to scoff about, especially when it needs to be transported down into the basement.
9:30-10:00am - gather the chicken eggs (there were 7 of them), go inside and fry those babies up for breakfast.
10:30am-1:30pm - clean chicken coop. Shoveled at least 6 inches of shit from the coop floor and adding new shavings.
1:45-2:00pm - chicken sandwiches for lunch. NOT the same chickens that laid the eggs.
2:15-4:15pm - it is only fair now to clean the goats stalls. Similar process to chicken coop except the shit smells much worse.
4:30-5:00pm - now I can shower with a bucket in the outhouse! I'm kidding, we have a shower.
5:15pm-8:00pm (if i can make it that long) - dinner and a movie by the fire, usually falling asleep on the couch halfway through.

So, returning to the definition above, "labor" is right on target as my muscles are sore days later writing this, and "hired", which implies payment, is sufficed twofold by spending time with my wonderful family on 72 acres of beauty.