Required ingredients – one lacrosse ball, bonus points if it’s wet and slobbery. One Golden retriever pup, preferably full of piss and vinegar. Procedure – interest dog in ball. Engage in tug of war with dog. Exclaim in horror when dog releases ball suddenly just as you are in mid-tug, causing the ball and your fist to crash forcefully into your face, busting open your lip and causing a bloody nose. Bonus points if dog then jumps in your lap (yum! tasty blood! yay!) and proceeds to lick your face whilst you lounge half senseless from the blow.

Speaking from experience, it’s a sensation not to be missed. Err, to be missed I mean. Oh, and extra bonus points for not losing one’s temper. I couldn’t quite bring myself to laugh due to the pain, but at least I can smile about it now.

Spotted while checking out a house on east river drive in Lake Luzerne, NY. I didn’t manipulate the image at all in photoshop. Pretty cool I think.

…if all goes well I’ll make an offer on this house, which is located here. It’s tiny, has really (really) serious leak issues in the basement, and needs a major renovation in the interior (2 rooms with ceiling to floor mirrors and another with one of those giant wall murals of a deer in the forest. mkay, to each their own, it’s not me though), but it’s what I can afford and it hits on a lot of my wants in a house, namely water access (it has deeded beach rights on the Hudson), property coupled with some sense of privacy (it’s on a little over an acre and a few plantings and I should have a completely private back yard), and it has potential in terms of ways I can work on it to increase the property value. Things I might do include: tearing out the ceiling on the kitchen/living room side of the house to give it cathedral ceilings, then stick in a few skylights; put in a pool and hot tub in the back yard, excavate to fix the basement leak issues, then finish one half of it to make an ultimate home theater room, fix the bathroom (to each their own and all, but wall to wall shag carpeting in the bathroom?), and put a gas stove in and convert the fireplace to one of those gas log deals. And that’s just to start. Anyway wish me luck, if all goes well I could be living in the place by June or even the end of May.

Check out the best of the photos from a hike Andrew and I did right before Thanksgiving on Black Mountain, the highest peak in the Lake George region. There’s a decent panorama included. We actually hiked this in November of 2004 but I am just now getting around to posting it. Shows where I am at with my backlog of weblog stuff. Anyway despite being the highest peak it’s not really a very challenging hike from the road side of the mountain, mostly because you drive up into the range and remove about 1000′ or more of elevation you’d have to climb if you tackled the mountain from the lake side. I hope to do that this summer during our annual Lake George camping trip as this year we’re going to be literally right at the foot of the mountain.

Soolin summited her first mountain this week, Prospect up in Lake George. Of course dingus me forgot to bring the flash card for the camera so I whipped it out and discovered I was lugging the camera and case along for no good reason. D’oh! Anyway the hiking was excellent. There were still many feet of snow in places on the mountain and sections of the trail were seriously iced over, but it was warm and everything was coated with a thick frosting of crunchy ice froth, leaving me something to get a grip on with my boots. Highlights of the trip aside from the glorious view looking north along the lake were Soolin doing her best penguin impersonation as she discovered she could slide down the ice, running back and forth along this one ~six foot stretch of trail so she could repeatedly slide down it, and me skitching my way down like 80% of the mountain at a barely controlled pace on the way down. Great fun!