Month: December 2011

Rocky Neck Plunge Info From Cathy Mccarthy

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Joey.

I know we have a lot of who plungers who have not participated before and want to make sure we all honor our traditions.

My husband ,myself and Amanda Nash started this years ago as Jeff and I were L street Brownies and his friend who brought us to southie passed away, we decided we would do it on the neck.

We have George Sibley do an poem . Its quick ….. We do a count down from 10 and we all plunge in mass. That’s it.

I have got a few calls about what we are about and we are just a great group people who like to celebrate every occasion.

I thought it was important this year to do something to give back and organized the food drive.

Thanks for the plug. Fyi. My husbands name is Jeff Surette (not Mccarthy)

Best,

Cathy Mccarthy

Take Your Family to New Year’s Rockport Eve for Free!

Posted on by Vickie & Peter


Have you decide what you’re doing for New Year’s Eve ~ Go to Rockport — fun for the whole family?   Watch today’s video to get question 4 in our New Year’s Rockport Eve Family Giveway sponsored by the New Year’s Rockport Eve organizers.

Here’s how the contest works:

  • Every day we’ll have a trivia question (Monday – Friday) If you missed any of the videos go here to see them.
  • After you see Friday’s Video and you have all the answers
  • click the ANSWER LINK under the video to give us your answers  (this will not be there until Friday at 1pm)
  • Be the first person to submit all five correct answers on Friday and win 2 adult and 2 child buttons to New Year’s Rockport Eve.

Swing by Lat43 to see Mark Early ‘s final Thursday night Jazz Session in the dinning room.  There is so much great music happening around – see the full list here.

Pete Lindberg releases 2nd Album available for download!!

Posted on by Mike Lindberg

Local Singer Songwriter Pete Lindberg has released his 2nd album which is available for download. “Overlay” was 6 months in the making and feature a host of local Cape Ann Musicians. You can stream the album for free or for a small fee you can download the album so you can burn CD’s or put it on your iPod or any music player.

http://thelindbergbaby.bandcamp.com/album/overlay

Origami sea life

Posted on by Matthew Green

Guess who got a book on origami sea creatures for Christmas? Appropriate for someone living in a fishing port. I got folding right away.

Blue shark, designed by John Montroll, folded by me from 10" kami.
"Venus's comb" murex shell, designed by Robert Lang, folded by me from 10" kami.

These are both “first tries” for me with these models; I hope to do them better justice later using more specialized paper and wet-folding techniques.

The book, “Sea Creatures in Origami” by Robert Land and John Montroll, is one of two books on this topic by these authors. Lang and Montroll are master origami designers and have published many books, so the models are great and the diagrams are very clear – and they include some informative notes on species represented.

Updated List: Rocky Neck Plunge- The Pledge List, The Chance To Win $100 Azorean Gift Card, The Food Drive and the $8.99 All You Can Eat Passports Pre-Plunge Breakfast

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

image

Erik at Passports Is Offering Up an $8.99 Breakfast Buffet Pre Plunge!  We plan to meet there at 10AM, come eat with us!

If you enter your name here on GMG beforehand, get listed as a pledge to plunge and do it, we will enter your name into a hat and pick one of the GMG listed plungers post plunge for a $100 Azorean Gift card. Card was donated by our Terry Weber.  No entries will be accepted on the scene of the crime, you have to put in a comment here or contact me ahead of time to confirm you are on “The List”.

If you pledge to plunge and then bail out for ANY REASON, that gives us free license to ridicule you for the entire year!

I can tell you it is incredibly invigorating and the very best way to start your year. It sets you up to overcome a fear and once you do it the rest of the year you feel like you can and will do anything!

The plunge goes off at noon on Oaks Cove Beach on Rocky Neck.

The List

Joey C, Donna Ardizzoni, Rick Moore, Ed Collard, Paul Morrison, Rick Paolillo, Melissa Cox, Dr. Ray Cahill, Colleen Apostolos-Marsh, Lotus Marsh, Lukas and Lasse Struppe, Owen, Henry, and Jon Hardy, Alexandra Rhinelander, Charles Du Deaubien Gaspien (or something like that), Ericka Hyam, Steve LeBlanc, Jamie Verga, Kevin Ryan, Patrick Ryan, Denny Cunningham, Carolyn Kirk, Bill Kirk, Amanda Nash, Tom Robinson Cox, Mike and Eva DiLascio, Amandacakes and Beasley, Keara the chick with the heavy green eye shadow (I forgot her last name), Vickie Van Ness, Greg Bover, Brian O’Connor, Skip Montello,Kane Oshiro,Barry “Cuda” Pollack, Charles Rodgers, Lindell Willnow, Terry Weber, Jason Grow, Maisey, Jeamima and Matilda, Karen Ristuben, Wendie Demuth,Scott LeVasseur ,Tony Goddess,Mike Nicastro, Alicia Pensarosa, Nicole, Ben and Emma Duckworth,Lily Steiner, Chelsea Audin, Malena Lund, Jennelle Rhodes,Jim Dowd and Rebecca and Treely Dowd, Kellie Rich, The Del Vecchio Family,Bob and Andrea Ritchie, Sonja, Evelyn, Daniel and Edward Merz .

Food Drive

Carol McCarthy is organizing a food drive for the Open Door Food Pantry.  Here’s the deets-

Just a heads up that I am organizing a food drive the day of the Plunge… PLunge will be at Noon and the food drive is to benefit The Open Door..  They are in real need this year and Its time we give back on the Neck..   I asking everyone to bring what is needed by the Pantry.. I emailed Judy Cox and she is posting in the newsletter this week.. We need to make a HUGE push for the food pantry… What is desperately needed!!!!   Barrels will be set up at the entrance of Oak Cove Beach for the non-perishables.. Thanks Joey..

Cathy McCarthy  8978 317 2352

TUNA, Peanut Butter, Pasta Sauce, 100% Juice, Baking Items, Breakfast Cereal…

2011 Rocky Neck Plunge Video From InterMurph

Paul Frontiero’s Video From 2011’s Plunge-

EJ’s video

Community Stuff Thursday

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

American Lung Association Smoking Cessation Program

Beverly Hospital at Danvers & Addison Gilbert Hospital

The American Lung Association’s "Freedom From Smoking Program" is an eight-session group smoking cessation program. Participants will learn a positive approach to becoming a non-smoker. Classes incorporate several different smoking cessation techniques including relapse prevention, weight control, stress management, behavior modification, nicotine replacement therapy and group support.
The program will begin on Tuesday, January 3, with classes on January 10, 17, 24, 26, 31, February 7, 14 at Lifestyle Management Institute, Beverly Hospital at Danvers, 480 Maple St, Danvers.

This program will be held at Addison Gilbert Hospital, 298 Washington Street, Gloucester, beginning on January 9, with classes on January 16, 23, 30, February 1, 6 and 13.This program will be held in the Longan Room, inside the Washington Street entrance.

Classes are held from 6 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

The cost: $125.00 ($100 for employees of Northeast Health System).  Several insurance companies cover the cost of the program; check with your insurance company).

For further details or to register, please call: 978-304-8020.

Molly Ferrill Shares Her Timelapse Video Settings and Another Video Lobstering Aboard The Arethusa

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Molly writes-

Hey!

It’s manual focus, shutter speed 1/13, aperture 4.5, manual iso (400) and there are 335 frames included! I think I had the interval between shots at 5 seconds. Each image is a full-size jpeg, (which I don’t think was actually necessary, especially not for the web!) and I used final cut express software to edit the time lapse. (each frame is .03 seconds long I think). It was one of the first time lapses I have made with the intervalometer but I think it worked out pretty well… next time I will set the interval for a little shorter and take more frames so the final time lapse is a little longer! Oh and by the way, at the end I made the last few shots with longer and longer shutter speeds so that it would gradually fade to white. It wouldn’t have been that drastic at the very end if I hadn’t done that.

LOVE the one you did with the clouds! Gorgeous. It looks just like a time lapse but less jerky which is good for clouds. Very nice!

Here’s a link to a short little video I just made compiling some of the photos and short video clips from going out on the boat.

Lobster Fishing with Tom and Cody!

Gloucester At Dawn Harbor Cove 12/27/11 4:55AM

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Sony NEX-5N

15 second exposure, f/14, iso 200

click for larger view

DSC01781

Eastern Point Lighthouse on Boxing Day From Elinor Teele

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

 

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What does this say about me

Posted on by Donna Ardizzoni

Always have this hanging in my office, am I rushing the season..  I do love a good snow storm, but

what does that say about me

Did You Know? (Oliver Griffin)

Posted on by God's Morning

That the Oliver Griffin House c.1761 on Leonard Street is also known as the house at the head of the cove?
Oliver Griffin, son of Samuel and Mary Goss Griffin, was born in Gloucester December 9, 1739 died in June 1815.  Babson’s history says he seems to have been a mariner most of his life, and that the sea took the lives of all six of his sons.  In March 1763 he married Mary Wise who was born in 1742 and died in June 1821.  Mary was a granddaughter of Joseph York, a successful fisherman at Lobster Cove who settled in Annisquam and married Abigail, daughter of Abraham Robinson (of the Dorchester Company).
Mary Wise Griffin herself was an educated woman and strong character, a careful student of the Bible and a faithful expounder of the doctrine of the Universalist church. It was she who discussed theological subjects so forcibly with Rev Dr Ezra Leonard that he converted from the Orthodox Congregational faith to a zealous Universalist, and his conversion was followed by all members of his former church except two families.

(from History of Essex County, MA by D. Hamilton Hurd, 1888)

E.J. Lefavour

Tribute from Senator John Kerry to Joe Garland

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

Over the holidays Helen Garland kindly lent me a copy of The Gloucester Guide, Joe’s fascinating  historical guidebook, or, as it is sub-titled, A Retrospective Ramble. I am looking for photos and information about Good Harbor Beach and recalled Joe’s book. Regrettably, I had lent my copy and it has not made it’s way back to our home. The Gloucester Guide is unfortunately out of print, but I have heard talk of it going to yet another printing. While visiting with Helen she shared the following heartfelt and moving tribute to Joe, from Senator Kerry, published in the Congressional Record, October 12, 2011, Vol. 157, No. 152.

REMEMBERING JOE GARLAND

Mr. KERRY: Mr. President, over the course of the past half-century, Joe Garland served as the unofficial historian of Gloucester, MA—its fishermen, its boats and its life. But Joe Garland not only wrote history in his books and newspaper column—he was part of history, guiding his beloved hometown through headwinds and troubled waters. Joe Garland passed away August 30, and his family and friends gathered October 1 for a memorial service. I would like to share with the Senate the thoughts and memories of Joe that I shared with those who were part of that service honoring this great champion of all things Gloucester.

If you visit the Fisherman’s Memorial on Gloucester’s waterfront on a stormy winter day, the statue of the Heroic Mariner seems to be steering the whole town into the wind toward fair weather. And if you look closely at the statue, you can almost see Joe Garland in its carved granite face, full of grit and determination, guiding his beloved Gloucester through headwinds and troubled waters.

‘‘Beating to windward’’ is the art of sailing into the wind. ‘‘Beating to Windward’’ is also the name of the column Joe wrote so many years for the Gloucester Times. And it is no surprise to any of us who knew him that Joe used the column to champion all things Gloucester.

Joe didn’t just chronicle Gloucester’s history—he was a part of it. In his column and in his books, he brought to life the era of the great schooners—like the 122-foot Adventure, the flagship of Gloucester, and the larger-than-life Gloucestermen—like the ‘‘Bear of the Sea,’’ Giant Jim Patillo, and the ‘‘Lone Voyager,’’ Howard Blackburn.

But he also used the sharpness of his pen to make his case on all kinds of civil causes—opposing unbridled economic development, warning about the loss of local control of the hospital and water supply, complaining about compromises on the environment or demanding the preservation of Gloucester’s beauty. And trust me—Joe never hesitated to offer his advice to a certain U.S. Senator, if he felt like I needed it.

Continue reading “Tribute from Senator John Kerry to Joe Garland” →

gimmesound New Year’s Rockport Eve Question 3

Posted on by Vickie & Peter


Watch the video and get question 3 in our New Year’s Rockport Eve Family Giveaway sponsored by the New Year’s Rockport Eve organizers

Here’s how the contest works:
Every day we’ll have a trivia question (Monday – Friday)

Be the first person to submit all five correct answers on Friday (look for the ANSWER link right under Friday’s video) and win 2 adult and 2 child buttons to New Year’s Rockport Eve.

Your favorite local artists are around town tonight, see the full lineup for tonight here.

John Keegan joins the Blues Party ~ This Thursday night at The Rhumb Line

Posted on by Joanne

Dave Says,

We’re gonna  close out this notable year of 2011 by bringing you the world’s biggest…. the one and only Mr. John Keegan®. The greatest wowman in theworld! This guy practically invented the hangover! Gootarist, and vocal gunslinger, he’s sure to put a smile on your face as he pokes your eye out with a mikestand! Fencing masks recommended. But, seriously, folks, we’re trying to beat your liver into compliance in preparation of New Year’s Eve. Come dance to all the magic he can bring to your heart! And all you married guys: bring your wives for a change!   And he’s bringin’ all his ants with him. Crawling up your leg will be an old buddy of mine, Mr. Paul Foss, gleeboard maven and author of the bestseller: “Chicken Soup for The Criminally Insane”. Crawling out of other places will be our Irish Ace Of Pace: Mr. “Molto” Benny Benson. Of course, Greg. T. and myself connect the dots. Rumor has it that millions of saxaphone poofters are showing up, just on accounta…we shall see. And doesn’t it suck that Lat 43 scuttled the Earley Show on Thursday evenings? Get mad! Write your congressman! Give up sushi!

http://madhouseproductions.com/www/cover.html

 

A perfect evening for photos

Posted on by Matthew Green

On the evening of December 18th, the sky was cold and clear as could be. I did not edit or enhance the colors in these photos at all; they really were this saturated.

The Historic American Sneakboat

Posted on by Sharon
Sneakboat and Decoys, Plum Island, circa 1885 Anonymous/©Fredrik D. Bodin
 
Basic Sneak Boat
The sneakboat is a type of duck hunting boat, dating from the early 1800’s, that was, and still is used throughout the United States in one form or another (sneak, sneak box, sculling boat, float boat, and coffin boat). This low-profile camouflaged boat allowed the hunter to lie down at water level amoung his decoys, maneuver quietly by wiggling a paddle out the stern transom, and lure flying ducks to seemingly safe waters. When the birds descend, he hunter sits up and fires away with a shotgun. Sneakboats proved to be deadly for ducks in the days of “market hunting,” when one could make a decent living killing waterfowl. The Rodigrass clan migrated to Plum Island from Nova Scotia in the late 1800’s to commercially harvest ducks, clams, and fish. They were notable both as hunters and as guides.
Nathan Rodigrass, Plum Island, circa 1885 Anonymous/©Fredrik D. Bodin
The Rodigrass Camp, circa 1900 Anonymous/©Fredrik D. Bodin
Built in 1882, the Rodigrass Camp stood on Plum Island until 1989, when it was torn down. The Rodigrass clan later became stewards of the National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island, protecting the animals they once hunted. I’ve met people in Gloucester who are familiar with or hunt with sneak boats. However, not many of us have seen a sneak boat, and neither have the ducks.
Fred