I stumbled upon a super cool Edward Hopper site that was commissioned by the Julietta House. A screen writer traded a place to stay for finding the Hopper houses in Gloucester. They now offer a self guided tour available at their front desk. I was surprised that the “now” pictures seemed to fire people up stating “How could they allow this to happen!” Hopper painted 1920’s ordinary scenes and was focused on lighting and space. Ordinary houses get painted, covered in vinyl, torn down and converted into two families. I do think it would be cool if This Old House would come and restore one of these to as they were when Hopper painted them. It would also make for a great single subject blog, book deal, movie, documentary…
I don’t know much about Art, but I love all things Hopper. I have ties to his hometown, Nyack NY and always went right to his paintings at the Whitney Museum in NYC. It was great to find out that he found success as a painter in Gloucester and it was where he met his wife.
Here are some more of Hoppers paintings in Gloucester that are not in the Edward Hopper House Tour. Share anything about Hopper or the locations in the comments. Thanks!
Portuguese Church in Gloucester, 1923
Prospect Street, Gloucester
1928
Italian Quarter, Gloucester
Essex Farm House – Is this the farmhouse across from Candlewood Golf Course?
Gloucester Harbor
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Hey Joey, Thanks so much for stopping by this morning! I just wanted to let you know that the poster was designed by Rockport’s own Darren Mason of Merge3 Creative (www.merge3creative.com). Also, I wanted to mention that on Friday night we’re kicking off the festival with a Community Harvest Picnic. We’re asking people to bring a dish celebrating the harvest season and come down to T-Wharf starting at 6 o’clock for some music provided by the Polygroove Orchestra and a meal with friends, neighbors and visitors to Rockport. The picnic will be followed by a screening of the movie Fresh at the Old Firehouse Trust. The most important thing I should say is this: rain, shine or monsoon, HarvestFest will go on! We’ll be warm and dry under the big tent, so don’t let the weather (whatever it turns out to be) stop be a deterrent from coming to downtown Rockport Friday for the kickoff and Saturday for the main event. Thanks again for letting people know about HarvestFest – and we look forward to hearing your words of wisdom on Saturday at the Bloggers’ Summit! – Sarah
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Yesterday afternoon Jessica Scranton came down the dock to take some pictures for a piece on Gloucester that I was interviewed for which will appear in an upcoming issue of Air Tran’s in-flight Go Magazine.
They will be featuring Gloucester as a unspoiled destination for great dining and real character. Should do great things for the G-Town as there are a ton of people who read those magazines and they are obviously travelers.
Initially, they applauded the erection of three wind turbines. Now, the inhabitants of Penobscot Bay island, Maine, rue the day the $15m wind facility was built a mile from their homes, due to the sheer noise the 123-foot blades make.
The NY Times has looked into the concerns of people from locations such as Penobscot Bay and DeKalb County in Illinois, where wind turbines have resulted in unbearable noise pollution—as well as lost value in properties.
For the Lindgren family of Penobscot Bay, they supported the idea at first, but soon realized after the turbines arrived that their peace and solitude—the reason for moving out of the city—had disappeared.
I am always skeptical of hugely expensive green energy solutions and the money they do or don’t save folks. It’s easy to automatically agree with whatever the environmentalists say because who wouldn’t agree with doing what is best for mother earth, right? The problem with this line of thinking is that generalizations are made and automatically taken for truths without any real in-depth analysis. Politicians are reluctant to piss off their tree-hugging constituents and you get shitty legislation and tax breaks for things that don’t make financial sense.
Before I go any further I should say that I am not against green technology and am not against doing good for our environment, the point that I’m trying to make is that I just wish there was more analysis, especially financial analysis of the paybacks for these projects.
It’s much like the foodies who all grab onto the sustainable seafood lists which black-list species such as cod and hake without ever really understanding that some of the fish they have on these lists are thriving, like codfish. But one of these bananaheads says it and they all fall in line behind them repeating the green doctrine from the first person on down. It gets repeated and sure enough if they say it enough it becomes taken as a truth.
Drives me nuts.
There is something to paying extra for a green energy solution that could take an individual with a modest lifestyle off the grid and not dependent on oil or gas, but does anyone believe that for all of modern living energy needs that some solar panels and windmills will power industrial societies? My gut tells me that it is a fantasy but I’ll be honest in telling you that I just don’t know enough.
I will take the word of folks that were in favor of windmills in their back yards before and now that they personally are living with them can’t stand them. Something tells me that they are a more credible source of information than the guy from the solar panel company that is trying to sell me on a $75,000 solar panel system that he is going to profit from.
Just saying.
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So many have telephoned or emailed inquiring about the status of the annual Monarch butterfly migration through our region. This past summer I have observed umpteen Monarch butterflies and caterpillars in cultivated gardens, wildflower meadows, and along the shoreline; however, I did not see the great numbers in great heaps roosting in any one particular place that I have observed in some years past. Rather I would find a small passel here and a small passel there—perhaps several dozen at a time—roosting in the wild black cherry trees (Prunus serotina) at Eastern Point, awakening in the early morning and nectaring at the Seaside Goldenrod in the meadow below.
Monarchs Mimic Withering foliage of Black Cherry Tree
Although the Monarchs are guided genetically, using their internal sun-compass navigation and circadian clock, each year the annual southward migration takes a different form that depends on many other variables, primarily the weather conditions in their overwintering site in Michoacán, Mexicoas well as weather patterns in their US and Canadian breeding grounds. Because Cape Ann is located at approximately 43 degrees latitude north, our peak migration pattern is estimated at around September 11, but I modify this pattern because of the strong winds and storms we often experience in the late summer living along the coastline.
Cape Ann is located on the coast some 43 miles northeast of Boston, Massachusetts. It includes the towns of Rockport and Gloucester and is home of The Second Annual Lobsta Fest and Seafood Extravaganza! The photos in this gallery were also shot in Essex, Magnolia and Manchester by the Sea. Autumn in Massachusetts may be the best in the country. Some of my favorite locations on Cape Ann are Plum Cove, Lanes Cove, Rockport Harbor, Gloucester Harbor, Rocky Neck, Atlantic Road, Halibut Point, Buswell Pond, Annisquam, Lobster Cove and Hoop Pole Cove. All of these locations afford excellent photo opportunities. I would love to photograph Cape Ann in the winter but, the weather is too unpredictable. So I will have to leave the winter photos for my brother-in-law, Todd Harrington, of Plum Cove Photography, who lives in Gloucester.
Click the Photo Below To View Doug’s Slide Show- Autumn In Cape Ann
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When writing about the second banded gull sighting I wrote the unfortunate words “after some research” in regards to how I found The Gulls of Appeldore blog and who was responsible for the Gull banding program.
One of our readers “Dana” takes offense to me stating that I did any research and for me being responsible for tracking down the Gulls of Appledore blog and Dr Julie Ellis who headed the gull banding program.
She/He? writes in a comment on the post-
“after some research”?? I contacted Dr. Ellis and she contacted you. What research!!?
I must apologize because in my haste and trying to get out 8-12 strong posts to entertain our readership sometimes I write things quickly to bang out a post. I honestly don’t remember how it all went down and if Dana says that she got me in touch with the Gulls of Appledore blog and Dr Julie Ellis I’ll take Her/His? word for it.
The day of the first banded gull discovery I do remember trying to pinpoint where they were coming from and doing a good amount of research using google with the keywords “Gull Banding” and I do remember coming across several different websites that had gull banding programs but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly which one was responsible for the particular band that was on the first gull I photographed with the black lettered band. It was at that point that I asked for help on the blog and Dana responded in the comment section of that post telling me that it was Dr Julie Ellis.
The first banded gull caught by the GMG lens-
Dana tells me that Dr Ellis contacted me but I have no recollection of ever having any contact with Dr Ellis. I was contacted by the person who is filling doing the posting on The Gulls of Appeldore Sarah Courchesne who wrote after I left a comment on the Gulls of Appledore Blog about my find-
Hi Joey– I work with Julie Ellis who runs the gull banding project. I’ve been helping her out with her blog, and I wanted to let you know that I just posted on OK9, and linked to your blog. Thanks for reporting on the bird, and your blog is awesome! Sarah
So just in case my memory is off which I will freely admit could entirely be the case as my memory is HORRIBLE, I would like to make sure that DANA gets full credit for giving me the heads up that indeed it was him/her? that alerted me to the fact that the banded gulls were banded by no other than Dr Julie Ellis.
Thank You Dana for bringing this to my attention.
-Joey
the second banded gull caught by the GMG lens-
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hey joey, don’t say we were not thinking of everyone in beautiful gloucester. we finished our aerial photographic survey of the endangered southern right whales and got a few good shots! in one of the attached photo is of the pilot oscar, me, and science officer/camera asssistant marcos standing by our airplane. second shot of whale breach we got in the last hour of our survey we all send greetings to everyone in gloucester! john atkinson
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year-round film programming under the name “The Rockport Music Cinema,” will host several of the Festival’s
films in its 330-seat state-of-the-art amphitheater.
“We’re hoping that a lot of folks who have heard about us but haven’t made it down yet will come and celebrate
with us during this very huge month,” said Robert Newton, managing director of the Cape Ann Community Cinema.
“The Festival is going to be a great time for all, and I’m very much looking forward to making a whole lot of new
friends in October.”
The Cape Ann Film Festival will feature 43 films of all genres: “180° South,” “1981,” “Asparagus: A Stalkumentary,” “Barbarella,” “Best Worst Movie,” “The Blue Bird,” “BoyBand,” “Breathless,” “Cairo Time,” “Canvasman: The Robbie Ellis Story,” “The Cartel,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “The Clamdigger’s Daughter,” “Cropsey,” “Do It Again,” “The Eagle: America’s Tall Ship,” “For Once In My Life,” “Gasland,” “The Gloucester 18,” “The Green Room,” “Handsome Harry,” “Hibakusha,” “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child,” “The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground,” “Lovely, Still,” “Metropolis,” “My Tale Of Two Cities,” “Night Of The Living Dead: Re-Animated,” “Orgasm, Inc.,” “Orlando,” “Polis Is This,” “Racing Dreams,” “Ran,” “Science Fiction Double Feature: 2081/I’m Here,” “The Secret Of Kells,” “The Secret Of NIMH,” “Soul Kitchen,” “Speedy Delivery,” “Stonewall Uprising,” “The Stranger,” “Ten9Eight” and “Truth: Fishing Crisis Or Government Mismanagement?”
Additionally, the dozen short films in this year’s “Media That Matters” touring show will be interspersed, paired appropriately throughout the Festival.
Synopses, trailers and full Festival schedule are listed on the Festival’s website at www.CapeAnnFilmFest.com.
Friday October 1
Listing the Topsfield Fair is kinda obvious, no? Well at least if you click on the picture above it will bring you to the website (I know how people hate to look things up for themselves) Makes it so much easier when someone puts that nice fat juicy link right in front of them to click right through.
It is absolutely astounding to me the amount of bullshit that airlines are allowed to get away with. It has become buyer beware to the nth degree but there are downright devious patterns of abuse that I’ve detected over the years and there seems to be no one that is looking out for the consumer.
As an example I offer up the bait and switch that I’ve fallen for two years running. My last scheduled day off for the calendar year is May 15th and I work 7 days a week excluding major holidays until December 31st. We plan vacations for the winter to get to the sun and planning those vacations is somewhat of a geeky hobby for me. I try to get the best flights for the best prices and I check for my vacation dates on travel sites like Kayak almost daily in case a great fare pops up for direct flights.
Just one abuse I’ve detected is that certain airlines will offer a direct flight at a decent price and then change it days later without allowing you to book a different flight and without paying exorbitant change fees. It goes like this- I’ll book a great non-stop flight and then two days later I get an email saying that the flight had been changed and now there will be a stop along the way. Well the reason I booked the flight was because it was a direct flight and if anyone knows about traveling with small children and getting car seats through airports you know you DO NOT want to have to get off and on different flights or risk being stuck in the middle of the country due to inclement weather in Chicago or some other midwest hub.
It wouldn’t be so horrible if they changed the flight on you and allowed you to opt out or get a refund because what you booked (a non-stop flight) is not what they are changing you to. But no, they won’t budge on it and they say you can change each ticket for a $75 fee PLUS any change in ticket cost to the different flight. THIS IS UNCONCIONABLE to me and makes me feel extremely violated. It has happened two years in a row on the same exact flight so that is why it seems like this is by design and planned to lure customers in and give them the bait and switch with absolutely no recourse except to take it up the ass with crazy fees.
How is it that the airlines are allowed to get away with such shenanigans and malfeasance without any politician calling them out and protecting us? The one place where I think there should actually be more government intervention and they are no where to be found but they are climbing up our ass in every other way like the latest plan to gain easier access to wiretap folks Facebook accounts.
We could write novels about the crap airlines are getting away with such as the baggage fees and how they advertise low fares on airfare checking sites like Kayak but don’t have to list their baggage fees which can bump the cost of those tickets up by 10-40% over what the price they list the cost of the flight for.
Well at least people can inform themselves about these fees and try to book on airlines like Southwest which don’t charge change fees or baggage fees.
This article on USA Today details all the fees that you should take into account before you book your flights-
Sources: Airlines, USA TODAY research by Gary Stoller
Click the picture to go to the full breakdown of add on fees airlines charge.
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Sightings of gulls banded in Maine by Dr. Julie Ellis
Banding and Tagging Initial trapping was conducted throughout January, February, and March 2008, utilizing three methods: a walk-in nest trap, Steele’s net, and rocket net. All methods successfully captured the targeted species, although the rocket net and Steele’s net were much more effective and efficient. Starting in the fall of 2008, a net launcher and net gun were exclusively utilized for trapping.
Following capture, all birds are fitted with an aluminum federal leg band. A uniquely numbered colored leg band is placed on the opposite leg of all birds [Picture 1]. Finally, on most birds, a colored, uniquely numbered wing-tag is attached to each wing. These wing-tags make long-distance identification possible, particularly when it is difficult to see or read the leg bands [Pictures 2-4]. Wing-tags are color-coded based on the capture site’s proximity to either Wachusett or Quabbin Reservoir [Picture 5].
You can also read more about Dr Julie Ellis at the SEANET Blog
For a blog to be somewhat successful one component of it’s success will be it’s owner’s ability to apply technology to tweak the settings, to figure out what new technology is being used to create, lay out, and distribute content.
The technology side is not the most important aspect to having a well read blog. The most important factor being that a blogger provides the reader with interesting content. There are probably blogs out there that do well despite the owner’s lack of knowledge of how to leverage existing technology (much of which is free to use). These bloggers may write for publications that have tech staff who handle the way their content gets distributed so all they need to do is write and email in their piece. GMG and all it’s techy features were all figured out one at a time though. we didn’t have a computer engineer to walk us through the steps, but hopefully i can help you by directing you all straight to the best of the web that I’ve found through extensive research over the years.
When I started GMG I had no idea how to code things to look a certain way. I had no idea about distribution, video editing, video or photo hosting, what widgets were or how they relate to a blog, what a blogroll was, ect, ect, ect. Never took a class, but I just got started. Didn’t let much intimidate me and when I had a problem that I couldn’t figure out I used the wordpress or google search box and typed in the question. It might have taken a while to figure out the right way to enter the search query properly but eventually I would get the answer. This is especially true if I thought there was a way to make the blog better or how to increase the readership. I’d just keep researching til I found the right answers.
So during my quest to make the blog the best it could be and to reach the most people it could I figured out that there is an incredible number of free resources out there to help you. There are free video hosting sites. There are free photo hosting sites. There is twitter. There is Feedburner. There are statistics sites. The number of resources that you can use to help in your blogging journey is mind boggling but you need to know where to look to find them. You also need to know what the right tools you should consider for your content creation whether it be software or cameras, tripods, video editing software, photo editing software, computers, smartphones and any other stuff that you use in the creative process.
So here is a list of geeky tech sites I visit and have in my rss feeder to keep track of the latest and greatest technology.
lifeHacker tackles a ton of do it yourself tech ideas, and is a site I believe anyone could enjoy, even someone that doesn’t care about computers. It has great travel tips. It has a weekly Dealhacker post in which they scour the interwebs to find insanely good tech deals and list them for you.
Gizmodo Is a gadget guide. If you are a techy gadget freak like me you can’t get enough of sites like Gizmodo and fierce competitor Engadget listed below.
DPReview is THE source for camera reviews and news. You can find out the latest cameras and you can also do camera comparisons by selecting certain specs that might be important to you. There are also photo examples taken by each camera and user reviews.
Newegg offers daily deals and is the place I feel MOST comfortable buying my external hard drives, flash drives, computer monitors, cameras- basically anything. The prices are great and the shipping is insanely fast. I’ve gotten things overnight without paying for overnight shipping. They also have a great return policy. I Highly Highly recommend Newegg for technology purchases. I subscribe to their daily deals newsletter in which they always have prices that make me scratch my head. More times than not you’ll find it cheaper on Newegg than you will at best Buy.
Bidding For Travel is a forum where users list their winning Priceline Hotel Bids and Rental Car Bids. I can confidently say that we’ve probably saved $5-10,000 on travel over the past decade using the information gleaned from this forum to drill down and offer ridiculously low prices for 4 and 5 star hotel rooms and gotten great rates on rental cars. Read the FAQ to get a better understanding of how it works and you too can routinely get 4 or 5* hotel rooms in Boston, Las Vegas and other big cities for over half of what the prices they list on their own websites by using the winning bids of others to get a great deal on a room using priceline.
Better Bidding does same thing that Bidding For Travel Does. the only reason I listed Bidding For Travel first was because I discovered that site first a long time ago. Both sites are worth visiting before you plan a stay someplace. You are wasting money if you don’t use these free tools to drill down on incredible travel savings.
Aviary is a suite of online cloud based computing tools like photo editors, video editors, color editor, image markups and the like. You don’t have to install anything to use Aviary. It’s all up there in the sky, and Free. Did I mention it’s free?
Flickr is a website where you can upload and categorize your photos. The reason it is a great idea to upload your photos to a web hosting site like Flickr is because Computers crash and you can lose all your shit but if you take the time to upload your photos to a site like Flickr and put identifying tags you can always have access to your photos no matter where you are. At Flickr you can also use their photo editing software to edit your photos online. Some people are partial to Picassa which is another great place to store and edit your photos.
YouTube is THE place to host your videos for a variety of reasons. I used to pay for hosting on Blip.tv because they would convert the video and put them in podcast form for iTunes, but discovered that the way YouTube will automatically make a bunch of different quality movies for you so that people with slower computer connections can view the lower resolution videos you create without having to stop and let them load to view them. They aslo have the best distribution and sharing options. You can upload your video to YouTube for free and share them in emails or on websites with ease.
Those are the biggies for me.
You could waste days looking through all of those but I would suggest you bookmark each one because they are all the best I’ve found over the years.
Hope I’ve provided some decent info for you guys.
-Joey
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This video was taken 10 miles from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Incredible
Ian Kerr writes in-
Hi Joey,
Sorry for not being in better touch but we have been keeping busy.
As I hope you are aware we are posting daily updates from the Gulf on our ocean alliance websites – do you want me to forward these to you I will – and you can pick an choose if you want to put them up. Also we had Alexander Cousteau on the Odyssey and have some good blogs from her also, the links are following:
Thanks to the donation (& installation) of a V SAT aboard Odyssey we have posted daily voyage logs on the both the Ocean Alliance & USM websiteswww.oceanalliance.org, http://usm.maine.edu/toxicology/gulf/index.phpand we have developed a large audience on our face book pages ‘A race to Save our oceans’ and ‘Ocean Alliance’.
We had a great interaction with Alexandra Cousteau’s group Blue Legacy.
This expedition, and the network of partners we have, combined with the value of the Gulf research analysis we plan to independently release, can have a significant, long-term effect on how the Gulf ecosystem is restored and how policy decisions relating to drilling and the use of oil dispersants are made.
Here is the interview I did with Ian the day they left Gloucester to begin their incredible expedition on July 8,2010-
Keep up the good work.
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John is on his way to Argentina to particpate in his 19th annual aerial survey of the endangered southern right whales that gather each year in the waters near Peninsula Valdes to mate and give birth to their calves
Click the picture to check it out-
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Portuguese Church in Gloucester, 1923
Italian Quarter, Gloucester
Good Morning Gloucester 
