I finally got a Facebook

It's sad, but Apple has the uncanny ability to throw a commercial on the TV and make me suddenly want something I didn't so much care about before I saw the silly ad. For instance, their most recent commercial, the one about Facebook, made me actually want to go check out Facebook and sign up for one. Thankfully, it's free. I'm hooked already. As my friend Shane put it, it's like MySpace for grownups. I'm not enlightened by any means — if anything, I'm way behind the curve — but between the blog here, my pictures on Flickr, music on Pandora, shared items from Google Reader, and now all of it tied together in one handy spot, I'm gonna be hooked on updates, I'm afraid.

Anyway, all that to suggest that if you haven't checked out some of these sites, you should — you might enjoy them. There are links over on the right to each of the services I use, so go explore! The more I explore, the cooler I discover all this stuff really is. And now I'll stop babbling about the InterWebs. More posts to come!

Some more about Guinan's

You may want to clear your afternoon before you click on this link that my Dad sent along earlier this week. There's a lot about Guinan's Pub to be discovered there. I barely scratched the surface before I had to stop reading, afraid that I might not get any work done at all today.

Quite a long time...

... since an update here, and I've got a bit to catch up on, so hopefully there will be some exciting new posts coming in the near future. But first, I'd like to share some interesting tidbits that have been sent along from my Dad up in Peekskill.

First, I received a great letter in the mail the other day with a map of Ireland attached and some photos photocopied over them pointing to significant spots in County Cork, where my ancestors on my Grandpa Murphy's side were from. I've made a Google Map of the same items and am linking to it below. Each of the three markers represents one of the photos my dad sent down, and if you click on them, there's some interesting info he included in the letter.


View Larger Map

Next, a bit of sad news. Guinan's pub/country store/deli officially closed this week. When I was a kid, my dad would take me up to Garrison on the Metro North Hudson Line, just for the ride. We'd get off the train, stop into Guinan's for a soda and a chat with Jim Guinan, then hop back on the next southbound train for the two-stop trip back to Peekskill. For an 8-year-old, it was a magical experience. Guinan's was the subject of a fantastic book called "Little Chapel on the River," which can be found at Amazon.com. Also, there's a great story about the final "official" Irish Night from the New York Times here. I got some photos e-mailed from the final final night of music at Guinan's, a decidedly quieter affair, from the looks of the photos. Some of those are below, courtesy of my Dad.

On my walk back from lunch

Clydesdales, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

I took a stroll through downtown after getting my haircut and a bite to eat for lunch. As I rounded the corner onto Adams Street, what do I see? The frickin Budweiser Clydesdales. How cool is that? I'm not yet sure why they are here, but I made sure to snap a few photos with the new phone.

Christmas in Midtown

Christmas in Midtown, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

I set out Sunday evening to shoot one of the houses along Dauphin Street that I'd seen all decked out in Christmas lights. As is my luck, only half the lights were lit that night, but I got some fun stuff nonetheless. Click on the photo for more.

A weekend in Mississippi

Amy and I got away to our country getaway, also known as my brother's Mississippi "plantation," this past weekend and really had a blast just sitting around the fire, enjoying a party pig of Amberjaque beer from Lazy Magnolia and staying up all night to catch a foggy sunrise along the railroad tracks near Edwards. Here are some shots from the morning.

More George Sinzer goodness

I shared some videos the other day from 13-plus years ago, when a young Danny Murphy was behind the camera at Continental Cablevision studios in Peekskill for the classic string of "Sinzer Reports" television shows. As promised, here's some more George goodness, although this seems a little more recent, yet decidedly just as disturbing. Enjoy.

Take me to the USS PEEKSKILL!!!!

Learning Raw at night

I've been playing around with the more advanced features of my camera lately, and at the same time I've been shooting some stuff at night. Anyway, here are some recent shots I've taken in RAW format with my camera. I'm definitely diggin it. :-)


Mobile's Skyline, taken from the Fort Conde Neighborhood


A spooky house and tree in Fort Conde

A gold mine in my Inbox

Many special thanks go out to my old friend Corinne, who passed along some of the greatest e-mails I've gotten in quite some time.

Recorded live on Park Street in downtown Peekskill on March 1, 1994, was the one and only Sinzer Reports, where prank callers were the order of business and a 14-year-old Danny Murphy got a shoutout at the end of the show for being the camera operator.

If you ever thought something could be lost forever, look no further than YouTube for the answer. By the miracle of some blessed saint, Sinzer Reports is back on the air and, thanks to the camera man, I present parts 1 and 2 to you here.





Check back soon for more Geoge Sinzer goodness.

My drive to work

My drive to work each morning is a short one, usually accomplished in under 10 minutes. It has about five lights along the way, and there's rarely any traffic to deal with. It's nice. But I'm reminded sometimes that I do live in Mobile, where the popular saying is that "driving in Mobile means never having to say you're sorry."

Today was one of those mornings.

As I neared the light at Broad Street and Martin Luther King I noticed a late-model Chevrolet something-or-other to my right, lurching its way forward into the intersection — and into my lane. Thankfully, having lived here for more than three years now, I was prepared; I hit the brakes, checked the lane next to me and shot over, narrowly missing the Chevy's protruding bumper. In my mind there was part of me that was screaming to honk at the dumb turkey who pulled out in front of me. "Honk at that turkey! HONK!"

But I didn't.

I didn't honk, or give him the finger, or stare him down. I didn't do anything but keep on keeping on. It reminded me of a few weeks back, when Amy and I were in New York, riding with my mom through Peekskill. An idiot driver, much like this morning's turkey, pulled out in front of my mom's car. It was a dumb move, no doubt, but after my mom had stopped and this girl realized she was out in the middle of the street, my mom drove around her, honking a really long, drawn-out, I'm a New Yorker so get the hell out of my way kind of honk that in a way made me yearn for the idiots of Mobile.

Here, you know that they're on the road, likely to cut you off as they fly down Dauphin Street, or stop in the middle of a traffic lane to let their cousin/sister/grandmama out at the corner store. So, because you're prepared, I think it makes us all less likely to get mad. If I got mad at every turkey that pulled out in front of me every day, I'd be a madman. My blood pressure would be through the roof and I'd be having anxiety attacks at every red light. But instead I shrug my shoulders and say, "Oh, you whacky Mobile drivers. You make me feel so competent."

So, thank you, almost surely uninsured driver of Mobile. You nearly cost me unneeded stress and a new bumper, but instead, you've made me, in some weird way, appreciate the turkey that you are. Gobble gobble.