Albany, NY -- Erin's Photos

My budding photographer friend Erin Schwartz has posted a complete portfolio online.

Check it out.

Erin's groovy!

posted by jbrzoska @ 11:37 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

Binghamton, NY -- More pictures

Here's a shot I took out of my car window driving to SUNY today. If you look closely you can see the top of a scoreboard from the HS football field. Yes, the water is that high right now. Sorry the shot's so bad. Normally we can take the road right by that high school, but that road is flooded so I had to take a detour up the hill.

Still no drinkable water... Only one hospital is open in town. And there's only one open grocery store. None of the gas stations have any bottles of water left except for the 20 oz ones.

In this shot I was trying to take a picture of some kids swimming where the baseball field used to be, but this was as good as I could get. It's kind of disgusting. The "water" on the field is a mix of overflowed sewage, river runoff, and mudflow from the hills. Oh and see those clouds in the distance there? Yeah now they're over us and pouring down rain once again. We're 12 for 14.

posted by Ari @ 9:28 PM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

Did I fall asleep and wake up in New Orleans?

4 people have died; 2500 people are living in the school's athletic center; roads have collapsed; the levies are cracking; there are shortages in potable water; electricity is out for most of the area. And yes, I'm still in Binghamton.

If I can find a road that's still open, I'll try to get more pictures. I'll bring my camera this time and not just my phone.

posted by Ari @ 9:30 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

Binghamton, NY -- It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is drowning

Talk about a deluge. It's now rained 11 of the last 13 days. I had to go pay a bill today and the parking lot outside is just flooded. In front of Barnes and Noble's there's 3 feet of water.

posted by Ari @ 12:35 PM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

Binghamton, NY -- The first Green Army?

First off, sorry it's been so long. Blogger just has not liked me for a while. But I'm finally back on, and ready to talk about something that struck my attention.

Generally when you read about the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), you either hear about how they are the best trained and use the best technology (from pro-Israel supporters); or that they are state-sponsored terrorists that slaughter Palestinians (from pro-Palestinian supporters). But I'm not going to get into that today.

What I do want to talk about is the IDF's transition into becoming the first environmentally-friendly armed forces. Israel is investing billions of shekels (a few billion dollars) into transitioning from petroleum-based diesel fuel to LPG -- liquid petroleum gas, which is more of a biodeisel. While this isn't completely clean, it's the step that a lot of private households in the USA are taking to get themselves off of oil-dependence.

As far as I know, this is the first instance of a military force taking part in the transition.

As for Israel, this is quite an accomplishment, because the IDF is the biggest single consumer of crude oil in the nation. Once the infrastructure is in place to convert military vehicles, private vehicles should follow suit.

And if Israel can do it, why can't we?

posted by Ari @ 5:08 PM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post