Andrew Acomb

While in New York, we had to stop in at Gaffney’s for Open Mic Night. Jennifer’s brother Pete has been hosting it for as long as I’ve know about it. If your ever in Saratoga Springs on a Tuesday night, definitely check it out! Pete usually opens up with a few songs. The one in the video above is awesome. It’s been stuck in my head all day.

Jennifer got up and played a few songs too. The first couple were with her dad Ray. She did one by herself that I will have to post later.

Ray also played some songs. Pete joined him for a couple of them. The video above is one of my favorites!

All these videos where taken with the Flip Mino HD. I’m so glad I picked one up right before leaving for our trip. I wanted a super portable video camera so I can share videos online. It records in 720p and can store a full 60 minutes. I really like the pop up USB connector. It makes it so easy to transfer movies to my laptop on the go without any annoying wires.

I was going through some photos of a shoot I did with Bourbon Renewal at Congress Park in Saratoga Springs. I forgot I had some great portraits of each member of the band. Here’s George Fletcher looking larger than life. He’s also in The Tequila Mockingbirds with Pete Pashoukos.

Wait a minute! They forgot to put my name on the sign!

We decided to take a small detour and drive through the city where I was born, Hornell, New York. Okay, I understand Bill Pullman is an actor and has been in a ton of movies including one of my favorite movies, Lost Highway. But still. I think it would look better with my name! Maybe I should make a movie.

Lost Highway was even directed by one of my favorite directors, David Lynch. Bill was also in an older low budget film I really enjoyed called Brain Dead. It starts off with a great quote by the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi from his famous Butterfly Dream: “Am I a man dreaming I am a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I am a man.” For me, that pretty much set the tone for the film.

After we left my mother’s place, we still had a few errands to take care of before we got on the road. One of them was to stop by the Wild Birds Unlimited store just outside Saratoga Springs across from the Wilton Mall. We had to say goodbye to Lois and Nancy. Lois was there, but unfortunately Nancy wasn’t. She was probably working on her blog, The Zen Birdfeeder! This is the place where I got all my birdfeeders from.

The 4th anniversary celebration of their store is coming on Saturday August 18th. There will be two optics seminars, one by Lois and the other by Nancy and also Beth Bidwell of the Wildlife Institute of Eastern New York will be there with a variety of animals. Check out the pictures I took last year of her birds of prey demonstration!

We didn’t get out of Saratoga Springs until late in the afternoon. This didn’t leave very much time for driving since we usually don’t drive at night. You just miss too much scenery when it’s dark out. We ended up driving about 250 miles to Painted Post, New York. Here we found an Econo Lodge and settled in for the evening.

On the way back from Winney’s Farm, we stopped off at the Farmer’s Daughters’ Ice Cream shop. Its the best way to cool off after spending a couple of hours under the hot sun. Located just outside Saratoga Springs on Route 29.

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