Club Chaos Agents - All Things Hollish, Wacked, and Jacked

I was surrounded by rare Piping Plovers in Arverne, Far Rockaway today... They're tiny, amazing and endangered (almost extinct)

Girlie-girlie day with my gal pal Emelia is always interesting. She's one of my favorite photographers and we love taking walks along the NYC beaches together to capture the sunset, especially if there's a storm brewing. The last time we ran out to meet a storm we caught the rare sight of a double rainbow.

Looks like God decided to smile upon me again today because I had no idea what I was photographing by the shore, I just remembered being startled by a migrating flock of the tiniest birds I have ever seen. They were whizzing past me to go chill on the shoreline and bathe in the water while Emmy was on the boardwalk with Ginger waiting for me to finish my photo-shoot. Emmy had spoken to me several times about the nature preserve but I didn't realize I was in for a rare treat because "in order to protect this threatened species, native to the New York area, sections of Rockaway Beach are closed to pedestrians during the spring and summer when the birds are nesting." The section of beach I was on is open to the public so when they swooped in with a feathered entourage I was caught completely off guard.

I tried zooming in on individual birds from my original position but the Piping Plovers were just too small and were mingling with the other little birds... The baby seagull wasn't a problem though but compared to it they seemed even smaller than my original perception. I didn't want to startle them, so I simply waited for the waves crashing against the jetty to bring them closer to me. They were out doing a little dance with the water, staying along the shoreline ebbing and flowing with the tide when not snacking on creatures in the sand. I realized if I didn't startle them and moved really careful and slow they would probably let me stay because I had been there first when they decided to land by the ocean. As long as I kept my distance it turns out we were cool. Then the magic happened: Some of them came by the jetty and I picked out a couple of orange-legged, black-ringed-necked, two-toned beaked Piping Plovers.

FYI: "The Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) is a small, plump shorebird that breeds on Atlantic beaches from Newfoundland to Virginia, as well as on inland beaches from eastern Alberta and Nebraska east to the shores of Lake Ontario. In 1986 the piping plover was federally designated as endangered on the Great Lakes and threatened on the Atlantic Coast." NYC.gov

There is something significant about the appearance of this one in the above shot: "These small, stocky shorebirds have a sand-colored upper body, a white underside, and orange legs. During the breeding season, adults have a black forehead, a black breast band, and an orange bill." US Fish and Wildlife Service

The three pictures above are close-up details pulled from this one I that I took during sunset. This photograph  has four orange legged black-ringed-neck Piper Plovers wandering in the throng (Emmy figured we should try to make it as easy as possible for you guys to spot them so we pulled out the details for you):

I'm glad I was shooting with the Sony instead of the Nikon today. My Sony produces 60x45 inch photographs, so when I want to capture eye candy to possibly convert into posters (or high-light a smaller section and create a series of photographs from a single original image for my blogs) I usually go with the higher resolution/format camera. That helped Em and I discover what we had because I was completely clueless regarding the significance of the birds surrounding me. I only took 38 photographs beach side today (and there are a lot of interesting birds in some of them). Had I known I had so many Piper Plovers, I would have switched to video so you guys could enjoy what I saw. The Piping Plovers et al were really enjoying the shores of our fave part of Far Rockaway for a while before a wandering couple strolling by inadvertently sent the birds into flight.

In the photograph below to the left there is a Piper Plover feeding with it's beak in the sand. The storm brought all types of tiny things to the surface and the birds appeared to be having a good time during their meal break. I found myself thinking this looks like a fowl cocktail hour (LOL).Did you know that every summer the Rockaway Beach area is turned into a nursery for the piping plovers?

In the photograph below on the right hand side you can see the orange legs of the Piper Plover who turned his back on me. Did you know that this is my first rare bird alert blog post? Emmy said I should blog it because sightings are logged by Piping Plover lovers. I may consider getting into birding after this because it was relaxing to watch them. Here is a NY Hotspot link if you think you may want to try it.

There are two Piper Plovers here on the left hand side in the photograph below.  Shari Romar wrote a great post on the Arverne Piping Plover Nesting Area. She' into nature photography and writing so you may want to bookmark her website.

There's a Piping Plover in the water with its back to us on the left hand side in the picture below. Look for the orange legs. I've got more shots but I'd like to save them for future blog posts. There will defintely be more posts. Check this link out: Restoration Plan: Arverne Shorebird Preserve and Rockaway Beach :-) P.S. Short attention span people skip down to the bottom for the simple, non-scientific good stuff (LOL).

Thai Rock is amazing - If you love Thai food you have soooo gotta eat here. Seriously!

Thai Rock is a very cool restaurant with gorgeous views and live music located on beautiful Jamaica Bay in Rockaway Beach, Queens County, New York. This is where we periodically hang out, blog, write our books and have a really good time. Not only is the food excellent, the owners are mad fun.

Emelia literally had to make me leave today (LOL). We will be back soon (Pssst on Sunday - LOL). In the meantime here's the line-up for our Thai Rock itinerary in case I finish my writing assignments on time:

Friday, July 15th at 10pm: Wine with Sue.

Saturday, July 16th at 10pm: Yellow Fly (80's pop).

Sunday, July 17th 7pm: Jazz Fest Sundays with Darin Brown.

There's something cool going on here every day and they also have original art on the entrance walls for sale. This is a great place to relax and enjoy authentic Thai cuisine, authentic being the operative word. Got a MiFi or aircard? You may want to add Dede's, Emmy's and my fave spot to your list of outside offices to snack and work from. ;-)

Club Chaos Eye Candy: Rockaway Beach, Queens County, New York

I'm hanging out with Emelia reading books, lurking on Kim and Vicki's blogs when this wild wind starts blowing the framed photographs out of Emmy's living room windows. We start grabbing picture frames to lay them flat then suddenly realize the balcony chairs might take flight because a huge storm is brewing and garbage cans are rolling in the streets.

While on the balcony bringing in the furniture and cleaning up we see a rainbow forming. Emmy gets her camera to take a shot of it and I grab my Nikon and run out of her condo to start jogging through the streets because I know rainbows don't last long... This one lingered for approximately 42 minutes.

Turns out to be a double rainbow taking shape going for miles inland and across the ocean. I stop jogging and start running my butt off snapping as many shots as I can while making a bee line for the ocean.

While I'm getting drenched snapping 134 photographs and several video clips my gal pal Emmy is opting for a break in the weather so she can use her car to eventually catch up with me (LOL). Emmy doesn't jog like I do. We're talking about that... She might... maybe... She likes bikes. :-)

She knows where to meet me on the boardwalk because the wee people have three favorite spots. By the time Emmy arrives I'm at the edge of the shore having a field day spinning 360 degrees tracking storm clouds, planes and rainbows while in awe of a fabulous setting sun.

Double rainbows are rare... I'm glad I caught this so my kids could see it. See that Life Guard chair? It's one of my fave locations to settle in the sand and write while having a beach play-date with my kids. It's one of our outside offices (LOL).

I usually meet my gal pals on the boardwalk here. Em and I started doing our photo-thing together pretty quick since there were less than ten people out at the beach for miles and I was the only person dressed in black scrubs making it easy for her to track me down (LOL). Chicka took pictures of me working and insisted I post one on my blog since pictures of me taking pictures are kinda rare:

Being facetious I would post two of the back of my head (LOL). Her Facebook page is locked down so being a friend of a friend (through me) wont get you guys a peak at anything else (not sorry - LOL). Besides, we all know I'm a tease so unless you're new to my blog you already know I hardly post pictures of myself (silly grin). I'm usually behind the camera shooting everything and everyone else. Em is one of the few people who gets to routinely stalk me with her camera and we usually have mad-snarky-girlie-banter fun shooting each other while talking smack and capturing scenes.

There's a reason why she's one of my fave photographers: Emelia will travel anywhere and stay on a shoot well after sundown... Even in the rain with winds gusting out of control and planes flying low overhead...

At some point it stopped raining. We decided since we were already wet that we wanted to see the moon come up because the sunset was beautiful and we were betting the moon rising through those racing clouds would be a beautiful sight to see, even if difficult to capture with the wind whipping us and the clouds about.

We discovered as the wind increased it was getting a wee bit tricky to take pictures because we couldn't hold still even braced against inanimate objects. I'm 145 pounds and I was getting shoved around like a kite (silly grin). We switched to video and had a blast until the bugs started attacking the lights from our cameras LED screens the darker it got (which was an itchy Twilight Zone moment - LOL). I have to edit it into something useful tomorrow after our session at the gym. I have a guest blog to finish so I need to collect some more work-out stills (oh joy!) while trying not to kill off any more gray matter or accidentally popping something useful out of whack (LOL).

P.S. Emmy hosts some of the best creative pajama parties and I love working at her condo. She makes writing a lot of fun and is a marvelous cook (so yeah, waiting for the moon to rise was worth it). ;-)

Chasing Planes, Balconies and Nigerian Bakeries...

Yesterday I was chilling with my feet propped against the railing of a Brooklyn balcony enjoying the view while visiting with the mom of a gal pal. Sometimes I hang out with family and friends to relax and periodically bounce ideas off of them when scouting for locations. I grew up in Brooklyn and know it very well but my impressions are not the same as the people who live there daily. It's not just enough to film around a landmark, you also have to capture the neat neighborhood spots that the residence love to get other people to sit up and take notice. Outsiders don't know about the skate park, batting cage, firing range or best spot to get your fried grasshoppers (LOL). ;-)

We have a lot of Gateway Recreation locations you can have mad fun at. People frequently forget you can visit several beaches without leaving New York City. I have some really cool digital film I shot off the shores and need to go edit my clips into a 15 minute short so I may be missing for the rest of the day. I also have to compose new music for it. I am working on a brief animation. :-)

I also need to high-jack a couple of NY balconies to film from later this week (starting with this one - LOL). I require snackage while backpacking between guest homes so I kinda need to find a really cool Nigerian bakery because one of my hosts is from Nigeria...

My fave Jamaican bakery is no more so I am in boo hoo mode having a pity party on my futon about that fact (but eventually plan to get over it when my girlfriend ups the new address to where I am supposed to be going next for my curry goat and tasty pastries. I am chubby for a reason people - LOL).

As of this moment I am having lunch on my own but shall be meeting up with the girls for dinner at one of my fave outside offices. I need more beach reference material. My film requires that I paint a couple of land and sea scapes so we don't have to squabble and haggle regarding the artwork hanging on the characters walls. The music is coming along well. I should be heading down I-95 soon to record some vocals and throw the Minion Blur a turning 5 party. It's not an accident that I selected one of his favorite Far Rockaway spots to film at. My shorties like planes, trains and automobiles... not to mention any beach with a pretty girl on it. ;-)

The only down side is the fact that we discovered you have to time the departures and arrivals of planes going into and out from JFK and LGA if you plan on filming at The Other End (LOL). Yesterday I had a plane pass overhead every 9 minutes like clockwork. That is going to make my life very interesting because the schedules and traffic patterns change daily so an all day shoot may be required just to cover three scenes that are less than ten minutes combined (LOL). ;-)

Getting Back In Can Be A Challenge

Getting Back In can be a challenge when you are on the outside looking in. Sometimes the people you need to help you are just outside of your reach, or you don't know how to ask or whom to choose... There may be obstacles involved, but it is not impossible to overcome them. If you think you want something you should go for it. Don't talk it to death. Don't think it to death. Just do it...

Getting back in can be a lot of fun once you overcome the fear of failure. Failure may not be failure at all. It just may be part of the learning process to help you understand what not to do. Don't be afraid of buying that house or setting up your outside blog. Need help? I am only an e-mail away. My outdoor office is very mobile. I can come to you or we can meet at the beach (LOL). Wireless is a beautiful thing... so is selecting professionals looking out for your best interests. ;-)