Ping Pong Wizard

So when we were in Ocean City a couple of weeks ago, we spent a lot of time playing ping pong, but let me assure you it was nothing like what you see in this video!

Not My Idea Of Fun

I have racked my brain in vain trying to figure out what would possess a person to embark on something like this, much less to pay $250,000 to do so.

Why Do Spammers Spam?

Because it actually works sometimes!

As long as people like this are permitted to own computers, the Nigerian scam emails will not end.

The Beach Can Be Fun In November

And I don't mean in the Carribean or somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.

Last weekend we met up with Peter, Marcie, Christopher and Caroline for a long weekend in Ocean City, Maryland. We had been looking for a chance to get together with them, and finally meet Caroline. With our kids off from school on Thursday and Friday, we thought that would be the perfect time to meet the Raleigh Grafs "halfway" for a visit.

The weather was even worse than you might expect for November, with pretty much constant clouds, fog, rain and wind until (of course) we were leaving on Sunday (see picture, above right). But Ocean City is a pretty good place to be if the weather does not cooperate. The place we stayed had a nice indoor pool with two ping pong tables on the deck, so we spent plenty of time there relaxing and swimming . . . and David even taught Peter a thing or two about ping pong. We also found an indoor miniature golf course, got decadent donuts from the Fractured Prune, and had a nice dinner at Mancini's in Fenwick Island. The good thing about the weather is it kept us indoors for a lot of quality visiting with Peter and Marcie, and among the cousins.

Look here for pictures.

Blog News

The demise of AOL continues. AOL has discontinued the blogging service that I previously used for this site. So I am in the process of moving everything here. The text of all posts, and the embedded web links, are all here now, going back to when I started the site in 2005. The trick is the pictures. AOL is also discontinuing the AOL Pictures service, and so I have moved all albums that were linked to posts in the blog to Photoworks. I am in the process of linking up all those albums to the blog posts. I've started, but it's going to take some time.

I think you'll like the links to Photoworks albums. You should be able to purchase prints of any of the pictures directly from the albums -- please give it a try and let me know if you're experiencing any problems.

Halloween 2008

Here's some fun stuff from another great Halloween here in Mountain Lakes. To the left is a scene from the Wildwood School's Halloween parade. As you can see there were two Imperial Stormtroopers -- Stephen is the one sans helmet. More pictures here.

Business in Switzerland

I was back in Switzerland recently on business. Longtime followers of State of Nature know that I have made several trips there over the years, but probably have noticed that I've never had any pictures to post. This time I finally had a little time to see the sights in Zurich -- on a brilliant October day, as you can see from this shot of the city along the Limmat River.


Other highlights that you can see in the photos linked here include the Grossmunster (a church built starting in 1100 A.D.), Fraumunster (another church dating back almost as far), Lake Zurich and St. Peter's Church (the oldest parish in Zurich, with a tower featuring the largest clock face in Europe).

I also got to Geneva on this trip, but had no time to see anything but the inside of a law office, and the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the airport. Maybe next time!