For the past few weeks at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market, we’ve noticed a new stand with a delicious-sounding name: The Piggery.  I like Pig (meat) and I like locally-raised food, so I knew we had to check it out.

Anyway, we made our first purchase there on Sunday: two pounds of tenderloin and a couple of bratwurst.  Last night, we rubbed the tenderloin in salt and fresh cracked pepper and tossed it on the grill.  Man, was it amazing.  The Piggery raises some good pig.  I’m sure it helps that they treat them well, and that they eat pumpkins. The meat was tender and naturally juicy, without any hit of that spongy texture that most store-bought tenderloin has.  The flavor was stronger and fuller than store-bought stuff as well.

So if you dig on pig and live near Ithaca, you should check it out.  I’m hooked.

We love coffee.  It drives us.  It keeps us going through those long, grey days and those too-bright early mornings.  We also love Gimme! Coffee, our local roaster and snooty-delicious provider of the bean.

One of the many perks that comes with working here at AWP is free coffee.  And not just any coffee, we get free Gimme.

That is until we decided to experiment and try out another, Ithaca-based coffee roaster.  You know, for fun.

Well, we paid for that.  Our alternate, unnamed roaster’s coffee tasted like sweet dirt.  Or acid.  We couldn’t decide.  Maybe if a hobo decided to eat sun-baked dirt all day, and then we made him throw up after drinking too many shots of Green Apple Puckers, the resulting hot stew would be akin to what we had just purchased 10 pounds of.

Dammit.

Well, after courageously drinking as much of that swill as possible (with lots and lots of cream), we finally hit the new month, and could go back to our regular provider of coffee: our sweet, sweet Gimme.  Forgive us baby, please.  We didn’t know.

It all serves to illustrate an important point: never try anything new.

As I mentioned earlier, eastern Iowa is experience record flooding. Cedar Rapids is getting hit particularly hard, with the Cedar river flooding at roughly twice the previous record, and destroying their downtown and city hall.

Iowa City, my home, luckily does not have its downtown near the river, but the University of Iowa has the majority of its arts quad right in the current flood plane, and is getting hit pretty hard. My Dad works in the Voxman Music building, seen here:

As you can see, it’s pretty bad. The river isn’t supposed to crest until today, though they more storms yesterday, so I don’t know how that will change things. Sandbagging in continues at a frantic pace, as they are now trying to protect the UI Main Library from the increasing flood waters.

From my Dad:

Here’s some history to put it in perspective. Cedar Rapids had their worst flood in 1920 when the river crested at 20 feet. This flood was predicted to crest at 22 feet, it actually crested at over 31 today, and thankfully is now slowly receding.

Iowa City had it’s worst flood in 1993, where the Iowa River crested at 19 feet. This flood is predicted to crest at 26 feet. That’s 7 feet higher. In addition, due to bridges and other factors, the level of the river near the UI campus could be as high as 29 feet or more. It’s just mind boggling that water could get that high, but after what I’ve seen in CR, nothing seems impossible.

Most of the bridges across the river are closed. As far as I know, there is one bridge that sill allows traffic (Burlington Bridge) which may or may not close today. If that bridge closes, Iowa City is essentially cut in two, and to get from one side to the other will require an hour-long drive looping around several highways.

Above is the bridge across what used to be City Park. I have more photos from my Dad posted up in my Flickr account. It’s pretty amazing. Here’s what that bridge usually looks like:

Today, the bridge looks even worse.

More updates as I have ‘em.

We’ve also been taking the camera with us. Here are some of the highlights:

You can view more on our Flickr page.
Keep checking back for more shots of Ithaca and the glorious transition to summer!

(the first dead pixel, at 100% on the left, zoomed out view on the right)

Almost exactly two months ago I bought my first DSLR: a Nikon D40x. And it was pretty much love at first sight. I had pushed my 4mp Canon Powershot pretty far over the past four years (example 1 2 & 3) so I was beyond ecstatic at the prospect of a new camera.

So the parcel arrived swiftly and safely, and in a week I had already taken hundreds of photos. The Nikon took a bit of getting used to having exclusively used Canon DSLRs and 35mm cameras. But the results were great (below ISO 500, for the most part) and I had no complaints.

A few weeks go by and I notice something. A speck. A teeny, tiny, white speck on a photo. In the same exact place. Of every photo. My first reaction is: dust. Back in my darkroom days with negatives flying through the air, in and out of holders and enlargers, dust was a nightmare. So I’d end up spot toning my final prints for hours, which was, pretty much, the Worst Thing Ever (and punishment for poor handling of materials, gah).

So I was pretty bummed thinking that it didn’t even take a month to get some nasty dust in my camera, which might have been more troublesome than the actual problem…

Upon closer inspection (in Photoshop, at 400% – below) the speck is too perfect to be dust, too solid to be anything other than: a dead pixel.

So I stopped taking pictures. It took a week for me to grab my camera again and shoot flawed photos. Sure, I could clone out this dead pixel in a matter of seconds, but not for every shot. Nor should I have to, with a brand-new camera (factory sealed, sursly!).

I went back-and-forth for a while, debating on whether or not I should hit up Nikon with my warranty. By doing so, I could possibly get my camera fixed, free of charge. But that would also involve paying to send it to Long Island, and more importantly, being without my rockin’ DSLR for an indefinite amount of time. Not cool.

On the other hand, I just couldn’t get excited about taking photos anymore. There has been a dead pixel in the dead center of my PowerBook for two years…a horrible two years, and I wasn’t sure if I could let the same thing happen to this new, beautiful camera.

And then last week, I notice it: dead pixel #2.

So of course I dig back through my photos and find the exact same defect in the same exact spot. All the way back to my first shot.

Less than 24 hours later I’m on Nikon’s customer service site logging my ticket. They write back: “better send it into the shop.”  And so I did. Two weeks ago.

But all should end well. The warranty covers it. The dead pixels are not dust. But I’m still cameraless, and that is–as I said before–not cool.