Sorry Folks, I've been redesigning my site to accomodate the blog and update the site to a CSS model so some of the links currently don't work since content is being reworked and moved around. I apologize for any inconvenience. In the mean time, browse through what you can and you'll stumble into the old site, which looks dramatically different but, links work well there! I hope to have the redesign up and operational in the next few weeks, time permitting. What do you think of the new look? Send feedback to matt@matthewjcook.com.

» 9:24 PM :: permalink

WTF?... Tonight on the Oxygen Channel at 6:30 PM EST is the first airing of MEOW TV, television for your feline. We're not talking about a show for cat lovers, this show is catered exclusively to the cats themselves. Billing itself as being for cats "and the people they tolerate," Meow TV goes out on the Oxygen network several times this summer. It mixes video of squirrels and fish with segments entitled Cat Yoga and Cat Haiku. The show is produced in association with Meow Mix.

» 10:12 AM :: permalink

I consider myself to be a PHAROLOGIST. Now that's a great word for the national spelling bee which occurred yesterday! What's a PHAROLOGIST you say? It's one who studies or is interested in lighthouses. I've always liked lighthouses and the sea, even when I was a kid, but I never really began to realize it until I reached the twenty somethings and starting taking pictures. Lighthouses are one of my favorite photo subjects. It must be due to growing up in the Ocean State and spending a great deal of time during the summer on Narragansett Bay and now, having moved to Central Connecticut, the "shore" as my Jersey friends call it is much farther away (at least for a Rhode Islander's standards) and making my visits there the more special.

Did you know that no two lighthouses are the same? Sure there are different styles of lighthouses, but they are almost all usually built from local materials indigenous to the area making them unique and as diverse as the landscape. There are big ones, and small ones; ones attached to the mainland, others on islands. Round ones, square ones, octagonal, and even pyramidal ones. They are made of wood, stone, cast iron, brick, etc. They also have different architectural styles much like our own homes (or the homes we wish we could afford) like First Empire, Victoria, Gothic Revival, etc. Each however serves (or for many of them served) a similar purpose to aid in navigation -- to guide the weary sea travelors home.

There is also something magical, tranquil and mysterious about lighthouses. Many have survived the harsh elements of the sea for hundreds of years through hurricanes, driving rains, snow, and the corrosive nature of the salt air. One of my favorite lights is the Race Rock Lighthouse, situated officially off of Fisher's Island in New York waters but its only about a couple of miles from my home state of Connecticut. This lighthouse was built in 1879 on essentially a pile of rocks but it rises from the sea in story book fashion. It looks like a sand castle and was an engineering feat of the time. The light marks the eastern entrance to Long Island Sound from the Atlantic Ocean and is at an extremely treacherous waterway. It was built because in 1846, 45 people perished when the steamer Atlantic was shipwrecked in the area off Fishers Island known as "The Race". The Atlantic was only one of hundreds of vessels that came to a bad end in the Race. Several people died while building the light too! About a month after I was last at the light, a tractor trailor truck rolled off a ferry boat in that area. The driver perished. Crazy stuff. Oh the things that this light has seen...

» 12:24 AM :: permalink

Well this is the first entry in my blog. To be honest I'm not sure what to write since I was just trying out the software and all. Any ideas for a topic? I called it a photoblog but who knows what form it will take. Maybe it will be just a bunch of mattisms or something!! Or maybe um, other crap. Some news...a new ebay auction is up for one of the Limited Edition Old Man on the Mountain framed picts, check out ebay item #3610963523. Starting bid is just $37.50 (that's 75% off our list price of $150 smackeroos) for this beautiful framed masterpiece of the natural wonder, now extinct. Poor guy. Otherwise, We'll see what the hell will happen with this blog and what form it will take. I know I shouldn't be writing these ramblings now, since I am supposed to be writing a thesis for my master's degree but heck this is a little more fun. Chow for now!

» 9:26 PM :: permalink