Supermoon 2013 Rising Over Manhattan, Photographed From Hoboken, New Jersey

Below are a few photos of the Supermoon rising over Manhattan tonight that I snapped with my Canon 40D from Pier 14, in Hoboken, New Jersey. There were a bunch of real photographers (which I'm not even close to being) on the pier, who probably got some much better photos than these. The moon began rising over the Chelsea skyline at about 8:50 pm, and I was able to get a handful of decent shots. Enjoy:

Click here for a larger slide show.

 

'Home of the Brave' Debuted on Aol.com Yesterday

A new video series I've been working on with Neil Katz and Shawn Efran premiered on Aol.com on the Fourth of July. The series is called 'Home of the Brave' and features real, often intense, war stories told by real American war heroes -- in their own words. Efran, who directed each episode, is an Emmy-winning and Peabody winning TV producer and his skills really are on display in this series. The first episode is very gripping and graphic at times, but was well-received by the Aol audience and seemed to do well on social media. It even caught the eye of actor Stephen Baldwin who Tweeted the link to his followers. Check out the debut episode right here--and enjoy.

Living In The (Not So Distant) Past

Before you say goodbye to 2011 for good (or after you do it), take a glance back at the year that was in news stories. My Aol.com colleagues and I compiled a list of our 25 favorite stories that we covered on the homepage this year. Some of them are huge news stories you no doubt recall while others are on the obscure side, but are no less interesting or unforgettable. Perhaps you missed a few of them.

My favorite story basically came down to a toss-up between this amazing story and series of photos about a bunch of lions in the wild and the overall 'favorite' story on our list, which you'll have to click through to the article to see. Check out the entire list of 25 right here and bring on 2012. Happy New Year!

Exclusive Photos: Uptown Hoboken Waterfront Walkway

Work began on the waterfront area of Hoboken Cove (or Weehawken Cove as many call it) in September 2010, and included the demolition of the few remaining ruins of what used to be the Todd Shipyard. Construction on the waterfront walkway to connect Hoboken and Weehawken began in earnest about a year ago, entailed some minor reshaping of the waterfront geography and is nearly complete. So, how's it looking? Pretty good, as these photos reveal:

Interview with New York Times reporter Diana Henriques for HuffPost

Last week, I had a Q&A interview with Diana Henriques of the New York Times published on The Huffington Post. Henriques is a Times veteran and an award-winning writer whose book, The Wizard of Lies, was released last week. The book chronicles the epic Ponzi scheme perpetrated for decades by Bernie Madoff.

The interview mainly focuses on Henriques's experience getting to know Madoff, corresponding with him over the phone and e-mail and meeting with him in-person at a federal prison in North Carolina. Henriques was the first reporter to interview Madoff and the only author who's written a book on Madoff to have his cooperation. We also touched on the state of the SEC pre-Madoff and some of the changes the regulatory body has made in the wake of Madoff's arrest and imprisonment.

She also gave her analysis on just how much Madoff's wife and kids knew about the Ponzi. It's a fascinating interview and Henriques, who really dove deep on this project, provides some marvelous insight that you probably can't get anywhere besides Bernie Madoff. Check it out.

Tupac Look-a-like Story is Popular

Surprisingly, one of the most popular stories I've ever written (in terms of Web traffic generated) is this piece about a guy who's known as "the Pathmark Tupac" that I wrote for The Hudson Reporter newspaper group. It's not going to be in the print edition till this Sunday--and I'm not even sure if it's going to be in the The Hoboken Reporter or The Jersey City Reporter--but it was published online two days ago.

The basic gist is that this guy looks exactly like the late Tupac Shakur and is trying to get movie director Antoine Fuqua to cast him in a biopic about Shakur. It's kind of interesting--I actually spoke with Tupac's dad for the story and an exec from Morgan Creek, the company producing the movie.

It's weird, though: 75 percent of the interview I did with this guy was completely inappropriate for a newspaper story and, therefore, unusable, but it was also completely interesting and amusing. I should probably look into doing another story about him for another publication.

Interesting Stuff for Summer in Various Pubs

I've had a few interesting stories in the works and published of late. All are worth checking out, so give them a read if you have a minute.

First, I have a cover story (see left) in the summer edition of Palisade magazine, which you can read on pages 23-25 of the online version. It's a Q&A with Jason Cameron, the affable host of DIY Network's Man Caves. Jason is a great guy--this is actually the second story I've done with him--and his show is pretty good, too. Hopefully, he'll build me a Man Cave someday in return for all the good press I'm giving him.

Also, in the latest edition of Palisade's sister mag, Jersey City, I had a story about Anthony Amoroso, a local chef who ended up defeating renowned sushi chef Masaharu Morimoto on Food Network's Iron Chef America. You can read that story on pages 28-29 of the online version.

I also wrote for a story for The Jersey Journal about Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino making an appearance to promote a new tanning salon in Hoboken. He said he was "too tired" to answer my interview questions (which were great, I promise) that night, but I may catch up with him again at some point. Anyway, see below for a picture I shot of "Sitch" amusing (I guess) perhaps one of his eldest fans. Click here to see the rest of the pics from that night.

Continuing with the tanning theme, I wrote and photographed a story for Patch about the thriving tanning culture in Hoboken, NJ.

Prior to that I had two interesting pieces published about The Pit, a 2010 indie documentary film about the end of a time-honored practice known as open outcry trading that was used for over 100 years at NYBOT. The film made its east coast debut at the Hoboken Film Festival earlier this month.

The first piece was a Q&A with Johanna Lee, the film's director and it was published on New York magazine's "Daily Intel" blog. The piece comes complete with a cool trailer of the movie, so check it out.

Then, for Patch I wrote a feature about Jon Horowitz (or "Newbie"), one of the guys depicted in the film who lived in Hoboken and worked at Willie McBrides, a Hoboken bar, while also trying to make it big trading coffee futures on the NYBOT floor.