First Person Accounts

The Hot Box: training day for firefighters

Published Register Star: Monday, October 18, 2010

It was hot, smoky and impossible to see. The only sound was the crackling of the fire and the Darth Vader-like sound of the breathing apparatus. I was sitting in a metal trailer with about a dozen firefighters while the temperature steadily rose hundreds of degrees and licks of flame soon moved through the space, inches above our heads.

A muddy day on the set on ‘Taking Woodstock’

By Andrew Amelinckx

Published: Saturday, September 20, 2008 12:18 AM EDT Hudson-Catskill Newspapers

SCHODACK — My feet were stuck in the mud and I was surrounded by about 200 hippies.

No, this wasn’t some sort of weird nightmare, it was how I spent Thursday.

To win in competitive eating, have a strategy

By Andrew Amelinckx

Published:

Friday, August 29, 2008 12:38 AM EDT

Hudson-Catskill Newspapers

CHATHAM — I like hot dogs. I like them a lot. But there is a limit to everything. Thursday at the Columbia County Fair in Chatham I ate six and a half hot dogs in three minutes to win the 21-and-over age bracket of the annual hot dog eating contest.

I have a trophy to prove it.