Let's Take It to the Bridge

On Thursday afternoon, the rusted metal pipe that created a culvert under our bridge finally gave out. Its collapse created a large hole -- just about the size of my Smart Car (tho luckily I'm only guessing this and didn't find this out the hard way!). Shirra was lucky enough to get ahold of our road guy, Tim, and he was over in less than a half hour. Shortly thereafter, we had a bandaid in place of the real work to come, but at least it allowed us to cross the bridge again.

But then yesterday, while taking the kids to Woodstock, I noticed that a hole had reappeared. Since we don't have a culvert, the large stones that Tim put down are only going to wash away as they're buffeted by the gentle tide of the lake and the not-so-gentle pounding of heavy automobiles. I put a pylon into the hole as a warning to other drivers, but by the time we'd returned, the pylon had been almost completely swallowed up as the hole enlarged. At this point, I could probably get the Smart Car past it, but I'd rather not take the risk. Shirra and I are simply walking past the hole to where our cars await us on the other side.

We're hoping to have a new culvert soon -- and we're running out of time! The forecast calls for snow this Thursday. This isn't the best timing. With any luck, we'll have a few estimates by tomorrow and will have the work done by Wednesday or Thursday. If not.... Well, life could get even more interesting.

Trapped in Manhattan

There was an ice storm warning, so I expected this might happen: It was too dangerous for me to drive home, so I had to sleep over at my mom's (which is also where I tutor).

I realized around midnight that my car was on the 'wrong' side for tomorrow and would have to be moved by 11 am, so I decided to take care of that just now rather than in the morning. Since it's the country's (world's?) smallest production car, I knew that it wouldn't be too hard to find a spot nearby, but this time I managed to wedge the car into the smallest space it's been squeezed into since the summer.
I have maybe three inches, total, of wiggle room.







Of course, as soon as I got out of the car, I noticed this cute little tomato just behind me:



It was only on my way home that I realized... I didn't have to move the car at all; I'm taking it to the dealer tomorrow morning to get snow tires. D'oh!

Smart Car after 20,000 Miles

Well, I made it to 20K before the snow hit; who knows what's going to happen with that car in the next few months. Will I be able to drive it up our path? The highway? Time will tell. Actually, I'm most afraid of Rte 32 -- that's the only place a nasty head-on collision could occur. Ironic that the highway is much safer than a two-lane road in a rural place.

I had some electrical hiccups with Cheewawa, as I've come to call my car, and I had to take the car in recently for its 20,000-mile check-up anyway, so I was hoping that they could take care of the routine maintenance and the minor repairs at the same time. At first they thought I had a problem with one of the electrical components called a SAM, but replacing the SAM didn't help. Then they blamed the alternator. But before they put the car up on the lift again, they tested the battery and discovered that it was faulty. A simple battery change was all I needed. Now the car runs like a dream.

I'm still getting excellent mileage, tho it definitely diminishes with the decreasing temperature. Normally I get about 47 miles to a gallon, but lately I've been hovering more around 42-44. Partly this is due to the wind -- it was ferocious yesterday and for part of today, and the car had to fight just to roll down the hill.

I've added a small armrest in the car (it doesn't reach out as far as I'd like, but it adds a bit of storage) and put in a 6-CD changer, which helps with those books-on-CD, but otherwise the car is basically unmodified. My next alteration, however, is for safety: snow tires. I'm putting them on this week! Gotta have a safe Cheewawa!

All Tucked in for Winter

My Smart Car is not the ideal car for winter driving. It might do ok on snow, but I'm not sure I want to be driving that little thing on highways with huge trucks passing me by, and in some ways I'm even more scared of driving on Rt 32, where head-on collisions are a rare but terrifying prospect. Even our road is going to be a hazard -- it's unpaved, and there are tricky patches and some hills. So I might have to keep the car under wraps for a few weeks now and then when the weather tells me to.

The previous owners of our house used to have a garage. For some reason that I still don't understand, they converted it to a shed. I noticed, however, that the Smart Car is just narrow enough to fit under the porch of the shed. By backing it in carefully, I can keep the car from getting covered in snow. I'm not sure if this is ever going to prove helpful, but it certainly has proved cute. I like how it looks like a guinea pig in a hutch.











Emmett's guinea pig, Snowball...

Smart Firemen

I was walking around Main Street when I spotted another Smart Car in New Paltz, and the driver was heading towards Shirra's store. I caught up with him and chatted for awhile. It turns out that he's also a fire fighter (as is his wife) -- I had noticed the little plate on the front of his car -- and that he lives in Woodstock.

A few days later I was shopping when I noticed his car in the parking lot. I didn't manage to spot the owner, but I got a cute shot of our cars side by side. I am jealous of his yellow -- that's an awesome color!

When Shirra and I first moved to New Paltz, I experienced a lot of coincidences, like how our next-door neighbor's son was born in the same hospital on the same day or how my long-lost best friend from childhood ended up moving to NP a few years ahead of us and has a son in our son's class. I'm glad the coincidences have continued -- it makes life more interesting.

Baloonacy

The Macy*s Day Parade is insane enough, but the festivities of the balloon-inflating day have gotten out of control.

Near the end of the previous millennium, things were different. A person could walk from my mom's apartment building, cross the street, pick up some food at the local Somewhat Original Ray's Pizza, and head back home. Elapsed time: 10 minutes on a slow day. And you didn't even need proof of your address or a party invitation! Shirra remembers an evening back in 1994 when we visited her friend Eileen a few blocks away for her big annual Turkey Eve party. We hustled over, hung about for a couple hours, and made our way back, noting how some of the balloons were a bit more inflated when we returned than when we'd left.

Just a few years later, however, the thing had gone viral. Blame word of mouth, blame the more-bored-than-usual media, blame the police, but when thousands of people started to make the balloon inflation into some kind of party event, the infotainment reporters arrived along with the police barricades, and that was the end of that. It took us more than ten minutes just to walk one block downtown on Columbus with Fiona in the stroller -- a mistake we never made again -- and pretty much took Eileen's party off our to-do list forevermore. At that was only 1998.

Here is a photo someone took of my mom's block last year. I imagine someone -- someone staying in a hotel -- saying, "Ooh! Isn't that Shrek? What's he doing here, that big green silly! I can't believe I'm standing so close to greatness!"

And now things are totally out of control. Shirra was blocked from passing thru one of the barricades because some rookie cop thought that she and the kids were just sightseers pretending to live on 81st Street. Direction-barkers are still making announcements to balloon workers at 11pm, and as I was putting the kids to bed in my old room (the one that faces the street), we could hear bands playing jaunty music to late-night revelers who came to watch -- oh, joy! -- the commingling of helium, painted rubber, and thousands of sandbags.

Breaking and Entering a Car (in order to rescue the inhabitants during an emergency)

This past Monday, we had a great fire fighter practice ("evolution" for those of you new to FF jargon). It involved using several tools including the Jaws of Life to open a car.


You first have to hook up the JoL to a portable generator about the size (and strength) of my car's engine; actually, this thing is a bit bigger, about the size of a fat briefcase. Clever, interchangeable cords allow quick swapping-out of various tools depending on whether you need to pry things open, smoosh them together, or cut them apart.

This is basically what the car will look like when the FFs are done with the extrication evolution. That's not our guys or the car we used -- I didn't get around to taking a photo of it -- but this picture gives you the basic idea.

One good point to make: Even tho the JoL is pretty easy to set up and is extremely effective, it's still better to try the car's doors first, just in case!

OK, that's a lame joke. Obviously that method doesn't work when people are trapped. In fact, as the photo shows, sometimes you actually have to cut away the roof and pry away the dashboard in order to extricate passengers. Cars these days are made to protect passengers by crumpling (relatively) safely around them. That's why modern cars involved in anything above a fender-bender are usually considered 'totaled'. This is still a lot better than the old days: The cars could withstand a solid impact, but the passengers didn't always look too good afterwards.

Spicy Prices

Short version: Don't buy spices at the supermarket if you have an alternative like a health food store.
Moral: Sometimes a cell phone pays for itself.

Shirra sent me on an errand just before Turkey Day. She wants to make a few pies before Thursday's festivities. On the list were four spices:

Nutmeg
Cloves
Ginger
Cinnamon

Stop 'N' Shop price for these four items: $35

This seemed a tad high -- nutmeg ain't cheap, but hey! -- so I gave Shirra a call. She suggested I try the health food store next door, the one with the odd sign. Is it "Healthy Nutrition"? "Health / Nutrition"? Maybe the carrot stands for an ampersand? Or perhaps it's just a carrot: "Health Carrot Nutrition".

Whatever the name, I like their prices. I bought what seemed like a fair amount of all four of the spices. Grand total: $1.47.

Reading in the Car

Since I am in the car for nearly 4 hours a day, I have to make the most of my time there in order to keep away the demons of boredom and sloth. Initially I found myself listening to music, but I don't really have a large selection on my iPod, so this quickly became monotonous. Next I discovered podcasts, and I tried to keep up with the latest news and other NPR programming thru this medium, and for the most part, it was entertaining and enlightening. I even tried the first 25 episodes of a wonderful program of Radio Lingua where I hoped to teach myself Spanish, but I realized, months later, that this would require some home-study, and I don't have time for that, so my Spanish education stagnated. Finally I remembered that our local library has a selection of books on CD.

This started when Shirra pointed out that we had an audio version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." I gobbled up that book and quickly ventured over to the library. In less than two months, I've devoured audio books at a rate of about two per week. Without further ado, my list so far:

1. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams). Hysterical.

2. Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar (Cathcart). Very funny; a great source of jokes, most of which were new to me.

3. Blaze (Steven King). Similar to "Of Mice and Men" but from the viewpoint of the retarded man.
4. Carrie (King). Awesome -- much better than the movie. Sissy Spacek read the book version, by the way.
5. The Gunslinger. Not my cuppa.

6. the curious incident of the dog in the night-time (Mark Haddon). I had read this book 3 times and still love the story enough to hear it again.

7. Bare Bones (Kathy Reichs). This is the first book in the series that led to the "Bones" show on TV. It was a fun read but is quite different from the television series.

8. Undead and Unreturnable (Davidson). This was an ultra-hip book about the modern vampire; quite sexy.

9-12. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (Andrew McCall Smith). I've now listened to five of the books in this wonderful series, tho not in order. The books stand alone and are just as fun out of sequence. I think the best of the bunch is "Blue Shoes and Happiness, which is one of the later ones.

Who knew that driving could make a person so literate?

Smart Car: First 50 Fillups

I've now filled the car with gas on just over 50 occasions. I've recorded each visit to the pump:

miles driven
gallons replaced
price per gallon
date

What I've learned thus far is that the car, the way I drive it, has averaged nearly 45 miles per gallon, with the first 20 tanks averaging about 42 and the next 30 averaging about 46 mpg. I tend to get nearly 320 miles between fillups, with two tanks taking me over 400 miles and quite a few getting me about 365 (and keep in mind that the tank only holds 8.7 gallons). The average cost of a gallon has come out to over $4 due to the high costs we all incurred over the summer, but my last fillup, yesterday, came in at only $2.98 for 93 octane.

My car has its faults, and they seem to be related to the electrics. The brights flicker, and while I rarely use them, it's always annoying when I do. I've also had some similar problems with the radio/CD player turning itself off and on again. Undoubtedly there is a loose wire. Worse yet is the driver-side door latch that fails when the car is too hot, but since it's now the chilly season, I can have this fixed before it affects me again.

I'm thrilled about the car, on the whole, and can't imagine a better way to get into Manhattan. It's faster, door-to-door, than the bus (even tho I drive only about 57 mph while buses usually zoom by at about 73) and it's a lot cheaper. Taking the bus is about $140 roundtrip per week. Gas for the car comes to less than half that amount.

No Pressure, No Pressure

It's all good when it comes to our water.

First we suffered thru a few days of grey water. This problem quickly went away when the contractors repaired the pipe they'd accidentally axed. Then even better news: As a result of their recent work, the contractors noticed and fixed a problem with our water pressure.

Time was, we could take a shower or wash our laundry, but not both at once. But now we have enough water for both at the same time. Woo hoo!

Now maybe we can get the to dig a bit deeper.... Maybe they'll find oil!

Fire Prevention Week, 2008 Edition

Once again it was Fire Prevention week, and as I hope I can do for the rest of my life, I signed up for all five days. The timing is perfect for me since all of our school visits take place from 9:30-11, and even with the necessary clean-up and after care, we're still free long before I need to be in NYC for the afternoon. But the main draw for me is getting to be in schools and day care centers with little kids once again. I'll never outgrow that.

The big days for some are when we visit the big schools (Duzine and Lenape) which put us in front off over a thousand lower schoolers all told. The lieutenant does an outstanding job teaching the kids all of the important points, and clearly they love his presentation. I really enjoy seeing Emmett with all of his friends. My favorite school visits, however, are those we make to the small day care centers. It may seem challenging to perform in front of 170 third graders, but it can be equally challenging to get up in front of 15 tots while the air is infused with a bulging Diaper Genie. It's funny how diapers are harder to withstand once your own kids are out of them.

Trickier than the smell is the challenge of teaching little ones about fire safety without causing them to freak out. Last year it seemed that many of the children became upset when they saw the fire fighter disappear into an face mask as we demonstrated what we look like when we go 'on air.' This is important since kids need to recognize the looks and sounds of a fully geared-up fire fighter, but it's hard for little kids to understand that the nice person standing up in front of them is still there when the mask comes on. Psychologists call this 'object permanence.' Shirra suggested that one of the fire fighters enter the room while on air, as this had apparently worked with Emmett's 3's class back in Brooklyn, but we seemed to get the same results either way: Most kids were fine, and a few were a bit scared.

In addition to helping kids recognize what a fire fighter looks like, our main role is to teach the children about fire, smoke, smoke alarms, meeting places outside the home, and other safety tips. But the part of the day that they might remember best is when we let them sit in the fire truck.

Tomorrow is our last day of this year's safety week. I'll miss the time spent with the little kids and will be looking forward to October of 2009.

Water, Water Everywhere, and Not a Drop to Drink

I haven't written in a bit too long -- darn, that unicycle elbow -- but even if I have to peck this one out with the index finger of my right hand, this one is just too rural to wait until my tendinitis has fully abated. This is a blog, after all, about moving to New Paltz and about what surprises await those who make that move.

The economy may be tanking, but my mom managed to secure the last loan from some bank just before it went under. I imagine some huge, dying dragon getting out the word "approved" just before snorting its last fiery breath. Cash in hand, she paid off a few big debts of her own and lent me enough to fix up our cottage. The previous owners had canabilized the water and gas pipes when they built the newer house a few years ago. Since they were landscapers, this trick saved them a few thousand dollars but ended up costing us more than we could float on our own, and since that time, we've used the cottage as storage and as a place to set up Fiona's drum set. It's been home to spiders, insects, and a few snakes, but now, after nearly two years of dormancy, the old house is about to come back to life.

We hired a couple of really good local men to install the pipes and give the cottage a kitchen once again, and they began work this past week. Yesterday we got a big surprise when Shirra flushed the toilet and discovered that the water looked worse afterwards. It was pure grey, the color of a liquid hairball. Even our Britta filter didn't make an improvement. Running the sink for a few minutes didn't help things, either, and Shirra's trip to the basement didn't lead to any answers. When we checked with the men, we learned that one of them had accidentally put an ax thru a pipe. I'm not sure what had contaminated our well water for a day, but it's all better now. The Dow Jones may have fallen back into the 8000s, but we can drink our own water once again. Phew.

Unicycling to Manhattan

I rode my unicycle 85 miles yesterday as part of the NYC Century Ride of 2008. That's longer than the ride from New Paltz to Manhattan (a ride I've contemplated recently). So while I didn't actually ride from one city to the other, I could have!

I set out with five other riders, 3 of whom I'd met during the recent Ride the Lobster race in Nova Scotia. Of the six of us, only my friend Roland and I were on geared 29s, and we rode together for most of the day. One rider joined us later due to car troubles.

Start
The other 5 of us took off a few minutes earlier than the training wheel crowd, but they quickly passed us when I took everyone 5 blocks out of the way by accident (I possess a wonderful sense of misdirection). Eventually we headed down a slightly different route that allowed us a faster, smoother (and longer) ride towards the Brooklyn Bridge. We stayed together until the first rest stop (at mile 14) after which Roland and I zipped off with the goal of 100 miles; the others had to contend with choosing 55 or 75-mile options due to the time constraints.

Going for the hundred
Roland and I had a great time. The route took us around all of Brooklyn, which had a pretty flat route, and thence around Queens, which never seemed to end. In fact, the break between rest stops is surprisingly large at that point, going from mile 42 to 71 without any peanut butter or bananas. We took our own breaks frequently, partly to rest my groin or Roland's legs.

Pain and breaks
It was odd how each of us suffered differently, especially since I was not expecting any troubles after having such a relatively pain-free Lobster. But the rest stops made a huge difference, and by mile 71, we'd made great time and were looking at finishing by 5pm (that is, in 11 hours, total). This was not to be.

More pain: a massive UPD for me and wet pants
A few miles later, as we finally arrived in the Bronx, it was time for me to upshift yet again. I was just ruminating over how many times I'd successfully shifted up to that point -- 50? 100? -- when suddenly the gear didn't catch and I fell over backwards like a bowling pin. Happily I was wearing a helmet, wrist guards, and even a fanny pack hydration system. All of these were essential in my coming out of the fall with nothing more than two tiny scratches on my elbows. But in falling, I smashed my helmet on the ground. I wasn't dazed, but it was certainly the hardest I've hit my head (out of three times total). But as I lay there realizing that I was ok, I wondered why my pants were wet: my hydration pack had ruptured. Having checked that my body was unhurt, I next checked my 2nd-most valuable possession at the time, but luckily my iPhone was ok. Phew!

Gun shy and sore
At this point, I had ridden about 78 miles. There was still time to complete the 100, but I was nervous that my head or neck might have some latent injury and that I had no water for the remainder of the ride, tho I could always buy liquid, so that wasn't a big issue. The real issue, however, was my bum. I was really sore at this point, and I worried that I'd only be making things worse if I rode for 3 more hours. I decided to quit the ride a bit early and headed to the race's endpoint while Roland rode on thru the hilly Bronx. He ended up finishing the ride (about 105 miles) in just over 12 hours. Then he threw up. It turns out that his stomach had knotted up, so to speak, and that he wasn't able to get any food down. Maybe he was dehydrated, but by the next morning he was fine.

Rosy cheeks
When I got to my mom's an hour later for a shower, I took a look at my bottom. It looked like one of those cartoon Santa faces from the 1960s with really red cheeks, only in my case, the cheeks were a bit closer to the, uh, nose.
The shower was painful and the drive home (80 miles, or just about the same distance it took me 10 hours to ride) was a bit uncomfortable.

The good news
Well, I was happy that my ride didn't tire my legs or make any other muscles sore and that I was able to ride nearly 85 miles after having only ridden about 25 in the two months since the Lobster race. It's too bad about my toosh and about that nasty fall, but it was still a great day.

Smart Car after 10,000 miles

Yes, that little car o' mine has already spun its odo to the 10,000-mile mark. Driving around 180-200 miles a day will do that for you pretty fast.

It's a bit of a pain to check the oil (theoretically -- I've never done it) because the engine is under the flap behind the seats on top of what little trunk space I have. To check the oil, I'd have to take most of the stuff out of the back, and tho the car doesn't ostensibly have enough room for a pack of cards, its actually quite spacious. Squeezed behind me are usually the following items:

29" unicycle with handlebar extention
firefighter gear (boots, bunker pants, coat, helmet)
various cycling items (hydration system, gel packs, kneepads, helmet, etc)

...as well as a few incidentals.

So I went by the owner's manual, which suggested that I only needed to change the oil every 10,000 miles. This seems like the setup to a joke, but the car has run fine with only a few hiccups along the way, none of which was oil-related.

HICCUPS
1. Door latches. In really hot weather, the doors don't always want to latch. It's their personal decision, and I respect that, but I find that they behave properly with a little coaxing, so it wasn't something for the dealer to fix when I went for my 10,000-mile checkup.
2. Headlights. They were aimed a bit too high, causing partial blindness in the drivers going the other way at night. People would flash their brights at me for apparently no reason; it took me a few weeks to figure this one out. A simple fix.
3. Brights. Speaking of brights, mine shudder on and off very strangely; this is apparently an easy fix that my dealer did NOT perform involving a loose wire. I'll wait till the 20,000-mile checkup for that one.
4. Gear shift. The shifter is a bit sticky at times, but some WD-40 may have fixed this. If not, I'll take the car in (and take care of those brights, too).

Considering that the car has averaged over 45 miles per gallon and that parking is always a breeze, I really can't complain. It has drawbacks other than its lack of a back seat, but over all I'm thrilled with it. There's no denying its cuteness factor, either.

The Menemsha Inn and Cottages: A Review

We have stayed at the Menemsha Inn & Cottages for a week or two over the past 8 summers. Perhaps it's time to consider other accomodations; word has it that the place is now owned by someone who lives in California, and it shows just the kind of hands-on care you'd expect from a boss who lives 3,000 miles away.

The MI&C was run by different management when we first arrived in 1997. The facility ran quite smoothly then, and we had a great time with no great complaints. Sure, the bathroom door was a bit sticky and never got closer than 5 inches from the jamb, but we're not big on privacy, so that wasn't an issue. There were a few other glitches like the bureau drawer that nearly crippled one of the children, but we were too busy taking in the sights to notice the slights. Better yet, when we arrived for our 2nd vacation here the following summer, there was a generous gift basket awaiting us (as returning guests) featuring some locally produced soaps and chocolates. That simple gesture helped us overlook the bureau (now sporting a broken knob) and the cripplingly thin and lumpy mattress of the pullout bed. We put the mattress on the floor each night and chalked it up to our own pickiness. After all, perhaps there were people whose backs needed to curve in 8 different places at night.

When we arrived for our 3rd stay, however, things were different. The management had been changed over the winter, and the wrinkles began to show. Gone was the gift basket, along with some of our esteem for the MI&C. It became harder to acquire a beach pass, too, and this was especially vexing the following year because we now had to tote around our most recent addition to the family.

The management didn't change drastically when a new owner took over last year, but we noticed a few alterations when we arrived this time. The room looked larger, and it took us a few moments to realize that two paintings had been removed, rendering an effect that looked vaguely Skandinavian (or as Shirra put it: like something out of an Ikea catalog, but not as fancy). The same two doors still stuck (and now a third did as well), and the bureau drawer still fell out dangerously (tho this time there were two broken knobs rather than one). There were holes where the picture hooks had been. And there was still no gift basket.

As bad as the interior decor was, the exterior changes were worse.

My kids love to hang out at the playground after breakfast everyday. This is a bit of a wonder since the playground here doesn't offer much other than some dilapidated games, a climbing tree that reaches dangerous heights, and a tricky tire swing that doubles as a wrecking ball. There is no slide, there are no monkey bars or swings -- it's nothing like our playground back home. It does, however, feature two items that you don't see in most playgrounds these days, and both involve rusty metal pieces sticking out of the ground exactly where children are likely to skewer themselves.
The first is a ringtoss game devised by Vlad the Impaler. I like how the spike juts out at a pronounced angle -- perhaps the first few kids who landed on it managed to tilt it a few degrees.New Englanders call it Horseshoes, but lawyers call it Dangerous Rusty Pipe Sticking Out Of The Ground .

 



Because one rusty hazard is never enough...
Just a few feet away is what is probably the top of some drain that is just wide enough for a really interesting story about a child who falls into it and is unable to extract himself for several days while the news media swarm about in hopes of higher ratings. I've lifted off the lid -- it's not attached to anything. I don't recall what was underneath, but I do appreciate the shape and sharpness of the handle, which is perfect for spraining and simultaneously infecting the ankle of a child who had forgotten for a moment that it was there -- too busy, no doubt, worrying about the nearby spike.



















Another nice new touch is the swamp on the way to the playground and tennis court. I think they call it a stagnant water feature. It's a great way to increase population of mosquitos, but I'm not sure it's necessary -- mozzies were already pretty numerous in other years.
















Just beyond the playground is a new structure with a garage door that someone has already managed to back into. This building, whose purpose is a mystery, seems to function as an additional repository of beach towels and sundry equipment for groundskeeping... or just target practice for the towel carts.






















Finally, there was a time a few years ago when each cottage had its own luggage cart to help people transport bags from their car to their cottage. Then last year, the carts had disappeared, tho there was still one of them available upon request. I went to help myself to it this year and discovered that it was out of use -- no one on the island seems to know the location of a bike pump. I filled it myself and made good use of it. This cart appears to have come to the Vineyard with the first settlers.

Sad Sight at the County Fair: ForTwo For Sale

At our local fair, I saw a large number of animals tied up in a barn, people gawking at them, occ'ly petting them. No one was unkind, but it's always sad, really, when you think about it. Except the bunnies. Those things were just made to be stared at in a cage - they're so cute!

Then my kids and I walked 50 feet over to where some car dealership from Kingston, NY was showing off its wares. There was a large number of cars parked outside, people gawking at them, occ'ly petting them. One of them was a yellow smart fortwo.

That poor little car didn't stand a chance. It wanted to run free, ride with the big boys and girls, but instead it was forced to sit there while sweaty dudes still holding their corndogs got inside to check out its roominess. It nearly made me cry.

Here's the rub: This car isn't being sold new -- it's for sale "as is." And this "as is" state specifies that its warranty is no longer valid! The dealer bought it just to sell it and probably wasn't even the original owner. Too boot, the car has 500 miles on it, and the seats were already dirty (did I mention the corndogs?). Oh, and the price? "Well over $20,000," according to the salesman who didn't actually share what his boss actually wants for the car.

I don't think they're going to get over $20k. After all, who'd be stupid enough to buy a newish car with NO WARRANTY?

Whoever buys it, let me know how long it takes to get out the corndog and sunscreen smell. And how much over $20,000 you paid....

Driving a Big Red Firetruck

I wish I could attend more of the training nights with the fire department, but my tutoring schedule precludes it during the school year. I'm always glad when I can make it to training or a meeting, and tonight I had a chance to drive a firetruck.

We regularly cycle thru a regimen that includes dealing with car fires, ladders, hoses, air tanks, and so on, but tonight was the first time I've made it to a session with the trucks. We drove a pickup-style firetruck thru a short slalom course with a few pylons in the parking lot of the high school, and then we did the same route with one of the longer trucks. In both cases, we had to drive the trucks up to a stopping point to see how close we came to a cone, and then we had to do the same course in reverse! I was surprised how well I did -- backing up towards a cone in the dark while driving a huge truck is not something I expected to have much skill in, but I attacked the task with a sort of mathematical approach, and that worked for me. I also got some excellent advice from one of our members who drives a truck for a living. In a nutshell, it involved shadows.

I don't think I'll be driving a firetruck on my own anytime soon, but I'm glad I got to try them out this evening.

New Paltz resident loves to race unicycles -- Poughkeepsie Journal, 7.13.08, by Nancy Haggerty

Think unicycle and image 1 might be a clown or street performer teetering side to side at all of a mile or two per hour.

But now think 500 miles of unicycle racing, often at 20-plus mph, of riding roads that not only go up and down hills but also mountains.

Think Ride the Lobster, the recent 35-team relay held in Nova Scotia.

The June 16-20 race, officially 800 kilometers or 497.1 miles, included four days of 35-rider mass-start, roughly 120-mile road racing and one day of time trials and criterium.

It also included riders from as far away as Korea, Germany, Denmark Singapore, Britain, New Zealand and Australia.

By comparison, David Stone was a local.

The 41-year-old New Paltz resident teamed with John Foss, 46, of California and Dave White, 52, of Ohio on The Centurions. The name represents the fact the three, who met through unicycle conventions, have among them 101 years of unicycling experience, Stone the least at 28.

Stone, president/founder of the Manhattan-based New York Unicycle Club, had done long unicycle rides, including a New York City century in which he logged 102 miles in one day. But his longest previous races were only 10Ks.

"I treated this racing as if I had to do about six to eight of those each day for four days," he said.

Stone, who works in Manhattan as a private tutor, trained for two months, logging 13 to 25 miles a day, sometimes in Central Park, but most often on the rail trail out of New Paltz.

Going in, his team's goal was a top-10 finish and that's exactly what it got, finishing 10th in 40 hours, 27 minutes, 34 seconds. That was four-plus hours behind the winning German team and more than 19 hours ahead of the last-place team. But 10th was a battle, with the 11th-place squad finishing just seven minutes back.

"When I rode, I always thought, 'Never let up.' I didn't want to give up even a second to another team... I rode like gangbusters the whole way," said Stone, whose motto was "None shall pass" and who noted, "It was very rare when someone did."

Enjoys speed aspect

Stone, a former high school runner who explained, "Speed is what I always had as a weapon in any sport," logged 87 of the final day's 180 kilometers, cycling mostly flats and downhills, his strengths.

He rode one three-mile, paved mountain downhill at 19 mph.

"On a unicycle that's way too fast to fall off," he remarked.

But while one opponent broke a leg crossing train tracks, even on gravel, Stone's team had no falls. It was on a gravel downhill, that the gravel-loving Stone hit 22.5 mph, his top race speed.

"That was just amazing," Stone said, adding, "I see gravel and it's almost like I get hungry."

Foss' wife, Jacquie, drove the team's support van routinely six or more miles ahead of the team's current rider. Then, at the van, a GPS tracking baton was passed to the next rider, who'd already be pedaling.

Stone, who owns 30 unicycles, rode a 29-inch, wheel-geared unicycle throughout the race. Other racers rode geared and ungeared unicycles of various sizes. The winning Germans, who took home a $4,000 prize (The Centurions split $125 for 10th place) used a more difficult to handle but very fast 36-inch, wheel-geared unicycle.

The race, run through areas that reminded Stone of the Hudson Valley, was designed to boost tourism. Rooms and breakfast and dinner were provided free to participants, who shared information and more with each other.

"Imagine a new golfer coming along and wanting tips on how to avoid a slice and he started chatting up Tiger Woods. It's never going to happen. ... The nice thing about the sport is it's in its youth. We're still so innocent," said Stone, who noted his and others teams loaned unicycles to competitors and one team actually built one for another team.

The camaraderie extended to fans. Schoolchildren lined parts of the route and gave teams care packages.

"... As a tutor, former teacher and father, the kids were the best (part of the race)," said Stone.

While his own kids, Fiona, 12, a five-year rider; Emmett, 8, a two-year rider; and Maeve, 4, were home in school and his wife, Shirra, was running her New Paltz shop, Knit and Be Happy, the GPS baton allowed them to follow The Centurions' progress online.

This was the first ever Ride the Lobster and if Nova Scotia hosts it again, Stone plans to be there.

He also dreams of someday unicycling cross-country with his brother, John, who has unicycled across the Alps, the Pyrenees and Norway.

More immediately, though, Stone plans to do a New York century ride on Sept. 7. And he's also talking about teaming with John and Emmett in a race.

The name of that team? The Rolling Stones.

Still Loving the Smart! Can You Say HYPERMILER?

The car has only gotten better. Or maybe I should say that the driver has only gotten better.

I've learned some hypermiling techniques, and they've paid off. My mileage the first few fillups was about 41-42 mile per gallon. My last two tanks averaged nearly 49 mpg. In fact, last week I managed to squeeze nearly 419 miles out of my 8.7-gallon tank, with about .2 gallons to spare (an average of 50.4 mpg).

Here are my hypermiling tricks:
1. Drive slowly. No car can really perform better at 70 than at 60, due to aerodynamics and other reasons, so I drive at a steady 55-63 mph, pretty much. I think my average speed these days is about 57 mph on the highway. Hypermilers say that this can improve gas mileage like nothing else, and in my old car, I saw that this was definitely the case. I think that driving 70 costs 15-20% of your fuel efficiency compared with driving 60 mph. I think I'd drive 50 mph if I could, but that's almost dangerously slow, so I'll stick near 60. I won't mind when highways go back to a 55 mph speed limit.

2. Avoid using the brakes. I let the car slow itself down whenever possible, and I leave space before the car in front of me when I'm in any kind of traffic. The smart car's engine slows itself down as soon as your foot's off the gas pedal, and the deceleration is pretty strong because the car actually has an automated manual transmission -- it's like a stick-shift that does the shifting automatically. I've had trips from Manhattan to New Paltz where I used the brakes a total of three times.

3. Avoid hard accelerations, too. I like the advice that you should drive as tho there is an egg under the pedal. I read that the smart car has the slowest acceleration of any American car. Well, that makes my job easier! It just means I have to be careful when entering traffic to leave enough room behind me that I don't need to 'gun it.'

4. Draft when possible. I usually don't get to do this on account of point #1, but when a slow truck lumbers along, I'll sometimes keep up with it, watching my ScanGauge to make sure that the drafting is actually working (and it is, but it's still a bit hard to believe).

5. Drive other than in the center of the lane. This is some advice I read on a hypermiler site. I'm not sure if it's true or whether it makes a significant difference, but the idea is that the lane tends to wear out in the area where most cars drive, so you will do better by driving a bit left or right of that line.

6. Air in the tires! Make sure your tires are properly inflated. Some hypermilers even over-inflate theirs, but I'm not going to risk it in my tiny car -- the tires are small and hard enough as it is!

Favorite Parking Spot Yet

I was in a rush this afternoon, but I didn't fret. After all, this is a Smart we're talking about.

I pulled onto my student's block and immediately found a spot -- right in front! At first I wasn't sure I'd fit, but when I drove beside the tiny space, I could see that my even tinier car would fit in nicely. I only had to move the car back and forth a few times to park it; the Smart Car's turning radius is quite small, allowing it to squeeze into the smallest spaces with relative ease.

After I left my student, I had to quickly find a place to park near my mom's building. Sho'nuff, there were TWO spots just large enough for a Smart Car but not for anything else (except a motorcycle!). I took the one across from my mom's. The other place was the gap her doormen always leave in front of the building for residents getting into and out of a car or taxi.

One of these days, I'm going to have to use that spot, and the doormen aren't going to like it....

Smart Observations, Week 3

I'm still loving the car, three weeks and over 3,000 miles into owning it.

IT'S (NOT) A GAS
My average fuel economy has been around 42-43 miles per gallon. That's pretty impressive considering that about 15% of my driving is done around New Paltz, where the mileage is 'only' about 40 mpg.

Thanks to a wonderful forum for Smart Car owners (http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/forums/), I've learned a really good trick to add a few MPGs when I'm driving on the highway: drafting. I find some big truck that's driving at about my speed and I keep no closer than 100 feet or so. The effect isn't tremendous because of that distance (drafting 10 feet back saves about 40% of the gas), but I'd rather be safe (and save only 10%) by staying further away.

YOU CAN STUFF IT!

I've managed to fit a surprising amount into the car. Right now, the car is loaded with my fire fighting gear, a unicycle, a few shopping bags, a bike helmet and a bike pump, and a good deal of cycling equipment... and there's still plenty of room! I'm driving to Portland, ME next week for a unicycle race, so I tested whether I could get both of my big unicycles into the car at the same time. The answer: Yes, with plenty of space to spare.

PARKING
I love it when I'm about to pull out of a tiny spot in Manhattan and someone pulls up in a normal car to ask if I'm leaving; then they see how little space they'll have, and they just drive away frustrated.

Smart Cars make Minis and Beetles look enormous. Basically, a Smart Car is like a Bug minus the rear seat and trunk. That's the difference between a mini-car and a micro. This photo shows how much longer a VW Beetle is compared with my tiny car. The bug is nearly four feet longer.

OK, Maybe More Like 43 MPG

I'm still playing with my little ScanGauge, but I forgot to make an adjustment to it that has had a significant effect on my mileage readouts.

After correcting for the amount of fuel actually put into the car, the ScanGauge seems to reflect more accurately the amount of miles I'm actually getting per gallon. I'm basing this on my careful record-keeping. Most recently I filled up 8.5 gallons after driving 368 miles, and that comes to about 43.3 mpg. Keep in mind that this reflects a combination of highway driving (maybe 80-85% of my driving), New Paltz driving (9-14%) and parking space driving in Manhattan (1%). I'm quite happy with this mileage.

It will be interesting to see how the car does when I drive round-trip to Nova Scotia in a few weeks. That should give some great information about the car's highway-only performance.

I should also note that I really drive like a gas-miser. I maintain a speed between 55 and 62 mph, and I sometimes draft behind big trucks (but not TOO close). I even put the car into neutral on big downhills once in a while. And I give the car high-octane gasoline, as the manufacturer suggests.

50 MPG!

Well, I managed to hit 50 miles per gallon on today's round-trip into Manhattan and back.

Since the drive into NYC is a bit slanted down as you head in, the mileage is better in that direction. In my Aztek, I managed to hit 33 mpg on one of my last trips in by maintaining a speed of about 60 mph. On the way back, however, I couldn't do much better than 27 or 28 mpg in that car.

The Smart Car, on the other hand, is so light and fuel-efficient that it would be hard to drive it fast enough to get such bad mileage. In general, it gets about 35-40 miles on a city gallon (assuming by 'city' that one means 'New Paltz'). And on the highway it does extremely well, generally scoring in the mid-40s for people who aren't leadfoots.

But I'm a feather-foot. I don't drive as fast as 65 mph, even, and rarely even crack 60. As a result, my mileage is amazing. On the way into NYC today, I reached 52 mpg even tho the last mile was a fairly steep uphill in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. As I drove into Manhattan later, my mileage was still in the high 40s for the short trip. And on the way back to New Paltz, I again kept my speed about 60 mpg and found that my mileage was 48 mpg, for an average on the day of about 50 miles to the gallon! In fact, the round-trip 170 miles used only about 3 gallons of gas, which is a lot less than the 6 gallons I'd use in the Aztek. At this rate, the car will save me about $60 a week!

SMART CAR Observations, Day 1

MILEAGE
I'm getting mixed signals from my Smart Car.

I filled up in Joisey (which happens to have the cheapest gas in the nation despite a law that requires them to pump your gas for you) on the way into Madhattan yesterday. Parking was a breeze, but I reparked to be even closer to my office (see the entry below from yesterday). Heading home, I basically had no traffic and only used the brakes 2 or 3 times, max. When I got to the Noop, I decided to fill up again, just to see how much petrol I'd used... and it came to 1.5 gallons for the previous 89 miles, or about 60 mpg. That just didn't make sense: I was driving uphill-ish, and there was a really stiff wind the whole way home. I expected no better than 40 mpg.

Today I drove in, maintaining my usual 60-65 speed the whole way and rarely using the brakes. It was a lovely, gust-free day. I expected better. I only got about 90 miles on what appears to be 2.25 gallons, or about 40 mpg. Considering that the car is actually rated for 40 mpg on the highway (and that I was driving downhill-ish at a low rate of speed), I deserved at least 45 or even 50 mpg, didn't I?

I'll have to sort this out soon. And towards that end, I've purchased a product called a ScanGauge, an after-market doodad that gives readouts of all sorts of important info for people like me.

HANDLING: Wind and Bumps
The car handles pretty well. Yesterday was really windy, and at times I felt like I had to fight a bit to keep in my lane, but later other drivers told me the same was true for them, so I didn't feel like I could blame my tiny car. Bumps, on the other hand, are for real. The Smart Car has smaller wheels than normal autos, so it picks up every bump you hit and even a few that aren't there. I found a great solution on the Internet, but I'm not sure it's for me. Meanwhile, I try to avoid known bumps (after enough trips, you know a highway like you know your way around your house), and I guess this is one area that I just don't care too much about. I got used to my friend JJ's rattly car in Denmark back in 1989, and once you've driven in something that's constantly being tinkered with, any other car is butter by comparison.

PARKING
Of course, this is the main reason some of us buy this car. Correction: We buy it because it's so cute and unusual, and we use the parking excuse as justification. Either way, there is no denying that the Smart Car is not only easy to park -- it's FUN to park! You almost don't want to take a normal-size (17-19 foot) space, just because fitting into a tiny spot is so much more satisfying. As noted, I actually moved closer yesterday when I found a tiny spot one block nearer to my destination -- a spot that only a Smart Car or a moped could have squeezed into. Parking alone can justify this car for my sake, because the areas I'm searching for spots in are generally tree-lined sidewalks without meters or angle parking. I don't think I'll ever have to park at a meter again. And who'd want to? It hardly seems fair to pay $1.50 an hour for half the space of an average car. Meters do me no good, anyway, because I need 4-5 hour parking, and the city hasn't figured out how to accommodate my needs.

SCRABBLE
That makes the Smart Car a great bargain in time saved. I can get a space within minutes and use the rest of the time to play online Scrabble®.

First Park

I parked in a tight Manhattan spot for the first time when I arrived to tutor this afternoon. By coincidence, one of the other Smart Cars in the area was parked nearby. It turns out that we're sandwiching my doorman's car.

Shirra took a cute shot of me in an even smarter car. This baby gets an unlimited amount of miles per gallon of gas -- it operates on foot power, tho it's a bit of a tight squeeze on the driver.

One Smart Man, He Felt Smart

It's adorable!

My Smart Car is now resting comfortably in the driveway after its trip home from Manhattan. Maeve and I took the bus into The City yesterday in time to sign a few papers and then head to my mom's in the new car. Maeve loves the car and was happy to be the first person to set foot inside it (as well as being its first passenger). Driving it in Manhattan is a bit odd, partly because the engine shifts gears in a manner that is slower and hurky-jurky compared with a normal automatic. This is because the engine is a sort of manual / automatic amalgam. It takes a bit of getting used to.

On the highway, I occasionally found that we were really speeding. I usually set by Aztek's cruise control at 60 or 65 mph, but the tiny Smart doesn't have this feature, so I will have to be more conscious oft speed; yesterday I hit 80 mph a few times.

The car has garnered many admiring glances in town so far. As far as I know, of is the only Smart Car residing in the Noop. I even took of to a fire call last night. Luckily it's large enough to hold my fireman gear, but to fit my unicycle, I'll have to put down the passenger seat or buy an attachment made for carrying bikes.

And yes, parking it is going to be a breeze!

Smart Purchase

I found out today that all systems are go for my purchase of a Smart Car tomorrow. Maeve and I are very excited; she's coming with me to pick it up.

SUPPLY & DEMAND
Smart Cars are in low supply. I'm not sure how high the demand is for them right now, but with gas prices at about $4 a gallon and destined to rise, I'd guess that they're generally not easy to get ahold of. When I called Elaine at the NYC dealership a few days ago, I was told that my request couldn't be honored until early 2009. I upped my chances by telling the her that I had no preferences for the style or model. Amazingly, when the most recent shipment came in, one car was left, and it sounds like a cutie: black, with red cloth seats. There is also some trim, but I didn't care enough to remember about it, so I guess I'll find that out tomorrow.

GASOLINE
I made what I hope was my last commute in the Aztek today. By adhering to 60 mph the whole way down, I could achieve between 31 and 33 mpg, depending on conditions. On the way back to New Paltz, my best mileage was no better than 28 mpg due to the uphill nature of the return trip. Smart Cars tend to get about 45 mpg, so the dealers say, but I have a feeling that I'll be surpassing that since I tend to drive so slowly. I'm shooting for about 55 mpg. Since the tiny car's tiny gas tank only holds 8.9 gallons, I'll still want to conserve gas! I'm figuring that if I drive 40,000 or more miles per annum, I can save myself about $2,000 a year in fuel costs alone.

INSURANCE
We have Geico, which seems to have the best rates, and because I'm essentially retiring the Aztek, our insurance premiums aren't going to increase too drastically -- no more than a few hundred dollars annually. I also agreed to get Lo-Jack, an anti-theft and security system.

Maeve and I are taking a bus into Manhattan so that we can drive back in the baby car. We can't wait.

Mountain (Unicycle) Man

I decided to give mountain unicycling another go. I had tried it when we first moved here -- our 'backyard' was the excuse for me to buy a different unicycle -- but I hadn't gone riding in our woods in over a year. It was time to suit up. Here is a picture of me in all of my gear, minus the 'me.' I'm wearing a helmet (to protect the noggin), sunglasses (eyes), gloves (wrists), leg armor (shins and knees), ankle protectors (duh), and a fanny-pack water system (lower back).

I chose a spot at the top of a nearby hill and decided on a few different 'lines' that I would try. It took me a few tries to make it from the big tree to the thin stump. Several minutes and a few attempts later, I'd made it from the stump to a steep slope. I only needed a few practice runs in order to make it down that slope. Then I was ready to put it all together, and within two or three tries, I'd made it all the way from A to Z.

I'm looking forward to muni'ing again tomorrow.

Wheel Problems, Wheel Solutions

I've been training for my upcoming unicycle race ("Ride the Lobster"), but the last week wasn't easy because of two flat tires and one achy seat. The flats were caused by a puncture in the tire of my geared unicycle; Mike the Bike told me that he thought his repair work would hold while the replacement tire was on order, but today, during what was to be a 19-mile ride, I got a flat towards the end and had to be Shirra-lifted to safety. She picked me up in the next-over town. So tomorrow I'll have to exercise on my other unicycle, the Coker, which I took for a training ride a few days ago. The larger wheel (36" rather than the 29" of the geared uni) smooths out a lot of bumps and makes for a nice ride, for the most part. The only problem with my Coker is the seat, which has caused me some discomfort over the years. Let's just say that I'm glad I already have my three kids, because enough riding on that unicycle ... well, you get the picture. I definitely need to get that seat replaced.

Then there's the car. I'm still driving my 2001 Aztek. That thing didn't get a lot of use until this year, when I started driving in 5 days a week for work. Thanks to little trips around New Paltz (as when I drive the kids to school), I also tack on another 20-30 miles a day, for a total of about 900 per week. As a result, I've now reached nearly 75,000 miles on the odometer; it was around 40,000 when the school year started. So the car has developed some aches and pains, as well as causing me some. In addition to my broken gas gauge, there is the anti-lock brake system that has failed a couple times and the fact that parking, while nowhere near as painful as I'd initially feared, is still as much of a pain as that unicycle seat. So I decided to look into getting a Smart Car. The things are tiny, measuring in at under 9', and this makes many more parking spaces available. In fact, on my mom's block, the doormen like to park their own cars so that they leave a huge space in front of the building that's just large enough for a Smart Car....



The only question is whether the tiny car has enough space to carry my unicycle!

End of the Line

For an upcoming unicycle race, I'm training by riding at least 15 miles a day. I decided that it made more sense to accomplish the brunt of this while my little one is off at pre-school, so for just over two hours a day, I can ride around New Paltz. The roads are generally pretty safe -- drivers tend to give cyclists a decent amount of space, and I haven't heard of any accidents since we moved. I need to work on hill-riding, so I'll take to the roads soon, but I much prefer riding on the rail trail. It's a pretty ride, and tho it's not hilly, it's bumpy and twisty and the ground is unpaved.

What I didn't know until this week is: It ends halfway across a bridge. I was zipping along, riding across what I assumed was yet another gorgeous wooden bridge, when suddenly the road came to an abrupt end. Weirder still, this happened literally at the midpoint of a once-spectacular structure. It's now a half-spectacular structure; the other half is a weather-beaten assemblage of huge Tinker Toys that appears to be on the verge of collapsing into the river 150 feet below. The first time I came upon the half-bridge, I gingerly walked it, afraid that the boards would creak and wobble, but it seems to be quite hardy, and when I rode it today, I felt confident that it was safe. Later I found out that someone owns the decrepit half and was hoping to turn the spot into a bungee jump but failed to get approval or funds.

That point is just under 7 miles from the preschool, so it's a decent round-trip distance, and when I add a bit more riding thruout the day, I can easily reach the 15-mile minimum I've set myself. I just wish the bridge went all the way across!

Gas Woes Again

As I write this, I'm waiting once again for a Triple-A truck to come to my rescue with a gallon of gas.

My gas gauge is still broken - it turns out that this would be an expensive repair - but my car has a digital readout of how much gas I've consumed since my last fill-up. Apparently I didn't set this properly the last time I got gas (or else there is something REALLY wrong with this car) but when I started out today, it looked like I had over four gallons left. I now know that this was not the case. It seems that the "low fuel" light that comes on only does so when I'm actually low on fuel; I should have heeded its warning when I passed that gas station a few miles ago....

iPhone, Re-Visited

My iPhone is great, when it's working. But so far I've had to re-something-or-other it several different times.

RE-SET
First there was a mild glitch that caused the screen to freeze. A simple 'reset' did the trick, and it was back to normal.

RE-STORE
But a few days later, I found that I was unable to return emails sent to my gmail account (and viewable on my phone). A customer rep explained that I'd have to 'restore' the phone, causing it to put my 'settings' back to their default settings and forcing me to spend hours putting all of the music and podcasts back onto the phone.

RE-COVER
When I ran into my next glitch, the rep suggested that I perform an even more drastic type of resetting of the iPhone. This procedure is called a 'recovery,' and it seems a lot like the re-store, only more invasive somehow. This worked initially, but then a few days later, I was unable to sync the phone with my computer. I ran thru all of the other steps, but alas, the phone would not fix itself. I called iPhone support again (800-MY iPHONE). The support team is top notch, never making me wait longer than 30 seconds on the phone, and they immediately suggested the only step left at this point.

RE-PLACEMENT
I made an appointment at the 24/7 Mac Store near FAO Schwartz and uni'ed over there today. When I arrived, I gave my information to one of the zillions of reps floating about the store, and he quickly determined that I'd accidentally been given a time in the wee hours (1:30 am) rathrer than a quiet (ha!) afternoon time of 1:30 pm. Still, he was confident that he could squeeze me in and before I knew it, a young woman handed me a new iPhone!

Of course, if this fix doesn't work, I may have to think about this whole purchase again. That would be called...
RE-CONSIDERATION

A La Recherche d'un Temps Perdu, or What I've Been Doing the Past Month

Forgive me, Reader, for I have sinned; it's been four weeks since my last submission.

I bumped into a classmate from my elementary school, Fleming, while she was buying a birthday gift for the 2-year-old son of another student from our graduating class. The three of us hadn't seen much of each other in the 28 years since we graduated from our little French school, but we all decided to go to dinner and a show, and a few weeks later, we got together for a great evening. Over dinner, I mentioned that, in the pre-Internet days, I'd started a mailing and phone-number list of our fellow alums but that I hadn't gotten very far, managing to track down only one friend who sounded a bit tired and grumpy when we spoke. Our dinner inspired me, however, and when I got up the next day, I immediately started Googling some of the more unusually-named people from Fleming. My hope was that, if I found a few friends, maybe some of them would have leads to others. I also hoped that my sleuthing skills would have improved.*

Nostalgia Orgy
Long story short: I created a Google group for all of the people I found, and we've been emailing each other, like a forum, for the past 3 weeks, generating just over 1000 messages in that time. It's been overwhelming and wonderful, with memories surfacing about old shops, the smell of the science lab, and quirky teachers. These memories are often quite vivid, like ancient murals unearthed and exposed to light for the first time in many years -- just as vibrant as the day they were set down. I clearly remember the candy store where I'd buy penny candies, the social studies teacher with the bright orange hair, and the double banisters along each stairway. Nicest of all is how well everyone is getting along: The bullies apologizing and their victims accepting graciously. It's like we've all decided that we'd like a do-over of certain moments.

It's also been great to find out how people turned out nearly 30 years later. One is an executive producer for a hit TV show, several are professors or academic deans. One is a food writer living in London. One is a professional poker player who has also written for a hit cartoon show. And perhaps most strangely: Despite there being only a dozen boys in the later grades of our school, 3 of us became firefighters! There are plenty of parents, too: My old girl-friend has four kids of her own and is a French teacher. Many of us have submitted photos, and it's been fun seeing how people have changed since adolescence, since some of us look pretty similar while others are barely recognizable.

* About that sleuthing: I used Google, whitepages.com, USsearch.com, 411.com, and Facebook.

Open Letter to Stanky (Our Cat)

Dear Stanky,

It's great that you've taken upon yourself the task of ridding our house of all the mice we've seen lately. I've been quite impressed with the results, too. You've caught more mice in the past week than in your past 14 years. I believe that this morning's mouse was the tenth notch on your scratching post.

I also appreciate how gently you've dispatched the mice. You cats sure know how to kill something softly. There was that one that looked a bit more like a 7th grade biology dissection project gone horribly wrong, but the rest have all looked like they're sleeping, albeit a bit more ruffled and comatose than usual.

Speaking of sleeping, let's try to keep the 'gifts' out of my bedroom. You know that mamma isn't too fond of mice, even when presented so lovingly by her slippers, so from now on, could you go back to depositing them near your food? Thanks.

Keep up the magnificent work!

Dad

PS: I'll get more of those treats today -- the soft chicken ones, right?

Mice in the Hice

I thought we had just one mouse in the house. Our cat caught it (yay, Stanky!), and that was it. Right?

OK, wishful thinking. There is probably a rubric somewhere that tells you how many mice you have for every one that you see. If there is such a calculation, I don't want to know, because I just saw two mouseys. Stanky is on the job.

One day last year, we came home to find two dead mice lined up (parallel!) in front of the television. On other occasions, we'd come home to find a mouse in the same spot. This meant that, for awhile, I had to be the one to check the living room first. Shirra could handle bugs of all sorts, but she used to hyperventilate when she saw long-tailed rodents under sub-optimal conditions (like: dead on her floor).

As I wrote most of this, there were two mice scurrying about. One ran from the kitchen into the laundry closet as another did a perimeter search of the living room (where I'm sitting). Stanky finished my yogurt and then crouched in his favorite hunting spot. I heard a brief tussle, and then in traipsed Stanky with half of a mouse in his mouth. We disposed of it quickly, and I gave him another reward. He's had a lot of them lately.

Pitty, Our Road. Pity Us

I met with a man about our horribly pitted road. The drive has gotten so bad that my car bottoms out in a couple spots, which may have resulted in a broken brake fluid line and some busted bearing holders in both wheels. The road is currently soggy, pitty, and cratery. It's gotten so bad that I may have to make up a few more words for it, tho some popular scatological ones come to mind right away.

As for the repair, our man estimated the cost in the $4,800 range. Ouch. The last time we had some holes filled in, it cost us $300, or 12 times less. The repair should last 4 or 5 years, however, so that's not too bad, and luckily we share the road and can split the costs with our nabes. We'll see how that turns out....

Spring Flood 08

New Paltz was hit with a rain storm last week. The temperature surpassed 32, and the sun came out. All of the leftover snow melted. The fire department immediately went on alert.

It's not the flooded basements that put us on standby. Basements were looking pretty pond-like along certain roads like Ohioville (North and South). Instead, it's the threat of downed power lines that we fear. As the ground soaks up all that water, the Central Hudson poles tend to sag a bit. Sometimes these get hit by trucks, and sometimes they just snap under high winds.

Luckily we didn't have to deal with one of those situations, but we did have lots of basements to pump out. Some had a foot of water; some had enough to get into the waders that the firemen were wearing. As it happened, I didn't go onto a basement until a day after the major flooding. For those who DID go in on the bad day, they often came out with a couple bootfuls of H20. One young guy new to the department came out of a basement with more water than was left in the basement after we'd finished, or so he claimed.

Worst Anniversary Ever

In the Spongebob movie that my kids were watching a few months ago, Spongebob and friend Patrick sing, "It's the best day, e-e-ever." I had that song running on a loop thru my head all day, only with the word 'best' replaced by 'worst' and 'day' replaced by 'anniversary.'

The day wasn't as bad as I'm sure some people's worst anniversary stories might attest. No one dies, no one gets arrested, there isn't a big blowout fight. I'm not comparing my lousy anniversary with some truly lousy days among the general public. But I've had 14 other anniversaries, and all of them were either more enjoyable or were truly nondescript. I remember having a lovely time on our first anniversary back in 1994. We got each other cute gifts and looked forward to finally sampling that last bite of wedding cake that we'd set aside 365 days earlier. Word to the unwise: Enjoy the cake while it's still fresh, because cake left in a freezer for one year tastes like soggy cardboard.

I don't recall the details of the next 13 anniversaries; they all blend together, and I can only try to remember them individually if I calculate the year and then try to conjure up a memory of what we were doing in our lives at that time. I just remember feeling a sense of relief and happiness last year when our marriage turned 14 because that meant that we'd stayed together longer than my parents, and that had always been a goal of mine.

Things didn't bode well when Shirra realized just a few days ago that our anniversary was approaching. Apparently it came to her when she was remembering that March 3 was the birthday of our first cat. I had completely forgotten that our big day was coming up, and I was even more chagrinned when I remembered that a few years ago, she'd hoped to celebrate #15 with a cruise on the Queen Mary 2. Well, that boat sailed on by.

According to some online research I just did, the 15th anniversary is traditionally marked with gifts of crystal (a huge improvement over the tin of year 10). I opted instead for a picnic theme. It wasn't like I'd given myself a lot of time to plan ahead, so I drove down to Kat the Cheese's shop in the Water Street Market and bought some cheeses, bread, crackers, jam, and a cool little picnic pack that looks like a large Fil-o-Fax I once had but actually holds some napkins, a cheese board, and two sets of cutlery. My plan was to surprise Shirra this morning with a late breakfast on our lawn after we'd taken the kids to school. But at about 9pm, it finally dawned on me that there was no way to pull this off. For one thing, the weather hadn't warmed up as much as I'd hoped, but more importantly, I was slated to be the parent-helper at Maeve's preschool, and Shirra had her usual early-morning knitting group as she does every Friday. Since it was too late to make any changes, we had our picnic after the kids went to sleep, and our anniversary-eve party, quiet and private, was lovely.

Today, however, got off to a lousy start. I usually get to spend nearly an hour hanging out with Fiona in the morning before school starts, but today she watched some Doctor Who as I ruined my first-ever egg poaching attempt before making her a subpar sunny-side-up egg instead. I spent just a few minutes with Emmett before taking Maeve to her preschool, and then I spent the next 150 minutes waiting for that half-day of madness to end. Normally I love going in as the parent-helper, but today I wasn't at my best, and while it ended nicely enough, I still had a bad taste in my mouth.

I took Maeve to Shirra's store in hopes of chatting with Shirra for awhile and just giving her a few snuggly hugs, but this was spoiled when Shirra spotted an injured dog that was wandering past her shop. Being a dog-lover, she had to tend to it, necessitating a variety of phone calls (owner, vet, animal rescue, and so on). I left, hoping that the dog's owner would soon show up (she did) and that the dog would be ok (it was) and frustrated that this had to happen on March 7.

My drive to Manhattan was uneventful and my tutoring sessions were great, but the drive back was made difficult and unpleasant by the incessant rain. When I finally got home, Shirra gave me a present of a pair of slippers that, despite being my size, didn't feel right (too small? too narrow?). It was a fitting end to the day, I suppose. Or should that be 'unfitting'? Either way, I'm glad that this anniversary is finally over so that we can start saving for that QM2 trip in a few years.

Scarf Update

I finally updated a photo of my scarf. Here it is again. My next project is to learn how to purl (this week). On Sunday I'm leading my first men's knit (oops -- I meant to write "Men's Night") at Shirra's store. Should be fun!

Mirror Mirror on the Car

While looking for a parking spot in Manhattan this past Saturday, I knocked the mirror off my car. Actually, to be exact, it was my wife's car; I'd borrowed it for the weekend because I needed its capacity for the dozen unicycles I was taking into the Big City for the bi-monthly uniclub meeting. Her car is the Honda Odyssey, and it's a bit wider than my Aztek. When I tried to pass by a double-parked car, I heard a thunk, and the next thing my son heard was me yelling 'Firetruck' minus the "iretr" part.

Shirra had knocked mirrors off my car in the past -- in fact, she knocked BOTH off during her worst 5 minutes of driving back in 2005 -- so she was quite understanding about my mistake when I told her about it. The good news was that the only damage to either car was my missing mirror, but I assumed that the repair would cost hundreds of dollars. Enter Rick from Main Street Auto.

Rick, whose given name is Farooge, has been our mechanic since we moved to New Paltz. We've given him a lot of business since we moved here -- most recently a re-repair of one of my wheels, whose bearing keep breaking from driving on my pock-marked road. I brought the car in just in case he had some ideas about a cheap fix, and immediately he suggested I get screws from the hardware store and we'd take it from there. When I came back, he took one of my 18-cent screws and twisted it thru the base of the mirror and into the mirror itself. Voila! Farooge wouldn't even take a tip. A temporary solution to a dangerous problem, and all for under a quarter! Gotta love life in the Big Village.