We have a generator! It wasn't as easy as buying a generator.
1. Purchase generator.
This isn't as easy a step as it sounds. How much power did we need? What's a good model? Do we want it to be gas- or diesel- or propane-powered, or is there another option? So this took us back to step zero.
0. Speak to electrician.
We got the name of an excellent electrician, and he came over to consult with us. Based on his recommendations, we went to the nearby Lowe's and got an 8000-watt, gasoline-powered model that holds enough gallons of fuel to last us a long time. It turns out that a propane-powered one would have been just fine, but John the Electric recommended the gas one because it's so easy to refuel in case the propane runs out.
2. Have someone hook up the generator.
I'd come to expect that you could just buy a generator and hook it up to your house somehow. Nope. John the Electric had to install a panel inside our house. Then he had to connect the generator to a small box that he installed on the outside of the house. The interior panel was set up to allow us to have the generator power different parts of the house, at our discretion.
3. Decisions, decisions.
This was the easy part: decide what to power in the event of an outage. We opted for the kitchen/dining area as well as the living room. The panel gave us a total of six fuses to control, but unfortunately, our well-water pump requires two of them (it's a 220 volt appliance, rather than the usual 110). Happily, because the entire living room is hooked up to one fuse, we can watch TV, check the internet, run our stove and fridge, and have on most of the downstairs lights. We can flush toilets and run the dishwasher. It's not that we'd be doing all of those things in the event of a blackout (I'm sure we could get by without the dishwasher), but it's nice to know that, should we lose power, we can still take a pizza pocket out of the freezer and heat it up in the microwave.
We just had our first snowstorm of the 2010-2011 winter, but no one lost power because the stuff that fell was as powdery as sugar. You couldn't make a snowball with it, let alone pull down any power lines with the stuff. But maybe we'll have a chance to test the generator in a few months. I'm not looking forward to it, but at least we'll be more prepared than last year!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Girlyman: Awesome. Generator: Ordered. Chicks: Gone
Forgive me readers, it's been 5 months since my last confession.
They've been pretty busy. Fiona started high school, Emmett started middle school, and Maeve started to read. The weather has changed seasons twice, or more often than that, if you include a few bizarre weeks in October.
GIRLYMAN
Planning for Girlyman's arrival and concert was a small-scale version of preparing for a wedding. You do a lot of shopping and organizing, you hope for good weather, and you breathe a sigh of relief when it isn't canceled at the last minute. Everything came off wonderfully.
The band stayed chez Stone for 3 nights. This required beds, and that required a trip to Ikea. When we discovered after the first trip that one of the beds wouldn't fit up the stairs, this necessitated Trip 2. Pillowcases and little sundries called for Trip 3. One of the advantages to commuting from NP to NYC is that I can head over to Ikea any weekday, never having to worry about going out of my way or hitting lots of traffic (or shoppers), but three trips in one week was still a bit trying. In the end, however, we made a great place for them to stay. The only important thing we couldn't get in advance was a shower curtain rod to fit in our oddly-shaped bathroom; it has two sloping ceilings. I thought that a trip to Lowe's with a photo of the bathroom would do the trick, but the salesman I spoke with said that the best I could do on short notice was to MacGyver something out of existing parts in their store. So the band did their best to keep the bathroom from getting soaked during their showers, and it all worked out fine. The rod's on order.
The concert was a hoot. The band warmed up (literally -- the sun was right in their faces until just before the show started) and then went on from 7:15 till 8:30. They played a great set that featured many (most!) of our favorite songs. One funny moment was during Doris's "Bird on the Wire" when she sang "There goes that damn bird" just as a huge heron flew overhead in wide circles. They dedicated a song to Jillian and Fiona, since they were indirectly responsible for bringing the concert together; it was Jillian who first played a Girlyman song for Fiona, who first played it for me. Before and after the concert, the group hobnobbed with our few guests and enjoyed food from our new grill (and the used one we'd just bought at a yard sale). After the show, we also ended up with many bottles of beer and hard lemonade, most of which is still around since neither of us likes beer.
One of the lovely things about the concert was that they performed right from the porch that we'd just had built a few months before. It was a lovely setting for a show.
GENERATOR (and BASEMENT)
After the ice storm that knocked out our power lines (taking our heat, water, and phones), we decided we needed a generator, but since the weather was fine and our funds weren't, this decision had to wait... until this week. Having finally saved enough to afford a nice outdoor battery, we headed over to that Lowe's again. The generator weighs in at over 300 pounds, so we're having it delivered next week, at which point our electrician will hook it up to a power grid. It's a gas-powered model, which saves on start-up costs and is quite easy to maintain. We're not happy about having to buy a generator, but it's money spent towards peace of mind, and it will probably come in handy a few times during its life.
Of course, with the generator comes the electrical panel that you want to connect the generator to. And with that panel comes the electrician. We found a great guy in the area who is also going to help us make the basement more useful by putting in a few outlets down there (currently there are only two!) so that we can move the laundry machines down there and make better use of that space. Right now the basement is sort of an insane storage area that must be navigated carefully, but in a few months, we're hoping to have a ping pong table, two sewing machines, and the treadmill all set up in there.
CHICKS
We quickly gave up on the chicken-rearing idea after we saw just how much work (and cost) these little birds were amounting to. We managed to get a chicken coop nearly for free, but then we'd also have to put up some fencing, and that could end up being pretty costly. Having your own eggs is rarely economical, it turns out -- I read somewhere that the typical store-bought organic-farm egg is about 50 cents while the typical home-grown egg is about $2.50 or so. And we really don't eat that many eggs. So with little ado, we gave the chicks to the folks we got the coop from -- a good trade. For pets, we still have the dog Jack, the two cats, and three of the guinea pigs. RIP Ambrose -- our beloved hedgehog -- who died just a day or two after the Girlyman show.
They've been pretty busy. Fiona started high school, Emmett started middle school, and Maeve started to read. The weather has changed seasons twice, or more often than that, if you include a few bizarre weeks in October.
GIRLYMAN
Planning for Girlyman's arrival and concert was a small-scale version of preparing for a wedding. You do a lot of shopping and organizing, you hope for good weather, and you breathe a sigh of relief when it isn't canceled at the last minute. Everything came off wonderfully.
The band stayed chez Stone for 3 nights. This required beds, and that required a trip to Ikea. When we discovered after the first trip that one of the beds wouldn't fit up the stairs, this necessitated Trip 2. Pillowcases and little sundries called for Trip 3. One of the advantages to commuting from NP to NYC is that I can head over to Ikea any weekday, never having to worry about going out of my way or hitting lots of traffic (or shoppers), but three trips in one week was still a bit trying. In the end, however, we made a great place for them to stay. The only important thing we couldn't get in advance was a shower curtain rod to fit in our oddly-shaped bathroom; it has two sloping ceilings. I thought that a trip to Lowe's with a photo of the bathroom would do the trick, but the salesman I spoke with said that the best I could do on short notice was to MacGyver something out of existing parts in their store. So the band did their best to keep the bathroom from getting soaked during their showers, and it all worked out fine. The rod's on order.
The concert was a hoot. The band warmed up (literally -- the sun was right in their faces until just before the show started) and then went on from 7:15 till 8:30. They played a great set that featured many (most!) of our favorite songs. One funny moment was during Doris's "Bird on the Wire" when she sang "There goes that damn bird" just as a huge heron flew overhead in wide circles. They dedicated a song to Jillian and Fiona, since they were indirectly responsible for bringing the concert together; it was Jillian who first played a Girlyman song for Fiona, who first played it for me. Before and after the concert, the group hobnobbed with our few guests and enjoyed food from our new grill (and the used one we'd just bought at a yard sale). After the show, we also ended up with many bottles of beer and hard lemonade, most of which is still around since neither of us likes beer.
One of the lovely things about the concert was that they performed right from the porch that we'd just had built a few months before. It was a lovely setting for a show.
GENERATOR (and BASEMENT)
After the ice storm that knocked out our power lines (taking our heat, water, and phones), we decided we needed a generator, but since the weather was fine and our funds weren't, this decision had to wait... until this week. Having finally saved enough to afford a nice outdoor battery, we headed over to that Lowe's again. The generator weighs in at over 300 pounds, so we're having it delivered next week, at which point our electrician will hook it up to a power grid. It's a gas-powered model, which saves on start-up costs and is quite easy to maintain. We're not happy about having to buy a generator, but it's money spent towards peace of mind, and it will probably come in handy a few times during its life.
Of course, with the generator comes the electrical panel that you want to connect the generator to. And with that panel comes the electrician. We found a great guy in the area who is also going to help us make the basement more useful by putting in a few outlets down there (currently there are only two!) so that we can move the laundry machines down there and make better use of that space. Right now the basement is sort of an insane storage area that must be navigated carefully, but in a few months, we're hoping to have a ping pong table, two sewing machines, and the treadmill all set up in there.
CHICKS
We quickly gave up on the chicken-rearing idea after we saw just how much work (and cost) these little birds were amounting to. We managed to get a chicken coop nearly for free, but then we'd also have to put up some fencing, and that could end up being pretty costly. Having your own eggs is rarely economical, it turns out -- I read somewhere that the typical store-bought organic-farm egg is about 50 cents while the typical home-grown egg is about $2.50 or so. And we really don't eat that many eggs. So with little ado, we gave the chicks to the folks we got the coop from -- a good trade. For pets, we still have the dog Jack, the two cats, and three of the guinea pigs. RIP Ambrose -- our beloved hedgehog -- who died just a day or two after the Girlyman show.
Friday, August 06, 2010
My Arthroscopy
This past June, I went back to my doctors in Kingston for the zillionth time since my knee first start acting up last October. OK, maybe it was only 8 visits, but it was over a long enough period that we weren't seeing any lasting improvements. If I took things really easy, my right knee was fine. But as soon as I did any moderate exertion -- running a few feet, unicycling a few blocks, and so on -- it started hurting again. Sometimes the pain came instantly, often followed by noticeable swelling, and sometimes the symptoms showed up the next day. The doctors admitted that I wasn't healing and finally ordered an MRI.
These days, many doctors are quick to order tests and surgeries; after all, they pay a lot better than office visits. But my docs are pretty conservative -- almost annoyingly so. And I wasn't in great pain for the most part, so we all played it safe and waited. But when the MRI came back positive for a tear of my medial meniscus, I was scheduled for surgery just days away. I wound up opting for a slightly later date because I was concerned that the operation would have put me out of commission for too long while I was still working with students in NYC. I chose July 8.
Shirra drove me to the hospital in Kingston (just across from the doctors' office) on the morning of the 8th and came back for me that afternoon at 2. In the meantime, a nurse shaved the area around my knee and chatted about the difficulties of working in that particular hospital, which isn't unionized. By 10am I was wheeled to a sort of waiting area near the nurses' station, and 20 boring minutes later, an anesthesiologist explained that he was going to give me a mild sedative.
The next thing I knew, I was back in my room with my leg covered in both gauze and, underneath, three small bandages. Apparently I don't drink enough alcohol to put up any fight when it comes to anesthesiology (this according to a woman calling from the hospital who informed me that, in her experience, the drinkers tend to do better than the teetotalers when it comes to post-op nausea). Back home, I was woozy and struggled mightily just to read a few words in a book. I eventually chose to attack a Sunday Times crossword puzzle. I would read a question and then fall back to sleep while coming up with the answer. When I awoke moments later, I'd pen in the word, look at another clue, and fall back to sleep. This went on for hours.
I had rehab scheduled for the following morning, a Friday, and by the next Monday I was off my crutches, doctor's orders. The doc also took out my stitches and showed me cool pictures of the inside of my knee. I didn't even have a limp, and within another week, I was back on my unicycle. It's amazing how fast a person can recover from arthroscopic surgery.
Now if I can just get my left knee into shape....
Friday, May 14, 2010
A Fuck for a Dollar
I love being able to find lyrics on the internet at a moment's notice. It used to be that you had to own the liner notes, which meant buying the album, and I remember being disappointed whenever I'd get a new record and the sleeve was blank. How were we to know what Queen was singing in Bohemian Rhapsody? 
Later, we all found that most CDs had the lyrics printed inside the cover of the disk, but then came the days of Napster and, eventually, iTunes. Gone were the days of liner notes, records, or even disks, and gone, therefore, were the printed lyrics. How were we supposed to know what Whitney Houston was singing in "I Will Always Love You"? So I was thrilled to learn that there are plenty of websites devoted to distributing lyrics (for free!) -- tho many of them contain errors, as I have noted in a previous blog entry.
Last month I was listening to some of my daughter's favorite tunes by a group called My Chemical Romance. In "Mama," an antiwar ditty, I couldn't make out some of the words, so I looked them up. I came across an F-bomb that I hadn't recalled hearing in all the times I'd heard the song:
"But there's shit that I've done with this fuck of a gun. / You would cry out your eyes all along."
I listened to the tune on my iPhone. The word was definitely missing; in its place was a lengthy pause. I mentioned this to Fiona, and we both agreed about how annoying it is that we'd accidentally downloaded the expurgated version. A few days later, while we listened to the song as I drove her to school, I noticed that this time, the 'fuck' was loud and clear.
Me: "You paid the extra dollar so that you could hear the word 'fuck' in the song?"
Fi: "Yeah."
Me: "Good for you, Fiona. I would have done the same thing."
I love the fact that she just had to have the correct version. It wasn't that she needed to hear the word. We are totally open about language in our house. It's that she couldn't bear having a version of the song that the artist hadn't intended.
Sometimes, a 'fuck' is worth a dollar.
Later, we all found that most CDs had the lyrics printed inside the cover of the disk, but then came the days of Napster and, eventually, iTunes. Gone were the days of liner notes, records, or even disks, and gone, therefore, were the printed lyrics. How were we supposed to know what Whitney Houston was singing in "I Will Always Love You"? So I was thrilled to learn that there are plenty of websites devoted to distributing lyrics (for free!) -- tho many of them contain errors, as I have noted in a previous blog entry.
Last month I was listening to some of my daughter's favorite tunes by a group called My Chemical Romance. In "Mama," an antiwar ditty, I couldn't make out some of the words, so I looked them up. I came across an F-bomb that I hadn't recalled hearing in all the times I'd heard the song:
"But there's shit that I've done with this fuck of a gun. / You would cry out your eyes all along."
I listened to the tune on my iPhone. The word was definitely missing; in its place was a lengthy pause. I mentioned this to Fiona, and we both agreed about how annoying it is that we'd accidentally downloaded the expurgated version. A few days later, while we listened to the song as I drove her to school, I noticed that this time, the 'fuck' was loud and clear.
Me: "You paid the extra dollar so that you could hear the word 'fuck' in the song?"
Fi: "Yeah."
Me: "Good for you, Fiona. I would have done the same thing."
I love the fact that she just had to have the correct version. It wasn't that she needed to hear the word. We are totally open about language in our house. It's that she couldn't bear having a version of the song that the artist hadn't intended.
Sometimes, a 'fuck' is worth a dollar.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Mini-Update
1. We still don't have a generator.
2. After this afternoon, we won't have chicks (or chickens) either. We decided to hold off for a year, so we're giving the adolescent birds to a friend. We didn't quite realize all of the start-up costs involved in having chickens. Even after we got the free coop, there was still a lot of fencing and other material to purchase and set up. I think we just saved ourselves hundreds of dollars and man-hours in costs and labor.
3. Girlyman is coming to play chez Stone in late June. Woo hoo!
2. After this afternoon, we won't have chicks (or chickens) either. We decided to hold off for a year, so we're giving the adolescent birds to a friend. We didn't quite realize all of the start-up costs involved in having chickens. Even after we got the free coop, there was still a lot of fencing and other material to purchase and set up. I think we just saved ourselves hundreds of dollars and man-hours in costs and labor.
3. Girlyman is coming to play chez Stone in late June. Woo hoo!
Monday, May 03, 2010
How Much Do I Love Girlyman?
Girlyman is a folk-pop group hailing from Atlanta. I first came across their tight, three-part harmonies thanks to my 14yo Fiona. The group has been around for nearly a decade, but we missed them all the years they were performing in Manhattan and Brooklyn (where they had their 2nd and 3rd shows, ever). We missed them even when they performed in New Paltz three years ago at Unison. Darn. I think part of my love for them is the way it connects me to my a capella days at Vassar (1985-8) and Columbia (1990-5). Those were some good times. But now I'm catching up, with a vengeance.
I've played and re-played some of the songs several dozen times in the past ten days, as this iTunes chart (from my iPhone) shows.I have a crush on them. I checked out their website, read their blog, and have followed them on facebook and twitter. I've read articles about and watched them interviewed in Slate.
So ... I decided that we need to do our best to support them. I offered to host them at a show here in New Paltz during one of their off days. Amazingly, they accepted!
More details to follow.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Chicks Dig Ticks
We've had a lot of ticks lately. Just last week, Emmett and I were playing catch for a half hour or so. When we finished, Emmett noticed a tick on his leg, which he brushed off. A few minutes later, however, he spotted another. We caught that one before it had bitten him and looked him over for more. In the next 15 minutes, we found another two on various parts of his body, and luckily, each of them was easily removed. In the car on the way to the mall, Emmett found the fifth tick on his leg. We stopped the car and got it off him in time. I decided to check one last place as a joke, and sure enough, there was one under the fold of his shirt collar.
The next day, we were brazen enough to play catch again before heading into Manhattan for a bat mitzvah party. En route to the City, Emmett needed me to pull over once again; there was a tick just under his ear, and this one was burrowing into his skin. I managed to get it just in time.
With this in mind, Shirra was able to convince me that we needed more pets: Chickens. Apparently, they devour ticks aplenty. Even if they don't deliver, at least we'll get some eggs in the bargain.
Right now, they're just a few weeks old and living in a storage container under a heat lamp in our bathroom. In a month or so, they'll be clucking around the back yard, cleaning up our tick problem, or so Shirra says.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Generator?
Power finally came back to us this past Tuesday, just a few hours shy of a full week in the cold and dark. I sent the kids back home yesterday afternoon and joined everyone the same evening. The house was warm and was in surprisingly good shape considering that Shirra couldn't wash a dish or sock or do any normal cleaning for most of the time she was there.
The big question now, of course, is whether to shell out the $3000 necessary to buy and install the kind of generator we'd need in case of another emergency. We've had outages in the past, lasting no more than a day, but even if we get hit again, we could get by if we didn't have the pets. It's not like we're trying to improve our property value -- Shirra and I plan to move out of that house in a box. It's a question of whether we need to shell out big time for another major storm event.
My hunch is that we'll be getting a generator as soon as we can afford it. Maybe over time it will pay for itself in food not wasted and nerves not frayed.
The big question now, of course, is whether to shell out the $3000 necessary to buy and install the kind of generator we'd need in case of another emergency. We've had outages in the past, lasting no more than a day, but even if we get hit again, we could get by if we didn't have the pets. It's not like we're trying to improve our property value -- Shirra and I plan to move out of that house in a box. It's a question of whether we need to shell out big time for another major storm event.
My hunch is that we'll be getting a generator as soon as we can afford it. Maybe over time it will pay for itself in food not wasted and nerves not frayed.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
How NOT to Move to New Paltz
We learned, the hard way, that a generator is definitely worth shelling out $2,000 for -- just in case. That 'case' happened this past Wednesday, and it isn't over yet.
TUESDAY, 2/23/10
On Tuesday, Shirra and I looked at the forecast for that evening and decided that I should stay over in Manhattan after tutoring. I've done this only a few times before, and I hate not seeing her and the kids, but with our road already covered in some snow, slush, and ice, the impending downfall would make our road nearly impassible, and the driving conditions were already getting dangerous. I stayed at my mom's apartment in Manhattan.
I left the New Paltz Fire Department this past December, but I still get the pages on my cel phone when a call comes in. Tuesday night, I saw these text messages
11:31 pm: 22 ROCKY HILL RD. TREE AND WIRES, POWER OUTAGE IN AREA.
11:48 pm: 1 BONTICOU VIEW. FIRE ON THE POWER LINES.
Both of these addresses are quite close to our house, but Shirra told me that we still had power. I went to bed nervously.
12:49 am: 30 N. MANHEIM. WIRES DOWN.
1:43 am: 120 N. OHIOVILLE RD. WIRES DOWN.
2:04 am: 30 N. MANHEIM. WIRES ACROSS ROADWAY.
8:19 AM: 225 S. OHIOVILLE RD. WIRE IN DRIVEWAY.
By then, the house had already lost power. I spoke with Shirra early that Wednesday, and she guessed that we'd lost power before 6:30. We haven't had it restored since.
WEDNESDAY, 2/24/10
Naturally we assumed Central Hudson, the Con Edison of Ulster County and its environs, would quickly be on the scene. After all, it's snowed plenty in the past, and the longest power outage we've endured was no more than half a day. The kids' schools were closed, so they hung out at home, watching DVDs on the computer with whatever power it still had and going about life pretty normally. But the forecast for Wednesday night was even worse than the previous night's. Again, it made sense for me to stay in Manhattan. I spoke with the kids a few times during the day and kept an eye on NOAA, an excellent website for weather forecasts. Things were not exactly looking up, but at least we'd heard that Central Hudson was supposed to restore our power by Thursday afternoon. That would mean we'd be without power for about 36 hours, but Shirra made sure we had plenty of water in the basement and food in the pantry. Meanwhile she walked Jack, our dog, in the backyard.
THURSDAY, 2/25/10
Central Hudson's forecast for our power restoration changed three times this day. First it was pushed back to 8 pm, but later it was bumped up to 1 pm. When those times came and went, Shirra checked the site again and found that our power outage was no longer listed in their computer. She took care of that, and we hoped for the best.
I had to make a big decision, and I took a gamble that didn't pay off. I drove home Thursday evening, leaving Manhattan at 7 pm. I didn't arrive in New Paltz till 10, having driven in the worst conditions I've ever put myself thru for such a lengthy ride. When I made it to our road, I figured I'd leave the Smart Car at the bottom of the private road in the area we call the lollipop. But then I thought that I might even make it the nearly half mile from there to our house. I gamely plowed on, making it nearly to the top of our driveway before backing the car to the bottom and leaving it there.
My reason for heading home in such hostile weather was that I'd done my sister-in-law a favor by keeping her car for two weeks while she visited China. I had to get the car back to her by Friday, so my plan was to take her car back the following day, when the weather forecast called for clear skies. This plan nearly worked.
Unfortunately, these texts came in:
11:12 pm: DUBOIS RD. TREE ON WIRES BURNING
4:08 am: NURSING HOME. ODOR OF NATURAL GAS IN THE STRUCTURE. UNABLE TO EVACUATE
... These were followed by a car accident and a flooded basement. These last three meant that the fire department would be pulled in too many directions at once.
In addition to the texts, a good deal of snow came in, too. Here is what Manhattan cars looked like on Friday morning.
FRIDAY, 2/26/10
I phoned AJ, our plow guy, and he was happy to oblige us by plowing our road that morning. I didn't have to be in Manhattan till 2 pm, but I figured an early start might be a good idea just in case the roads were poor. By 9 am, he was on the scene. By 9:10, he was stuck. His truck, not heavy enough for the work and not equipped with tire chains, had slipped off the road partially. He'd have to be towed. I decided the only way for me to make it into NYC was to schlepp to Route 32 and to hitch a ride to the bus station on Main Street. I had 45 minutes to catch my bus. I made a little sign, packed a few things for the day and for possibly another night, and waded thru snow and slush for a few minutes until I came out on the big road. It was clear that the conditions were fine. If only I'd left the Smart Car in the lollipop! Instead, I started walking toward the Village with my little sign for all to see. Just a few cars later, I was seated beside a lovely older woman who often takes the bus into Manhattan for her work. We chatted amiably, and by 10:30 I had my round-trip ticket.
I decided to walk across the street to check on the condition of our Odyssey. Shirra's car had been damaged when she drove over a boulder on our road after the snow, some time Wednesday morning. She managed to get the car picked up by Triple-A, and it's resided ever since at the Citgo Gas Station and Garage, waiting for the expensive part to arrive (scheduled for this coming Tuesday). I looked at the underbelly of the car, examining the damage, and suddenly realized that I needed to deposit a few checks at the bank before heading to The City. I hitched another ride for the quarter-mile uphill to the bank, and a few minutes later I ran back to the bus, arriving in plenty of time. By 12:30, I was at Port Authority, Manhattan, and a few minutes later, I was in my mom's apartment once more.
Chances of our power getting restored were further diminished as more texts came in.
3:14 am. 43 S. OHIOVILLE RD. TREE AND WIRES DOWN.
5:40 am. 217 N. PUTT RD. TREE AND WIRES.
7:55 am. 182 N. PUTT RD. WIRES DOWN IN FRONT OF RESIDENCE.
12:36 pm. 217 N. PUTT RD. WIRE DOWN.
As the day wore on, Shirra and I had to make some decisions about the kids and pets. Luckily, the kids were pretty easy. Shirra put them on a bus to Manhattan, and at 6:30 that evening, I picked them up after seeing a few students during the day.
The pets proved much trickier. We currently have 3 cages housing 5 pets (including Ambrose, our hedgehog, who was nearly left for dead after he curled into a hibernatory ball to try to keep himself warm). Then there's the dog. Unlike the two cats, he needs a good deal of attention and couldn't be left with friends or at the vet's. Shirra elected to stay in the house with the pets rather than to scramble to find them different homes. It didn't help that the towing of AJ's truck damaged our road a bit, because between the excess unplowed snow and the poor condition of the road, Shirra was unable to get our remaining cars over to Route 32. Essentially she was trapped.
As if this wasn't bad enough in a house with the interior temperature plunging into the 40s, we also depend on an electric pump for our well water. Luckily ours is a propane stove, so it works as long as you have a match to replace the pilot light. This meant that Shirra had to boil snow in order to have water with which to flush the toilets, give liquid to the pets, and, of course, make her tea. She also made use of the snow outside for some of her other needs. This woman is her own reality tv show.
Without the kids to worry about, Shirra could get a few different things done. She managed to trudge thru waist-high white stuff in order to visit our closest neighbors. Tho they're only a tenth of a mile away, they've had power the entire time, leading me to suspect that the outage was caused somewhere in the lines near the lollipop of our road. Shirra had her first shower in days, but her ordeal was far from over since our neighbors have also been relying on AJ for their plowing. As a result, they were trapped, too. So in order for Shirra to put the kids onto the bus that afternoon, she and the kids had to slog thru all the snow and slush until they could catch the cab Shirra had called. The driver took them to the station and then dropped Shirra back home, where she trudged the half-mile home once more. Central Hudson updates were inconsistent and inconclusive.
SATURDAY, 2/27/10
Somehow the hits keep coming:
8:52 am. 70 S. OHIOVILLE RD. WIRE IN DRIVEWAY.
3 pm. 212 PLUTARCH RD. TREE ON WIRES BURNING.
Shirra phoned Central Hudson and heard that we might be getting power restored by late this evening. That time has come and gone. It's still possible that we'll have power, light, water, and heat by morning or at least by afternoon, but I'm not counting on it, and the forecast is calling for a bit more precipitation over the next few days.
In the meantime, I've been living as a virtual single dad in Manhattan. I took the kids to see The Flying Karamazov Brothers in Greenwich Village Saturday afternoon, and we walked two miles up to Times Square afterward in order to check out the disappointing prices of the big Toys R Us store there. Our trek wasn't a total loss, however, as it took us past Madison Square Garden, where Emmett discovered that Fiona's favorite band is playing this Friday. An hour later, we have tickets for her and Shirra. I've also begun planning for various scenarios. Basically, until the power is restored, the kids are living with me and my mom. The kids are getting a great taste of NYC life. We've taken subways, buses, and cabs, walked miles of downtown streets, and done a bit of shopping and restaurant hopping. And I've gotten to spend more time on my own with them that at any other point in our lives. I wouldn't ask for a storm like this again, but I'm glad that some good has come out of it.
SUNDAY, 2/28/10
2:33 pm. 436. N. OHIOVILLE RD. TREE LIMB ON THE WIRES
Luckily that's the only further problem with wires since Saturday, but it gives an idea of what Central Hudson is up against. Early on, they reported having over 150,000 homes without power. By Sunday, that number was below 40,000. Not surprisingly, small roads like ours, where the outage only affects a few homes, are way down the hierarchy of importance, so I wasn't holding my breath when Shirra announced that the most recent forecast was for service to be restored by 10:30 Monday night. This peccable timing meant that I couldn't put the kids on the bus today because if the power was not restored, we wouldn't know about it until it was too late. It's not like the kids couldn't survive another chilly day in New Paltz; rather, the problem is that Shirra isn't ready to take them back if power doesn't come back on. There isn't a clean fork or plate in the house, we're low on food, and she's still boiling snow for water -- she's not in a position to welcome back the hordes. With this in mind, we decided that I'd homeschool the kids on Monday and continue until the force is actually with us.
Having made these decisions with Shirra, I was happy to take the kids around the City some more. We went to the Natural History Museum, where Fiona and Emmett spent some time exploring together while Maeve and I took in the Hall of Biodiversity. Her favorite fish was the Queen Triggerfish, as much for its fascinating colors as for its awesome name.
After an hour at the museum, we ran back to my mom's for a quick bite before all of us walked over to the Green Flea flea market. That's where I met Diego Paz a few years ago, the man who has sold me most of my currency collection since 2003. I bought a Philippines 1-Peso note from 1912. My mom pointed out some attractive diorama-type constructions, one of which showed a small scene of a sewing room, so I picked that up for a certain wife who was at that moment living in Starbucks, New Paltz in order to stay warm and to charge the computer. At 3:15 we cabbed it over to Shirra's folks on the East Side, where we spent the next two hours playing games and eating Chinese food for an early dinner. That night I brought them down for a few minutes to the lobby of my mom's building, which was host to a party celebrating the building's 80th anniversary as a structure. They left early, but I hung out for till nearly 10 pm, hobnobbing with neighbors in a way that few of us get to do in the nearly anonymous city of New York. I put the kids to bed a bit on the late side and made sure to get a decent night's sleep in anticipation of our first day of homeschooling.
MONDAY, 3/1/10
The end of the month came and went, leaving us in the dark. The only good news from home was that the text messages stopped buzzing in.
Homeschooling three children varying in age by 8 years isn't as challenging as some might think, tho it helps that I've taught all three ages in schools and privately for nearly two decades. We had fun. I gave the big kids some reading and math passages from age-level materials that I have while Maeve and I worked on handwriting. I gave all of the kids their own composition books, and we had fun working separately in my mom's dining room.
Later, I took Emmett and Maeve to the playroom in my mom's building, where they spent over an hour playing nicely together. Meanwhile, our good friend Dave Altman ("Uncle Dave") took Fiona to the Apple Store nearby to see about a minor computer glitch with her laptop. By 3 pm, the kids were all back up at my mom's, and Fiona ended up taking the little guys to the playground across the street for an hour or so. I saw my students and the kids mostly kept to themselves, tho the first girl I saw was happy to show the kids the dissected owl pellet that she'd brought from school.
We had a homemade dinner with Grandma, and the kids talked with Shirra while I got them ready for bed. The big moment was fast approaching: Would Central Hudson manage to get the power back to us by the appointed hour, 10:30. At 10:34, Shirra phoned me, unable to check her emotions. I commiserated with her as much as I could, given that she is spending yet another night in the dark and cold and I'm living the life in Manhattan. We confirmed our decision to keep the kids in NYC until the power has been restored in NP, and Shirra later that she'd spoken once more with someone at CH who told her that they're still on the case and that all of their remaining jobs are little ones like ours. We have nothing against the power company, which has done everything it can to ameliorate the situation, including having an operator on hand 24 hours a day to speak with customers even while crews work thru the night to repair downed lines and busted transformer boxes. The latest estimate is for late Wednesday night, but I have a feeling that Shirra could end up seeing the Muse concert on Friday before the juice is flowing thru our wires again.
TUESDAY, 2/23/10
On Tuesday, Shirra and I looked at the forecast for that evening and decided that I should stay over in Manhattan after tutoring. I've done this only a few times before, and I hate not seeing her and the kids, but with our road already covered in some snow, slush, and ice, the impending downfall would make our road nearly impassible, and the driving conditions were already getting dangerous. I stayed at my mom's apartment in Manhattan.
I left the New Paltz Fire Department this past December, but I still get the pages on my cel phone when a call comes in. Tuesday night, I saw these text messages
11:31 pm: 22 ROCKY HILL RD. TREE AND WIRES, POWER OUTAGE IN AREA.
11:48 pm: 1 BONTICOU VIEW. FIRE ON THE POWER LINES.
Both of these addresses are quite close to our house, but Shirra told me that we still had power. I went to bed nervously.
12:49 am: 30 N. MANHEIM. WIRES DOWN.
1:43 am: 120 N. OHIOVILLE RD. WIRES DOWN.
2:04 am: 30 N. MANHEIM. WIRES ACROSS ROADWAY.
8:19 AM: 225 S. OHIOVILLE RD. WIRE IN DRIVEWAY.
By then, the house had already lost power. I spoke with Shirra early that Wednesday, and she guessed that we'd lost power before 6:30. We haven't had it restored since.
WEDNESDAY, 2/24/10
Naturally we assumed Central Hudson, the Con Edison of Ulster County and its environs, would quickly be on the scene. After all, it's snowed plenty in the past, and the longest power outage we've endured was no more than half a day. The kids' schools were closed, so they hung out at home, watching DVDs on the computer with whatever power it still had and going about life pretty normally. But the forecast for Wednesday night was even worse than the previous night's. Again, it made sense for me to stay in Manhattan. I spoke with the kids a few times during the day and kept an eye on NOAA, an excellent website for weather forecasts. Things were not exactly looking up, but at least we'd heard that Central Hudson was supposed to restore our power by Thursday afternoon. That would mean we'd be without power for about 36 hours, but Shirra made sure we had plenty of water in the basement and food in the pantry. Meanwhile she walked Jack, our dog, in the backyard.
THURSDAY, 2/25/10
Central Hudson's forecast for our power restoration changed three times this day. First it was pushed back to 8 pm, but later it was bumped up to 1 pm. When those times came and went, Shirra checked the site again and found that our power outage was no longer listed in their computer. She took care of that, and we hoped for the best.
I had to make a big decision, and I took a gamble that didn't pay off. I drove home Thursday evening, leaving Manhattan at 7 pm. I didn't arrive in New Paltz till 10, having driven in the worst conditions I've ever put myself thru for such a lengthy ride. When I made it to our road, I figured I'd leave the Smart Car at the bottom of the private road in the area we call the lollipop. But then I thought that I might even make it the nearly half mile from there to our house. I gamely plowed on, making it nearly to the top of our driveway before backing the car to the bottom and leaving it there.
My reason for heading home in such hostile weather was that I'd done my sister-in-law a favor by keeping her car for two weeks while she visited China. I had to get the car back to her by Friday, so my plan was to take her car back the following day, when the weather forecast called for clear skies. This plan nearly worked.
Unfortunately, these texts came in:
11:12 pm: DUBOIS RD. TREE ON WIRES BURNING
4:08 am: NURSING HOME. ODOR OF NATURAL GAS IN THE STRUCTURE. UNABLE TO EVACUATE
... These were followed by a car accident and a flooded basement. These last three meant that the fire department would be pulled in too many directions at once.
In addition to the texts, a good deal of snow came in, too. Here is what Manhattan cars looked like on Friday morning.
FRIDAY, 2/26/10
I phoned AJ, our plow guy, and he was happy to oblige us by plowing our road that morning. I didn't have to be in Manhattan till 2 pm, but I figured an early start might be a good idea just in case the roads were poor. By 9 am, he was on the scene. By 9:10, he was stuck. His truck, not heavy enough for the work and not equipped with tire chains, had slipped off the road partially. He'd have to be towed. I decided the only way for me to make it into NYC was to schlepp to Route 32 and to hitch a ride to the bus station on Main Street. I had 45 minutes to catch my bus. I made a little sign, packed a few things for the day and for possibly another night, and waded thru snow and slush for a few minutes until I came out on the big road. It was clear that the conditions were fine. If only I'd left the Smart Car in the lollipop! Instead, I started walking toward the Village with my little sign for all to see. Just a few cars later, I was seated beside a lovely older woman who often takes the bus into Manhattan for her work. We chatted amiably, and by 10:30 I had my round-trip ticket.
I decided to walk across the street to check on the condition of our Odyssey. Shirra's car had been damaged when she drove over a boulder on our road after the snow, some time Wednesday morning. She managed to get the car picked up by Triple-A, and it's resided ever since at the Citgo Gas Station and Garage, waiting for the expensive part to arrive (scheduled for this coming Tuesday). I looked at the underbelly of the car, examining the damage, and suddenly realized that I needed to deposit a few checks at the bank before heading to The City. I hitched another ride for the quarter-mile uphill to the bank, and a few minutes later I ran back to the bus, arriving in plenty of time. By 12:30, I was at Port Authority, Manhattan, and a few minutes later, I was in my mom's apartment once more.
Chances of our power getting restored were further diminished as more texts came in.
3:14 am. 43 S. OHIOVILLE RD. TREE AND WIRES DOWN.
5:40 am. 217 N. PUTT RD. TREE AND WIRES.
7:55 am. 182 N. PUTT RD. WIRES DOWN IN FRONT OF RESIDENCE.
12:36 pm. 217 N. PUTT RD. WIRE DOWN.
As the day wore on, Shirra and I had to make some decisions about the kids and pets. Luckily, the kids were pretty easy. Shirra put them on a bus to Manhattan, and at 6:30 that evening, I picked them up after seeing a few students during the day.
The pets proved much trickier. We currently have 3 cages housing 5 pets (including Ambrose, our hedgehog, who was nearly left for dead after he curled into a hibernatory ball to try to keep himself warm). Then there's the dog. Unlike the two cats, he needs a good deal of attention and couldn't be left with friends or at the vet's. Shirra elected to stay in the house with the pets rather than to scramble to find them different homes. It didn't help that the towing of AJ's truck damaged our road a bit, because between the excess unplowed snow and the poor condition of the road, Shirra was unable to get our remaining cars over to Route 32. Essentially she was trapped.
As if this wasn't bad enough in a house with the interior temperature plunging into the 40s, we also depend on an electric pump for our well water. Luckily ours is a propane stove, so it works as long as you have a match to replace the pilot light. This meant that Shirra had to boil snow in order to have water with which to flush the toilets, give liquid to the pets, and, of course, make her tea. She also made use of the snow outside for some of her other needs. This woman is her own reality tv show.
Without the kids to worry about, Shirra could get a few different things done. She managed to trudge thru waist-high white stuff in order to visit our closest neighbors. Tho they're only a tenth of a mile away, they've had power the entire time, leading me to suspect that the outage was caused somewhere in the lines near the lollipop of our road. Shirra had her first shower in days, but her ordeal was far from over since our neighbors have also been relying on AJ for their plowing. As a result, they were trapped, too. So in order for Shirra to put the kids onto the bus that afternoon, she and the kids had to slog thru all the snow and slush until they could catch the cab Shirra had called. The driver took them to the station and then dropped Shirra back home, where she trudged the half-mile home once more. Central Hudson updates were inconsistent and inconclusive.
SATURDAY, 2/27/10
Somehow the hits keep coming:
8:52 am. 70 S. OHIOVILLE RD. WIRE IN DRIVEWAY.
3 pm. 212 PLUTARCH RD. TREE ON WIRES BURNING.
Shirra phoned Central Hudson and heard that we might be getting power restored by late this evening. That time has come and gone. It's still possible that we'll have power, light, water, and heat by morning or at least by afternoon, but I'm not counting on it, and the forecast is calling for a bit more precipitation over the next few days.
In the meantime, I've been living as a virtual single dad in Manhattan. I took the kids to see The Flying Karamazov Brothers in Greenwich Village Saturday afternoon, and we walked two miles up to Times Square afterward in order to check out the disappointing prices of the big Toys R Us store there. Our trek wasn't a total loss, however, as it took us past Madison Square Garden, where Emmett discovered that Fiona's favorite band is playing this Friday. An hour later, we have tickets for her and Shirra. I've also begun planning for various scenarios. Basically, until the power is restored, the kids are living with me and my mom. The kids are getting a great taste of NYC life. We've taken subways, buses, and cabs, walked miles of downtown streets, and done a bit of shopping and restaurant hopping. And I've gotten to spend more time on my own with them that at any other point in our lives. I wouldn't ask for a storm like this again, but I'm glad that some good has come out of it.
SUNDAY, 2/28/10
2:33 pm. 436. N. OHIOVILLE RD. TREE LIMB ON THE WIRES
Luckily that's the only further problem with wires since Saturday, but it gives an idea of what Central Hudson is up against. Early on, they reported having over 150,000 homes without power. By Sunday, that number was below 40,000. Not surprisingly, small roads like ours, where the outage only affects a few homes, are way down the hierarchy of importance, so I wasn't holding my breath when Shirra announced that the most recent forecast was for service to be restored by 10:30 Monday night. This peccable timing meant that I couldn't put the kids on the bus today because if the power was not restored, we wouldn't know about it until it was too late. It's not like the kids couldn't survive another chilly day in New Paltz; rather, the problem is that Shirra isn't ready to take them back if power doesn't come back on. There isn't a clean fork or plate in the house, we're low on food, and she's still boiling snow for water -- she's not in a position to welcome back the hordes. With this in mind, we decided that I'd homeschool the kids on Monday and continue until the force is actually with us.
Having made these decisions with Shirra, I was happy to take the kids around the City some more. We went to the Natural History Museum, where Fiona and Emmett spent some time exploring together while Maeve and I took in the Hall of Biodiversity. Her favorite fish was the Queen Triggerfish, as much for its fascinating colors as for its awesome name.
After an hour at the museum, we ran back to my mom's for a quick bite before all of us walked over to the Green Flea flea market. That's where I met Diego Paz a few years ago, the man who has sold me most of my currency collection since 2003. I bought a Philippines 1-Peso note from 1912. My mom pointed out some attractive diorama-type constructions, one of which showed a small scene of a sewing room, so I picked that up for a certain wife who was at that moment living in Starbucks, New Paltz in order to stay warm and to charge the computer. At 3:15 we cabbed it over to Shirra's folks on the East Side, where we spent the next two hours playing games and eating Chinese food for an early dinner. That night I brought them down for a few minutes to the lobby of my mom's building, which was host to a party celebrating the building's 80th anniversary as a structure. They left early, but I hung out for till nearly 10 pm, hobnobbing with neighbors in a way that few of us get to do in the nearly anonymous city of New York. I put the kids to bed a bit on the late side and made sure to get a decent night's sleep in anticipation of our first day of homeschooling.
MONDAY, 3/1/10
The end of the month came and went, leaving us in the dark. The only good news from home was that the text messages stopped buzzing in.
Homeschooling three children varying in age by 8 years isn't as challenging as some might think, tho it helps that I've taught all three ages in schools and privately for nearly two decades. We had fun. I gave the big kids some reading and math passages from age-level materials that I have while Maeve and I worked on handwriting. I gave all of the kids their own composition books, and we had fun working separately in my mom's dining room.
Later, I took Emmett and Maeve to the playroom in my mom's building, where they spent over an hour playing nicely together. Meanwhile, our good friend Dave Altman ("Uncle Dave") took Fiona to the Apple Store nearby to see about a minor computer glitch with her laptop. By 3 pm, the kids were all back up at my mom's, and Fiona ended up taking the little guys to the playground across the street for an hour or so. I saw my students and the kids mostly kept to themselves, tho the first girl I saw was happy to show the kids the dissected owl pellet that she'd brought from school.
We had a homemade dinner with Grandma, and the kids talked with Shirra while I got them ready for bed. The big moment was fast approaching: Would Central Hudson manage to get the power back to us by the appointed hour, 10:30. At 10:34, Shirra phoned me, unable to check her emotions. I commiserated with her as much as I could, given that she is spending yet another night in the dark and cold and I'm living the life in Manhattan. We confirmed our decision to keep the kids in NYC until the power has been restored in NP, and Shirra later that she'd spoken once more with someone at CH who told her that they're still on the case and that all of their remaining jobs are little ones like ours. We have nothing against the power company, which has done everything it can to ameliorate the situation, including having an operator on hand 24 hours a day to speak with customers even while crews work thru the night to repair downed lines and busted transformer boxes. The latest estimate is for late Wednesday night, but I have a feeling that Shirra could end up seeing the Muse concert on Friday before the juice is flowing thru our wires again.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Smart Car Breakdown, Part 2
Not a month after the clutch plate failure, I had virtually the same problem with the transmission: The car began again to shift choppily between gears, and I had difficulty getting it into Reverse. My hunch was that the earlier problem had only partly been fixed. I'll never know for sure. But once again, the car had to be towed into Manhattan. Each time, this happened right before a Scrabble tournament.
This time I didn't waste time; I called Triple-A and arranged for the car to be towed on the following Monday. A snafu or two later, the car wound up at the dealership, and I waited to hear the prognosis. Happily, the problem was found to be with the 'clutch attenuator' (responsible for getting the gears to shift), and this part is covered by my extended warranty. I paid the $100 deductible and saved $950 on parts and labor. Phew.
Meanwhile I'd had to drive to Manhattan in my Aztek. That behemoth wasn't too bad for parking until Wednesday, when I had to be in a spot before noon. I left with over an hour to spare and ended up using most of my extra time finding an alternate route into Manhattan when all four lanes of the George Washington Bridge's upper level were shut down. Once in Manhattan, I made good time and would have been on time for my student except for the parking issue. Grr!!!
I retrieved the car a few days ago, and it's been driving fine since then. But on Feb 7, I have another Scrabble tournament. EIMT ILLW ELLT.
This time I didn't waste time; I called Triple-A and arranged for the car to be towed on the following Monday. A snafu or two later, the car wound up at the dealership, and I waited to hear the prognosis. Happily, the problem was found to be with the 'clutch attenuator' (responsible for getting the gears to shift), and this part is covered by my extended warranty. I paid the $100 deductible and saved $950 on parts and labor. Phew.
Meanwhile I'd had to drive to Manhattan in my Aztek. That behemoth wasn't too bad for parking until Wednesday, when I had to be in a spot before noon. I left with over an hour to spare and ended up using most of my extra time finding an alternate route into Manhattan when all four lanes of the George Washington Bridge's upper level were shut down. Once in Manhattan, I made good time and would have been on time for my student except for the parking issue. Grr!!!
I retrieved the car a few days ago, and it's been driving fine since then. But on Feb 7, I have another Scrabble tournament. EIMT ILLW ELLT.
Friday, January 01, 2010
Update on Cheewawa. A Smart Car is Reborn
Amazingly, the dealership and Smart USA (the national version of the international company) agreed to foot the entire bill even tho the clutch plate was no longer under warranty and wasn't covered by the extended warranty. This saved me at least $900. The car has been fine since I got it back just before Xmas.
Hip hip hooray for Smart Center Manhattan!
Hip hip hooray for Smart Center Manhattan!
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