How to Move to New Paltz

Utilikilts in New Paltz

2011-07-09T09:14:00.003-04:00

I've just bought my first (and second, and third) Utilikilt. They're really comfortable, and they appeal to the non-conformist in me.

It turns out there are at least two other guys in NP who wear a UK. I met one at the community pool, and Shirra drove by another yesterday. She didn't have time to stop and chat, but she did manage to roll down her window and shot "I like your kilt!"

Enough Snow Already!

2011-03-23T09:21:00.003-04:00

NYC is getting a bit of rain today. For them, Spring has sprung. But just 80 miles north, winter has reared its ugly head once again.

Here it is, the first week of spring 2011, and the forecast is calling for 4 to 9 inches of snow today. In the time I took to write this, our backyard went from green to white. The NOAA winter weather warning prophesied snowfall starting at 10 am, but it actually began at 8:30 this morning. My guess is that this means that the higher estimate -- 9" -- is going to prove to be more accurate.

Perhaps this is to make up for that 70º day we had back in February; that was the day I thought marked the end of Winter 2011. Silly me -- don't I ever learn that a freak warm day does not a season make? In fact, the day after that warm day, the temperature plunged back into the 30s and stayed there for weeks. It warmed up again recently, and once again I thought we were in for nice weather and an early spring, but apparently winter had one more trick up its sleeve.

School was just dismissed early; the big kids are getting sent home at 10:35 after a half day, and Maeve will be let out at noon. I'm just hoping that the fluffy white stuff doesn't really stick; I have to drive into Manhattan around 1 pm today.

Squirrel problems

2011-03-12T19:37:00.002-05:00

We've had rodents in the cottage before, but for some reason they weren't a big problem last time. I know we've had a little vole and maybe even a squirrel, but somehow the problem just seemed to go away on its own. Then a few days ago, while cleaning up the lower level, I heard scuttling above me. Shirra was upstairs, but as I expected, she wasn't scuttling. Sure enough, the rodent man who came by today confirmed that we have a squirrel or even a squirrel family. I went to check on the cottage later, and as I walked in, I spotted a puffy tail scurrying up the stairs. There wasn't much I could do, so I left the windows and door open and hoped that the little creature would skeedaddle on its own. There were many scuff marks by the windows in the lower level, and clearly the squirrel was trying to burrow out of the house, so perhaps it will clear out on its own.

If not, there's option B: Pay the rodent folks. They offered, for $700, to close up the chimney vent with mesh covers top and bottom and to bait some live traps that they'd check on for four days straight. Sounds like that might do the trick. Option C is to allow the squirrels to chew thru some wires and burn the cottage down. I'm hoping we can avoid that option.

It's a Dog's Life

2011-02-26T00:02:00.013-05:00

One of the things about moving to the country is that you're hard-pressed to find a reason not to get a dog at some point. It was tough enough avoiding dog ownership when we lived in a big house in Brooklyn. The cats saved me; while they lived, no dog would cross our threshold. One by one, three of them died off. Then, just as our last cat was on his last legs, Shirra got a call from her friend Merry announcing that a dog was available should we want it.

I had last owned a dog when I was three. I should say that my mother owned the dog and that my father tolerated his existence for a few years. When the dog developed urinary tract problems, as many pugs do, we had to send him away to a dog farm, or so my mother told me*. I have no actual memories of Poochie, who departed only a few months after my brother arrived, but apparently I loved him, and photos of that time support the notion that he was cute. But after Poochie disappeared, we owned a succession of wonderful cats, and I grew to admire them on many levels. For the most part, our family's cats have been loving, healthy, and easy to care for.

Why make your life harder by taking in a dog when cats seem so much simpler? I have always looked at dogs much as I look at the belief in a higher power, which is to say: Needlessly complicated and often quite unpleasant.

This brings to mind something I've come to believe about presidential elections. Like many people, I was thrilled that the country could elect a person of color. It won't be long before we elect a woman, and if Palin is elected, then it won't be much longer before we elect an intelligent woman. Next on the list might be a Jew or someone of Asian descent, and perhaps we'll even have a homosexual president in my lifetime, should I live long enough. But we won't elect an atheist until hell has frozen over. As for a president who doesn't love dogs? Hell will have to thaw again first. I have to face facts: This country loves dogs. And I'm living in dog country.

Shirra grew up with a wonderful dog that her family adored, and over the years she petitioned, gently, to add a dog to our home. When we -- and our cats -- lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn, this made little sense and the discussions were short-lived. But the move to New Paltz and the aging state of our last cat allowed the talks to resume. I tried to sound reasonable while deflecting the idea of getting a dog, but that reasonability is what worked against me in the end. Had I simply put my fingers in my ears and repeated, "I hate dogs," then this would have been a closed case.

Jack is a good-looking dog, and even my distaste for his kind does not prevent me from admitting it. He's an Australian Shepherd, a misnomer since the breed actually originates in the US, and compared with his breed, he's exceptionally quiet and well-behaved, lending further proof that he's not Australian.

The kids and Shirra fell in love with him right away, and I did my best to join the love-fest. But having a dog is like arranging a threesome: It will never go exactly as you'd planned and someone is bound to be disappointed. I took him for walks and eventually took him for unicycle rides on our road. He seemed to love the exercise, and I was having a good time, but before long, Merry informed us that Jack would be better off walking than jogging. It was something to do with his delicate tummy.

Had Jack joined us as a puppy, I might have been swayed. I would have memories of him cuddling adorably with the kids or hopping adorably around the house. I would have seen him scamper adorably around the garden while I washed my car, and he would have been adorable as he shook the water off himself after falling, adorably, into the bucket of suds. Instead, we inherited a middle aged dog who needs several medications a day in order to combat his intestinal problems. It's the marital equivalent of missing the honeymoon and skipping right to the part where you're too lazy to leave the room if you have to pass gas. Come to mention it, Jack has reached that point, too.

Part of my reluctance, all of these years, was the idea that owning a dog means walking a dog, which in turn means cleaning up after a dog. New York City sidewalks are repulsive enough as it is, but back in my childhood, my natural aversion to dogs was only reinforced by the many times I had to clean my shoes after stepping in one of the many poops that seemed to leap at my loafers or sneak beneath my sneakers.

When I was a kid, there was an odd woman who lived in my building named Fran Lee. During her 60s, she became an outspoken opponent of dog poop. Apparently she became so obsessed with poop that she collected bags of it. Then one day, at a meeting in my building, she made her point by bringing out a bag of poop, and I'm not sure what happened next, but I do know that she was evicted from the building.

According to my mother, Lee actually dumped some poop on a table in front of a woman who disagreed with her. In the end, however, Lee was able to bring about changes that led to the pooper scooper law. Finally, people were forced to clean up after their dogs. I've never actually heard of someone getting a ticket for failure to scoop a poop, but the law has been hugely effective in cleaning up city sidewalks. No such law governs my back yard, however. We have a fenced-in area outside the back porch, but I won't step foot out there. It's messy enough in good weather, but in winter, the snow and ice get covered in brown and yellow spots that turn our yard into my -- and Fran Lee's -- vision of hell.

One day, our unhealthy dog will be nothing more than a complicated memory, but we'll always have our $2,000 fence and some really fertile grass that it encloses.

3-D Word Hunt of February 6, 2011

2011-02-08T14:37:00.002-05:00

Will Shortz has put out another of my favorite puzzles in this week's NY Times Magazine (p. 44). The object is to find as many linked 5-letter words as you can. You can reuse letters in a single word, but you can't double a letter. For example, in the example this week (at left), you can spell DARER or DARED but not ADDER.

Shortz writes that in this puzzle, you're doing well to find 20 and very well to find 25. 30 is excellent, and he claims that there are 42 in total, of which 11 are pretty obscure*.

On my own, I found these:

ANGER, ANGLE, AMEND

BINGE, BINGO, BINIT*

CAMEL

DARED, DARER

EARED, EMEND*, ENDED, ENDER

GNATS

LEMAN*

MANGE, MANGO, MATIN*

PARED, PARER, PARLE*

RARED, RARER, REDED*, REGNA*

SCAMP, SCATS, STAMP, STAND, STANE*, STANG*, STATS, STING

TANGO, TINEA*, TINGE, TITAN

I used a word-search program to find these additional words:

ANEAR*, ANELE*, MANAT, PARAE*, RADAR

That comes to 42. I think that my 13 starred words are pretty obscure, so either he and I differ on what's 'obscure' or our lists vary from each other.

Now, in the past, Shortz and I have disagreed on the total, and I've been more right than wrong. Because he uses Merriam-Webster 11 and I'm using the list of acceptable Scrabble words (which mainly derive from MW11), we sometimes have differing lists, but he's always left off a few.

Stuck in NYC: The storm of February 2011

2011-02-02T12:42:00.004-05:00

I've been stuck in Manhattan for the past two nights because road conditions have been too snowy or too dangerous for me to make the trips between NYC and NP.

Monday was the first night of this storm. While Manhattan only got a sprinkling of white stuff, New Paltz got over a foot of powdery snow, and I needed to be in downtown NYC by noon on Tuesday, so I stayed at my mom's. The snow in New Paltz stopped, and there was a pause for a few hours while Shirra dug her car out from under what had fallen, but then Phase Two of the storm hit last night, dumping several inches of ice on the roads, making the trip home too dangerous to risk. And as it happened, I needed to be in NYC by 1pm anyway, so it made sense to stay in Manhattan once again.

I did manage to see some movies and to hang out with my mother for a few days, and that was nice. I saw "127 Hours," which was riveting and even better than expected, and then last night my mom and I went to "The Fighter." The movie was especially touching for her because her father, gentle soul that he was, loved prizefighting (and wrestling). After the film, she told me about Grandpa Sam taking her to see Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom, a famous Jewish boxer from the 1930s and 40s.

Unicycling in the Snow

2011-01-30T21:41:00.007-05:00

I've been putting on weight, and watching what I eat hasn't helped (mainly because I've been watching myself eat a lot of late snacks). I decided to start exercising again.

For years, when we lived in Manhattan and even more after we moved to Brooklyn, I used to unicycle many miles a week. At the maximum, when I was living in Prospect Park South in Brooklyn and working out of my mom's apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I rode 27 miles a day at least three (and usually ) fou

r days a week. But when we moved to New Paltz, my riding diminished initially to 4 miles a day and then, about a year ago, to almost zero. Almost unthinkably, there are days when I don't ride even one block.

In 2007, I signed up for a unicycle race across Nova Scotia, and after months of training, my pals and I rode about 170-180 miles each over a span of 5 days in the summer of '08. A few months after my return (and after recovering from various aches and pains including tendinitis in two different spots), I rode 89 miles on a September day, but I didn't ride a lot after that because a few months earlier, I'd bought my Smart Car. It's so small that I never have to search for parking spaces more than a block or two from my work, which means I can get out of the car and walk rather than ride.

A few weeks ago, this lack of action and increase in snacking brought about a scary sight on my scale: 185. When I turned 40, I decided to monitor my food really carefully and, aided by light exercise, I was able to drop from a high of 197 to about 165. I never want to see 190 again, and I'd really like to dip back under 170. With that in mind, I took to the trail. I rode our rode up and down our snowy road five times this morning and then, this afternoon, another three times. I thought it was about a half-mile each way, but according to an app that measures distance, it weighed in about about a third of a mile. All told, I rode about 6 miles today.

I'm going to keep this up as long as I can and see how it all goes.

New Paltz Restaurants: Suruchi

2011-01-30T19:58:00.006-05:00

One of our favorite places to eat in New Paltz is Suruchi. I love the 'booths' (not really visible on the left side of the photo) . You tuck your shoes under your seats and sit cross-legged around a large table. The menu offers meat, vegetarian, and vegan choices in mild, medium, and high levels of spiciness. The appetizers, breads, and dinners are delicious, and they're so filling that we never fail to return home with enough for several lunches over the following days.

Tonight we ordered garlic naan to accompany our papadam, and Maeve ate white rice with various sauces. Emmett had a delicious entree I'd never tried before. I can't recall the name of it; I'm not a food critic, after all, and not much of a reporter. I had vegetable curry and Shirra had chicken curry, and Fiona, who's braces make it hard for her to eat certain foods, did quite well with a salad and some mulligatawny soup. We finished with some deserts that sounded a bit better than they tasted. One was a sort of mango ice cream that was overly frozen and barely thawed even as we tried the other, a type of fried dough ball that might have been tastier if it weren't bathed in some type of odd sauce. Maeve and I finished with a mango lasse, a smoothie that is one of our favorite drinks on earth.

The restaurant is currently open just Friday thru Sunday; we've gone there a few times when it's been closed, and they shut down for a few months over the winter. I'm glad they've reopened.

Snow Like Crème Brûlée

2011-01-22T00:09:00.004-05:00

Today I cracked.

I would never have called shoveling 'fun,' but there was something about it that I always got a kick out of. People growing up in New York City rarely get a chance to shovel, and in the first four winters here in New Paltz, I always welcomed a chance to suit up in my tallest boots and hit the great outdoors to shovel for awhile. Sometimes I had to finish up the work of the plow man, sometimes I felt like making a luge run for the kids' sleds. Once in a while, I just felt like shoveling some snow. There was even one afternoon where I got started trying to dig out the driveway and found myself shoveling for so long that Shirra phoned to make sure I hadn't had a heart attack. I'd made it as past our driveway, past the playground, around the bend, past our neighbor's house, past the bridge, and nearly to the layby about a quarter mile away.

But this year, we've been hit hard. The timing of the first blizzard was perfect: The day after Christmas. Though we got over two feet of snow, it was light and fluffy stuff that was perfect for sledding at first and perfect for snowballs and forts a few days later. We visited my mom during the immediate aftermath of the storm, and when we found a parking spot on day one of our stay, I had to shovel for a minute before we were nestled safely next to the sidewalk, but the shoveling just added to the adventure. When it turned out that the City did its worst job ever in snow removal over the next few days, I ended up having to shovel the car out of a full-body cast thanks to the suddenly overzealous plowmen of the Sanitation Department... but that just made for a better story, too. My love of shoveling was as yet undiminished.

But that was back in late December. Then it snowed again a week later. This time, my students were back in school and I was back in business, and this meant driving into the City with a shovel in the back of my car. That shovel got plenty of use two weeks later, when the City's snow started to melt and then to freeze, creating sooty mounds of black ice, snow, and sludge. Luckily I was often able to do a bit of shoveling to get into a spot one day and then have the same spot waiting for me the next day: the advantage of having a Smart Car. At this point, I'd have still called myself a happy shoveler. At home, I didn't mind grabbing one of our many shovels -- whichever seemed best suited for the job at hand -- and going at it for five or ten minutes.

It wasn't until two days ago that I met some shoveling that I really didn't enjoy. I was in Manhattan, and I had found a smallish spot that only a Smart Car or a very aggressive Mini Cooper could possibly fit into. I prepared to back into the spot, but before putting the car into reverse, I figured I'd better shovel up some of the frozen clumps of ice that had taken up residence in my future parking spot. It so happened that it was raining softly at the time. As a result of the drizzle and the warmish temperature, there were wide rivers of cold water rushing westward towards drains that were already blocked by snow. The shoveling was hard going, and I was out of breath when I had finally managed to get most of the frozen grey stuff out of the street and into the sidewalk tree-planter next to the car. This last bit gave me some satisfaction as it clearly pissed off a doorman who could have chosen to help clear the street in front of his own building but who decided instead to make angry faces at my from inside his warm, dry lobby. At this point, sore and tired, I would have put myself squarely in the 'undecided' group if a pollster had happened to ask my opinions on shoveling.

Then yesterday, Shirra asked me to clear a path from our driveway to the propane tank near the house. While the distance was no greater than thirty feet long and two feet wide, the snow had turned our lawn into a huge crème brûlée. I tried various shovels, but in the end, I realized that I needed to choose the proper technique, too. In order to combat snow of this nature -- frozen on top and powdery beneath -- I needed to crack the top layer of ice and then scoop up the soft powder underneath. This turned each square foot of snow into a two-part job and essentially doubled the required work. My 60 square feet of snow became a 120-square-foot task, and that soon turned into a 500-square-foot burden when Shirra reminded me that I also needed to shovel a path from our road to the cottage.

Several Advils and some hot packs later, I've finally decided that the romance of shoveling is behind me. I just don't dig it anymore.

Generator!

2010-12-29T01:16:00.002-05:00

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!

Girlyman: Awesome. Generator: Ordered. Chicks: Gone

2010-11-03T12:47:00.006-04:00

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.

My Arthroscopy

2010-08-06T00:39:00.003-04:00

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....

A Fuck for a Dollar

2010-05-14T22:18:00.004-04:00

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.

Mini-Update

2010-05-06T14:59:00.003-04:00

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!

How Much Do I Love Girlyman?

2010-05-03T22:54:00.005-04:00

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.

Chicks Dig Ticks

2010-04-19T15:17:00.002-04:00

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.

Generator?

2010-03-04T14:19:00.002-05:00

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.

How NOT to Move to New Paltz

2010-02-28T00:23:00.007-05:00

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.

Smart Car Breakdown, Part 2

2010-01-17T12:58:00.002-05:00

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.

Update on Cheewawa. A Smart Car is Reborn

2010-01-01T16:29:00.002-05:00

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!

Knee Feeling Keen

2009-12-29T00:36:00.003-05:00

Pained on Wednesday, drained on Thursday. I couldn't have picked a better time to get sick. I was able to see the doctor, have a blood test, and start a monthlong course of antibiotics all within 3 hours, and since the kids are out of school and I'm not seeing students (who are all on vaca), I could sleep till 9 or 10 every morning. And voila! I'm feeling almost like new. I actually ran when the phone rang yesterday and took the stairs two-at-a-time today. My knee still locks up a bit, but moving it slowly and avoiding weird sitting positions basically keeps me feeling good.

Part of my convalescence has also involved doing normal things. Since Lyme (which I'm assuming this is) has symptoms that include irritability, it's been important to avoid sulking or doing lots of nothing. We put up shelves yesterday (ok, I helped Shirra put them up), I broke up some ice (well, actually that was mostly a total failure, but at least I got out), and I took Fiona to a friend's house and ended up having a lovely chat with the folks. Then today, we took a trip to the village to check out a restaurant in Water Street Market. The food was fine, and we had a good time thanks to a Mad Libs-style app that I downloaded for my iPhone.

Fireman No More

2009-12-25T17:46:00.004-05:00

I resigned from the fire department. I was upset about having to do so, but the minuses easily outweighed the pluses.

I joined the department in December of 2006, so I resigned almost exactly 3 years after joining. In the interim, I answered over 550 calls and helped deal with a few house fires, a handful of car accidents, two cats-in-trees, and many many false alarms at the university (and a few elsewhere). Since joining, I also started collecting items related to fire fighting, including patches of local departments as well as many different kinds of antiques (old helmets, extinguishers, pins, and even artwork). All of that's going to eBay now, with the exception of my own badge (#952, on the right side of the photo). I think I have a few hundred dollars worth of stuff - maybe close to $1000.

I loved belonging to our department. I loved helping our community, and my favorite part of it was during Fire Prevention Week, when we visit all of the local schools and day-cares to teach the kids about fire safety and to introduce the little ones to a fire fighter in gear. I also liked being known as a fireman, which carries a certain panache that made me feel proud.

I wish I could have been more helpful to the department. I had trouble remembering where some important items were on the trucks, and only in recent months did I begin to feel like I knew where most of it was. Most likely this was due to my schedule: Because I could almost never be in New Paltz during Monday night training sessions, it took me much longer to learn my way around the trucks. In addition, I didn't get to practice the skills necessary to put out fires or extricate drivers, so most of what I did on a scene was the sort of grunt work that anyone could do. Occasionally I was of some value to the NPFD, but I wish I could have been even more helpful, even more often.

My first full year, I answered about 250 calls. Last year, the number was about 170. The final tally for '09 was 130. A large part of the decline came from my decision not to rush to the calls that came in from SUNY New Paltz. That boy called wolf far too often for my tastes. It didn't help that we live nearly 4 miles (and almost 10 minutes) from our fire house.

I fully support our fire department and hope that they get the funding for the upgraded fire house that's in the works. Maybe if my schedule (and a few other things) change, I can return, but for the next few years, I would count that out.

LYME?

2009-12-23T19:52:00.004-05:00

All of a sudden two days ago, my right knee was swollen and painful to move. Initially I was hopping around, but within one day it went from annoying to almost debilitating. To my delight, my orthopedic surgeon (who'd helped with my left knee some months ago) had time to see me today. He immediately notified me that he would be draining the fluid (and that there was a lot of it) and that I might need a cortisone shot.

The weird thing about the onset of this pain and swelling was that there was no obvious cause: no painful fall, no bad twist, no overexertion. It made no sense. Then the doc mentioned that when kids come in with my symptoms, it's usually Lyme disease. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and sure enough, everything fit. The disease can come on suddenly and produces the painful swelling as well as a few symptoms I could also attest to, namely fatigue and mild irritability. Then I remembered that about six weeks ago, I was bitten by a deer tick.

We decided that the chance that I have Lyme is pretty high. Because of that, and because cortisone and Lyme don't usually mix, the only treatment for today was the fluid drainage. The syringe is huge, as is the needle, but they barely hurt going in, and the swelling and pain were mostly gone by the time they came out.

After seeing Maeve at school for a little pre-winter-break party, I went for a blood test and picked up my pills. I'll know the results of the test pretty soon, and in the meantime, just to be on the safe side, I'm on amoxicillin 4 times a day (for a month). Then I came home and took another nap.

Cheewawa is Down, but not for the Full 10-Count

2009-12-16T12:58:00.002-05:00

My beloved smart car nearly died last Thursday. I had just dropped Fiona off at the middle school and was on my way back home when the car suddenly lurched. The car behaved normally for a few more turns and then repeated its lurching, shifting between 1st and 2nd gear fairly violently. I turned the car off and on as a possible 'fix' to the problem: no luck; in fact, it got worse. I quickly considered where I could park the car without hindering traffic and where a tow truck could easily pick up the car. Eventually, thanks to the slope of the hill, the car glided into a parking lot and I pushed it into a spot.

Several frustrating phone calls later, I had discovered that my extended warranty company only covers towage up to $300 (better than the $100 that an earlier operator had told me). Still, because the car had to be towed nearly 90 miles, the charge would be over $500, leaving me responsible for the overage. When I called the tow company themselves, the dispatcher suggested Triple-A, since they have a very good policy for towing. Sure enough, the entire trip into and back from NYC was covered, with me responsible only for about $10 in tolls.

More frustrating, tho, was to discover only yesterday that the extended warranty somehow doesn't cover the problem with my car, which resided in something connected to the transmission called the switch plate. This is a piece of metal that was found to be too weak in the 2008 smart cars (like mine) and was, in the 2009 models, replaced. In other words, this is a known problem. It's a rare one, tho, and since I drive like a granny, the problem points not to my driving style but to the defect in the mechanism.

The good news is that the manager of smart center Manhattan is on my side. He was stunned that I was being forced to pay for the repair of a part that should not have broken and which is just a few steps above being recalled. He phoned the company and got them to shoulder a third of the cost, or about $300. I pick up the car later today. I hope it lasts at least another 65,000 miles before any other major repairs.

The Plowman Cometh

2009-12-09T16:27:00.002-05:00

We got a call at 7 am: AJ, our plowman, was experiencing a delay. Apparently there was something wrong with his truck.

Since school had been canceled for the day, this wasn't a big issue. Eventually he'd come to our rescue, and until then, we could hang out at home with some hot chocolate and a dog who loves snow. Emmett and Maeve went sledding and found other fun things to do outside. Fiona got an extra two hours of sleep. On the minus side:

1. Jack doesn't actually like the snow. He's ok with it, but unlike one of his old friends, he doesn't dig himself into a tunnel or galavant about in the fluffy white stuff. He just lies down in it long enough to get wet. Then he comes back in and gets everything else wet. And when he goes for a walk, he'll get everything wetter still.
2. I needed to be in Manhattan by noon. This meant leaving around 9:45 just to leave myself some extra time. By 9:00, we hadn't seen or heard from AJ, so I gave him a call. His truck was back in action (phew) and he'd be by as soon as he could.

Sure enough, he arrived just after I'd dug out my little Cheewawa from its surrounding snow. Shirra and I also spent a half hour cleaning out some of the shed's overhang so that I have my cosy little place to park the tiny car. When AJ arrived, I hopped into the Smart and drove (carefully!) down the road behind him. It was lucky that he had to leave, too, because I got stuck just before our road merges with Rte 32, and he pushed me out of trouble.

I made it to Manhattan with no time to spare, parked in a spot only a Smart can fit into, and called the day a success. Now I just have to hope that the road doesn't freeze over by the time I get home tonight.

Thanksgiving 09

2009-11-29T16:36:00.003-05:00

For the 2nd time in our four Novembers in New Paltz, we had Thanksgiving up at our house. Two years ago, we had a less-coordinated effort that still came off pretty well but was nowhere near as much fun as this go-round. It helped that we added "Beatles Rock Band" to the festivities, in keeping with the early settlers and their native American benefactors who, as we all learned in social studies class, played with beetles and rocks and wore (head)bands. Maybe not, but still, I strongly recommend Rock Band for all family situations, funerals included.

Before and after the music, there was a meal. 14 people filled our smallish dining room, requiring us to tilt the table 45 degrees (that is to say, it was diagonal) and to add side tables on either end, trapping window-side guests. Shirra cooked nearly everything we ate for the dinner -- and all of it was delicious -- tho all of the groups of guests contributed comestibles. My brother and his wife favored us with some amazing items from Trader Joe's, and my mom made two tasty sweet potato pies; Shirra's brother and his wife toted along some string beans for the meal as well as some crudite and dips. I ate more in that afternoon than in any three other days of the year.

THE BALLOONS. THOSE FRIGGIN' BALLOONS
And once again, we avoided NYC. Thanks to the circus that the balloon-inflation has turned into, there are sidewalk closures, late-night noise, and a few other hassles that easily outweigh the mild thrill of seeing the huge balloons being blown up just outside my old block. When I was a kid, it was bad enough that John and I would hear marching bands warming up at 6am outside our window (14 floors below), but in recent years, people have come out in droves much as they do for the lighting of the huge Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. The difference is that at least with the tree, what little thrill there is, it's quickly over -- basically as soon as the tree is lit up for the first time. But with the balloons, people mill past all day as if they're excited about watching helium slowly fill up a large piece of fabric. In fact, seeing Dora the Explorer with only her head and limbs inflated might be quite distressing to a little kid and is certainly pretty boring to anyone else.

I guess that people think it's cool to see the balloons in their pre-parade state as if they're catching a dress rehearsal of a big musical, but as I know from personal experience, there is quite a difference between seeing Sweeny Todd before opening night and glimpsing a flaccid Pillsbury Doughboy.

Halloween: NYC vs NP

2009-11-02T23:02:00.003-05:00

This past weekend was Halloween, and for our third year, we joined in the Halloween parade down Main Street. This year, Maeve was dressed as a Devil Fairy; Emmett went as Percy Jackson, and Fiona was a Shadow Hunter from the Mortal Instruments series. For the 2nd year, I dressed as a headless giant holding his own head. The weather mostly cooperated, tho there were a few moments of drizzle.

About 5,000 people were in attendance as usual; people come from other towns just to strut their stuff down the strip and to marvel at the ingenuity of others. I particularly enjoyed seeing the people who went as home-made Tetris pieces and the man who dressed as Super Mario.

Luxury apartment buildings have their perks, but there are unexpected down sides. My mother's building, for example, was a great place to celebrate Halloween when my brother and I were kids. Back then, there were many children in the building, and it could take ages to get to all of the apartments even after the building instituted the sign-up sheets in the elevators. The sheets meant that trick-or-treaters could quickly decide which floors to hit and in what order, but there was still the delay caused by the glut of costumed kids patrolling for candy. But as apartment prices began escalating, the building underwent a change in its occupants. Once it was a place for young upper middle class families, but as the prices for apartments shot past a million dollars back in the '90s, the new buyers needed more money than a typical young doctor, lawyer, or pair of teachers could afford. Many of the dwellers stayed in their apartments, as my mother has done, and those who moved out were replaced by ultra-wealthy folks whose children, for the most part, were already teenagers or had already grown up. When I was young, the A/B elevator used to have at least a dozen kids living in 5 or 6 apartments. The sign-up sheet usually boasted at least as many apartments giving away candy. These days, of the 29 apartments in that line, there is currently only one apartment housing any children; it happens to have three, tho one or two of them might be too old for dressing up and seeking candy. In a few years, the kids in this apartment will grow up, and unless some new kids move in on that side of the building, there will be no children on the A/B line. The sign-up sheet this year was all but blank -- only two apartments were taking trick-or-treaters. I guess there was little harm in that: the entire building doesn't have enough school-age inhabitants to fill a small school bus.

Halloween is yet another reason to move to New Paltz. And don't even get me started on how the Macy*s Day parade has ruined Thanksgiving for me. That's a story for another blog.

How NOT to Tow a Car

2009-10-31T11:08:00.005-04:00

We packed up the soccer kids into Shirra's minivan and started down the driveway. The car felt odd; I got out to inspect, but I knew what it was before I'd looked: The car had a massively flat tire. It wasn't just a big soggy. By the time we noticed it, the tire was practically off the rim.

Luckily we've always belonged to AAA. I sent Shirra off in my Aztek and phoned for roadside assistance. Within an hour (ok, exactly 59 minutes later), the tow truck had arrived. The driver phoned me from the bottom of the hill. We decided that he'd drive past the car, turn around, drive past again (this time facing the right way), and then put the minivan onto his flatbed so that he could tow it into town. Then his truck got stuck in the muck.

He tried to rescue himself, to no avail.

So he called for backup. As I write this, another truck is en route from Beacon. It's going to reverse itself in our neighbor's driveway (nearly a quarter mile away), back up thru the curve, and pull my guy out. From that point, it should all go as planned.

I Tooted in Anger

2009-10-19T22:09:00.002-04:00

Maeve asked me to drive her to school today as a little treat. She seems to enjoy the bus, but we always have fun singing on our way to school, and she loves sitting beside me in the little Smart Car. When we got to the school, I decided to drive in the equivalent of the supermarket fast lane. This is an area around the right side of the building with a lollipop turn: You drop off your kid and, seconds later, drive off. It's only one lane wide and is closed off with a curb on both sides.

The woman in the minivan in front of me let her kid out of the door. Then another kid got out. Then a third. I was beginning to expect some clowns to step out of the car next. The clown who exited the car turned out to be the mom. She left the vehicle, chatted with a teacher, and then noticed something one of the kids had left in the car. She went back to the car, retrieved the item, and went into the building to give it to the kid. On her way back to the car, she talked some more to one of her kids and made a quick appointment with a passing teacher. Meanwhile, since we were kept from leaving, the queue was getting so long that cars were starting to have difficulty entering in order to drop off other kids.

Finally, Clown Mom started walking back around her car to get in. Just to make sure that she didn't get any ideas about going back to run a few more errands, I gave my car a little toot. As she started to get into her car, I hear her tell the teacher, "I think he must have bumped his horn by accident." Nope. And you're lucky this wasn't happening in Manhattan, Clown. I would have been sitting on that horn, and I wouldn't have waited quite so long.

Food Review: The Bakery

2009-09-25T14:48:00.003-04:00

Just off Main Street, down North Front St and next to one of the two bike shops in New Paltz, sits a free-standing building aptly named The Bakery. It's grown to a pretty large building these days; apparently it used to be quite cosy. According to one reviewer, there was a time when it could only seat 5 patrons. These days there is a fairly spacious downstairs area for placing orders and grabbing the local and state newspapers. Thru the rear door is a lovely little outside eating area. Upstairs are tables for several dozen customers as well as a play area for toddlers. It's a wonderful location, and in many ways it's the heart of New Paltz. The only things not working for The Bakery, it's sad to report, are the coffee and the food.

Minor quibbles, I know. A bakery used to be known as a place to get a tasty croissant, some pain au chocolat, or a cookie or cake. And this place has them all. There are also soups, salads, sandwiches, and other comestibles, as well as quite a few drink choices such as tea and chai. But lately the quality, which seems always to have been suspiciously low, has gone down. Call it a victim of the current economic trend, but when times get tough, some bakeries tough it out by raising prices or by purchasing less expensive ingredients. The Bakery seems to have opted for choice 2.

When we moved to New Paltz just over three years ago, we were thrilled to find a convenient local bakery, and when Shirra opened her store across the street from it, we thought that the gods were smiling upon us. Shirra lamented early on that the coffee was substandard, so she trekked a few yards up the hill to *$$ rather than saving money with The Bakery's weak and off-putting version. Shortly after that, however, we got a surprise in one of our toilets that put the kibosh on The Bakery for food, too.

One fall morning, one of the kids called Shirra to the bathroom. The material in the toilet was inhumanly green. We'd seen this once before and chalked it up to someone eating lots of veggies, but this time it was like something that had come out of a tube of green paint. And that's when Shirra remembered that the kids had been eating one of their favorite glazed yummies at The Bakery the day before. The green-hued poop earned its colors from a witch cupcake. If you're using so much dye in your food that a person shits grass-green, it's time to alter your formula. Since that wasn't happening, we did the next best thing: We altered our formula. Now, if the kids want baked goods, Shirra makes them herself or buys them at Muddy Cup. Now that's a great place for an afternoon snack!

Very Impressed with the Pigeons of NYC

2009-09-16T09:43:00.001-04:00

On Sunday, I arrived back at my car, parked for 24 hours on 81st St and Columbus, across from the Planetarium. The car had been hit by 5 pigeons. 4 managed to score on the glass top of the car, but one enterprising pigeon got extra points for landing some guano right on the driver's side door handle. Wow. What really amazed me is that the nearest tree branch is at least 50 feet above. Given the size of the car, these birds pulled off the NASA equivalent of landing an unmanned rocket on the moon.

I planned to wash the car the next morning but forgot and then ran out of time. Good thing: The next day, the car had been hit a few more times. Kudos to the birds that hit the rear part of the car -- that thing is almost perfectly perpendicular to their location. The winning strike goes to the bird that managed to land a poop right on my rear window decal. This made it extra tricky to clean, since the decal can't withstand much scrubbing.

Hats off to the pigeons of New York City. On second thought, keep your hat on, just in case.

80 Miles on a Unicycle

2009-09-15T12:49:00.002-04:00

This post isn't about New Paltz... except that the distance I rode is almost exactly the same as my daily (one-way) commute to Manhattan. So theoretically I could ride to work. Not gonna happen.

I set out this past Sunday to ride my 2nd full Century. I made it 80% of the way.

I rode my only complete Century in 2003. Last year, I had 89 miles under my belt when I had to stop due to a really bad case of saddle soreness. Basically my cheeks looked like Kris Kringle's. I was determined not to let that happen again.

This ride starts at 6 am at the northern end of Central Park, but I took off earlier than that in order to avoid the rush and mainly to give myself a better chance of finishing by 6 pm, when the ride comes to an official end.

AVOIDING DIAPER RASH
I donned two pairs of padded cycle shorts and slathered on enough chamois butter for three people. I reapplied the butter thruout the day, and as a result, I suffered no friction pain during or after the ride. I do, however, have a better understanding of the term 'numbnuts.'

AVOIDING SUNBURN
It was a lovely sunny day -- too lovely, in fact, which is how I found myself terribly dehydrated midway thru -- so I was glad that I'd remembered sun block and that the stuff still worked. I applied some when the sun finally showed up at about 7:30 and then again a few hours later. I am not sure how much sunlight can filter thru the slats of my helmet, but I didn't want to end up looking like a zebra-head.

30 MILES in 3 HOURS
That's not a quick pace, but including breaks, and given how little training and general riding I'd done in the previous 12 months, I was happy with how things started for me. My breaks totaled about 40 minutes by mile 30, but while I was on the unicycle, I had been maintaining a 13.1-mph pace, which is quite fast given the frequent slow-downs and stops along this ride. I mainly stayed in high gear this time since last year's ride produced a catastrophic fall when the unicycle didn't shift gears properly, pretty much ending my ride (along with the raw bum cheeks).

I figured that I had 9 hours to complete the next 70 miles, an easy enough task. I'd felt good riding the 13 miles from my mom's apartment building (81st St off Central Park, Manhattan) to rest stop #1 (Prospect Park, Brooklyn). I felt pretty good riding from there to rest stop #2, 17 miles later. Unfortunately, the ride organizers had shortened the space between stops #2 and #3 without adding an addition stop between #3 and #4. This meant that riders had a 30-mile gap before the next big stop (Kissena Park, Queens). And after another hour of riding, I didn't think I'd ever make it that far.

WINDED and DEHYDRATED
It didn't help that we had a strong breeze blowing in our faces for most of the Queens segment of the ride. The bikers complained about it, too, but they acknowledged that I probably had it worse because my sitting position (on a unicycle) makes me much less aerodynamic than they are. There were plenty of times where, because of the wind and my exhaustion, I rode in low gear at about 6-8 miles an hour.

At some point I finally realized that my muscles were screaming for more water and more electrolytes, but at the time I just felt like I had lost all of my energy. When it dawned on me that I was dehydrated, I started drinking a lot more from my backpack hydration system, nearly emptying its recently-replenished 70-oz bladder. This meant that from that point on, I frequently had to stop in order to empty my own (less-than-70 oz) bladder, and since the organizers had forgotten to include even one portable toilet between rest stops, I invented quite a few of my own. Sorry, Queens.

I stopped frequently between mile 40 and mile 50, and pretty soon I had most of the gas back in my proverbial tank. During my recovery period of about two hours, I wasn't able to maintain more than 12 mph and at some points had to put the uni into low gear, but after about two hours, I was back to about 80% strength, able to keep up with some of the slower-paced bikers for long stretches.

LOST
At this point, it actually helped that I got lost. I had been riding with a pack of about 20 bikers. Whenever we came to a busy intersection, I managed to weave thru the traffic before the rest of my pack; I've been good at reading traffic ever since I began serious uni commuting 10 years ago. The peloton would pass me between stop lights, and then I'd catch up to them, zig and zag thru the cars, and get ahead once more. At about mile 50, I was feeling strong, and as I approached the group waiting for the light, I jokingly announced, "I'm making my move!" as I crossed against the light once again. By the time I looked back, I realized that I'd missed a turn (probably at that light). I was either going to have to find my way back to the course (impossible, since I didn't have a map), return to the spot where I'd gone off course (perhaps adding an additional mile to my ride), or I could ride straight to Kissena Park (rest stop #3), which I discovered was just two miles away. I opted to shorten this part of my ride, and I arrived at the 60-mile rest stop after riding just 53 miles. It was about 11:30 am.

I was more than halfway thru the 100-mile mark in under half the time, but I began to admit to other riders that it was very unlikely that I'd complete the full Century. Pathetically, I managed only 27 more miles in the remaining 4.5 hours.

FINAL REST STOP and the SILLY BRIDGE
After Kissena Park, I set out for the Astoria Park rest stop about 20 miles away. I was feeling better thanks to all the water and electrolytes I was consuming, but I still needed to take breaks just to get some blood flow back into my groin. Because of the long pauses I'd had to take earlier on, I arrived at the final stop -- mile 81 or so for everyone else, mile 74 for me -- too late to have a good shot at finishing 100 miles by 6 pm. I chatted with two guys who were riding a tandem (same ratio of rider to wheel as me, I pointed out, but apparently they still had an easier time), and eventually we all headed off.

This last little stretch (of about 5 miles) stupidly involves a bridge that has an incomplete biking section which forces riders to carry their cycles up and down several series of steps. I have no idea why Transportation Alternatives continues to use this bridge on the route, but it was the final nail in the coffin for my Century chances since it slowed us all down as, like little ants carrying grasshoppers to the anthill, we all made our way across the span. Last year it happened to be worse -- there were more of us trying to cross at the time -- but it still took over 10 minutes to get across about a mile of space. I arrived at the finish line, having ridden 78 miles, at 5 pm. I briefly considered pedaling around the park at least once more, to add 5 miles to my trip, but I decided to call it a day and head back to my car, 2+ miles away. It wasn't 100 miles, but I was happy with the ride, especially considering my lack of preparation, the heavy wind for about 20 miles, and my ability to fight back after that dehydration.

AFTERMATH
I took a strong hot shower (my mom's apartment building has firehouse-power water pipes thanks to old plumbing) and remembered that same experience last year when I could barely tolerate even the coolest mild drip on my ruby-red cheeks. Soon I was driving back to New Paltz, feeling fine. Later that night, I awoke with a weird pain in my wonky left knee, but it went away by the following morning. I have only one muscle that's even slightly sore: my left bicep (!) from holding the extention on my uni. For the first time after a ride over 80 miles, I was able to ride a unicycle the next day.

Truck Fire

2009-09-11T00:02:00.004-04:00

As I drove home yesterday, I saw a police car racing south on I-87. I figured the officer was chasing down a speeder, tho I hadn't noticed anyone driving fast on the other side of the highway. Then a second police cruiser zoomed past. This was curious. Where were they headed. It occurred to me that maybe they were rushing to the scene of an accident.

Up ahead, I spotted more flashing lights and initially figured that the accident must be just up ahead of me. I was partly right, but the lights I saw weren't rotating blue and red; they were blazing orange and yellow. Soon enough I noticed the flames and the truck they were attached to. The driver of the truck had pulled off the road and was about 200 feet ahead of the blaze. Presumably he'd noticed a problem, pulled onto the shoulder, and gotten out to alert authorities.

As I drove past, I could feel the intense heat radiating off the truck. It must have been over 1000 degrees.

Within a few minutes, the road was closed off behind the truck; it isn't really safe to drive past fully engulfed trucks, as they do have a wee tendency to explode. The police shut down the highway for a few minutes, and after three more drivers had passed me, I had the eerie experience of being the only driver on the road for miles and miles.

Last First Day of School

2009-09-10T23:02:00.004-04:00

Maeve is 5 and is off to kindergarten. She had fun in pre-school at the Huguenot St. cooperative, but that program only went 9-11:30 or 9-12 (depending on kids' ages), so Shirra and I were thrilled whenever summer came and her camp took her for the full day. She's a confident kid who enjoys wherever she is and whoever she's there with, so the longer she can have fun outside of home, the better. After all, we get plenty of her on the weekends, during our fabulous summers, and before and after the school day. We're thrilled that she's the kind of kid who enjoys school and isn't afraid to grow up.

We're not afraid for her to grow up, either. We've always believed in shepherding our kids into the world so that they can be strong, independent, and happy people. I can understand how other parents get weepy at the thought of their children leaving the nest in one way or another, but really, isn't that the point of raising children? To my way of thinking, there's something unrealistic or almost selfish about crying when your little one goes off to school for the first time. Don't be sad to see them onto that bus; be thrilled that they're about to begin that big adventure! It's an exciting day.

This change-of-pace is especially thrilling when it's your first kid or your last kid. With Fiona, we assumed the best, and our expectations were exceeded. She had a great time in kindergarten. It helped that I was a teacher in her school; I got to see her all the time, even visiting her classroom once a week for a special activity. We sent Emmett to the same school when he turned 3, and even before that, he'd already had a great time in his 2s program at the Brooklyn Montessori; he didn't even look back at us when he ran into that classroom for the first time. Maeve has already had a few good days and has made some friends; she likes her teacher and the assistant teacher. We're excited for her. It's only a matter of time until she's bigger than her backpack.

Bad Store Manners

2009-09-09T17:43:00.002-04:00

While waiting to buy something at Dedricks (off Main St -- doesn't everyone know Dedricks?), I noticed a woman who appeared to be in front of me but who was talking on her cell phone. She wasn't talking loudly, but she was in the middle of a conversation. When the counterwoman asked to help whoever was next, I glanced at Ms Cell Phone expectantly but figured she would have stepped up to the cash register if it was really her turn. So I handed the cashier my items. Ms Cell Phone took her mouth away from the phone long enough to tell the cashier that she was next. The cashier told Ms Cell Phone that she couldn't help a customer who was talking on the phone.

No, there isn't a sign posted to this effect. Ms Cell Phone was right about that. But she was wrong to be piqued. After all, she was talking on the phone while waiting to be helped in a store and while standing in front of other people in line. How many things can she do at once? The cashier was right (and brave enough) to point this out to Ms Cell Phone, who got annoyed and threatened to take her business elsewhere.

I nearly said something. My alter ego, Voice of Society Man, has rested quietly for three years since we moved to New Paltz. I've always reckoned that the person you give the finger to one day could be sitting beside you at at PTA meeting the next. Ever since we've been in New Paltz, I've been extremely careful to keep VoS Man from donning his superhero uniform in order to put people in their place. But it nearly killed me to hold my tongue. Here's what I almost said:

"You're right. They should have a sign posted about not talking on a cell phone while waiting to be helped. They should also have a sign telling you to say please and thank you. And another sign to ask you not to slam the door on the way out. And another sign reminding customers not to let their kids knock all the shit off the shelves. If only there were more signs telling us how to behave. How are we to know?"

Two (Better) Weeks in Martha's Vineyard

2009-08-31T12:44:00.003-04:00

We just got back from our tenth annual mecca to Martha's Vineyard, and this time, I think we got it right.

This particular vaca requires a lot more driving than most. Of course there are trips where the whole purpose is to see America as you tootle around in your mobile home, and I'd love to plan one of those some day when the kids are grown up. Maybe Shirra and I can forgo the mobile home and take a smaller, greener car instead. But our two weeks on the Vineyard are supposed to be relaxing. Last year, I set the car's odo at 0 when we arrived and discovered to my disgust that we'd put on more than 500 miles. The year before, it was over 700! So I'd just about had it with MV when we arrived this time. After all, I drive 1000 miles a week as it is.

LESS FUDGE and ICE CREAM...
As soon as we arrived off the ferry into Vineyard Haven, we shopped at our favorite spot, Murdick's Fudge. Only there had been a sad transformation. Beverly, the lovely woman we'd seen for the previous 8 years, was no longer there. Her coworker, a lovely young woman we'd seen for years and had assumed (incorrectly) was her daughter, was still on hand, but in Beverly's place was a gangly teenage boy who, while helpful, lacked the charm of our old friend. Things worsened when we checked out the Murdick's in Edgartown a week later. At that location, all of the people we'd come to know over the years had been replaced by young Slavic women, repeating a bizarre trend seen at several other stores across the island. This was a real downer, but the good news is that after the E'town experience, I'm no longer a slave to fudge. And while I still have to lose the 5 or 6 pounds I put on this year, I'll have an easier time in years to come.

Similarly, we are no longer beholden to the wonderful flavors of Mad Martha's Ice Cream. It used to be that any trip to Vineyard Haven, Oak Bluffs, or E'town meant stops at both Murdicks (to replenish the eaten fudge) and Mad Martha's, where each of us would buy some huge amount of home-made ice cream. But a few years ago, the small island chain sold its stores, and the new owner seems to have done away with the 'home made' part. We haven't been back since. And of course, every Mad Martha's store is now almost completely run by young Slavic women. I have nothing against the Slavs; they're always helpful and do a fine job, but it was nicer when we had a stronger connection to people who actually lived year-round on the island.

...MORE BEACH!
Another reason we took in fewer fatty calories this time is that we made far fewer trips to the big towns. Most days we spent at least a few hours on Squibnocket Beach or, twice, Lucy Vincent Beach. Since the kids are older, we have less to worry about, so while we still kept an eye on them (especially at the windy and wavy Lucy V), Shirra and I got in a lot of reading and relaxing. So did Fiona, for that matter. She was more interested in reading than in swimming, and she worked hard to avoid getting tan, which she pulled off quite well, returning home even lighter than when we left, if that's possible. Hats, long sleeves, and 50 SPF will do that for you.

Another reason we enjoyed this trip more was that we had a lot of friends to hang out with. Early on, we connected with our friends Holly and Sandy and their two kids, whose sexes and ages matched our big two. We got together with them on three occasions: once at their rental home just a few lazy miles from our cottage, once at the cottage for Emmett's birthday party, and finally a few hours at Squibby. Emmett has celebrated all ten of his birthdays on MV, but this one was by far his favorite since he had a good buddy to spend it with. The two boys (and the girls) ran around the Inn's grounds with the kite that Emmett had just gotten as a b'day prezzy. Meanwhile the parents, as well as my brother, his wife, and my mom, all hung around chatting for hours.

A few days later, we reconnected with a couple we'd met a few years ago at the Inn. Like us, they both graduated from Vassar, so we had that in common, and they also live in NYC. Their son is 3, but he's as physical and verbal as many 4-year-olds, so Maeve and he were able to have a great time together. Soon after that, we all made more friends with other couples with children, as it often happens.

OLD FAVORITES
* Shirra had fun visiting her friend Susan, who runs the country's first (and only?) fiber CSA out of her home near Edgartown (she's sort of in "Edgarvillage" on the outskirts of the main town). After visiting her, we got to walk around E'town and visit some of its shops.
* No trip to Martha's Vineyard would be complete without a visit to the Flying Horses carousel in Oak Bluffs. We went on the Emmett's birthday since we were already planning to be in OB for some jetskiing. Emmett's birthday got off to a great start: Jetskiing (during which time the president's helicopter, Marine One, flew right over our heads as we waved) followed by the carousel (where Emmett got the brass ring twice, entitling him to two free rides). Shirra couldn't ride a jetski this time since she'd recently broken one of her pinky bones, so I took Maeve and Emmett. We had a great time, hitting 45 miles an hour and scaring ourselves to shrieks.
* We also had fun getting dinners to go (or to stay) at the Galley, a little take-out joint down the hill from our inn in Menemsha. The kids fell in love with their veggie burgers, and my mom usually had a tasty grilled cheese sandwich.

NEW FAVORITES
Thanks to our Vassar buddies, we learned about a few quiet spots to buy wonderful tomatoes or blueberries, but better still was our trip to the weekly make-your-own-pizza party down in nearby Aquinnah. This party has been going on for years. We went with the Vassar folks and ended up running into Susan and her hiree, Erin, also there for the first time.

So now we have more reasons to return than ever: our friends. And we managed to drive fewer than 350 miles this time. And we even left a few things for next year that we just didn't manage to get to this time (like a visit to the Chilmark graveyard). For once, I can't wait to go back.

Berkshire Fire Department Woes

2009-07-01T12:35:00.002-04:00

I got a note on facebook from a friend who took the Firefighter One (FF1) class with me in the summer of 2007. She reported that half of the Berkshire Fire Department had resigned, presumably in protest of the hamlet's vote yesterday against the building of a new fire station. Apparently the current station is hopelessly outdated and is cramped and unsafe.

This is interesting in light of what's going on in New Paltz. Because of the recession (and maybe some other fiduciary reasons), our mayor froze all of the budgets under his power. This even meant that our department has to put in a special request to him whenever we want to buy drinking water, for example, or soap to wash the trucks.

In response to this, a local named Butch Dener put together a rally to raise money for (and bring cases of water to) our fire department. I think about 500 people came out, and we received about 250 cases of water and several thousand dollars. It was a great event, and I'm sure it was the start of a new tradition.

My friend tells me (via facebook) that the chiefs and most of the Berkshire FD resigned, including everyone I knew from FF1. She said that in addition to the station being in shambles, there is a piece of apparatus that's out of service pending necessary repairs and that there were other problems with the department (notwithstanding the terrible morale of the fire fighters).

The resignations could have some serious implications down the line. It will put a great strain on the surrounding fire departments and means trouble for anyone in Berkshire who is foolish enough to start a house fire or drive a car into a tree. I'm hoping that the problem is resolved quickly -- maybe some emergency funds will turn up, or the town will re-vote. My fear is that it could cause a trickle effect as FDs around the state decide that they have to follow suit in order to make a case for their needs.

Here is the article from yesterday's Berkshire online news (from a local station there):

BERKSHIRE VOTES DOWN NEW FIRE STATION
By WBNG News
Story Created: Jun 30, 2009 at 10:36 PM EDT
Story Updated: Jun 30, 2009 at 10:37 PM EDT
The Berkshire Fire Department will not get a new fire station..
By a vote of 220 to 171, taxpayers rejected a proposal to build a new facility. The price tag was about 1.5 million dollars. Village tax rates would have risen to about a 1.70 dollars per thousand of accessed value. Lines to vote were out of the door here at the current station which is 53 years old.
"I voted no because the taxes in New York state are terrible and we don't need no more addition. Can't afford it," said Berkshire resident, Robert Price.
Those in favor of the project said the current station is too cramped and doesn't properly hold all the department's vehicles. The department will now examine the possibility of renovating the current station.

Deer and Rabbits and Bears, Oh My

2009-06-17T18:46:00.002-04:00

There have been lots of woodland critters around our property lately. When driving around New Paltz, I'm always careful to stay on the lookout for a deer that might suddenly dart in front of my car. My little Smart Car would probably take a huge hit if I struck a deer, and my windshield is relatively close to the front of the car and quite 'flat,' so a deer strike would be bad for me, too.

Less dangerous but far more numerous are the rabbits. They dart in front of the car all the time as they run away from their nibbles. You'd think they'd have ravaged our garden, but happily they seem quite content with the plants that we consider weeds. I once came across a flattened rabbit on our road, but I'm pretty sure that it was accidentally mowed down by our neighbor's truck, and thus far, I'm unaware of having killed any wildlife larger than one unfortunate toad.

Yesterday while driving into Manhattan, a police car zoomed by me, and then a few minutes later, I came around a turn and found the cop car protecting drivers from crashing into the carcass of an adolescent black bear that had obviously wandered onto the roadway and been hit by some passing auto. I'd heard about them in the area, and bears have occasionally been spotted in New Paltz, so we're careful not to leave food (and garbage) out for the bears, but this was the first time I'd ever seen a bear, live or dead. Poor thing.

Controlled Burn

2009-06-01T01:27:00.002-04:00

The fire department was up early today: We had a controlled burn at 8am, and we had to be at the station an hour beforehand.

A controlled burn happens when a homeowner volunteers a house to be razed so that we can hone our skills. I'm not sure whether it benefits the homeowner financially, but my impression is that it doesn't. Maybe it's just a relatively inexpensive way to take down a house that was already falling apart so that you can eventually build a new one. My hope is that we can one day offer our house up for the fire department. We love the land our house is situated on, but the house itself is uninteresting and on the small side for a family of 5. When the kids all head off to college, it might be time to move back to the stone cottage down the hill and give the current house up to the elements (specifically: the fire and water elements).

I was stationed at the water hole. It's not normally an exciting designation, but it was important for me to learn how to draft water from a standing water source, like a pond, and now I can handle that duty pretty much on my own. We ended up getting a bit more practice than anticipated -- you never know how much water you're going to need until you need it. Initially we filled the tanker truck twice with water, and as the burn proceeded, we filled it up 3 or 4 more times. The truck we were on (43-14) is used for drafting water from a hydrant or natural water source and flowing that water into a tanker truck that transports 2200 gallons to the scene, where it can be put onto another truck or, as in today's case, flowed into a pool from which the trucks can suck up the water for their own use when needed (as in, right away). Then the tanker comes back to us for more water.

The burn went extremely well. No one was injured, and we kept the burn away from the neighboring trees and homes. Controlled burns can quickly turn into uncontrolled disasters if they aren't handled well, but we have an awesome little fire department, and I'm happy with how it all turned out today. Driving past the charred remains, it was hard to imagine that a cute little blue house had been standing there just a few hours earlier.

More Books I've Heard

2009-05-25T12:30:00.002-04:00

I've listened to a good number of books since October. I stopped obsessing about writing down each title as well as some of the other information, but I remember some of them.

I tried a few Steven King books. Blaze (written under the nom de plume Richard Bachman) struck me as a modern Of Mice and Men. It was fascinating as a tale, and the reader (Ron McLarty) did a magnificent job. Carrie, read by Sissy Spacek, was much more powerful as a novel than as a movie, and Spacek is a fantastic reader – perhaps my favorite female voice over all. I later had the pleasure of hearing her read To Kill a Mockingbird. I also listened to King’s The Gunslinger, but despite a superb reading, I didn’t find the book to be my cuppa.

Sun Tzu’s Art of War was fascinating. With the wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's fascinating to listen to a voice from the past tell us exactly why we're doing such a bad job with our military.

Homer’s Iliad has to have been one of the most boring things I've ever been exposed to. I imagine that the Odyssey is much more captivating, but the Iliad is a long laundry list of battles and soldiers interrupted by several different ways to describe evisceration and death. If it were shorter, then it would have at least been ... well, shorter. I made it thru 5 of the 17 discs.

Mary Wollstencraft’s Frankenstein was a great reading, but I found the book quite frustrating. Dr F is basically a jerk, and his 'monster' is truly a hero who should have been spared great suffering. It felt as if the author didn't have empathy for her creation, sympathisizing instead with the man who abandons his baby in a revulsion. I persevered, but it was hard to listen to the whole story.

David Baldacci’s Total Control was very exciting. It's about a conspiracy to bomb a plane and to subvert the economy, and it was written before 9/11, so it must have sounded a bit far-fetched at the time.

A friend of mine, LJ Ganser, was the reader for Nicholas Sparks’s A Bend in the Road. I loved the reading but ended up hating the book. It's a lot like a Mary Higgins Clark novel where a perfectly good plot is destroyed by the intrusion of supernatural elements. As for the Sparks book, even tho the writing was a bit treacly, I was in tears at the end of the book.

Recently I finished listening to all three biographical or autobiographical books by Rick Bragg:
Ava's Man is an awesome tale about the author's grandfather, a carpenter who makes moonshine on the side and who fathers 7 children. Bragg does an amazing job bringing to life the world of the rural South in the 1900s-1930s.
All Over but the Shoutin'is an account of Bragg's grandmother, Ava. It runs from about the 1920s to the 90s and includes a good deal of information about many of Bragg's other relatives.
The Prince of Frogtown is my favorite Bragg book. This one focuses mainly on Bragg's father, a soldier and alcoholic who once saved baby Rick's life during a croup incident by shoving enough salt down his throat to induce vomiting. The book alters between reminiscences of Bragg's father as well as a fond examination of the boy who becomes Bragg's stepson. I plan to listen to this book again when Emmett and I drive to Minnesota this summer.

I've continued to devour anything by Alexander McCall Smith. He writes the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books as well as the Sunday Philosophy Club series and a few free-standing books like 44 Scotland Street. They're all wonderful, and there is something about his writing that is so deliberate that it makes it feel like you have to exhale, slow down, and smell a few flowers.

One advantage audiobooks have over their paper equivalents is that occasinally you get an amazing reader. No one holds a candle to Oliver Wyman. His readings of the Tim Dorsey series are truly hysterical, perhaps as much fun as the material itself. Wyman’s gifts are so amazing that I had to re-check the cover of one of the books to make sure that there wasn’t actually a female reader handling some of the voices. Wow! As for the actual novels: Dorsey, a former newspaper writer in Florida, writes about his home state with reverence that you wouldn't expect to find in books that follow the life of a serial killer.

Excuse Me, Is This Row Taken?

2009-05-22T09:40:00.003-04:00

I attended a showing of a film at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema in manhattan. The house mainly shows art films or indies, so its 4 theaters are rarely overcrowded. The 10 pm showings are especially lacking in patrons. In New Paltz you'd at least be more likely to run into a friend if you decided to take in a late flick, but in NYC, I knew that I'd be sitting by myself. What I didn't realize is that I'd have my own row.

As I arrived, I counted no more than a dozen filmgoers in a long theater that could have seated all of us in the front row. A couple had taken two seats in row F. A woman sat behind them and to the right. Two rows behind her was another woman. I sat in the row between them but a few seats over. I would have liked to sit a wee bit closer, but I didn't want to be the weirdo who squishes into a row when there's a perfectly good one a little further back. What's 3 feet, after all?

Behind us, patrons maintained the pattern. As more New Yorkers arrived to take in this French film, the decent rows ran out, and people had to make decisions. They typically sat on or near the aisle, far from the other person already in the row. Shortly, the couple in row F was joined by three chatty young foreign exchange students. They greeted eachother amiably, and the exchange girls took their seats right in front of my nearest neighbor. To my amazement, the woman in row G didn't move or act huffy. It was as if she didn't mind sacrificing a little of her space as well as he sight-lines. Perhaps she even wanted to pretend that she wasn't attending a film by herself.

I didn't go to a movie on my own till I was in my 30s. It felt weird, like the moment in "The Lonely Guy" where Steve Martin's character enters a restaurant and has a spotlight placed on him as soon as he requests a table for one. I've seen a few movies solo recently, and each time, I've been tempted to ask another singleton, "Excuse me, but would you like to sit together so that we could pretend that we're not alone?" It's not that there's anything wrong with being alone -- sometimes it's lovely -- but I've always thought of movies (and restaurants) as places where people go as part of a couple or a larger group. It's a bit like sex. See a movie with a friend, and no one gives it a second thought. See a movie by yourself, and it's like you're masturbating. And that's just something I'd rather not do in public.

He's Still Fightin' Them Fires!

2009-05-14T13:23:00.003-04:00

Coincidentally, Dillon and I had lunch today. I was in Manhattan early and decided to treat myself to lunch at my favorite restaurant, Blossom. It's a vegan place across from Zingone's, the market we've shopped at for the past 43 years, near 82nd and Columbus. As I was entering, I spotted Dillon finishing his repast at the bar. The server motioned for me to sit at the next seat. After I finished eating, I headed to my office.

And then, as it happens, I saw his car again... only this time, it wasn't the blue sedan from last week. It was a maroon Sable, parked in front of the same hydrant right outside his apartment building. This time I was parked just up the block. He could easily have snagged a legal spot: the street cleaning sign requires people to keep cars off that side of the block till 12:30, or a few minutes before I saw him.

Maybe next time I'll sit with him in his car and have take-out while we wait till 12:30 so we can leave the car in a legal spot. Yeah, that'll happen.

Matt Dillon, Fire Fighter

2009-05-12T21:58:00.007-04:00

Did you know that Matt Dillon is a fire fighter? Apparently the 45-year-old New York native and thespian heartthrob is also one of New York's Finest. Well, at least according to the placard I've seen twice in his car when he parks his blue sedan in front of a hydrant on the block where he lives.

I've spotted Dillon a few times on the block where I grew up, and I've also seen that blue car with the fire fighter decal parked by the hydrant on several occasions. But I had no reason to put the two together until last week when I saw Dillon after the two of us had bought candies at the newsstand on the corner of 81st St and Columbus Ave. I hadn't recognized him yet, but I noticed that the two of us had parked up the block and that he was getting into the car just back of mine. It turns out that I had parked my car directly in front of Dillon's when I arrived to tutor several hours earlier. Mine was in the legal spot just east of the hydrant, and his was parked behind my car (and next to the hydrant).

Cars rarely park by the hydrant, of course, so I took notice of this automobile, and I spotted the "Active Fire Fighter" placard on the dashboard. I'm not sure if it could prevent him from getting a ticket, but I can tell you that it's the real-deal placard, one which he has to have gotten from a fireman buddy of his. I'm pretty sure that's illegal, but what do I know; maybe there is a provision in the law that allows for actors to display FDNY placards in their cars in case they have to make an emergency shoot on some nearby set.

As we started to get into our cars, I smiled and pointed to the New Paltz Fire Department sticker on the back of my car. I knocked on his window and when he rolled it down, I asked which department he's with. That's when I realized that this was Matt Dillon. He smiled awkwardly, nodded but didn't speak, and rolled his window back up.

I guess he's with the Movie Shoots and Ladders department.

(Dillon's actual placard)

This is My 200th Post. Now I've Added Labels

2009-05-10T23:53:00.003-04:00

Shirra taught me how to label posts. Yes, it only took me two years and two hundred posts to learn this.

Most of the posts are about general New Paltzy things, of course, but there are repeat items mentioned thruout, like the fire department, my Smart Car, and shopping.

Looking ahead, it's hard to conjure up what the next 10 posts are going to be about, let alone the next 200, but here's one guess: taxes. That's because the way things are going, taxes are going to go up everywhere, but to make matters worse, fire departments everywhere are losing members. Perhaps this is due in part to many of the newer (and younger) members having to work extra jobs, which takes them away from their volunteer work. Whatever the case, if New Paltz's fire department goes pro, every resident of the town and village will see their taxes shoot up several hundred dollars on average as the department costs would rise from about $600,000 to about ten times that amount.

Start saving those pennies.

Getting Hitched

2009-05-09T02:16:00.002-04:00

I don't often pick up hitchhikers. For one thing, you don't see them too often around here -- at least not when I'm traveling. Every once in awhile, tho, the timing is right, and today was one of those times.

The owner of the thumb was named Ben. I guess some would characterize him as a hippie. Some might even call him a "Dead head" because he has spent a lot of the past two years hitchhiking around the US (crossing it twice) while catching a lot of Grateful Dead concerts. He explained that he spends a lot of time camping, sometimes around New Paltz, often spending a month in the woods on a self-imposed retreat. I didn't get the impression that he is a stoner or someone who is avoiding life. Rather, he struck me as a younger version of a good friend of mine who spent many years figuring out what he wanted to do before finding steady work, getting married, and having two kids. I mentioned this to my new friend with the undertone that perhaps he, too, would satisfy his wanderlust and find a way to conform... just a bit... to society at large.

During our conversation, I realized that no one in my family has ever taken permanent work in a business office. I used to teach, and now I tutor, so the closest I've come to office life is when I met with colleagues at my old school. Shirra owns a shop, and before that, she spent most of her time chasing after three kids. My brother is a composer and pianist who has, of late, been touring with the Paper Bag Players. I can no more imagine him working in an office than I can imagine him growing a second head. Shirra's brother is a teacher. My parents are psychiatrists. Shirra's parents worked as teachers and actors. Going back to earlier generations, we find rabbis, business owners, musicians, doctors, salesmen... but no office workers.

Somehow I don't think that this is a coincidence. For one thing, our family is fairly eclectic. Office work seems to require a certain level of conformity that I don't possess. Teaching requires it, too, but to a lesser extent, and even that was difficult for me at times.

The closest I came to working in an office was when I had to dress up nicely in order to work a few weeks in a doctor's office for a summer job in college. It was a sweltering summer and the office was only mildly cooled, so I arrived sweating from my bus rides and stayed warm throughout the day. It was around this time that I decided to avoid any job that mandated tie-wearing or mass transit. This was in 1986.

I once tried my hand as a telemarketer when I was looking for summer work back in my college days. I lasted two days at that job. I have worked as a waiter, house painter, busboy, Barbie Knit-Magic displayer, flier distributer, tanning booth operator, research assistant, and probably a few other jobs that I've forgotten. My teaching posts allowed me to express myself somewhat in my clothing choices (as long as I wore long pants rather than shorts), and I biked or unicycled to work for over a decade. I guess that some people would characterize me as a hippie. Right on, man.

Friendship in Its Many Forms

2009-05-01T14:45:00.004-04:00

People used to believe that the Inuit had many words for snow. They don't, really. But I thought it might be handy to have a list of the many types of friendships out there.

MATES
At the top of the list is what Australians call mateship. Basically, mates are like brothers -- such good friends that they'd put up with practically anything from each other. Sometimes mateships form naturally among like-minded people, and sometimes they occur as a result of belonging to a tight group, like a gang. I think that they're even more closely tied than BFFs. Mates are extremely protective of each other. If your wife kicked you out, a mate might take you in almost indefinitely. Most people are lucky if they have even one mate. Mates don't share secrets even under pain of death or jail time.
Checklist
Would put you up in their home: Indefintely
Will attend your funeral? Yes
Actually care for you: Probably

BEST FRIENDS
There's no clear distinction between 'mate' and 'best friend.' Maybe they're identical, tho with 'mates' I get the impression that going out for a pint now and then is a requirement, whereas best friends seem a bit more sedate. You could tell a secret to a best friend, but if death or jail time became involved, you might find your friendship changing to something else.
Checklist
Would put you up in their home: A week, give or take, owing to normal circumstances
Will attend your funeral? Yes
Actually care for you: Definitely

GOOD FRIENDS
This is to make the distinction for that grey area between BEST FRIEND and FRIEND. To me, the GOOD FRIEND is one of a small group of people whom you could depend on for a variety of things, from a spare bed when necessary to a last-minute movie date that involves postponing a few errands or finding a babysitter. Good friends are the ones who laugh at your bad jokes and would be happy to drop everything to help you. You can depend on seeing each other pretty often, too.

FRIENDS
This term is pretty loose these days. I guess that in its highest form, a friend is someone you can confide in pretty confidently and who will be happy to hang out with you or to chat on the phone. There is no expectation that you 'should' get together at certain holidays or religious events, but it would be nice if you did. Friends are last level where you'd expect them to attend your funeral.
Checklist
Would put you up in their home: Three nights, max. After that, you're either out, or your relationship is even stronger than you thought. Like the saying about fish (after three days, they start smelling bad).
Will attend your funeral? Yes, unless something really important intervenes.
Actually care for you: Yes, and would probably cry at that funeral

BUDDIES
These are people you hang out with well, but you're not about to make plans to see each other often.
Checklist
Would put you up in their home: One night, max
Will attend your funeral? If convenient.
Actually care for you: Probably, but no tears at the funeral.

ACQUAINTANCES
In the Venn diagram of social circles, an acquaintance is a narrow pointy oval. Your lives barely overlap, and you certainly don't yet know each other enough to be friends. As for the funeral: They'll find out about it and remark, "Oh, he's dead? I knew that guy. We were friends."

One thing they don't tell you before you plan a move from City A to City B is that your friendships will be tested. Some will dissolve, others will change to a different level.

Stop & Shop Scanners

2009-04-28T09:21:00.004-04:00

Last month, Stop and Shop introduced scanners in 100 of its stores, including the one in our very own New Paltz. I was surprised to find how easy they are to operate. I'm no slouch when it comes to electronics, but I still defer to Shirra when it comes to hooking up the DVD player or getting the computer to interface with our external hard-drive. So if I can get a scanner to work, anyone can.

Scanners save you time because you don't have to wait in line for a cashier. You simply scan an item and put in in your bag. Oh yeah -- make sure to have some shopping bags with you, or else you're just a doofus who likes to waste time and plastic.

Anyway, once you've finished shopping, you simply scan a barcode reader at the self-check-out lane and pay. Voila! You're done. And so far, I've had almost no trouble with the scanners, and everyone I've spoken with has praised them to the sky.

Some people have a complaint about them, however: the cashiers. I spoke last week with one of the more experienced associates, and she told me that she's afraid that scanners are going to take jobs away. She lamented the fate of high school seniors, moms with empty nests, and other people who need an entry-level job. It might only pay a smidge over the minimum wage, but a job at S&S still gives a person health benefits, work experience, and a few bucks towards the rent.

Some shoppers refuse to use the scanners out of a sense of loyalty to their fellow workers. I'm hoping that the company finds an alternate use for its employees. Maybe they could use workers to increase the paltry number of floor walkers, resulting in a better shopping experience that would enrich S&S over its cross-street rival, Shoprite.

53rd Biggest Loser on the Planet

2009-04-22T23:07:00.006-04:00

As of this afternoon, I am now the 53rd biggest loser alive. I owe it all to online Boggle for the iPhone.

My brother's great friend Dave showed me a fun app on his iTouch called Wurdle, but after a few weeks, I got tired of it. The funny thing is, it's a much better application than the one I play these days. Wurdle's interface is huge, it uses the up-to-date Scrabble dictionary that I'm familiar with, and it has other niceties that make the game more fun, including better sound effects. Most of all, it doesn't always give you great sets of letters, so sometimes you have to struggle to score a few points.

Shake & Spell, on the other hand, has a tiny interface (I try to come up for air now and then so that I don't damage my surgically enhanced eyes). It uses the most-recent-but-one dictionary, so there are plenty of 'words' that I know from the new Scrabble update, like ZAS, that aren't allowed. But worst of all, it constantly creates blocks of the same common letters: E A T. This means that in about 8 games out of 10, you have to type the same tiny, annoying words. How many times have made these words? ETA EAT TAE TEA ATE ....

The only thing in S&S's favor, really, is that it hooks you up with other live players. Games generally take place with people playing the same board a few minutes apart (if not a few hours or days apart). If you keep enough games going at once, you can almost always turn on your machine to see a few games waiting for you. And with the most recent update, you can add friends and request games with a small group of people that you've come to trust.

Cheating abounds. Until they fix a few things, the game makes it easy for people to generate high scores using online Boggle solvers. But it's easy to recognize the cheaters and to avoid them.

When I first joined S&S, I noticed that there are thousands of players. You immediately get a ranking based on the points you score, and you mainly score by accruing points gained over opponents. If you win 200-199, you get a point. So after a few days, I found that I was ranked about 2500th overall. A few weeks later, I broke into the top 1000. I began to wonder about those people with really high scores. Do they have a life? Since most games are 3 rounds, if they have a win-loss total of 600-400, their winning percentage isn't too high (60%), but they've played 1000 games averaging about 3 minutes; they've spent 50 hours playing Boggle! That's over two full days!

At some point, you cross a line. It's one thing to play a few games now and then. It's another to play really well. But it's entirely different if you play all the time. And it's not like you can do a lot of other things while playing Boggle on a two inch interface. I think I'd rather see a drunk driver than encounter someone driving under the influence of Boggle. You can't brush your teeth while boggling. You can't read. You can't chat on the phone. You can't really do anything except ignore your favorite TV shows.

When I broke into the top 100, I started paying close attention to the time I'd spent on the game. It's getting out of control. And now I'm rated number 53 and gaining fast. My winning percentage is 82.4%. And I'm the 53rd biggest loser on the planet.

Bad Smells

2009-04-14T01:20:00.004-04:00

Even I knew that living in the country meant living with a septic tank. Ours is buried in the ground several hundred feet from the house, creating a plateau that might one day allow for a small ice skating rink.

What I didn't know is that having a septic tank involves taking care of a septic tank. In the same way that elementary-schoolers think that hamburgers come from, uh, the supermarket, I sort of assumed that septic tanks took care of themselves and didn't involve participation on my part. Luckily, having a water-treatment facility in the country is a lot easier than having to slaughter your own food, but there is some work involved. OK, it only involves flushing some powder down your toilet twice a year, but still... What I now know and will never forget is the smell of that powder.

It comes in a happy box that seems to radiate health and the great outdoors. Shirra remembered last night that we'd missed our moment to take care of the tank back in January. It was that time of year again. It's easy to remember, since we only have to take care of it on July 1 and then on the first of the year. It's just that we'd never stayed home afterwards.

The directions on the box are pretty simple:

1. Pour contents into toilet.
2. Flush.

There should be two other steps:

3. Hold nose.
4. Stay out of house for 4 hours.

So last night we went to bed with the entire house smelling like a latrine. Happy New Year.

Crunching Sane Hash: Church Shenanigans

2009-04-04T18:12:00.004-04:00

How could a person resist?

Before .................................................................................................. After

Juggling Three Cars

2009-03-30T13:25:00.005-04:00

Our first car was the Pontiac Aztek. We saw it advertised on "Survivor" and decided it looked cool and had features we liked, such as the tent you can add onto the hatch. We bought that tent, and it's still in its box 8 years and $190 later.

Shortly after we moved to Brooklyn, we needed a bigger car. The Aztek seats 5, but we often found ourselves taking friends with us, and after Maeve was born, we didn't have room in the car for even one passenger. We bought a 2004 Honda Odyssey, and two years later we traded up to the 2006 model. Those cars helped us in the move to New Paltz -- they both had fold-down (or removable) seats and could handle at least 30 small boxes each! And when I started driving to Manhattan at the beginning of this school year, the Aztek served my purposes pretty well. I'd had to repair various things over the years, and the repairs were getting pricey, but I thought I was going to run that car into the ground before getting a new one.

Then I saw my first Smart, back in late April of 2008. Suddenly I realized that I had an answer to a problem I hadn't even realized I had. The Smart is less than 9 feet long, just over half the size of the average car. I bought an 'orphan' (a car someone had ordered but had then forsaken) a week later at a time when the economy seemed strong and the wait for Smarts was over 18 months. Looking for parking in Manhattan would never be the same. I used to park the Aztek in the first available spot I saw, then unicycle from wherever that happened to be. Often, that was a mile away. Another time I was late for an important meeting because I spent over 40 minutes parking and ended up on my old block (114th Street) -- nearly two miles from my office.

Third World Problem: I now use the Aztek so seldom that its battery is constantly dying. This started happening when we lived in Brookyln. There, I'd unicycle everywhere, and the 'Tek often languished in the garage for weeks. I killed that battery so bad, I even needed to have it replaced. And since buying the Smart, I've had to charge the Aztek almost once a week, which is about as often as I use it.

Rather than calling Triple-A or having to put two cars together with jumper cables, I wised up years ago and bought a small portable car charger. It's the same kind that AAA uses when they arrive on the scene to give you a boost, and it's only about $100 for the unit, which lasts a long time. But since it's only good for one or two charges at best before recharging, it's a good idea to have a 2nd unit. I now have one charger in the basement at all times, plugged in and ready to go, while the other is in the Smart in case I run into a problem ... or in case I decide to help out some stranded motorist. I've done that three times so far.

Selling the Aztek might have been a decent idea a few years ago, when we discovered that its trade-in value was about $7,000, but at this point, it's probably worth under a grand, so we might as well get out of it as much as we possibly can. I do have to take it into the shop soon, however. I need to update its registration, and it needs a new brake light and a few other minor repairs. One of these days we'll have to break out that tent -- maybe when the weather gets warm. That's what we say every spring.

New Highs in Hypermiling: 50 mpg!

2009-03-29T00:37:00.005-04:00

I'm now driving slower than ever. Remember that I travel at a time of day when fewer cars and trucks are on the road -- I couldn't drive 50-60 mph during rush hour, but at 1 in the afternoon or 8 at night, it's not a big deal. I just have to keep an eye out for trucks bearing down on me, and when I see them, I speed up a bit and let them pass without having to slow down.

So over the past month, I've worked at maintaining an average speed of 55 mph. Using the pulse & glide technique (where I speed up to 60 and then coast back to 50, repeating ad nauseam), I've been able to achieve incredible success in stretching my gas pennies further than usual. Over the first 100 fill-ups, I averaged about 44 mpg. But over the last four tankfuls, I've managed almost 50 mpg! I keep track of my mileage at fuelly.com

This means that my average trip takes a few minutes longer each day, but that gives me a few extra minutes to listen to my audio books or to play some music. My P&G'ing keeps me more awake than when I'd drive using cruise control, and I love the car and arrive at my destination in a great mood.

Church Anagrams

2009-02-22T22:06:00.005-05:00

I couldn't resist. As an inveterate wordsmith and someone who's played Scrabble in tournaments for the past 15 years, I couldn't resist the chance to put a twist on the huge sign outside the mega-church.

Each week, the church changes its sign, always proclaiming something uplifting in 2-foot-tall letters. But two weeks ago, the church came up with something that I instantly anagrammed to something hilarious, and I just had to make the change.

But then, being the nice guy that I am, I put the letters back.

The Weirdest Playlist in the World

2009-01-22T21:48:00.003-05:00

When I arrived home last night, I realized I'd just played what might have been the weirdest playlist in the history of humanity.

Many linguists have noted that it doesn't take a lot of words for a person to put together a sentence that has never been uttered before. Here's one: Rational cows wrangle parking boogers.

My tunes started out fairly normal. I listened to a few songs from Erran Baron Cohen's "Songs in the Key of Hanukkah." My favorite is the opening track, but I couldn't find a link to it, so here is a link to the 2nd song, "Dreidel." It's a combination of holiday klezmer and rap, with some other styles thrown in, and it's so boppy that it's definitely not just for Hanukkah.

Next I went to some microtonal music by Easley Blackwood, Jr. The scale we're all used to playing has 12 tones, but he has written music with many more notes per octave. The result is music that sounds like it came from another planet, but some of his pieces are hauntingly beautiful, and I find myself drawn to them. My favorite is Opus 28 #3 (Suite in Four Movements).

Then it was on to some solid rap music: "Lookin' Fly," by Murs (featuring will.i.am). My other favorite of Murs is "The Science," an impressive song about the history and struggles of African Americans.

Now, there are probably a lot of people who have listened back-to-back to some Murs and then some Notorious B.I.G, and I'm one of them. I put on a few songs including "Gimme the Loot." Notorious B.I.G.'s murder remains unsolved, but it's safe to say that he came on strong and went out just as fiercely.

It's possible that this playlist wasn't weird enough, so just for fun, I ended with a show tune: "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HeasqkO1Ko&feature=related," from Showboat. The version I've linked to features Helen Morgan, but I much prefer the most recent Broadway production's version by Lonette McKee. The song was written by P.G. Wodehouse (who wrote the famous series of "Jeeves and Wooster" books).

Challenge: Can you put together an even weirder playlist in under 6 songs?

How Many New Paltzers Does It Take to Screw in a Lightbulb?

2009-01-10T18:43:00.003-05:00

Actually, the question should be: How Many Steps Does It Take...

Our house came with sconces outside of each door. We rarely use them. The front door sconce is easy to open, so when the bulbs blew last summer, it was a matter of minutes before they were replaced. The side door sconce is another story. In fact, it might as well be on another story, because changing the bulbs required a ladder. Strangely, it also required a vacuum cleaner.

I had been meaning to change these bulbs for some time, but last week I realized that it was going to be an involved process and that the process would involve daylight. I would have preferred a warm, sunny day, but I settled for 21 degrees and clouds.

It was only when I'd unscrewed the two screws atop the sconce that I noticed that there was bug detritus -- dead flies, eggs, wings -- all around the base of the bulbs. Simply replacing the bulbs might have led to a short circuit or other problems, so the situation called for a vacuum cleaner, meaning that I'd have to operate a vacuum from the top of a ladder that was resting on several inches of snow.

Normally, the changing of a lightbulb requires these steps:
1. Remove old bulb
2. Replace with new bulb

My operation was a bit more complex:

1. Acquire ladder from our nearby shed; place beside door
2. Grab screwdriver from kitchen shelf; place in pocket
3. Ascend ladder
4. Remove 2 screws from sconce

5. Place sconce on handrail of stairs
6. Remove bulbs
7. Descend ladder; discard old bulbs
8. Grab vacuum cleaner; reascend ladder
9. Remove doo-hickey around light fixture; vacuum. Repeat two more times

10. Descend ladder again; put down vacuum cleaner
11. Grab new bulbs; reascend ladder

12. Screw in new bulbs
13. Replace sconce top
14. Replace sconce screws
15. Replace ladder in shed
16. Replace vacuum cleaner in house.

Of course, because I couldn't even remember using this light, I had to check that it was working as soon as I'd replaced the first bulb, meaning that there were at least two more steps in this process. The above list is just a shorthand for my next bulb-changing.

This Post Cost $152 (or, How Not to Drive up My Hill)

2009-01-08T12:24:00.004-05:00

Last night, I spent $152 to get my car from point A, about 300 yards from my house, to point B, my house. In fact, I really only needed to move the car about 3 yards; that is, from point A to point A-point-zero-zero-one.

The car got stuck on a slight uphill in the vicinity of my our neighbor as I drove home last night. Owing to slick conditions -- it was still raining, and there was slush and ice on our road -- I could not safely drive faster than about 10 mph as I went over our bridge. I walked home and explained that I was going to dry some traction sand (that's the two bucks) and also might try putting on one of our new Autosocks. Autosocks are tire covers made of Kevlar and other strong materials; they're designed to help you drive in slick conditions. The problem is that the company hadn't yet sent the small ones for my Smart Car, so I decided to try the larger size socks intended for our other cars. This is not advisable.

The socks worked great, but one of them got stuck inside the wheel near the axle. I could drive, but I couldn't drive fast or else I'd cause my own car fire. As a fireman, it would be even more embarrassing that usual if the fire department arrived to put out a car fire only to discover that I had started it. I took the car to our garage and paid Farooge $20 to remove the sock. As expected, the sock was torn, and since you can't just order one of them, I have to buy a new pair, costing $100. So far I'm out $122.

Shirra was hoping to go to her Pilates class this morning. In fact, she was counting on it. But owing to my confusing plans, she had to take the kids to school instead of relying on me. That brought the total to $152.

Follow-up:

When I arrived at Shirra's store an hour after writing the above post, there was a box waiting for me. It was the Autosocks for my Smart Car. They'd arrived yesterday but were given to the owner of a neighboring store. He normally brings things over right away, but Shirra's store was closed yesterday. Ah well.

Let's Take It to the Bridge

2008-12-15T14:30:00.002-05:00

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

2008-12-12T00:18:00.005-05:00

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

2008-12-08T17:16:00.002-05:00

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

2008-12-02T13:03:00.006-05:00

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

2008-12-02T12:53:00.013-05:00

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

2008-11-26T22:51:00.006-05:00

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)

2008-11-26T13:51:00.005-05:00

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

2008-11-25T17:57:00.003-05:00

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

2008-10-22T06:44:00.005-04:00

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

2008-10-22T06:25:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-17T22:53:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-11T00:39:00.001-04:00

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

2008-10-11T00:33:00.001-04:00

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

2008-09-08T14:47:00.004-04:00

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

2008-08-18T00:07:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-16T23:37:00.010-04:00

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

2008-08-03T02:51:00.000-04:00

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

2008-07-21T22:32:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-13T23:41:00.004-04:00

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?

2008-07-10T23:08:00.005-04:00

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

2008-06-11T01:53:00.002-04:00

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

2008-06-06T11:04:00.006-04:00

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

2008-05-31T15:03:00.002-04:00

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!

2008-05-21T23:08:00.002-04:00

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

2008-05-13T15:27:00.007-04:00

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

2008-05-12T17:23:00.003-04:00

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

2008-05-10T15:57:00.004-04:00

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

2008-05-08T23:56:00.002-04:00

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

2008-05-07T22:07:00.003-04:00

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

2008-05-05T15:09:00.004-04:00

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

2008-05-02T23:44:00.002-04:00

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

2008-04-23T14:04:00.002-04:00

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

2008-04-23T01:01:00.003-04:00

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

2008-04-22T08:06:00.003-04:00

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)

2008-03-25T07:59:00.003-04:00

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

2008-03-24T06:21:00.002-04:00

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

2008-03-16T00:39:00.002-04:00

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

2008-03-12T11:08:00.004-04:00

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

2008-03-07T22:33:00.002-05:00

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

2008-03-05T10:34:00.002-05:00

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

2008-03-03T11:26:00.002-05:00

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.

iPhone, uPhone, We All Phone for....

2008-02-27T23:08:00.003-05:00

Two days after I got the Tilt phone, I happened to be typing away on it at the bank when one of the tellers asked me about it. He showed me his iPhone. The next day, I had one too.

Most cellular phone companies will allow you to take a phone back within the first two weeks. I didn't hesitate. I needed to return the Tilt, but unfortunately, the mall kiosk where I got the Tilt doesn't carry iPhones. This meant I had an extra trip ahead of me, and even tho Emmett's half-birthday party was in full swing, I left Shirra with the kids (traipsing thru the snowy woods) and zoomed thruout Poughkeepsie taking care of these errands. I have turned into a laconic driver since moving to New Paltz, but suddenly I reverted to my formerly aggressive habits (the ones that made me the scourge of Israeli taxi drivers back when we rented a car in Tel Aviv for two weeks). As soon as I got home, I connected the phone to my computer, only to discover that our iBook G4 -- a brand new computer when we plunked down nearly $2,000 for it just 4 years ago -- isn't compatible with the even schmancier iPhone.

About 5 years ago, Apple switched from its truly pokey operating system called OS9 to the much more artificial-intelligency OSX. It never occurred to me that our particular brand of OSX would be unable to play with the iPhone -- after all, this computer can still download songs from iTunes and surf the web, so why would compatibility be an issue? And our OSX was the most advanced version of OSX available that could run pretty much any programs made for Apple: OS 10.3.9.

Alas, an iPhone needs to run on OS 10.4.10 or higher. But it turns out that there is a huge gulf between point-3 and point-4. The newer operating systems all have names like Tiger, Panther, and Leopard, but ours is apparently so archaic in comparison that we should be referring to the 10.3s as Mammoth, Mastodon, and Mitt "Bling Bling" Romney.

Happily, there were some temporary solutions. The day after I got the iPhone, I synched it with the computer of one of Shirra's employees. Then two days later, I connected it with my mom's computer. All is well in iPhoneland at last.

Testing, Testing

2008-02-27T12:47:00.000-05:00

I'm writing this on my new iPhone, which is awesome. More on this soon.

It's AT&T for Me (for Now)

2008-02-23T11:50:00.003-05:00

T*Mobile had to go -- the coverage in our house and on the road was terrible, and just as bad was the terrible spam filter: I had to delete over 30 penis and investment messages a day. I was about to get Verizon, which everyone knows has the best reception in the area, but the service is more expensive than AT&T even tho we have Verizon for our home and the store.

Initially I went with the AT&T "Tilt." This phone is similar to my old Sidekick in that it has a small keyboard beneath a screen, but the big difference was that it had a touch screen. This was actually a minus, however, because the screen worrked better with a stylus, but I hated using the stylus. Using fingers was nearly impossible, however, even tho my fingernails are intact, because the screen wasn't sensitive enough. It was like trying to use a push-button phone while wearing gloves. I also had trouble using what should have been the easiest feature: the phone. Without going into boring detail, suffice it to say that there was nothing about the phone that one could call intuitive.

This link has a positive review of the Tilt, but it mentions something that clarifies why that phone didn't work well for me -- it's based on the Windows system, but we're Mac people. Years ago, I used a PDA that could sync with my one and only PC (bought in 1998), but I don't feel like getting another PC just so that I can use my phone effectively.