887 Woods, Deliveries, Dinner

Thursday, September 21, 2006

The Hairless Hunk came by this morning. He's going to finally get started smoothing and grading the woods. I was worried that he'd let it go too late. I'm not sure brush spray will work once the brush has gone dormant.

I delivered a bunch of "Pilot Log"s for the museum today. I did the Albany Avenue/Ulster Avenue/Lake Katrine sets. 45 miles, 4 hours. It wouldn't/shouldn't have taken so long and so many miles except that I had to keep going up and down the roads because almost nobody has put up a building number!!! It was my understanding that for extended 911 service, all buildings had to have a number displayed, of a certain size and placement, visible from the street. Nada. I was looking for (like) #938, and I saw #354, and then didn't see another number until #1345! I made at least four trips the length of Albany/Ulster Avenue.

At one point I saw a fire house ahead, and I thought "Well, they'll have a nice big number - they should be a good example - then I'll know whether I've passed what I'm looking for." No number. On the firehouse. No number. This is ridiculous.

Luckily I had the cell phone. I had to call three places to find out where they were.

I was also getting very upset about the street signs. If a sign existed on a cross street, which was not guaranteed, about half the time it was twisted 45 degrees, so that it couldn't be read as you came up on it. I had a very detailed map (but no block numbers - around here there aren't "blocks", streets are laid out every which way), and I figured I could just count how many streets to pass before I had to turn, but ... egads! ... you can't tell the difference between a side street and a parking lot entrance on the lower part of Ulster Avenue. (That whole section is so very ugly, depressing.)

Speaking of "no blocks", that's increasingly a problem in the village. Traffic has been increasing exponentially, left turns out of side streets, or at the major intersection in the middle of the village, are getting near impossible during most of the day. Usually, one gets around that problem by turning right and then left around a block. Kinda hard when there are no blocks. People are increasingly turning right, then left and swing through a business parking lot to go the other direction. It's only a matter of time before business owners start getting upset.

This evening I went to the Third Thursday buffet dinner in Poughkeepsie. I ate too much, and now I'm bleck. Roman was there, and again it was uncomfortable. I sat across the table from him, and stared over his left shoulder all evening. I didn't want to look at his face. We do much better on the phone than in person.

More deliveries tomorrow.