3299 Fireworks

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
-- Robert Heinlein --

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday afternoon I finally finished raking up the gumballs in the back yard. Daughter and Hercules were barbequing vegetable skewers and steaks, and I was invited, but Hercules' mother was visiting for the day (visiting from the Carolinas, stopped in on her way back from visiting her mother in Pa.), and I'm avoiding her. I suspect it's obvious I'm avoiding her, but I don't care. Every third sentence out of her mouth makes me want to strangle her, so it's a lot healthier to avoid her.

It takes less than five minutes to walk to the bay from my house, so at 8:30 pm I went to the bay to see some fireworks. Neighbor George had said that it's a good place to see them, but that last year the police had blocked access off and not allowed people down there. But last year, it was all rocks and broken cement with a sharp dropoff down to the water. Since then, the township has put in a nice paved walkway with a railing.

There was no one there. An occasional couple or someone with a dog would walk past and disappear into the distance, and that was it. A pair of policemen walked past and said hello.

Even though I was facing east, the sunset was incredible, the colors reflecting off the water. I wished I had taken my camera.

Looking north over the water I saw the fireworks from the Amboys, from a wealthy enclave above Laurence Harbor, and north and northeast several spots on Staten Island. To the west, Keyport put on THREE surprisingly decent and long-lasting shows, followed by an obviously expensive display from either Union Beach or Keansburg.

The big Macy's show (supposed to be the largest display in the country) was pretty far across the water, on barges on the Hudson River between Staten Island and Manhattan, but I can see most of Staten Island, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and the lower coast of Brooklyn, So I was able to see the higher chrysanthemums from that, plus other more local shows along the coast and inland.

Daughter, Hercules, the Nugget, and Hercules' mother and her two dogs had gone somewhere earlier in the day, probably walking in some park, I don't know and didn't ask, but about 9:15 Daughter and Hercules joined me at the bay.

Near where I had been standing, there was a tall pole, next to the path from the access road ("Authorized Vehicles Only") to the walkway. I had earlier noticed that once it got full dark, anytime anyone walked that path, there was a flash of light and a recording, "This is the xxxxx police. Your photograph has been transmitted to our office." I found it amusing. We got our pictures taken when we left a little after 10.

Hercules found it fascinating. Where was it getting the power? We examined the pole and found no wires. At the top of the pole there were only two very small boxes. Solar panels on the top of the boxes? Seems like they'd be too small to power the motion detector, the flash, the recording, the camera, and a transmitter. The panels used to power emergency phones along the highways are much larger. I pointed out that there's not necessarily really a transmitter, or even a camera. Maybe there's really only a detector, flash, and recording. Sorta like those dummy police cars semi-hidden behind billboards.

I suggested that we stage a murder next to the pole, then wait in the bushes to see if anyone shows up. On the walk back to the house we had some fun planning the scenes. Hercules is a real ham.

-------------------------------

A funny thing happened. Daughter joined me first, Hercules joined us a little later, after getting his mother and Nugget settled at the house. He runs. A lot. He was running down the dark path to join us and passed a teenaged couple. The guy shouted something rather nasty after him (apparently thinking Hercules with his dark hair was Hispanic). Hercules turned around and ran back toward him, and the guy pulled his girlfriend in front of him! Hercules told us what he then said to him, but I forget exactly, except that it had something to do with tiny balls rolling on the ground or the like.

And that was it.

Sometime later, we had walked further up the bay. Daughter and I were standing on either side of Hercules, who was squatting on the ground with his back to the walkway, when a group of five or six guys, mid or late teens, trotted up to us and asked if we'd seen a guy run by wearing tan pants and a grey knit shirt - "He threatened our friend!" Hercules stood up and turned around, and the kids said, "Not you. It wasn't you." Hercules said yes, it was, and that he hadn't threatened him. He'd merely commented on his hiding behind a girl. And the kids immediately apologized, and shook Hercules' hand.

Huh? Hercules is not tall. He's not big, rather lightly built. He's a runner and cyclist. Why, when it was obvious they wanted to find this guy and beat him up, why did they back off so quickly and thoroughly?

Was it because Hercules is not Hispanic? Because he was not a teen? Because he was with two small women (that doesn't feel like the reason)?
.

3244 Nice day for it

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Jay Kolb, on surveys taken on college campuses: College is not "real world". In fact,
you can't even see it from there.

----------------------------------------------------------

I mowed the lawn this morning, front and sides. I was pleased that the mower started right up.

I do have a bit of a problem with it. It's self-propelled, and seems to have two speeds - zero and "charge!" I have to almost run to keep up with it. I thought if I let up on the propulsion bar a bit, it would slow down, but it doesn't. Charge!

...Which is dangerous because the builder tried to stretch the sod, and left big gaps between the pieces. "Oh, they'll fill in." Yeah, they will, if you fill in between the pieces with dirt! Leaving two inch deep gaps doesn't do it. Grass won't cross that. So I have to be careful not to slip sideways into a gap and sprain my ankle, and at high speed that's difficult. I could go buy some dirt (a whole lot of dirt), but I'm going to cut out sod in front of the porch to put in a flower bed, and I figure I'll fill the holes with pieces of that.

Now I need to go buy a trimmer of some kind. I dislike those string trimmers. I don't know what else is available.

The back yard can't be mowed until I pick up all the stupid gum tree balls. I hit a few with the mower earlier, and yeah, not good. So I am now picking them up with my trusty pooper scooper pan and rake thingy, like over there<---. The pan will hold about a dozen of them. It's pretty easy and works well, but there are so many of them it might take me a few days to get them all.

-------------------------

Spam emails: I am getting marketing emails from every company I've ever bought anything from online. Yeah, ok, I'm an online customer.

But what bugs me is that I always check the box that says "no marketing emails". Always. Always aways. And yet I always get them.

There oughtta be a law. In fact, I think there is....
.

3200 Some photos

Thursday, March 24, 2011

No matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the view north from my back windows. That's a portion of a small lake in the foreground, then a strip of land beyond that that separates the lake and the neighborhood from Raritan Bay, which contains a walkway along the bay to a beach up the way a bit. After that, the bit of dark gray is the bay. Off in the distance you can see a pale strip - that's Brooklyn. It's barely visible during the day, but at night it's a blaze of light and looks a lot closer.

This is as seen from the side window in my bedroom:

My grandbaby, due in perhaps five weeks. I keep saying Daughter is huge. She doesn't look that large in this photo (taken yesterday), but actually she's normally extremely slender and willowy in the middle. She's now at least three times as deep as usual in the belly and behind region. The tummy is perfectly round, like a basketball. (Looks "boy" to me.)

I've spent much of today searching the internet for hints on how to clean up the sweet gum balls in my yard. They are downright dangerous to bare or sandaled feet, and I've heard they are very hard and can kill a lawnmower, so I have to clean them up before the first spring mowing. My neighbor George said the only way is to pick them up by hand, rake them, or use a vacuum.

I've got a zillion of the darn things in my yard. These photos are through the sliding glass doors with the sun shining on the glass, so they're not clear, but you can see all those dark brown balls, mixed in the grass and the straw from last fall's seeding.

They're all in MY yard, not in either side neighbors' yards.

I don't understand.

I looked at "rolling nut picker-uppers", and they don't work on gum balls because of the stems. (Of course they SAY they do, but the reviewers say differently.) I looked at lawn sweepers, and they don't work because they can't get down low enough. (Of course they SAY they do, but the reviewers say differently.)

I looked at lawn vacuums, and those things are huge and expensive (like $800 minimum for the smallest).

I can't rake - I know my back won't stand for that, especially with the straw woven into the grass. I can't bend over and pick them up without destroying my back, unless I use something like a pooper-scooper.

'Bout the only thing I can think of is to put a sign on the front yard offering to pay kids $2 a bucket for picking them up. Or buy a pooper-scooper.

One good thing - a website recommended using them as top mulch on garden beds, since unlike bark or other covers they're easy to pull off to work the soil and push back on, they take decades to rot, they don't block watering, and animals don't like to walk on or dig in them. Plus when your neighbors see it, they think you're amazingly inventive.

Um, anyone want a bucket or two of sweet gum balls?

---------------------------------------------

Update: There's some woman selling bags of the damn things on Etsy, for craftwork! I can do that!
.