Everyone’s your friend….

 

in New York City!

 

Still a slow start out here, so, decided that, knowing it was going to be a short Saturday in the office, to hop on the train and head to NYC.

The station at Red Bank….I need to spend a day in Red Bank, seems like a nice little town…

Pictures from the train are always an iffy proposition…..but this one gives a good impression of what the day was like.  Gray gray gray…

and this one is a good picture of what Jersey is like north of oh, about Woodbridge.  Industrial and dirty and dungy.  Sights (sites?) like this are what keep me employed….

The sight as I climbed out of Penn Station…this is down 33rd street?

NYC supposed to get 2 to 4 inches of snow today; it didn’t turn out, as I walked around it was mostly sleet and that was moderately unpleasant.

The Garment Worker….a statue I passed on the way up to Times Square.  I was apparently walking past the Fashion Walk of Fame, all kinds of people I’ve never heard of had stars on the sidewalk…..

Times Square, there is camera that post the video up on one of the video walls…I’m in the picture, way in the back (or top) behind the barricade…

This place is going to be crazy in three nights….they are already set up for it though….

All kinds of cool Christmas decorations are still up; this is just north of the Fox News studios…

Insert Biggest Balls joke here….

Texted this picture to Suzanne…dark chocolate covered strawberries at Godiva

The tree at Rockefeller Center….I understand the wait to ice-skate was three hours!

Angels at the Rock….

After walking through Times Square and Rockefeller Center I hopped the subway over to Brooklyn……had dinner at the Radegast Bier Garden….really large German Beer Hall.  The brat on a pretzel roll was outstanding.  I guess this is the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, it is right along the East River so there are a lot of very expensive condos in this are and a lot of small boutique stores.

Looking south down the East River….I had a lot of time to kill before the concert…

…when I decided to head up to NYC, I looked to see if there were any concerts worth attending.  Saw that They Might Be Giants was playing, but, tickets were sold out.  Went to StubHub and saw they had tickets….for $6!  Can’t beat that!!  There is some symmetry here too, I went to see TMBG in concert when I was in San Diego working for FEMA…

The ticket, when I printed it out, was standing room only.  I knew it was general admission, but not SRO.  So that was a bummer.  But, turns out, the whole hall, except the really expensive seats, is SRO.  I guess that’s one way of cramming people into a small space.

The last train back to NJ (a 90 minute trip to my stop, by the way) leaves at 1 am.  I didn’t want to be up against that deadline, I was resolved to be on the 1205 am train no matter what.  Working backward, that meant I had to leave the concert by 11:20 to make sure I could navigate the subways (I had to switch trains to get to Penn Station).  But hey, ticket says 8 pm, right? 

Doors open at 8 pm.  Opening Act comes on at 9 (he is atrocious, no more will be said).  TMBG starts at 10:15.  So, $6 + fees for an hour of TMBG?  Ok, I guess.  I would have really like to hear New York City in the encores since I was there, but, oh well. 

I timed it well, made Penn Station at 11:55 and was on the train at 12:00; it left on time at 12:05.  Arrived, zombie-like, at the hotel at 1:50.

NFL Week 17

 

With Ben deciding to throw gift interceptions to Dallas and Cincinnati essentially ending the Steelers’ season, my thoughts surprisingly turn to Suzanne and my football pool.

I’ve blogged about the pool before (I can’t find the specific post now, and am not going to spend the time looking).  But, Suzanne and I, in the many years we’ve been in the pool, have occasionally won the week and made enough money to break even for the year.  I think at one point I won twice in one year.  You pick the games and then weight your picks; 16 for the pick you are most confident in, 1 for the least….

And I think, at one point, Suzanne had the chance to finish in the top four of the season pool.  The stakes are $5/week; $2.50 goes to the weekly pool, $2.50 goes to the season aggregate.  If my memory serves me right, Suzanne needed a really good week at the end to climb into fourth and didn’t get it. 

This year, though, I’ve been in the top three for most of the year.  And going into Week 17, I was tied for first.  The prize for winning 1st?  About $1700.  So, yeah, no pressure.

My strategy this year has been consistent; look at the odds and sort out all the teams who are favorites are 6 points or more.  Of those teams, try to pick at least one upset (most people will put their big points, 16, 15, 14, on those games) and only put 1 or 2 points there.  Try and put bigger points on smaller favorites I am more confident in.

I should be up in the pool by more points….for someone tied for 1st I had one week that I finished dead last in the pool; only picked five games correct out of sixteen.  I knew when I was doing the picks I was very unsure on any number of games and hopefully learned a lesson, if I have that feeling again, just hand over the picks to Kevin or something. 

I should be up in the pool by more points….but I placed 13 points on the Steelers against Dallas, 11 points on the Steelers against Cincinnati.  Died with the black and gold in more ways than one…..

And, typing this in at 6:38 pm, it looks like I will have to root for the Cowboys tonight to even have a shot to stay in the money slots and finish fourth.  Picked both Atlanta and New Orleans with semi-big points and lost…..

Oh it will hurt to root for the Cowboys (I’ve picked Washington…but with one point.  Others have Washington with more…so I profit if the Redskins lose…)

2012 Miscellany

 

While watching Week 17 NFL football intently, I took the time to organize, cull, rename, and otherwise get my miscellaneous photos, videos, scans and all other media in order for the inevitable archiving that will occur in January.

Some of what I wandered into deserves its place here.  I had more than a few Iphone created movies that I never renamed or uploaded to Shutterfly.  Corrected that today….if you want to watch any of the video, just click the picture below.

Matthew fishing off of Hilton Head last January….

Mom fishing…she’s going to bring in a shark!

I looked…I can’t believe that I didn’t blog about this, the Mardi Gras night of music and food that the local restaurant puts on in February.  We went with a group of soccer parents and all had a great time!

Don’t click on those….that’s just the menu and performers!

Just some great music!  That’s Dr. Michael White there on the clarinet; I ended up getting all of his CDs as we left that night…

another video from the night of music….

Musical lighted fountains in Barcelona…..

Curious what a mulit-million dollar musical production looks like on a cruise ship?  The next two videos are from the Motown Show on the Breeze….

Same show, different number.  I think the video screens in the back are the most interesting part of the production……

What’s better than your country beating Portugal in penalty kicks in Euro2012?  Not much….

Swimming Pool at the London Marriott County Hall + Boys Singing Nikki Minaj = well, it’s pretty good….

The dogs know that a breakfast with eggs inevitably means that they will get the leftovers (and we make some extras knowing that they look forward to it).  This dog, if we, um, linger, at the the table, is not shy about letting us know….

The undisputed Alpha-female of our cats, Madison.  You can actually rank them by how Holly interacts with them…Holly doesn’t even pretend to mess with Madison, at times she will chase Marino around and she consistently makes Daphne’s spit and hiss at her.

Madison had to go see the vet to get some medicine for worms….she is the most vocal of our cats and definitely let me know that she was unhappy with the trip and the wait….

Christmas 2012

 

Oh, the whining about when we could open presents on Christmas Eve….it was deafening!  But the plan was, watch Home Alone (yeah, some families watch Miracle on 34th Street or It’s A Wonderful Life…we watch Home Alone.  At least it’s not Silence of the Lambs!) and then open the family presents.

Lighting wasn’t the greatest for pictures…..if I used the flash they were too bright, and settled for too dark.  Oh well.

This boy with the Angry Birds pants had a good day; fleshed out his Skylanders collection with a few Giants (a post on Skylanders is coming soon)

The big present for Fric and for Frac were new laptops…..they had been using whatever hand-me-downs that I could configure and keep running.  One surprise, and it really shouldn’t have been, is that both laptops are on Windows 8….my work computer is on 7, Suzanne is in Mac-land, so, I had to spend some time figuring out what was located where to configure the computers……

For the curious, the man in the pictures is Suzanne’s Uncle Greg (Gaye’s younger brother). 

This boy went retro this Christmas.  Asked for and received a turntable of all things….at least he can convert the music off of that to MP3’s…..

You can see he’s holding a cheese box…inside the box is a gift certificate for tickets to Yes.  I’ve never been to see Yes!  But he’s obsessed, and just doesn’t care that Jon Anderson isn’t with the band anymore.  I’ll go along with him and his friends as well…..

Also received some new headphones……

This picture does not convey the excitement that this boy showed all night long; just crazy excited for almost everything.  He asked for a bunch of Nike/sports gear, and he got a lot of it…including this neon yellow sweatshirt.

Suzanne received more than a few charms for her bracelet, including a soccer ball charm from Matthew…..

…some dark chocolate pretzels from Kevin (you can see Matthew’s laptop in the foreground)

Cpher knew what he wanted to get Mom….he dragged me out on Black Friday to get it!  Insistent on this gift, there would be on talking him out of it….

Nikki Minaj Perfume!  Look how happy Mom is!

(I don’t think the Eau de Nikki is too objectionable…..I will have to take a better picture of the bottle it came in though!)

I understand that Cpher left a note for Mom last week in the morning before she went back to work, “Please wear me today” with the bottle conveniently positioned on the note….

Fric, Frac, and Maddie watching what I’m guess is some show on Nick and checking out the new laptops…..

What did Santa bring for me?  Well, I’ll be writing more about the big gift, a snow blower (how much that is for me and how much is for the family that has to deal with the snow is a good question…..).  I also asked for a new waterproof camera in anticipation of Hawaii 2013, and received that.

Mom and I also received this book….I scanned in a few of the more original-thought pages….

Kevin

 

A wide-ranging updates on all things Kevin-ish….

(back asleep Christmas morning….)

Looking back, he’s had a heck of a fall.  Made varsity tennis; made it to the state semi-finals, named all-league.  One of the starting four for quiz bowl; they go undefeated, named honorable mention for leagues.  One of the starting four for Quizbusters; they become Grand Champions. Tried out and has one of the roles for the winter play.  Looks to, by his PSAT score, have qualified to be a National Merit Finalist.

Grades are ok.  They are not great; seems to have a knack for doing his level best to kill his grade on one assignment when you least expect it.  They are better 2nd quarter than 1st.  He needs to buckle down in January to get them to where he (and his parents) want them to be.

In with-the-good-comes-some-bad department; he did not make all-state this year.  He wasn’t even one of the honorable mentions.  Trying not to dwell on this (can’t say we are very thrilled about this development; as always, what you put into something is what you get out of it)….we are giving some serious thought to cutting his lessons back to 30 minutes and giving the other 30 minutes to Matthew though…..

College?  Not much changed on this front; still would like to go far away, but, I think is more and more resigned that it will be surprising if it doesn’t end up being Michigan.  We’ll see….

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

 

I’ve travelled a lot.  I’m by no means some George-Clooney-Up-In-The-Air Million-Miler…but, I’ve travelled a lot.

Last night getting back to Jersey was the worst travel flight combination ever.  Ever.  Ever Ever.

Prelude:  When I left for Jersey the first time, I took the 3:30 flight from Lansing.  The layover in Detroit was short, and I landed in Jersey at 8 and in hotel by 9 seemed reasonable.

For this trip home though, I chose the last flight out of Lansing, 5:20.  I wanted the extra two hours at home, even though it left me with a  horrible 3 hour layover in Detroit.  Get into Newark about 11:30, hopefully be in the hotel by 12:30 and be at work by 8…

I knew that late flight wouldn’t be fun.  And of course, there was this going on….

Suzanne texted this picture to me during the journey…

Went to Cpher’s basketball practice at 1:30; driving home the snow had started and the roads were icing up….decided Suzanne should drive me early before the roads got any worse.  The roads in Okemos weren’t the greatest, but, the interstate and the road to the airport were ok. 

Act 1:  We’ll use my texts with Suzanne to guide our way through this adventure

This part, the Lansing to Detroit part, that wasn’t too bad.  The runway just had snow blowing across it, and, the only delay really was because the flight from Detroit was late due to deicing and general Detroit heavy traffic.  No big deal.

Being an hour late out of Lansing wasn’t a bad thing…I had plenty of time to kill in Detroit.  But we get to Detroit, and there are many many people on the plane trying to catch connections, and we literally sit 30 feet from the gate waiting…and waiting…and waiting…for the ground staff to come over and park the plane. 

Act 2: I get dinner, and settle in and wait…and wait…and wait…

I should have taken a picture of the ‘departures’ board, I’d say 1 of every 3 flights was cancelled.  We’re sitting there at gate B6 and the flight to Traverse City has to clear out before we can go….finally, around 1035 they say that we are delayed to 1130 at least.  Turns out the plane we are taking to EWR has to come from there as well…

That first text from me on the left?  Not my first time at this type of rodeo…..I know from past overnights in Detroit that really, in the end, the one thing that is certain to cancel a flight is the crew going over their hours limit. 

I was happy when I left home to see that, on the flight to EWR, there were 6 seats available in first class, and I was #1 on the upgrade list.  But, in the second crappy Detroit-staff related goofiness, the gate agent didn’t process upgrades, and the reservation staff put all kinds of people on the plane (and into MY SEAT!).  

Grrrrr.

It’s now 12:30.  We still haven’t left Detroit. 

Obviously I didn’t have my phone turned off….but I didn’t see that text from Suzanne until 3 am.  We had to de-ice, so, didn’t actually get off the ground until 1 am.  And all of this delay meant that of course, we are going to try and land in EWR in the heaviest part of the storm….

We’re in the air and the Captain says we are going to do circles because Newark is closed (and rightly so, look at all that yellow and red over the airport!).  But we’re circling, at an elevation that takes through the clouds and not above the clouds.  And as we are doing this, I’m thinking “why is he in the clouds, the wings are going to ice up?”….and he comes on the intercom later and says “our wings are icing up, we have to go to our alternate….Baltimore”.

Why Baltimore?  I guess I can understand that he chose an alternate far enough away to be out of the storms, but, that time to get there is going to matter…..

the terrible threesome of flight status’ for the night….

We land in BWI, the Captain says the plan is to refuel, deice, and go back to EWR; the crew still have time left on their day.  Fine, great.

And then we wait…we wait….we wait longer than we did at Detroit for the ground crew because, apparently, DELTA DIDN’T BOTHER TO TELL ANYBODY AT BALTIMORE THAT WE WERE COMING!

Finally park.  Flight attendant starts talking about Amtrak.  Natives are getting very restless (imagine your best Jersey-Soprano accent saying, loudly, “what are we doing in Baltimore?'….you couldn’t find an airport closer?")

Wait.  Wait.  Wait.  Finally the fuel truck pulls up.  And at 4:25 Captain says well, can’t get our paperwork done, we’re over the crew time limit, this flight is cancelled. 

Act 3:  So, what now?  Delta staff made some noise about what is reimbursable and what isn’t at this point; some people are very upset by this.  I know better, whatever cost it takes for me to get to where I need I will take up with Delta later.

So how do I get to Jersey?

By Plane:  Delta didn’t have a crew in place to get that plane out of there in any kind of good time.  I did call Delta, all of the flights out of Baltimore were sold out AND they weren’t nonstop….they went back through either Detroit or Cincinnati. 

In hindsight, I should have pushed them to book me on United; which had a flight leaving at 530.  Didn’t think of that.

By Bus:  That’s what Delta was trying to arrange.  I had no interest in waiting for these numbskulls to line up a bus at almost 5 am…how long would it take for them to arrange that???

By Car:  It would be possible to rent a car at BWI, drive it, and then drop it at Newark as I go home next time.  But, that’s expensive, and, my call from Hertz made it clear that the rental contract wouldn’t have unlimited miles, which is not good.  I could deal with the drop fee, but, not the mileage fee (that’s not being a good steward of the government’s money). 

Plus, I have about 1 hour of decent sleep in the last 22 hours at this point.  Driving three hours doesn’t seem like a good idea. 

Since I can’t take the car, I have to get back to Newark to rent the car.  And that means the best solution is….

Amtrak Station, Baltimore Thurgood Marshall International.  Circa 5:15 am

Of course, the only train that stops at Newark airport, not Newark Penn Station, leaves at 6:57 am.  I have to watch two more trains leave first.  I should have taken the train to Newark Penn and then figured out a way back….I blame my drowsy-half-numb state for not thinking of that option.

Get on train.  Pretty impressed overall with speed and comfort…..doze, again (I have no memory of passing near or around Philadelphia).  Get back to Newark at 9:30, take the tram around the airport to the rental car, get to hotel in Lincroft at 11 am.

Call Suzanne.  Tell her I’m going to bed!