Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Ruminations........

  • Okay, Peg........
    I departed the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA yesterday (Monday, February 26, 2007) and noticed what appeared to be a new Toyota RAV4 in the adjacent parking-lot.
    It was maroon, and had the spare-tire in a plastic case recessed into the tailgate.
    Our CR-V also has the spare on the tailgate (although not recessed); to me stupid, because it invites theft.
    It also means the rear-door is hinged on the right side, so it conflicts with the garage-door.
    Our Bucktooth-Bathtub has no spare (BLUSTERING FROM WEST BRIDGEWATER ALERT!), and hinges the rear-door on top, so it doesn’t hit the garage-door.
  • After the Canandaigua YMCA I patronized mighty Weggers.
    After grabbing a bottle of mouthwash (ACT), I noticed a bewildered little old man confronting the huge array of Colgate Toothpaste.
    He was fingering a list, probably supplied by his wife, and on it was “Colgate Toothpaste.”
    So now what: Fresh Mint, Tropical Surprise, Whitening, Luminous, Tarter-Removal........
    I’ve faced the same hairball myself; 89 bazilyun kinds of Colgate Toothpaste.
    Some time ago faire Marcy suggested she was using “Luminous” toothpaste.
    Seemed like a good idea, so I looked for “Luminous,” found it, and bought a tube, little realizing there were three flavors.
    I inadvertently purchased “Tropical Surprise.” Never again. Tasted like dishwater. —Imagine brushing your teeth with Hawaiian Punch........
    The poor guy also had orange-juice on his list. HAIRBALL ALERT!
    He wasn’t carrying a cellphone.

  • My brother, who lives in West Bridgewater, Mass., near Boston, is a self-proclaimed authority on everything.
  • “Peg” is my baby-sister in Lynchburg, Va. She and her husband recently purchased a RAV4.
  • Saturday, February 24, 2007

    This just in.......

  • The weekly meeting of the Never-Alone Club is canceled.
  • “Lose 50 pounds in one month.......” a supermarket ladies’ magazine trumpets.
    It’s splashed atop a picture of a decadent chocolate tort you can make in only 15 minutes.
    Enjoy!
  • The final resting-place of Anna Nicole’s body has been decided by a juvenile-judge.
    Couldn’t they get a judge of adult age?
  • “Little girls’ expectations distracted by over-sexed pop-stars.” Britney and Beyonce and Paris Hilton are then run by. Lotsa cleavage. (“I thought Paris Hilton was a hotel.....”)
  • Friday, February 23, 2007

    Regarding the charge of “timidity........”

    It’s true; I can’t charge headlong into a parking-lot at 152 mph. And I accept that I might have to avoid some blonde bimbo turning her Jetta into my path because she voted for Dubya.
    But I did have a house built, and am so far the onliest Hughes to have done so.
    The almighty Bluster-King doubled the size of his garage, and turned it into a Nine-Mile Point so he could photograph a concrete-pump, thereby demonstrating his supreme macho prowess.
    Linda’s mother came to live with us following the stroke, and didn’t seem to think the house was other than normal.
    She seemed oblivious to the fact the walls of the shell were a foot thick, 18 inches of blown insulation was atop the ceiling, and as a result the heat-load was tiny.
    She also didn’t notice that all the ceilings were eight-foot — no cathedral-ceilings. Heat rises; why should I blow it back down?
    Building a house involves 89 bazilyun decisions; most on the fly. And there is all the research and preplanning necessary to get a super-insulated house built; i.e. beyond code requirements.
    Plus we had specified a treated-wood foundation with drainage. Normal practice would have been cinder-block. (Treated-wood so we could insulate; and the treated-wood was beyond the stuff decks were built with.)
    Heaven-forbid my noisy brother from Boston have to stay in a house a so-called “timid” person built.
    Maybe he should stay at a power-plant instead.

  • My brother in Delaware has a turbocharged Volvo he once declared was capable of 152 mph.
  • Nine-Mile Point is a nuclear power-plant in New York state my brother in Boston managed building.
  • My brother in Boston crashed his Harley avoiding a blonde bimbo in a parking-lot turning her Jetta into his path. He ended up having to have enough steel pins inserted to repair broken bones to set off security at Logan airport.
  • Thursday, February 22, 2007

    Continuing Blogger follies.......

    Every major post to this here famblee-site gets also flown on the blog — in fact, some of the rather off-the-wall responses have got flown on the blog too.
    So readers know all about the almighty Bluster-King, and how he noisily declared the mighty Mezz was lax because it was run by only one guy, the all-powerful Tim Belknap, who was reprehensible because he inadvertently committed a couple of grievous spelling-errors (POT-CALLING-THE-KETTLE-BLACK ALERT!)
    The 89 bazilyun other editors, including Boss-Man and K-Man (the Managing Editor), most of whom I once pictured, got noisily brushed aside. The almighty Bluster-King wanted to bluster my employer was reprehensible — after all, they had to be to hire a reprehensible person like me — and the all-powerful Tim Belknap was the sole, and easy, reason.
    The usual noisy sturm und drang from West Bridgewater — towel-alert lest you get drenched.
    The blog had an updated software available; and I switched to it after continually getting an update-or-else site.
    I had to use Linda’s ‘pyooter to update — FireFox. No “continue” button under Internet-Explorer.
    Updating generated more hairballs. You could post under the old software with IE, but not with the new.
    You could also edit with IE under the old software, but with the new you got a blank page.
    So I tried Netscape. That would allow me to both post and edit, and even had the add-picture icon.
    So I tried add-picture the other day, and it jumped into the ozone.
    We are back to adding pictures with Linda’s FireFox; and after that editing blows up my Netscape — I can’t transfer the image-tags into my picture-tables.
    Blogger seems to only want FireFox (that’s what they say), which I can now get, since I’m running OS-X.
    One wonders why a blog-site can’t set up to use the browser almost everyone uses: Internet-Explorer? I also like the way it blows up my Netscape.

    Chevrolet pickup truck

    Yesterday (Wednesday, February 21, 2007) while driving down I-390 from the funky food-market in far-away Henrietta, I was passed by a new white Chevrolet pickup truck doing 152 mph.
    This is the same truck Chevrolet stands in front of the Grand Tetons and advertises as “America’s truck.”

    Actually it looks pretty fair. More modern than the new Dodge, and by comparison the Ford trucks look ancient.
    There was only one problem: it was HUGE.
    The all-powerful Tim Belknap decries the 1995 F250 he inherited from his recently-deceased brother as an aircraft-carrier, and calls it the U.S.S. Belknap.
    I visited the mighty Mezz a few weeks ago, and the U.S.S. Belknap was in the so-called elitist parking-lot, and it was twice as big as anything else. Almost the entire pickup-bed was sticking out beyond the lines.
    Belknap has had to switch from driving his beloved ‘93 Dakota because the master-cylinder packed up leaving him without brakes.
    Many years ago we had a ‘79 Ford E250 van we used to call the “Queen Mary.”
    The Keed with Pentax.
    Queen-Mary at Grand Tetons.

    I still think it’s the neatest vehicle we ever owned, but parking it at Weggers took two moves.
    First was setup, wherein you approached the parking-slot and stopped at about a 45° angle.
    Second was back-up to better align with the slot.
    Third was actually drive into the slot and park.
    You couldn’t just turn into the slot — it was too big! (138-inch wheelbase.)
    Belknap’s F250 is like that — like navigating a ship on a river — try to not hit the bridge-pilings.
    In Philly with Mahz-n-Wawdzzz at Rohm and Haas I watched an ore-ship for Morrisville Steel pass through the tiny opening of the Delair railroad-bridge.
    That ship was as long as the river was wide. It’s width had obviously been designed to just clear the Delair railroad-bridge opening. —Which meant the pilot had to compensate for tides/currents/wakes/whatever to not take out the bridge.
    He made it — took at least two minutes for the entire ship to clear.
    Belknap’s F250 is big, but not as big as this new Chevy. A giant white apparition blasting up the interstate.
    If he had hit anything, it woulda been flattened.
    How does one justify such excess?
    I thought the Hummer was excessive too, but compared to this Chevy it’s a wimp.

    Delair bridge was originally built with a rotating center-span on a table; but that restricted ship-width. The rotating center-span was removed and replaced by a lift-span that lifted at each end, almost doubling ship-width clearance — since the table was also removed.

    Wednesday, February 21, 2007

    Canandaigua YMCA

    And so another Wednesday (February 21, 2007) comes and goes, meaning yet another visit to the dreaded Canandaigua YMCA.
    I try to go Monday, Wednesday and Friday, just like I did the PT-gym.
    Still haven’t been tossed out, and doubt I ever will be.
    Unlike the PT-gym, it isn’t a medical-facility, so protecting patient-confidentiality isn’t an issue.
    The Y has various rules, but no prohibition against writing a blog.
    There also isn’t a prohibition against cameras, although I don’t think I’d stride in there with my D100.
    Most of the rules pertain to nasty language and intimidation.
    If Jack told someone to “suck up, old man,” they’d probably toss him out of the building.
    And all his noisy remonstrations about lovingly-lobbed rotten-tomatoes would fall flat.
    Every time we go (and Linda is staying home in case the postmaster calls — daughter is about to have a baby) the same people are there.
    There is the wiry little dude in the Willie Nelson bandana, and Amazon-woman, all sweaty and reeking of rippling muscles.
    “These people must live here,” Linda said.
    Amazon-woman is an employee, but then there is the skinny, 40-ish graying pug that reaches for the ceiling with five-pound dumbbells while blasting the elliptical, and rages at the rowing-machine trying to destroy it.
    I make fun of these people, but they won’t become wards of the state. I don’t think bandana smokes either — although he’s trying to project a Marlboro-Man image and rides a Harley.
    We determined it’s best to arrive around 11 a.m. Apparently earlier is a crunch.
    I’ve always been leery of joining the Y. It goes back to a negative experience I had in Erlton during early childhood.
    When I was about six or seven, my parents insisted I go to a YMCA daycamp at the nearby American-Legion. The Y didn’t have a facility yet, so the daycamp was at the Legion-Hall.
    The Legion-Hall was rather frightening, at the end of a dark cul-de-sac in the deep woods. It also was a tap-room; totally frightening to one from my sheltered background.
    The daycamp was held at picnic-tables in the woods, and consisted mostly of games and pursuits I wasn’t interested in.
    Seeing this, the leaders tried intimidation — things sure are different nowadays. I was threatened with abandonment in the woods.
    There also was the issue of it’s name. It’s called the “Young-Mens-Christian-Association.” ZEALOT ALERT!
    Already too many negative experiences at the hands of Christians.
    So I always stayed away from joining the Y. Joined the Rochester YMCA at Transit, because Transit was paying for it.
    I also had been persuaded by a really nice bus-driver named Dan (I forget his last name — he was an Elvis-fan).
    I went for about a year, and even swam in their pool once.
    But I was never really comfortable there — too many macho equipment-crunchers, many of whom were bus-drivers who liked to score points.
    The Canandaigua YMCA is kind of the same way — the users at the PT-gym were hardly using the equipment at all; whereas the Y-users are blasting away.
    But the Y has better equipment; the PT-gym’s treadmill was an antique, and wouldn't monitor heart-rate — the Y’s will.
    And unlike the Rochester-Y I don’t know any users at the Canandaigua-Y.

    Jack is my younger brother.

    Tuesday, February 20, 2007

    RE: “riding your LHMB.....”

    Once you get to be my age, you realize there are certain things you can’t do any more.
    I realize it’s hard for someone in their 40s, even late 40s, to swallow this. They feel fine now.
    A couple of weeks ago my niece and her husband visited. —Hubby is the guy with the incredible chop that makes Jack’s GeezerGlide look like what it is: a wuss-bike.
    They congratulated us on our retirement (Linda pending*), and suggested we now had time for travel.
    The Keed.
    Kevin’s Big Dog.

    “Great idea,” I said, “but we’re kind of beyond that.”
    I’m sure there’ll be some travel. In a few weeks we’re supposed to fly down to the great land of the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower to help Linda’s mother celebrate her 90th birthday.
    But I think the long hoped-for trip to Alaska is out. Driving to Rachel’s wedding is also out.
    Hubby is 46. To him travel would be gadding all over the country, like we did years ago in the E250, camping out every night and cooking out.
    I can no longer do that.
    A few years ago the range-hood fan gave up — it’s outside on the roof (we didn’t want to listen to a fan blasting away over the stove).
    I had to climb on the roof — which was scary. I’m not that stable anymore. I was afraid of doing a Jack.
    So “rid(ing) the LHMB” is now debatable. I’m pretty sure I could still do it. It ain’t the same as driving a car, but in many ways it is. The precautions I take driving a car are the same ones I take riding a motorbike. In fact, or a motorbike I am more cautious.
    I also no longer have the main reason I rode motorbike — which was riding to work. Now I’d be riding just to ride — which is different, because it isn’t a repeatable known route.
    Even for pleasure — i.e. over variable routes — I still feel I could ride. I still can drive — no problem.
    About a year ago a young Sports-reporter at the mighty Mezz made a comment about staying in shape the rest of his life. He was in his early 30s, and in questionable shape as it was.
    “No you won’t,” I said. “Take it from me. You’re getting older right now; which means over time you will age, develop pains, and become unsteady on your feet. You won’t be able to exercise at the level you need.”
    He looked at me as if I was some kind of nut.
    “This is now, I said. “It all seems attainable now. But what about in 20 years?”
    Continuing to ride motorbike will be a function of whether my doctor says I might have more episodes, or some mental damage has already been done.
    I’d like to keep riding, but may have to sell.

  • The dreaded LHMB is my motorcycle; the “Lord-Have-Mercy-Banana,” a yellow 1993 Honda CBR600RR.
  • This was written over a year ago — *Linda retired some time ago.
  • “The great land of the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower” is the retirement-community where Linda’s mother lives in Floridy.
  • Cass Scenic Railroad tape

    For the past week or so I have been viewing my Cass Scenic Railroad tape, which I consider to be one of the most fantastic train-videos I own; right up there with my Corridor cab-rides and the mighty Curve.
    Like the others, it’s not fantastic because of the video; it’s the content. As I’m sure I’ve said on this site hundreds of times: all railfans, by law, should be required to visit Cass — mainly to hear the steam-whistles echo through the hollers.
    The Keed.
    Big Six drags a train toward the first switchback.
    The “Out and Away” editor at the mighty Mezz suggested I write another treatise like “the mighty Curve.” Cass qualifies, but it’s too far away. Horseshoe Curve was too far also — but that’s only half a day. Cass is a whole day, or two.
    I’ll never forget the first time I visited Cass, alone, about 10 years ago.
    I had parked the Faithful Hunda, and was striding across the vast parking-lot toward the depot, when one of the engines let out two short whistle-toots up by the water-tower to start its train.
    It echoed on-and-on forever, bringing tears to my eyes. Every railfan should hear that.
    But Cass could even be appealing to non-railfans. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and like going back 90 years.
    The entire town has been restored to what it once was, except for the gigantic lumber-mill, which burned down in 1982.
    The huge company-store still stands, and now houses a restaurant and gift-shop. And the restaurant isn’t McDonalds; your flapjacks get serenaded by acoustic mountain-music.
    Cass Scenic Railroad isn’t a normal railroad. It’s steep, twisting, and uses switchbacks to gain altitude. The steepest mainline railroad I’ve ever seen is the 3% ATSF line over Cajon. Tehachapi is 2.5%; the mighty Curve is only 1.75%.
    Cass has grades as steep as 11 and 13%; that’s 13 feet of climb per 100 feet.
    Cass is a logging-railroad. It wasn’t meant to move freight over long distances. It was meant to bring logs out of the hills.
    The steam-engines on Cass aren’t the side-rod engines you saw on mainline railroads. No way could a side-rod engine climb a 13% grade, or negotiate the rudimentary track logging railroads used.
    A number of designs were made to meet the need, but most popular was the “Shay,” invented by Ephraim Shay, built by Lima Locomotive.
    All designs were based on the idea of pistons working a driveshaft that turned wheels with helical gears. The driveshaft also had splinning and universals so the trucks could turn.
    The Shay slung the cylinders and driveshaft on one side. Other designs, the Heisler and the Climax, have pistons working a central driveshaft. Cass has six Shays, one Heisler, and one non-working Climax in storage.
    A side-rod engine would slip on a steep grade; but not a Shay. The multiple power-strokes are evenly distributed, many to a wheel-revolution. A rod engine only has four (or six, if it’s a triple) — and behind a rod engine you can feel the piston-thrusts work the train side-to-side.
    You’ll also never see switchbacks in mainline railroading; too hard and expensive to operate and time-consuming.
    Switchbacks are used to gain altitude without looping the railroad all over the mountain — although often that’s the best way to surmount a mountain. Switchbacks are too time-consuming. Switchbacks also reduced the amount of grading needed, But they were a bottleneck — in fact, the main triumph of Thompson’s “mighty Curve” was to surmount the Alleghenies without switchbacks.
    Of course, grading is easy nowadays, but in 1850 it was hard. Mostly it was done with pick-and-shovel. Cass was built much later, but even then a logging-railroad only needed quick-and-dirty.
    Which meant switchbacks; two tails, which I guess means two switchbacks.
    A train ascends Leatherbark Creek (“Legend has it you drink once from the Leatherbark, and you’ll always come back.”) and climbs into the first switchback-tail.
    A brakie gets off and throws the switch, and the train backs up the parallel track which turns away from the lead.
    The train eventually climbs into the second tail, somebody throws that switch, and the train pulls out onto the parallel track, which turns away and continues up the hill.
    Eventually the train pulls into Whittaker, four miles from Cass.
    Whittaker was a staging-area, and had a giant steam-powered setup for dragging logs out of the forest.
    It also is stop #1, the place most Cass trains end at; but Cass also goes up all the way to Bald Knob, 4,842 feet above sea-level, the top, 2,500 feet above the valley of the Greenbrier River far below. There is a big wooden observation-deck.
    Three-fourths of the way up is a branch to Spruce (trackage-rights), a tiny hilltop town that once had no access except by rail. (I’m sure now it has.) At Spruce, Cass connects with a now-abandoned Western Maryland branch, but it was so steep they got a Shay to operate it.
    That’s “Big Six,” which Cass now operates as its own. But Big Six can’t operate to Bald Knob without reversing on a wye near the top. There is a tightly-curved connector of the two forks of the wye Big Six can’t negotiate. It derails.
    To run engine-first to Bald Knob, that curve has to be negotiated. So the smaller Shays run to Bald Knob.
    Cass ends at Bald Knob, high above the valley-floor. It’s high enough to have Canadian climate.
    Not long after my first visit, Linda and I both went, staying at a house-motel in far-out Stony Bottom in the boonies. I had stayed there during trip #1; a motel from the ‘50s.
    A few months ago we visited Cass again, but the house-motel had closed. We had to stay in yuppie-land, a giant ski-resort over the mountain from Cass.
    It’s totally unlike Cass. Cass is a different world.
    True to Connor tradition we rode all the way to Bald Knob. The train was pushed by one Shay and the Heisler (pulled in reverse on the first switchback). I think Cass has instituted pushing to reduce the incidence of cinder-in-eye. —Only one engine, the Shay, held the train back descending — the cars have brakes too; and a brakie on each car.
    At the time I was thinking it might be my last visit, but probably not.
    Cass is a wonderful candidate for the famblee reunion; we could rent a cottage.

    “send-a-kid-to-camp”

    Sunday night (6/25), as part of our disjointed headlong rush to get to bed at a decent hour (10-10:30 p.m.), I made out a Quicken check to the Salvation Army for 290 smackaroos.
    Last month (Monday, May 22) I made out a check to Hillside Childrens Center for 170 smackaroos.
    Both are responses to “send-a-kid-to-camp” solicitations; the Salvation Army to send what Deacon Middleswart at Immanual called “degraded youth,” and what Hillside calls “troubled youth” (Hillside is a refuge in Rochester for so-called “emotionally-disturbed” youth).
    I’m always a sucker for these “send-a-kid-to-camp” solicitations. Camp was probably the pleasantest memory of my difficult childhood.
    My first time, summer of 1954, I was absolutely terrified. I was 10, and it was the first time I had been away from home.
    I attended with a kid named Robbie Musatano, also of Erlton Community Baptist Church. Robbie was nine, but was allowed to be an Intermediate (Brave) because he was so big. Robbie’s older brother Joe was also there, but was a senior.
    Robbie was also supposed to keep me company, but went his own way. As such I hid in the cabin and didn’t participate in activities.
    The Intermediate Director (Woody Strodel) would assemble all us campers to pick activities, but I hid for at least a week.
    I didn’t start participating in activities until my second week, when I made a leather link-belt wrist-band from a kit in Handicraft.
    I had signed up for Sports the last three days of the previous week, but mainly hid.
    The next summer (1955) I was on my own — no Robbie. But I spent most of my time in the Infirmary with a cold. The Infirmary was on the second-floor of the Mansion-House overlooking the Elk River.
    We’d beam our flashlights at passing ships in the channel. The ships often blasted their horns, and sometimes ran aground. The Infirmary had no air-conditioning, but was unlike camp.
    In 1956 they had a Radio-Department in the loft above Handicraft. (Handicraft was in the old separated stable/carriage-house for the mansion.) I built a tiny crystal-set from a kit and learned how to solder. All the crystal-set would get was WCAU in Philly — all over the dial.
    In 1957 I was in the faraway Sioux cabin with the long-time head of Archery. I affected a “Joe Cool” image, complete with striped chino Ivy-League hat and gold-rimmed shades. This was probably because I was playing sax by then. (I have since learned that Ivy-League hats cause Parkinson’s Disease — Billy Graham wore one; as did my father. Steve Paine, the prez of Houghton when we were there, wore an Ivy-League hat, and got Parkinson’s. Boss-man at the mighty Mezz started wearing one and I gave him the warning — he hasn’t worn one since.)
    1958 was my final year as a camper, and I did four weeks, although separated and in different cabins.
    The first two weeks I was in the Seminole cabin, whose counselor was a ne’er-do-well that headed canoeing. As such I was taken along on a canoe-overnight across the river. It rained the whole time. Our soggy pup-tents were trampled by cows.
    My fondest memories are from when I was on the staff; first year 1959 when I was 15.
    For some strange reason they hired me to be a C.I.T. (Counselor-in-Training). I always have thought it was because I could write a good presentation.
    I was also selected to be on the Stable-Staff, something I dearly wanted to do, but for which I was poorly suited. This was because I was a poor rider; but my offset was I was a good stall-mucker and horsemanship instructor.
    My ability to ride a horse improved as time passed, so that by 1961 I was Assistant Horsemanship Director (number two).
    Being on the Stable-Staff meant I could ride whenever I wanted; and in 1961 my cabin-counselor (Chief Bruce) was head of Canoeing.
    This meant frequent canoeing, although I started purloining canoes in 1960. Bob Mason, a ne’er-do-well on the kitchen-staff, and I would go down to the waterfront and take out a canoe on the muddy Elk. (The canoes were classic wooden Old Towns covered with green canvas.)
    We’d do it so Mason could smoke his beloved Marlboros. Despite the noisy blustering of Super-Mouth, I never did anything but jaw with Mason.
    One night we were out on the Elk, and it was smooth as glass. Off in the distance a towering thunderhead was passing over Wilmington. It’s an image I’ll never forget. Lightning was flashing all over the sky, but it was so far away we heard nothing.
    In 1962 there was no camp because I had to attend summer-school at Houghton to get in.
    1963 I was lined up to be Horsemanship Director at Sandy Hill, but my father scotched that: Mahz-n-Wawdzzz. (All about money, son.)

    calendars for the year 2007

    One-by-one my many calendars for the year 2007 are arriving.
    Anyone who has ever been here knows I have a surfeit of calendars. I predict sonorous blustering from West Bridgewater.
    But I don’t have them to keep track of dates — in that case, one would be enough.
    I get them because they have pretty pictures.
    My first calendar this year came from Ghosts (Ghosts). It is my largest, and is usually available online in August.
    It’s a color calendar of WWII warbird photographs by Philip McKenna.
    It’s pretty good, but every once in a while a ringer sneaks in, like a Piper Cub, an old biplane, an ME-109 or a Japanese Zero.
    I’m partial to the American single-seat fighters: e.g. the P40, the P38, and the P51 Mustang. Also the Navy fighters like the Hellcat and the Corsair.
    Every once in a while a bomber slips in, like a B17, a B24, or heaven forbid a B25. Apparently quite a few B25s are still around; they seem to be a dime-a-dozen.
    And every once in a while a Gooney-Bird flies, the DC3. Nice, but a turkey. Worse yet is the ugly Curtiss C46.
    The PBY wasn’t too bad, although bog-slow. The Geneseo warbird association had one — but I haven’t seen it for a while. I doubt it would float (the PBY was supposed to be amphibious).
    My second calendars are railroad calendars. My Leanin’ Tree (Leanin’ Tree) catalog arrives in September, and the other used to be CEDco. Leanin’ Tree is the source for my train Christmas-cards, and CEDco went bankrupt last year. Usually what I’d do is pass Leanin’ Tree’s train-calendars, and get my two train-calendars from CEDco: an All-Pennsy color calendar, and another (Howard Fogg or Ted Rose watercolors).
    But this year, since CEDco was gone, I ordered a Howard Fogg calendar from Leanin’ Tree.
    But then a catalog appeared from Charles E. Ditlefsen (Ditlefsen train calendars), the old head-honcho of CEDco, back in business. The All-Pennsy color calendar was available again.
    Everything was online.
    Next was my catalog from Paul Oxman (Oxman), which has two calendars I get: one of hot-rods, and one of legendary sportscars.
    I have two calendars to go: 1) my infamous Audio-Visual Designs All-Pennsy black-and-white calendar, and 2) My Norfolk Southern color calendar.
    My Audio-Visual Designs calendar goes back to 1967 or 1968 — I’ve gotten it every year since.
    It was mainly comprised of photographs by Don Wood, but he died recently, leaving behind some of the most dramatic photos of late Pennsy steam ever taken: e.g. impossibly heavy ore drags with doubleheaded Decapods on each end slogging up the branch along Shamokin Creek to the Lehigh Valley interchange at Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania; K4 Pacifics storming the Long Branch in Jersey, and Mountains on the main-line across Pennsylvania.
    The Audio-Visual Designs calendar has gone beyond Wood, but he set the tone. They also began running a color-photo for December: e.g. the restored Pennsy E9s at the Gallitzin tunnels. (I’m not sure Pennsy ever had E9s; they’re actually Erie-Lackawanna E9s repainted in Pennsy tuscan-red — including the gold cats-whiskers.) There also have been color photographs of GG1s.
    And my Audio-Visual Designs calendar is not available online, that I know of; only Ebay. I’ve had to use snail-mail in the past.
    My Norfolk Southern calendar is photos taken by NS staff; trainmen (not official photographers). Regrettably it seems to be biased toward recent purchases — e.g. the old Pennsy, Conrail, etc. Some of the most dramatic NS lines are down south: the Rathole, Saluda Mountain (not the tea, Bubba), and Norfolk & Western.
    Never in the calendar.
    I also used to get an official John Deere calendar, but it seems to be more recent stuff than the classic two-cylinder Johnny Poppers.
    I think I’ll pass this year — too many train calendars.
    I once got an old-car calendar from Hemmings (Hemmings), but ended up sending it back. Too grainy — you had to be at least 12 feet from the calendar to not notice the grain.
    I also used to put up a calendar in my cubicle at the mighty Mezz. Last year it was Roy Rogers; two years ago Elvis. I had the NS calendar there once.
    Once I had a Ducati calendar in place of the John Deere calendar, but it was kind of putrid. Too much ancient stuff, and poor printing. Never again.

    Sunday, February 18, 2007

    DUBYA-STICKER ALERT

    So here I am exiting the mighty Canandaigua Weggers parking-lot.
    I had gone there today (Sunday, February 18, 2007) to buy subs for supper, and bananas (I was out), plus the remaining groceries: $72.24, that includes a $5 gift to Foodlink (swipeable coupon).
    Like most Weggers (being they’re a Rochester insteetooshin — “I guess we could sightsee; let’s go to Weggers”), they have a traffic-light at the entrance. It’s a “T” onto 5&20, except it’s not a “T,” since straight-across is into the old Canandaigua Chase-Pitkin, like all Chase-Pitkins, now closed.
    A maroon Buick turns off of 5&20 into the old Chase-Pitkin lot, loops, and comes back out the entrance towards 5&20.
    It has its left turn-signal on. I am across 5&20 in the Weggers entrance, planning to turn left.
    Okay, so the Buick will turn left, meaning I can turn left without crossing its path. All I (we) need is a green light.
    But NO; with his left-turn signal still on, he angrily turns right, glaring at all-and-sundry.
    The light changed, so I turned left, and fell in behind the Buick.
    Sure enough: DUBYA-STICKER ALERT!

    MyFamblee.com beta

    Linda is administrator of the Button famblee-site; the Button-Hole — Button is her maiden name: her mother is Dorothea Button (AKA “Big Dorothea”); her only and older brother (who lives in Delray Beach) is Jerry Button.
    Jerry has been married numerous times, and has kids from each marriage; although not from the current.
    The Button-Hole is unlike FlagOut; in fact, comparatively dead-bro. I.e. no bashing each other over the head; no strident bellowing from all corners of the planet. No noisy posturing, goosestepping, or slinging steaming piles.
    In other words, no entertainment for the MyFamblee crew in Utah.
    Linda had been e-mailed about a new beta MyFamblee.com site. That it has numerous new features, and many current features are only being added over time (in other words, it doesn’t compare yet).
    Supposedly the new beta has a feature for doing voice-overs — Linda’s reaction is “La-dee-dah.”
    What it needs to be like is the blog: upload an entire HTML file with embedded pictures — I upload a complete HTML-file with picture-tables — just like what I threw on GeoCities — and then I upload the piks and attach.
    The blog attaches the piks at the beginning of a story, but by doing a picture-table I get to locate the pik where I want it, and do a caption and credit if needed.
    Do it their way, and a caption/credit would be in the story; my way and the caption/credit are under the pik (where they belong). All I’m doing is stealing their image-tag and putting it into my table. Look at “Starships” in the blog. That HTML-file is what gets published.
    Winter of 2005 I tried to crank an HTML-file into FlagOut and it went all wonky. My HTML-file was conflicting with their HTML, so that pictures were getting tossed all over.
    I finally gave up and cranked the story (Cass) on FlagOut that way I’ve always done, and added piks afterward. Tables wouldn’t work.
    They want input about the beta: Linda’s is that we should be able to upload an HTML-file (like the blog) without MyFamblee exploding all over the screen.

    Wednesday, February 14, 2007

    “Go-Paperless”

    Lessee.......
    No statement so far this month from Visa; it usually comes by the middle-of-the-month.
    Last month I accessed the Chase-Visa site so I could monitor what charges had been posted to our Visa-account. The idea was to have the account already balanced when the statement appeared.
    I do this with the Canandaigua National Bank checking account — access it online and thereby update my Quicken CNB account. When the CNB statement appears, the Quicken account is already balanced.
    The Chase-Visa site had a “Go-Paperless” tab. So I clicked it as an experiment. I now have this feeling that as a result, we won’t get a hard-copy statement — which is okay except that reconciling an online statement is hard. The online statement is a PDF of the hard-copy; which is what it’s probably printed from......
    Well, okay; but the PDF is tiny, which means blowing up with the magnifying-glass.
    Okay; doable; but we’re jumping through all kinds of hoops just to “go paperless.”
    So what we ended up doing — to offset all the malarkey — was print the PDF; ready guys....... ON PAPER.

    “Did you see that?”

    The exercise-gym at the Canandaigua YMCA faces the main drag, so that as you blast away on the treadmills/recumbents/ellipticals you watch Main St.
    Canandaigua has bus-service, although it’s not a serious bus-service like Regional Transit in Rochester, where I once worked. This is partly because Ontario County refused to join the area-wide Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority, the gumint entity than ran bus-service in the region.
    Regional Transit was the major part of RGRTA. RGRTA ran other small bus-services in neighboring counties, although they could usually get by with only one or two small Ford window-vans.
    They were more than stock Econolines, more like airport-parking buses, or rental-car buses.
    But they might have a capacity of only 12-15; they weren’t 40-foot transit buses with 50-or-more seats.
    Canandaigua has Canandaigua-Area-Transit-Services, CATS, with 20 or more Ford bus-bodies driving dedicated bus-routes throughout the area.
    Capacity per bus is 12-15, and some of their mindless-management-minions were laid off from Transit.
    So here we are, blasting away in the Y-gym.
    A CATS-bus proceeds about 45° into a left-turn (Main St. is four lanes, and he’s in the left lane), and lets out a passenger.
    “Whoa!” I said.
    “Did you see that?” I said to Linda. “I would have never done such a thing.”
    I can imagine the following scenario:
    The CATS bus-driver is halfway through his left turn, and Granny charges up, bops him over the head with her umbrella, and angrily demands to know where he’s going.
    I used to get this at St. John Fisher College.
    I’d pull in, pick up a bunch of students, then proceed across East Ave. toward Pittsford.
    “Hey! Where ya goin’?” they’d bellow.
    “Pittsford,” I’d say; “just like the sign says.”
    “We thought ya were goin’ downtown,” they’d say.
    “Anybody at that college read?” I’d ask.
    I’d let them off into the snowy cold toward Pittsford with transfers for the next bus downtown, which came in 10-15 minutes.
    They’d get out, glance at my sign, and sure enough it said “Pittsford.”
    Granny would have bellowed “If you’re turning, I need to get out! I thought ya were going down Main St.” (If a bus is coming, it will take me home.)
    The driver thereafter discharged Granny into the middle of the street.
    If I had been the driver I would have said “No way! Discharge a passenger into the middle of the street, have you get hit, I get fired, and you drag me to court?”
    Absolutely not! I’ll let you out as soon as I complete the turn. It’s not a legal stop, but I ain’t lettin’ you off in the street.”

    Tuesday, February 13, 2007

    Twentieth Century

    “The railroad-crossing gates at Lyell and Glide are down with no train in sight.”
    (This may be incorrect — that railroad may no longer exist — all I heard was “railroad-crossing gates at .... are down with no train in sight.”)
    Thankfully, over 16 & 1/2 years of driving bus, I never encountered such a situation. It would have been a huge hairball.
    Our Union, quite naturally, advised it would be absolutely crazy to drive around railroad-crossing gates, because the Company, even though it might have ordered you to disregard the gates, would fire you if disaster occurred.
    To the passengers, not disregarding the gates was being a jerk. What was happening was that drivers were forced to factor in management being jerks. —Unfortunately, I was once a passenger myself.
    I remember the guy who eventually became president of the bus-union always running 15-20 minutes late on a trip.
    He was following all the ridiculous, time-consuming company procedures.
    The guy who eventually became union business-agent used to cripple his bus for loose mirrors.
    The Company, in its infinite wisdom, would only have one service-truck on the road, so tightening a mirror might take a half-hour.
    The road-mechanics thought tightening a mirror was an affront, but if you had an accident due to that loose mirror, you were fired: “Why didn’t you have that mirror tightened?”
    The Lyell-Glide railroad-crossing wasn’t that serious. All it crossed was the Falls Road; an old New York Central branch from Rochester to Niagara Falls.
    It bypassed the Water-Level, though parallel, and its destination was Niagara Falls, not Buffalo.
    It was abandoned years ago, although a short stub might still exist to service factories.
    Some railroad-crossings you approached with great respect.
    The Water-Level crossed the main drag in Fairport, as did the old West-Shore, now the Rochester-Bypass.
    Both railroads were fairly active, especially the Water-Level.
    The Rochester-Bypass also crossed a bus-route on the west side of town.
    One dark morning I started across it (the gates weren’t down yet), and a train was coming. I could see its ditch-lights flashing side-to-side.
    I put the hammer down, I still had 35 feet of bus behind me with a single passenger in the rear.
    The gates never started down, but I had decided years earlier that if they ever did, I was just smacking them aside.
    When I started bus-driving in 1977 it was still the law to come to a stop with the four-ways on, and open the door before crossing railroad-tracks.
    One bus-route navigated city back-streets between old factory buildings. It went up a street between two factories that shared an old railroad-siding long abandoned; no longer even connected to a railroad.
    But the rails were still in the pavement (four feet 8&1/2-inches apart), with a roll-up door big enough to clear a boxcar in each factory.
    Passengers were on my bus as I dutifully pulled to a stop for the old siding, and then proceeded across it after opening my door.
    “Whadja stop there for? That railroad has been out-of-service for years.”
    “Well, what if the Twentieth Century is bombing down the track?” I said.

  • Does anyone know what the Twentieth Century is?
  • Fairport is a suburb east of Rochester. It’s on the Erie Canal.
  • Monday, February 12, 2007

    Land-o-Ledley

    Last night (Sunday, February 11, 2007) I happened to be reading the blog of the so-called Hasidic-Jew, Land-o-Ledley.
    I’ve always felt Ledley, also known as L. David Wheeler, had the most potential as a writer. A lot of strange stuff is inside Wheeler’s cranium, plus he has south Jersey experience.
    One of the greatest musical poets of all time, Patti Smith is from south Jersey, and you can tell. How many people know the significance of her song “Down in Vineland?”
    Ya gotta be from south Jersey to understand. (The world does indeed have an armpit, and it is Vineland, New Jersey.)
    Land-o-Ledley is a blog in the truest sense.
    It reminds me of the fetid ruminations, only better, I scribbled into “The Babblings of the Venerable BobbaLouie,” a tiny spiral-bound journal I kept at Houghton and a year after.
    I still have that journal. The bellybutton pickings in it are dreadfully boring.
    Writing didn’t fall together until the 282 News. No time for bellybutton picking; just sling the words together.
    I have a hunch this may be what happens to Wheeler.
    He’s already had to sling words together for the mighty Mezz, and does fine.
    Mesh that with all the strange stuff in his noggin, and his jaundiced powers of observation, and you generate stuff like “mindless management minions” and “Mrs. Lynip allowed she liked the tangled profusion of beige telephone-wires emanating from her walls.”
    Wheeler was ruminating about the fact so many people are young, and therefore don’t understand the significance of history.
    He badmouthed the fact these youngsters only think of Clintsky when they think of the president.
    Well good grief; the first prez I remember is Harry S Truman.
    And can they possibly comprehend the significance of the assassination of President Kennedy?
    And like Watergate never happened.
    I remember a vacation at the Jersey seashore (“Where the heck is Sea Isle City anyway?”) where all I did was watch the Senate Watergate Hearings on TV.
    Senator Sam Ervin waving his craggy index-finger at John Dean saying “Be ye not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
    These kids think the world always had television. Our family didn’t get a TV until 1949; a 15-inch RCA console with a round B&W picture-tube. That’s five years after I was born. And each house had an antenna.
    And I have younger brothers convinced the world has always been what it was while they were growing up.
    That Route 261 in northern Delaware has always been four lanes of concrete since time-immemorial.
    Well that road was rebuilt in 1961, and before it was a macadam two-lane.
    And when it was rebuilt it was re-signed from “Faulk Road” to “Foulk Road.”
    But since “Foulk Road” is all they’ve ever known, that’s all it’s ever been.
    The fact it was ever “Faulk Road” is beyond comprehension. But they weren’t of age in 1961 when it was renamed.
    Another issue is the location of Industrial Highway by the Philadelphia Airport.
    My brothers all noisily insist it has always been where it is now, north of the old Scott Paper headquarters near the airport.
    Well, I remember driving it south of Scott — like the airport was expanded over-the-years, requiring relocation of Industrial Highway to where it is now.
    Wheeler also talks about Iraq has always been perceived as “the bad guys” — that when Iraq invaded Kuwait, people now in their 20s were tiny toddlers.
    Also forgotten was the Vietnam War, and how the war in Iraq is becoming a rerun of the Vietnam War.
    But to most people nowadays, the Vietnam War is ancient history — lessons of history are bunk.
    No doubt the Twin Towers will get dredged up, as well they should.
    But it wasn’t Iraqis that brought down the Twin Towers — it was a bunch of Saudi Arabian terrorists.
    Dubya used that terrorism as an excuse to invade Iraq — like bombing Brazil for Pearl Harbor. (“What; me worry?”)
    Also sure to be dredged up are Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction. BAD INTELLIGENCE ALERT!

  • The “282-News” is a monthly newsletter I did at the bus-union (Local 282) while I drove bus at Transit.
  • “Sea Isle City” is a small seashore resort on the Jersey seashore between Ocean City and Wildwood.
  • When we moved to northern Delaware in 1957 (I was 13), Route 261 was signed as “Faulk Road;” named after a landowner named Faulk who had an estate. The road goes up into southeastern Pennsylvania, where it was also known as “Faulk Road.”
    The spelling of the road has always been in dispute, and in 1961 when the road was rebuilt and expanded, it was re-signed as “Foulk Road.”
    My brother-in-Delaware noisily insists it has always been spelled “Foulk Road;” but he was born in 1958. When the road was renamed he would have been three.
  • “Industrial Highway” (Route 291) is the main drag between Chester, PA and Philly. It passes the Philadelphia Airport.
  • Sunday, February 11, 2007

    No longer run by word-geeks........

    The mighty Mezz is no longer run by word-geeks.
    Last month the mighty Mezz was sold to Gatehouse Publications; i.e. no longer owned by the Ewing famblee.
    We have our fingers crossed. The mighty Mezz wasn’t making much money, but under the Ewings it was a class act.
    The concern is whether Gatehouse will change the direction of the paper — make it ad-driven instead of news-driven.
    This morning (Sunday, February 11, 2007) new managers were announced at the mighty Mezz. Both are from within, but they aren’t word-geeks. When the Ewings owned the paper, Senior was publisher and Junior was Prez. Junior essentially ran things. Both were word-geeks.
    Now Carl Helbig has been named Publisher, and along with Kathy Hammond will run all the local Gatehouse Publications, including the mighty Mezz, the Post weeklies, and recently purchased AdNet, once a competitor of the mighty Mezz.
    “This is what Thomson did,” Linda observed. “Buy a company, and then buy it’s competition. It’s called ‘monopolization,’ which I thought was illegal.”
    “No longer does a company have to deal will competition. It can be grossly inefficient, and charge inflated prices.”
    Both Helbig and Hammond are managers, not word-geeks. Their prime concern is the bottom-line.
    Helbig had been around for years, essentially a manager. Hammond managed Human Resources at MPN — she was hired after we moved into the new building.
    I was kind of distant from both — hardly ever spoke to Helbig at all, and only dealt with Hammond as the HR manager.
    The Ewings I spoke to quite a bit; because they, like me, were word-geeks.
    Thankfully, Boss-man and K-man and Queeny and the all-powerful Tim Belknap are still around.
    We have our fingers crossed. We hope the mighty Mezz doesn’t become Fox.

  • The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily Messenger where I once worked; part of Messenger-Post Publications. (MPN also owns the 10 Post weeklies.)
  • George Ewing Senior bought the Canandaigua Messenger in 1959 — retired a few years ago, handing over the reins to his son George Junior.
  • Boss-man is Robert Matson, Executive-Editor (head of news); K-man is Kevin Frisch, Managing Editor; “Queeny” is Lenore Friend, a local editor; and “the all-powerful Tim Belknap” is the city-editor, a local editor — he manages the reporters. (My brother-in-Boston has declared the mighty Mezz is reprehensible because Tim Belknap shepherds the entire paper (WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOOO), and misspelled a few things in an e-mail. He forgot that Belknap is one of many editors — and that I’ve mentioned both Matson and Frisch in the past.)
  • Saturday, February 10, 2007

    That kid is mine.......

    The father of Anna Nicole’s baby is me.
    The death of anyone is a tragedy, especially when a frenzied media seems to have contributed.
    Especially tragic is the death of Anna Nicole Smith, who, if born in 1967, was only 40 or pushing 40.
    No doubt she was truly heartbroken by the death of her son, but who was stroking whom?
    We’d catch snippets of Entertainment Tonight airing the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth of Anna Nicole, smearing the heavy mascara on her eyes.
    Over and over again the footage replayed; ET was playing the Fox-card: worship of fame and notoriety, huge bazooms spilling out of her tiny dress, a camera that loves tears.
    Who watches this stuff? Surely not us. The ET snippets interject when we stop the taped news to get another entree. And it was always Anna Nicole whimpering.
    One wonders how sincere this actually was? Hairman and his wife are clearly sad, but they aren’t always crying.
    Seems ET was playing a part too — it was always the same footage over-and-over again: weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
    So now we have a grandiose patronage dispute: some young unshaven punk loudly declaring he’s the father of the baby, and a strident L.A. attorney demanding Anna Nicole’s remains be preserved.
    And the hilarity of Zsa Zsa Gabor’s elderly husband claiming he might be the father.
    Well, they’re all wrong.
    I roared the LHMB into the sanctity of her plush bedroom, and between satin sheets we engaged in a torrid sex-tryst, mano-a-mano smothered in boobs.
    All the way to the Supreme Court, baby! That kid is mine!

  • “Hairman” is my hair-dresser; his wife has cancer.
  • The “LHMB” is my motorcycle, a 2003 Honda CBR600RR; the “Lord-Have-Mercy Banana.” It’s yellow.
  • Friday, February 09, 2007

    It’s a Harley-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand

    So here we are, Linda and I walking placidly down Shellpot Drive toward 2401.
    We are passed by a blatting red GeezerGlide piloted by a helmetless, grizzled road-warrior, bearded, graying ponytail flapping in the breeze, looking like Willie Nelson in a red bandana, spitting ceremoniously on the pavement while puffing a Marlboro.
    He stopped and asked where we were going.
    “Just down around the corner,” we said.
    “Hop aboard,” he said.
    Slowly and majestically we paraded down the street. Jack’s bloated GeezerGlide was parked on the grass under the mimosa-tree.
    “Over there,” I pointed, and we arced off across the grass, but it was wet, and the red GeezerGlide was plowing a furrow eight inches deep.
    We stopped next to Jack’s GeezerGlide, and grizzled road-warrior began the mantra: “It’s a Harley-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand.”
    “You park here, and you’ll never get out,” I said.
    We paddled toward a sidewalk. I found the sidestand, and road-warrior’s GeezerGlide was parked.
    Inside, Jack — about 250 pounds lighter — chanted the mantra too: “It’s a Harley-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand.”
    Actually this is a takeoff on a similar mantra: “It’s a Jeep-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand.”
    I saw it yesterday afternoon (Thursday, February 8, 2007) along the top edge of the windshield of a Jeep Grand-Cherokee, a vehicle the all-powerful Tim Belknap says is hardly a Jeep.
    He has one, and says “I sure wouldn’t take that thing up into the woods behind my house. It’s a car.”
    Yesterday’s trip was to an evening dinner-party in Rochester for all the people who once worked for Lawyers Co-op Business-Systems, where Linda learned ‘pyooter-programming.
    I guess Business-Systems got sub-divided and sundered by all the mergers and buyouts.
    Many in it were laid off, although my wife continued programming in other areas.
    Every year all the people that were in Business-Systems get together for a dinner-party.
    Most have other jobs; and a few still work for Lawyers/West/Thomson/whatever. Some, like Linda, are retired. All are our age or nearing it.
    A Business-Systems party is not like a Messenger-party, where Linda was a known quantity: “Oh, it’s you that makes the Grady-cake; it’s your garden;” and “it’s your jelly.”
    The Business-Systems people don’t know me at all; I don’t make cakes to bring in. Rototilling and lawnmowing are specific to us.
    So essentially I was baggage: a silent tagalong while everyone else yammered.
    Two things stood out:
  • A former employee saying Lawyers/West/Thomson/whatever had lost all her records — and they thereby asserted that since they had no record of her ever working there, she wasn’t entitled to a pension.
  • Another lady, our age, who had apparently served in Vietnam, saying “here we are doing Vietnam all over again.”
    I took along a Cycle-World magazine, but eventually set it aside, since the lighting was dim, and the yammering heavy.
    Our dinner had been selected beforehand — stuffed-shells, because that was the smallest entree. You could also order prime-rib and baked-potato — PASS — enough to feed a famblee of five with one serving. There was no way I could eat a whole baked-potato — usually we split a potato and eat it mashed.
    There were four stuffed-shells per serving; Linda and I could have gotten by fine with only two each.
    Yet we all know the drill: “My mother survived the Dee-pression, so you better clean-your-plate! Little children are starving in China!”
    There also was garlic-bread, and I attempted to butter it with what ended up being a creamer — cream exploded all over my pants.
    There apparently was also an elegant order of the cracker-servings at each place-setting, and I inadvertently ended up eating the crackers of my neighbor (cue Bluster-King).
    We were first to leave — we have dog-care issues — after emptying our wallets for dinner/tax/18% gratuity — about 35 smackaroos.
    We then drove home in a howling blizzard with white-outs on the north-south roads we were traveling.
    Got home about 9:45 and went straight to bed; and then the doorbell rang in the pitch-dark at about 10:15.
    Linda had left her wallet at the party, and a guy that lives out this way had brought it.
    So Linda pulls a boner that makes me wonder about some of the boners I’ve pulled — which I always think are stroke-effect.
    The other day, the checkout-lady at Weggers didn’t put a bag of groceries into my cart, so I walked out without it. Didn’t notice until almost bedtime. (Weggers had the bag — I retrieved it today.)
    Years ago (before the stroke) I left my wallet atop the rear-bumper of our Rabbit at a foot-race, and someone found it at an intersection and turned it over to the State Police. They are the ones that called me.

  • 2401 Allendale Road was the address of our house in Delaware (Shellpot Drive was up the street).
  • My brother-in-Boston is heavily into the macho Harley schtick.
  • My mother had planted a mimosa-tree in front of our house.
  • steaming morsel

    Another steaming morsel for the bluster-boy to munch on......
    Last night (Saturday, July 15) the local TV-news announced that a young construction-worker had been seriously injured by a “grater.” (That’s how they spelled it on the screen, and pronounced it.)
    We have a “grater” in our kitchen-drawer. We use it to grate zucchini and orange-peel.
    I don’t know how in the wide, wide world a construction-worker could seriously injure himself on such a thing.....
    Too bad the almighty Bluster-King wasn’t there to set them straight — engineering-wise.
    That’s almost as bad as WWII-bombers made with doors made in Bombay.

  • “Grader.”
  • My engineer-brother in Boston (the almighty Bluster-King) knows all; and would feel entitled to correct the inferior media.
  • Years ago we got a column to publish in the mighty Mezz that had WWII bomber-planes with “Bombay-doors.”
  • Wednesday, February 07, 2007

    The axe begins to fall at the mighty Mezz

    I happened to see Dan Hall Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at the Canandaigua YMCA. Dan Hall was the editorial-page editor at the mighty Mezz.
    Actually he laid out both the editorial and op-ed pages that included letters and guest-essays as well as edits (and columns).
    Dan announced he had been laid off, an action of the new owners of the newspaper: Gatehouse Publications.
    I never thought that highly of Dan Hall. I guess he was a good writer, but not very organized.
    He’d chair the weekly meetings of the editorial committee under the skylight — the so-called “furtive meetings” — where edits would be decided and assigned.
    Queeny and the all-powerful Tim Belknap might write about local issues, and K-man and/or boss-man about national issues. Others might get roped in too, like Dan, but mostly Dan chose the edits, columns, letters and guest-essays.
    Even local columnists had to be rewritten to make them say what they meant; particularly REPUBLICANS. The tub-thumpers often misspelled too, which would inflame Granny.
    Apparently others have been laid off too, but the only name I caught was “cheese-head,” Dean Lichterman, a sports-guy — although I never called him “cheese-head” to his face, for fear of getting my head bit off. (“Cheese-head” because he was a Packers fan.)
    Dean was a bit weird, but a good reporter. He did a weekly column on sports other than what’s in the news; e.g. gymnastics and taekwon-do.
    The Ewing family sold to Gatehouse primarily because Gatehouse promised they wouldn’t do anything.
    But that is never what happens.
    As soon as the new buyer takes over, heads roll.
    “Who’s left to mind the store?” I asked Dan.
    “Not very many.” he said.
    Gatehouse primarily publishes ad-circulars — although it has a few newspapers in the Southern Tier.
    My fear is the mighty Mezz will be come an ad-circular: lots of ad-salesmen, but few news-people.
    They lay off Queeny and Belknap and K-man and boss-man, and it’s no longer worth getting.
    Dan is 62 and owes $80,000 on his mortgage.
    He was a bit technically-challenged, but the only one that used my super-macro, which I installed on all the editor’s machines.
    The super-macro turned OCR-scanned letters, e-mails, whatever, into usable text that flowed onto the page for printing. Dan used it, but others mostly retyped; prior experience, no matter how slow.
    Of course, the whole reason I wrote the super-macro was because I couldn’t type due to the stroke.

  • The so-called “mighty Mezz” is the Daily Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua, N.Y., where I once worked.
  • The Southern Tier is the southern counties of Western New York — more like Indiana than New York City.
  • Tuesday, February 06, 2007

    Starships

    Today’s (Thursday, 5/4) Transit dream was about driving a 700-type bus out good old Monroe Ave.
    The 700-line, which included Monroe Ave., was a fairly nice ride, but mainly because it had a lot of idle time.
    The north end transited the Hispanic neighborhood, so was fairly busy. The south end did not go through a specific neighborhood, but was a long-established busy transit corridor.
    They eventually got so they could cover the north end with one bus (out and back in 30 minutes), but the south end always seemed to need three buses.
    The south end forked in Brighton, and the fork wandered off into the ‘burbs to serve a Jewish Community Center and a Jewish Home for the Aged.
    The main stem went out Monroe to Pittsford, and then beyond into the ‘burbs. It took two buses to cover it, even with a 50-minute headway, so we ended up with about a 20-minute layover in a community park next to a high-school.
    700 Starship.
    The 700-type buses were our first Starships. They had an unturbocharged 8-71 with three-speed tranny; also no governor and no front-door interlocks — all of which meant they could be used as a Park-and-Ride as well as a city-bus.
    As originally received the 700s were air-conditioned, and the air had to work; no opening windows. Plus the AC was down by the road; not a blister on top.
    Eventually the ACs would clog up with leaves and road-dirt, and you had an oven.
    A big conversion-program was instituted. The 700s got opening windows, and the AC was put in a blister on top.
    And it wasn’t mighty GM that did it. GM was the designer of the Starships — although later Starships (the 8s and the 9s) had opening windows, and the AC was in a blister on top.
    I always liked the Starships: the most triumphant styling job GM ever did.
    I remember the look I got from managers when I suggested calling them Starships. Of course, it didn’t happen.
    I also remember flooring 728 on the Eastern Expressway deadheading to Eastview Mall one morning. 80 mph! Never again. It was juking and jiving and bucketing all over. Here I was humping down the passing-lane in a living-room.
    735 was extremely jumpy. As every bus aged, it developed certain quirks as the mechanics worked on it. 735 had a tight tranny. You could only give it so much accelerator lest it throw all your passengers on the floor.
    And it was a 700 that dropped its entire motor-cradle on the floor when they lifted it.

    Straight-eights

    My last bus-run I had before my stroke was a straight-eight on the 800-line: 5:05 a.m. to 1 p.m.; just short of eight but I was paid for eight, since we had an eight-hour guarantee.
    Straight-eights were very rare, primarily because the Union was against them. The Company’s position was a few drivers were always asking for them, so they accommodated, and the Union acquiesced.
    The 800-line was a worker, our second-most successful line after Lake Ave. The 800 traveled east-to-west over the main drag through Rochester (Main St.), and also the streets to the west that would have been the main drag, West Ave. and/or Chili Ave.
    The 800 also went west into a far-out suburb west of the city (Chili Center — locals pronounce it “Cheye-Leye) on a transit corridor established long ago.
    It also did another branch south along Genesee Park Blvd., a Rochester neighborhood that flowered in the ‘40s.
    My bus pulled out and immediately went to Chili Center; far enough to require high-beams. I remember hitting the foot-button one morning, and coming up with nothing at all. Here I was driving 35 mph in the pitch-dark void.
    I stomped on the button feverishly, and still had low-beams.
    I also crossed the old West Shore — now Rochester bypass — at a railroad-crossing near the end of the line.
    The gates weren’t down yet, but a train was blowing for the crossing. All I could see was its ditch-lights flashing back-and-forth as it approached.
    I put the hammer down. We were skeedadling out of that railroad-crossing — I had 35 feet a bus trailing me. I don’t think the gates ever started down, but I always had it in mind if they did I was just smacking them aside.
    Once started, there was no let-up until about 9:30. I was throwing that bus all over, usually bombing through layovers late and changing the signs on the fly.
    The route included out along West Ave. Extension, next to General Railway Signal and the Water-Level Route. I always hoped I’d see a train, and occasionally did, but waiting for one was out of the question.
    My first break came at Strong Hospital, where I could go inside and use the john. To do so I had to shut the bus off and close the doors — which could be done from the driver’s window.
    If anyone was on the bus, I couldn’t leave.
    Back on the road, no let-up. Once I crippled my bus smack in the middle of an intersection. It felt like a front wheel-bearing was packing up.
    My only passenger was incensed, but we had just had a wheel break off due to a bearing-failure.
    There were two straight-eights on the 800: one (801: 4:35-12:30) driven by Dave Stright, number-one on the seniority-list. Mine (802) had previously been driven by #2, but he dove.
    A straight-eight on the 800 was a logistical dream. Pull out and then get relieved at the station.
    Logistics always played the major part in my picks. Best was pull-out, pull-in; pull-out, pull-in. If it was pull-out and get relieved, most reliefs were downtown, which meant getting to your next relief-point, or back to the station if it was a pull-out.
    If it were pull-out, pull-in and then relieve: you had to get downtown to make the relief. We didn’t get paid for travel-time.
    Get relieved downtown at the end of your run, and you had to get back to where your car was — like at the station.
    Which is why 802 was a dream: pull-out and get relieved at the station.
    It meant all you had to do was show up, work and then walk back to your car.
    There were usually pull-out, pull-in; pull-out, pull-in runs that did the same thing, but a straight-eight minimized portal-to-portal.
    Throw in a 45-minute lunch-break, and your adding 45 minutes. Most drivers wanted that: ham-and-eggs at the grungy downtown McDonald’s, or beller at the guys shooting pool in the drivers’-room (or visit the infamous cancer-ward [smoking-room]); but not me.
    I just wanted to go home. That eight-hour run consumed 12 hours per day. Add a lunch-break and you’re pushing 13. —West Bloomfield to Transit was 45 minutes.
    But the stroke ended all that. The stroke was 12 years ago on the Tuesday morning after Jack and I chased 765 (2765) all over New River Gorge. I had driven back Sunday in the so-called soccer-mom minivan — about eight hours — chocolate sugar-cookies and a banana; purchased in the dark.
    I drove 802 the next day, but it was a struggle.

    (“Jack” is my brother-in-Boston.)

    SPAM

    Like most people who have computer e-mail, I gets tons of Spam.
    My MyWay e-mail account has a spam-filter, and I have it wicked up fairly high. Once in a while something shows up in my bulk-mail folder.
    But the spammers have not yet found my MyWay account.
    What they send to is the PoPserver — the great e-mail server in the sky.
    This is what my old RoadRunner e-mail accessed. MyWay can access it too, but their filters only work on e-mail direct to MyWay.
    My old RoadRunner e-mail didn’t have a spam-filter; or if it did, they had it so buried I never turned it on. My Netscape e-mail didn’t have a bulk-folder.
    So every day I download all my old RoadRunner e-mail, weed out what matters, and delete the rest (there is a “check-all”).
    The whole process takes about two minutes. Processing viable e-mails takes a lot longer.
    Last night (Sunday, October 22) I noticed one entitled “Let’s Party” from Donna (?).
    Are they kidding? What a come-on! If they only knew......
    We’re not party-people.
    “Let’s Party” was probably a come-on for refinancing your mortgage, or Viagara at a discount.
    I didn’t even open it. It got dumped.
    And then there are those that purposely misspell to defeat the spam-filters. How many misspellings have I seen of “Viagara,” and “pharmacy?” If Exelon lays off, Jack could become a spammer.
    My MyWay is a lot like Yahoo-mail. It can be accessed from the Internet. At the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower I processed my e-mail from the De Land library.
    It has auto-sign and auto-respond. It also has a calendar, but I don’t know about bathroom-bells. (Bong-bong-bong-bong! “Time to sit on the can.”)
    RoadRunner e-mail could also be accessed over the Internet, but was accessing the PoPserver. I hardly did it. I had Night-Spots dives e-mailing my RoadRunner, so mostly I was doing it at work — I never did it on-the-road.
    MyWay is since I retired. Compared to Yahoo, there are no pop-ups.

    (“Jack” is my brother-in-Boston. He is a construction-supervisor for Exelon, and thinks spelling doesn’t matter......)

    soy-bean field

    The soy-bean field up the street has been harvested.
    We live in a mostly rural area.
    There are a few houses, but we’re mostly surrounded by cultivated farm-fields. The field up the street was soy-beans this year, corn last year, and wheat the year before that. That field is also behind our 93-year-old nosy neighbor.
    Behind us are more fields that used to be farmed, but I don’t know anymore since our new unknown neighbor bought them. One field appears to be fallow, and the other may have been tilled.
    We can’t see the second field, since it’s obscured by trees. But we could hear a tractor.
    Another field is down the street past the intersection (and its motorbike store), but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything on it. It abuts a ramshackle farmhouse with rundown farm-buildings, including a collapsing barn.
    On Routes 5 & 20 in town is Bonna Terra Farms, a giant operation that doesn’t cultivate contiguous fields, but those all around us and all over.
    Every once in a while a giant tractor goes by, usually towing a big tanker of pig-slop they use as fertilizer. The tankers aren’t as big as gasoline semi-trailers, but are on eight huge all-terrain tires, and are full trailers.
    Going toward Canandaigua on 5 & 20, I pass a farm raising veal-calves in tiny shelters, a dairy operation, and a guy raising hay in Centerfield, source of “Centerfield hay,” which finds its way to horse-tracks all over the country.
    We pass a vegetable-farm on our way to the so-called elitist country-club. They raise acorn-squash, butternut-squash, pumpkins, and cabbage. They also have a raspberry patch.
    Illegal aliens are often out picking in the morning dew. A rudimentary two-story shelter had been built to house the illegals, but it’s since been converted to a barn.
    At least we think it’s soy-beans. They sure don’t look like string-beans or peas. We did a Jack and just surmised.
    Quite often farmers raise soy-beans.
    The current West Bloomfield supervisor is a farmer.

    standby generator

    The Keed.
    The standby generator.
    We are on the standby generator this morning.
    In fulfillment of an area-wide high-wind warning, the wind was a-howling, so the standby generator kicked on about 7:05. The standby generator is right below our bedroom window.
    It pushes everything but our bedroom lights, the laundry-room, and the AC. It’s there to keep the freezers going, the stove, the furnace, and the water-heater. All have electric elements (kind of like welding-elements).
    (I use the term “element” in a general sense. No doubt the almighty engineer from Boston, who despite his immense knowledge and training blew which way the dreaded funicular would go at the mighty Curve, will start blustering. BLUSTERING ALERT! The water-heater has an electric draft-inducing fan (and an electronic pilot), the furnace has an electric blower and probably an electronic pilot, and the stove’s oven has an electronic pilot, and the burners have sparkplugs.
    I.e. nothing works without electricity (although the stove-burners could be lit with matches, but not the oven). The stuff in the freezers melts, the heat goes away, and the hot water disappears. We don’t need AC; and we don’t need lights in our bedroom. If need be, the washing-machine could be plugged into a live outlet.
    But if the hot water goes, we’re stuck. Our old tankless water-heater delivered hot water without electricity, but what we have now needs electricity.
    What’s irksome is the standby generator is still running. What if it runs all day? Our gas-bill will be out-of-sight. Isn’t there some way to kill it?
    Off at about 11:20.

    93-year-old nosy neighbor

    Last Sunday (February 3, 2007) we went to visit our 93-year-old nosy neighbor, who is in a living-center 30 miles away in Geneva.
    Actually, it’s more a rehab-hospital; except some of those there will probably never get out alive.
    “They can’t believe I’m 93,” he said. Most of the patients are in their 80s.
    “July 10, 1913,” he said. “You figure it out.”
    He seemed pretty much himself; that is, still ornery.
    “I might be going home soon,” he said. “It depends on whether I can keep from falling.”
    “They walk me pretty much, and I can dress myself.”
    He still seems to have his penchant for snide remarks.
    “Every morning; eggs for breakfast,” he said.
    “Whaddya got, a chicken-farm?” he asked a nurse.
    “You keep feedin’ me these eggs, and you’ll turn me into a chicken.”
    Despite utterly predictable fulminations from West Bridgewater, we made the entire trip without a widdle-stop; and in fact, didn’t use the bathroom until leaving. (Inquiring minds wanna know.........)
    It was unlike our motorbike-trip to the mighty Curve, where we had to stop at mighty Sheetz south of Milesburg, a widdle-stop I usually skip.
    ‘Dew-boy had slugged a ‘Dew in Williamsport, and had to unload.
    Usually I go straight-through Williamsport-to-Altoony, but Jack was leading. This was after gassing-up at a huge Texaco truck-stop on the old 220 just north of the mighty Milesburg exit.
    We worry about the 93-year-old nosy neighbor, but I think he hasn’t given up yet.
    If he can get on his many lawn-tractors (and we may have to help), he’ll probably be a-mowin’ come summer.
    Scootin’ around, pedal-to-the-metal.

    Bimbo

    Last night (Monday, February 5, 2007; my 63rd birthday), Bimbo was on the TV hawking the new Suzuki SX4 crossover (this may not work; IE kept forcing me to “force-quit” on the Suzy-Q site; Netscape worked).
    “Bimbo” is all that’s left of “Vinnie and Angelo,” purveyors of Irondequoit-ah Dodge-ah, except now it’s Irondequoit-ah Suzuki.
    “Vinnie and Angelo” posed as Italians (they are......) with Grandma, a little old Jewish lady that posed as an Italian. “Mah boyz; Vinnie and Angelo.”
    Bimbo (Angelo) weighed about 350 pounds, and wasn’t related to Vinnie — except in their ads.
    Angelo made jokes about his weight: Vinnie ate right, Angelo all wrong.
    The best ad was when Vinnie and Angelo were sick, Grandma delivered TLC, chicken-soup and various medications, and soon Vinnie and Angelo were bouncing up-and-down on their sick-bed like Jack-a-Bill on my mother’s bed.
    The image of Bimbo jumping up-and-down on that bed is one I’ll never forget; but it wasn’t enough to get me to buy a Dodge-ah. That’s back when Lido’s K-cars ruled the land.
    Grandma died a while ago, and Vinnie and Angelo disappeared for a while.
    But now Bimbo is back, and Irondequoit-ah Dodge-ah is now Irondequoit-ah Suzuki.
    Thankfully he’s not bouncing up-and-down on a sick-bed, but he makes a fool of himself hawking Suzukis: “Do you know what you get for $89 a month from Honda? A lawnmower.” (Start Honda lawnmower.) “Do you know what you get for $89 a month from Toyota? A forklift!” (Display Toyota forklift.)
    I guess Vinnie is gone; not the blowhard Bimbo is, so ice-flow for him.
    Bimbo mentioned that the SX4 is All-Wheel Drive; a trigger-word for my wife.
    “Ever think you might want to try one of them?” she asked.
    I kept quiet, but all I could think of was “I can still see that oily, black pillar-of-smoke towering above that ship.”
    And to me, that would be the same as the new Honda CR-V, which I already tried. A “crossover” rides high; it ain’t a car. PASS!

    Force-Insanity......

    Similar to “force-quit;” a procedure I have to do occasionally, as does the PC-crowd.
    Usually what freezes is Internet-Explorer: thank ya Gates.
    Quark is a hand-grenade too. You can’t run Photoshop or Word with it — that’s asking for a conflict — sometimes so bad you have to reboot the whole machine.
    BlogSpot.com prefers FireFox, and we can see why.
    I throw stuff on it with IE, but IE won’t let me add pictures. In fact, it doesn’t show the add-pik icon at all.
    When I first started the blog I tried Netscape 7.0, my browser-of-choice (except for online-ordering).
    It would let me add piks, but wouldn’t let me post anything.
    Linda has FireFox, but uses IE with MyFamblee.com and most other Internet-functions. FireFox’s display of FlagOut is tiny.
    I could get FireFox for my rig, but they want OSX. I have OSX, and plan to run it someday, but now we run 9.2.
    OSX is better, but I’d have to figure it out. Since I don’t have time to figure out OSX, we drive 9.2 (which is similar to the 8.6 I had at the mighty Mezz).
    Which means no FireFox. The posts get added to the blog with IE; that works.
    Our picture workaround is for me to e-mail the picture-files to Linda (our current back-door network), so she can attach them with her FireFox.
    But yesterday (Sunday, February 4, 2007) the blog wouldn’t let her log in. She uses my log-in and password.
    BlogSpot.com has an upgraded software they’ve been hawking for months, and they wanted her to upgrade my blog. (FORCE-INSANITY ALERT!)
    I’ve passed on that in the past. BlogSpot.com lets you use their original software if you want, and I do since the new software wants a Google-account.
    “Google is trying to take over the Internet,” Linda observed.
    We don’t even know what a Google-account is, except it sounds like something I neither need nor want.
    So we gave up attaching the picture. “I ain’t that serious about blogging,” I said. “Who reads blogs anyway? I’m only doing it because I can; I don’t need to.”
    I already had an HTML picture-table in the blog-story (“Tale of Two Pitchers”), but it was empty; a blank box with the missing-picture icon.
    —Until hours later, when I tried to do it myself.
    I went in and grabbed the hoary controls of Linda’s PC, and attempted to log into the blog.
    For some unknown reason it let me — are they secretly monitoring the actual ‘pyooter-user with some fancy-dance gizmo? It took me to the fiddle-page, and let me attach the pik.
    So the pik (the pitchers) is on the blog.
    I also had tried to log-in earlier from my own machine, and got the dreaded “upgrade” page. The story had been posted to the blog beforehand, but now I couldn’t fiddle it.
    So, now that the pik was added I decided to try upgrading the blog.
    I hit the “upgrade” link, and got sent to a log-in; but no continue.
    Ah, yes; Internet-Explorer.
    I guess I can only upgrade with FireFox.
    Later, dude!

    Sunday, February 04, 2007

    Wal*Mart

    Last night (Saturday, December 9) at about 9:30 p.m., Linda was quietly ironing a piece of cloth for a handbag she’s making.
    “I gotta get a cordless iron,” she said.
    “I guess the plate they sit on is what heats. They’re like my mother’s old iron. She used to heat it on the stove.”
    “Well, I guess we gotta get it at Wal*Mart,” I said. “Add 30-45 minutes to a Weggers-trip and blow a gallon a’ gas.”
    “That way my brother Jack could go completely ballistic and call me reprehensible for not ordering online, where I could have saved that puny amount he raised a stink over almost blowing that truck-sale.”
    This morning (Sunday, December 10), I was donning a long-sleeved turtle-neck T-shirt.
    I use them as long-underwear.
    “You really need new turtle-necks,” Linda said.
    “Well, last time I got them from Sierra Designs, and I kept their recent catalog, mainly for a web-address so I could search online.”
    “But that’s not the same as shopping at a store, where at least you get to feel the material, and perhaps try them on.”
    “So above all,” I said; “I gotta shop Wal*Mart. Add 30-45 minutes to a Weggers-trip and burn a gallon a’ gas.”
    “That way Jack could go completely ballistic and call me reprehensible and aged for not shopping online, where I could have saved 500 (‘hundered’) smackaroos.”
    “The Delawareans would weigh in with 89 bazilyun links where I could get T-shirts for peanuts. Sure to be included would be LL Bean, where I returned shirts before.”
    “And if I did order online, my sister from Floridy would weigh in, saying ‘Wal*Mart has everything!’”
    Uncle Rob had it pretty good: “I know all about it, Bobby.”
    (“Generator; I can get ya a generator. Heavy-duty too. Only $40. Look for the faded blue Econoline in the Tops parking-lot along N. Cleenton in the slums.”)

    (My brother-in-Boston almost blew a $35,000 truck-sale over a credit-insurance charge for $15.)

    A tale of two pitchers

    The Keed.
    Pitcher #2 (right) arrived last week from some collector in Tennessee.
    It’s an exact match for pitcher #1 (left), except for one problem: it’s bigger.
    #1 goes clear back to Houghton, purloined from the Gaoyadeo dining-hall, where Linda and I met in the vaunted Gaoyadeo dishroom.
    It’s Shenango-china, and Houghton had 89-bazilyun items.
    It’s a “creamer,” but Houghton used them to serve milk for breakfast-cereal: one to each table, which seated four.
    Gaoyadeo was all Shenango-china: plates, cups/saucers, mugs, bowls; the whole kabosh. I also have a treasured coffee-mug from Houghton (also pictured) I hardly ever use. The pitcher has the right capacity; the mug is too small.
    When I first came to Rochester (DREAM ALERT!) I would heat soup in that pitcher with a plug-in coffee-coil.
    I didn’t have kitchen privileges at 136 Chili, so had to heat soup in the pitcher to eat in.
    Eating out (at a restaurant) cost money. It was running down my meager savings.
    Pitcher #1 was retired when we got married; soon we were living at 644 Averill, which had a kitchen.
    Pitcher #1 sat for decades until I started drinking coffee at the mighty Mezz. It had the capacity for one hit each of regular and decaf from their coffee-machine.
    But their decaf was like water, so I began making it myself at home with the dreaded Melitta (as opposed to Mylanta, an antacid) filter-system.
    I’d make it into pitcher #1, and then pour the contents into two plastic 24-ounce Coke-bottles (I can already hear the noisy bombast coming).
    Linda was afraid the plastic Coke-bottles might be leaching poisonous toxins into the hot coffee, so I started making it into an old plastic thermos I won at Transit in a bus-roadeo. —I’d pour the contents into pitcher #1, which I took along to work.
    That was what I was still using when I retired.
    After I retired I went back to making coffee directly into pitcher #1, but.......
    ....Linda was concerned pitcher #1 had tiny cracks in the bottom, and a gap in the glazing had worn through the rim.
    She was afraid lead might be leaching into my coffee, so set about searching for a replacement on the dreaded Internet.
    Viola; she discovered #2, which looked like an exact duplicate of #1.
    Except it’s bigger; so big I can’t put my Melitta filter-funnel on it.
    So I make coffee into #1, and pour it into #2. (NOISE ALERT!)
    Hopefully some day we can find the same capacity as #1; perhaps with different-colored striping.
    Pin-striping on Shenango-china isn’t just dark-green. There is also dark-blue and maroon.
    A glass measuring-pitcher has the same capacity as #1, but is too big for the Melitta funnel.

  • My brother-in-Boston noisily insists my year-long residence at 136 Chili Ave. in Rochester back in 1966-67 was “just a dream.”
  • Every time I mention that I make coffee with the Melitta filter-system, he noisily insists I mean Mylanta, the antacid.
  • Saturday, February 03, 2007

    The great YMCA adventure begins.......

    On Monday, January 29, we joined the Canandaigua YMCA, and on Wednesday, January 31, we were orientated. On Friday, February 2, we used the Y’s exercise-equipment for the first time.
    I followed a schedule of sorts at the dreaded PT-gym, although it was mainly to interleaf strength-training with aerobic-training.
    So if one exercise-station was occupied I’d do something else; so that similar exercises could be widely interspersed.
    E.g. the exercise-bicycle didn’t immediately follow the treadmill, or two arm-strength exercises didn’t fall next to each other.
    Yesterday at the Y, as we started out, all the treadmills (eight) were busy, and the recumbent bicycles (five) were all occupied.
    But at least one elliptical-trainer was open, so we tried that.
    The dreaded PT-gym didn’t have such gizmos at all; the Y has five or six. Ellipticals are huge.
    An elliptical is an aerobic machine, except it’s more like running or steps.
    It also requires good balance — in short supply for a stroke-survivor.
    I did five minutes — next time I’m sure I’ll do more. The biggest challenge seemed to be staying on it; not crashing.
    I’m not used to it.
    A couple treadmills were open by then in the cardio-room, so we moved to that. Set it at 35 minutes at 3.6 mph at 15%, what I set it at at the PT-gym; although now I recall setting it at 36 minutes.
    3.6 mph is a fast walk — running on a treadmill is almost impossible for a stroke-survivor; too sloppy and erratic. Maybe some day I can do it. I’ve had a stroke and I ain’t 48.
    I managed to do the full 35 minutes, although the final 10 was puke-city. It’s been at least two weeks since the PT-gym.
    Unlike the PT-gym, the Y treadmills have heart-monitors, although mine apparently wasn’t working. The Y treadmills also have a posted 20-minute limit if busy, but no one was waiting for mine.
    Next was the recumbent, which also had a heart-monitor. The recumbent was the only machine at the PT-gym with a heart-monitor.
    My target heart-rate is 126+ beats per minute; and I got up to that, and slightly over. That was what I did at the PT-gym; and I set it at 21 minutes just like the PT-gym.
    The Y also has step-machines, but with a lot more bells-and-whistles than at the PT-gym. I see the step-machine as only a gizmo for more-or-less replicating the steps at the mighty Curve.
    At the PT-gym I would do 260; largely because they weren’t real steps. The mighty Curve is only 194 or so, but your body-weight pushes down the steps on a step-machine.
    That’s not what happens at the mighty Curve. You’re actually lifting your body-weight about six inches per step.
    The Y step-machines measure calories burned, heart-rate, everything-under-the-sun. Set-up was beyond the knowledge of the orientator.
    What we’ll probably end up doing is get the step-resistance to be the same as the PT-gym, and then count off 260. All that other gibberish comes later. Heart-rate would be of interest, but only because a step-machine gets it blasting away — as do the steps at the mighty Curve.
    The Y gym also has a complete Nautilus circuit, but lacks some of the machines that were at the PT-gym. We were trying to replicate stuff at the PT-gym: but only a few Nautilus-machines were equal. Some were nearly impossible; others a bit off-the-wall.
    We noticed they had a pull-down machine in the free-weight room. The PT-gym had a pull-down machine.
    What we can’t duplicate at the Y is some of the arm-strength machines the PT-gym had. We have a rowing-machine I bought long ago, and it will probably go back into service; but that’s mainly aerobic. I may have to also build a balance-board similar to the one I used at the PT-gym; all it is is a PVC-pipe screwed lengthwise to a board.
    Joining the Y brings the whole package: aging geezers in the locker-room striding buck-naked to the sauna, wipe the sweat off the equipment, the smell of electric-heat blowing out of a vent; and they had it at least at 80° — the pool was a steam-bath.
    A flabby 30-ish butterball climbed atop a treadmill, stuffed her iPod into her breast-pocket, stuffed the tiny earpiece into her ear, taped the feed-wire to her bicep, and started blasting away.
    Another girl with cellulite thighs was blasting away on another treadmill while reading a raunchy novel; bottled water at the ready.
    A musclebound 40-ish guy with graying buzzcut was blasting away on an elliptical while reaching for the ceiling with five-pound free-weights in his hands.
    And then Amazon-woman strode in — apparently a Y-employee — to fiddle unused machines.
    “Ya mean there are no changing-rooms in the locker-room, so ya gotta change right in front of everybody?” Linda asked.
    “Gee; just like high-school!”

    My brother in Delaware is 48.

    Friday, February 02, 2007

    Another Messenger party comes and goes.......

    .....This time, Thursday, February 1, 2007, the retirement of Mark Syverud, who is only 53, but retired on disability due to Parkinson’s.
    Marky-Mark retired before Gateway (i.e. when the Ewings still owned the paper). Under Gateway he probably would have been laid off and left dangling.
    To the angry dismay of strident tub-thumpers everywhere, it was a gathering of word-geeks, of which I am one. What Garrison Keillor would call a society of English-majors.
    Only it was better because included were past employees who worked during my tenure.
    Primarily was Bill Robinson, who together with webmaster (Matt Ried) and I comprised the original mighty Mezz electronics-team.
    Matt was the ‘pyooter-guru, and Robinson the writer, and I was included because I was fairly ‘pyooter-literate — as was Robinson. Robinson was also the newspaper’s local-editor.
    Robinson and Ried drove the web-site at first: iteration #2, Z-Wire; but eventually switched to pagination when I got so I could drive it.
    Robinson eventually quit because of two reasons: 1) he was stretched way too thin for little income, and 2) his girlfriend, a Messenger ad sales-rep, was fired by a jerk in a silly macho move.
    Robinson switched to what I call “a stupid, meaningless job” that made a viable income, like bus-driving.
    When Robinson left, the web-site was left to me and Matt Ried; although Ried was webmaster, and me only a driver.
    For years Ried did the daily, and me the weeklies; but we switched when I went part-time. Ried was also doing pagination.
    Another past employee was Anmari Linardi, once a photographer at the mighty Mezz, and driver of web-site iteration #1 after an earlier guy left.
    In fact, she quit because she felt she had been hired as a photographer; not a web-site driver.
    Robinson began recounting facts from my e-mails to the ne’er-do-wells as soon as he saw me.
    “You mean you actually read that stuff?” I asked.
    “Sure; keep sending it!” he said.
    Anmari, another one of the ne’er-do-wells, said the same thing, and then Syverud gave me his e-mail and requested I include him among the ne’er-do-wells.
    Boss-man read a paean from outside regarding what a great writer Syverud was, suggesting that he keep writing.
    Syverud then commented that why the mighty Mezz was such a great place to work is because the employees were throwing themselves into the job — i.e. beyond what was required. To me that means the employees cared about what they were doing. Enough that “if this is what’s required to put out a quality product; I’m figuring it out!”
    It’s why I stayed at the mighty Mezz. Years ago my job-coach from Rochester Rehab suggested he could try to get back my job driving bus.
    “Not interested,” I told him. “I prefer working at the Messenger.”