Rambling and Links

I’ve been meaning to write a post here for awhile, but just haven’t gotten around to it. (And I feel like I’ve probably started more than one post with that sentence already, but hey, I’m going to repeat myself occasionally here. I’ve been doing this on and off for 20+ years…)

The plan for today is pretty simple: Watching the Wimbledon men’s final at 9, going over to the farmers market around 10, then checking out the Somerville street fair (now called the “Somerville Market” for some reason) at some point after lunch. It’s too hot to do much else.

I’m not exactly thriving in the heat wave we’ve been dealing with over the last few weeks. I guess it’s not technically all one big heat wave, but it feels like one. I guess it’s a new one kicking off today, really. Either way, I’m too old for this.

I just finished reading New Spring, the Wheel of Time prequel novel, and I want to start reading Knife of Dreams today. I think I’m on-track to finish WoT this year, maybe. I’m pretty sure the prologue for KoD is a typically long WoT prologue, so it may take me a while just to get through that. (The WoT podcast I listen to takes 3 episodes to cover the prologue, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a lot.)

There are a few things I’ve seen on the internet recently that I thought I should mention here, so in no particular order, and with no particular relation to each other:

  1. I’ve been reading Jonathan Clements’ Humble Dollar blog on and off for several years, though I haven’t looked at it recently. Apparently Clements has cancer and likely less than a year to live. He’s only a few years older than me, so that’s… sobering.
  2. Here’s a behind-the-scenes article about the folks who change the light bulbs at the Met. (OK, there’s more to it than just changing light bulbs, but it’s still mostly about light bulbs.) This is the kind of thing I really like getting some insight into. I haven’t been back to the Met in a long time. And, honestly, I may never make it back; I just get sick too easily these days, so it’s always a risk, dealing with public transit and the crowds in NYC.
  3. I’m pretty sure I had at least one other thing to mention here, but now I can’t remember what it was, and I’m too tired to figure it out. So never mind!

 

disarrayed thoughts

My head has been a bit muddy lately. There’s probably a bunch of reasons for that, but I think a lot of it comes down to lack of sleep, which I think is mostly due to allergies. So this post might be a little dizzy.

First, here’s the latest on the fire. Main St is now open to traffic again, though the sidewalk in front of Mike’s and King Tut is still roped off. I’m guessing that Mike’s isn’t coming back any time soon, if at all. That’s a bummer for me, since I got food from there at least once a week. (And, yes, I know it’s a bigger bummer for the guy who owns Mike’s, and the people who lived above it, and so on…)

And here’s a couple of fire-adjacent topics: First, looking for news on the fire has reminded me of how broken local news coverage is. I’ve gotten info on the fire from a combination of sources: TapInto, Patch, MyCentralJersey, and NJ.com for “regular” news. All of those sources are, shall we say, flawed, though. And I’ve picked up bits and pieces from the Somerville town Instagram and Facebook accounts, and other Somerville-related social media accounts. But it’s hard to piece all that together, and there’s so much cruft to wade through. I guess what I’m saying here is that, if somebody wants to start a good local newspaper or news site, that would be nice.

And the second fire-adjacent topic: My renter’s insurance just came up for renewal. I’ve been with the same company (Liberty Mutual) for all 30 years that I’ve been in this apartment. I’ve never had a problem, but then again, I’ve never had to file a claim. The cost of the policy, 30 years ago, was fine, but it’s crept up, and this year, the renewal price was almost $400. So, for the first time in 30 years, I decided to shop around. It turns out that a Hartford Life policy, with AARP discount, would be about half what I was paying Liberty Mutual. So I called LM to cancel. And, of course, they offered to “rerun my quote” and see if they could get the price down. Well, they did that, and (with no change in coverage) they got the price down to $117. So, the lesson there is: maybe review your insurance more often than once every 30 years.

The fire isn’t stopping the Friday night classic car thing on Main St, but they did cancel the street fair this weekend. (If I had to choose one to cancel, I would have gone with the car thing, but that’s just me. It’s too noisy, and I’m old.)

Oh, and my last, totally unrelated, topic is this: We’re moving out of our temp space at work and back to our old (now remodeled) space. We moved into the temp space in March. We packed up yesterday; the movers should be moving our stuff over the weekend; and we’ll start working in the new space on Tuesday.

I’m not fond of the cubicles in the temp space, but I’m even less excited about the cubicles in the new space. The cubicle walls are a bit higher than the temp space, but not as high as our old cubicles. And the cubicles are smaller, with less desk space and less drawer space. (And no bookshelf.) The desks are sit/stand, with the monitors mounted on arms, so that might be cool. And we’re getting new monitors, so that’s nice. (Assuming they’re better than the old monitors.) I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to give it a shot and see how it all works out. I need to figure out if I can thrive in a more minimalist environment than I’m used to.

Fire follow-up

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, I see that a section of Main St is still closed off. I had to drive around the back way when I got home from work today. Here’s a follow-up article from News 12.

Walking down there, it looks like King Tut and Mike’s Courtside are both in pretty bad shape. I never ate at King Tut, but I got stuff from Mike’s almost every week. Right now, their web site isn’t loading and I haven’t seen anything posted from them on social media. I guess they’re basically gone now. There are apartments above both of those businesses, and it looks like they’re all uninhabitable right now too. So, not good. But things could have been much worse. A lot of the buildings on Main St are basically connected to each other, so it seems like a fire could spread easily. And I haven’t heard about anyone being hurt in the fire, so that’s good.

Smoke

From NJ.com: Wildfire smoke to cause dangerous air quality, darken skies again today.

Yesterday wasn’t great, but today is really bad. I don’t remember air quality around here ever getting quite this bad. I managed a short walk early this morning, but when I tried a quick walk after lunch, it was too bad and I had to give up and go back inside. (And it’s not perfect inside either.) I’m not sure how much of this is due to air quality, but I’ve had a headache all day today and most of the day yesterday. And I’m getting itchy eyes and a rough throat. I may take a nap this afternoon, if I can get away with it.

I think I’m glad that I’m working from home today, but I’m also wondering if my office building’s HVAC system might be doing a better job of filtering out the bad stuff than my apartment building’s HVAC is doing. It wasn’t bad in the office yesterday, but overall it wasn’t as bad yesterday as it is today. I guess that if it’s really bad again tomorrow, I’ll find out how good the office HVAC system is, since I’m supposed to go in tomorrow.

Old Habits, follow-up

This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s Old Habits post.

On the E-ZPass thing: I’d posted a request on the E-ZPass website, asking them to keep the account open, and surprisingly, they responded, and told me that they’d keep it open for another year, but would close it in a year if there’s still no activity. So now I guess I have a year to drive through a toll plaza at least once. I guess if I go another year without driving on the Parkway or Turnpike, then I should just admit that I’m not the kind of person who drives on the Parkway or Turnpike anymore.

On NYCC: I activated my badge today. It was less annoying this year than in previous years, since I only had the one 4-day badge, rather than 4 one-day badges. Badge activation is still a pain though. (See this post from 2017 for the full rant. Most of the stuff in that post is still true.)

On football: The Giants won! And it was a pretty exciting game. So, yeah, I guess I’m going to be watching football this year, at least for a while. If the Giants collapse and wind up on a six-game losing streak or something like that, they I’ll probably stop.

Watching the NFL is a little more complicated than it used to be, but most games are still on regular broadcast TV, so I shouldn’t have any trouble watching them. Thursday night games are now on Amazon Prime, which I do have, so I can watch those too. Monday Night games are mostly on ESPN, which I don’t have, but some of them (including tonight’s game) are on ABC, so I can watch those. This article has some details on the schedule. (Of course, I may just stick with the Giants games, and skip all the random Thursday night, Sunday night, and Monday night games.)

I’ve noticed that there a lot of clickbait articles out there with titles like “How to Watch X Without Cable”, where X is baseball, or football, or tennis, or whatever. And they’re all basically just trying to drive traffic through affiliate links to DirecTV, Hulu, and other services that offer cable channels over the internet. There must be a lot of money in those affiliate links, since so many people are posting these articles. And very few of them actually have any useful info in them. They mostly just seem to be copy & paste from a template, then tweak for a particular sport or event. Oh well. I guess that’s how folks running web sites make money these days. Can’t blame them for doing that.

Old Habits

I’ve been thinking lately about old habits, and inertia, and what I should be examining and rethinking. A lot of this is due to the change in seasons.

And a little is due to a letter I got in the mail from E-ZPass last week. Apparently, I haven’t used my E-ZPass since 2019, so they’re going to close out my account. I was a little surprised by this, but when I stopped and thought about it, I realized that it’s true. The last time I drove on the Parkway or Turnpike was June 22, 2019, according to my E-ZPass history. Looking at my Day One journal, I see that I’d gone down to Whiting on that day, to visit my old friend Gloria’s family, and to visit the cemetery. And I haven’t been down there since. I’ve thought about visiting the cemetery on multiple occasions over the last few years, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

I guess I can keep my E-ZPass account active if I use it within the next couple of weeks. So maybe I should drive down to the cemetery and say hello to my parents. Or I could just give up on E-ZPass and return it.

Another thing I’m thinking about, and this one is definitely related to the change in seasons, is football. I haven’t paid much attention to the NFL the last few years, but I’m going to give it a try again this year. Today is the first Sunday of the season, and I’m currently watching the Jets game. I’ll watch the Giants game at 4 PM too, and maybe the Sunday night game on NBC after that. Or maybe not. I’m not paying a lot of attention to the Jets game right now, but I’m getting a nice feeling of comfort and familiarity from it. Just the sound of the game in the background is kind of nice, especially on a rainy Sunday in September.

I just googled “comfort of the familiar” and found some interesting stuff. It can be a good thing and a bad thing. I don’t think there’s any harm in getting some comfort from the sounds of a football game. But if I find that it’s not doing much for me, there’s also no harm in turning it off and reading a book.

On another subject, I just got my badge for NYCC in the mail. I still have plenty of time to decide if I’m actually going or not. I haven’t made a hotel reservation. If I go, I guess I’ll just take the train in each day. And if I don’t go, I’m out $210, unless I can resell my badge to someone else, but that’s not a big deal if that’s the way it goes. I’m fine either way.

I just looking at Evernote and Day One, trying to figure out when the last time I’d been in NYC was. When I went up to Albany in March, I spent an hour or so in NYC, to switch trains. But the last time I really did anything in NYC was October 2021, for last year’s NYCC. I’d thought about going in for some museum visits on various weekends this summer, but just never got around to it. So I’m wondering if I should keep paying for my Met and MoMA memberships, or let them expire.

I’m starting to wonder if my life is ever going to get back to what it used to be, pre-COVID. And I’m wondering if I actually want it to, or need it to. Part of me is fine with my “new normal” of spending a lot more time in my apartment, and a lot more time closer to home, in general. I need to think about what I should hold on to, and what I should let go of.

passport photos and the passage of time

I’m thinking a lot about the passage of time today. I got a new passport photo taken this week, and compared it to my last couple of passport photos. I took the current one and the last two, put them next to each other, and scanned them in together. Since you need to renew your passport every ten years, looking at the photos gives me a look at how I’ve changed over the last few decades. I thought about posting that scan here, but it might not be a good idea to make my passport photos publicly accessible.

Looking at them together, I see, first, a guy in his mid-thirties, with a fair amount of hair and a mustache that he apparently thought looked good on him. He looks pretty happy. Maybe a little overweight, but not enough to bother him. He hasn’t really lost anyone close to him yet.

Next, I see a guy in his mid-forties. He’s recently lost both of his parents. He looks a little more subdued than the mid-thirties guy. The mustache is gone, and there’s less hair on his head. He’s still smiling, but it’s a less confident smile, maybe. He’s definitely overweight and needs to lose a lot of weight, but it’s not bothering him that much yet.

Finally, I see current-day Andy. He’s got bags under his eyes and looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. He’s lost a lot of weight, and a lot of hair. He kind of looks like he just got punched in the face.

Now, comparing the current photo to the previous ones is a little unfair, since the rules for passport photos have changed since the last one. You’re not allowed to wear glasses, and you’re supposed to have a neutral expression on your face. And of course the photo was taken by a random Walgreens clerk under bright fluorescent lights. So, yeah, maybe I don’t look quite that bad in “real life.” Still, the guy in that photo, staring back at me, looks like he needs a hug. And a good night’s sleep. And maybe a sandwich.

On a semi-related topic, today is the twenty-first anniversary of this blog. I wrote posts on the tenth and fifteenth anniversaries, but seem to have missed the twentieth last year. So I guess it was the mid-thirties passport photo guy who wrote the first entries on the blog, and the mid-forties one who wrote that tenth anniversary post.

And on yet another almost-related topic, I missed seeing Paul McCartney at MetLife Stadium last week. It was apparently a great show. I regret not going a little, but I’ve seen him five times already, including once before at MetLife, in 2016. I think that, if there was some way I could have teleported myself to the show and back home, I’d have done it. But the grief of dealing with NJ Transit and staying out late and all that would have been too much for me. With respect to COVID, I would have felt relatively safe at the stadium, since it’s basically open-air. I would have felt less safe on NJ Transit though, since those trains to MetLife can get packed, and there’s no mask mandate on trains anymore. And if I’d gone to the concert, I might have decided to stay overnight in NYC afterward, and then I’d have gotten caught up in the NJ Transit job action on Friday, which could have been a nightmare.

So, yeah, mid-thirties Andy would have definitely gone to MetLife for McCartney and enjoyed it. Mid-forties Andy might have gone, but would have been tired and maybe sick for a day or two afterwards. Mid-fifties Andy is staying home watching old Star Wars cartoons on Disney+ and going to bed at 9:30 PM.

more Somerville stuff

As a follow-up to my previous post, I can confirm that I did indeed “hole up in my apartment and wait this thing out,” and rewatched the whole first season of Stranger Things. The big race was won by some guy from New Zealand, which is kinda cool. But they continued playing annoying music through all the races, which was kinda not cool. Turnout was pretty good, but didn’t seem to be ridiculous, at least based on what I could see from my window. I didn’t actually go back out at all after my morning walk.

Tonight, it seems like we’re getting our first big turnout for the classic car thing that happens every Friday during the summer. I don’t hear a DJ yet, so that’s a good sign. In the past, they’ve sometimes set up a DJ booth right across the street from my apartment, and that’s always been a pain. In more recent years, they’ve either not had a DJ at all, or had him set up farther from my apartment. Of course, regardless of that, there’s still the guys on loud motorcycles, and the guys who tune their cars to make as much noise as possible. So I’m still not going to be able to have a quiet Friday night again for a while. At least I can work from home on Fridays now, so I don’t have to worry about driving home through this stuff anymore.

In theory, Somerville should be having their June street fair this weekend, on Sunday. But, from what I can tell, it’s been canceled this year. I’m not sure why. That’s good news for me, since it means I can hopefully have a quiet Sunday, at least.

I’m not sure if there was much of a point to this post, other than to vent a little about how stressed I am right now, and how much I’d like a nice quiet weekend. I’m thinking about taking a couple of days off from work and trying to go somewhere quiet for a bit, but I have no clue where. I just did a search for “quiet vacation spot in NJ,” and I found what looked like a promising list, but then saw that Caesars Atlantic City was number 3 on the list, so that’s obviously an auto-generated bit of clickbait. I’ve been to Caesars, and it ain’t quiet!

 

Memorial Day and the return of the Tour of Somerville

Well, the Tour of Somerville is back this year, after taking two years off. I imagine that a lot of people are happy about that, but so far, I’d say I could do with another year off. I woke up at 6:30 AM this morning, and things were pretty quiet. Then, just a few minutes after I’d gotten up, a blast of music came in through the window. Luckily, it was only a test of the system, and they shut it back off after a few minutes. So I got a couple of hours of peace and quiet. But that blast kind of set me on edge, and I’ve been a little jumpy all morning. It doesn’t help that I haven’t been sleeping well lately.

It’s 9 AM now, though, and the “Family Fun Ride” has started, so the music is back. I’ve been drowning it out with music of my own, played through my AirPods. (I’m charging up my Beats now too, as I may want to switch to the over-the-ear headphones at some point for the better noise cancellation.) I’m hoping they’ll turn down the music when the “real” races start, but right now, I’d call it “aggressively loud.”

I went out for my usual walk this morning, around 8 AM, and walked the race course. They’ve got a lot more metal fencing up on Main Street than I remember them doing in past years. So it looks like I’m pretty much fenced in. Just getting across the street between races seems like it’ll be more trouble than it was in past years.

So I guess I’m just going to hole up in my apartment and wait this thing out. I wish I could get into the spirit of the thing, but I really just want a quiet day off. I’m still paranoid enough about COVID that I don’t want to go out in a big crowd, and it looks like it might indeed be a big crowd this year.

I finished watching the first part of Stranger Things season four yesterday. I really enjoyed it. I especially loved the use of Kate Bush’s song “Running Up That Hill,” which has apparently kindled a lot of new interest in Kate Bush. I was a big fan of Kate Bush in high school and college. Her album The Dreaming came out in 1982, so I listened to that a lot in high school. And Hounds of Love, the album with “Running Up That Hill,” came out in 1985, so I would have been listening to that one in college. I guess I’m a little older than the Stranger Things kids are supposed to be, since they’re just starting high school in 85.

I may decide to kill some time today by going back and rewatching season one of Stranger Things, either through my headphones, or possibly just blasted through my speakers.

The real races are supposed to start any minute now, since it’s just coming up on 9:30. And they’ll be going until maybe 6 PM. Honestly, I’m not looking forward to any of it, but I guess I’ll make the best of it and try to have a good day cocooned in my apartment watching TV.