Holiday Scenes

A short video of the Garden Train at the Morris Aboretum.

A pretty barn near Peace Valley Nature Center

A decoration at the old office

Happy Birthday Dad!

Over the Thanksgiving Day holiday, my older brother and I were out for a walk on the Delaware Canal towpath - it was a very nice late autumn day. The sun shone brightly against the white bark of the Sycamores.

My brother and I got to talking about a Thanksgiving a couple years ago, when my father was very ill and spent the holiday in the hospital, coming home only to have dinner with us on Thanksgiving day. We added up all the "life-threatening" moments he has had in the past few years - since his quintuple bypass surgery - and the tally stood at once every other year - for well over a decade.

This year, Dad celebrated his 80-th birthday with a trip to the Kidney Doctor, where he was told to go on a very low potassium diet. He being diabetic, he can actually eat very little as it is - and now it is even less. But...

On a dreary day, he and my mom were surprised by their Church and they had a nice celebration with folks that care about him (and good folks that they care about in return). He got some funny cards, some small gifts and a huge cake! Mom and I looked the other way while he enjoyed a small bit topped with creamy, sugary icing.

Happy Birthday Dad! Keep plugging away!

Batman lives in Pottstown

My brothers and I, when growing up, would regularly watch the TV version of "Batman" (c. 1966) and when the show opened, we would pose in front of the picture tube and swing our arms to match the "pow!" "bif!" "blap!" and other "sock it to them" that sent the villains flying.

My older brother, it seems, spoke of watching the show while at school, and somehow, got the impression that Batman, lived in a town called Pottstown, PA - about 20 miles up the road from us.

One day, while we lined up in front of the TV to do our "pows!" he proudly announced to my younger brother and I, that "Batman lives in Pottstown!" I don't recall our response at the time, but today, we still greet each other with "Hey! Batman lives in Pottstown!"

Imagine our surprise, when after Thanksgiving dinner, we decided to ask Mr. Google where Batman lived.

In just milliseconds, Mr. Google replied, "380 South San Rafael Avenue, Pasadena, California." And sure enough, appraised at $11,377,778 - Stately Wayne Manor with its 10 bedrooms, 6 baths and 16,599 sq ft space (which may or may not count the Batcave) appeared.

My older brother searched the "backyard" for signs of the Batcave exit - and is not convinced that "this is the place." Nor does he believe that the Gotham City Police Headquarters is in the Warner Brother's Studio back lot.

Hippo Birdie... Two Shoes!

Now this would be getting my biggest Birthday wish!

Today, I will be celebrating my posting a blog entry and going to the Super Market to get dish washing soap and doing some dishes.

Aren't I exciting? Thanks to everyone that send me a card or expressed Happy Birthday wishes!

Barnaget Lighthouse - Sunset Cruise

I know I've not posted anything lately. I don't know where my blogging mojo went. Recently, I went on a sunset cruise off Barnegat Light, Long Beach Island, on the "Miss Barnegat Light." I took lots of photos - it was a beautiful evening. The water was warm(ish) at 73F and the breeze kept things cool.

The boat left from the "Viking Fishing Village."

Barnegat Lighthouse, was built by George Meade, a Civil War General for the north. Barnegat Light was commissioned on January 1, 1859.

Later, all the little kids (and me) would get to drive the boat!

But first we motored out of the bay, past the lighthouse.

The other "aid to navigation," the town water tower, probably doesn't aid navigation nearly as much as the lighthouse!

A cooling breeze helped the "blow boat" stay abreast of us.

Ah... relaxation in a New York minute.

Taking the turn into the inlet to head out into the ocean.

We saw a pod of Porpoise and a big school of bait fish being chased by ... something in the deep. I had "Charlie-Problems" and couldn't get a good shot of the porpoise. I have 6 photos of the empty sea where these swimming mammals ... eluded me. The sunset wasn't much to get excited about - but...

...recently, they re-lit the old lighthouse, and seeing the light was a thrill!

Home Improvements

Now that the office has been moved to the downstairs floor of my house, it seemed neccessary to do some outside "yard work" to spruce things up for when clients came over.

The stucco is rather ... dingy.

A fresh coat of paint goes a long way.

The paver edging was in need of relaying and straightening. Rough on the tender "keyboarder's hands"!

I think the results were worth the couple hours in the hot sun.

The other end of the house was a jungle of weeds and rotted landscaping ties. I pulled out all the rot first and then weeded out the jungle.

Another shot of the end of house "flower bed".

The downspout was leaking and water was getting on the porch and into the garage.

More dingy stucco - the dirt is from the stump grinder that removed an old stump that was under the drain pipe here.

A new drain pipe to move the rain water away from the house. I got a pile of dirt to do some back filling - but it was 92 degrees F and equally humid - so that waits until a day comes that I won't get heat stroke moving dirt!

A gallon of white stucco paint makes such an improvement!

Another view.

The gutter had a leak right over the steps from the driveway to the front door - when the leaked water froze over the steps were "tricky" - we don't need any clients falling on the steps here! I never rode a bucket before - and now I never want to do that again!

I decided to dig a trench to help the drainage around the back porch - hot and humid meant taking it slow.

Repairs to the down spouting after the tree stump was removed. Some more white stucco painting when on...

The day lilies never bloomed before - they were buried in the jungle of weeds.

The new trench with gravel fill. We had a massive thunderstorm last night, and the gravel remained bone dry as did the porch!

I plan to paint the woodwork soon.

There is a lot more to do, but its coming along.

Mother's Day and Graduations

Last weekend, I went to upstate (Rochester) NY to attend my nephew's graduation. It is a 7 hour drive one-way, so the ride is rather tiring. I took my parents up. My oldest nephew graduated on Sunday morning - the ceremony was held in the minor league ice hockey team's building downtown.

I never actually saw the college campus (Nazareth University). The younger nephew graduates this upcoming Saturday (Niagara College near Buffalo) but his is "limited attendance" (only four tickets), so we just celebrated his "while we were there" and of course we celebrated Mother's Day too! It was a party-harty weekend!

The weather was sunny - actually it was hot and sticky and in the 90s. Surprising for Rochester at this time of year (their daffodils just bloomed last week!) I would visit them more often - but 14 hours of driving for a weekend doesn't work out so well!

The stage was within easy view.

My nephew was not quite lost in the crowd. I see him in there!


The big moment - two hours into the ceremony.

Outside in the nice sunshine with a gentle cooling breeze, the nephews are besieged with photo op requests.

Let's cram twenty people into the dinning room!

The cake was a work of art - I told my mom, the best thing about all this - is seeing my nephews smiling and happy. She replied, "That might be the best (grand)mother's day gift a mom could ever get.

It's Been A Busy While

After moving the office and doing a lot of de-cluttering, my parents asked me to do more of the same at their place. I have now spent hours with sorting through years of accumulated (to be nice, let's call it) "stuff." One of the consequences of the office move was relocating a lot of my father's business stuff that was stored in the office where we had plenty of room.

All of it was moved to my parent's house and into their basement. Their basement wasn't fit for even mice, being dark and clammy. So the first order of business was to install a lot of overhead lighting and then, once they could see the sorry state of things, I was asked to paint all the walls white along painting the cellar steps. 10 gallons of white paint and 2 gallons of grey paint later, the cellar is much brighter. Then de-cluttering took place with me being able to see what I was looking at!

This lead to me being asked to paint their dining room, then their living room, and then their bedroom, a couple hallways, and bathroom. I even hung some wallpaper (borders.) All this done, they asked me to do some painting down the shore. I have painted and de-cluttered until I have dropped. And there is still more to do. The last bit of painting was their garden shed as you can see in flickr (on the right.)

This is a murky shot of the house down the shore's attic. I removed an entire dumpster worth of "stuff". The attic had never been emptied even by the guy my folks bought the place from. The previous owner was a depression-era child - so he hoarded old rusty nails, scraps of wood, old ripped out electrical wire, half-used paneling, odds and ends of dry wall, you name it. I even found two old bathroom mirror cabinets - apparently obtained at a garage sale for $2 each and left upstairs for that "some day project." That some day never came.

Wondering about what had become of the previous owner, I located one of his sons on the Internet and we exchanged a number of "catching up" emails. They were family friends of my parents - time just caused us to drift apart. Sadly, the old-timer has passed away, after a slow decline from Alzheimer's Disease. He taught me a bunch of things about boats, being an ex-Navy man that served in WWII.

Elsewhere's down the shore, people are still recovering from the aftermath of "Super-Storm Sandy" and work continues with many seashore cottages being "jacked up" so that the next flooding shouldn't be so harmful. Just watch the first step as you leave the house!

One of the low-lying houses that I spent some hours of my boyhood in is no longer there. The lot was cleared this past month. The memories of happy times enjoyed at the shore haven't been cleared from my head - but the place died a little - it just isn't the same without both the people and the places that used to be there.

As some of you know, me and my two brothers were called the "Three K's" when growing up since we all have names starting with "K". So I found the name of this boat to be of humorous interest. I sent the phone-photo to my brothers when I saw it. :) The "Two K's." My brothers are still arguing over which of us would be the missing "K" continuing with this morning's go-round about someone being a "Special K."

The Office Move Is Over

The old office a couple days before settlement was nearly empty. The day before settlement, we got 10 inches of snow. Fortunately, I had spent the weekend prior to that moving the remaining "big and heavy" items! I was and am also tremendously grateful for the kindness of the one of the old office neighbors that helped clear the snow from the parking lot and walkways on the day of settlement - making the "walk through" go very smoothly. He is a gem and a real gentleman.

The books all moved, weeded out, sorted and arranged on shelves.

The provisioning of the phones and Internet services went smoothly even though there was 5 inches of muddy slushy snow on the ground. Verizon gets an A+ for this.

The servers were in a rack but the rack was too tall to fit on in this room (being 8 feet 4 inches tall. So I placed the servers on a mobile cart. I think this arrangement actually works better since I can push the cart away from the wall to get at the wiring behind the servers.

The new phone lines (voice and fax) went in seamlessly, and the new Internet connection was quickly "configured" for the new IP addresses.

One of the moving days was hampered by a 1/4 inch glaze of "black ice". Oh joy! No injuries to man or cargo occurred though.

After the "sorting through" all the all stuff, I actually ended up with a bunch of empty shelves. No fear, we will fill them soon! I raised the painting about 8 inches - and hung a lot of the other "artwork" so the new office seems more comfortable. The blue lighted gizmos on top are routers and computer backup devices.

UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supplies) getting tested - the last time I tested some of them was 2007. 4 of the 5 still work properly. These things have lead batteries in them and weight 20-30 pounds each and are a pain to move!

There are still some odds and ends to "find a home" for and some sorting, sifting and (hopefully throwing away) to do - mostly my unorganized brother's "stuff."