Thursday, March 19th, 2009
I received a message this morning from the heating fuel oil company we use. The person who left the message was inquiring about the low quantity of oil that we used throughout the year and wanted to update their system with whether or not we were burning wood or some other source of alternative energy. I gave a call back to fill her in.
When I called her back, I told the lady that we did, in fact, have a pellet stove. I said that the oil was primarily burned for hot water and to heat one bedroom during the winter. She praised me on my intelligence for getting a pellet stove. I asked her how much oil we burned in the last year (they just came to fill the tank a few days ago). She replied with 256.6 gallons. I thought that was pretty good for a year.
That got me thinking…since the pellet stove was pretty expensive and the pellets themselves were an additional cost on top of the stove, was it worth it to get the pellet stove and pellets, or should we just have burned oil to heat the house for the whole year? I can’t remember the price per gallon of oil last year, when they wanted to lock me into that foolish contract, but I swear it was over $4 a gallon. Since I can’t remember, I did some quick research online to see what oil prices were last year at this time and I came across this website. It shows last year’s oil prices vs. this year’s oil prices in New York. Close enough. At this time last year, oil prices were $3.93 per gallon. Last year, the oil delivery company estimated that we would burn approximately 1000 gallons of oil for the year. That was based on other, similarly sized houses in the area.
Let’s do a little math.
If I signed the oil contract and burned the estimated amount of fuel oil, we would have paid $3930 for the year’s worth of oil.
Since I didn’t sign the contract and since we burned much less oil than the oil company’s estimate (because we used an alternative form of energy), we only paid $638.93 for the oil we burned. That number is from the oil prices on the receipts I kept.
Even if we didn’t sign the contract, but still burned the estimated amount of oil, we still would have paid $2490 for the year’s worth of oil.
Let’s see…I paid about $1100 for the four tons of pellets that we used for the season. We paid about $2500 for the pellet stove and installation. That equals $3600 for the pellet stove and one year’s worth of pellets.
I am going to go out on a limb here and imagine that I was feeling the same way a lot of people were feeling last year at this time and went ahead and signed that oil price contract. If I had signed it and never got the pellet stove, I would have $330 less in my bank account right now.
I know there is some more delicate math involved here, such as the actual price paid for the oil that was already in the tank before we moved in, but I am going to ignore that. This post has already almost put me to sleep. I just thought it was my duty to write it.
That’s the point? Well, I would say that even at today’s lower oil prices, it’s still worth it to get a pellet stove. The payback period is very short and you won’t cringe every time you hear the boiler kick on.
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Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
I am going to tell you a little story. Yeah, I thought you would appreciate that, especially since things have been a little dry around here lately. First, I must apologize for not offering any photos of the occasion. Laura has been swearing to me that she took pictures of the whole thing and that I have them somewhere. I don’t know what she is talking about. I can’t find them and I have no recollection of taking them. The best I can do is to paint a mental picture for you, because trust me, the mental picture I have is very vivid.
Okay, let’s go.
A long, long time ago (about 5 years), we lived in a small lake cottage a few blocks from a small lake in New York. It was a tiny, but cute rental. We lived there for three fairly uneventful years. I can still remember the night we arrived at this particular house. We had just driven 5 hours from all the way up in Naples, NY and were totally beat. About an hour before we arrived at the house, I was forced to stop short in the middle of the road while driving the huge moving truck I had rented. I was sitting there with my eyes wide open, reading the big sign on an overpass in front of me that read, “Maximum Height – 11′9″.” Unfortunately, I was driving a truck that was 12′3″. I guess that wouldn’t have been all too bad if I wasn’t towing my car on one of those two wheeled tow dollies. With all those pivot points, backing up wasn’t an option. Even better, I was facing downhill and it was pitch black outside. Let’s just say that it took a good long time to get that situation squared away and there were some mildly annoyed fellow drivers. It was not one of my best memories. I can only imagine how many times I was called an “idiot” that night.
Anyway, we eventually made it to the house, which was good. We parked the truck on the road and slept the night away, only to unpack the next day. Things were fine for about two years.
It was a beautiful sunny spring day. I was walking out to my car on my way to work when I turned around to check out the house, like I always do. It’s just a habit of mine. Well, on this particular day, everything looked fine, except for that small hole in the corner of an attic vent that was facing the street. It was up near the peak of the roof on the front of the house. I thought to myself that I had never really noticed that hole before, but was pretty sure that it had always been like that. Besides, this was a rental; it wasn’t my place to give daily inspections of the building’s exterior. I went to work and forgot all about it.
Upon returning home that evening, I did my thing inside and then grabbed a beer. I remember having no shirt on and walking to the mailbox to get the mail. Just as I got about half way across the front yard, a pickup truck rolled down the road and stopped right in front of me. The guy opened his passenger side window and starts telling me something in an excited kind of way. “Hey man, you got a raccoon living in your attic,” he said. I replied with a, “What?” “Yeah, I was driving down the road this afternoon and I saw a huge raccoon crawling through the little hole in your vent. I have no idea how she got in there because the hole is so small, but I sat here for a good 10 minutes watching her. She finally got through after a while,” he replied. I said thank you and started devising a plan on how to patch up that hole in the vent. I mean seriously, how hard can it be to keep a giant raccoon out of your attic?
Well, let me just tell you that it is a little trickier than one would think.
Before the kind fellow with the pickup truck even made it to the corner of the street, I already had the mail in my hand and was walking across the backyard looking for a piece of plywood. I was going to cut it to size and screw it to the 2″x4″ beams from inside the attic.
Picture this – standing on a table in your living room to push open a small trap door that leads up to a tiny attic in a tiny lake cottage. That’s really not that bad. Now, picture doing this while thinking that an enormous raccoon is sitting up in that attic just waiting to see the whites of your eyes. It’s a little unnerving. The problem was, I had no idea if the raccoon was up there or not. It was the early evening, so I was hoping she was out gathering some food. You know, just as I began pushing that little trap door open, I remembered that I did hear some strange noises a few nights earlier coming from up above me. I just chalked it up to some branches hitting the roof or something.
Laura was in the living room holding my legs as I jimmied up through the trap door. You should have seen my head whipping around in every direction I could think of. There were no lights up there and I was totally freaking out. As every second passed by, I kept expecting to hear a “whoosh” and have 20 claws and something furry attach to my face. As it turned out, the raccoon wasn’t even up there. She must have been outside doing something. I shined the flashlight that Laura handed me all over the place and saw nothing, so I slipped through the hole in the ceiling to screw the piece of plywood over the vent at the front of the house. I was totally confident that this raccoon wouldn’t get through this rock solid piece of wood and that our little raccoon problem was solved.
That night, around midnight, I heard a “bang, bang.” I woke up and started looking around. I walked to the front of the house and heard, “scratch, bang bang.” I really had no idea what in the world was going on, but my adrenaline was pumping and I was ready for anything. I kept hearing this noise as I was standing at the front door and it was coming from above my head. I walked back into the bedroom to grab the flashlight. I opened the front door and walked out to the front yard. As I shined the flashlight up towards the roof, I immediately saw two beady little eyes staring at me. Apparently, the raccoon was trying to scratch, rip, tear and push her way through the vent to get back inside the attic. I stood there in disbelief.
I went back inside to get some clothes on. I kept wondering why in the world this raccoon wouldn’t let this go. Why was she being so stubborn? I went back outside and started yelling at the raccoon, in an attempt to scare her away. All she did was look at me and continued to try to get through the vent. At this point, I was getting annoyed and wanted to end this adventure. I walked to the back porch, grabbed the garden hose and hooked it up. I turned it on and dragged it to the front yard. Now, Laura was standing there and was manning the flashlight. I started spraying the raccoon with the water and she ran across the roof towards the back of the house. I looked at Laura and gave her a smile. No raccoon was going to ruin my beauty sleep. We went back inside to crawl back under the covers.
About 10 minutes later, I heard the same “bang, bang, bang” and sprung to my feet. I am not even going to tell you what we did, because it’s basically a repetition of what we did just 10 minutes before. This time, I went outside and chased the raccoon all over the place, but she just kept trying to get back in that vent. I had enough. I really didn’t know what to do, so we went back inside and lay awake for the rest of the night.
When it was light out again, I went outside to see what kind of damage the raccoon did to the vent. There were a few more cracks in it, but nothing too drastic. I didn’t see the raccoon anywhere, so I held out hope that what we did to her the night before taught her a lesson. If she didn’t want to experience getting sprayed by a hose again, she would find a new home.
I went back inside, got ready for work and left.
That evening, when I got home from work, I found the house and vent exactly as I had left it. I felt very happy that I beat the raccoon at her own game. Laura and I sat around until it got dark, chatted a bit and decided that I would go out to grab some Chinese food to celebrate. You know, it’s the little things in life.
I will remember this conversation for the rest of my days. As I was getting out of the car in the Chinese food place parking lot down the road, my phone started ringing. The caller ID said, “Home” on it, which surprised me. Laura never called my cell phone from home. I answered the phone and I was greeted by a flustered female voice telling me that something was screaming up in the attic. It was Laura and she was jumping from one thought to the next. She said that either we had 20 birds up in the attic, or there were BABY RACCOONS!!! Holy man oh man. Baby raccoons? No wonder that lady raccoon was trying to get back in the attic so badly. I ran into the Chinese restaurant, paid for the food and ran back out to drive home faster than I was supposed to. I figured I should still get the food, even during a time of crisis.
When I pulled in the driveway and got out of the car, I heard a faint squealing. As I got closer and eventually entered the house, the squealing got louder. When I stood in the middle of the living room, the squealing was really loud and right above my head. I put my hands to my face and wondered what in the world I was going to do. It was dark outside and I was really tired from getting no sleep the night before. One thing was for sure; I wasn’t going to live through another night of that momma raccoon banging on the side of the house. Add the squealing of hungry baby raccoons in the attic, and I was ready to move out.
Within a few minutes, I had devised a plan. I would go outside, climb up on the roof and pull the vent down. Then, I would go up in the attic and unscrew the piece of plywood that was blocking the mother raccoon from getting to her babies. This way, the big raccoon would be able to get in the attic to feed her babies and they would shut up. Also, she wouldn’t need to tear at the vent any longer and I would get a good night’s sleep.
I informed Laura that we were going to be getting into some hairy stuff here, so she better be at her finest. She was going to man the garden hose. I walked around to the back of the house, grabbed the step ladder and the hose and brought both up to the front of the house. I handed Laura the hose. She already had the flashlight in her hand. Her job was to spray the mother raccoon if she showed up while I was pulling off the vent. Her other job was to shine the flashlight at what I was working on, so I could see what I was going. It was quite dark up on that roof.
I climbed up on top of the porch and pointed out what I wanted Laura to shine the light at and she did. I began working the vent off the front of the house, while constantly looking below me to see if the mother raccoon was climbing up the porch beams. If I saw the raccoon climbing up, I was going to throw myself off the roof. I know, I know…not a good plan, but I had limited options. Plus, my heart was beating a mile a minute.
Things were going pretty well. I was tugging on the vent and talking to Laura at the same time. I said, “Do you see any sign of the raccoon?” She replied with a, “No.” I was a bit neurotic that night, so I kept on asking Laura if she saw the raccoon. She kept answering, “No” and I was sensing a little annoyance in her voice. I didn’t care, because she wasn’t the one on the roof who was going to get tackled by a crazy raccoon who was trying to protect her young.
I was almost finished getting the vent off the front of the house and I heard the faintest scratch above my head. I shot a glare down at Laura who was standing there pointing the flashlight at me and holding a garden hose. She looked so cute; poor kid. I said in the quietest voice ever, “Sweet doll, please shine the flashlight above my head.”
She did.
I slowly looked up.
About a foot above my head was the mother of all mother raccoons, staring right into my eyes. She was standing on the peak of the roof above me. “HOLY FREAKING MOTHER,” I screamed. Luckily, I had a bit of wit about me and I ran for the ladder instead of jumping off the roof. I climbed down the ladder at record speed and ran to the front lawn to stand next to Laura. I had to jump up and down to shed some of the shakes and adrenaline off of me. “MAN,” I started saying, as we watched the raccoon climb down to inspect the vent. “I have to get that vent off of there or we are never going to hear the end of this,” I said to Laura.
New plan – Laura would spray the raccoon to keep her away from me as I finished getting the vent down. She did and I did. The vent was off. You should have seen that raccoon trying to get to that vent while I was working on it though. Laura showed her good aim that night.
The next thing I had to do was to go up in the attic and unscrew the plywood I put up the day before. This was going to be a little trickier because now I knew there were going to be animals up in that attic with me, as well as a fully grown raccoon on the other side of that plywood.
I crawled up into the attic again. I had my screw gun and a flashlight and was ready to go to work. I made my way to the front of the house, while constantly looking around for those baby raccoons. I didn’t have any idea how big they were, so I was pretty nervous. When I got all the way up to the plywood, I heard some sounds coming from my left, under the overhang of the roof. I shined the flashlight over there, but didn’t see anything. I grabbed a piece of scrap wood that was laying on the floor and pushed some insulation away from the beams. Right then and there, I saw four of the cutest little raccoon heads pop up and look at me. I don’t think they wanted the light shining in their faces, but seeing them sitting there changed the whole dynamic of what I was doing. I softened up and my mission turned from one of war to one of rescue. They looked so helpless. Since they weren’t about to go anywhere and obviously weren’t any threat to me, I started slowly unscrewing the plywood.
(The above video is not of the actual baby raccoons, but of imposters.)
As I was almost finished with the last screw, I lost my silly little grin. I remembered the beast sitting on the other side of the wall with a very determined mindset. I knew what I had to do.
I held the plywood hard against the beams and finished taking out the screw. I held the screw gun in my hand and picked up the flashlight with the same hand. The plan was to move as far as I could away from the board, while still holding it. Then, I was going to run and jump through the hole in the floor back to the living room. After that, I was going to slide the trap door board back over the hole, so the beast couldn’t follow me down through the ceiling.
If you have never seen a grown man scream like a little girl and run across about 15 beams of an unfinished attic and jump through a hole in the floor, you are a lucky person. If you are that grown man, you’re not so lucky. After I jumped through the hole, I landed on the table and slipped off it to land on the floor (on my back). I had to quickly scurry up to put that board back in place before we had one extra mammal living with us. I got the board back in place and ran outside to see if the raccoon went through the hole.
Apparently, Laura had the same idea and gave me a full report as I met her on the front lawn. She said that the minute I let that board down, the raccoon flew through the hole. I remember standing there and how good I felt. It was like I just won the lottery. Then, I remember thinking about how we now had five raccoons in the attic instead of just one. It felt like someone just took all my lottery money away from me.
It was time for a real plan…a plan that would solve the problem.
Laura used to work with animals and had access to really heavy duty animal handling gloves. They were about three feet long and about a half inch thick. These gloves were meant to hold down a mountain lion. If the mountain lion bit, you probably wouldn’t feel it. Okay, you would feel it, but the teeth wouldn’t go through your arm. Okay, maybe they would, but these gloves were really heavy duty.
My plan was to wait until mid afternoon when the mother raccoon was out for the day. Then, I would go up into the attic and screw the piece of plywood back to cover up the gaping vent hole. I would capture each baby raccoon and put them into a cat carrier that we had hanging around. After that, put the cat carrier outside and just wait for momma to come back.
That was the plan and I must say that I executed it perfectly the next day. I think the worst part was that the attic was about 150 degrees then and moving the insulation around covered my bare top half with sweat and fiberglass. It was pretty terrible.
You really should have seen it. I was like a professional animal handler. With the exposed baby raccoons looking at me and the cat carrier open and ready to hold the animals, it was show time. I put the gloves on and started reaching back into the corner of the attic. I grabbed the first baby raccoon and put it in the carrier. You should really see the claws on these raccoons. They are very long and really stick on everything they touch. I can only imagine wrestling with a full grown one. No thank you.
The first three raccoons went into the carrier without incident. The fourth one gave me a little problem. I am assuming that this last raccoon was the big brother of the bunch, because he kept trying to go deeper and deeper into the corner of the attic. He was hissing and being very aggressive. Eventually, he saw things my way and was placed into the cat carrier with the rest of his siblings. Another thing you should have seen was how much fun I had while trying to place each baby raccoon into the cat carrier while there was already one in there. Each time I opened the carrier door, the raccoon that was in there tried to climb out. It was crazy.
After I got the last little devil in the carrier, I beamed a great big smile. I kept the plywood over the vent hole, picked up the carrier and slid through the hole in the ceiling to enter the living room. I walked the carrier outside and sat it down in the shade at the side of the house. I kept the carrier locked, because I didn’t want any baby raccoons walking around without the protection of their mother.
I am sure you can imagine the excitement on Laura’s face when she got home from work that day and I showed her a cage full of baby raccoons. I’m not sure which she was excited more about, not having to deal with the “raccoons in the attic” issue any longer or getting an up close look at these little cuties. She asked what I was going to do with them. I answered that I was going to leave them there just like they were and wait until the mother raccoon returned to get them. We were certain she would be back.
A few hours passed and we were watching TV in the bedroom when we heard something outside tampering with the cat carrier. We ran out there to see what was going on. Well, low and behold, the mother raccoon was tossing the cat carrier around, trying to get it open. She wanted to get at those babies badly. I tried to walk over to open the carrier, but the mother raccoon lunged at me. Okay, obviously our mutual understanding of not harming one another was over. We were enemies once again.
Since I wanted to get this ordeal behind us and I wanted this raccoon family to reunite, I ran to the back of the house again to grab the hose. I came back and handed it to Laura again, with the same instructions. “Spray the raccoon while I open the carrier,” I said. Laura started spraying the raccoon and she backed up into the neighbor’s driveway. Each time I went over to attempt to open the carrier, the raccoon ignored the water and lunged at me. Laura had to keep getting closer to spray the mother raccoon harder. Eventually, I got the cage open and took off. Big momma ran in there and grabbed the first baby. She raced up the willow tree across the street and placed the baby in a “V.” Laura and I walked inside to give her some peace and privacy.
About five minutes later, we walked back outside to see if the mother got any more babies. We were surprised to see an empty cat carrier sitting on the ground. Man, she was fast. We would be resting easy that night.
The next morning, I walked across the street and looked up into the “V” where the raccoons were placed and noticed four small heads looking down at me. What a sight.
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Saturday, January 31st, 2009
This was something I was totally unaware of, so I am guessing many of you are unaware of it too.
After the tennis clinic this morning, I stopped by Whole Foods to grab some sushi. I also got some ice cream and whipped cream. I have been jonesing for a warm brownie sunday. I mean, I really want one. I explained this to Laura in great detail last night. Ruby Tuesday makes the best one I have ever had, but I am not at Ruby Tuesday, so I have to handle this myself.
I got what I needed and was ready to go to the checkout counter, when I realized that I was a little thirsty. I usually just drink water because buying drinks is a huge rip-off, but I figured that since the sushi was going to cost so much anyway, what’s wrong with treating myself to a little juice? I walked over to the juice area and lifted my hand to pick up a small “Pom” pomegranate bottle. My hand got about half way to the product, when I noticed that the little bottle cost $3.89. What??? That was out of the question. Then, I saw another store brand pomegranate drink and actually picked this one up. It was only $2.99, but still a very small bottle. I decided to put that back down when I saw a 2 quart bottle of black currant juice for lest than $3. That was more along the lines of what I was looking for. I basically bought it because the label said that black currant is high in anti-oxidants.
Currant Affair - Black currant juice
After I left the car and started driving, I cracked that bottle open and gave my new juice a taste. It tasted different, but pretty good. I continued drinking for the rest of the ride.
When I got back to the house, I decided to do a little research on the health benefits of the black currant. As it turns out, the black currant is a pretty healthy food to eat.
Now, let me be clear – the black currant is very healthy, but the drink that I got has a lot of sugar in it. I’m sure if I spent a heck of a lot more money, I could have gotten a more “pure” juice. For my purposes, this did the job.
You can read up of the blackcurrant over here and check out the health benefits here, but let me just tell you that it has an extraordinarily high vitamin C content, good levels of potassium, phosphorus, iron and vitamin B5, and a broad range of other essential nutrients (I got that from Wikipedia). It treats diseases, ailments and aches. From what I read on Wikipedia, it’s pretty neat.
I really wish you would read about it. There is a long story about how the black currant was banned from being grown in the U.S. because of the threat it was to the logging industry. It’s pretty interesting reading. Who knew that a fruit was banned from being grown over here? Now that it’s back and grown in New York, Vermont, Connecticut and Oregon, it’s getting some traction again, but still remains fairly unknown.
Well, there you have it. A new food that is really good for you. Next time you are in that expensive juice aisle, you might want to check out the black currant.
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Friday, January 9th, 2009
When we moved here, I asked a few people who have been here for a while, what type of winters we were in store for. I wasn’t expecting huge changes from what we were used to, since we are only about two hours away from where we used to live. The responses I got ranged from, “same thing as your hometown,” “about 6-8 good snows per year,” and “a lot of ice.”
We have already experienced the snow storms. They feel about the same as where we just came from. Now, we are experiencing the ice.
See, describing winter in New York to someone is a tricky endeavor. There are many micro-climates. I think the temperatures vary to some degree, but what varies even more is the snowfall amounts. Rochester is a far cry from Long Island. Even the Catskills are much different from Westchester.
When Laura and I were out walking one day back at the old house, we stopped to chat with one of the neighbors. We started talking about snow, when she laughed and said, “Oh, you have never experienced a winter around here?” I was like, “C’mon lady, gimme a break. We are an hour away from where we used to live.” She was sort of right, there was a little more snow than we were used to.
Way, way, way back in the day, like 12 years ago, when I was attending Westchester Community College, we had an ice storm. This storm left the roads completely covered for an entire week. It didn’t help that it was about 12 degrees outside for all that time, keeping the roads frozen. I remember that I couldn’t get to the first week’s worth of classes because of all the ice. I would drive about 3 miles in the car down through town and turn around. It was maddening.
When I finally made it to class, I expected everyone else to talk about all their terrifying experiences trying to get to school. The funny thing is that no one even knew what I was talking about. They all lived in Westchester and got no ice. Either that, or it just melted faster.
Pieces of ice on driveway
Connecticut is a bit different from New York. The way it was explained to me from the sales guy at the John Deere dealership was like this: There are basically three zones in Connecticut. The first one is from Interstate 84 and north. They get snow. From Interstate 84 down to Interstate 95, we get icy, slushy mix. From 95 south, they get rain. Of course, that’s not always true, but most likely would occur in the early season and the late season. That’s fine with me.
We got some freezing rain a few days ago. It coated the ground and pavement and has been hanging around ever since. Yesterday, the sun melted most of the driveway, but not all of it. I was walking around on it today and nearly killed myself. For some reason, it’s like a magnet to me. It calls out my name…”Jay, come over and do the moonwalk on me. Act like you are walking on a treadmill. Do the robot and the running man, like Rob.” It just happens, I can’t help it.
Icy sidewalk
Icy driveway
Today, while we were at Home Depot getting some paint for the next bedroom, I went over and grabbed some calcium chloride snow melt stuff. It’s like little white beads. I think it was calcium chloride or the other stuff. The one I got said it wasn’t as bad for the environment than the calcium chloride. It could have been magnesium chloride or potassium chloride. It probably would have been a good idea to read the bag before I started writing. Either way, I got the snow melt stuff.
As you could have guessed, I was excited to throw some of it around on the ice to see how it worked.
When we got back to the house, I unloaded the bag, dropped it on the floor, raced over to get a small bucket and went to work. When I got everything situated, I started tossing the little white pellets all over the place. It was pretty fun. After I unloaded my first batch, I stood back and listened. I always like to hear the soft, “crack, crack, crack” of the ice being melted by the whatever chloride.
I did this a few times and some of the ice was melted. I think I need to add more because I now have a sheet of ice with about a million little holes in it. I always try to be conservative with this type of material, so I don’t think I get the best results. Plus, I don’t want to throw the whole ten bucks away at one sitting.
I’ll let you know how it looks in the morning.
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Friday, December 5th, 2008
I have been meaning to do this for a while, but have been too busy being stuck in my little world.
Ever since our little episode up at the Red Lion Inn over Thanksgiving, my job has been not to only find places to eat, but to also find out what people are saying about those places.
I am happy to report that I have located two very helpful online resources:
1. Zagat
2. Tripadvisor
I am sure there are about a million other resources out there, but these two suit my purposes well.
I use the above websites for two reasons; one, to actually locate the places we want to visit for whatever reason, and two, to see what the rest of the world thinks of them.
I did a lot of reading through these sites a few nights ago. I found that many people’s reviews are quite helpful, but a lot of them need to be taken with a grain of salt.
The first type of review that I learned to be weary of is the “nothing is good enough” review.
A while back, Laura and I ate New Year’s Eve dinner at the Hudson House in Cold Spring, NY. It was the absolute best meal of our lives. If I could catch that chef and persuade him or her to come live with us forever, I would. Really, it was perfect…well, for most of us.
About half way through dinner, two young gentlemen sat down at the table next to us. There was nothing particularly interesting about them, but after they ordered their drinks, the complaints began. “This is too cold, this is too hot, this is just right, but I still don’t like it.” When the actual food arrived, forget about it. I am not even going to discuss that scene. What was strange about the whole thing was that the restaurant menu was fixed that night. We were all eating basically the same thing and stuff was flying out of the kitchen like crazy.
There was an important lesson learned that evening regarding various types of diners. That lesson was; we all go out for different reasons and we all vary greatly with what we think of where we are.
The other type of review I learned to watch out for is the “cheapo” review. It goes something like this, “Hoity-toity…extremely pretentious…must be an outpost for New Yorkers.” That is an actual review I picked up from Zagat. Out of 37 really very normal reviews, there was this one stuck in the middle. I told you about those Bermuda shorts people…
Armed with my new review filter, I have been able to pick up a few seemingly nice inns located up in the Woodstock, CT area. I was hoping to visit one of them for lunch this weekend, but my better half was non-compliant. She may need a bit of a nudge, and by nudge, I mean holding on tight as I throw her over my shoulder.
I am planning a nice Christmas dinner and will be sure to take lots of photos and tell you all about it.
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Thursday, December 4th, 2008
Man, It’s been a rough week.
I did a little complaining recently. I called a few people who are close to me and vented my frustration about the goings on of our world. They politely listened for a while, but both came to the same conclusion. They said, “Well Jay, things could be worse. You could be doing this or that, etc…” I guess that’s why I call people, so they can tell me to shut up and put things in perspective. I need that every once in a while.
I still think about life way too much.
Sometimes I just sit here with my head in my hands. I would just like the answer to one question: when did it all change?
In 2000, right after a graduated from Binghamton University for the second time, I had a plan. My plan was to release myself from all attachments with the real world and walk the Appalachian Trail. I was going to set my school loans on auto-pilot with my bank and fly as free as a bird. All I have ever really wanted was freedom; freedom from thought, freedom from today’s world, freedom from being dragged down by anything and everything.
I figured that walking the trail would really change my life. I was not interested in repeating the 9-5 job I sat through the year before while living in Atlanta. That was painful. All I was looking for was a way out…something different that wouldn’t trap me in the good ol’ American way of living day in and day out like the rest of the population.
Did I ever walk the Appalachian Trail? What do you think? Considering the fact that it takes about 10 months to complete and I never mentioned it before, I think not. I have actually walked a few miles on it here and there, but towards the end of each hike, I looked forward to driving back to the house, taking a nice shower and drinking a glass of wine. I don’t think I am exactly wired for growing a beard down to my waist and sleeping with the bears. The thought of a bear picking my tent up and eating it kind of freaks me out.
Let me tell you what bothers me about life as I know it – Worry.
Every day, I concern myself with each and every thing that probably concerns all of you. I think about money and security and politics and friends and life and everything else. I walk around in a fog, trying to make sense of every decision I make. It’s rare that I break out of that fog to have a clear thought. Maybe that’s why I like tennis so much, because I don’t think about anything else besides having fun. Although, I do like mowing the lawn for the same reason.
So, when did I change from the care free Jay to the constantly worrying Jay? I can tell you the exact day.
I have mentioned the fact that I moved to Atlanta a few times in the past. I lived there for a year, but the way I talk about it, it’s like I have a “Braves” tattoo on my right arm. Really, it was only a year, but it was a fun year.
I moved down when I was 24 years old. I packed up my 1989 Honda Accord with all of my belongings and hit the road. Basically, I just repacked the same items that I unpacked about a month ago after graduation.
I remember that drive down. I had one of those luggage containers strapped to the top of the car packed to the gills. Everything else I owned was spread out inside…on the back seat, on the front seat and in the trunk. There was no room for anything else.
On the highway, I remember the pleasure of wondering what my new life was going to be like. I didn’t know one person, the area or anything else about the entire state of Georgia. I usually do my best in these types of situations. As Rob always says, “You need to be like an Chameleon. Just change colors and fit right in.” Well, I did that and started off having a very good time.
Upon arrival at Morgan Falls Station, our awesome apartment complex, I was crazy excited. While I was waiting for the folks to finish up the apartment, I walked around a bit. I visited the 3 swimming pools, the work out centers, the tennis courts and the nature trails. It was nicer than anything I had expected. I recall wondering how $800 per month was paying for all this. Then, I remembered that things were a little different in the South. Up here, you get a tiny apartment above some old lady’s garage for $800 a month, and that’s a good deal. Down there, it’s like living at Club Med.
Needless to say, I was pleased. After I got settled in and had the phone hooked up, I called Rob. I was a non-stop talker. I told him about all the cool stuff that was there and about all the things we were going to do. I could tell that he was getting fidgety because he kept asking questions. We even got to the point of discussing what time it got dark in Atlanta. There is about a half hour difference between down there and up North. We used the scientific method of, “Is it dark now? What about now?”
After a few weeks of driving around a midnight (because there was so much traffic during the day) and getting to know people, I had really gotten used to it. I had a few friends and was playing tennis like it was nobody’s business. I didn’t have a job, so what else was there to do? I felt like I was living in a resort.
At the same time, my parents were planning their big move to Wilmington, NC. My sister Laurie had her first child and I guess my parents thought that watching water drip off their cars in the morning was a better idea than scraping ice off of them, like they did up North for all those years. The stars were aligned and they made the jump. They broke out of the New York shackles and started moving to North Carolina.
For the years that I attended Binghamton University and up to the time I moved to Atlanta, my parents took care of my big, beautiful Golden Retriever. I acquired this hairy beast a few years earlier, while I was attending Westchester Community College. It’s funny, because before getting a dog, I really gave no thought to what was going to happen to him for the rest of his life. I figured I would give him to my parents after I moved out and that would be that.
One day, while sitting on the floor (I had no furniture) of my Atlanta apartment, I received a phone call from my mother. “Jay, your father is driving a big truck down to the new house in Wilmington and he is bringing your dog with him.” she said. I replied, “Oh good, he will really like it in your new house.” “No Jay.” she said, “You are going to drive over and get him. He is your dog.”
Well, this came as sort of a surprise to me. Why in the world would someone want to hand over a perfectly good dog to someone as irresponsible as I was? As my mother put it, she couldn’t bear to see the dog laying on the kitchen floor looking up at her. His eyes broke her heart. She knew that he needed to run in the woods and swim in the river. He was a Golden, after all.
The day my father arrived at the new house in Wilmington, I was there to pick up the beast. I made the 7 hour drive and was quite excited to see my dog again.
I remember pulling in and seeing him tied to a small tree at the end of the driveway, waiting for me to give him a big hug. I leapt out of the car and ran over to him. I untied him and we instantly became entangled in a long embrace. That was my dog.
After a few hours of hanging out and going to the ocean, we left to head back to Atlanta. Again, I hadn’t given much thought as to what would happen next.
After my new roommate and I arrived back at the apartment, we did a little hanging out. Things were great. We went for a walk and I showed him all the stuff he was going to do for the next chapter of his life. It really was a grand ol’ time.
That night, a friend of mine called and asked if I wanted to go out to do something. I immediately said yes. Then, I looked down and saw my dog looking up at me. I paused and said something that I am not sure I have ever said to anyone in my life before that moment…”Wait, actually, I can’t.” I didn’t offer any reason for not being able to go out that night, but I definitely knew that something big in my life had shifted.
At that very moment, while standing there talking on the phone that night, I think I actually became responsible.
I know that sounds like the strangest thing you probably have ever read, but it’s true. I feel strange writing it. The reason I didn’t go out that night is because it was my dog’s first night in his new home and I didn’t feel right about leaving him there all alone.
All of a sudden, I started giving all types of thought to how my dog would feel if I did certain things. I knew I had to take him for a walk in the morning and that I had to be back after work to feed him and take him for another walk, but what really struck me was how I was unable to go visit friends in other cities and stay over their houses or apartments. I wasn’t ready to say no to trips to fun places, like the one that Rob made down to the Okefenokee Swamp in Southern Georgia. That one hurt because I really wanted to go there. I had to keep thinking about my dog and how I didn’t want to put him in a boarding kennel in a town I hardly even knew myself.
As it turned out, my consideration for everything and everyone snowballed from there. I began making sure more and more things were okay. I started saving my money and getting ready for the move back to New York to go to grad school. I stopped going out and doing stupid things that wouldn’t help me get to that goal. I never called in sick to work and I paid off that huge balance I had on my credit card. I don’t even want to talk about how much my soul has tightened up after I graduated from graduate school after the move back to New York. They basically train you how to become a herb.
I was most certainly becoming a worrier.
One might say, “Well Jay, aren’t those all good things?” I would agree, but I have to admit that once you grow up and become overly responsible, a little part of you disappears. How many times have you asked yourself, “Remember all those times we used to do that? Do you think we’ll ever do that again?” The answers are yes and probably not.
I was talking to Laura the other day about what I like to talk to my friends about. I told her my three top priorities are real estate, business and personal finance. Can you get any more boring than that? What ever happened to travel, drinking and where we are going to move to next?
At this point in my life, I feel that I am almost the opposite of what I wanted to be after graduate school. Sure, my little dream of walking the Trail may have been just a dream, but it was an indication of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to live my life.
At that time, I wanted two legal associations. I wanted one bank account and my student loan. That was it. Currently, I have more associations than I know what to do with. I understand that this is what happens when you buy a house and operate a business, but I must admit, at times it’s smothering.
Lately, I have been thinking about how I could get back to my ideal self, about how I could loosen up and at least become a shadow of that fun guy I think I used to be. I think I have a plan.
While I won’t precisely lay out my plan here, I will at least tell you that it has a lot to do with seasonal weather, long walks on the beach and campfires.
As you may have guessed, I gave Mickles a very good life and in return, he was a very good dog. I appreciate the fact that he spent the majority of his life with me. I would guess that he enjoyed his time in Atlanta the most. He had the field, the woods and the river. He couldn’t have asked for anything more.
I decided to post a few photos of my good friend here. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them throughout the years.
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Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
As you may already know, my personality type parallels that of the great adventurists of the world…Richard Branson, the Wright brothers, Ranulph Fiennes, etc… Yes, that’s right, my story will most likely have its own Wikipedia page someday. I don’t see how it couldn’t. With all the exciting tales I endure throughout my days (usually within an acre of land), I am sure I will go down in history as one of the greats.
Okay, let’s come back to reality. I’m just a guy who likes to write from time to time.
I had a grand thought the other day. I was walking and thinking about how I hate Winter. I don’t really have a problem with Spring, Summer and Autumn, but Winter is hard for me.
One problem I have with Winter is with the lack of daylight. That bugs me. Last week, I had to rush back from playing tennis so we could go for a walk up the road before it got dark outside. It was only 3:15 in the afternoon. That’s annoying. I always hated the dark. Not because I am scared of it (which I’m not), but because people go inside and hide when it gets dark. It’s like the show is over and everyone goes home. That’s depressing. Also, the dark stops me from fiddling around outside. It forces me to go in and wind down for the next 7 hours before I go to sleep. I have always hated going to sleep. Who ever thought that I would be as old as I am and still fight about going to sleep.
Another problem I have with Winter is the cold. Things don’t grow in the cold. I can’t go to the store and dream about what I am going to plant next when it’s cold. I have no visions in my mind. It gets a little boring. Also, as you may have noticed, there are fewer pictures to take because I am doing less and things don’t change that much. I am sure I can take pictures of a dying lawn, but I am sure you would get sick of that.
I remember when I used to live back in my home town in the house I grew up in. We lived on a great road that had a nice amount of walkers that would use it for…well, walking. I like to chat it up with people, so I would spend a lot of time sitting at the end of my sidewalk, waiting for people to walk by. Since this would happen from May through October, I accomplished a fair amount socializing. I’m not sure if the walkers appreciated it, but I sure did.
I always remember the times when I would go out to the road, look up and down, and realize the season was over. There was no one walking and there would be no more walkers until the next season. That thought would always be felt in my stomach.
One more depressing short story and then I will get to the point, I promise.
As some of my readers will agree, the lake in my home town was the bomb-diggity when we were growing up. I have no idea if people still use the lake for swimming today, but when I was a kid, it sure was the place to be. From June 27 through September 3, I would pretty much somehow end up at that lake to swim…every day. My friends and I walked, rode skateboards, rode bicycles…whatever, to get down there and hang out.
I usually had the best times right in the middle of July. Everyone in the area had somewhat committed to the fact that the beach was where it’s at. I remember my friend Brian’s mom showing up in her station wagon full of people, Russell’s mom showing up in her maroon Pontiac and some people even walking. You know, those lucky people who lived close by.
We would all do our thing and swim all day. I remember swimming back from the raft one day and standing up in the shallow water. My lungs were starting to hurt because I was so water logged. I recall looking up past the sand at the big tree that stood near the clubhouse and watching the wind blow the leaves. Everything was kind of hazy because my eyes were so used to being open under the water. This is the era of zinc oxide sunscreen and turtle hunting (we would let them go). This was also the era of Ocean Pacific t-shirts and wondering what the people over at the town beach were doing. Man, I would probably be happy if I could just live those days over and over again for the rest of my life. It really didn’t get any better than that. But, things just refuse to stay the same.
One day, late in the season, I decided to go down to the beach. I knew there wouldn’t be many people there because the sky was a bit cloudy, but I gave it a shot anyway. When I arrived, the place was empty. I was completely alone. I decided to walk past the fence and take a stroll to the end of the dock. I thought I would just hang out until someone showed up. All I really needed was for a few people to come by and we would get something going. Well, no one ever came.
I decided to take my shoes off and hang my feet in the water. I untied my sneakers and finally got my socks off. I walked over to sit at the edge of the dock, but when I looked at the water, I was horrified at what I saw. Little specks of “lake” were floating around beneath me. It was turning. That was the sure sign that the season was over. Once the lake turned, it was time to go home to return only when it was warm again the next year. For anyone who remembers those days, you’ll also remember that school was about to start soon as well. That always gave me a sick feeling.
At that time in my life, I was too young to realize that Winter was just a short hop, skip and a jump away. Now, I understand that the time between the end of the Summer and the beginning of Winter is short…very short. Time seems to really fly by these days.
These are just a few of the memories that have moulded me into the person I am today. I have a strong sense of my past and I truly miss things. I guess when it comes to weather, I prefer to play. I really, really like to play. Laura always looks at me like I am crazy for the words that come out of my mouth, but when I think back and daydream about all my best friends and me riding our bikes as fast as we could down the Road to get some pizza at the corner, I get a little sad.
Maybe that’s why I never liked the idea of high school reunions. Seeing everyone so different would probably break my heart. It’s a reminder of how much we’ve changed. Worst of all, it’s a reminder that much of my past is never going to happen again.
Okay, time to get back on track. I just love it when I look up after a half-hour and realize I wrote absolutely nothing I had planned on.
Back to what I was thinking during my walk the other day. I decided it was time to come up with a plan that would take me away from the Winter blues I experience every year. I had to think of what types of activities I like to do during the Winter. Well, writing on this blog certainly is one of them, but unfortunately, that doesn’t get me out of the house. Playing indoor tennis is most definitely going to help, but what else have I enjoyed in my past that I really got a kick out of? Ahhh, snowboarding.
Back when I was living in Binghamton, my friend and I decided to buy snowboards and all the equipment that came with them. We bought the boards, bindings and boots. I also got all the apparel that made my days on the mountainside comfortable. I always said that if I stayed warm while riding on a snowmobile at midnight in mid January, that was good enough to stay warm while snowboarding. Luckily, I still have everything I started with.
When I first started snowboarding back in 1997, I was hooked. You couldn’t stop me. Since I was in college, I was flat broke, but somehow I always had money for a lift ticket. That first year, I went to Catamount, Hunter (about 10 times), Scotch Valley, Jiminy Peak, Greek Peak and some others I am sure I am forgetting. I remember that I would be able to snowboard for 9 hours straight. The next season, we went to all those mountains again as well as a few others, like Stratton, up in Vermont. It was awesome.
Rob and me at Stratton Mountain in Vermont
After I graduated college and moved to Atlanta, there was no more snowboarding for a few years. I guess my body lost its snowboard-ism, because the next time I went snowboarding up at Bristol Mountain, near the finger lakes of New york, I went with an 18 year old kid. He was on fire and I only made it down the mountain twice. I felt like a smoker of 40 years. It’s amazing how fast the body can fall apart.
I called a few friends over the past couple of days. One of them is a skier who is willing to learn how to snowboard. The other is Rob. Rob told me that he will hit the mountain with me. I am sure that it won’t be too often, so it shouldn’t conflict with his busy schedule.
I think this will make for a more exciting Winter. At the very least, it will make some some really neat pictures of various mountain tops and ski trails. I bet you can’t wait for that.
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Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
Well, the day has finally arrived.
I would say that I rolled into bed last night around 11PM. I found myself still staring at the ceiling at 3AM. I was having the most random thoughts about today. I finally fell asleep thinking that I am just plain weird. Upon awakening this morning, I read an email from my sister telling me that she had very odd election day dreams last night. After that, I checked out my uncle’s blog and he said the same thing. I guess, either I am not that weird, or all three of us are.
I voted today sticker
The school where the voting was taking place was much busier than I thought. I was on the phone with my idiot friend when I rounded the corner to see police lights. In Connecticut, the police are pretty much required to be there if you are doing anything…voting, construction, etc…they are fairly laid back though. I heard reports on the radio this morning about how crowded the polling locations already were. I figured that this small town wouldn’t have any issues. I am usually in and out.
Traffic on election day 2008
Election day 2008 signs
I drove right by and had to turn around. Me, being me, thought I could find a better spot down the road. When that didn’t happen, I drove into the main parking lot right behind everyone else. While we were waiting in line to find a parking spot, some old man cut around everyone else and parked in an open spot. I wanted to put the car in park, walk over to him and smack him across his chest. I didn’t though because all the cops were around. Watch your back old man.
There were a few differences between New York and Connecticut voting. First, the lines that you go into to check in were alphabetized by street name rather than last name. I helped the woman in back of me find her correct line. She may have been a Republican, so I’m not sure that was such a good idea.
The second difference was that we used paper ballots here instead of the big gray machines from the 1940s. That worked well and was very fast.
After I did what I had to do, I got my sticker and walked outside to enjoy the sun.
Go me.
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Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
Incredible Images of the Sun
The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minumum – in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year – with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Seen below are some recent images of the Sun in more active times.
How Much Oil Do You Eat?
Over the past few years, as the ‘green movement’ has grown, more attention has been paid to our food system. Pollution is rampant, we’ve become removed from knowing how or where our food was grown, and food-borne illness outbreaks are a constant problem. But should our food supply become a priority to the next administration?
Spectacular Crystals & Mines Explored
Interesting piece on discovery & exploration of 1 of richest crystal mines in world — with huge crystals among largest in world.
House Uses Hydrogen For Power
Hydrogen power is usually associated with vehicles, but a house in the UK is showing that there are a multitude of uses for fuel cells. The grid-connected West Midlands home is powered by hydrogen as part of a £2 million University of Birmingham and Black County Housing Group (BCHG) project.
Globalization Theories Win American Nobel Prize
Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Prize in economics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says the Princeton economist won “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.” Krugman is also a columnist for The New York Times.. Reporter Curt Nickisch talks with Renee Montagne about Krugman’s work.
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Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
Now that Autumn is here, I think the camera will be coming out a lot more. We have many mini adventures planned.
There certainly is something different in the air. I can feel it in my bones. Just going out for a little cruise this morning felt strange. Maybe I drank too much coffee this morning, but if not, something is going on.
I, like most people, love Autumn. I am guessing there are few better places on earth to be during this season than New England. It’s not only the trees, it’s the landscape, the weather, the types of homes and the people. Everything adds up to a really great time of year. What’s especially nice is the smell in the air.
Every year during Autumn, I try to take just a few minutes out to just sit somewhere. Listening to the leaves fall and feeling the breeze is quite therapeutic. No matter what’s going on in life, relaxing on a nice Autumn day has its uses.
This is one thing I am trying to do on my blog…I am trying to take pictures during different times of the year. I always wonder what this time of year was like or that time of year was like. I have a horrible memory when it comes to this kind of stuff. I do remember that last year in New York, the leaves were still falling at the end of October.
Here are some photos from today. Remember, most of the leaves around here are still green. There are a few though that are turning. The following pictures are on the road right down the hill.
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