Category: Uncategorized

  • Thinking About Summer Vacation

    Today was a nice, solid winter day in NYC. It’s only 36 right now, and there was about an hour of snow flurries that fell, though nothing stuck. We have the radiator on in the apartment, and I am bout to make afternoon coffee. It feels like winter, and if you squint, it almost feels normal.

    And if this a normal winter day, then I would start thinking about summer vacation. Like a real summer vacation. (Just humor me, here.) If this was a normal school year here in the City, than we know that the kid would be in classes all the way through the end of June. Most likely, we’d take part in a Summer camp for the kid over the month of July, and I have a good idea that we would get clued in by some of the other parents from school of which camps to take part in.

    That would leave the month of August, and I want the whole month of August 2021. See, I have it in my head that we could take the whole month off, and if so then we are headed up to New England, and I think I would like to try out Maine again.

    Two years ago, we did five days in a small vacation town on the coast in May, and I thought it was great. The day was only 75, and warm enough to go to the beach, and then at night it got into the 50’s so I could put on a sweater while having a drink on the front porch.

    I know the wife wouldn’t be super excited about it, but she could work remotely for two weeks, and then we all could take two uninterrupted to just relax. Maybe boil some lobsters, do a clam bake, or just order take out. And reading books, sketching landscapes, just thinking the day away.

  • Construction Out the Back Window

    When I look out the back window of my apartment, I see a huge condo tower being built. Eventually, it will block my view of the City, and all I will see will be this condo tower, unless I lean out the window and look to the right, then I will be able to see other parts of New York.

    I knew this building was coming. I had watched as the lots that are occupied by this growing tower were bought, and chain linked fences were put up. Then a coming soon board went up, followed by the work permits displayed on a plywood wall. After that, a temporary worksite office was put on the sidewalk. At the start of the year, a backhoe arrived and started digging out the lot. There was a break at the end of February, after the foundation was poured. I thought that work had been stopped because of Covid, but then in August, workers came back and they haven’t stopped building.

    This is progress, right? Manhattan real estate is too valuable, right? The world is always changing, right?

    I find it odd that with so many people leaving the City, that they are moving forward with building more luxury condos, but maybe these guys know something that I don’t. Maybe they are playing the long game? Hold out long enough, and things will change in your favor. Maybe.

    But looking out my back window, it doesn’t feel like progress. It feels like an intrusion. Like an outpost is being built, and we are about to be colonized.

  • Update

    I might be on vacation.

  • Algot Saga; Conclusion

    Our struggles with our living room wall, and the Algot modular storage system came to a conclusion this Sunday. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was a resounding success, but we got the shelves up on the wall.

    As some of you may know, IKEA discontinued the Algot line of products, just at the moment that the wife and I needed it most. Also, for those of you in the Tri-State area, we are the people that bought up all the remaining Algot products from the Paramus, Elizabeth, Brooklyn, Long Island and New Haven Ikeas. (Are we committed and loyal to this product? Yes. Does it border on the illogical and obsessive? Also, yes.) With the supplies assembled, we were ready to finish out project.

    It was not anything special, but we took our hodge-podge of rails, brackets and shelves, and screwed them into the wall, and hung up all the Algots. Some the anchors didn’t sink into the drywall correctly, and I swear there is no rhyme or reason on the placement of studs in the wall, which just reminded us that the “renovated apartment” we moved into was constructed by incompetent workers. It took three and a half months, but we can cross this one off the list.

    In the end, I still don’t understand why Ikea canceled the Algot system. Nor do I understand why they didn’t make an Algot compatible with some new system. Either way, I do have to say Ikea needs to do a better job of at least putting the information out there when a product line is discontented.

  • And in the End…

    Biden flipped Arizona.

    I guess Trump shouldn’t have gone after John McCain so often, even after the Senators death.

    It’s like McCain got the last laugh, again.