Fall in New Paltz NY

This fall we spent a weekend in New Paltz NY. After attending a Tai Chi workshop, I joined Valorie to enjoy the town of New Paltz and environs. We stayed at Moondance Ridge B&B, a fantastic little inn on grounds that were landscaped with a very environmentally conscious design. Here is Valorie in the labyrinth:

The grounds are certified as a Wildlife Habitat with the majority of plantings being white spruce which have a life span of 400 to 800 years.

Skiing Telluride Opening Day

This year's Rocky Mountain weather worked hand-in-hand with our travel plans made in May allowing us to ski Telluride on opening day. This year's snow conditions at Telluride were perfect on our first full day in Colorado, Thanksgiving, which happened to be the opening day for this season's Telluride skiing.

Joe on Telluride slopes opening day

Do you see the Telluride airstrip in the upper right?

October 2013 Morning Glories in Princeton NJ

Happy Thanksgiving! Wow - winter temperatures are definitely here. Last month we still had beautiful morning glories along our front steps:

Summer Week on Long Beach Island

This summer we spent a week in the borough of Barnegat Light on LBI. Barnegat light seemed to be affected by Sandy the least of all towns on LBI. It probably is at least partly because of the dunes that they have developed between the ocean and the borough. This is a natural protection from wind and ocean. Some family from the Baltimore-Washington area came to visit. You see some of us here:

Both Joe and Kristina refreshed our wind surfing skills:

America's Phone Companies should Maintain Reliable, Affordable Basic Phone Service

Some local phone companies are making an effort to avoid providing traditional basic phone service to all service areas. Not having traditional wired service can be a problem during a disaster when many buildings are without power and cell phone towers are either out of service or overwhelmed with calls. A more detailed discussion is presented in "No Second Class Services at the Jersey Shore" and "AARP, Consumer Groups Fighting to Protect Landline Telephone Service".

There are many competitive services available which you can find at "Local and Long Distance Phone Service Options". Many of these phone service options are very appropriate for certain situations, however, many of them require that you have a source of power at your location. Plan ahead for power outages and cell tower outages. One approach is to install a generator and/or a UPS so that you still have power even if the utility company is not supplying power to your location. This approach is being taken by many who experienced many days of no power after Sandy.

This morning's visitor

While watering some trees planted this spring, I heard a movement nearby, looked up, and saw:

Visitors to Princeton

Today, there are a lot of visitors to Princeton for University Reunions. We have our own visitors. You may see a hint of them in this window box that is just beside our front door.
For a closer view, see the closeups on Flickr.

Irene feeds Sandy

It's now the 13th year of this century. Already this century New Jersey has experienced two major hurricanes. Hurricane Irene in August 2011 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. After Irene struck, President Obama declared all 21 counties of New Jersey to be a Disaster Area. It was the worst storm in the history of PSE&G, our utility company.

Then, in 2012, Sandy struck. Sandy had the largest diameter ever recorded of any Atlantic hurricane. It impacted twice as many PSE&G customers as Irene. Hopefully, this sequence of worsening disasters doesn't continue in 2013 and the rest of this century.

Here I am sawing Irene droppings into kindling. I used remnants of Hurricane Irene to feed the fire that warmed is in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy while we were without the electric power which is necessary to run modern heating systems.

Grand Oak withstands Sandy by Shedding

You've seen the photos of many trees downed by Hurricane Sandy. Here's an oak tree that stood steady.

It's interesting that instead of large branches breaking off of this tree, the tree "shed" what seem to be thousands of branch ends which ranged from a few inches in length to a few feet. You can see some of them piled up in a line in the street above. Here is a photo of a typical one.

It's as though the tree knew that it had to relieve the force of the wind so it discarded leaves and tips so that it could survive these immense forces. Reminds me of a ship's crew tossing cargo into the sea to avoid the ship sinking cause of encroaching water making it too heavy to float.

Hurricane Sandy hit Princeton hard on Monday

Southern Way is a relatively short one-way street in Princeton. At the end is Cedar Lane. Although Southern Way was hit hard by Irene, it made out better with Sandy. Perhaps Irene and some other storms in recent times cleared out the weak trees. Cedar Lane and other streets nearby are a different story. Here is the view looking east - to the right from Southern Way.

You can see yellow police tape tied to some of the dangling wires! So let's look a little to the left.

You are seeing the top of an electric company pole pulled off to the left. What caused it? Looking west, towards the second pole further to the left, we see:

Since our electric supply appears to be fed from that end of Southern Way, you should not be surprised that we are without power. PSE&G estimated that it will be restored Monday evening.

Hurricane Sandy approaching New Jersey

The calm before the storm - scenes of the season in Princeton:

Blue Berry Identification

Today, I spotted these blue berries growing near the canal in Princeton. I also noticed them growing in Marquand Park near the parking area.

Someone from the US Dept of Agriculture helped me identify this plant. It's Ampelopsis brevipedunculata, the porcelain berry.

Wow! Mia Farrow tweeted about KDB's Gay Talese video!

Here's a tweet from Mia Farrow about KDB's New Yorker video about the writing lair of the legendary writer Gay Talese: https://twitter.com/MiaFarrow/status/254661331876192256

Marbled Orb Weaver in our front yard

Every day recently that I walked through one part of our front yard, I encountered a massive web rebuilt from the previous day. Finally, I spotted the builder and identified it using Google:

BEACH CREATURES Video

Although this video was published just over a year ago, it's such a great video about a such a great creation, that I decided to post a link to it again. It's about a Dutch artist and his wind-powered sculptures that walk on the beach: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/09/beach-creatures.html

No Budget? No Pay!

Like any public corporation, Congress should be required to pass a budget annually. It has passed a budget and the spending bills required to fund federal operation only four times in the last 60 years! See No Labels: No Budget? No Pay!

Park City, Utah in June

An advantage of working in Telecommunications, is that we take an annual trip to a Telecommunications conference. This year we stayed at a fabulous lodge in the Park City mountains. It's a shame we had such busy meeting schedules and not a lot of time to enjoy the location. With the industry continually changing, lots of training is required to keep up. Over and above the typical areas like T1, DS3, PtP, MPLS, PRI, OC3, Fast & Gigabit Ethernet Line Services, we had significant training on mobility management and cloud options. It was good that the last day, Saturday, was a break from work. We tried golfing at about 6500 feet above sea level on a windy day. By the way, it was our first time on an actual golf course! We had taken some lessons in May, basically learning how to putt and hit the ball down the driving range. It was an interesting experience to say the least. Luckily, the day was set up as a scramble and we had two experienced golfers in our foursome.

Montauk in April

At the end of April, we spent a long weekend in Montauk at the eastern tip of Long Island. Being off season, it was very pleasantly quiet.

Joe at the ocean

Val near Montauk Manor

December Trip to Paris

Been very busy. Finally posting that we took a rather enjoyable trip to Paris at the end of December. Weather was a little warmer than in the Northeast US at the time; however, those cool days would feel great about now.

KDB on the Musée d'Orsay balcony

Joe & Val on Ferris Wheel over Paris

Hurricane Irene in Princeton

Our power was restored after almost two days - the partial vacation ended. Actually, while the power was out, we put in lots of time needed to clean up the numerous branches and twigs spread around our property.

There were two very unfortunate deaths in Mercer county:
* one was a Rescue worker who was confirming that no one was trapped in a car submerged on Harrison St near the canal which is about half a mile from our home,
* the other was a landowner who removed a manhole cover hoping to clear water from his flooded property - the large amount of water already rushing down the pipe apparently created a vortex that sucked the man into the sewage pipe.

Here is a view of the stairs and tunnel for passing under the railroad tracks at Princeton Junction train station: http://foureleven.tumblr.com/post/9518080147