Tag: transit

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Photo of several people, including David Johansen on the left, at the 2005 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island. One person is holding a toy, devil's pitchfork aloft, another is holding a large cardboard cutout of a key with the words "Coney Island" written on it.
David Johansen (left) as Mermaid King 2005

David Johansen died on Friday. There are much better pictures of Mr. Johansen out there, but I only have this one that I took. He was the Mermaid King at the 2005 Mermaid Parade. I first knew Johansen as Buster Poindexter, likely from his stint on SNL. It would be a couple more years before I was introduced to the New York Dolls. Rest in peace, David.

Something else died on Friday. Our President and Vice President berated an ally in full display of the media for not saying thank you. What a couple of assholes. Zelenskyy remained composed, which just made them all the more upset. One of the members of the White House’s hand-picked press pool joined in by mockingly questioning the Ukrainian President’s attire. It was a sorry display. At least everyone knows where this administration stands now, if they didn’t already. Timothy Snyder’s post, The War Trump Chooses, is a good analysis of this.

We didn’t really have quorum for our Jamulus jam this Friday without a singer, but we forged ahead anyway. Perhaps it goes without saying, but not having vocals makes it much harder to remember where the changes are. It was a good time nonetheless. I think I’m learning to project more when I sing, because my wife shut the door to “the studio” during this session. This also says a lot about the quality of my singing.

Links

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A New York City bus driver dressed as Santa Claus wearing sunglasses and pointing at the camera.
Christmas Day on the M4 by lily_bart from flickr.

Happy: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year!

With this 52nd weeknote, that’s a wrap on 2024. I’ve enjoyed having a reason to post once a week, even if some of those weeks have just been lists of links. This year, I posted 88 times; weeknotes made up the majority of them. That puts 2024 in the top ten for post volume here, barely. We’d have to go back to 2015 to see this kind of activity. All that is to say I’ll keep posting week notes.

It’s been very quiet both at home and at work. Which has allowed me to get a few things done in both places that have been on my list for a while.

One such project was clearing out my lockers at the boat club.–something that needed doing since the boat was sold. Clearing out was easy, but it meant finding a place for a toolbox and three bags of stuff at home. Between reorganizing and posting some things on eBay, everything is fairly neat and out of the way. Fun fact: This consolidation of tools has left me with a collection of adjustable wrenches larger than any one person needs.

In other news, while poking around on this site, I found more embedded spam similar to earlier this year. I’m not sure if it happened since it was cleaned up or if I just missed it–I hope it’s the latter. I’ll keep an eye on things to see if it comes up again. While I’ve been thinking about moving to a static site, it’s an amount of work that I’m not prepared to do right now. However, if the spam continues, it might nudge me towards actually doing that work.

Links

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It was a quiet week around here. Things are slowing down at work and the actual holidays are almost upon us. Also, I was still feeling the lingering effects of jet lag despite last week’s attempt to shock my system back to Eastern Standard Time.

I attempted to sing American Girl in Friday’s jam (having not practiced it at all beforehand). It was a total fail and quite embarrassing. It’s probably outside my vocal range, and we might need to play it in a different key if I’m to sing it. Thankfully, we weren’t recording, so it only lives on in the memories of those who were forced to listen to it.

Links

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Two long-distance swimmers in the water near the Coney Island Pier celebrate their finish of the 2024 Rose Pitonof Swim. Also pictured, an orange, triangular buoy printed with the words "Urban Swim".

We blew past “mid-August” this week and the “unofficial end of the summer” (here in the US) is just a couple weeks away. I mention this because my sailing season has been almost non-existent this year. I’ve spent more time on powerboats than sailboats–I may be close to losing my sailor cred altogether.

At least I spent a day on the water Saturday shooting photos for the 2024 edition of the Rose Pitonof Swim (instagram link). The photo here shows two of swimmers on the relay team I was with at the finish near Coney Island. I’ve been on few of the Rose swims, including the inaugural one. This was the toughest I’ve witnesses. The swimmers were faced with a fair amount of chop and spent the last couple hours swimming against both the current and wind. They all did an amazing job. Shout out to the kayakers who spent time roughing it in the breakers at the end.

Takeaways from this week: Make it a point to get a few sails in before this season is over, and shoot more often.

Links

The political is separated from the rest of the links this week–easier to skip. Although, all voters should probably watch that Robert Reich video.

Political Links

This video (link) from Robert Reich highlights some of the more egregious schemes in Project 2025.

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We visited friends in the country this weekend–it was lovely. Our time there made me realize how much I dislike riding in cars–perhaps as much as I imagine many loathe public transit.

This also made me think about my general transportation preferences. Here they are, ranked:

  1. Walking
  2. Cycling*
  3. Subway/Metro
  4. Tram**
  5. Boat
  6. Train
  7. Taxi
  8. Bus
  9. Car–driven by me
  10. Airplane
  11. Car–driven by most other (non-professional) people

Those last two really are in a tie for dead last in my book. But, sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.

* I rarely cycle these days, but I liked it when I did
** We don’t have trams in NYC, if we did, I’d rank them about equal to the subway

Links

Mostly political this week, sorry…