Tag: urbanism

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Screen capture of a video depicting a blue, compact SUV on a Manhattan street sporting a large sign with the text "NEW YORKERS WON! CONGESTION PRICING". A man is standing in the moon roof with outstretched arms.
Screen capture from a Streetfilms montage celebrating NYC Congestion Pricing.

At the stroke of midnight on an icy Sunday, New York City congestion pricing began. I never thought I’d see the day. Let’s hope it sticks!

I finished posting photos from our trip to Japan. Looking at them makes me want to go back.

This Switchable Desktop Power Outlet project is one I’ve been wanting to do for a while. It was simple enough that I wasn’t sure if it warranted a write-up. However, I learned a few lessons–why not.

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Jimmy Carter's presidential portrait
By Department of Defense. Department of the Navy. Naval Photographic Center – File:James Earl “Jimmy” Carter – NARA – 558522.jpg, Public Domain, Link

Happy New Year! I think Monday is the cutoff for offering New Year’s wishes, so I’m getting in just under the wire (depending on when you are reading this).

Jimmy Carter passed away this week. There has been a lot said about him in the press, but I like this this succinct writing from Heather Cox Richardson the best. Carter was the first president I really remembered. When I was in school, we had a quick “election” in class ahead of the actual election. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think Carter won that pre-election by a landslide. I may have voted for Ford though–probably because my Dad had a Ford. Please forgive me for not being an informed citizen, I was a kindergartner.

January 1st marked the 25th anniversary of the successful conclusion of the Y2K crisis. I saw several several stories about it, but this one stuck out: Y2K seems like a joke now, but in 1999 people were really freaking out via slashdot. While Y2K was no joke, I don’t remember a lot people really “freaking out”.

Recently, I overheard a conversation among some young software engineers and the consensus was that “the whole Y2K thing was made up”. I didn’t bother correcting them as they aren’t interested in an old man’s stories. However, I am slightly troubled that there are engineers thinking that if no one did anything ahead of Y2K, everything would have been just fine. Heather Cox Richardson, per usual, runs down the history here and points out that crises get a lot of attention, but when they are averted by planning and diligent work, not so much. So true.

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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.

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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.

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Photo of the band for Marky Ramone's 2024 Holiday Blitzkrieg in front of a rehearsal stage. From left to right: Tommy Victor, Marky Ramone, Craig Setari, Pela SCB.
2024 Holiday Blitzkrieg lineup. Photo credit: @markyramoneofficial on Instagram.

Our Japan trip concluded with my longest Thursday ever, about 32 hours. While there were a couple naps involved, I managed to stay up for Marky Ramone’s Holiday Blitzkrieg at the Gramercy Theatre, and a night cap. If it wasn’t for the show, I would have crashed by 5:30 PM.

The Marky Ramone show was a blast. They played pretty much non-stop for over an hour and a half. That’s a lot of songs when most of them are in the sub two minute range. It was great to see a lot of mature fans in the audience. By that, I mean (well) over forty, which includes me. Keep on rocking folks. And, thanks to Kenny for the ticket!

Now I’m preparing myself for what awaits at work after three weeks out of the office. Should be fun!

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