Tag: urbanism

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Last week, I renounced YouTube, sort of, in hopes of redirecting that time towards other, more fulfilling activities. A week in, YouTube is still blocked on my computer–excellent! However, bass practice time increased only slightly. Judging from the number of links I’ve collected this week, most of that tubetime went towards reading feeds. While this may be better than watching rando videos, it’s not what I was shooting for. This week, more bass!

Even with only a couple practice sessions this week, jam night was better for me. Every little bit helps.

Also, full disclosure, I did watch CityNerd’s latest video on my phone. For me, it’s much easier to stop at the end of one video on the phone than on a PC.

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We tried two new tunes in Friday’s jam session. They sounded surprisingly good given that this was the first time playing them together. I got complements the drum track for Last Time, I think it was because of the tambourine. We have a live jam coming up in a couple weeks we’re all looking forward to. Need to practice more than I have been.

We saw 80º (26.6º C) in NYC on Saturday. Pretty much everybody was outside, seemingly in or on there way to a city park. The Great Meadow in Prospect Park was absolutely rammed. There were so many people that the din of their collective conversations was noticeable to passers by.

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The Rheingold beer sign retrofit I started last week (or three years ago, depending on when you start the clock) is finished. I ended up going with the simplest solution. I’ve been enjoying the warm glow of the sign–it really pulls the room together now.

Congestion pricing lasted about a month longer than I thought it would. This week Trump declared it dead and crowned himself in the process. What an asshole. Despite his declaration, they are still collecting the fees and the MTA is suing. I hope they can hold onto it as it seems to have the intended effect and, as expected, people are warming up to it.

We had a good Jamulus jam this week, but the after party was plagued with technical difficulties. We got through it though. I’m happy we have these regular jam sessions since it’s the only time I’ve been picking up the bass. That changes this week, I’m going to start my practice regimen again and also work on improving one of our songs.

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Was bit under the weather this week, so I spent most of it working at home. Feeling better now and looking forward to going back to the office next week. Yes, I’m one of the weird ones that prefer not to work at home.

This week’s project was repairing the old Rheingold beer sign I’ve had on the shelf for a while. I though I was successful, but I wasn’t. More on this post: A beer light to guide us

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Photo of a plaque on a blue wall with square, gray paving stones below. The text engraved on the plaque is: "City of New York Department of Plant and Structures, Transmitter House for Radio Station WNYC, F.H. La Guardia - Mayor, F.J.H. Kracke - Commissioner, 1936, Constructed by Works Progress Administration.
Plaque at the old WNYC Transmitter House – Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

NYC Congestion Pricing Data is being published by the MTA. Sadly, there have been many reports of government data becoming unacceptable over the last couple weeks. So, it’s nice to see a new dataset available. Go forth and visualize!

We took a trip to Greenpoint on Saturday. I say “a trip” because it involved a ride on the G train (running in two parts this weekend, even more exciting!), which makes it feel farther away than it really is. We took a walk around WNYC Transmitter Park. The old, WPA-constructed transmitter house is still there, but there are no vestiges of the old towers.

It was a successful trip, we returned with a very affordable ($6!) Bob James/David Sanborn record I’d been looking for (courtesy of Captured Record Shop), a Bodega Kitties mystery box (from myplasticheart), and an apple fritter the size of my head (from Moe’s Doughs).

After a couple weeks off, our regular jam session was back on. None of us have been practicing, but despite the rust, we didn’t sound too bad. It did serve as a reminder to try to pick up that bass a few times during the week though.

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