Drudge was linking to another Northeast Due for Big Hurricane story tonight. In it, along with AccuWeather quotes, was one from a Plymouth State professor, Dr. Lourdes Aviles.
I read it and got upset pretty quickly.
I read your quote from the AP:
Lourdes Aviles, a Plymouth State University assistant meteorology professor, said Reeves’ forecast sounds right. That New England hasn’t had a strong hurricane in 50 years could signal the region’s luck is running out, she said.
I would expect this from a layman, but I am disappointed to see a meteorologist say this. As far as I know, there is no memory in climatology. 50, 100, 1000 years – what difference does it make?
The trouble is, you help reinforce this false ‘overdue’ notion that is being hyped.
It didn’t take long before she wrote back. What had been anger toward her comments quickly turned around.
I have written the AP, hoping a correction will be published, though those seldom come close to undoing the damage.
I actually never said that. I made a point to mention to the reporter that talked to me on the phone to say that there was no way to know if such a strong hurricane would hit us this year or in 10 years or in 50 years. I said that because of the climatology, it has happened in this region and it will happen again, but I never said that it will happen this year because we are due. The reporter just heard what wanted to hear. He never mentioned Reeves name to me and I tried over and over to repeat to him that this is not how it works.
This really concerns me because this article has gotten more exposure than I thought it would get and it bothers me that it appears that I am going with the hype, when I am not.
Never believe that all quotes are exact. The report had a conversation with me and that was it. He paraphrased what he believed I was saying, instead of writing what I said. In fact, what he said I agreed with was the fact that the Long Island, Rhode Island, Eastern Massachusetts coast was more exposed than the rest of New England, but the way he wrote it, it seemed like he was saying that I agreed with everything that Reeves said. I also just realized that the article that you are pointing to is from AP and it is based on an article written by a local reporter of a small Dover, NH newspaper.
In fact, the way I see that the media works, I am wondering if Reeves actually said what the newspapers are saying he said
Why Wilma Scares Me
Just in case you’re counting, Hurricane Wilma is currently 1735 miles southwest of me. That’s ‘as the crow flies’ miles. Because this hurricane is ready to make a sweeping right hand turn, it would have to travel significantly farther.
How can I be worried about something 1735 miles away? It’s easy – I’ve seen this scenario before. I didn’t live it. It predates me. I’ve studied it because it is the benchmark for New England hurricane grief.
Before you feel my pain, let me talk a little about my parents. They’re ensconced in Boynton Beach, FL. Hurricane Wilma is 640 miles south-southwest of them.
As it stands now, the official Hurricane Center prediction takes Wilma right over… or reasonably close to them. Though the storm will be coming over land, it’s swampy land. There’s warm water and low friction in the Everglades. It’s not perfect for a hurricane but it won’t kill it either.
My folks have hurricane shutters and live in a substantial building. I think they’ll be OK, though I’ll revisit this with them later today.
Here’s the one bit of good news. Hurricane Wilma will be ‘booking’ as she passes through Florida. Coast-to-coast will be 10, maybe 12 hours. The faster Hurricane Wilma moves, the sooner the trouble is over.
Nature adapts to this kind of trouble. Palm trees have decidedly less wind resistance than the deciduous trees we have here in Connecticut.
The Hurricane Center forecasts 110 mph winds at landfall in Florida, dropping to 80 mph by the time the storm reemerges in the Atlantic¹. Even 80 mph, a small hurricane, is substantial if it passes close by. Most of us have never experienced 80 mph winds… and we’ve all seen plenty of wind damage.
The Hurricane Center used to talk about 80 mph storms as minimal hurricanes. They don’t anymore. That’s a change for the better.
I am anticipating moderate to severe damage on the West Coast of Florida with minimal to scattered moderate damage on the East Coast. There will be a much smaller radius of damage in the east.
Once the storm leaves Florida the guessing game begins. It will really accelerate. This is the part that starts resembling the Hurricane of ’38.
Though the storm struck Connecticut’s coast in Fairfield County, the strongest damage was experienced at the opposite end of the state and into Rhode Island.
Here’s what’s most troubling. A storm barreling up the East Coast will leave minimal time for warning. Look at the map. Florida to New Jersey in 24 hours! I couldn’t drive it that quickly.
To get a Hurricane Warning out 24 hours in advance would mean alerting most of the Northeast. An error of a few degrees in course could mean Atlantic City versus Boston.
And where would all these people go? Imagine sending everyone in Coastal New England west on I-95!
This is the worst case scenario. A direct hit to New England would cause as much destruction, and possibly as many deaths, as the unpredicted storm in 1938!
The current projections bring Hurricane Wilma far enough east to spare New England. But there is very little margin for error over a five day forecast. I’m certainly not confident in it. Just a few degrees off…
So now we wait and watch. Like I said, there will be lots of phone calls to Florida tomorrow. I want to make sure my parents have every possible advantage. Then we’ll bring the worries closer to home.
Hurricane Wilma scares me to the bone.
¹ – The Hurricane Center readily admits, of all the things it does, predicting intensity is the thing it does worst.
I’m More Pessimistic About Hurricanes
Recently I was interviewed for an article in Business New Haven concerning hurricanes. I’ve linked to the text.
Over time I’ve become more pessimistic of what might happen in a repeat of the hurricane of ’38 scenario for Connecticut. There would be little time for warning and difficulty explaining where the damage might occur.
Even in 2005, a tragedy seems unavoidable. That’s not what I want to say, but it is a realistic expectation.
I’m glad to see, though Dr. Mel Goldstein and I were interviewed separately (I didn’t even know he had been interviewed), we are in agreement with our concern.
Unlike Katrina where good advice was ignored, I’m not sure what we could do today to help prepare us for a hurricane approaching us at 60 mph. The entire East Coast would need warning. What good would that do?
On To The Weekend
First things first. My tooth pain has greatly subsided. There’s still swelling on the gum, but I’m hoping that’s from the injections. The tooth is in my drawer, where it now belongs.
Let me add, though I took a sick day from work Thursday, Friday was already scheduled as a vacation day. Bad timing on my part.
We once had an employee at the station who tried to explain to my boss that since she was sick on her vacation day, it should count as a sick day. That’s chutzpah.
I was well enough to head to the shoreline for a planned family celebration. I’ve been told to keep my mouth shut on what was being celebrated, but we went to Lenny’s in Branford.
I was petrified to go! I’d run into Lenny’s daughter while having my hair cut and she told me how the place had been remodeled. Didn’t she understand? The charm of Lenny’s was that it looked like it was built out of whatever was stored in someone’s garage.
I’m glad to say the main dining room has been remodeled… the particle board removed from the walls… but it’s lost none of its charm. That’s a tall order. It looks nice – really, not just compared to its older self.
We weren’t going to Lenny’s for the ambiance. We were going for fried shrimp for the girls and the shore dinner for me.
Even with only one half of my mouth operating, it was great! The lobster, the mussels, the corn – excellent. Why you only get two clams is beyond me, but that ‘s what the dinner calls for. My only ‘customization’ was getting a bowl of Rhode Island clam chowder¹ instead of a cup.
Through dinner and the rest of the evening I was a little woozy. It wasn’t enough to stop me, but I certainly was in no condition to operate heavy equipment. Helaine drove and I was grateful to be her passenger.
When we got home, I napped. I couldn’t sleep all night because there was a test to be taken for my Oceanography class.
I took the test around 3:00 AM. This should be an interesting grade because I wasn’t really able to concentrate on reading the text necessary to answer the questions. I had the attention span of a toy poodle.
Back to bed at 4:00.
By the time I woke up this morning, I had gotten over 16 hours of sleep in the last 24. On the other hand, I was feeling better, which was good because I had long standing plans for a friend to visit.
I’ve known Bob since my first professional day in radio, early fall 1969. Bob was a disk jockey at WSAR in Fall River, MA, where I started.
When I first me him he was Skippy Ross, then Skip Tyler, now (for over thirty years) Bob Lacey. With his partner Sheri Lynch, Bob presides over a very successful, syndicated morning radio show. It’s a show considered ‘woman friendly.’
Bob had left Charlotte, NC Thursday afternoon and had been hanging around New England since Thursday evening. Though I’d tried getting him on his cell phone a few times, he was unreachable.
By early this morning there was a discussion whether Bob was actually going to show or not. It was starting to look like ‘not’ had won when the phone rang.
He showed up an hour later and we hopped in the convertible on what had turned into a spectacular spring day. The sky was blue, temperature warm, humidity about right. We were heading toward the shoreline.
Bob had actually grown up around New Haven and knows those parts of the area that haven’t changed over the last 40 years – which is most of it!
First stop was lunch. We went to a place call “The Place” in Guilford. “The Place” is one of a kind.
You sit outside (in the open or under a tent-like cover) on old tree stumps. The food (lobster, clams, chicken and the like) are cooked out of door on a long wood fired grill. When your order is ready, the grill it cooked on is brought to your table.
The owner, Vaughn, kvetched about the weather. I would think to a place like this good weather means good business and a May like we had means… well, it wasn’t a good sign.
Bob had a lobster and I had clams. I’m sorry to be positive about everything, but it was great.
Next up we drove down the Turnpike into Old Lyme and then headed randomly into an area called “Miami Beach.” We drove down Hartford Avenue and I was astounded – 21 years in Connecticut and I’d never been to this cool, vest pocket, beach community.
A friendly cop showed us where we could park and we were off. This is a really nice beach. As Connecticut’s Long Island Sound beaches go, it is broad and white. There are plenty of stones which makes barefoot walking a little tougher.
Of course Bob and I were dressed totally wrong for a day at the beach – both wearing long pants.
We moved off the beach itself and into an open air beachfront bar. Bob had a beer and I a Diet Coke ($5+$2 tip). Reggae music was wafting in and it was perfect on this idyllic day.
Like “The Place,” I have to wonder how open air establishments like this make it in the ratified air of a short season Connecticut summer, and with total dependence on good weather. Every season has got to be make or break. I thought about that as I sipped my Coke.
We didn’t have long. Bob had dinner plans with some friends he’s known longer than me. We continued east to Mohegan Sun, the closer of the two Connecticut mega casinos.
Bob was stunned. It is a very impressive place. And, the shopping area with its upscale shops connecting the old and new casinos is elegantly glitzy.
Bob wanted to play craps, though he hadn’t played in years. I pulled $60 out of my pocket and quickly turned it into $15 – good going. Bob had similar luck, but on a lesser scale.
We headed for the car and headed back home.
Bob will be back in Connecticut in the middle of August. We’re hoping to see the Red Sox and visit WSAR’s studio. Truth is, hanging with a friend is the important part. The rest is just icing on the cake.
¹ – I had never heard of Rhode Island clam chowder until I moved to Connecticut. Manhattan is red, New England is creamy and Rhode Island is a clear broth. When properly spiced, it’s great and nowhere as heavy as New England. As for Manhattan clam chowder – please! Who’s eating that?
My Trashy Story
Every week, on Friday, our trash goes to the curb. Every other week it’s supposed to be accompanied by recycling. It doesn’t work that way in our household.
Whether it’s our distance from the curb or the amount of recycled newspapers we have (we subscribe to both the New Haven Register or New York Times) or maybe all the boxes we get because of online shopping, going to the curb bi-weekly doesn’t work. So all of this recyclable material piles up in the garage. A few times a year we stuff it into the SUV and I drive it to the transfer station.
Transfer station, what a lovely phrase. It’s so much more genteel than town dump.
I drove up to the transfer station this morning only to find the new policy – no newspapers. I had an SUV full of recyclables, and of course, the supermarket bags of newspapers were on top!
I unloaded the 20 or so bags of newspapers to get to the cardboard and other material underneath. At this point the transfer station folks took pity on me and found a place… a transfer station loophole if you will… that allowed me to drop the papers off. From now on it’s newspapers to the street, I suppose.
I want to be a good citizen, but it is increasingly difficult to follow the rules. In fact, it would be much easier to hide the newspapers and cardboard and bottles with our weekly trash. I’m sure a lot of people do just that. It also always strikes me as a little ironic that the two most talked about recycled products are made from sand (glass) or grow on trees (paper).
I know this is supposed to be good for the environment, and I’m for that. But, is it really? Is this just a feel good exercise with no payoff… or negative payoff?
From “Recycling Is Garbage” – New York Times Magazine, June 30, 1996:
I don’t know what to think. I want to do what’s right, but I am really not sure. Until I know otherwise, I will follow the rules.
In the meantime, part of our recycling life at home will have to change. Newspapers to the curb. I can hardly wait for the first really big rain on a Thursday night.
The Snow is Finished
Yesterday was my day off – but how could I not work with a major storm coming! I went to work about 2:00 PM and, with Gil Simmons, did cut-ins through the afternoon. Then, I was on the news at 5, 6, 10 and 11, did more cut-ins through the evening and cut some special forecasts which ran on the station’s Internet site.
The snow didn’t come up to my expectations, though it was pretty bad. Some areas did get the two feet I called for. Most did not.
However, I didn’t get more than one or two small complaints – and I got nearly 700 emails this weekend! So, the forecast must have been close enough to prepare people for what came – and it was pretty awful.
After a storm like this I like to write and thanks everyone who went out and measured snow or sent me a snapshot. Attached below is what I sent.
What’s the Opposite of I won?
My poker tournament experience has ended. I didn’t win. That’s not to say I didn’t have a god time or I didn’t play well. Except for one small move early on, which I now question, I was pretty happy with my play.
I got to bed early (for me) last night. Sleep was not very good and I was up just after 6:00 AM. I left the house around 8:00 and drove the 70 minute trip to Foxwoods.
Though the roads around the casino were reasonably busy, I realized as soon as I got to the valet parking area that Thursday morning was not prime time. Mine was the only car there and a nice young woman quickly walked up and gave me a parking ticket.
If you’ve never been to Foxwoods it is a world unto itself. The complex is immense. It was, and may still be, the world’s largest casino. As big and bold as Foxwoods is, the area surrounding it is the opposite. Surrounded by the town of Ledyard, there is still plenty of farmland and low density housing and businesses in the area. As you approach from the north, the high rise hotels dominate the rolling terrain of eastern Connecticut.
I got to the poker tournament desk at 9:26. I know this because it’s on my receipt. I said hello, paid my cash, chose between a hat, t-shirt and $10 in food coupons (food – though not used) and headed toward the tournament.
How fitting is this for a seniors poker tournament, we were in the Sunset Ballroom!
I walked into the ballroom. It was a breath of fresh air because I felt, I looked, I (probably) was the youngest person in the room. I’m used to being the oldest at work. This is more fun.
I scouted the room and didn’t see anyone I knew. Then I spied Jimmy Christina.
I have described Jimmy here before, so let me be brief. Jimmy is not tall, though he easily stands out in a crowd of people. His gray hair is pulled back in a ponytail. He has a Southern New England accent¹ delivered in a voice reminiscent of a gravel road. Standing in his tuxedo, he is the absolute height of incongruity.
When I grow up, I want to be Jimmy Christina.
There’s one more thing about Jimmy. If you watch him from afar, you will see a constant stream of people coming up to him, saying hello. All of them are smiling. Jimmy is smiling. He is charming.
I moved to my seat at table 30, seat 8. The room was filled with long, narrow, Texas Hold’em tables. Each was set to comfortably seat nine players. The dealer sat in what looked like an executive’s office chair. I am told they hate it because it has no back support.
This tournament was ‘sponsored’ by “Oklahoma” Johnny Hale. Johnny is old school poker, back when it was all guts and instinct. It was the era before mathematicians quantified the game’s nuances into a series of odds and ratios. Johnny introduced some other older players, shilled his own line of merchandise and books and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. He is everything you expect from someone who goes by the name Oklahoma Johnny.
In a poker tournament, you buy in for a fixed amount and then get tournament chips, in this case $1,500. They’re not good anywhere else, just in a tournament and can’t be turned into real cash. You keep playing poker, hoping to survive as more and more players bust out.
Today’s tournament had 295 players. The top 25 would win money, starting at $777 and going up to better than $40,000. The goal in tournament play is survival. Survivors are paid. Winning is of secondary importance. I hope that makes sense.
Since the game was No Limit Texas Hold’em, anyone could bet all of their chips on any card. It didn’t take long until someone did – and walked away the first loser. I was one player closer to the cash.
Compared to online play, live poker is very slow. And compared to online play, I’m not multitasking. The game at hand gets my undivided attention.
With forced bets and a few cheap peeks, I quickly turned my $1,500 to $1,350. I was somewhat uneasy, though it didn’t affect my play. I was very self conscious. I didn’t want to be out early. I didn’t want to look like I didn’t know what I was doing.
At the far end of the room a big screen TV displayed the current stats. What were the blinds (forced bets for two players each round)? How much time was left at this limit? How many players were left?
Table 30 was one of the first to get broken up. As players leave, and some tables have empty seats, tables are combined to allow everyone to sit at tables with a similar number of players. I was sent to Table 8, Seat 1.
Around me, the room was alive with the sound of cards being riffled and chips clinking. It is a steady castanet sound which permeates the room. It is actually reassuring to hear. I looked down at the stacks of chips in front of each player. Already there were huge differences with some players close to busting out and others amassing fortunes.
Life at Table 8 didn’t go much better. Slowly, as if I had a leak, chips were disappearing from my stack. Before long I was down to $320.
With a forced bet of $75 and a number of players already calling in front of me, I went all in with a pair of 4s. Being dealt a pair is good – but 4s… well even a pair of them… is no bargain. If anyone else matches any card other than a two or three (unlikely they’d be played anyway) you’re dead meat.
On the fourth common card, ‘the turn,’ a third 4 was dealt. I had a set (three of a kind) and was now back to nearly the $1,500 I started with. A few more good hands had me up to $2,000.
Meanwhile, on the TV screen the numbers were changing. As tables were consolidated the player count went down – 225, 200, 175, 150. My chip count had me below the middle of the pack, but I was still playing.
And then, I drove into oncoming traffic at full speed.
The limits had gone up to $100/$75. A few players limped in with minimal bets when the action got to me. My cards – two red Aces. In Hold’em there is nothing better to have than a pair of Aces. I raised to $300.
A few players dropped out and then, across the table, another player pushed his chips toward the center. He was all in. In order to play my Aces, I’d need to match his chips.
I had Aces. There is nothing better.
I pushed my chips in as we both turned over our cards. He showed another Ace and a Jack. This was wonderful. Additional Aces wouldn’t help him. He needed two Jacks or some ridiculous out of the blue miraculous one in a million shot… and there would only be five common cards with which to accomplish this.
The dealer rolled three and then one and then one more. Of the five cards exposed, four were 7, 8, 9 and 10 (the 8 coming on the last card, know as the River).
I still had my Aces. He had a straight!
I was left with a few hundred dollars. It didn’t take long to lose that when my King, Queen was beaten by a Queen, Jack.
I had played four hours and fifteen minutes, finishing 102 of 295.
Good play can get beaten. It is, after all, gambling. Yes, there is skill, but skill tempered by chance.
I’m glad I played. I enjoyed the tournament. I wish I would have come home with some more money.
¹ – Usually limited to far Eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island, this regionalism makes a Boston accent sound soft and gentle.
Off to Newport
Since she was a little girl, Steffie has played team sports. We have always gone to see her play when we could, whether it was basketball, lacrosse, or field hockey. Yesterday was field hockey in Newport, RI – 2 1/2 hours away. The day was beautiful, so we decided to go.
Oh, did I mention Steffie said it would be OK for me to bring my camera?
We have recently found that I-95 is awful on Saturday’s. The traffic is bad until you approach the split between I-95 and I-395 where it gets worse. I’m hoping this is summer oriented traffic and will abate when the warm weather crowd decides to stay home.
Newport is off the beaten path as far as the Interstate Highway System is concerned. We took I-95 to Rhode Island exit 3 and then got on a two lane road – seemingly forever.
Actually, the fact that it was a two lane road through a rural area wasn’t the problem. It was the speed limit that got me. Most of the way the limit was posted at 40 mph or less.
C’mon, I do 40 mph in my driveway!
Being on an island, the last part of the trip took us over two spectacular bridges (note to Rhode Island – EZ-Pass would be nice) with views of sailboat – filled bays.
I have been to Newport a few times, and was never impressed. What was wrong with me? This is a great destination. It is beautiful in so many ways, from the seaside views to the mansions to the walkable streets with shops and restaurants. More on that later.
Helaine had printed out directions from Steffie’s school’s website. It, unfortunately, referenced businesses that might have changed names or gone out of business. Basically, we went on a wild goose chase through Newport in search of St. George’s School.
Finally, in desperation, I called the school. The person who answered, quickly offered up that she was from Massachusetts. Luckily, after another few minutes of driving around I found a landmark she knew! It didn’t take long to get to the school.
It’s tough to believe there’s another school like St. George’s. On 200 acres in Newport, it has sweeping ocean views. The land alone must be worth hundreds of millions of dollars! The campus is dominated by a large Gothic chapel. There are numerous, well kept fields for field hockey, soccer and football.
Steffie’s team was there for pre-season field hockey scrimmages. Over the course of the afternoon, her team played three games – winning none. Still, it was just practice and Steffie played really well.
She had been a defensive player, but has now moved into an offensive position, basically covering the entire field. I have no idea how she and the others played three games. This is a physical game. Don’t think, because these are girls playing, that it’s any less aggressive.
I brought my Canon Digital Rebel and both lenses with me. It was an opportunity to try out a feature this camera has – continuous focus for sports – and the 70-300 mm zoom lens.
I am happy with how the camera and lenses worked in nearly every way. My long zoom lens is as ‘powerful’ as the lenses the pros use, but it is not as ‘fast.’ It needs much more light to produce similar pictures, and that forces me to either shoot with a slower shutter, wider aperture, faster film equivalent speed, or not take the picture at all.
There was so much bright light in Newport, it didn’t make a difference.
Looking back, most of the pictures were sharp and clear. The sports mode gave me shutter settings that were very fast, mostly taking shots faster than 1/1000 of a second. That meant stopping the action without blur.
I have read reports of this Sigma 70-300 mm lens not being particularly sharp. Maybe for the most critical of applications that’s true. It looks pretty sharp to me.
One of the cool parts of taking pictures at St. George’s are the amazing views. Many of the shots show the beach in the background. If you didn’t know any better you might think
this was Malibu, not Rhode Island.
After the third game we decided to head into downtown Newport for dinner. I found a place to park ($10 – “You can park it yourself, I don’t take my test for another two weeks.”) and we began to walk around.
I was hungry, and no one objected, so we ducked into Christie’s, located on the docks. The wait was 15 minutes, so Helaine and Steffie went to a store, while I went out on the dock to take some shots.
It wasn’t long before we were seated, outside on the deck. We didn’t know it when we picked Christie’s, but our view was to the west and we were about to see a remarkable sunset.
Helaine and Steffie shared lobster bisque and I had chowder. Very good. My dinner was fried clams. Helaine had scallops. Steffie didn’t like the stuffing of her stuffed shrimp, but everything else was fine.
As the Sun went down I picked up my camera to take some pictures. I could see, in front of me, some people with a point and shoot camera trying to get a portrait taken. It wasn’t going to work – so I offered to take the shot and email it to them. That opened the flood gates.
By the time I was done, I had four email addresses in my pocket and had taken pictures of, and with, a bunch of people. It was around this time that our waiter recognized me and offered up that he was originally from Old Saybrook… instantly forcing me to up his tip another 5 %.
We passed on dessert at Christie’s and headed to Ben and Jerry near where we were parked. The day had gone on a very long time. I was getting tired.
We headed back toward Connecticut, following directions Helaine had downloaded from the net. I got us to I-95 where she took over and finished the trip.
I think we were all surprised at how much we like Newport. We will definitely be back.
Blogger’s note: There is a photo gallery with more pictures from our day in Newport here. Each picture on this page is also clickable for a larger view.
It’s Good To See Old Friends
I have been friendly with Barry since I met him at my first poker game in the late 70s. During the time both of us were ‘between wives’ we hung out took together… even took vacations together. Though we live far apart I still consider him one of my best friends.
I should add, going on vacation with a dentist is a learning experience. I seem to remember his swishing mouthwash at least a half dozen times a day. And, you’ll be glad to know, no one has cleaner hands!
We weren’t able to see Barry in Atlantic City, but knew he and his wife would be passing through on their way to a wedding in Rhode Island. Originally we were hoping they’d come to the house for bagels and lox, but time didn’t permit. So this morning we drove into New Haven and waited for them at the Greek Olive.
Their trip took a little longer than normal because of traffic on I-95. There are choke points here in Connecticut that slow any trip down – and they hit them all. It is especially true around the Greek Olive which is next door to the new Ikea, itself a destination for thousands.
It’s always good to see old friends. You can catch up on their lives and then trash everyone else you mutually know.
Barry and Sheila were my first friends to become grandparents. It was fun for them, sobering for me. Having contemporaries with two generations below them isn’t something you think about while growing up.
They left, leaving Helaine and Steffie the opportunity to walk across the lawn to Ikea. If you’re not here in Connecticut, you have no idea what a big deal has been made of this store. We had stories on the news. The newspaper splashed it across its “A” section. It’s an especially significant event for New Haven which has had almost no new retail activity in years.
The parking lot was even more crowded than when I went with Ann earlier in the week. Outside, a New Haven firetruck stood in front of an ambulance. Both had their emergency lights on. I figured it was a shopper who had bought something and only then realized he’d have to find a way to get it home and then assemble it!¹
The crowd inside the store would make you think they’re giving something away. It’s been a long time since I bought furniture, so maybe they are. I’m unqualified here. I do know it’s simple and spartan. Some of the items are so simple they resemble the milk crates we used for furniture in my college dorm.
I left Helaine and Steffie to walk around and returned to the car. Since I had my camera, I wanted to take a photo of the former Armstrong Tire (then Pirelli Tire) Headquarters. Built 35 years ago and designed by Marcel Breuer, the upper floors of the building float above the rest. It’s abandoned now, used mostly to hang billboards. There are rumors it will be reworked into a hotel or other commercial space.
As I walked, I caught glimpse of a few of the cameras that have gone up since Ikea was finished. Most of the surrounding intersections have four fixed cameras to see what’s going on. I think, since they’re on the same pole as the traffic lights, that they go back to the city.
Helaine and Steffie met me at the car. Steffie had bought an ice cream cone, the second food related purchase made by my family at this furniture store. In fact, with my earlier trip, we’re 0-2 in furniture.
¹ – I am only kidding around because a fireman told me someone who had fallen and wasn’t serious.
Birthday Tradition
Every family has its traditions and ours is no exception. One of our more recent traditions started three years ago when Steffie decided she’d like to have her birthday dinner at Lenny’s in Branford. The fact that Steffie wasn’t a seafood lover and Lenny’s is a seafood place left us confused at first. But, it was her birthday and her decision.
This year we brought along Steffie’s friend Ali. They have known each other since grade school.
Helaine and I have been going to Lennie’s since we came to Connecticut. My impression is that Al Blinke (now news director at KDKA in Pittsburgh, but then our assignment editor) led the way and everyone else just followed.
There is probably a Lenny’s-like place in every community. It’s the kind of restaurant that has grown successful in an organic way, with little planning. No one could put up a restaurant and say, “Let’s make it like Lenny’s.” It is, for the most part, unchanged since I’ve been going.
They still don’t take credit cards, and never took checks. There’s now an ATM machine, allowing Lenny to ‘sort of’ accept credit cards, make money on them, and still be in an all cash business.
Adjacent to a salt marsh in the Indian Neck section of Branford, the parking lot is gravel. It used to be dirt and as I remember was quite nasty after a heavy rain. Now, for the first time, there are lines painted on the gravel. This is a major improvement.
During the summer, on the weekend, you just can’t get near the place. It is jammed without fail.
What makes Lenny’s is the seafood, especially shellfish – specifically lobster (the photo on the left shows live lobsters – even a box of 5 pounders – squirming around in the freezer). I don’t think I’ve ever ordered anything but the “Shore Dinner” which is corn on the cob, clam chowder (New England or Rhode Island), two clams on the half shell, steamers, a lobster, a huge slice of watermelon and coffee. Helaine gets bisque and fried shrimp. It’s always great.
Today, since Helaine had gotten a birthday cake for Steffie, I came off my diet. I’m down 25 pounds, my goal, and have been stuck for a while around 175 pounds. Still, I’ll be back on tomorrow.
Being off the diet allowed me to have birthday cake and corn (and some oyster crackers – what the hell).
Earlier, when Steffie had opened her presents, she was happy with every gift. Now, she and we were happy with dinner. It was a great day.
Stefanie’s turning 17 was a lot easier on me than I feared it would be.
The Old College Try
Steffie is now a junior in high school. I won’t embarrass her, but to say every parent thinks of their child as… well, as their child. So, it’s tough to come to the realization that she will soon be applying for and entering college and then, leaving home.
I don’t want to face the reality that any of us have gotten older. Who does?
Saturday was to be our first in a long series of college visits. We weren’t going far, C. W. Post College of Long Island University (my friend Peter says it’s really “LG” and pronounced “Long Guyland”).
C. W. Post is located on the former estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post. It was cereal money that built this incredible estate. People must eat an incredible amount of cereal, because this place, as a private residence, reaches the kind of grandeur few of us would even imagine.
It is located on the North Shore of Long Island, in an area still referred to as the Gold Coast. Though Long Island, especially Nassau County, is densely populated and a poster child for suburban sprawl, the area around the Post campus retains its genteel nature and airiness.
L.I.U. purchased the land in 1947. The campus originally hosted 219 students. I can’t imagine what the land is worth today. Over 300 acres of prime real estate boggles the mind.
We were 20 minutes early for our 12:00 noon tour. Over that twenty minutes, a few other families filtered in and sat in a waiting room in a majestic Tudor style building, originally part of the estate.
A tour guide, a junior dance major from Rhode Island walked us through the campus. Though nice, most of the buildings needed some fresh paint of their trim.
As we walked to lecture halls, classrooms, the library and even a ‘sample’ dorm room, it struck me that this was a totally foreign experience for Steffie. Over the next few months she will get a perspective by seeing other schools as well. This was a good start.
Back at the admissions office we met briefly with an admissions officer and then, were on our way. The day was young, so we headed to one of Long Island’s most historic spots.
At 7:52 A.M., May 20, 1927, Charles Lindberg left on his solo flight across the Atlantic. The Spirit of St. Louis, loaded with gasoline, lumbered down the runway before finally becoming airborne. He barely had enough altitude to clear the telephone lines at the end of the runway at Roosevelt Field.
You would think Roosevelt Field, though no longer used for aviation, would be a memorial or historic shrine to the bravery, accomplishment and good luck of Charles Lindberg. No, this is Long Island – it’s a mall.
With four anchor stores and nearly 250 specialty shops, Roosevelt Field is the largest mall I’ve ever been to. This was a Saturday in the off season, but the mall was packed.
The exit off the Meadowbrook Parkway puts you right in the mall’s parking area. We walked through a ‘big box’ sporting goods store, and into the mall’s upper level. We were overlooking a carousel and an immense food court.
The food court was centered around a ring of small restaurant counters, under a huge Zeppelin, . Unfortunately for me, mall food isn’t conducive to the low carb way of life. There wasn’t a great deal of choice, but I found a steak salad at the Great Steak and Potato Company. The steak was sliced thin, like you’d find in a cheesesteak sandwich. Any thinner and the pieces would have been see through.
As large as this mall was, and as happy as Steffie and Helaine were at the store selection, I was disappointed. There were few ‘guy’ shops. There was one bookstore – a small Barnes and Noble (though still signed B. Dalton on the outside). Try as I might to find a book or magazine to sit and read, there was nothing.
After another trip through the food court (different restaurant, still a salad), we headed to the car and back to Connecticut.
Left hand, meet right hand
It was clear, early on, that Friday had a significant chance for severe weather. I was concerned that the computer models downplayed it somewhat. But Thursday, within a few hours of being run, they had already blown the forecast in Michigan… so the computers weren’t to be totally trusted.
A little activity started on Central New York State toward early afternoon and the Storm Prediction Center threw up a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for the entire state, effective until 8:00 PM.
That was the right call.
A little background. I forecast the weather. The folks I work with forecast the weather. My competitors forecast the weather. But, we all leave watches and warnings to the Weather Service. The idea is to present a coordinated front, so as not to be confusing. In my 20+ years in weather I have heard few dissent from this concept.
After a watch is posted, it is the job of the Taunton, MA National Weather Service Office to put out a ‘redefining’ statement for all of Connecticut (even though they normally only forecast for 3 of the 4 northern counties and none of the shoreline). These are needed because watches are parallelograms and they don’t evenly fit within state or county borders. Without the redefinition, a watch area might include a small sliver of a state or something else equally confusing.
Taunton’s original statement only included their counties.
SLSMA
WATCH COUNTY NOTIFICATION FOR WATCH #880
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA
120 PM EDT FRI AUG 22 2003
CTC003-013-015-MAC005-009-011-013-015-017-021-023-025-027-NHC005-011-
RIC001-003-005-007-009-230000-
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH
#880 UNTIL 800 PM EDT FRIDAY EVENING FOR THE FOLLOWING AREAS:
IN CONNECTICUT THIS WATCH INCLUDES 3 COUNTIES…
IN NORTHERN CONNECTICUT:
HARTFORD TOLLAND WINDHAM
Then a correction to include the whole state.
SLSMA
BULLETIN – IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
AREAL OUTLINE FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH NUMBER 880
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA …CORRECTION
143 PM EDT FRI AUG 22 2003
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH NUMBER 880 IN EFFECT UNTIL 800 PM EDT.
CTC001-003-005-007-009-011-013-015-230000-
IN CONNECTICUT THIS WATCH INCLUDES 8 COUNTIES
FAIRFIELD HARTFORD LITCHFIELD MIDDLESEX
NEW HAVEN NEW LONDON TOLLAND WINDHAM
ADJACENT COASTAL WATERS
But, by then the damage had been done. At the TV station our Weather Warn II computer was confused. It put up a Thunderstorm Watch and then alternated text for a “defined area” and mentioned the three original counties. If we would have aired it, it would have looked like the watch was only for three counties.
As I drove in, Kirk Varner, our news director (who reads this, I can’t blast him here), saw what was going on and basically shifted to manual. This system is supposed to work on its own, without intervention. At the moment, it can’t be trusted. But, thankfully, we had the right info on the screen.
Throughout the afternoon we saw scattered thunderstorms. They probably didn’t get to the ‘official’ severe limit, but were close enough to justify the watch box.
Thursday night, this same system had quieted down and then, with the watches expired, fired up. It even spawned tornadoes in Michigan on the ‘rebound.’
Tonight, the system again died down. And then a series of awful human judgment errors.
At 7:10 PM:
SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA
710 PM EDT FRI AUG 22 2003
…PART OF THE SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT…
THE WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT FOR SOUTHWEST NEW HAMPSHIRE…
WESTERN…CENTRAL AND NORTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS…OR NORTHERN
CONNECTICUT. THUNDERSTORMS HAVE MOVED EAST OF THESE AREAS AND THE
THREAT OF SEVERE WEATHER HAS ENDED.
THE SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH CONTINUES UNTIL 8 PM FOR RHODE ISLAND.
IT ALSO CONTINUES FOR SUFFOLK…NORFOLK…BRISTOL AND PLYMOUTH
COUNTIES IN EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS.
But, the threat hadn’t ended. All of a sudden, in Southern Windham County, the storms fired up rapidly and ferociously.
BULLETIN – EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA
751 PM EDT FRI AUG 22 2003
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN TAUNTON HAS ISSUED A
* SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR…
WESTERN KENT COUNTY IN RHODE ISLAND
SOUTHEASTERN WINDHAM COUNTY IN NORTHERN CONNECTICUT
INCLUDING PLAINFIELD
* UNTIL 815 PM.
* AT 747 PM…NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM OVER PLAINFIELD…MOVING EAST AT 25 MPH.
* THE SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WILL BE NEAR…
COVENTRY AROUND 810 PM
WEST GREENWICH AROUND 815 PM.
SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS PRODUCE LARGE HAIL AND/OR WIND STRONG ENOUGH TO
KNOCK DOWN TREES AND POWER LINES. MOVE INDOORS AND STAY AWAY FROM
WINDOWS.
But, in Connecticut, these storms weren’t just over Windham County. They had crossed the border to New London County. In fact, by the time the warning went up, Northern New London County was seeing more action than Windham.
Windham County gets its warnings from Taunton, MA. New London County gets them from Upton, NY. No warning went up for New London County.
If there was reason for warning Windham County, there was reason for a warning to be issued for New London. This lack of coordination is a problem we face a few times a year, at the least.
At 7:51 PM, the watch and warning configuration in Connecticut was out of whack with what was actually happening. This system is supposed prepare and inform. It was confusing.
Thunderstorms continued, though weaker, until sometime past 10:00. Saturday will be a totally different weather animal – cooler and fresher.
I am not happy with what went on Friday. In many ways, I am powerless to change things unless I start ‘buying out’ of the unified watch and warning scenario.
I don’t think I’m ready for that… but I’m close.
——-
By the way, at 4:21 PM the dew point a Meriden, CT (KMMK) reached an unbelievable 79°! I can’t ever remember seeing a dew point that high in Connecticut.