Phantom Lightning

As the power failure/blackout story progresses, the Canadian power authority has begun to blame a lightning strike in Northern New York State.

This would be a subject I have some expertise in. So, take my word. There was no lightning strike in Upstate New York this afternoon that might have set off the blackout. Period. End of story.

Continue reading “Phantom Lightning”

Watch by candlelight

At my desk at work, in the studio… suddenly the lights began to change color. I guess that’s what happens with flourescent studio lights. They don’t dim, they shift their color as the voltage withers and then

-GONE-

We were without power for only a few seconds, enough to bring down every computer under my control in the Weather Center. Most started to reboot on their own. Others were a little more recalictrant. One computer, the one that controls our Doppler radar, is totally dead. Luckily, it’s sunny and will be again tomorrow.

It looks like something in Southern Ontario took down most of the Northeast power grid (though they’re blaming Niagara Mohawk Power in NY).

Helaine just called from home. She and Steffie had been at Trumbull Mall when the power went out. It looks like the power never blinked at home.

My new LCD monitor

What could be cooler than an LCD monitor? They really look sharp sitting on a desk. For years I have been using a 17″ CTX CRT at 1280×1024 resolution.

Anyone who comes into my office asks how I can stand it. The text is really tiny. But, I appreciate having all that real estate, because I often have multiple windows open.

So, why didn’t I have an LCD monitor?

Money. They were just too damned expensive and the 15″ monitors, pretty much the desktop standard, only provided 1024×768 resolution. That meant things would really be squeezed.

Why spend the money and trade down?

This past weekend, Staples put a Pixo AT700S, 17″ LCD monitor on sale for $380, minus an $80 rebate. Fat Wallet had a link to a Staples coupon which saved me another $30.

The specs show this to be somewhat below top of the line. The contrast numbers are below some I’ve seen and is the lag time. However, a recent article in one of my computer magazines said most of the published LCD monitor specs were wrong… often in the consumer’s favor!

It didn’t make much difference. I’m not quite sure what all the specs are anyway.

I bought the monitor home, hooked it up, turned on my PC and… nothing… white screen. The low res text booting screens were there, but as Windows got ready to deliver, the screen went white. Not only that, I couldn’t get the on-screen controls to work.

I knew my computer sometimes started in a weird video mode where the Windows desktop was larger than my CRT, forcing me to scroll around until I could reset it. That seemed to be the case here. So, I hooked up the old monitor and reset the video… and created a hot key to easily reset it if this problem arises again.

The first thing I noticed was the brightness. This monitor is much whiter than any CRT I’ve used. Pictures were spectacular. Actually, maybe they were too good. I started noticing the artifacts of compression on images; something I hadn’t seen before. As bright as the whites were, the darks were deeper than the old CRT.

But, there were problems as well. Text looked ragged. This was especially true with what looks to be single pixel type, most often used for utility and menu purposes. Some letters looked thicker than others too and some straight lines weren’t quite vertical.

I opened the manual… actually a manualette and read. There were less answers than an Arnold Schwarzenegger news conference (OK – shoot me, I like the line).

What do phase and pitch do? Other commands seemed fairly straightforward, but these two, who knows? And, many of the commands seemed to be intertwined, in that doing one affected another.

PassMark has developed shareware monitor testing software. I downloaded it and fired it up. I’m not sure how you get a monitor to look good, but I do know what looks good. I started to play.

Pitch seemed to be very critical. It was the only control that caused visible screen pulses as it was adjusted. But, it was able to eliminate some thickness that letters only had on parts of the screen.

Does that make sense? It makes no sense to me either, but I’m not sure how else to say it.

Anyway, long story short, using the test screens I was able to tweak the monitor much better than I would have ever been able to just using my eyes. Yes, some very tiny type is ‘too sharp’ and displeasing to look at. But, by and large, everything is very sharp. Graphics are spectacular. There doesn’t seem to be any lag or problem when I use my TV tuner in the computer.

This 17″ LCD is much larger than my 17″ CRT (they are measured differently), meaning that at the same resolution, things are larger and more easily seen with this monitor.

There’s a 14 day return policy at Staples, with no restocking fee. I haven’t yet cut off the UPC for the rebate, but after some indecision, I think I’m going to keep it.

What I don’t understand is why these monitors are limited to 1280×1024? My 15″ laptop screen is 1400×1050 and it’s a thing of beauty. If Sony put one of those on the desktop… well, no, I probably wouldn’t spring for Sony’s prices. But, if Pixo put one out, I’d absolutely consider buying it.

$11 – gone

Found a Hold’em tournament for $11 this afternoon. Top payoff was well over $700.

I bombed out with AQ off suit to an A-10 who paired up.

48th of 276. Unfortunately, they only pay the first 27.

But before bed

I couldn’t help it. One more time. A very small, one table tournament. Stakes were $5+1. I came in third, losing with three of a kind to a guy who caught a straight on the river (shit happens).

PokerStars Tournament #237041, No Limit Hold’em

Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50

9 players

Total Prize Pool: $45.00

Tournament started – 2003/08/13 – 02:31:08 (EST)

Dear ctwxman,

You finished the tournament in 3rd place.

A $9.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.

$9, or $3.50 more net.

Poker On line

It’s nearly 2:00 AM as I write this. I have played on and off since 9’ish.

My first mistake was entering a $30+3 Pot Limit Hold’em tournament. I had never played pot limit before and it immediately adds something new to the game. If you show weakness, other players in better position will take advantage and raise like crazy.

Now a pretty good hand becomes suspect. It might have been worth a bet… but your whole stack? As it is, I finished in the middle of the pack. I went “all in” with a two reasonably good picture cards only to lose.

Next it was a one table No Limit Hold’em tournament for $10+1. I don’t know what I was thinking, because I had just done so poorly with pot limit. I came in third, again going all in with a reasonably good hand only to lose to someone with a reasonably better hand.

Third place pays $18, so that’s $7 net, minus the $33, leaving me down $26.

Helaine played a $10+1 Hold’em tournament. Nada. Now down $37.

I decided, before bed, to try some low stakes non-tournament poker. After all, this is what I play in casinos. The advantage of tournaments is you limit your risk. But, I decided to play $1/$2, so how wrong could I go? How much can you possibly lose playing $1/$2?

It should be noted that I’m playing at pokerstars.com. Earlier, I had played at partypoker.com. There’s really not much difference. Competition makes them all match each other. I met some folks from pokerstars at The Orleans in Las Vegas at a tournament and they seemed nice.

Maybe the biggest difference here (and I haven’t been to Partypoker in a while) is the very, very low stakes games you can find. You can literally play $.01/$.02 pot Limit Hold’em, and $.02/$.04 with fixed limits.

Of course, there are also free games, but the play is so different when there’s no real money on the line that it’s just no fun.

I played around a half hour at $1/$2 and got very hot, very quickly. By the time I was done, I had gone from $37 in the hole, to $12 up. Moving $49 to the positive at these stakes is pretty unusual… so luck and the other player’s lack of skill certainly had to enter into it.

Poker obsessed

This is ridiculous. I have become poker obsessed.

I have a few days off and went to try and play on-line. Pokerstars.com have some free tournaments, with 1,000 entrants. Before I could figure out how to enter, it was full!

I’m willing to put some cash into this, but my credit card company will not approve payments for Internet gambling (they being smarter than I). There’s a method where you tie your checking account… need I go further? That’s not happening.

What I will do is bring some money to Stop & Shop and wire it to Costa Rica via Western Union.

Even as I say this, I realize this is probably a dumb thing to do. However, I will limit my loss to less than what I won this past weekend and see what happens.

Southwest VISA revisited

I got to the bottom of the credit card flap thing morning.

In 2000, three years ago, my mutual fund says they sent me new checks and had me sign for them. This May, they stopped honoring the old checks. I’ve been using the old ones all along, so they could have told me I was headed for a tree.

Bottom line – they’re wiring $5,000 into my checking account. They will waive any fees. Southwest’s VISA will refund my bounced check fee and will wire $5,000 from my Wachovia checking account. Wachovia, an innocent bystander, will probably charge me to receive the wire transfer (and make a huge profit on it).

Is this chapter closed? It should be. It probably isn’t.

Poker at Mohegan Sun

Helaine asked if I would be interested in brunch at Mohegan Sun today? I said sure… though I sense diet time is just around the corner for me.

This is one of those incredibly decadent brunch buffets with virtually everything you can think of that’s vaguely related to breakfast. Add to that amazing desserts and coffee and I’m there in a heartbeat.

I stuffed myself on raw clams, shrimp, lamb chops, freshly cooked pasta (with sun dried tomatoes and mushrooms but very, very minimal sauce) and a passion fruit crepe with mango ice cream for dessert.

Before breakfast, I walked into the soon-to-close poker room and put my name on the list. As I returned, a new $5/$10 Hold’em table was opening, and I was called. It was a nice group of people; lots of fun.

More importantly, over the course of the afternoon I won $292. I continue to feel my poker skills are going up. I’ve won the past 3 or 4 times I played. But, it is very possible to be lucky for a run like that (and more profitable to be lucky than skillful).

It’s a shame Mohegan Sun’s poker room will close in early September. It is a very nice room; smaller than Foxwoods but a little more nicely appointed and sedate. A poker room can make good money for the owner, but nowhere near as much as slot machines… and that’s what will go in. I sense Foxwoods will change the rake structure, in essence raising the price to play poker, once the MS room is closed.

Rebuilding the website

I’m not sure why, but I’ve finally got the bug to build this website correctly. whether I can accomplish that is another question.

I figure the first thing I need to do is establish a style, and that means CSS, something I don’t understand 100%. That makes it a bit more difficult.

I also worked on getting some dynamic weather data, specifically forecast model data. That meant shell programming, in BASH. Again, this is something beyond my expertise. Luckily, I have the guidance of Bob Hart at FSU. His knowledge of ‘ix’ languages and GrADS (which I’m using to produce the graphics) is scary.

There is also a version of HAMWeather running, though not customized at all.

This will take time. But, there is a huge amount of satisfaction (as I got a few minutes ago when a PHP enabled include worked) in writing and debugging code.

My last computer class was 1967… and then in Fortran.

Southwest VISA card

Our Southwest Airlines VISA credit card, from First USA, has become a royal pain in the ass. The problems started almost immediately when we got the card in March. We were ‘declined’ more than once for security purposes and now because our magnetic stripe wasn’t read correctly (2 different cards in 2 separate readers) declined again.

Even in cases where First USA knew they would ‘decline’ our next transaction, they never called, leaving that responsibility to the gas station attendant or grocery store clerk.

What service does my yearly service fee buy me?

Today we received a letter saying that a $5,000 payment by check had been returned to them, account closed. I immediately went to the computer, checked the account, and it’s fine. This being Saturday, there’s no one at the bank to speak to. The woman at First USA was incredibly rude and made it clear that First USA is too big to service it’s customers on a personal basis.

This will be fixed, but I am steamed.

Emmy judging

I am a 7-time Emmy Award winner (OK – it’s the local rectangular base version, not that nice round national one – shoot me), so I have some sort of obligation to NATAS and will try and fulfill that by hosting an Emmy judging party for the St. Louis region next Saturday.

I found an email from the NWS in Taunton, MA and took all the email addresses from there. Hopefully, I didn’t miss too many people.

A long time ago, Helaine and I attended a judging session held at Channel 8. Good God! It is scary to think this is how it’s done. People were inattentive and we hardly ever got through an entire tape.

I hope to live up to that high standard at this session.

Here’s the letter I sent:

Hi (Insert Name Here),

I’m writing this extremely personal note on behalf of the Boston/New England Chapter of NATAS and the annual Emmy awards. As you may know, each year entries from our area are judged by our peers in other markets, where it doesn’t rain every day during the month of August and the dew point doesn’t stay above 70 for- – – oh sorry – – – I haven’t taken my medication yet.

Anyway, as we are judged, we are called upon to judge others. This year, it’s your chance to steal good lines and map drawing techniques as we watch the weather people from St. Louis, MO and environs.

Would you be willing to help judge? I have volunteered my house in Hamden, CT to host a judging session next Saturday (8-16) at noon. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided. Ivy the dog will be there for one-on-one petting sessions.

It’s your chance to meet some of your fellow weather people, tell us how awful your station’s owners and management are, and trash everything you see from St. Louis. You’ll get a better understanding why the Emmy always seems to go to some no talent… sorry… again no medication yet.

As an incentive to you in other states, many Connecticut State Police officers have pledged to write no tickets to anyone traveling below the current temperature (Celsius only). You folks in Boston should remember we schlep there every year for the actual Emmy ceremonies, so don’t kvetch.

Please let me know if you can attend. Detailed directions will be provided.

Your name and email address was actually plucked off an email from Glenn Field at NWS. If you’re now out of the business, selling cars, please excuse the intrusion.

All the best,

Geoff Fox

WTNH News Channel 8

ps – You know, most people read the “ps” before they read the letter.

Deer – on my front lawn

When we moved into our house, in the summer of ’90, I planted a few fruit trees, in the mistaken belief that I’d take care of them and one day eat the (pardon me) fruits of my labor.


Well, I never really touched the trees and they’ve grown, but never produced edible fruit.

This year seems to be different. Maybe it’s our awful summer weather, or maybe the horrendously brutal winter (it can’t be the spring as we didn’t seem to have one), but whatever the reason, the peaches are very nice… albeit small.

My plum tree has loads of fruit, though nowhere near ripe yet.

Yesterday, Helaine said she had seen a deer near the fruit trees. Tonight, as I was getting ready to take Ivy for a walk, the deer was back with two babies.

Steffie yelled for me to get the camera, and I ran upstairs in that uncoordinated way that makes my walk so easy to parody. The batteries were in the charger, so I pulled them out, dropped the charger to the ground and tried to race downstairs without killing myself.

TV Weatherman Succumbs to Deer Related Death – – I didn’t want to see that.

There wasn’t a whole lot of light, but enough for me to get a few decent pictures.

The funny thing is, most times of the year, deer are pests. They eat our flowers in the spring (when we get one) and, if I had planned on eating the fruit, they’d still be eating it.

Arnold for Governor

It has been speculated for a while now that this evening on The Tonight Show, Arnold Schwarzenegger would announce he was NOT going to run for Governor of California. In fact, Matt Drudge made a big deal out of it.

No one told Arnold. He appeared with Leno and announced his candidacy.

With loads of people now running to be California’s governor, and with the election rules such as they are, it is possible that Gray Davis will be removed and replaced with someone who has less popularity than he!

Letterman and New York

I still can’t get over the fact that Letterman tickets were available on such short notice. Friday, on the list. Monday, get the call. Tuesday, see the show.

Harold, who had suggested we do NYC in the first place, got to my house at 10:00AM. As an all day trip, there was no sense starting early and fighting it out with the commuters.

We drove to Stamford uneventfully. Though Helaine and I disagree on this, I like to drive to Stamford and take the train (Metro North) from there. That way, I have many more trains to choose from than if I had left from New Haven. That’s especially true on the way home, when many trains make all the stops. Plus, I drive faster than the train does.

Actually, I like driving in even better. But, on a weekday, getting through Manhattan is iffy at best with long, slow tie-ups, unpredictable.

We ended up in the first car on the train, and Harold and I (being nerdy kids at heart) moved up toward the font door/window. Then we felt the motorman’s wrath.

I’ve been riding trains over 50 years and I had never had a motorman shoo me away, but shoo’ed I was… and not in a nice way. This guy was so adamant about us not being near the front window that he made the whole trip with the cab door open, which I assume is some sort of safety and/or security violation. And it’s not like Harold and I are dangerous looking characters.

We made Grand Central a little after noon and headed downstairs to what was once a waiting room. Now, it’s a very nice food court. Most of the shops look like independant small operators. I tried some sushi and Harold had half a sandwich and soup. Converting this area to a food court was a great idea.

I was also impressed that the men’s room was clean and large (though there was a line for the women’s room).

FIrst stop was to be Canal Street, home of “knock off” everything – – watches, handbags, DVDs. If something costs more because of a name or intangible content beyond the manufacturing cost, you will find it dirt cheap on Canal Street.

Harold and I bought all day Metro Passes for $7 and headed downtown on what used to be called the BMT.

I was looking for a knockoff of a very specific Breitling watch, with LCD and analog readout. The real thing is around $2,000. On Canal Street it should be under $50 and a dead ringer.

Harold, who wasn’t expecting to buy, found a very nice Seiko. The vendor said $10. I said $7. Harold got it for $8. It’s a very nice watch.


Neither of us can figure out how this stuff gets made, brought to the US, and sold for these prices with profit being made every step of the way.

We needed to be at the Ed Sullivan Theater by 3:30 PM to claim our tickets. So, we took the train back uptown.

New York was very warm and sticky. On numerous phonecalls throughout the day, Helaine told me the radar was showing storms nearby. I know it rained while we were inside the theater, during the Letterman taping, but we never saw a drop fall from the sky… thankfully.

I had been instructed to say I was on Mitch’s “gold list”. Still, I wanted to try everything I could to get better seats. All the CBS pages wore tags with their name and hometown. I desparately seached for someone with “CT” on their tag, and found Dave from Waterford, CT.

Bingo. Dave looked at my drivers license (you need ID to claim your tickets), looked at me, and smiled. He had recognized me. This, I thought, was a good thing.

Harold and I entered through a roped walkway to some sort of ‘special’ podium. I later learned that another Dave, the audience coordinator, had also spotted me. The girl with the tickets took out a Sharpie and wrote “CBS” on mine.

Another good sign.

With tickets in hand, we left to head to Times Square and the TKTS booth. There, on the day of performance, unbought Broadway tickets go for 1/2 price plus a few bucks. Often, the seats are quite good. Steffie and I have seen loads of shows this way. Broadway is now like flying in that everyone pays a different amount.

I had convinced Harold, reluctantly, to see a Broadway show after the Letterman taping. I probably like Broadway more than any other straight man in America.

The shows on the board were mediocre. But, Gypsy was there, and I had heard very good things about Bernadette Peters with favorable comparisons to Ethel Merman. We stood in line for around 20 minutes, and I could see Harold having second thoughts.

Meanwhile, I was snapping away; taking pictures of people, places and pigeons. In Times Square, the pigeon is king! Even the statue of George M. Cohan serves as a pigeon roost.

Amazingly enough, after a while I looked up and there, staring back at me was Stephanie Linakis, who I have known since we were both infants and who lives on Long Island. How strange to meet up with her in the heart of Times Square, where most New Yorkers dare not tread.

I was surprised to see CBS – Letterman pages in Times Square, trying to drum up more studio members. It was my impression that this show was always sold out months in advance. Was there some royal screw up which caused less tickets to be originally distributed, or was it just tough to fill the theater?

Even under these circumstances, potential audience members were asked a Letterman trivia question (Who is Biff Henderson?).

Harold was growing fidgety, so we bolted the line and walked around midtown. There is a Museum of Photography somewhere, though we never found it. We did, however, find some interesting public art.

Many buildings in Manhattan have been forced to put in public spaces as part of their committment to the city. I had never seen this interesting ‘sculpture’ with water flowing down the side and a tunnel through its center.

It was time to go back up to Letterman. We had been told to be there by 4:30 PM. Immediately we were taken inside (air conditioning and bathrooms) where we stood in a hallway with around 50 others, listening through the walls to Paul Schaeffer and the CBS Orchestra rehearsing. Outside, much of the assembled audience was being rained on.

After a while, another audience coordinator came in, stood on a chair and told us what we would be seeing. We had been chosen to get ‘great seats’, he said. Unobstructed views. The only ones like that in the theater. He even referenced me, “you might even see your favorite Connecticut weatherman”, in his schpiel.

After a while we went to our seats… in the balcony. I sat in the very last row. Yes, we had an unobstructed view, but it was obvoius the show was being done for the people downstairs. And, I know from being on stages, with the lights, we couldn’t even be seen from downstairs. Being upstairs it wasn’t even the ‘meat locker’ cold temperature that Dave’s studio is known for.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say this was disappointing.

And, I’m totally unsure what to make of it, because the people in this group were hand picked from the crowd in general. But, maybe that’s the idea. The people downstairs should be those with no pull, and anyone here trying to throw their weight should be out of sight. I just don’t know.

The show itself was very good. The Sullivan Theater has been modified greatly for Dave. A large protion of the balcony is gone, hidden behind large accoustical panels. There are also accoustical panels above the light grid. If you look really hard, you can still see some of the beautiful work on the theater’s original ceiling. There were at least 5 or 6 microphones on the balcony railing, pointing toward the audience. Overkill.

Taping would start at 5:30 sharp. Eddie Brill’s quick warmup, the band’s number and Paul’s entrance were all timed to bring Dave on exactly 3 minutes before taping. I was amazed to see Paul being counted down by the floor manager so he would end the music on time… and the show hadn’t even started.

I found Dave warm and engaging. Though Helaine and I have speculated that his private life might be a mess, it is obvious that he is the master of this domain. He was totally confident and sharp. This is his venue and everything is designed so he will be able to be at his best.

The show went quickly. The major guest was Colin Farrell, with a new movie (SWAT) about to premiere. He was good, and funny. The “F” word slipped out and Dave joined in… knowing it was all safe fun, since we were going to tape.

I have been to lots of tapings before but felt a little out of it being this far away. Some people credit Jay Leno’s studio rebuild, moving the audience closer to the action, as being part of his current success (I’m not a huge Jay fan, but getting Kevin Eubanks who is willing to play along and take one for the team, is a large factor).

Harold and I left the theater, heading downtown again. Wit the museums closed and Broadway off the agenda, I asked if we could take a round trip on the Staten Island Ferry. I wanted some shots of Lower Manhattan and The Statue of Liberty.

On the way down, we ended up in the subway’s first car, and again gravitated to the front window. I wanted to hold the camera steady against the window while we were in a station, allowing me to take a long exposure into the darkened tunnel.

The motorman (no doubt related to the Metro North guy) yelled at me from his cab. Camera’s weren’t permitted in the subway!

Actually, MTA rule 1050.9 C says “Photography, filming or video recording in any facility or conveyance is permitted except that ancillary equipment such as lights, reflectors or tripods may not be used. Members of the press holding valid identification issued by the New York City Police Department are hereby authorized to use necessary ancillary equipment. All photographic activity must be conducted in accordance with the provision of these Rules.

A man in the other end of the car, the only other passenger, yelled at me to go ahead and take pictures. My guess is this man does not let the concept of rules ever slow him down. I put the camera away. No balls. And, I was doing nothing wrong!

Off at Whitehall Street we headed to South Ferry. The Andrew J. Barberi would be our boat.

Barberi Class Boats:

There are two sister ships, the Andrew J. Barberi and the Samuel I. Newhouse. The Barberi entered service in 1981 and the Newhouse in 1982. Each boat carries 6,000 passengers, with a crew of 15 plus one female attendant. The boats are 310 feet long, 69 feet, 10 inches wide, with a draft of 13 feet, 6 inches, weight of 3,335 gross tons, service speed of 16 knots, and 7,000 horsepower.

There are actually 8 ferry boats used between Lower Manhattan and St. George, Staten Island, with these two being the largest. The trip is 25 minutes. Since 1997 it’s been free. Even when they charged, it wasn’t expensive. As a kid, it was $.05 versus $.15 for the subway. Later, it went to a quarter.

The trip to State Island was very nice. The water was calm but the sky was gray. With a long view to the horizon, I saw areas of both rain and sunshine.

I snapped dozens of photos: other ships and boats, buoys, lights, buildings and, of course, The Statue of Liberty. With sunset approaching the statue was closed for the day. A Coast Guard boat was close at hand.

As we approached Staten Island an announcment was made. Our ferry would be going out of service: Leave, even if you are making the round trip. Of course, that was a lie.

Luckily, that allowed Harold and me to experience first hand, the St. George Ferry Terminal. If there is a more depressing public space in America, I have not seen it. This building is screaming, “We really don’t give a shit about you.” The waiting room was drab. Even if it were clean it would seem dirty… but it was dirty. There were pigeons, inside, walking around.

These were tough ass city pigeons. Sort of like mob pigeons. You wouldn’t want to screw with these pigeons… they had friends. They were in the ferry terminal waiting room because there was no one with enough weight to get them out.


By the time we made it back to Manhattan, the sun had set. Lower Manhattan wasn’t lit up the way I expected. Maybe the Financial District is just different since 9/11. The skyline was nice, but there was no look of excitment. Certainly the WTC is missing from the picture I remember seeing.

I did catch a sailboat, probably a party charter, with dozens of people on deck, sailing by The Battery. I really had to push this photo to make it viewable. It was a pretty neat sight, seeing these big buildings and this stately sailboat.

Back to the subway and on at South Ferry (the old IRT line). I remembered this station from when I was a kid. Its platform is so curved that iron grate extensions push out from the platform every time a train stops. Otherwise, the doors would be too far away and the station unusable. As it is, only the front five or so cars fit on the platform.

By the time we got to Grand Central, the food court had closed. Harold and I picked up some snacks and headed to the 9:07 express to Stamford.

I took a lot of pictures… nearly 200. Hopefully that didn’t get on Harold’s nerves. And, I had a good time.

When I was a little kid, Manhattan… The City… was always a treat. It was and still is exciting. I always thought that only the best worked there. I don’t feel that way anymore. But, I do feel there’s a certain prestige that goes with working in the city that I’ve missed out on.