Grumps can suck it, it's Friday!

[johnmdesigner]

One of my favorite sculptures in my neighborhood. I walk past it daily.

Battle of Harlem Heights - Wikipedia

[ides1056]

Not Friday but who cares? Four hours' riding in D2 land. Perfect weather, conditions, and legs.

Doesn't get better.

[ldamelio]

A couple of days early, but I need the push-ups. My one hospital (I work in New Jersey) has no Covid patients. And no Covid mortality in over a month. None. Zero. Oogotz. My other hospital, which serves a disadvantaged higher-risk population, has only a handful of patients. Can't let the societal guard down (I'm talking to you, Sunbelt), but this is great news.

[AngryScientist]

A couple of days early, but I need the push-ups. My one hospital (I work in New Jersey) has no Covid patients. And no Covid mortality in over a month. None. Zero. Oogotz. My other hospital, which serves a disadvantaged higher-risk population, has only a handful of patients. Can't let the societal guard down (I'm talking to you, Sunbelt), but this is great news.

that is outstanding news Lou. Can you mention what counties those hospitals are in?

[ldamelio]

Mercer

[johnmdesigner]

A friend sent me this link about a place I used to live in most of the 90's.

Brooklyn Relics: Search results for india street firehouse

In the late 80’s I went searching for more space and ended up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I rented the top floor of an old fire station that had been turned into an apartment. 3000sq. feet with 16’ high ceilings, 14 walk-in closets with the original oak doors with brass ventilators built in. The pole was gone but the hole was still there with the decorative tin around the opening. The roof had a small sleeping room and an unimpeded view of the entire east side of Midtown Manhattan. The landlord parked a nice old Porsche in the garage. My room mate painted 12’ high canvasses in the main room.

We had a lot of great times in that space and had some wild parties on the roof when the 4th fireworks were on the East River.

Greenpoint then was mostly working class Polish. Several Polish diners/restaurants and delis and not much else and they were all closed by 8pm. A few years later a Palestinian family opened a 24 hr deli on the corner. He used to show me the pictures of his brothers back home all holding AK-47’s.

Most of the Polish men were stone pointers, hanging off the sides of buildings in all weather’s at all times of the year. They had a pretty rough life but Friday at 3pm they were off. One would buy a bottle of Vodka, another, a liter of Polish soda. Half the liter of soda went in the gutter and replaced with the Vodka. This went on for most of the weekend or until the money/energy ran out.

One Saturday evening we had a storm with a heavy snowfall. I looked out about 2am and saw one of these men leaning backwards over our iron fence his coat pierced by one of the spikes. We dragged him into the foyer stiff as a board with his arms sticking straight out like he’d been crucified. We couldn’t take him upstairs because of the arms. Called the Police, called an ambulance, no one showed up. Put a blanket on him went back to bed. He was gone the next morning, folded up the blanket and shut the door behind him.

The pier at the end of India Street led into the East River and this is where some of these poor unfortunates met their end. One day I watched a man drive a car down to the pier and set it on fire. Finally the land end of the pier collapsed stranding someone’s parked car out in the river. It was there until the rest of the pier collapsed.


I had this beautiful Ferrari red De Rosa and used to go to Prospect Park in the evening. We had to ride through Bed-Stuy as fast as possible as people found it funny to jump out from between parked cars to grab your bike. I used to ride past a basketball court where every night someone would yell “gimme that bike!”

Why am I boring you with all this? I don’t know. I suppose withered old men sometimes need to talk about the good old days and confinement has left us with few to talk to.
It's pouring rain here. Just waiting for the tropical storm to arrive.

Thanks for reading.

[johnmdesigner]

The ’91 Tour

In 1988 I took a job as a freelancer at a NYC advertising and merchandising company. They needed someone to go to Europe where they were starting up a branch office. It was supposed to be for 2 weeks so I packed accordingly. I ended up staying 3 years.

This was pre-EU and we had vendors all over the place so it was a logistical nightmare. I had 2 associates, David (Scottish Prick) and Rob (Cheese Farmer). Their nickname for me was far worse.
The bosses in NY were like the Mob. They didn’t care about the impossible situation. They just wanted the money to roll in. My boss was one of the biggest charlatans I had ever met. With a serious coke and prostitute habit, turning him loose in the Netherlands was a disaster in the making. We were both camped out in a hotel in Rotterdam for 6 months: the staff used to tell me stories of his late night visitors carrying suitcases filled with god-knows-what. His divorce was so contentious that his wife took a ball peen hammer to his 911 Porsche while he was at work.

But I digress.

I had been to several of the Belgium classic races and spent many a Sunday watching races on the TV in bars that were so full of tar and nicotine that you had to crawl out the front door to get any oxygen. They were called “brown curtains” for good reason.

It was my last weekend in Rotterdam. Dave, Rob and I decided to drive down to Paris for the finish of the ’91 Tour. Indurain was to be crowned the winner. LeMond was there in 7th place, also Abdoujaparov with the Green jersey, but we will meet them later.

The company had a “corporate apartment” in the 9th Arrondissement of Paris. So we arranged to stay there.
The tradition in the factory where we had our office was that crates of Dutch beer were put out in the canteen at the end of the day. I had a few and then took a nap in the back seat while the Scottish Prick drove (I was ranking member after all). Dave couldn’t handle driving in Paris so I took over (having had my baptism of fire several years earlier). Negotiating the Arc de Triomphe at Friday night rush is not for the faint of heart.

The bosses had picked a nice flat just a few minutes’ walk from the Place de la Concorde. Unfortunately it was July and the 2nd floor apartment was right over a fish market. Air conditioning back then was unheard of and the stench was unbearable.
Rob had a brother in Paris and so we all went out on Saturday night. He didn’t like the nickname we gave him so we were out drinking pretty late.

Next morning was the Tour! I awoke with a splitting headache, cotton in my mouth and the overpowering smell of rotting fish. Not to mention the cats fighting in the street over the scraps. I announced that I was going out for coffee. My amused mates waited while it took me 45 minutes to negotiate the 2 flights of stairs necessary to reach the street. Several stops at trash cans along the way and a coffee with brandy later and I was fresh as a daisy.

We made our way down to the very crowded Champs just as the caravan was arriving. Then to great cheers, Greg LeMond rode onto the pavement all by himself followed seconds later by a thundering Peloton. The giant Indurain was easily spotted in the middle of the pack – his head and shoulders towering above everyone else. The roar of chain and wheel on pavement was unbelievable. A few laps later and Abdu would hook his foot on one of the barriers and suffer one of the most spectacular crashes in the Tour history. I’ve never seen a bike vaporized before – there were bits of Campy everywhere- even the seatpost was shattered. They hadn’t bothered to clean it up by the time we got there but all these wonderful souvenirs were out of reach of mere mortals like ourselves being guarded by a rather large Gendarme.

We headed back to Rotterdam in the “Prickmobile”, me in the back seat again. Having stopped at the Autogrille for some ham, mashed and spinach, washed down with a bottle of red we were all in fine spirits. The Eddy Merckx van carrying all the spares finally caught up with us on the highway outside of Brussels and we gave a shout and a toot of the horn.

The next weekend I was back in Brooklyn…

Thanks for reading.

(I couldn’t find any of my pictures of that day. They weren’t very good anyway after the hangover. Here is a nice one I found.)

[Tom]

This spring we had saved up a wad and were going to go to Bonaire for a week, some people we know who go there all the time were happening to be there at the same time and it was gonna be great. Then I went to the doc, then to another doc, then to another doc and finally to another doc who cut a couple of things off my larynx and one was malignant so I had to start 7 weeks of radiation therapy. "Can I get a week off to go to Bonaire, snorkel all day and drink all night?" I asked. She didn't say anything, she just looked at me. I got the picture. This was the very first time ever we bought trip insurance and it worked. We got all our money back. Stupid lucky.

So this week coming up, we pretty much spent what we would have to go to Bonaire on a lake front room in the cottage at the Mirror Lake Inn in Lake Placid. Screw it. Life is too short. Bike rides in the morning, hikes in the afternoon, books on the porch in the evening. Loons at night. It's gonna be great.

[bigbill]

My son is back at school so even if there is another lockdown, he'll be locked down at school (Naval Academy). I'm getting my life back to normal since I don't have a 20 year old roommate anymore.

[Rich Beaudoin]

My wife and I had two margaritas each and I’m feeling like that was plenty.
Covid Friday

[johnmdesigner]

Quite the life.

[johnmdesigner]

Anyone watching Grand Sumo on NHK?
Last day is Sunday. Have a very nice bottle of milky sake for the finish.
Starts 4:30am.

[rwsaunders]

Two kids are back to college, albeit mostly online for the undergrad and in very controlled clinical conditions for the grad student. The undergrad has been home since March and he is excited to move into his junior year and start the heavy lifting of engineering school and it’s his first year off campus. Fortunately, two of his roommates are good cooks and he’s not a picky eater. His apartment room looks like a command and control center, as vintage audio equipment, a 43” TV, Xbox gear, keyboard and robotics equipment, mixed with LED lighting kit were given assembly priority over the bed and other furniture.

The grad student has two years to go too and he settled into the grad student life out of the gate, which is one of the benefits of a program which including all four years, totals a little under 300 students. It’s mostly about the patients and preparing for boards this year, so he can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. “Patience Grasshopper”, is my favorite saying to him, as there is life after school and being in school during these crazy times will certainly turn out a new breed of graduate. Fiercely independent, extremely resourceful, wary of any message coming from college administrators and even more skeptical of anything coming from our nation’s leaders. Family and friends are not to be taken for granted, as these kids need to know that you’ve “got their 6”, as my Dad used to say.

I post this message because I’m thankful that they’re in this position, as for many kids, the stress of the unknown, coupled with trying to compete at a high academic level, mixed with limited social interaction and collaborative opportunities, is going to take its toll on many. If you have kids dealing with the rigors of school, regardless of the grade or academic level, I feel for you and keep your eyes and ears open for signs of stress in your kid. They’re dealing with much more than we ever had to deal with and they need to know that they can count on you.

[johnmdesigner]

Received my first Social Security payment at 1:05 am.
Had some champagne at 1:06.

[guido]

Received my first Social Security payment at 1:05 am.
Had some champagne at 1:06.

I'm on my second. Sure feels good. I call it my federal arts grant.

[ides1056]

Fiber optic internet has been installed.

My son will no longer scream about his games lagging.

[deano]

Got a root canal Wednesday on a tooth that was damaged in an accident 9 years ago, and there's an end in sight to the pain; my kids are both napping and I am gonna exercise for the first time since the semester started a week ago (which coincided with the tooth screaming at me), then I am gonna drink good beer with my best friend tonight, and I am gonna go mountain bicycling tomorrow - weather report calling for a cool September high temp of 82F here (to Northerners who have cooler weather already, this is a sign of our weather finally breaking; it was 94 yesterday). Happy weekend, dudes and dudettes.

[Matthew Strongin]

weather report calling for a cool September high temp of 82F here (to Northerners who have cooler weather already, this is a sign of our weather finally breaking; it was 94 yesterday). Happy weekend, dudes and dudettes.

This is a good sign and potentially means that I only have 12 more weeks until the sweltering heat and horrible humidity break for our one week of Fall/Winter.

[JJohnson]

A stressful work week is over. Getting the hell out of Covid central of Iowa for the holiday weekend and heading to Mark Twain NF to get lost for a few days - staying a good distance away from Lake of the Ozarks. Taking my mountain bike and possibly hitting Berryman Trail and doing some dispersed camping. First trip of the year without the better half since she's off backpacking at Yellow River State Forest in the Driftless Region.

[johnmdesigner]

I watched Fellini's "Amacord" last night.
I laughed a lot and had a good cry at the end.
The characters are so grotesque and so beautiful at the same time. Everything I love about Italy.