Category: favorite posts

ricketts [glen state park] rankings

~ jamie ~ 11 Comments

kirk and i spent three nights at ricketts glen state park in north central pennsylvania this past weekend through tuesday.

what an incredibly awesome place. we’ve been before, but this time we especially enjoyed every minute of the peace and quiet, especially on monday night, when we were the only campers in the park. and the cell phones don’t work there. love that.

we took advantage of the empty time to take a look at the campground, figure out the camping spots we liked, and picked a top 5. our positive criteria were seclusion, beauty, and space. negatives we looked for included being too near or (especially) at the end of a road (headlights in the tent — not good), being too close to the road in general, and close proximity to the bathrooms (too much noisy foot traffic). we labeled the ones we liked with “y” (for “yes”) and appended a “-” for a decent site with some problems, a “+” for great sites, and an “!” for the outstanding sites. our top five sites are all “y!” sites.

your criteria may differ from ours. if so, check out the details of the individual sites and plan accordingly. kirk took pictures of the sites we liked — they’re coming soon.

here’s a page where you can download a map of the campground, so you can play along at home.

there are two camping areas in ricketts glen: the big loop (sites 1-73) and the small loop (sites 74-120). the small loop sites are all knocked out of serious contention immediately. none of them border the water, some of them (sites 80-93) allow pets (no pets allowed in the big loop), and they are very crowded with no buffer zones to speak of. we gave three small loop sites a “y-” ranking: sites 101, 108, and 115. but they are strictly a fall-back position, in case the big loop is completely full. if the big loop is full, and these sites are gone, certainly there’s enough positive features at the park to still come. but it’s going to be packed with people, and you’re likely to have a less than optimal experience.

for the big loop, i’ll list only the sites that got “y-” or better. the sites not listed got knocked out for the aforementioned reasons.

big loop “y-” sites:

3, 5, 17, 23 (17 + 23 close to bathroom but big), 27, 33, 46 (27, 33, 46 at end of road, but on water), 49, 52, 54.

big loop “y” sites:

7, 9, 24, 26 (campground host site, near entrance), 34, 35, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 57, 71, 72, 73. all but 42, 44, and 71 are on or near water. 57 is at the end of a road but is so spectacular that it loses the minus.

big loop “y+” sites:

5, 20, 22, 29, 31, 56, 66. all but 5 on the water.

big loop “y!” sites:

21, 36, 37, 59, 61, 64, 65. there’s nothing wrong with any of these, in our estimation. site perfection.

and for the top five — again, culled from the “y!” sites:

#5 — site 64. at the end of a road, on the water, huge with no near neighbors.

#4 — site 59. secluded, on the water, huge surrounding area.

#3 — site 36. at the end of a road, on the water, huge, only site we saw with a constructed tent platform.

#2 — site 21. huge, on the water, secluded. the best part about this site is that the area behind the site drops down to the water, and then there’s a shelf right by the water. so you can sit by the water, and no one can see you. spectacular.

and the #1 site — #37. the huge site drops down from the road, so you are hidden from everyone else. and you have an enormous peninsula you share only with site 36, with water views on three sides.

there you go — our subjective opinions, explained. what do you think? leave a comment if you disagree, or have experiences to share.

for the grammar nerd in you

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

via daring fireball: Philip B. Corbett, who oversees language issues for the [NY Times] newsroom, is answering readers’ questions this week.

this is by far my favorite NY Times article in recent memory. you may think that odd, given that i’m posting about it on a blog that has no capital letters, but it’s true.

update: here’s what mr. corbett says about the phrase “in recent memory”:

A small sample of other words and phrases that my colleagues and I have identified as overworked and deserving a bit of rest:

in recent memory — An almost meaningless phrase.

it’s a long article, and obviously i posted the link before reaching the end of it.

sometimes i just can’t win.

we have wii, and you can too

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

i couldn’t stand it any more. i’ve been wanting a wii for months, and my hit-and-miss approach to various nyc stores wasn’t working. and i wasn’t about to pay the ebay premium for a console. so i visited the nintendo store in rockefeller plaza on friday, and asked how to go about getting one.

“show up at 7am on monday morning and get in line,” i was told.

ok then. ok then.

cut to this morning. thinking that the coldest morning of the year, the day after the super bowl, might be a good time to wait in line to get a wii?

maybe a bit foolish. there was some logic. i thought there would be fewer people than usual.

boy was i wrong.

i got there at 7:15am–close enough, right? it was, i think 14 degrees, with a wind chill on top of that. and there were already 10 people in line ahead of me. some of them had been there since 5:30.

in chatting with them, though, i was assured that i was there early enough, and i’d get one.

i’ve waited in lines in freezing weather before, most notably when i bought mets tickets at shea on the first day of ticket sales. my reward that time was meeting former met ed kranepool. cold weather waiting has been good to me.

so i decided to stick it out.

it wasn’t too bad. i’d worn several layers of thermal clothing, so i was pretty warm. i thought two pairs of socks and a thick pair of shoes would be adequate, but my feet damn near froze standing on the cold concrete. i took to standing on one leg at a time, like a frigging flamingo.

and i chatted some more with the other people in line. they were young, of course, and enthusiastic, and had all kinds of advice about which games to buy and which accessories to buy and why to buy a wii and not a playstation or an xbox and all that.

the young woman in front of me was particularly interesting. she used to work in direct action for greenpeace, and so we chatted about greenpeace versus peta and their direct action methods. which ended up in a conversation about the evils of corporate america, and greedy people, and the loss of small business in new york. a pleasant conversation.

several people walking by asked us what we were in line for. her response? we’re waiting for wiis, she said. it shows a level of commitment, she said. it’s like a little community, she said. you enjoy it more when you wait for it, she said.

and then, at about 8:30, a guy walked down the line of people, handing out rolls of cash. he gave a wad to the young woman in front of me, too.

he skipped me.

“i’ll be waiting outside,” he said to them. “bring them right to me when you get them.”

oh.

sometimes, when i think i’m older and jaded and worldly and nothing can surprise me, i get surprised, and i realize that i’m not as clever as i think i am.

the doors to the nintendo store opened at 8:45. an hour and a half wait. not bad.

there were four cashiers inside, waiting to sell the small stack of wiis behind the counter. clearly the majority of the people in line (a line that by that time stretched nearly a block) were going home empty-handed.

three of those four cashiers were taking cash, from all the shills in front of me. the remaining forlorn cashier spoke, quietly, evidently not expecting a reply.

“is anyone paying with a credit card?”

no one in front of me was, so i stepped past them all, got my wii, got an extra controller and an extra nunchuk, bought an extra game called “trauma center” which looked fun, and was out of there.

i’m looking forward to playing my wii. i’ll let you know how it is.

i’m sure that all those wiis bought with cash will be eventually be enjoyed as well, when the profits are made and the premiums are paid.

i’ll bet i enjoy mine a bit more, though.

kristen hall, not kristin hall

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

good lord. ever have one of those moments when you wonder just how much more embarrassed you could possibly be?

I’m having one of those now.

i’ve been blogging (blathering, really) for years about how much i love kristin hall. about how kristin hall is my favorite artist. about how i want “peaches” by kristin hall to be played at my funeral. about how my favorite two cds by any artist of all time are “fact and fiction” and “be careful what you wish for”. and about how high my gooogle ranking was for kristin hall related searches.

blah, blah, blah.

and now i realize that i have been spelling her name wrong. for at least two years on my site.

it’s kristen hall, idiot.

i really don’t undertand how i did this. i’m a fanatically accurate speller, especially of names. i used to be rain man with names when i was a yearbook adviser. I could blow students away with my memory of who was carrie versus cari versus kerry versus cary. i could spell 12-letter polish names with ease.

it’s no wonder “kristin hall” got me so many google hits. everyone else was spelling her name correctly, and i was getting the spelling-challenged crowd to visit. and the worst part is how many times i linked to the kristen hall website and never noticed the “e” versus the “i”.

not to mention how many times i’ve looked at cd covers.

i’m sorry to have propagated this misspelling.

i’m an idiot.

hopefully this posting will somewhat mitigate my past misdeeds. and i’ve edited all the pages (and the site category) to correct the spelling.

it may seem i’m making a mountain out of a molehill. but writing this is a process–it’s a reminder to myself to be more humble about my abilities.

and to not take anything for granted.

new york credit freeze in effect

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

this doesn’t seem to be getting much press, but the credit freeze for new york state went into effect today (november 1). here’s a .pdf file with more information.

years ago, i had my identity stolen. it took me weeks to untangle the mess. and i was lucky, in a sense–many people spend years untangling it, and never succeed.

this puts a freeze on your credit files with the three credit reporting bureaus–experian, trans union, and equifax–and ensures that you’ll never have to deal with identity theft. there’s a bit of inconvenience on the back side (you have to temporarily unfreeze your credit if someone needs access) but it’s well worth the trouble.

if you don’t live in new york, your state may still have its own credit freeze. check it out.

do yourself a favor. spend the hour it will take to do this…you won’t regret it.

things that have recently made me cranky

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

the old guy sitting next to me at “grey gardens” wednesday night made me very cranky. first of all, though he was ancient and practically bald, he still had a ponytail. bad form. when we were going to our seats, before i knew i was sitting next to him, i overheard him complaining about his seats to the usher. well, dude, you bought them. did you not know where they were when you bought them? it’s your damn fault that your seats are where they are. man up. take responsibility.

so kirk and i sat down, and he followed us into the row and sat next to me. great. and throughout the show, he kept passing gas. very smelly gas. and he was constantly poking his bony-ass elbow into my side, way past the armrest and halfway into my seat. i finally had to whisper “excuse me”, which got his elbow at least back onto the armrest.

do people have no clue of how they are acting in public? talk about breaking the social contract. come on, clueless usher-torturing bony-elbowed bad-ponytailed fart man. get a grip.

this morning i got cranky as well. every week or so, i treat myself to a grease-bomb burger king breakfast. i get an egg-and-cheese croissanwich meal (comes with tater tots, and a diet coke) for $2.70–it’s a splurge for me, monetarily and dietarily. but i like it, and i never go to mcdonalds, because they stupidly charge extra for the diet coke, making the equivalent meal well over $4. and i hate the log-o-hash browns. that big solid plank of potato is very unappetizing. give me individual tots anytime.

but i digress.

this morning, i go to burger king for my breakfast. there’s a roped off line to get in, but these two loudmouth idiots at the front of the line aren’t in it. they evidently can’t be bothered to walk the extra 10 feet. so they stand just outside the ropes, waiting for the guy currently at the register to finish, so they can push past all the people who have already ordered and are waiting for their food.

and since they aren’t in line, the rest of us aren’t queued up nicely, but are forced into a clump around them. though, being good people, we’ve all mentally noted who got there first and so on. you can tell with some people that they get it, and with others that they are idiots.

and there’s only one person who works the burger king counter in the morning, so it’s not the most speedy process in the best of circumstances. add to that the general slowness of new york fast food (it’s unbelievably slow, but you get used to it), and we all are waiting our turn in a confused mass of humanity.

and the two guys who can’t line up are waiting as well. and talking. loudly. very very loudly. so i have to listen to their inane conversation about their boring ass life, because they are so loud that i don’t have a choice.

and it is finally their turn. and they ignore the roped-off line, push past the people waiting for their food, and get to the counter.

and look up at the menu board, and one of them says. says.

“now let’s see here, what do you have for breakfast?”

dammit, dammit, dammit. you’ve been standing there for at least three minutes. could you not have looked up and decided what the flying fuck you wanted for breakfast? no. you have to make me wait even longer, because you are an idiot.

and most times, i would have let it go. but this time, i muttered under my breath, “oh for chrissakes”.

at least i thought it was under my breath.

it wasn’t as under my breath as i thought.

everyone in the non-line turned around and looked at me. and then turned around and looked at him.

and, to his credit, he immediately said, “i’ll have a number seven”.

and now i feel bad, a little bit. i need to be less cranky. i need to be more zen.

who knows why the old guy farted so much?

maybe this guy hadn’t seen the guy he was with for a while, and got excited, and forgot to formulate his burger king order.

i need to work on not letting little things bug me so much. in the end, if you have perspective, they aren’t what matter.

stealing my subway sub

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

which, by the way, i didn’t do, but got accused of this morning.

i should explain.

i’m famous among those who know me for my even temper when dealing with customer service issues. i’m pretty good at getting what i want from customer service people, and the first rule of dealing with them is to never lose your temper. if you do, you give them an excuse to ignore you, hang up on you, or ask you to leave.

anyway, this morning i went on an errand to the post office, and took my subway stamps to get a free sub. it takes eight stamps to get a free sub, or what used to be a free sub but now they make you buy a drink for $1.25 which costs them next to nothing, so they probably break even on the sandwich. and they have stopped giving out stamps, but they are still honoring them.

and i had six stamps, and a card signed by an employee in the spaces where i would have had stamps, except that on that day they had run out of stamps, so they gave me that.

but as far as i was concerned, i had eight stamps.

just to be safe, i asked the counter person on the way in if they still took the stamps. yes, was the answer, but looking at what i brought in, the guy said, “we can’t take this, because it’s not all stamps.”

i explained that the store, this very store, was out of stamps that day, so this is what i got instead of stamps. he wouldn’t budge.

so i asked for the manager, and nicely reiterated my problem. her response?

“this isn’t an employee’s initials–you must have done this yourself.”

now, i’ve been accused of doing many things i didn’t do. and i’ve done tons of things i’m not proud of. but i guarantee you that i’m not going to forge a set of initials on a subway card to fraudently obtain a $5 sandwich i can afford any day of the week. and something about being accused of that, by an obviously idiotic store manager, just triggered a reaction.

i asked her, rather loudly i admit, if she was accusing me of trying to steal a $5 sandwich. she said nothing.

so, after a few awkward moments of silence, i let her have it. man did i really let her have it. it was about ten in the morning, so there were only a couple of employees. but they both stopped serving their customers to watch this guy tear their boss a new asshole.

and i did. i’m not especially proud of it.

who am i kidding? i’m damn proud of it. who does she think she is? suffice it to say she got a lecture on the proper way to deal with a customer, and a run down of all the dining options i had in the rock center concourse, and a detailed description of my recent visits and the sandwiches i had purchased, and the members of my family who were former subway employees (that would be my ex, caitlin), and other choice details too numerous to list. i didn’t curse, though. i know better.

it took me about two minutes, i’d guess. the guys behind the counter had smiles on their faces, so i’m guessing they can’t stand her either. i’m happy to have given them a couple of minutes of vicarious enjoyment.

my final question to her was, “do i get my sandwich or not?” knowing i wouldn’t–i know enough about customer service issues to know that i’d passed that point long ago. i got my no, and i walked out, leaving her with my six stamps and the signed card.

will i patronize subway in general again? of course–it’s a fine company and i like their sandwiches. they are a somewhat healthier alternative to crappy fast food. and each subway is franchisee-owned, so the problem i had here doesn’t carry over to other locations.

will i go to that particular subway franchise again?

what do you think? my high dudgeon will last quite a while.

small town city

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

new york is a small town.

in fact, it’s probably more of a small town than the small town you live in.

because you walk everywhere in new york, there’s more opportunity to get to know people, and see people you know. and because there are few large megastores (although this is slowly changing), a lot of your shopping tends to take place at small independently-owned mom-and-pop type stores. this leads inevitably to your knowing these people as well.

do you know the cashier’s name at wal-mart? don’t lie to me. most times you don’t. and i know you too well. if you have a wal-mart or the equivalent available, you shop there. kirk and i have a target within walking (15 minutes) distance, but the vast majority of our shopping is still done at small stores. when you don’t have a car and have to physically carry everything you purchase, it makes a big difference in your shopping habits. no going to the grocery store or the box store or the wal-mart super center and filling up the car with crap to last you weeks.

you have to be judicious.

so, out of necessity, you make lots of frequent shopping trips. pick up a few things after work every day. and when you make a purchase of a large, heavy item, you have to factor in the price of the taxi to get it home, which admittedly makes internet shopping for big things very attractive. but oddly, most times we buy large heavy things locally. and most times, we make lots of little trips to dick’s hardware, not home depot. we go to c-town, not kroger’s or publix. we go to grandpa’s pizza, not pizza hut.

all of this is to explain that all these frequent shopping trips to the same places makes you friendly with a lot of people. some you know their names, some you don’t. but you still know them, and they know you. going to macy’s to get my razor fixed today reminded me of that.

i have a norelco razor that’s at least 10 years old, probably more. i’ve forgotten how old it is, but i’ve had it a long time. and every year i take it to macy’s and get the blades replaced and the razor cleaned and lubed and whatnot, and it costs me about $40. every few years i have to get the rechargeable batteries replaced, and this trip i had to get that done too, so it was another $30. so with tax, $80-ish. still cheaper than a new norelco razor, which i have no idea if it would work well or last a long time.

and $40 a year is less money than people spend on disposable razors and all the accompanying accoutrements and the like, so i think it’s $40 well spent.

and every year, i spend it with james on the top floor of macy’s, in the razor department. he’s an older gentleman who remembers what it means to give good customer service, and gives it, and remembers you too, or at least does a good job of acting like he remembers you, which is in effect the same thing anyway.

and james is just one in a long line of people i know in new york, and see on a regular basis, and interact with, and it’s because i live in a small town.

it’s a small town because i got my ass out of a car, and started walking around and interacting with people. ian mckellen was on the hbo bill maher show recently, and he made this exact point, and everyone was generally dismissive of him.

but he’s exactly right. people spend their lives in their automotive bubble-of-unreality, and people become less human to them, and their interactions with others become more and more strained.

and if you are saying “well, i live too far from everything and have to drive,” my response to you is that you have made a conscious decision to put yourself in that position, and you have options.

and if you are then saying, “well, i can’t afford to live in a large city like new york that is dense and walkable and has public transportation options”, my response to you is that you could damn well afford it if you weren’t paying so much for that car of yours. i’ve lived both lifestyles. you can’t fool me.

at the very least, i think you should park your car and walk as much as you can, and stop going to wal-mart and start going to neighborhood stores even if it costs you a bit more, and start cultivating regularly scheduled inconsequential interactions with regular people on a regular basis.

i think you should endeavor to make where you live a small town, no matter where you live.

a small town much like new york city.

the spontaneous giggle test

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

lunch yesterday was one of those quintessential new york experiences, one that i feel extremely lucky to have had.

it was lunch in the basement speakeasy wine cellar room of the “21” club, the secret room hidden behind a brick wall accessible only by pushing a thin wire into just the right hole. click on the link if you don’t know anything about this–it’s fascinating.

and the food was surprisingly solid and good–nothing that passed the spontaneous giggle test, but really enjoyable nevertheless.
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my last mchale’s burger?

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

i’m hoping it’s not true, or hoping for a reprieve, or hoping that someone gets some sense, or something.

mchale’s, a perfectly wonderful open secret of a bar, is set to close soon, according to the new york times, which by the way will make you pay $3.95 to read about it.

but trust me. it says that the building was sold and the new owners are kicking them out. which really ticks me off.
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working well for them

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

from an ap wire story at yahoo.com. capital letters removed.

barbara bush, who accompanied the former presidents on a tour of the astrodome complex monday, said the relocation to houston is “working very well” for some of the poor people forced out of new orleans.

“what i’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in texas. everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality,” she said during a radio interview with the american public media program marketplace. “and so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

um.
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switching to a mac

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

yes i’m switching to a mac. more in a moment.

but first, i saw the movie “the aristocrats” this weekend, and i’m still making up my mind on the ranking, but i’m pretty sure it was the funniest movie i’ve ever seen, and just might be my favorite movie of the year thus far. and in addition to being riotously funny, it’s brilliantly insightful about the process of comedy and by inference, about freedom of speech.

but my god is it filthy. don’t see it unless you are completely unable to be offended, which i am not able to be. offended.

but do see it if you are worried about your right to be offended, because this movie is still flying under the radar. but it will eventually be topic one in sunday church and on fox news. and nothing would be a bigger statement against that crap than big box office numbers, which this movie is getting already. after it’s first week of release, it’s on the list of all-time biggest box office by theater–$65,000 per theater in only 4 theaters–which makes me very very happy. go go go dirty movie!

oh yes, the mac.
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