We Will Never Forget & Gabriella's Flag

This weekend's letterboxing adventure took us to Eagle Rock Avenue. Originally we set out to find three letterboxes - two in West Orange and one in Roseland. However, the park in Roseland where the third one was located was closed by the time we got there.

The two in West Orange were both conveniently located at a park called Eagle Rock Reservation. This park has a really nice 9/11 memorial because it offers a fantastic view of the NYC skyline. We've been to this park several times, so I supposed that's why it didn't occur to me to take a picture of the skyline or the memorial. And going through all of the photos I've taken since we moved to New Jersey, it appears I've never taken a photo of the memorial and skyline before, either. Oh well. Instead here's a big tree stump with me standing on top of it. Apparently the tree was cut down because it was not doing well - the inside of the trunk was all hollowed out.

The first stamp we found is called We Will Never Forget. It's located near the southern wall f the memorial, and was very easy to find. So easy that I forgot to take pictures. Unfortunately the box was waterlogged - while we were able to stamp our books with the letterbox's stamp, we were unable to leave our stamps in the letterbox's book because it was so wet. Which reminds me that I need to contact the placer of this box and let her know that it is in poor condition.

The second box was also an easy find, but required a little more work on our part as it was hidden about a quarter of a mile into the woods. This box is named Gabriella's Flag. Gabriella is the little girl statue that is part of the 9/11 memorial.



Gabriella's Flag was placed back in 2004, so its book has many stamps in it. Ours are the first ones of 2007, however. In flipping through the pages, Kenji discovered a nice Totoro stamp, which, of course, is super-cute. :)



As I mentioned earlier, we had set out to find three letterboxes today, but the third one was off-limits to us because the park where it hides, the Essex County Environmental Center, was already closed. But that was okay with us because it was getting nigh supper time and we were hungry. Turns out we weren't the only hungry ones though... Looks like we caught Punxsutawney Phil's cousin getting his share of greens in this evening.

Mariners Beat Yanks

Last night, Kenji, Tiffany and I went to Yankee Stadium to watch the Seattle Mariners beat the Yankees. At least that's what I told everyone who asked me what my plans were for this weekend. I kind of didn't really believe it though, since the Mariners have had such crappy seasons for the last four years or so. But at the same time, I also didn't totally disbelieve it because I know the Yankees are having a pretty crummy season this year. I think their big losing streak of the season is even longer than Seattle's.

That first inning lasted more than a half an hour. At that rate, we were on track for a four and a half hour game. Most of that half hour was spent by the Yankees scoring five runs and the Mariners none. Thus there was a lot of mumbling and grumbling from Kenji, and none of it nice. However, on the previous night in Boston, the Mariners started off with a five run lead - yet they still managed to lose the game. So we had that hope that perhaps the Mariners could do the opposite against the Yankees this time.

Half way through the 2rd inning, Tiffany and I went off in search of a bathroom and $8 ice cream in a hat. We found the bathroom, and it turns out the ice cream was only $5 because it was Carvel's soft serve and not Ben and Jerry's. When we got back to our seats it was the beginning of the third inning, and things were starting to look up for us - the Mariners scored a run. By the end of the third inning, the Mariners scored two more runs. Inning by inning, the Mariners runs went 0-1-2... so in the fourth Kenji said that they need to score 3 runs to keep the pattern going.

And they did! Could they keep the pattern up?

Sort of - here they are with 0-1-2-3-4, but that didn't last for long. Turns out the Yankee's relief pitcher was even crummier than the Mariner's relief pitcher. In the fifth inning, Colter Bean pitched more than 8 balls in a row and gave up several hits, which led to his being taken out of the game mid-batter. By the end of the fifth, the Mariner's piece of the scoreboard read 0-1-2-3-8 - a break in the pattern that Kenji and I didn't really mind.

By the last half of the ninth inning, the Mariners were still winning by four. However, I've learned time and time again that it's never too late for the team I'm rooting for to screw it up - after all, I did grow up in Red Sox country. And it really looked like that might be the case when after only an out, the Yankees brought in Jason Giambi and loaded the bases. But then Red Sox traitor Johnny Damon flied out, followed by a ground-out by Derek Jeeter, ending the game.

Now let's cross our fingers and hope they can pull it off again on Sunday!

Bed Kitty

Tulips!

Last fall I planted some flowers in front of our house. Today, they finally opened up!

April 22

April 28

May 2 - before work

May 2 - after work


UPDATE: May 4 - afternoon

Hedden Park Hike

The weather got really nice a couple Saturdays ago, so Kenji and I went on our first real hike of the season with our friend, Jason, who organizes the NJ Young Hikers MeetUp group. This hike was an easy one around Hedden Park in Dover. I think we hiked somewhere around five or six miles. It was mostly level terrain, so it didnʻt take us very long.

There was a nice waterfall along the way, but I forgot to take my camera out of the car so I didnʻt get a picture of it. Looking at the photos Jason took, it appears he didnʻt take a good picture of it either. But hereʻs a little bit smaller waterfall that he did take a picture of.

And hereʻs the whole gang of us who came out to hike that morning:

No more blue mule, and our first letterbox in PA

Today Kenji and I took a little drive out to visit Frenchtown and thereabouts because it was a nice day. We were sorry to learn that the big blue mule we saw the last time we were in Frenchtown is no longer there. But we did see someone else who had a blue car, just like ours:

The two pictures were taken from the same spot, 180° apart. You can tell which car is ours because of the honu on the bumper. I guess the captions are also a giveaway.

The other reason we decided to drive out to Frenchtown was to go find a letterbox hidden in Point Pleasant, PA, which is not much farther away. After crossing the Delaware into Pennsylvania, we did come across this critter going for the bird bath, and therefore we were not quite as disappointed about not seeing the blue mule.

The letterbox we found this time is located in the Point Pleasant Community Park, located alongside the Delaware River and Canal. This seems to be a favorite drop-off and/or pick-up point for kayakers, as we must have seen twenty or thrity of them coming or going in the twenty or so minutes we spent at the park. I guess thatʻs why the keeper of this letterbox named it Kayakerʻs Dream. Finding Kayakerʻs Dream was quite easy - it was hidden insdie a funky little hole in a tree.

I see that I forgot to record the date in my little log book. It oughtta say 4/28/7 next to that second stamp. The first stamp was from a letterbox we found last week in Livingston, NJ. Todayʻs was the first one weʻve found in Pennsylvania. If I had looked a little more carefully at the Letterboxing web site, I would have noticed that there are clues to another box hidden in or near Point Pleasant. Oh well - I guess thatʻs a box for a different day.

Belkin Class Action Suit

Today I received an email telling me about a class action suit against Belkin for wireless products sold between October 2002 and February 2007. I guess Belkin forgot to mention on their packaging that data transfer rates could be lower than what they claimed, so now they are being sued. We bought a couple of Belkin wireless products last year (a router and a notebook card), and it turns out they both qualify for a full refund, which will amount to just under $100.

But what I find truly amazing is that we still have the receipts, AND I was able to find them in less than 30 seconds. I am not much of a receipt-keeper, and those receipts I do keep, I donʻt usually take the time to organize.

Anyway, if you purchased any Belkin wireless products during the last five years, make sure you go check out the details of the class action suit:

• The notice is here.
• Settlement claim information is here.
• The table of qualifying products and their SKUs is here.
  
• The online claim form is here.
  

Tiffy Treats!

Tonight Kenji and I stopped at shoe-changer Tiffanyʻs apartment on our way home from buying kitty cat food. Tiffanyʻs plans to bake brownies had been thwarted because her brand spankinʻ new oven wouldnʻt light. The stove top burners would light ok, but not the oven. Turns out the pilot light for the oven had never been lit yet - not a problem that a little instruction manual reading and crawling around on the kitchen floor wonʻt solve, however.

So after getting Tiffanyʻs oven up and running, she was able to go ahead and make her famous Tiffy Treats!

Tiffy Treats are brownies with peanut butter and ice cream. Mmmmmm. And of course she topped off each of them with a Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookie. Mmmmm Mmmmmm.

After having Tiffy Treats, I made a rope sculpture. The End.

A Triangle of Shoe Changers!

According to the Gas House Gorillas, "shoe changer" is another name for the swing dancers that always show up at their gigs. Joe, Tiffany and I are a triangle of shoe changers because on the day this photo was taken, Tiffany moved into her new apartment. Her apartment happens to be about a half mile away from Joe, who who lives about a half mile away from Kenji and me, and we live about a half mile away from Tiffany. And that there makes a triangle. Of shoe changers.

On a completely different topic (but still related to this photo)... This evening Kenji and I went shopping for some new clothes now that spring has finally sprung. I just realized that the shirt Tiffany is wearing in this picture is a shirt I thought about trying on at Ann Taylor, but then decided it would probably look dumb on me. Doesn't look dumb on Tiff. Maybe it wouldn't look dumb on me, either. But the point is moot because now I definitely won't get that shirt since I already know someone else who has one. :P

Sunny Weekend, Finally

Yay! It finally stopped being rainy dreary and overcast!

Originally, Kenji and I planned to go visit my folks this weekend. Like us, they got a whole bunch of rain last week. Unlike us, they also got a whole bunch of water in their cellar as a result of all the rain. They are still cleaning up from the mess, and they said they'd really rather not have visitors this weekend, so here we are.

Therefore, instead of driving up to Massachusetts this afternoon, we took a little ride out to Chester, New Jersey. We chose Chester in part because that's where my work's offices will be moving in a couple of weeks, and I wanted to show Kenji where the new offices are. When he saw how long the commute would be, he agreed that it sucks.

But Chester is also a cute little town, so that's the other reason we decided to drive out there this afternoon. We had ice cream and visited funky little antique shops. I learned that I was born in between the "Johnny Carson: The Lonesome Hero of Middle America" and "Ecology Becomes Everybody's Issue: Monk Seals of Japan" issues of Life Magazine. The antique shop didn't have any issues for the year Kenji was born, so we can't tell you what Life Magazine had to say about life back then. Oh well.

On our way home, we passed a mini-golf place in Whippany, so we stopped and played some... mini-golf. Kenji started off as the score-keeper. He should never have let me touch the score card, since I made sure it would not be so easy to add up. You can also see that we didn't do a good job of following the rules as many of our holes went well beyond the five stroke limit. The course wasn't crowded though, so it wasn't a problem.

Tiny Little Hike

Today... well, I guess by now it's really yesterday, since as I write this it's 23 minutes past midnight, although I never really consider it to be tomorrow until after I've woken up from having gone to sleep for the night... Arrgh!

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon April 14th, Kenji and I went and did a little bit of Letterboxing. If you do not know what Letterboxing is, then please go visit the link I just gave you. In short, Letterboxing is like going on little treasure hunts for rubber stamps that people hide in all sorts of places for other people to find. A more primitive version of Geocaching if you will. Kenji and I have found many letterboxes in several states, including Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and most recently, New Jersey. The letterbox we found today was at Turtle Back Rock. It was a very easy find. The picture on the right is the page in my letterboxing book where I put the stamp (lower right).

Our first clue was to follow the orange and white blaze trail to the right away from the parking lot at Turtle Back Rock Park:


The deer were not part of the clues, but we took a picture of them anyway. It looks like they are molting in preparation of warmer weather, which doesn't seem to be in any hurry to get here this year.


Anyway, after following the white/orange trail for about three tenths of a mile, we spotted the large cut stump referred to in the clue...


And the nearby rock with the number 13 painted on it...


A short ways past the 13 rock, we encountered a place where the trail passed between two large boulders, which we neglected to photograph. Immediately before the boulders, the clue instructed us to take ten steps up the hill to the left, and uncover the letterbox from beneath a pile of small rocks and leaves.

And there we have it. :)

I'm glad the clue also mentioned to look around at the rocks in the area, as they have been carved by Native Americans long ago in such a way as to resemble the markings on a turtle's back. Sadly, we might not have noticed this if I hadn't re-read the clue one last time.


From the thirty seconds of research I did about this, it seems the markings may have been meant to serve as directional guides. Thirty seconds of research really didn't produce many articles on it... only a brief mention in this one page.

So anyway, after we re-hid the letterbox and examined the carvings, we spent a few minutes playing on the rocks and looking down at the cars passing by on Northfield Avenue below. Then we left and went on our merry way. The End.

Flood!

Today was a very wet day, especially at work!

Our company is preparing to move office to a new location sometime in the next two to four weeks. This is fortunate because about a week and a half ago, our current landlord decided to demolish the semi-attached building right next to ours. After taking down the building, we discovered that our exterior wall, which used to be protected by the roof that the two buildings shared, was not water-tight. But the flood we had last week was no where as bad as the one we had as a result of today's downpour, which is what you see in the picture.

We all wasted at least an hour running around trying to grab up everything that could be damaged by water and place it on high ground. Then for the next four or five hours, the gentlemen in the picture plus a few more vacuumed, pumped and shoveled water out of our office.

Looking on the bright side, as a result of this flood, I did get a most delicious helping of tiramisu for free.

I suppose you want me to explain that...

OK, fine. The flood made the kitchen all sloppy and gross so no one wanted to spend much time in there fixing their lunches. The CFO decided that we'd order out on the company's dime. I really wanted to eat the lunch I brought today, so instead of ordering a lunch, I just ordered a tiramisu for dessert. :)

Kitties that Think They Know How to Make a Bed

Whenever I do housework, Spammy likes to help. If I fold laundry, that usually means that Spammy will lie down on top of the t-shirts and turtlenecks that I am about to fold. When I change the sheets on the bed, he thinks his role is to lie down on the sheetless mattress. So I put the sheet right on top of him and tuck it in... which makes for a rather lumpy bed.

This time, Musubi saw Spammy helping, so she decided to help too, in her own special way:

Bah! Snow!

As far as winters in the northeast go, we really haven't had much snow to speak of this season. But I'm gonna say it anyway. Enough snow!!! Go away already!!!

It began late Thursday night and continued all through Friday and into early Saturday morning, which was about the time I took this photo to the right (I think it was shortly after midnight).

It just so happened that Friday morning was my day to deliver library books to shut-ins. The roads had not gotten too terrible by the time I started and I was able to complete my route without incident. Kenji and I still hadn't gone food shopping yet since I returned from Anaheim earlier in the week, so for supper we decided to brave the nasty weather and walk to a neighborhood restaurant. We saw some motorists spinning their wheels but it seems most folks were staying indoors and off the streets. On our way home, we spotted these two kids playing in the snow in our front yard.

They weren't there anymore in the morning.

Although the accumulation was only four or five inches, the snow was extra-hard to shovel because the top layer had formed into an icy crust. This photo was taken from inside our garage, and those are my feet standing on top of the snow, rather than sinking into it. I think it took us about three or four hours to shovel our driveway and sidewalk. Because much of our driveway is sandwiched between our house and the neighbor's fence, we had to do a lot of lifting and carrying snow to either the front or the back yard to get it off the driveway. We've decided that a wheelbarrow might be a good investment to help eliminate some of the lifting and carrying.

Shoveling out didn't actually come to a complete close until today though. When I got home from work this afternoon, I found that the plow had come by and deposited a nice pile of heavy, icy, chunky snow right at the end of our driveway. :P

Escape from deep freeze!

In the wee hours of this morning I returned home after a week in Anaheim, California. Although I was there for business, it was also a lot of fun. And the most welcome part of the excursion of course was escaping the freezing cold weather for sunny souther California. When I left New Jersey on Tuesday morning, it was bone-chilling 13° outside; when I stepped off the plane in Anaheim, it was a wonderful dry 78°! Yay! And there was a nice pool and hot tub right outside my hotel room! Woo-hoo!

The reason I went to California was to work at the Natural Products Expo West, once again serving up all kinds of delicious pies, cookies, tea breads, crumble cakes in the exhibit booth of the company for which I work. Standing in the booth all day for three days in a row is tough on the feet, but it's nothing a little soak in the hot tub can't cure. ;)

The day before I left for Anaheim, I did a little research to see where I might be able to go swing dancing, since I knew there is a very active Lindy community in southern California. To my extreme delight I learned that Orange County was hosting a Lindy exchange the very same weekend that I would be in town. I didn't have a whole lot of free time in the evenings, but I did manage to sneak out on Friday night for some dancing at the Atomic Ballroom. I don't know whether the size of the crowd at the Atomic Ballroom was larger than usual (it's a regular weekly event) due to the exchange. Either way, it was quite a large crowd, and it seemed to me that there were a good number of quality dancers there. Folks seemed quite friendly too, so I can safely say that I enjoyed dancing with southern California quite a lot.

Fake Rock Climbing!

Yesterday, Kenji and I took an introductory rock climbing lesson at NJ Rock Gym, an indoor climbing facility in Fairfield, NJ. I call this post fake rock climbing because the walls at the gym aren't really rock.

This was a first time for both of us. The instructor at the gym, Margo, taught us how to tie the appropriate knots and how to belay. The belayer is the person who holds the other end of the rope that the climber is tied to, and makes sure that the climber won't get killed if he or she should fall off the wall.

It was fun - we each did probably around six or eight climbs during and after the lesson. The gym walls were probably only 25 or 30 feet tall - tall enough to give us an idea of what it's like. The walls we climbed were not especially difficult, but there were some walls at the gym that I'm sure we'll needs lots of practice before being able to tackle them. I think I have more upper body strength than I expected I would, but I still got tired pretty quickly. As the belayer, when you are ready to let the climber come down, you have to let the rope slip through your "brake" hand - this was the part I liked least, as my right hand are very wimpy and began to feel raw after belaying only few climbs for Kenji. I wonder if wearing little half gloves to rock climbing is a wussie thing to do. After all, I didn't notice any of the other climbers there wearing anything on their hands.

Favorite Kitty Toys

Yesterday I vacuumed the house. When I moved the living room furniture aside to vacuum the floors beneath, I found the usual treasure trove of kitty cat toys that went missing since the last time I vacuumed under the living room furniture. Only one of the toys was actually purchased intentionally as a cat toy; the rest were stolen orange juice and milk jug caps, rubber bands, little paper cranes, and an assortment of tiny stuffed animals that came from my former workplace in Hawaii. One of those little animals is a moose, and he happens to be Musubi's favorite toy. She named him Moosoobi.

Spammy and Musubi definitely have their own favorite toys - toys that one kitty will play with like crazy, yet the other kitty is disinterested. Moosoobi is one such toy. Spammy couldn't care less about Moosoobi, but Musubi will bat Moosoobi all around, and then pick him up and take care of him like he's a little kitten.

As I type this post, Spammy has just dragged one of his favorite toys, Stick, all the way up the stairs and dropped it on the floor by my chair. I wrote about Stick in a previous post, back when Spammy would play fetch. It's funny that he drags Stick all over the house to us because he barely plays with it anymore when I pick it up and wiggle it for him. Yet he'll drag it up and down the stairs at least four times a day. Spammy also loves to play with Cowie, which used to be a cute little Gateway cow obtained at some trade show, but now is a dirty gray disgusting, half-torn to pieces cow. Like Stick, Spammy will pick Cowie up and carry him around. He also chucks him in the air and wrestles with Cowie from behind table legs and atop of scratching posts. Spammy also enjoys Fiber Optic Toy - another trade show giveaway. Fiber Optic Toy is a useless but fun bit of technology with a handle containing batteries and multiple colored LEDs
that illuminate the fiber optic strands that extend about four or five inches from the handle. When I wiggle Fiber Optic Toy, Spammy likes to chase it and grab it in his teeth and try to yank it out of my hand, which I usually let him do. Then he'll carry it to some place near or under the dining room table and wait for me to pick it up again so he can grab it from me.

Long time, no write

It's been a while since I've updated my blog because I guess I just keep doing other stuff. Today is a dreary Friday - when we woke up this morning, there was torrential rain falling and the sides of our street looked liked riverbeds. When I was out this morning, there were little waterfalls coming off the hillside next to Mount Pleasant Avenue. I am quite happy that my book delivery week was last week and not this one!

Since the last time I posted, Kenji finally came home for good after a six-week stint of paper-pushing in our nation's capital. He was able to come home on most weekends, and for the last two weekends, I drove down to visit him. While I was there we visited several museums, including the Museum of Natural History (where the picture of Kenji and his fellow paper-pushers was taken; also current home of the Hope Diamond), one of the art museums (I forget the name), the International Spy Museum, and the United States Botanic Garden. It was especially cold the two weekends I was there, particularly in light of the mild winter we've had, so it's safe to say my favorite museum to go into was the Botanic Garden. It was warm and humid like Hawaii, and a lot of the plants looked like Hawaii, too.

Usually I'm not that big a fan of humidity, but it's been so dry the last couple months, and I've had quite enough of my hair rising up from my shoulders and sticking to my face, having scarves stick to me like Velcro, and being shocked every time I pet the kitties or kiss Kenji.

We are enjoying our new car. I really really like keyless remote entry. :) It's also nice to be able to plug our iPods into it. My only complaint about it is that the around-town gas mileage is not as advertised. On the highway I get around 37 mpg, but in day-to-day driving it's more like 25-30 (25 if I have to sit in traffic for a while). I think the Civic more consistently got 30 mpg around town, and maybe as much as 33 on the highway.