Open Thread

16 Comments

1. 

   Brendan Skwire on July 15, 2009 at 2:54 pm

   heh.  

   I’ll send you an email about what’s on my mind, but it begins with “i don’t see my son for an extended visit for the next 5 months” continues through “his mom wants me to stop writing about it”, and ends with “epic fail”.

   • 

     BooMan on July 15, 2009 at 3:46 pm

     sorry to hear that.  Five months at this age is an eternity.

   • 

     CabinGirl on July 15, 2009 at 4:26 pm

     Five months?  But it’s summer now!

     • 

       Brendan Skwire on July 15, 2009 at 4:57 pm

       yup. he goes home friday the 17th.
       I go up the weekend of august 31 for the first day of school, and then i come home. 16 hrs round trip for a few hours of facetime.

       I get him for columbus day weekend, fri-mon. he goes home monday afternoon. so that’s 3.5 days.
       and then I make another weekend trip north in november.

       he comes down again december 26 into january 2010.

       sometimes I forget why I’m so pissy. things like this remind me.

2. 

   sjct on July 15, 2009 at 4:13 pm

   My step-daughter’s husband is on my mind: Going for a Darwin Award, he was spray painting in their utility room and the pilot light on the water heater ignited the cloud of vapor. He has second and third degree burns on his arms and legs and had skin graft surgery this morning. The explosion blew out the walls in the room, the windows in the adjoining rooms and knocked the whole house a foot off its slab! He’s lucky to be alive but will have to live with the shame — he’s a painting contractor so he should have known better. He has a long and painful road to recovery ahead of him and my heart is aching for his wife and children.

   • 

     CabinGirl on July 15, 2009 at 4:24 pm

     OMG!  I never would have thought something like that could happen!  That’s awful.

     I’m so sorry-burns are such an awful thing to have to recover from.  I hope it wasn’t too high a percentage of his body that was affected.  

     Do they live close to you?

     • 

       sjct on July 15, 2009 at 4:47 pm

       Ah, so you’ve never actually read the tiny WARNING statement on a can of spray paint? It specifically mentions avoiding flames… and enclosed spaces — just the fumes can kill ya.

       Unfortunately, we live an eight-hour-drive away from them. We’re two hours from the nearest airport and they are an hour away from the airport nearest to them so even flying there takes eight hours. She’s gotten a lot of support from her neighbors and friends.

       We don’t know the percentage yet. The step-daughter is quite hysterical and is avoiding a full understanding of the situation.

       • 

         CabinGirl on July 15, 2009 at 4:55 pm

         I only spray paint outdoors – I have asthma.  🙂

         I hope your step-daughter’s neighbors and friends continue to be so supportive.  It sounds like they are in for a long haul. Not to mention whatever they have to do about the house.

       • 

         Alice on July 15, 2009 at 7:22 pm

         So sorry to hear this, sjct.  I’ll be sending the poor guy all my extra recovery strength and prayers.  

         It will be really hard on her, too.  All my best to the whole family, I’ll be thinking of y’all.

3. 

   DaveW on July 15, 2009 at 7:21 pm

   Local wisdom needed: Looks like we’ll be moving out PA/NJ way at some point. I’m looking at the Allentown/Bethlehem area which would be about right location and funds wise. Looks good on the maps and satellite views, but such opinions as I can find on the Net vary wildly, from Great to Crime Ridden Slum.

   I know a bunch of you are from PA, so any opinions? We’ll be going to the Jersey Philly burbs for a visit in a few weeks. Any undiscovered shangrilas to share?

   • 

     BooMan on July 15, 2009 at 8:04 pm

     anywhere on the Delaware on either side of the river north of Trenton all the way up to (but not including) Easton.  

     Yardley floods, but it is an excellent location.  New Hope/Lambertville are off the charts charming.  Stockton and Frenchtown are great on the Jersey side.  If you going for Bucks County, keep well north.  The southern half is a strip-mall hell once you leave the river valley.  

     Allentown itself is okay, but kind of run down.  The general area is economically depressed as it was reliant on Bethlehem Steel.  

4. 

   Man Eegee on July 15, 2009 at 7:24 pm

   it is miserable here

   • 

     Oscar In Dallas on July 15, 2009 at 7:31 pm

     But it’s dry heat – at least that’s what I hear…

     Stay cool – that heat kills, for real.

5. 

   on July 15, 2009 at 10:11 pm

   This weekend a reporter from the SF Chronicle is supposed to interview me and a friend about Woodstock (I was there) on the fortieth anniversary and my girlfriend wants me to clean the house.

   Right now I’m trying to remember what was so important about it besides being there.

   And I hope the Chron stays in business until the story comes out.

   • 

     BooMan on July 15, 2009 at 10:29 pm

     Part of what was important is who put together and how.  Had anything of that size ever happened that wasn’t built by the Establishment?  

     The hippies went capitalist!!   And then they had to let people in free.  

   • 

     BooMan on July 15, 2009 at 10:31 pm

     The sticky-sweet smell of burning marijuana wafted into the open windows of the house in Bethel late Thursday night. The chirp and buzz of the insects suddenly gave way to the shuffle of sandaled feet. “It sounded like a parade,” said the man who lived there. The young Bethel couple lived a quarter-mile from Yasgur’s field. The wife, 22, was pregnant with the couple’s second child, and the husband, 27, a salesman, had an important business meeting in Albany on Friday morning. But the couple wasn’t budging from Bethel. When they awoke on the first of three days of peace and music, they looked out front. “Nothin’ but cars and people. Saw a trooper. Ten kids were on the hood of his car,” the husband said. They looked out back. “People were camping all over the yard,” he added.

     Producer Lang woke up Friday morning to find that something was missing….the ticket booths. Others had known for days, but Lang said that Friday morning was his first inkling that Woodstock would never collect a single dollar at the gate. ” Tickets were being handled over in (Roberts’) office,” Lang said. “I just assumed that they were handling the booths, but they were never put in place.” Van Loan, the cigar-smoking owner of Ken’s Garage, had been hired two days before the festival to tow about two dozen ticket booths into position. “All we ever got to move was two or three,” Van Loan recalled. “Each one we moved took longer and longer. There were too many people and cars and abandoned (vacant) tents blocking the way.”

     link