imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Saturday, October 22, 2005
THERE'S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS
However, trying to see the gold, and the reds, is almost impossible in this weather. That shot is as good as it gets today. In fact, it's supposed to rain all week long. ugh.Click to view all the October pictures.
I want to thank everyone for the get-well wishes. I actually feel a leee-tle bit better this morning. Of course, yesterday I felt the worst I have felt in years. Taking the picture and posting it was about all that that I did on Friday. That and venturing out to buy my medicine. The couch is beginning to look like a flop house, and I'm beginning to look right at home in one. Yesterday I didn't give a damn how badly I looked; today I cared enough to avoid the bathroom mirror. I'm still coughing, a tight cough, unfortunately.
Elsewhere ...
8 SOUP ON 42ND - BUT NOT FOR YOU!: His new "Original SoupMan" flagship restaurant is slated to open at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue on Nov. 2. Yeganeh's ladle has been idle since he closed his West 55th Street store in summer last year. And, although the caustic chef claims to abhor his nickname and the publicity it attracts, he's certainly not crying in his soup. Yeganeh has turned his unwanted reputation into a multimillion-dollar franchise, with plans to have 150 branches open around the country in the near future and 1,000 restaurants worldwide in the next five to seven years.
He charges exorbitant prices for his soups: Prices average $10 for a small, $17 for a medium and $30 for a large. High prices apparently do not deter loyal customers who keep coming back for the gourmet soups, which some say are worth the price.
Here are the rules!
8 For anyone who's received one of those Nigerian e-mail scams: To the cyber scammers in Nigeria who trawl for victims on the Internet, Americans are easy targets.
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"When you get a reply, it's 70% sure that you'll get the money."
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[V]ictims can't believe that a scammer would spend months of internet chat just to net $700 or $1,000, not realizing that is big money in Nigeria and fraudsters will have many scams running at the same time.
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Samuel said Shepherd employs seven Nigerians in America, including one in the San Francisco Bay Area, to spy on maghas and threaten any who get cold feet. If a big deal is going off track, he calls in all seven.
"They're all graduates and very smart," Samuel said. "Four of them are graduates in psychology here in Nigeria. If the white guy is getting suspicious, he'll call them all in and say, 'Can you finish this off for me?'
"They'll try to scare you that you're not going to get out of it. Or you're going to be arrested and you will face trial in Nigeria. They'll say: 'We know you were at Wal-Mart yesterday. We know the D.A. He's our friend.' "
"They'll tell you that you are in too deep — you either complete it or you'll be killed."
8 Page Six reports: THAT Meryl Streep was driven to the Carriage House last night to present former Vice President Al Gore with the Harvard Medical School 2005 Global Environmental Citizen award by OZOcar, New York's first eco-luxury car service featuring only hybrid vehicles, founded by ex-Virgin music honcho Jordan Harris and British activist Roo Rogers.
Which reminded me of born-again progressive politico Arianna Huffington being chauffeured away from recent Sierra Club enviro-conference at Moscone Center -- in this very un-enviro Chevy Suburban.
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Friday, October 21, 2005
OH, TO BE SICK ON A DAY LIKE THIS
I awoke feeling too sick to go see the doctor. So it's a good thing that today is Friday, because there's just one doctor in the office on Fridays, and there was no available time to see me. The nurse took my laundry list of disgusting symptoms and the doctor called in the prescription. She prescribed the very new Zmax, a single-dose antibiotic: Zmax is indicated for acute bacterial sinusitis due to Haemophilus influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis or Streptococcus pneumoniae and community-acquired pneumonia due to Chlamydophila pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, or Streptococcus pneumoniae in patients appropriate for oral therapy. The Zmax adult clinical research program included outpatients with mild-to-moderate acute bacterial sinusitis and community-acquired pneumonia, and acute bacterial exacerbations of chronic bronchitis (AECB). For the pinkeye (both eyes) I'm supposed to wash my eyelashes with Johnson's Baby Shampoo.
This makes me feel a helluva lot better: DeLay’s Mugshot Smile Hurts Democrat Chances in 2006 WOO-HOO!
Click to view all of the October pictures.
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Thursday, October 20, 2005
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES
Maybe it's just me, but I see a big difference from yesterday. But what do I know? I'm sick. Boy, am I sick. One minute I think I'm on the mend and then I'm back on the couch worse than before. I'm not recovering this time as quickly as I usually do.But I digress. If you haven't compared the October photos, now would be a good time. You can view all of them here.
Click picture to enlarge.
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Wednesday, October 19, 2005
ANOTHER HILLSIDE
Click picture to enlarge.
The picture I take for the October coloring is on the northside of the valley; the above picture is the southside. It's Aurene, a housing project originally meant to house all the Phd's Corning Inc. was planning on bringing into the company. Its R&D facility, the vaunted Sullivan Park, where the Phd's would have worked is located beyond the left side of the picture. But then the telecom bubble burst around 2002 and everything crumbled.
Corning, Shattered: Wall Street treated Corning as a wild Internet play, bidding up its stock more than tenfold from a split-adjusted $10 to $113 by late 2000. Its market value rose to over $115 billion, making the Houghtons the 12th richest family in the U.S., worth $2.6 billion. But when the telecom bubble burst, the company was so caught off-guard that now its very future is in peril.
This is from a Forbes article dated 6/9/02:
In 1998, Corning sold Gerry A. Jackson, a Park City, Utah, real estate developer, 426 acres of land stretching up into the deer-infested hills behind its Sullivan Park research labs for $900,000. Jackson invested another $3 million developing and marketing Aurene, a planned community of more than 400 homes with stunning views of the Chemung River and nature trails to Corning's research lab. Houses were to sell for $200,000 to $500,000.
Today, Aurene looks more like a ghost 'burb. Empty lots and concrete foundations sit alongside the 64 homes that have been built. Jackson says he has so far recouped only about 60% of his initial investment; new construction has slowed to a crawl. "We'll wait it out. We don't have a lot of choice," he says.
In the past three years, Corning Inc. has regained its bearings; its stock is no longer trading around a dollar. As a result, Aurene is also recovering, although it may never fulfill its original plan. Realtors are doing business in Aurene. However, I'm still flabbergasted that those houses sell for as much as they do.
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A DAB OF RED, A SPLASH OF ORANGE
I finally relented and turned on the furnace this morning -- the first time this season -- as it was 33* outside. I let it cycle once, then I turned it off. We have radiators, so the cats loved me for the heat. The mercury is supposed to reach mid-60s today, but I don't think it will be sunny.I'm still sick. I'm coughing, I sound like Lauren Bacall, my throat is terribly sore/raw, my ears hurt and my stomach is upset from all the hard candy I have to suck on to keep from coughing. However, my fever broke last night, so I expect to feel better by the weekend. Thanks, Dave, for the chicken soup!
Click here for all of the daily October pictures.
Elsewhere ...
8 Dana has posted pictures of the damage Katrina wrought.
8 Scam?: About 50 local contractors who went South hoping to help repair Gulf Coast homes in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita instead found themselves with no work and, in some cases, not enough money to return home.
8 In case you missed this, Mr. & Mrs. Media Matters are expecting a baby!
8 6 signs he’s about to dump you: My favorite is #5: The look left shows he’s using the "creative" side of his brain, says Daily—a good indicator he's telling you a whopper
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Tuesday, October 18, 2005
STILL WAITING
Now is the time to compare this picture to earlier ones to see the progress. Trust me; before you know it, all the leaves will have turned and will be past their peak and beginning to fall.Click here to view the October pictures.
Still sick and feeling crummy. My eyes were pink and mattered shut this morning. Charming.
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Monday, October 17, 2005
SLOWLY THEY TURN
Leaf by leaf ...I've got a wicked cold, which I probably got from Little H or Nurse G. Little H will be going back to the doctor today, while Nurse G is waiting to hear if her throat culture shows mono or strep. So, I'm going to curl up on the couch with Rush on the radio, my heated bean bag and two blankets to keep me warm and Princess to keep me company.
Click here to view the October pictures.
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Sunday, October 16, 2005
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BLOGGER PROBLEMS
I can't post pictures with blogger today >:O I'll post today's picture as soon as the problem is corrected.
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KATRINA, NAGIN & ALL THAT JAZZ
A relative's home: Bedroom Closet with bedframe --behind the blue laundry basket, there is a "pocket" door. we tore the wall out and the pocket door, so some air would hopefully come in-as well as light-to aid in the job of going through all of this wet, moldy, and just plain horrible condition.
Dana, who blogs NorthshorePolitics from Slidell, has finally begun to post again. I'm simply linking to her blog, and not to any particular post, because her last several entries are worth reading. She writes poignantly about their entire experience and has linked to an album of post-flood pictures of her cousin's grandmother's home.
8 Katrina destruction
Want to know what it is like? The thought that kept coming to me is that it was like going through a ship wreck. There was water everywhere. Sitting in bowls in the cabinet, sitting in jewelery boxes, sitting in drawers. Anything that can hold water. And, if you weren't careful, that water would come raining down on you whenever you opened something. Oh, and the fun part, was that it wasn't clean water. It was moldy, smelly, dirty, disgusting water. (Want to know what it smelled like? Have you ever been inside of a dirty port-a-potty? Imagine it 10 times worse)
8 I want my life back
I want my life to get back to normal. I want to be able to go to the grocery store after the kids go to bed. I want stores to stop closing at 6pm because they don't have workers to cover longer hours. I want to go to a restaurant without having to wait 2 hours for a table because they don't have enough people to work. I want to be able to drive 2 miles without waiting in traffic for 30 minutes.
The big surprise was her amazingly sympathetic piece on Nagin.
8 My thoughts on Mayor Nagin
He ran on a platform of cleaning up the city. He wanted to take the corruption out of New Orleans politics. Unfortunately for him, that corruption was so ingrained and so beneficial to all those in politics and in charge, that he didn't stand a fighting chance. In fact, he was doomed. Every initiative, every plan, every candidate, etc. That he supported met with defeat. He had absolutely no support. No one wanted him to reform New Orleans' government because it would lead to their loss of power.
Last year, we were faced with Hurricane Ivan. Nagin ordered the evacuation of New Orleans. Other mayors and parish presidents did the same in their areas. What a disaster that was. Since that time, an evacuation plan was developed. Unfortunately, another outcome of that disastrous evacuation for Ivan was a huge backlash for Nagin. The parish officials in Orleans parish used this to grandstand for their own benefit against Nagin. They convinced their constituents that Nagin was wrong to order an evacuation. There was no need to leave. This set the stage for Katrina.
What many people don't realize is that we didn't know Katrina was threatening Louisiana until Friday before the storm hit. Before that time, Katrina was being forecast as hitting the panhandle of Florida.
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Nagin and Bush both made amends and both said there were no hard feeling between the two men. Bush seemed to understand the circumstances surrounding Nagin's speech.
Since that time, Nagin has done everything in his power to rebuild the city. He recognizes what needs to be done, that now is the time think "outside of the box." He also realizes that he now has the time to clean up the city. He wants to rid it of corruption.
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So, what is Nagin's biggest obstacle? Not the lack of citizens, not the lack of money, not the police department, etc. His biggest obstacle is Governor Blanco. She has been the true disgrace of our state.
NorthshorePolitics is well worth your time.
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