Friday, October 21, 2016

Equal Responsibility

We’re in the midst of preparing our final child for college.  He is a senior in high school and my wife has been busily assisting with the FAFSA (financial aid form).  One of the interesting things about FAFSA is that the student is supposed to fill it out, but of course the student is not in a position to know much of the financial information that is required.  Thus, my wife “helps”.  But this year was different... a couple weeks back my wife came downstairs after a FAFSA session and related that she went as far as she could but was stopped when it required “Selective Service Registration”… and she relates with a shiver, “that’s one thing I’m not filling for him.. I just don’t feel comfortable.”

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Goodbye TripAdvisor; hello Yelp

Since the launch of my blog, I have always encouraged readers to share travel experiences through their preferred vehicle.  TripAdvisor was one of the first and it was the vehicle that I have used for many of the past years.  Given many years of devotion to TripAdvisor I was reluctant to change but a recent experience has pushed me over the edge and I have made the decision to move on to Yelp.

Monday, August 8, 2016

Crossings Park Photos - 2016

I know I’ve hit the snooze button on posting as of late –  While that $9.94 that I’ve racked up through AdSense in the past 3 years is compelling motivation, summer is my favorite time of year and there is so much more for me to do.  This year we were able to get the pool going and I’ve been busy reading while floating – I’m not planning to try typing up a post while floating.  I also continue to frequent Crossings Park of Colonie.  For this posting, I’m going to share some of my favorite pics from the Crossings for 2016.  These photos were all taken on my iPhone 4s.

On a very recent trek to Crossings Park, I encountered this toad on the path.  I was somewhat ambivalent in regards to taking the picture as I thought a toad would make for pretty boring subject matter… (yeah, I can almost hear some of you saying that if it’s boring, it would be a good fit for this blog…)  Regardless, after having the Google Photos app back it up from my iPhone, I viewed it on my iPad and found that I really appreciated the way the pattern of the toad blended nicely with the pattern of the asphalt path.


One of my favorite subjects in Crossings Park is the Heron – I refer to it as a Blue Heron, but it is entirely possible that it may be some other variation of Heron.  The Heron of Crossings Park is trickier to photograph, particularly on an iPhone 4s where your zoom is much curtailed.  Nonetheless, I have several shots from this year including one where the Heron is perched in the swamp area that is adjacent to the playground and another where the Heron is on the hunt and casting a long shadow in the water and another photo where I caught the majestic Heron in flight.




At the pond in Crossings Pond, you may find visitors navigating their miniaturized boats by remote.


On just about every warm day, you will see ducks, fish and turtles.



Hawks can be seen on occasion at Crossings Park. Often they are at considerable distance, but on this happy occasion, I was traveling southwest on the path that runs adjacent to Constantine Farm and was able to capture this close up of a hawk perched on the fence.


Cow viewing is a popular activity at Crossings Park.  The cows are at adjacent Constantine Farms… I think these cows might be part goat as they seem to really like climbing the mounds on the farm. Another favorite photo came a day or 2 after the debut of Sharknado 4… Looking off into the sky, it looks like a Cownado is ready to hit Constantine’s cows.




In experimenting with pictures, I have found that the iPhone 4s does a nice job with daytime still photos.  One of my favorites is of an Iris blooming near the swamp area (adjacent to the playground).The iris photo is now a background on my iPad.  


I have additional photos of Crossings Park from over the years posted on my Crossings Park page.

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Sometimes Pizza Hut is the best choice…

A couple years back, I recalled writing, “hooray for boring” in my posting regarding a purchase of 2012 Honda Civic… yup it’s boring and so is Pizza Hut.  My dad is getting old (so am I, but as you may have figured out, he’s older than me) and for this Father’s day, I suggested we just do pizza.  Yes, I know the stereotypical picture of bonding over barbeque, but as a father myself (who is suffering from old fart syndrome) the vision of roasting over a hot grill to cook for the extended family didn’t appeal to me.  Call me Shallow Hal, but we don’t expect mom to whip up a meal on Mother’s day so I want my equal rights.  Nonetheless, I know the limits of my oppression and figured offering to pick up pizza for the gang would have to suffice.  I thought at least this would minimize my stress (yes, family gatherings can be stressful), but as sometimes happens this was not to be the case.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Improving performance by doing less

At first blush, this title may sound contradictory to many while others may speculate that the crux of this post is an emphasis of quality over quantity.  The stress level at my job has elevated as we slowly move through yet another re-org.  Often with re-orgs it is not the amount of work, it is the uncertainty.  I acknowledge that my position is atypical being a full time virtual position (as in “I work from home”).  My responsibilities include much self-driven ongoing housekeeping as well as a heavy stream of email correspondence (100 to 200 messages per day) and occasional online meetings, phone calls and instant messaging.  I have found that to effectively cope with the stress related to another re-org, I have paced myself considerably.  Surprisingly, I have found that doing less has not only reduced my stress level, it has also improved my performance and effectiveness.  Here are some general illustrations.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Don’t bring your bottles here

New York has had a bottle return law for at least 30 years.  I know this due to working part time at Stewart's after being discharged from the army in 1985.  It was a pretty unsophisticated system back then; the customer brought their empties and they were often counted on the counter and then placed in the back.  Stewart's was never equipped to handle big bottle returns and we (myself and fellow employees from back in 1985) were never too happy to see a customer arrive with a massive collection of returnable bottles.

Fast forward 30 years to today and we are blessed with automated machines for bottle returns (although as far as I know, Stewart's and other smaller convenience stores typically do not have these machines).  These machines are a great improvement… when they work.  Even with automated machines there is much opportunity for improvement and this posting reflects my quick and dirty experiences returning bottles in my local stores.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Trust me; I’m a Christian

Ugghh, we’re used car shopping once again for child #2.  Between her, my wife and me, we often have 5 different opinions when it comes to picking a car so there was a glimmer of hope as my wife and I trekked off to see a low mileage Versa posted on Craig’s list.  My initial contact went smooth, excepting what sounded like a heavy Russian / Ukraine area accent making comprehension somewhat strained.  An initial meeting was set up at a neutral location and both parties arrived timely and we quickly departed on a smooth test drive.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Full time telework – one year later

It’s been a little over a year since I transitioned to full time telework and based on the popularity of a prior posting on the topic I thought I would reflect on my experiences.  For better or for worse, our organization is a big supporter of teleworking.  I add the “for worse” part as in my work interactions I often see instances where I question whether the individual should be teleworking perhaps I may tangent some additional thoughts relating to this later, but I will begin by focusing on my experience.  I was a gradual adopter of telework – first starting a stint where I teleworked once a week and then moving to teleworking a few days each week and then finally taking the plunge about a year ago to full time telework.  Just to be clear when I am referring to telework in my instance I am referring to working from home.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

The Twenty Minute Shit

I received an email from a friend which related that he was leaving his government job so that I would be aware and not attempt to reach him through his work email.  This message took me by surprise on two fronts.  I was surprised to receive the message because we had not corresponded in quite some time, but I was more surprised to hear that he was leaving his government job.  According to my quick mental calculations, I estimated that he was about 3 years away from reaching the minimum retirement age at which time he would be eligible for a reduced pension.  This piqued my curiosity and in a quick follow up inquiry, he expressed that the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was a recent incident where his boss had asked him where he was for the past 20 minutes, to which he responded, “the bathroom.”  The boss continued with the interrogation and asked, “The whole time?”  My friend relates that he responded, “Yes.”  The boss then concluded with the question, “Is that going to be your break.”  In the true character that I know my friend, he responded, “If it has to be.”

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Sex offenders want to steal your identity

Or so you would think… Like many others, I received a notice from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that my personal information was among the many that were compromised and as a result I was offered free credit monitoring for a limited period of time.  So like a fool, I froze my credit and accepted the free credit monitoring… the frozen credit has resulted in an inability to obtain a store credit card and as far as the free credit monitoring most of my alerts have been to let me know that there is a new sex offender in my area.  As someone who has passed the 50 year mark, there are times that I’d be flattered if someone would make a sexual advance but more to the point of this post I fail to understand the relationship between sexual offenders and identity theft.  Do sexual offenders have a greater propensity for stealing identities?  Where is that study?  I haven’t seen it and have a hard time intuitively making this type of conclusion.