Tales from the train - Gadgetry or Tools^^10?

So I am riding the train early this morning and my Verizon card did
not recognize my password so would not let me access the Internet. I
switched over to my Kindle to read about the AIG bail-out of course
while listening to Garth Brooks CD on my I-pod playing on the I-phone.
While reading I accessed information about AIG from Wikipedia using
the I-phone application I had downloaded for 99 cents from the I-tunes
store.

After learning that AIG had over a trillion dollars in assets (had
being the key word) I went back to the Times article and finished
reading. Then some email all before losing the signal in the tunnel
approaching Penn Station.

Gadgetry or tools? You judge. Tunnel approaching...

Lion with Lei

Lion with lei

El Cid the Ghecko

Cid as in El Cid. By the way, he eats crickets or mealy worms fed to him live.

Summer's End at Island Beach State Park

This is just one phone-pic of the day we spent at Island Beach State Park. We arrived early on Labor Day Monday as the day before we got shut out when the park filled up. By driving as far south as you can find a parking space you get to claim a section of beach for your own. The waves were 5-0 style, well, at least as 5-0 as you will see in Central NJ without a hurricane and the beach has powdery white sand. All-in-all an amazing day!

Excerpt of Poem from Bull Durham

Here is an excerpt from a poem that was quoted near the end of the baseball movie Bull Duram:

"Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

I found it from the poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray from the stanza:

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

The line from Bull Durham was when Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) hit a minor league record 247th home run to no notice by the baseball media.

I see that poem is also famous for the line:

"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."

I don't know that my brain is wired for poetry...

Playing Golf in the Poconos

While on vacation last week I had the chance to play golf at a fabulous if little known course called Hide-Away Hills. The course was about 40 minutes drive from the townhouse at Camelback Mountain and was a very reasonable $30 greens fee with cart for play after 2:00 (twilight fee). The course features 18 quite distinct holes including several that had the tee box at the top of the hill and the green about 100-120 feet below. The photo at the right is a par 3 that played 230 feet from the very back blue tees. The tee boxes were on various tiers from blue, to two white tees, to the red and yellow tees. Steve and I tried to hit from the very back tees but we each did not make it onto the green so rehit from the white tees. The photo doesn't do justice to the elevation difference between where we were standing on the upper most tee down to the green.

Another hole had a similar drop for a par 5 that had you tee-off from the elevated green onto a landing area down below with the fairway sweeping off to the right. It was great to see the ball sailing out over the land and falling to the fairway far below.

The photo to the left shows another hole that was up hill all the way from the tee to an even more elevated green. This hole was listed at about 340 yards but played much farther with the continual rise. Steve and I hit just short of the green to a very steep slope and the balls bounded back and the the left for a very challenging shot that was like trying to hit the ball onto the roof of a 3 story house. Little did we know there was quite a bit of green to work with as we found out after getting up to the green.

I recommend this course to anyone wanting to play a challenging, fun, and very scenic round of golf. The panoramic views of the Pocono region were breathtaking and the golf was plenty fun as well. Be sure and invite me along if you go as you will need a guide to know where to hit your shots.

Photo of Steve on overlook to Bushkill Falls in the Poconos of Eastern Pennsylvania. We went on a hike that lasted about 1 hour and took us from the top of the falls to the very bottom. It was beautiful scenery and the photo doesn't do justice to the spectacular falls. The falls go from the level of the platform (just above Steve's hand on the wooden railing) to about 80 feet below.

Door

Thinker

View out my window

This is the view out my office window in my new Studebaker Hall digs. It's pretty nice to see water, especially for this old sailor.

Our World Runs on Dunkin

What a cutie...

Tales from the Train - following footsteps

Yesterday I got to follow the footsteps of a prior associate in what had to be one of the worst commutes I have heard about. Jeremy Brown, prior Associate Dean of Faculty for Princeton University used to live in New Haven, CT and would make the daily trek to Princeton University. He would board a train in New Haven to Grand Central Station, would shuttle to Penn Station via the subway, board another train to Princeton Junction and then take the Dinky to Princeton University. This had to be about a four hour commute each way.

The path that I followed yesterday was the shuttle to and from Grand Central at 42nd street (Times Square). There was quite a bit of walking involved to get to the shuttle stop and then to Grand Central Station but the shuttle itself was fairly uneventful since it just went back and forth. I didn't have much time to explore Grand Central Station and all it's amenities but at least I know how to get there for a future exploration.

A footnote for this Tale from the Train, Jeremy did this commute for about a year and then moved his family to University housing in Princeton. His wife was from a highly placed family in the Panamanian government and they later moved to Panama associated with the canal being transferred to government ownership and operation. The Degenerate Bosons, our Physics softball team, lost a good bare-hand-catching outfielder (another story...) and Princeton lost a good science oriented Associate Dean.

I still can't comprehend that commute with all the connections and getting from place to place. God bless the man for sticking with it as long as he did.