Monday night, at 11:00 pm sharp in Jersey City, New Jersey, the lights went out and stayed off until last night at 7:43pm. That’s three days without power or heat. Hurricane Sandy was a massively nasty beast, and we’re just now starting the recovery process. We are hungry and scavenging for food. Supermarkets are closed. Few places have power.
Continue reading → Recovering from Hurricane Sandy in Jersey City
As I am writing this article, news that the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act is ringing like freedom throughout the United States. It is a great day to be an American, and an even greater day to be an American if you happen to fall ill. “Obamacare” is now a law of the land milestone and is no longer a political insult.
Fresh from my Inbox:
The Affordable Care Act has already made a significant difference in the lives of millions of Americans, including those living with disabilities. Today’s ruling is an affirmation that all Americans, and especially those living with disabilities, should have access to the care that they need. This decision means that individuals cannot be discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition— and for the disability community, affirms the definition of equality as set forth in the Americans with Disabilities Act,” said Stephen Bennett, United Cerebral Palsy President & CEO. “Today’s decision is a clear victory for Americans living with disabilities. UCP strongly supports the Affordable Care Act and will keep working to ensure its implementation eliminates disparities and guarantees equality for all Americans.
I confess I am obsessed with trying to figure out why Verizon LTE is so sucky on our two brand-new iPads. Yesterday, we were at the dentist’s office in Jersey City and I asked Janna to pull out her iPad to see what kind of service levels we were getting. Our dentist is one block away from our home where I was getting two Verizon LTE bars and 1.7Mbps down and 1.47Mpbs up. At the dentist’s office, the iPad was screaming at 25.94Mbps down and 10.35Mbps up with four bars of Verizon LTE active! Amazing! An outrage!
Continue reading → My Obsessive Verizon LTE iPad Testing Continues
I had high hopes for Verizon and their LTE network when I first unboxed my new iPad. I knew the LTE spec could be as high as 20Mbps down and 10Mbps up — but I’d settle for half of those numbers. I’d read reports that people were getting LTE speeds in NYC of 10Mbps down and 6Mbps up and I’d love to be able to live that fast on the web.
Unfortunately, my initial tests in Jersey City were lousy, and yesterday, I did some informal LTE testing around Bryant Park in New York City. You’d think at 6th Avenue and 40th Street you’d have a saturating LTE signal from Verizon. Here are the results of my first, dismal, test: Two Verizon LTE bars and 1.7Mbps down and 1.47Mpbs up. Ugh. That’s miserable 3G territory!
I have been a Vegan for a good long while now, and one of the hardest things to get sustainably right as you start down the path of cruelty-free living is landing in proper non-leather shoes. Enter Moo Shoes, your one-stop-shop for Vegan belts and boots and shoes and bags and such and it is located right in the heart of New York City.
Jersey City is on the rise! First, we had the BigBelly solar trash compactors dotting our streets to help clean up the trash and gutters. Then, we had the wacky, and ongoing, Janky Pole episodes. Now we have newly discovered solar panels installed, so far, on some non-Janky Pole utility poles all across our fair city.
Jersey City, New Jersey was founded in 1630. It’s an old and ancient East Coast metropolis. Jersey City is also, because of its geological terrain, a city that teeters in the past with no clear way into a stabilized future. Allow me to explain. Unlike most modern cities that bury their power lines and cable television lines and other communication cables, Jersey City still hangs all their municipal cabling from telephone poles hoisted along the streets.
The reason for this is simple: Jersey City is built on bedrock. In order to put the cables in the ground, you’d have to dig up massive boulders. You don’t dig precise trenches in Jersey City. You excavate pits. That Jersey City bedrock is both good and bad. It’s good because Jersey City is the definition of “rock solid” — the city core is incredibly sturdy — and it’s bad because your city looks like it’s stuck in the 1950’s with all sorts of wires and cables angling above your head every day. Another problem with telephone poles in your city is that they are made out of wood and they warp while in use and they need to be replaced. You can’t “bury it, and forget it” like you can with cables.
I’ve lived in Jersey City for over a decade and the first thing that struck me about the city all those years ago was the plethora of what I call — “Janky Poles” — telephone poles that look like they’re about to tip over and break from overuse. A few days ago, I took a half-hour walk on the streets of Jersey City to memorialize some of the sillier Janky Poles in my neighborhood and here are the best-of-the-worst for your perusal.
The first Janky Pole is the second pole in the distance. Every time I happen upon that particular Janky Pole, I always cross the street because I fear if someone sneezes too close to that chunk of wood, the whole thing will come toppling down.
On August 15, 2011, I wrote — Is Graffiti Art or Degenerative Hatred? — because I was concerned with the defacing of some brand new BigBelly solar trash cans in Jersey City:
A week ago, in our Panopticonic blog, I wrote an article — BigBelly Solar Recycling in Jersey City — and less than a week later, those divine BigBelly landmarks in our urban core have become geographic eyesores as red graffiti pocks the new surface of the metal bins.
Here’s how one BigBelly was defaced by some noxious red graffiti:
Here’s what that same Big Belly looked like a mere two days after I wrote my article:
A week ago, in our Panopticonic blog, I wrote an article — BigBelly Solar Recycling in Jersey City — and less than a week later, those divine BigBelly landmarks in our urban core have become geographic eyesores as red graffiti pocks the new surface of the metal bins. Here’s how one BigBelly looked after its aesthetic destruction at the hands of some Jersey City Heights hooligan:
Here’s how that same BigBelly looked less than a week ago:
I was out for one of my morning walks last week with Janna, and I spied one of these crazy looking garbage cans. The thing looks and sort of acts like a blue Post Office mailbox standing sentry on a corner, but this trash bin was something different. Why did the new trash bin say “Big Bully” on the side?
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