Off Topic: That Was the Week It Was - January 13, 2013

Welcome to Sunday morning! Since it's that day once again, it's time for my weekly off television topic reflection on the week gone by in both words and photos I've taken along the way. I do have plans (don't faint) to make a post looking at the cast of the upcoming Survivor season. If not today, that should be up within a day or two. I haven't completely forgotten the main reason behind this blog!

The shows I'm watching these days include: Elementary, Hard Core Pawn, Letterman (naturally), if I'm up I'm liking Jimmy Fallon lately, Blue Bloods, CSI: NY, Castle, The First 48, and more. Lots of crime going on there. Hmm.

This was yet another week in which I didn't find a heck of a lot of photo fodder. Some weeks I feel I'm posting really neat photos; other weeks I'm just giving you a glimpse of what I saw during the week. This is one of the latter. I don't really want it to snow. However, if it snowed I'd have all new photo fodder!

Work has been, well ... worky. Or something like that. I miss the four-day work weeks I enjoyed through Christmas and New Year's. My added new vacation week showed up (company giving those who have been there 20 years or more an additional paid vacation week) while Social Security increases took a huge chunk out my paycheck. When I add up that increase, it could pay for my electricity, cable television, and part of my internet and phone bill per month. Or, perhaps my monthly grocery bill. Ouch. I realize the increase was decided back in the 80s, but ...! Ouch. 

Please don't go all political with the above paragraph. I'm not here to hold a presidential debate. Thank you.

I made a video of Vincent fighting a shiny paper this week --

If I had left the shiny paper there, it would have become a gazillion pieces of spit out paper confetti within hours. He can't be left with either cardboard or shiny paper. Other cats sit or sleep in cardboard boxes. Vincent bites off pieces until there is no box at all. 

Onto the photos for this week -- clicking on an image will open it in a Photobucket window, clicking again will result in a larger image. Just close out the Photobucket window to return here to the blog.

How can you leave when I'm so cute?

This is what I saw when I left for work yesterday. I usually don't go by that side of my building, but I had to take some trash to the Dumpster as I left. I had opened the window a crack due to the nice temperatures and there he was.

Spectacular pre-sunrise

I'm still inside my workplace by the time the sun actually rises. I do get to see some very cool beginnings of the sunrise, though. Bridgewater, NJ

Crescent moon

They say the darkest hour is before the dawn. Well, I'm out in that walking to the train on weekdays. This is what I saw one morning.

**CLICK THE 'READ MORE' LINK TO SEE THE REST OF THE PHOTOS**

I figured it out!

Okay, this is the TD Bank Ball Park adjacent to the Bridgewater Train Station. When I saw the strange fake animals still there and noted the string, it hit me. It's an effort to keep Canada geese off the field during the off season! D'oh! Now I recognize that the fake animals are supposed to be coyotes. D'oh. They certainly don't look anything like the few scraggly east coast coyotes I've seen. It does seem to work. I can recall seeing geese landing in there often in past years. They don't seem to be in there this year.

Birds in the bush

If you have four birds in the bush, how many do you have in your hand?

Who knows? Who cares? We weren't talking about birds in your hand at all! We're talking about birds in the bush! And why would you want to have birds in your hand? That's a good way to get pecked!

Bad news

Plainfield was inundated with mobile news trucks from every network this week as a five year old boy was seriously injured when hit by a stray bullet on the west side of town. It was daylight. He was walking with his mother. They live right near where the shooting took place. Idiot gang fools with guns. Drug related or gang related, one or the other. It doesn't matter which. Drugs, gangs and poverty are the roots of just about all the crime in town. I have no answers. There is no easy fix to the social structure that's been here for so many years.

Thankfully, they arrested the "alleged" shooter -- an 18 year old boy. The whole thing is just too sad. 

Note they're illegally parked

From the other shot, you can see the WABC-TV van is parked too close to the corner. Here, it's clear they are parked in the yellow zone. This is next to the police station. Media vultures don't care.

By the way, that's Jackie's "gang" coming up in the background. That's part of the Plainfield Police Gang/Narcotics Division. I've grown friendly with most of them over the years as I lurk by their annex for my bus when I don't feel like walking home from the train. They always stop and chat with me or, if they see me walking while they're driving by, they beep and wave. They're good guys, hard-working and try their hardest to make a difference. Sometimes you just wonder if they're fighting a losing battle. 

Abandoned

This wasn't there shortly after New Year's Eve. But it's there now. I saw it on a window ledge at the Plainfield Train Station.

It's just a matter of when

Let's move from the problems in Plainfield for a bit and look at a situation in Bound Brook. From the train station there, I've watched this building addition deteriorate over the years. The whole right side is leaning and structural cracks are obvious. While the original building in the front is used, this back annex has been vacant and unused for at least six years. Too many floods have undermined its structure. When will it go boom?

Framed dawn

I'm rapidly losing my cool photo ops around the framework as the sunrise looms. They're working fast in the parking lot of the Bridgewater Train Station.

It IS solar panels!

And, my commenter last week was right. It IS solar panels.

Have you heard?

If that mockingbird don't sing, he's going to buy me a diamond ring.

Red sky in the morning

Bridgewater. Yes, sailors needed to take warning. It rained all afternoon and evening.

Kitteh!

Watch out Vincent. There's a new kitteh in the building! A woman who lives in a studio apartment on the first floor of the building has a new little friend. I'm happy for her. She had another cat over a year ago and it somehow got out. I used to talk to that cat through the window. She plastered lost cat posters all over the building and neighborhood, but never found the cat. Now she's trying again. She's an older woman (probably younger than me), works and lives alone. She needs a cat in her life.

Meanwhile, I should note that it seems like all the dogs in the building are gone now ... including the two chihuahuas from downstairs (although Lee is still there) and the pit bull with the guy with the wheelchair (he's still there, too). I think the new landlord clamped down. With Vincent (and the permission to have him here), I might have opened the door for more cats to get approval. But cats don't bother neighbors with their barking or do their business on the sidewalks.

Hanging in there

While we're in a warm stretch now, it was indeed cold for a while. The cold seemed to shrink the fungi, but it's still looking healthy. Well, as healthy as a fungus can look, that is.

Bridgewater moon

As I arrived at the Bridgewater Train Station one day for work this week.

Call the Feds!

I saw this abandoned on East Third Street in Plainfield early one morning this week.

Pretty and he knows it

I'm so pretty, so pretty, so pretty and witty and gay! Vincent has surely been a very positive effect on my life. He's a very special cat even though he contributes nothing to the household chores or finances. Remember, anyone reading this who's thinking of getting a pet ... Vincent came from New York City Animal Care and Control, one of the largest animal shelters in the country. A pet adopted from a kill shelter is not only a life saved, but they might even realize they're the lucky ones. Well, I'm the lucky one. But you know what I mean.