Off Topic: That Was the Month It Was - February 4, 2018

Good morning. My apologies for not posting a weekly off television topic photo post for the past month or so. I really haven't been taking any photos. As some of you might know, I've been having some health issues which are keeping me from running around with my camera.

No, I'm not dying or anything like that. It's the sciatica I had which worked its way into severe nerve damage in my right leg and foot. Due to back pain, I'm finding it hard to walk or stand (or even sit at times) for any extended period of time. I've started walking like some stooped-over old person. I've fallen down due to either weakness in the affected leg or misstep because my foot is numb. I've had strangers walk up to me concerned with my welfare. Ack! I should be having an MRI this week and, hopefully, some sort of treatment. 

I have been covering The Amazing Race and will be covering Celebrity Big Brother on the blog. At this time, I'm not sure how intensive I will get with the live feeds coverage, but we'll see. I will be posting more on it before its season premiere on Wednesday.

One thing I did this week was that I finally used the Sabrent USB to SATA/IDE hard drive adapter that I bought a couple of years ago for about $12 on Amazon. I had kept telling myself that when I had time, I'd use it. Dang, it's been a long time since I took a computer apart! I was able to remove the hard drive from the computer before this one, hook it up to the adapter and my current computer and access all my old files from the old non-running computer. I recovered photos and music that I haven't been able to access for years. Some of those photos are the ones I'm sharing with you here today.

I also removed the hard drive from the computer before that, a 1998 Compaq desktop. I can hook it to the adapter and power unit, but the hard drive isn't starting up. I think the problem might be due to master/slave and jumper settings which aren't on more modern computers. I'm going to have to research a bit. I'm not a computer technician. I don't even play one on television. 

Oh, well. Onto the photos I'm posting this week. There is a new cell phone photo of Vincent at the end! 

Abandoned

I used to hike all around Plainfield and adjacent North Plainfield looking for photo fodder. If memory serves, I found this abandoned bike along the Green Brook in North Plainfield. Sepia tone seemed to serve it best.

Thomas Fine Furniture

Oh, it certainly doesn't look like this today! This Park Avenue (Plainfield) building has been through many changes just in the time I've been in town. This is what it looked like in the early 2000s. The furniture store wasn't really there. On the ground floor was a company named Atkol which I think was some sort of sex or porn film business. Yet in the windows, they had full-size cardboard cut-out figures of Alfred E. Neuman (MAD Magazine), Batman and other characters. It was all very odd indeed. The upper floors seemed vacant.

It was originally the home of the local newspaper, The Courier News. A few years back when they were rehabbing the building, the ghost sign across the top front touting the newspaper was brought to life. Also, the original marque unveiled the building's name -- the Frost Building. It's now a mixed use building with businesses on the first floor and pricey (but very nice) apartments on the upper levels.  

Roofus the Roofs Cat

For more than two years, perhaps three years, I photographed a feral cat who roamed the roofs on North Avenue across from the Plainfield Train Station. A few times I even saw him with a pure black little cat buddy. Once I spotted him in the back of the row of buildings. He was gaining access to the roofs via an abandoned derelict building. When that building was demolished, I never saw Roofus again. It's rare that a feral cat survives more than a few years on the streets. Roofus beat the odds and made himself a fine little cat life with a following of fans here on the blog. He may have survived the demolition and moved on to roofs not in my view. But, I'm sure that by now, several years down the road, he's been roaming the roofs past the Rainbow Bridge. 

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

Fungi on a railroad tie

I'm not sure why, but I've always liked this photo. I took it around the corner on Berckman Street at a home where there are railroad ties separating their front lawn from the sidewalk. The ties are still there although the family in the house moved out and new folks are living in it. The ties have been dislodged by snowblowers and such and look rather battered and beaten. I haven't seen fungi growing on them since and I walk by them at least a few times a week. (Well, perhaps not at the moment, but ...)

Ducks on the psychedelic pond

I took this shot at Mindowaskin Park in nearby Westfield. It's my favorite place to go to shoot ducks, geese and other critters ... with my camera, of course. I have no idea why or how the water came out looking like it does in the photo. But I've decided it's way cool and I like it.

Childhood wonderment

Let me preface this by saying that (1) I have no clue who she is, (2) her parents knew that my friends and I were taking photos of their children, (3) she's probably in college or beyond by now and looks nothing like this anymore. 

I used to be a part of the now long defunct NYC Fotologgers -- a photography group based in the city. We'd have regular meet-ups, hang out in dive bars on the Lower East Side, have dinner gatherings and just hang out photostomping the city. 

I took this photo during a picnic we had (with smuggled in adult beverages) in Central Park. This cutie and her sister were picnicking near us with their parents. Naturally we, as Fotologgers, had our cameras shooting everything. Somehow, first the two kids approached us, then the parents moved their stuff over and joined us. The father had a keen interest in cameras and was asking technical questions from those who certainly knew more than I do about such things. Meanwhile, we shot their kids.    

Roofus hoping the pigeons would come closer

First there was a chair

Then there was a bag of clothing. Next you knew, there he was with his (empty) bottle of Hennessy and cigarette in his mouth. I'm surprised the cigarette lasted and that no one snagged it for a few days! This all went down on the corner of Watchung and North in Plainfield. Now, I've seen chairs abandoned there since. I've seen clothes abandoned in the area. But nobody has been as creative as whoever did this!

Oh my

This is a shot of the interior of Everybody's Food Market a few blocks down the street from me. Specializing in West Indian foods, as well as many popular Southern or soul food items, it also looks nothing like this today. It's all been redone and now looks like a regular old bodega. But you can still get chicken feet, ox tails, goat and all those goodies there.

Rippled reflections

Mindowaskin Park in Westfield. 

In any language ...

... it's FOOD! Back when I used to take the first train to go to work, I used to often stop in at Pharoah's Texas Wieners on Watchung Avenue in Plainfield for a breakfast sandwich. I always loved the different languages in the signing on the window. The owner was originally from Egypt. How he came to own a Texas Wieners restaurant, I do not know. It's quite diner-like in its menu, even serving up grits. But I'd never eat a pescado entero in any language. I prefer my fish cleaned, filleted and not looking at me with its dead eyes! This window still looks pretty much the same today as it did back then.  

Ew! Cat germs!

No, this isn't an old photo. This is one I took with my cell phone of Vincent licking my hand. He gets in these moods in which he feels he needs to lick my hands or my arms. As long as I'm not expected to reciprocate, I'm okay with it.