Off Topic: That Was the Week It Was - November 25, 2012

It's Sunday morning. You know what that means! It means that it's time for my weekly off television topic reflection on the week gone by in both words and photographs I've taken. 

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Mine was quiet. Since relatives live too far away and I always have to work the Friday after the holiday, I generally stay home and have a peaceful kind of day. Oh yes, I definitely make up a little feast each year! This year, instead of turkey, I had Trader Joe's rosemary marinated chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, broccoli/cauliflower along with Trader Joe's coffee ice cream for dessert. I was thankful I finally seem to have steady electricity and food in my refrigerator!

That said, Sandy seems like the storm which just wouldn't die ... there's always something there to remind me. From tree limbs and debris, to a new FEMA location on my way to the train station, to the still not right schedule for the trains, to Philly's SEPTA buses by the Plainfield Train Station, to power outages at home which finally seemed to stop earlier this week, to dubious wires still on the ground, to the foliage show we missed out on and to another Halloween which wasn't ...

At least I no longer feel like a hunter/gatherer foraging for daily food. I remembered a few things I had forgotten to mention in my earlier Hurricane Sandy coverage.

• After the power went out on the night of the storm, it was scary creepy. I could hear the winds, stronger than I've ever heard in my life, yet it was total darkness. I couldn't see a thing.
• That is, until transformers started blowing. Then the skies became punctuated with a green glow. The bending trees gave the appearance of being caught in a surreal green strobe light.
• More than one person with kids told me that when they told their children the explosions were just transformers, the kids panicked. They thought they meant Transformers!
• The night after Sandy blew through, all was blackness. Well, until someone a block or so away hit up their illegal supply of fireworks. These were pretty ones, not just ones which go BOOM. Vincent and I sat by the window for over an hour watching them. After all, there was literally nothing good on TV.

At least now I feel I've done my trial run for the Zombie Apocalypse. Are YOU prepared?

Onto this week's photos. Clicking on an image will open it on a Photobucket page, clicking again will make it larger. To return here to the blog, just close out that Photobucket page.

Early morning skies

With the train schedule still a bit off, it's not quite dark still as I head off to the train station. Many mornings have been cloudy and grey. But there was this early morning treasure. Looking over towards East Second Street from East Front Street in Plainfield.

Outlined in frost

It's better to see frost outlining leaves than to wake up with an ice cube nose!

It's a Studebaker!

This old car at the intersection of Berckman and East Front in Plainfield caught my attention. A Studebaker. Cool. It would be cooler if it was fixed up a bit more, but cool nonetheless.

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

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and relatives, near and far! I have a lot to be thankful for this year, especially in view of the recent hurricane. Friends, family and a cat named Vincent helped me get through the storm (which was very unnerving in and of itself) and the days afterward as the road to normality was strewn with several roadblocks. I'm more thankful for heat, hot water, electricity and food in the refrigerator than I have ever been before, too. Odd, that.

I hope you all have a fine holiday filled with great food and love. Oh. And football, if you're into that kind of thing.

Survivor: Philippines - November 21 Episode Blog Party

Come one, come all! It's the Thanksgiving Eve Survivor show blog party! As the show airs here, I'll update this entry with any major happenings. But, as always, the real fun is in the comments area. Come join the party!

Reward Challenge -- Divided into teams, getting drums face up while the other team is turning them over. The reward is a spa visit followed by a feast. Red - Abi, Carter, Malcolm and Pete. Yellow - Penner, Lisa, Skupin and Denise. Eep. Skupin flipped the wrong drum. Red wins.

Abi gloats and alienates. She also says she will cook no more, but they can cook for her. Malcolm, Skupin, Denise and Lisa make a final four pact.

Immunity Challenge time -- In rounds -- obstacle course getting a buoy to their post. Five make it through. Malcolm, Penner, Denise, Skupin and Carter moving on. Three moving on to the next round. Skupin, Carter and Denise are in the final round. Carter wins immunity!

Tribal goes against dear Abi. Too bad, so sad. She plays her idol. Malcolm doesn't play his.

Abi, Abi, Abi, Pete, Malcolm, Pete, Malcolm, Pete.

Buh-bye, Pete. You should have stayed away from Abi! 

The Amazing Race: November 18 Episode Blog Party

The show isn't scheduled to start until 8:30 PM here in the NYC viewing area. I wasn't keeping track, so I don't know if it will start any past that. However, once it does start, I'll update this entry with the major events.

But ... as always, the real fun is in the comments area. Come join us as we watch the show!

8:50 PM ET, and we have a start! We still have last week's unfinished business at hand. James and Abba need to find their passports, two teams are still the synchronized swimming. Josh and Brent ended up getting a four-hour penalty -- they couldn't finish the swimming as the pool closed for the night. The last two teams are still working together.

Abbie and Ryan, Josh and Brent hit the Pit Stop at teams number four and five. Josh and Brent get their four hour penalty. James and Abba don't have their passports yet, but it's a non-Philimination. They're still in it, but still need to get their passports.

They're remaining in Russia for now.

Roadblock -- Who's in the zone? Figuring time in different cities. It's nowhere easy as it sounds.

Detour - Movers or Shakers. Learning a Russian soldier dance or identifying historic Russian leaders at a costume party.

The twins used their Express Pass to get by the map/time zone roadblock.

Pit Stop -
1. James and Jaymes! They won a trip to Costa Rica.
2. Trey and Lexi
3. Natalie and Nadiya
4. Abbie and Ryan
5. Josh and Brent
6. James and Abba ... still don't have their passports ... Philiminated. 

Off Topic: That Was the Week It Was - November 18, 2012

G'morning! Welcome to my weekly off television topic post in which I reflect on the week gone by in both words and photographs I've taken. This week I have a bit of an overlap with the past three weeks ... or, to be more precise, since Sandy landed.  Warning -- this is REALLY long and I apologize for the delay in posting. I just wanted to get the Sandy stuff finished and onto this past week in photos.

I've never been through anything like Sandy in my life. In a way, it's like I lost two weeks of my life and the week following was still a bit askew of "normal life." While I was aware of happenings in the world for the almost two weeks my power was out thanks to my MP3 player's FM radio, it wasn't like being a part of the world. It was more like living in some sort of parallel universe in a quasi-post apocalyptic world. 

I was through extended power outages of three and four days with last year's freak early snowstorm and Hurricane Irene respectively. But they were nothing compared to this. This time, the entire area for hundreds of miles around was affected. This time we were on our own. (And, if the elevator tries to take you down, go crazy -- Prince) Not only that, but it was COLD.

In this area, about ten or so miles inland from Staten Island as the crow flies, we didn't have flood damage (which the area suffered from with Irene). We had wind damage. Horrible wind damage. I was told by a PS&G worker, "Our poles do NOT fall down. YOUR trees knock down our wires and poles. The city of Plainfield does NOT trim the trees. They should." 

I believe he had a point. I live on a county road that runs through the city. I didn't see any wires or poles down on my block or a few blocks either way. They regularly trim and remove iffy trees along my street. Of course, in the long run, that didn't help me as the entire power grid in my area went down and the switching station suffered horrific flooding damage. All I had to do was go around the corner off of my street to see extreme tree fallen on wires damage, too.

SEPTA buses in Plainfield

Let's try for a litter free PLAINFIELD, not Philadelphia! Buses on loan from Philly have been running shuttle service for NJ Transit each morning at the corner of Gavett Place and North Avenue by the Plainfield Train Station.

Speaking of litter free, I notice the PMUA trash cans on that block of North Avenue across from the train station have gone missing. The folks who live in apartments there or run small businesses and don't pay for their trash are now just setting trash out on the street.
 

Still can't park

Next door to next door, they're still parking on their front lawn. That was one huge tree which came down. It apparently hit their roof as well as blocking their paved parking lot in back of the home cut into apartments. There is blue tarp on a section of their roof.

Now I see them

I don't know where they were when the power was out for so long, though.

Like spaghetti

Dunellen water and ice giveaway as seen from the train window

I heard these kind of things happened in Plainfield. But no one informed us they were happening ...

**HIT THE 'READ MORE' LINK FOR MORE PHOTOS AND WHINING!**