Thanksgiving

Not too many months ago I didn't think I'd have anything to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. How wrong I was. I am thankful for all the doctors, family and friends who have helped us this year, I am thankful my wife is on the road to recovery (and she is undoubtedly thankful chemo ends soon), I am thankful I work for a company that was very generous in allowing my work schedule to be as flexible as needed these last few months, I am thankful for our children, I am thankful we are in a warm, dry house -- with just a few less trees, and I am thankful for whatever else I have forgotten in this post. Happy turkey day all!

A little free advice to the GOP

Hi Republican party. Middle aged white guy in the top 10% here. How are you? I'm fine. Managed to keep my family fed and warm, plus get the tree off my roof, the last 2 weeks as my area recovers from the double blow of Sandy and the Nor'Easter, without requiring government help. Thought that you would like that as it is kinda boot-strappy. I even helped create a few jobs by hiring a traveling tree service to help me get at some high tree branches I couldn't reach, plus remove the rest of the tree that hit the roof (chainsaws and 45 year old Jewish NYC area lawyers just don't go together as I'm sure you'd agree). Mom's doing well, but you wouldn't like her now as, after a full life of working hard, raising a family and teaching children, she is part of the 47% (though I don't recall her voting for Democrats in presidential elections) in a nursing home sucking down that government juice, but thanks for asking. Anyway, I digress. I'd like to explain why I didn't vote for you last week and, at this rate, may not vote for you again, at least on the national level, and it is not because I want "gifts."

Traditionally, especially as I am Jewish and a Middle East war seems imminent (we all know you love Israel, while the Democrats are a little more reserved), I should be in your base, except I am probably a little too progressive (I'd say liberal in the traditional sense since that means open minded but I know you've twisted that word just as conservatism as been twisted)  for you these days. I'm educated, pretty tolerant of others, don't care what people don't do in their bedrooms or who they want to marry, agree there should be less abortions but feel that should be a personal or medical decision, don't have a problem conserving for tomorrow while keeping the family's debt limited to our mortgage, and don't mind paying taxes to invest in our country's infrastructure. I think that used to be called a Rockefeller Republican or maybe even a Regan Democrat. I don't know. What I do know is that not only did I not vote for your presidential candidate, but I didn't vote for my local Senate and Congressional Republican candidates because your radical right and financial overlords scare the heck out of me and what they would mean for this nation's future.

I know you are trying to broaden your base without resorting to "gifts" but here's the thing, I don't consider the social security and medicare I will receive at the end of my working life a gift. I don't consider new and improved schools to be a gift. I don't consider improved infrastructure to be a gift. And while, technically, my taxes being used to help those less fortunate then myself can be called a gift, I am thankful I am not in a position to need that gift, whether it is food stamps to keep my children fed or FEMA grants to help me rebuild my life. I consider all that, and more, part of what makes this a civilized nation.Maybe I am just too stupid to understand how torpedoing our fragile economy while worsening the plight of a huge majority of the country  to further fatten the wallets of the rich so they can continue to outsource jobs and invest their money overseas is good for America. Or maybe I am not as dumb as you think the majority of the population are in rejecting such a divisive Presidential candidate who, through his words before and after the election,  demonstrate he really held the 99% in disdain (and was an emptier suit than W).

Even though I am not a member of "those groups" you so despise, I don't mind paying taxes to pay for new schools, transportation projects, utilities etc for my grandchildren to live just as I have relied on all my grandparents generation built for me. I consider those "gifts" that I paid for with my payroll taxes since I was 16 to be paying me my money back, whether I see all of it or I don't (and I really, really hope I do see all of it as I'd like to die quietly in my sleep in old age like my great-uncle, not screaming in fear like the passengers in his out of control car). And I am fine if some of that goes to a disabled widow to help her raise her underage children because, well, that's how I think the richest nation to ever walk this earth should roll.

But going back to the broadening of your base, ain't going to happen until you stop being slaves to those who care more about a bunch of cells that could potentially be human life inside of a woman's body over what happens if and when those cells become a human and who believe men should be stoned when sleeping with a man because you misinterpreted that part of the bible that approves drug legalization and gay marriage (think about what I just wrote for a few seconds). Not saying there isn't room at the table for those who oppose abortion and gay marriage for whatever reason, but until you lock your radical righthwads in the damn closets the way Democrats locked their looney, truly liberal associates, you aren't going anywhere near 1600 again. And just picking a token woman for a leadership post to demonstrate your openness is not enough, especially as your leaders imply that there was voter fraud because blacks voted. You have to mean it in your hearts.

There are other things too that bother me. I could mention that, as you continue to politicize the Benghazi attacks, that 9/11 happened on your watch, plus several other attacks on diplomatic sites (including a certain embassy in Lebanon that President Reagan pulled marines out of after a suicide attack killed hundred of Americans). I know its politics etc, but not everything is a conspiracy (though I agree there is more to the Petraeus affair than what we have been told as of this writing). If you want to win again, not only do you have to stop looking backwards at ideas that worked 30 years ago, but you also need to stop making every statement a passive-aggressive attack on Democrats. Half the country agrees with them. 

But how can I explain all this to those who believe the Republican Governor of NJ saying nice things about President Obama for helping his state recover from Hurricane Sandy, caused Mitt Romney to lose the election. Heaven forbid, a leader serving those who voted for him first. I'm sure the loss had nothing to do with a candidate so out of touch that he thought cuts in the capital gains tax would help the middle class when they sold all their stocks. What stocks?! My wife and I make well more then $150,000 combined, our only stocks are in our 401(k) accounts and in the college education cuts we have set up for our children -- if we don't have enough disposable income for stocks, how does a family making just $60,000 have enough to worry paying taxes on dividends or capital gains (the tax on our savings, which would have been cut, is miniscule thanks to low interest rates). Don't any of you watch something other than Fox News?

And, going back to my mother, if you ever saw her medical bills from her nursing home, you'd see that her medicaid payments to supplement her social security and my parents' pensions, were not gifts, but a lifeline in return for her decades of hard work (now if you want to argue that limiting medicare/medicaid payments to grants will force nursing homes etc to lower their prices, I'm listening, but I don't trust the free market that has you where they want you as much as you). And I am not going to get into the fiscal cliff you want to throw the country over because a few of your friends, who will be rich no matter, don't want to pay more taxes unless the entire middle class, already reeling from four decades of your wealth consolidation programs, givers even more of the few crumbs they have left (can't leave the serfs with anything that might look like savings now can we?). As long as your opening bargaining position is to hold a gun to the country's head while telling the other side "no and no discussion until you do what we say," there is no point.

So, in conclusion, GROW UP! Stop blaming others for your failures. People don't vote for you because they don't like what you say, don't like what is in your hearts, worry that the increasing concentration of wealth is bad for a republic and a whole host of other concerns. We are individuals making up a nation of one, not a nation making individuals of 300 million (yeah, that got away from me too, sorry). No matter how much we adore individualism, we all need each other to some extent. Not many of us live on small family farms anymore, with fewer every year. This isn't the 18th or even the per-industrial 19th century where Americans could live easily enough by themselves, off the grid, without any help from neighbors (assuming the army kept the Indians away and local law kept the bandits at bay). This is the 21st century. Maybe you should remember that.

Signed, Moderate, but conservative, independent white guy

Petraeusgate

I'm amazed the major media outlets haven't labeled the stories revolving around the resignation of CIA chief General Petraeus and the stalled nomination of Marine Gen. John Allen's to become NATO's supreme allied commander due to a brief affair and some naughty e-mails Petraeusgate yet.  I've seen the term Petraeusgate in a few news headlines from smaller players like the Daily Beast, Mother Jones and, of course, Twitter but not the NY Times or Washingtion Post so I know that this is not a major story. We've thrown gate onto every scandal for the last 40 years, so it seems, so why not this one?

Seriously though, I know I am not the only one who smells a rat in this hornet's nest. I find it hard to believe that this scandal at the top of  our military and intelligence community was brought on by a bare chested FBI agent doing a favor for a well connected friend. Something is fishy here. Whether it is political foes of Generals Petraeus and Allen seeking an opportunity, a chance for the Obama administration to take the focus off of intelligence failures, misleading statements or lies regarding the Benghazi attack in Libya or the attacks on our soldiers in Afghanistan from "friendly" fire, a chance for political foes of the president to distract him as he waste resources on this scandal instead of focusing on our long term budget issues or something more I don't know. It is a little hard to do investigative journalism from my home in NJ, that is what professional news outlets are for. But if I can connect the dots and see some coincidences that seem too coincidental, then why can't the media see something beyond the emails?

Instead of concentrating on the bedroom activities in Petraeusgate, or whether this was a November surprise delayed for the election (which doesn't make sense as the General worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations) I have better questions for our media and leaders. On the assumption that there really isn't anything else going on, why are we tearing up our military and CIA leaders over this insignificant stuff? So they cheated on their wives, big deal. That is between the generals and their wives. Maybe this is all just the latest version of our reality based TV culture where we seem to be fascinated with fluff and tearing people down, especially as we enter television's November sweeps period. Maybe it is not. It is still silly.

How about we get out of the bedrooms and focus on what is really important, like the security lapses and conflicting information the CIA gave the White House regarding the  attack on our embassy (ok, consulate)  in Libya, the murdering of our soldiers by "friends," our crumbling infrastructures at home (or not), how the economy still struggles as we approach our self imposed "fiscal cliff,"  or how the increasing concentration of wealth by a few is a detriment to our republic, at least for most of us. And, if the Petraeusgate story is "merely" a cover for something much more nefarious, why are the media stalking  Mrs. Kelley and Broadwell? Either throw a gate onto the story or get back to work already (and I prefer the later).

Nor'Easter

Seven days after the hurricane, both my wife's and my offices reopened. By then odd even gas rationing had started, which meant I could pull right up to the pump at my choice of now powered local gas stations. However, school remained closed in our town. Originally scheduled as a week off (with Election Day and the two day NJ Teachers' Convention at the end of the week, so many families schedule vacations for that period that the superintendent decided to make the week a week off to get around low attendance), the schools remained closed as half the town remained without power. I tried to begin to catch up on my work (helped the office was closed all week too due to lack of power) as I worked from home that Monday. A later trip to the supermarket to get milk, eggs and meat proved to be a waste of time -- with so many getting power back that weekend, the supermarket was out of those foods (though I did get egg whites and turkey burgers).

Tuesday, with my wife off for Election Day, I drove into my office. I noticed traffic lights out and still closed intersections of Route 9 about 4 miles north of our house, but the section of darkness was soon replaced by powered areas. That scene repeated itself with some closed roads as I go to my office. People seemed generally happy to be there, especially those still without heat and electricity in their homes. Many children, still out of school, wandered around the semi-empty office -- with the NJ Transit line that runs by our office still out of service, nobody from NYC was making it physically in that day. Aside from talking about the lack of power the previous week, the big concern was the forecasted Nor'Easter, especially for those still without power, for the next day. I was able to get milk and chicken on the way home.

Wednesday. With school closed, my son had a sleep over at his friend's house the previous night, so it was just my daughter and I as I worked from home. She happily watched TV and played video games as I worked. I had previously arranged to pick up my son at the end of my work day, around 4PM, before the storm really hit. Around 2PM my daughter came in to my office to tell me it was snowing. I looked out the window and thought to myself, guess the storm is going further east, as forecasters had speculated earlier in the day, meaning more cold air and, hopefully, less wind. This is good I thought to myself.

By 3PM I noticed the snow was sticking to the grass. Odd I thought, I didn't know that would happen so early. By 4PM the snow was sticking to the streets. Now, after last year's October snow storm, this early snow shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. We live fairly close to the ocean and, at this time of the year, warm ocean waters usually prevent snow from falling in our area this early in the season. Not this time.

Before long, the snow was accumulating on the street. Now I have lived within 10 miles of the Atlantic Ocean in the NYC area my entire life and have never seen an accumulating snow before Thanksgiving, with only a handful before Christmas. My wife came home, we ate dinner, I lit a fire and we settled in for another evening in front of the fire hoping the power wouldn't go out. Well the power didn't go out, can't say that for the trees.

Around 6:30 we heard a thump from the roof towards the back of the house. While I wondered what  had fallen, my wife looked out the window and saw that our old cranberry tree had split in half and struck the house. Then I realized, that while many of trees had lost their leaves during the hurricane, there were still a lot of leaves up in the trees. Rut roh.

That night we heard the sounds of thousands of trees snapping in half then suddenly silenced. By morning we woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland, if you weren't a tree lover. In addition to our crab apple, our weeping cherry tree lost every branch but one, and the maple tree we planted when our son was born a dozen years ago lost its top. A branch from another tree grazed my car, but did no damage. Looking around the neighborhood, we saw the tree damage was much worse than from Sandy. But at least we didn't lose power, can't say that for my office.

Telecommuters are broken into two groups in my office. Those like me who have laptops and can work from wherever they are and those who remotely log onto their desktops from home. To remotely log on, the PC needs to be on at work. Unfortunately the power outage at the office knocked all the machines out. With traveling still a little difficult, between Sandy and snow storm, not many people wanted to go in. Long story short, we found a new use for Facebook -- trying to determine who is physically in the office who can turn on desktop computers for remote log on. Still have a bit of a ride to the 21st century.

As to the tree on the roof, we were very lucky. The bulk of the tree landed in the front yard, with only the tops of the formerly upper most branches hitting the roof. As soon as the snow melted, I cut off the branches and was relieved to discover was only a small dent in one of our gutters. So while my tree forts line the street, ready to be converted into mulch by the town, I am relieved we dodged another bullet. Considering all the shots we've taken so far this year, it's nice when a break doesn't go bad for a change.

Sandy

The lights are on. The children are back in school starting Monday. The gas lines are gone. Our offices are open for business. It has been a crazy two weeks here in my corner of NJ: first Hurricane Sandy knocked our lights and heat out for a week, then a Nor'Easter that turned into a snow storm when it sucked more cold air than expected which snapped several of our trees in half. I am ready to move to Nevada.

The day of the hurricane started out simply enough. My wife's office and our town's schools closed for the day, giving the rest of my family a day off. My office closed for the day but many of us were able to telecommute as normal. I did my early morning workout as usual and, upon leaving, noticed the sign that all classes after 5PM were cancelled. When I got home, I told my wife that her evening spin and dancing classes were cancelled, so she decided to go early while I worked and kept the children from killing each other. Things quickly deteriorated weather wise. Before long she was calling me to say the Y would be closing at 1:30 due to weather. I told her to try to get bread as we were running low, the one thing I forgot to buy enough of before the storm. Ha ha. By then all she could find were bagels.

She came home and I finished my work day as usual. Dinner and watching TV that evening were also pretty normal, except we were just watching the news from NYC. The lights started flickering around 6PM and at 7, just as flood waters were starting to hit Manhattan, we lost most of our cable stations, save the ones from Philadelphia. I soon turned to Facebook, which became a lifeline for us through the following week. Friends from the city started posting pictures of streets flooding in Manhattan, and not just in lower Manhattan. Just as I was thinking this going to be worse than realized, the lights went out with a sudden certainty. At that point we knew that was it for electricity and we were back in the 19th century. 

The next morning the storm had mostly passed. I put the tea kettle on my outside grill to make instant coffee for my wife and I as we dined on cold cereal, mostly to get rid of the milk. I took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood, checking out the tree damage and walked up to Route 9, a major north/south highway with many commercial establishments that adjoins our development. Traffic was moving, but as I walked up to the nearby intersection with a traffic light I saw it was dark. Uh oh. Our development has underground wires, so I  knew we'd come back once the grid was re-energized. At that time I didn't appreciate how long that would be.

We didn't have much storm damage, just some big branches down on our lawn, and we are far enough away from the shore to not have to worry about flooding, so we took a long walk around the development with the kids after lunch. We saw many large trees down, but, with a few exceptions, little damage to structures and cars. After seeing power was still out on 9, except for the generated powered supermarket, where things were so crazy that the police were called and employees were checking receipts (I now know it will take less than 48 hours for this town to go full anarchy if there ever was a disaster worse than a power outage). We went back home, turned on the radio to a NJ news station, lit a fire and settled in for the night. Except, unlike previous blackouts, we had smart phones and were able to keep track of very local news.It was then I learned that almost the entire town (and surrounding areas) were without power (I swear Facebook kept me sane). I also saw a very brief clip about a fire in the Rockaways, near where I went to high school, and flooded basements in my old hometown of Howard Beach. It would be another day until I saw how bad things were. My wife said we should just consider it camping out with comfy, if cold, beds. Fortunately we have a fireplace, a full rack of wine, and, courtesy of Sandy, plenty of fuel for the fire, so we spent the evening relaxing in front of the fire, the kids on their newly charged video games, my wife reading a book with a flashlight, and me reading an ebook I downloaded from the library just before the storm, on my back-lit iPad, as I knocked out a bottle of wine.

Day 3. I cooked the remaining eggs, egg whites and cheese in two giant egg omelets on the grill, along with the instant coffee (I am definitely buying a stove top peculator as soon as I can find one, the camping sections of nearby sporting goods stores are still pretty empty). My brother, about 20 miles away as the open roads went, had power and our freezer was starting to defrost so I loaded up the car with our electronics, freezer and family and drove over there. It was then I finally understood how bad the power situation was. Not a single traffic light was functioning on Routes 9 and 18 (similar to 9) until we got to the NJ Turnpike (fastest ride ever, as the intersections were blocked, making the road seem like a real highway). I noticed no gas stations and few generator powered stores open. On Route 1, we again saw not a single light or open business, except for a liquor store, of course, until we neared my brother's house. Suddenly, we saw a working light and then we were in a horrific traffic jam. It took us over 10 minutes to get to the next intersection, but before we even got that far we realized what the problem was, a gas line at an open gas station (I wisely had topped off my car's tank the night before the storm). We eventually made it to my brother's and, after unloading my backpack of electronics, I lost it when I discovered my iPad was not in the box. I basically went into one of my old rages (I later realized that I probably had forgotten to take my meds that morning, once we didn't have heat, lights or electricity, our schedules got all messed up). Very disturbing, but now I know -- 2 days of a disaster is all I can take.

Anyway, we asked my sister-in-law if we could put on the news as we really had no idea what was going on outside our immediate area, especially in New York. It was then I finally saw the videos of the burnt out Rockaways, the flooded Howard Beach and Broad Channel, and all the damage at the Jersey Shore. I saw a report taken from the wrecked the boardwalk a block from the police station near my high school. Not a big deal until I remembered the boardwalk used to be two blocks away. It was very devastating. Anyway, as our county had a 7PM curfew and we left our dogs at home, we went back home. Again, lights were out. The open  gas station we had passed earlier was now out of gas, but we passed another huge jam at a newly open station on the way home. We spent the evening as we had done the night before: fire, video games and wine.

Day 4. By then we had gotten into somewhat of a routine. Heat up food and water on the grill and begin the rotation of the electrical devices to charge in the cars, running partially on the car battery and partially starting the cars up. Our freezers were now our refrigerators, still cold enough for milk, but not for anything frozen, though the water bottles I had stuck in them before the storm were still pretty solid. One fortunate thing aside from the fireplace; because we have an old water heater that doesn't need electricity, our natural gas fueled hot water heater kept on giving us hot water for showers and baths, which things a little more tolerable as the temperature inside slipped into the 50s. This was the day my son and I went out for supplies, seeing what was open. We had two goals: extra batteries and bread, especially the batteries as we had been running our radio pretty much all the time while we were awake, listening to news, music, talk or sports. We went to the CVS near us, no dice, so we decided to go to our local supermarket, on the other side of 9. With the traffic lights down, the only way to cross 9 was to drive north or south to overpasses to cross over. We started down the road to 9 when, about 1.5 miles from 9, we got stuck in traffic. At the time I thought it was traffic trying to merge onto 9, so I detoured to another intersection and found no traffic. Oh those fools, I thought, they really need to detour. It was after I had looped around and headed back towards that intersection, I saw the reason for the traffic -- the gas station on that corner had reopened for gasoline sales. Yipes. The long gas lines had arrived in my town.

We proceeded to the generated powered supermarket and it was there we received our next taste of a disrupted supply chain. The store was half lit with shelves emptied of non perishable staples. Cashiers were checking receipts with the police keeping watch. When I asked if things were really that bad, they said yes, a little anarchy had apparently returned with some power to the store. One major focal point: the line for the coffee bar which apparently stretched all the way through produce, past all 18 cash registers and to the liquor store at the other end of the store. The line for cheap wine was shorter than for fresh coffee so I resupplied myself with what I needed to get through a few more cold nights with the kids. I also managed to buy 6 bags of ice, bread and some grape jelly.

When we got home, my wife told us the cancer hospital called and they wanted to squeeze her in for chemo that evening. It was then we discovered how bored the kids were when they begged her to take them. So, we all got in  my car for it's last long trip until the gas crisis eased, and drove to the hospital. The route closely paralleled the trip to my brother's. We noted a few more traffic lights working, plus an open WaWa with a long line for gas. The kids were so happy to be someplace with lights, hot prepared food, plugs and cable TV, even if it was tuned only to the news. We were like electric junkies getting our 21st century fix. By time we left, the sun had set and we got a better idea of where there was power and where there wasn't. At that point, there were way more without. Power to the north of us, power to the south, but we were stuck in the middle in the dark with the wine and firewood.

Day 5. Rinse and repeat. Except this time, as we were running out of food that we could easily cook, I made more of an effort to find prepared food and batteries. We got some food at Wegmans, but they were out of batteries. We went back to CVS where we were told that if we come back at 4PM, we could get batteries. When we got back at 4, the new batteries were already gone. Sighing, we drove a bit down the road, where I saw 7-11 was still closed, and then made a right at the next light. Yes light, the traffic light was working. So close! As we were going down the road, I looked to the left at the YMCA we go to and noticed their exterior lights looked to be on. Could it be? Well, yes, if you lived on that side of the road. That night another fire, a dinner warmed on the grill and another bottle of wine.

Day 6. Rinse and repeat, though this time the gym was open, so after 4 days I was able to work out again and watch TV. Almost normal. Later, while doing my now daily supply run, my wife called to tell me a friend on the side of the road with power had invited us over. We brought the food and electronics and enjoyed a day of heat and internet. The end was near. Still, when a landscaper cold called our friends to see if they wanted to pay them to cut up their fallen tree and haul it to the curb, I ran out and asked them to cut about 20 pieces of fireplace sized wood from the tree for me. Another night in front of the fire, reading, listening to the radio and sacrificing another bottle of wine.

Day 7. First day of standard time, though with no clocks to change the time and us rising with the sun anyway, it made little difference to us. When I went outside to place the tea kettle on the grill I noticed how cold it was that morning and thought that this was getting old. I started feeling very depressed, even my wife said this had cured her of the camping bug for a long time. My son was still going away that night with a friend so I dropped him off over there and got some extra Irene wood they had (they had borrowed a generator and were now powering their furnace). When I got home, my wife asked me to take our daughter out for lunch, as she needed the daylight hours to fold the laundry we had done the day before at our friends. First I tried to take her to her favorite casual hamburger place in a shopping center with power, but they weren't opened yet. I then tried to go to a nearby diner, but they had lines out the door. We finally ended up at the mall, which had also gotten power back the previous day. We walked by the many chairs, tables and extension cords around the center of the mall that management had set up for people to recharge and warm up. My daughter and I settled in at Johnny Rockets where, around 2PM, I received the message I had been waiting days to hear -- we have power! Woo hoo!

My mood was elated as my daughter and I walk around the mall. Even though I knew our suffering was nothing compared to those who still be without power as i write this almost a week later, or who lost more than power (one woman I went to high school with lost her Rockaways house, business and father in the days after the hurricane), I was getting mighty down about living in a cold dark house. We got home and I flipped on a light switch for the heck of it. Our long cold, dark nightmare was over. Hellooooo 21st century.

And then, after the cable came back on not long after halftime during the NY Giants loss, I put on the weather channel and saw that a Nor'Easter was forecast. Bring it I thought, after Sandy, this can't be too bad. Oh how I was wrong. I should have had another bottle of wine that night.