Sunrise, Summer’s Return, and Slow DSL.

Still fighting this upper respiratory infection and occasional elevated temperature, but after spending all of Thursday & Friday cooped up behind

closed doors, Neupogen shots and medicating as prescribed, I had to bust out.

Watching the sunrise always lifts me up and although it was still cloudy from the overnight storms, it made for a magnificent show off the east coast over the Atlantic. There were few people around, a few folks in slickers walking their dogs, some cyclists and a runner or two. The die-hards!

I sat in peace and enjoyed my iced coffee just happy to be out and among the living. I walked the entire length of the boardwalk (a mile) before heading back home.  It was getting hotter by the minute making it difficult to breathe. It began to sprinkle again, as another storm was on the way. 

As I arrived, Verizon trucks were parking up and down the street.  They’ve been doing lots of work in town, especially, improving and updating wiring in the old bungalows on streets like mine. Since I’ve been having speed issues with my DSL lately, I stopped a friendly looking chap and asked if their work could be causing interference with my upload and download speeds. 

The look on his face said it all, but he regurgitated the company line about speeds varying due to traffic, the plan you have and blah, blah, blah. He did affirm that my phone service had probably been disrupted over the last month or two(which would disrupt the DSL as well), and that I should call the business office to file a complaint;  there may be some compensation for my being inconvenienced. I thought I’d been promised this already, but have not seen proof on the monthly statements.

The fact that they’re working on a weekend was surprising, but the weather has been stormy and hot,  I assume they are on some sort of schedule to get the job finished.

The work being done here is wiring many older homes for the first time for high speed and television services. Many of the bungalows have been sold or changed hands within families and they want to have all the channels of the stoopid available here that they’re running away from at home.  Makes perfect sense.  Not!

There is a lot of infrastructure work to be done and Verizon’s man said they’d likely to be in the area into the next month or more. So, I can look forward to more disruptions in both phone and internet service for a while.  

We pay the highest prices for the poorest quality service in the western world and there’s no end in sight. And the whole idea of bundling all services into a single package with one company seems absolutely insane to me, especially after the Comcast fiasco of a few weeks ago when a few thousand customers lost all services for a few days.  This is 2014 and there is no reason for that to happen outside of a natural disaster. 

Lungs refreshed, filled with good salt air, I opened the windows again for a few hours to do the same for the apartment. Until the heat became too oppressive. Feeling energetic, I made a warm potato salad, one of friend Peter’s great recipes, and enjoyed it with my lunch.

The cough remains annoying and I am tired now.  A good kind of tired. For what it’s worth, I found out the world is still out there, as is the ocean, and I can rest easy this evening. 

And so it goes.

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Forgetful Caturday

We all have those moments, don't we?
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BP May Be Fined Up to $18 Billion for Spill in Gulf

Hot on the heels of the announced Halliburton settlement comes this, making me think that there is still more covered up.  From the New York Times:

NEW ORLEANS — In the four years since the blowout on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers and sent millions of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has spent more than $28 billion on damage claims and cleanup costs, pleaded guilty to criminal charges and emerged a shrunken giant.
But through it all, the company has maintained that it was not chiefly responsible for the accident, and that its contractors in the operation, Halliburton and Transocean, should shoulder as much, if not more, of the blame.
On Thursday, a federal judge here for the first time bluntly rejected those arguments, finding that BP was indeed the primary culprit and that only it had acted with “conscious disregard of known risks.” He added that BP’s “conduct was reckless.”
By finding that BP was, in legal parlance, grossly negligent in the disaster, and not merely negligent, United States District Court Judge Carl J. Barbier opened the possibility of $18 billion in new civil penalties for BP, nearly quadruple the maximum Clean Water Act penalty for simple negligence and far more than the $3.5 billion the company has set aside.

The rest of the piece is HERE.

And so it goes.
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Just a Thought: Life

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Out of the Blue - In Kilts!

"Don't You Want Me" Recorded live at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I just love these guys. They love what they do, work hard at it, and do it so well.

The link was sent by a visitor who read about my Labor Day Happy Hour adventure and wearing my kilt. She said, "I hope this makes your day."

It did. "Boing - Boing"

And so it goes.
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Throwback Thursday: Pennsylvania

Washington's Crossing on the Delaware River and New Hope and the historic Delaware Canal.  With friends, Autumn 1977

Delaware River near Washington's Crossing. 

Delaware River Looking to Lambertville, NJ

With longtime friend, Ted.

Historic Delaware Canal Barge Tours

With friends, Harry & Ted on Lambertville-New Hope Bridge across the Delaware River.

Downstream look at the Historic Delaware Canal.

(Click here for more recent info on the historic canal.)

Harry and Ted were off work and it promised to be a glorious Autumn weekend. Harry, from Australia, had never seen much outside of NYC. We settled on this little outing and said, "Hello, Avis?" Car rentals were the quickest, easiest and least expensive transportation out of Gotham back then. We did it often.

We had breakfast at a cafe in New Hope then absorbing all the historic information we could, made a picnic in the woods near Washington's Crossing.

And so it goes.
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Just a Thought: Roads

More later

h/t:Calvin

Gotham Must Wait. Or, Not.

A  trip to NYC, including an extensive tour of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is currently off the gay agenda. At least for now, anyway. As I wrote last week, there was a tentative plan in the works through the Cancer Center here  for me to be evaluated for any suitable trials or upcoming studies at MSK.

Aside from being a logistical nightmare - get to Amtrak in Wilmington, DE for a train to NYC, subways/walk to the hospital on York Avenue at 67th Street; go through hours of paperwork, tests, and mental evaluation. (I'd probably flunk right there.) Then reverse the whole affair to Penn Station, to Wilmington, then the drive back home (about 2.5 hour drive) - especially since I would be going it alone the events of this week have pretty much killed the idea. At least to my mind.

I suddenly caught a cold, or had an allergic reaction to something (take your pick) a few days ago and spiked a fever.  With this, at no extra charge, came chest congestion and a wicked cough.  In a Neutropenic like myself, this sets off flashing lights and blaring sirens. Spent 4 hours at the center as they drew blood cultures, took urine samples, prescribed a mega-antibiotic, and re-prescribed one med that was put on hold a few days prior. 

Two days later the fever broke, just in time for the HH Party Monday afternoon.  No fever has dared to return since.

Blood work yesterday revealed low CBC again.  Not good news. There was only a slim chance I could have made the Manhattan trip alone under those circumstances. I didn’t like the odds.

I received 1 unit of blood today, am scheduled for Neupogen shots the next 3 days. The 4th and final cycle of Chemo begins on Monday for 7 consecutive days. There is no time for NYC in there, anywhere.  Even if there was the luxury of door-to-door transportation, it wouldn’t work out right now.

So with all this not happening, it’s another round of hurry up and wait.

I have no other medical appointments for the rest of the week and I am loving it no end. Lots of YouTube documentaries in my future, thank you very much.

And so it goes.

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Halliburton To Pay $1.1 Billion Settlement Over Gulf Oil Spill

Halliburton & BP?  Pay Up?  Watch out for snowballs in Hell.

From the AP:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Halliburton's agreement to pay more than $1 billion to settle numerous claims involving the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill could be a way for the company and victims of the spill to avoid years of costly litigation — if all the pieces fall into place.
A federal judge still has to approve the settlement. That same judge has rulings pending on the extent to which parties, including Halliburton, were negligent in the deadly explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig. Those rulings could affect plaintiffs' decisions on whether to participate in the settlement, which was announced Tuesday.
Pending action by the Supreme Court over interpretations of an earlier BP settlement with businesses also comes into play.
Joe Rice, of the law firm Motley Rice, which has been working for the plaintiffs, doesn't see those as major barriers to the settlement.
"They're not extremely complicated pieces," said Rice. "Whereas the litigation would be extremely complicated."
The settlement involves commercial or subsistence fishermen or hunters whose catches were affected by the spill, and businesses and property owners, including local government entities, who had property touched by the oil. They would be able to collect punitive damages from Halliburton through a fund to be administered by a court-appointed representative. The agreement also would settle claims for a separate class of businesses and individuals who were deemed to have causes of action against Halliburton under BP's 2012 settlement with businesses affected by the spill.

The rest is HERE.

Look for this to roll around the courts for a while, but don't look for any actual monies to change hands.  I truly doubt that will ever happen.  We're talking Dick Cheney's claws here.

And so it goes.

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Just a Thought: Gone

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All Over, But The Happy Hour Lingered

I was correct in assuming, by the obvious evidence, dear Dr. Watson, that the holiday makers began leaving the beach Saturday night or Sunday morning. Turned out the forecast update (yet again) called for showers Sunday night and Monday all day.

The place was a ghost town by Monday afternoon. The showers dried up by late afternoon and by the time I got the call that my ride was on her way, the sky was clear.  The clear sky didn’t reduce the humidity however, as we met up with the group at Stoney Lonen. It was clear that the season was over.

A large sign greeted us at the front door - “Irish Sunscreen: Join us in the Pub.” I hope I don’t have to explain this one.

When I walked in Chester looked me over in the kilt and said, “properly dressed, I see.  And what kind of sunscreen will you be drinking?” We all had a good laugh and settled in. 

Another guy arrived in a kilt and we acknowledged each other and smiled.  A while later a drink appeared before me and from the other end of the bar there was an arm with a glass raised. The toast of “Slainte” echoed through the bar. Well, Linda was in heaven, and the others in our group stopped making silly jokes about the kilt and you know, like wearing frilly knickers!!!

We knocked back Bangers & Mash, Irish Nachos (large roasted potato wedges covered in melted cheese, double cream and diced tomatoes), Irish Onion Rings and shrimp, of course. I downed 2 pints of Guinness  - Chester doing a proper Irish pour all the way. 

I sent my kilted friend a drink a little later on, and the same thing happened all over again. “Slainte” What great fun.  By now Brian, the owner, having complimented me on my attire is hanging out and complaining about being in the kitchen rather than in his kilt. 

This was interesting because my early kilt days were in a mostly gay environment. This was none of that, but more. A few guys - young and older - asked questions and showed genuine interest in getting a kilt of their own. One guy especially liked the kilt pin, so I shared its story with him, too. There is a sense of freedom and camaraderie that goes along with wearing a kilt, and it has nothing to do with being surrounded by gay men. Very interesting, indeed.

It was time for Linda to introduce me to another new cocktail; this one very popular in Ireland this year. I don’t remember if there is a proper name for it, but Linda referred to it as an Irish Whiskey Black Russian.  Yes, I know.  Confusing.  But the taste was unusual, engaging, and well, different.  All in a good way. 

Now that the season is over most everyone is planning a holiday somewhere on the planet. Frank is going to Key West, Andrew is heading for St. Petersburg Russia, others are heading to California and Canada, and Linda will spend a 2 weeks in Ireland with her family in a few weeks time. All their plans sound so wonderful and they deserve the break after the busy season here. 

As we were about to leave the kilt-clad gentleman came by to shake hands and one of our group made an embarrassing mistake. He asked what was under the kilt. The gentleman smiled at me and I beckoned him to continue. You can imagine how often that stupid question is asked. My new friend smiled, took the open hand of the questioner and held it up. A deadpan expression.

“It is said that the difference between a kilt and a skirt is undergarments. If you wear undergarments in a normal situation, you’re wearing a skirt. If not, you’re wearing a kilt. Now, do you want to find out which it is that I wear this day?” The entire bar let out a “Whoop!” Then the applause. My friend disengaged his hand from the other and offered a goofy smile in return. Some people just never learn.

With 2 pints, 2 shots and 2 Irish Black Russians under my belt doing their thing with the sausages, shrimp and other goodies, we were about pooped out.  There were dogs to be walked and some semblance of normalcy to restore to the lives of these people. 

I was dropped off at home feeling happier than I have in a while.  Since the last HH party, in fact.  With everyone going separate ways I think it may be a while before the tribe meets up again, but that’s fine. I have a lot to remember, relive, and make me smile.

And so it goes.

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Just a Thought: Children

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