Month: October 2018

New York City in October 2018

I am posting the pictures I took yesterday from our 2018 NYC Bus Trip. It was a long day. We left this area around 7:00 am and arrived in Manhattan at approximately 10:30 am with a small 20 minute stop in between. A couple of things to point out.

  1. It was lightly raining most of the day. The rain was misting most of the time so it was just enough to keep my rain jacket wet.
  2. The temperature hovered around 48 for most of the day. Towards the end of the trip, temperatures climbed up to 50.
  3. The wind was pretty bad near the piers where the U.S.S. Intrepid was docked. This was probably the worst of it. As you moved around the city, the buildings protected us from most of the nasty wind.
  4. As far as the subway is concerned, the E-Train rocks! This train will get you from uptown to downtown for almost anything you want to do. The last time I was in NYC, the Metro card was $5.00 in 2010. Today, that same exact card is $10.00.
NYC Metro Card 2018
  1. Although I didn’t get  picture, these two guys were transporting a long piece of finished wood via the subway. An older lady boarded the train with her family and immediately grabbed the middle of the board and said “you two look like you could use some help.” It made everyone smile and just seemed like a great moment.
  2. I’ve never felt the power of NYC and it’s people like I have on this trip. It felt good to be a part of the world community and at some points I felt completely comfortable in the fact that these people had our backs. People smiling at each other, at complete strangers for no reason other than to acknowledge each other’s existence.
  3. Most people that we overheard on our travels spoke in a language other than English.
  • Rainy Saturday at LCO
  • Where Sully Landed in the Hudson
  • The Daily Show Studios
  • Apple Store inside WTC

We got to visit two main attractions while in the city, The U.S.S. Intrepid aircraft carrier from the World War II era and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The 3rd stop would have been Liberty Island but we simply didn’t have enough time to do all three; maybe next visit?

9/11 Memorial and Museum Ticket

Lessons learned:

  1. Do not try to just walk in to the Hard Rock Cafe at 5:00 pm on a Saturday and expect to get seated in a hurry. Plan on at least a 40 minute wait.
  2. Gotham Pizza rocks! It is a very small pizza shop (9th Ave. & W 19th St). I remember the pizza shop being closer to 8th avenue and 50th street but Google says otherwise.
  3. Try not to go to NYC when it is raining unless getting poked in your eyeballs by umbrella’s constantly is something you enjoy.
  4. Times Square on a Saturday night is a great example of “let’s see how many people we can fit into a small area.” You could barely move without touching someone else.

Even with the crappy weather this trip was wonderful. Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to do it again.

Better Uses for Lottery Money

Instead of a lottery with this much money to be given away…

via LNP

How about we use the money to help the homeless, fix our infrastructure, provide free internet to everyone, reduce taxes, and so on and so forth?

Just another case of me looking at society and saying “What the fonk, people?” We deserve to get wiped out by a big fat asteroid. The universe must be cringing when it looks our way.

What a bunch of fonking stupid monkeys.

Stolen iPhones

Please Note: The following applies equally to iPads as well.

If your iPhone gets stolen and you’ve done a few simple things — the phone is useless to anyone. The phone cannot be used and wiped without your authorization. The iPhone essentially becomes a brick. The most important thing you can do is to make sure that “Find my iPhone” is turned on.

ZDNet has a pretty good article about how a thief can actually use your stolen iPhone but it requires that the iPhone owner do some pretty bad things.

via ZDNet

In order for a thief to get your credentials to unlock the stolen phone you would have to give the credentials to them. Most folks wouldn’t knowingly do that but that is exactly how phishing works.

The best thing you can do if someone steals your phone is for you to conduct all business related to it through the official Apple website portal for iCloud. Do not follow any links in an email or elsewhere. Even if the email looks like it comes from Apple, go over to your browser and log in to Apple’s iCloud website that way.

When someone steals an iPhone, the odds are against them. It is exactly the same as if they’d stolen a brick from a construction site. Of course, most bricks do not have a built in GPS tracker.

If your iPhone gets stolen, play it cool and don’t panic. Instead of thinking about it negatively let’s call it a “forced upgrade.”

An Explosion in Allentown

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A car explosion that rocked downtown Allentown left three males dead, including the likely “perpetrator,” officials said Sunday as federal authorities who are leading the investigation looked ahead to autopsies.
“We know there’s been a criminal incident,” District Attorney James Martin told reporters at a news conference Sunday. “We have a high degree of confidence that the perpetrator was probably killed in the incident.”
Authorities released no information about the possible cause of Saturday night’s blast, including whether it was a bomb, but Martin said, “Loads of us in law enforcement” are confident “this was A. an isolated incident and B. there’s no continuing threat.”

via LNP (paid service)
Allentown PA – September 29, 2018