Before Hurricane Irene - Walking Around Brooklyn

The full photo album is on my Picasa albums...

Saturday I didn't really want to sit around the apartment all day before Hurricane Irene hit, especially as it was nicer out than it had been most of the summer, lots of clouds and breeze...

After Leena and got off the phone I showered and got my green tea ready and switched to the widest lens on my camera (which I haven't been using in the summer because in sunshine there's too much contrast between light and dark).

I found a map of New York City from the city which shows the various hurricane evacuation zones.  I planned a rough route to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade that would avoid all the evacuation zones in between, which re mainly the ones lower down, closer to the water.  My own apartment is about three blocks uphill from where they're evacuating.

Then I headed out.  Since 5th Avenue was the edge of some of it, I walked up to 6th Avenue to be sure I stayed out of those zones.  There was less traffic, but lots of people walking along 6th Avenue.  Every time I passed by friends or neighbors who were passing each other the conversations between them was usually "hey, we're having a hurricane party tonight, come on over.  We have wine, but if you want, bring some beers, too…"

Almost everyone coming out of a grocery store when I was passing by had either bottled water or beer, and the wine shops (retailers selling bottled wine, not bars) were packed with people, more than I usually see…

I hadn't gone more than a few blocks before the heat started getting to me.  It's super hot out today, even if it doesn't look like it should be…  My clothes were just sticking to me…

Once I got up to Flatbush Avenue, I took a bit of a zig-zag path through the Boerum Hill and Brooklyn Heights neighborhoods.  I tried to explore some of the streets I'd crossed before without walking along and that was fun.

On Livingston Street I got soaked as the rain started pouring and pouring.  Lots of big, fat drops…  But it felt so much cleaner than the sweat, so that was good.  Once under a construction scaffold, and out of the rain I took out my phone.  In my pocket it was getting a bit wet, since my pants were soaking through.  I stuck it in a water resistant compartment of my backpack that has rubber covering the zipper to help keep the water out.

Around there I also got lost and where I thought I was walking to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, I ended up on a street going downhill and under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.  I knew that was wrong, because the promenade is on top of the BQE…

Fortunately I was only about two blocks off, and it was easy to find where I needed to go.

I've been on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade a couple of times before, and it's always been pretty crowded, but not today.  Today there were maybe a dozen people or so on it.  Most with umbrellas.  Some people relaxed on the wet benches…  When I was up there it wasn't raining anymore, so I took out my big camera and used that to take some photos.  I haven't offloaded them to the computer yet to see them…

At the far end of the promenade there's a little circle with benches all around and lots of trees on one side.  In the middle is a weird sculpture with zodiac signs and roman numerals and all that.  I took lots of photos of that, with light shining through the little droplets of rain water hanging off it…

Then since it was pretty calm I went down the hill to the Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is unambiguously in the evacuation zone, right on the water…

The main part of the park was blocked off with a police barricade and an officer was standing there.  But one small pier (the one with all the wedding parties I photographed from another) was open and a few people were milling about.  I wandered out there and took some photos, too.  Across the river the heavy clouds were covering the tops of the lower Manhattan sky scrapers, while looking a both farther away the top of the Empire State Building was fading into the clouds…  Pretty cool looking.

I walked around down there for a little while, as all was calm no wind and no rain.  I photographed a lot of graffiti on a building under the Brooklyn Bridge.  I'd seen it before, but usually there so many people I felt like I'd be in the way if I was blocking the sidewalk to take photos.  Not today, of course…

There were continuous patrols from police cars with their lights flashing, but no sirens.  I guess checking to make sure no one was looting because of general solitude down there.  Or keeping an eye out to be able to tell people to leave if it got later or the wind started picking up.

From there I worked my way up hill and back to my neighborhood.  By then the subway was shut down so walking was the only option.

On the way I stopped for a couple of slices of pizza and a Coke at a place that was open.  Restaurants were a mixed bag, some open, some closed that are usually open on Saturday afternoons…  Some jam packed with people and some virtually empty.

I was uncomfortable in the restaurant because my clothes were completely soaked and sticking to me, while sweat was running down my face into my mouth while I was eating…

After getting back to the apartment the first thing I did was move the computer some distance from the windows so I can keep them open without worrying about the computer.

By around 7pm the rain outside was picking up again.  It's very, very noisy, dripping down on the air conditioners that stick out of the windows.  Louder than the music I was playing…

Earthquake, Hurricane? Wasn't G-d...

So far this week, in the subway stations I've been to, the street preachers (and at least one prominent national politician (who has since backtracked to say it was just a joke)) have a common theme...  That last week's earthquake and this weekends Hurricane Irene are the wrath of G-d...

But I must disagree...  Basically on the whole G-d thing to start with...

I think the concept of G-d may have made sense a long time ago, and still does slightly.  G-d is a good way to to fill in the blanks, the unknown knowledge.  Thousands of years ago people probably didn't know about meteorology, why it rained, why it didn't and things like that.  They were probably used the normal, average yearly weather cycles, and when things deviated, when big storms came, they just prayed to G-d(s) and do it long enough and the cycles swing back to normal...

But we humans have, overall, accumulated more knowledge that's built up and built up...  Why use G-d to fill in blanks that simply aren't there anymore?

For instance, if a young child is just learning math, and thinks 2 + 3 is 6, we might be pleased that they're working on learning math, and eventually they'll learn a more accurate answer.  But if years later they persist in thinking 2 + 3 is 6, because they don't want to change, we'll, we won't really stand for that.

So we do so many people do that with religion?

Baggin' It!

I'd been using the same backpack for years, a nice, cheap purple one I bought on a whim in 1993.  I wasn't shopping around for a backpack at the time, I just happened to be in a department store in Beaverton and bought a Computer Shopper magazine that was too big for the backpack I was happily using at the time, so I went to the stores bag section and found one that would hold the magazine, was cheap and I liked the purple.

The original, hard-to-replace, worn out bag...

After that, I used it all the time, I carried it to work every day after that.  I used it as my carry-on bag when traveling on vacations.  I hauled it to India on vacation where it got chewing gum stomped onto one shoulder strap on the Jhelum train from Delhi to Pune...

I carried spare clothes in it when walking to work in the pouring rain, laptops wrapped in multiple plastic grocery bags.  I've stuffed it almost to the bursting point at times.

It was the near perfect bag.  The pockets were arranged just right, everything I put in it was exactly where I needed it to be, and easily accessible without pulling the bag out from under the airplane seat in front of me.  Laptop, books, camera, water, snacks, sweatshirts...  One pocket was just right for any of the diaries I took with me on my travels, plus nice pens.  And the outermost was perfect for travel papers, passport, plane tickets, cash...  And since everything had its place, I could easily take stuff out and put stuff back in while walking through an airport or a busy sidewalk...

But alas, time had its way with it...  And the TSA, too...  The first real damage to it came while boarding a flight out of PDX, when a security agent tore off one of the zippers at the last check before getting on the plane...  Oops...  She apologized, and when I asked if there was anything they could do about the damage, she said yes, but I'd have to skip my flight to file paperwork.  So I didn't anything about it (not with more than 20 hours of connecting flights starting in San Francisco and Seoul before arriving in India...)

Hipstamatic photo with an
octopus toy...

After that I also started washing it in our washing machine and then the water resistant lining inside began wearing away.  And the zippers got worse and worse over time, and the nylon fabric started unraveling and threads got stuck in the zippers...  And the hand strap is getting close to ripping out....  Well, you know, it was a cheap backpack, and it's getting worn out after nearly two decades...

In 2007 and 2008 I browsed around shops in London looking for a replacement backpack, and saw some interesting ones (I particularly liked some stuff at a water sports shop near Embankment, and one of my friends bought a pretty cool bag when I took him there), but I guess my heart wasn't quite into replacing a trusted, old friend because nothing was "just right".

Now in New York City I've been looking for a replacement, and I've tried a bunch out, too...

First I got a nice, green waxed canvas backpack from Brooklyn Industries that seemed good, especially for daily hauls to work and back when I don't need to carry much.  I used it a bit, off and on.  Being small, it's good in a crowd, I don't have to worry so much about bashing other people with it.

But it had some significant flaws...  The wax felt kind of funny on my hands, but not a big deal, not compared to the other problems.  The red flannel lining looked cool inside, but then my iPad, camera and anything else I carried ended up with red fibers all over, which is not good...  And one day I bought a box of Saltine crackers to take to work as a snack, and no matter how I oriented it, it simply wouldn't fit.  The bag just got too narrow at the top...

After that I rarely bothered with it.  For the rainier days I simply wrapped things in plastic bags and tossed into my leaky, purple bag.

Then on New Year's Day in 2011 I had a whim to go look at some bags at the Oakley store on 9th Avenue at 14th Street (don't look for it now, it's closed...).  Oakley has some good sports gear.  I ended up buying the Surf Pack, and maybe I wouldn't have if I didn't have a rip roaring headache that day.

I really didn't use the Surf Pack much right away.  It's quite big, and as I was taking the subway daily at the time it felt too bulky in the crowded trains, like I was using more space than I really needed to.  It has one main compartment, so everything sort of jams into there, without much division, except for stuff like medicines and pens and a small notepad into some of the side pockets.  Really, as the name implies, they intend it to carry a bundle of wet suit gear, not really urban adventuring...

Still, though, it proved exceptionally useful when I was moving apartments, simply because it's big.  I could carry a significant amount of stuff per trip using it, and it was comfortable to haul a heavy load right on my shoulders.  I'm glad I got it for that alone.

On the other hand, when I had something recently that was large and blocky, it wouldn't fit into the tapered top of the Surf Pack, even if the total volume was okay for it.

Shortly after that I got a Wenger Synergy bag that I bought on a whim at Best Buy, where they had it in the section of laptop bags.  It's got lots of pockets, lots of space, a sturdy bottom so it stands up straight most of the time.  It's quite a bit larger in all dimensions than my old purple one.  But the odd thing is, when I was transferring "stuff" between them, the things I always seemed to have in the purple one, with plenty of space for shopping, seemed to take up much more of the Wegner bag.  It seemed like much of the Wegner bag's space was taken up by compartment separators and things like that...

Another major problem with it is that the zipper pulls inside are all solid pieces of metal, without small holes in them like most zippers.  Minor thing, but my mother gave me a glass pendant on a small chain years ago "to ward off the evil eye" and this bag doesn't have a good place to attach it.

Worse still, once I started actually using it a bit, it wasn't all that comfortable.  The arrangement of the back padding just didn't seem to conform to the shape of my back very well.  I was constantly fidgeting and moving my shoulders around to try and get comfortable in it, but no luck.  I think it's made for someone with a larger back than me.

el Cheapo Target

And frankly, I was never happy with the color, the blue, black and silver, with some red highlights and some high tech looking, but useless grommets...  After I bought it I've seen a few people around with green ones, but not many.  I'd rather have that...

At Target one day I picked up really cheap green backpack, but after getting it home and comparing it with others, it's really small, and the nylon makes an annoying crinkly sound.  I haven't even taken the tags off it yet to try it out.  Maybe I will, maybe I won't...

A couple of weeks after that I bought another Oakley bag, Contact that I don't see online anymore.  It's kind of classy looking, and has lots of pockets, while not being too big, so everything is fairly compact.  It has a removable bag on top, with a few pockets, good places to put everything.

Oakley Contact

It's comfortable enough to carry, but is smaller than the old purple one, so I can't fit quite as much as I'm used to.  Its two main pockets are different sizes, which always throws me for a loop, too.  Carrying a camera, spare lens, iPad and a book is really too much for it, they fit, but nothing is comfortable to get in and out without something else feeling like it's in the way.

And unfortunately, it doesn't have a mesh sort of pocket outside for a water bottle, so to get a drink I have to set it down and open it up.

And when shopping, it doesn't have much capacity, especially not if I already have my camera gear in it.  Since a lot of the shopping I do is books, bulky books, that puts a serious crimp in my style...

Recently I ordered a Kelty Women's Redwing 40 from Zappos.  I did a bit of reading and comparison before picking that and thinking it sounded like just what I need.  I figured a women's size might suit my smaller back a little better, and the overall size looked pretty good.  Not to mention the kick-ass green!

The night i got it I figured out how to get the waist belt off it, since I've never really used one of those and wasn't sure I needed it in the city.  Maybe it'll be useful to put back on in cold weather, but in the heat it can't be comfortable.

While I like it, after a few weeks of using it, I suspect it's designed more for hiking out of the city and overnight camping than for city adventures and commuting...  It came with detailed instructions on how to pack it, including putting light, bulky things, such as a sleeping bag, on the bottom, and heavier stuff on top. Plus it's got a lot of straps and harnesses that probably hold it steady while hiking on uneven terrain, up hills and down mountains (and if I tried to use all of them, taking it off would probably be as complicated as getting a bra off my wife...) that aren't necessary on pavement and walking up the steps to the High Line...

Regarding their packing instructions, I can see how they make sense.  When I simply toss in my camera and a lens, the bottom isn't rigid at all, so those heavy item just pull it down and inside the bag they bounce against my butt when I walk, which is annoying.

Due to the floppy bottom and the width, it proved useful in Manhattan at stopping a handball some kids accidentally knocked over a fence.  I was able to swing the bag down at the ground and keep the ball from rolling into the street, then hand it back to them inside the fenced handball court.

Another problem is when riding on the subway, without it being packed pretty full it won't stand up next to me for me to use as an armrest.  When I try that, it just sort of slides away from me along the seat.

It also does have ice ax loops though, so now I can finally buy that ice ax I've always wanted but never had anywhere to put...

I recently ordered the Burton Profanity Pack from Zappos and after about a week of using it I like it.  It doesn't seem to have the biggest capacity, or the most pockets, but for a general use bag, it seems pretty good.

I've carried it to work for a week and there hasn't been any trouble, although it wouldn't hold a larger size Amazon box that I received at work.  It has two mesh pockets on the sides, so I can carry a water bottle in one and a Thermos of cold-brewed green tea in the other.  When loaded with just the camera and lens it didn't weight down heavily like the Kelty bag.  And I was still able to do some light shopping and carry on top of that.

With the camera and lens in the main compartment, I carried the iPad and a book in the narrower laptop compartment, and the book was easy to take out and put back in when I hung out in a park to read.  That was a lot better than the same situation with the Oakley Contact bag.

Certainly with name like "Profanity Pack" it puts a bit of a grin on my face whenever I put it on...

Online Order Wishlist

Now that I'm preparing for a trip to India, we're doing a lot of online shopping for things (what things? that's not important for this...).  So far we've had at least one package go awry, and maybe more of that to come...

One feature I'd like to see from online stores is either being able to specify a shipping company, e.g. UPS or U.S. Postal Service, or be able to specify a shipping address based on what shipping company the seller picks.  With nearly all online stores, as a customer I only pick what level of shipping service I want, and the seller picks which company to use for that service.

The problem I have now is that my office is actually on a residential block in Brooklyn, and so the U.S. Postal Service won't deliver packages there, and so far the mailman has yet to leave one of those yellow slips, so anyone going to nearest post office to get it has to fight and argue with the clerks.  UPS delivers reliably (and I'm buddies with the delivery guy, we talk about Hindi movies and things when he comes by...)  FedEx is a toss-up, some packages come, some don't.

On the flip side, my apartment has a small entrance where anyone can come in, but then a locked door to reach the lobby and the mailboxes.  The local mail carrier has a key so he or she can get in to deliver the mail and leave packages on a table.  But UPS doesn't, so UPS requires someone to actually receive the package or they can leave it in the unlocked, unsecured area.

So, the problem is that when placing an order, if I don't want to pay extra for some fast, expensive shipping, I don't know if the seller is going to use UPS or USPS, so I don't know which address to give to actually receive the package.

With Amazon or Zappos, it's easy.  I paid for Amazon Prime, so they ship almost everything with 2nd day air via UPS.  Sure, it costs, but the $79 a year is worth it to get things fast and reliably.  With Zappos, Leena and I are VIP customers, so they ship everything with overnight shipping for free, via UPS.  With those two I know exactly how I'll get the package and it works great.

But with any other sellers, I just don't know.

This past weekend we placed an order from Macy's, who has used USPS in the past.  I mistakenly ordered it to be shipped to my office, then spent time Sunday morning on the phone with a Macy's customer service representative to get it changed to my apartment address.  She wasn't able to do it because the package was already packed and in their shipping department for pickup.  Later I saw it was being shipped via UPS and figured that's fine, I'll get it at the office.  Then Tuesday morning she called me back and said they were successfully able to make an address change request after UPS picked it up, so UPS would deliver it to my apartment address as I requested...

Yesterday we got an online notification that UPS delivered the package, left it at the door of my apartment building.  However, when I got home there was no package.  No package anywhere....  It's probably been stolen.

So, the feature I'd like to see from online sellers is to set up conditions or "business rules" where I can specify the address based on the shipper they use.