JHS Graduation Day

I wrote about my JHS 73 experience as an afterthought after I started looking for high school classmates. Interesting enough, I got a few feedbacks about the JHS 73 entry but nothing on the high school one. Here are some photos in case anyone know the teachers. This was 1982 so it's been almost 30 years, who know what happened to them after all that time.

I had Dr. Michael for some English class. I remember reading The Hobbits although I hardly knew what was going on. There was no DVD back then, but I might have read some Cliff Notes or Monarch Notes.

I cannot recall what class I had Ms. Cuffs but somehow I remember her name. In New York City, at one time there were these ads for teachers. It touts that people don't remember their managers' names etc. but teachers are remembered well. It is true.

I had Ms. Butler for English As A Second Language class. I had a great time when we had a school trip to Rye Playland.

Greetings from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn - NOT!

For years, I've been living in this area of Brooklyn that up to recently I believe to be called Bensonhurst. Perhaps when I first moved in my wife told me so and whenever I told people where I lived no one ever corrected me, so far. Recently I saw an article in AM New York about the neighborhood and it had a small blurb about Bensonhurst's border. Lo and behold, I realized that all these years I really lived in the neighboring area called Bath Beach. Even when I was staying with the in-laws over near Scarangella Parks, that was not Bensonhurst either.

In the map above, courtesy of Google Earth, I've outlined in Green the streets that form Bensonhurst's border. You may want to click on the picture to zoom in for a better view of the street names. Start from the southern point at the intersection of Stillwell Avenue and 86th Street, it goes north to Kings Highway, then east to MacDonald Avenue. From there, it goes up to 60th Street, then West-ish to New Utrecht Avenue then go back southeast to 86th Street, and finally along 86th Street back to the starting point of 86 and Stillwell.

It is neither bad nor good to live in Bensonhurst. I don't have any special attachments to it that would now shatter because I don't live there. Maybe some years, if I ever move again, I will look back with fond memories, like how I look back at my high school years in Elmhust, Queens. It is just surprising how things in life can go by undisturbed if no one looks at it. Wikipedia does state that it is a common mistake many people make in thinking Bensonhurst to include neighboring streets. I will have to ask my neighbors to find out how many know what area of Brooklyn they really live.

Rain. Shower. Drizzle.

I bought TypeDrawing last night from the App Store. Today, it rained pretty much all day, so what did I end up drawing? Something to do with umbrella and rain, of course!

The software is quite interesting. You type a sentence, choose a font, and a background, then as you draw with your finger on the iPhone/iTouch, the text is drawn out. In my case, the face was drawn from the phrase "Qaptain Qwerty" - if you don't know who that is, Google it. The umbrella of course is made from the word "umbrella". Lastly, the rain drops etc. came from the 3-word nonsensical sentence "rain shower drizzle", which almost accurately reflects the weather today. Well, at certain time of the day, we actually had downpour or torrent.

I've discovered that if you draw slowly, the types are small. Likewise, if you draw fast, the types are large. Not an easy thing to adjust to, but it is fun to play with. Perhaps because of the vector graphic nature of the program, there is no eraser tool, you just use the Undo button to work your way back, one line at a time.

iRealLife

Click on the picture to see a bigger version with the text more readable.