SAYONARA FULL MENORAH, HELLO SEMI-NORAH

On Sunday December 22 of this year, 9:30 A.M., I will be at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, corner of Union Street and Prospect Park West (PPW), to lead a run that draws a menorah.  I did a test run today, but I was not in the right frame of mind to do the entire menorah, just the left-half, or what I call a semi-norah.  As in semicircle.

The design called for about 8 miles, today's run came out to about 4 miles, so that's about right.  The original 8 miles didn't include a base, so I added it today but it still looks not wide enough.

For the official run, I re-designed the route to have narrower distances between the branches, shorter stem, and wide stem, all resulting in the shorter distance of six miles.

Lastly, check out the video made via Relive.cc.  Because of some disagreement between Relive.cc and Strava, I had to use Runkeeper, which weirdly didn't show the run to Relive.cc.  I had to log into Runkeeper on a computer and export the route to GPX then import that into Relive.cc, again on a computer.

The run is made for the Prospect Park Track Club but as with most, if not all, PPTC events, the run is open to the public.  If route art is your interest, come join me on Sunday Dec 22 at 9:30 A.M., Union Street and PPW.

https://www.relive.cc/view/vRO7d8ZzMK6

MISSED OPPORTUNITY: VETERANS DAY 2019

This past Veterans Day I had to go to work.  I usually do, the places I worked at don't observe the holiday so it's not that different this year.  What is slightly different is that as we had a meeting in a big conference room, someone asked if anyone present is a veteran.  There were some and we thanked them for their service to the nation.  I wanted to crack a joke but all I could come up was that I was a veteran of the Battle of the Sexes.  Not even a veteran of some war, lame.  Only days later that I came up with the following "Wars" to jokingly claim to be a veteran of:

• The Browsers War.  Remember that one, when the world wide web first came into being?  It was Netscape Navigator against Microsoft's Internet Explorer
• The Cola War.  Coke vs. Pepsi.  Even rock-n-roll got involved, I can't take it anymore.
• The War on Drugs.  I don't do drugs, nothing to add here.  Maybe too serious and not belongs here.
• The War on Poverty.  I lost that one, still not Rich, may even be heading to Poor.  Too serious, too, but a tad not as serious as Drugs.
• The Platform War.  Mac vs. PC.  Or should that be GUI War?  Finder vs. Windows 95?

What other not-so-serious Wars can be included?

TWIST TIES AND SHOUT

Part of my job the past few years involves opening boxes containing new computer equipment.  The pieces often come with cables that are held together with twist ties.  Said twist ties are thrown away by most, if not all, of my colleagues.  I am sure most people do that too.  I just cannot stand seeing something perfectly re-usable being thrown away.  Most of the time I save them but then I don't use them fast enough.  What to do with all these twist ties?  I try to find uses for them and just yesterday found an innovative way to.

I had a need to find out, among the many cables going down a grommet hole, if a particular cable goes to a particular computer.  The area where the cables go through is dark and tight.  Some of the cables are tightened with zip ties such that they cannot be pulled much.  I hate zip ties!  In my last job, I know a guy who tried to cut a zip tie with a knife and ended up putting a big gash on his forearm.  Zip ties should be banned!  Anyway, back to my cabling woe.  So I couldn't tug on the cable I was working with to see where it goes.  And it's dark back behind the desk.  I happened to have a twist tie attached to my ID lanyard.  I wrapped the twist tie around the cable and slowly push it down the grommet hole, along the suspect cable, until I was able to catch it.  Voila!  It indeed connected to the computer I suspected it would.

YAHOO! FREECYCLE => TRASH NOTHING

I share administration responsibilities for a Buy Nothing group on Facebook but occasionally I still check in with the two Yahoo! Freecycle groups I belong to.  Big news!  Yahoo! is essentially ending support for Yahoo!Groups!!!

Below is the info from the Freecycle New York City, which covers all five boroughs of NYC.  I haven't checked out Trash Nothing but Yahoo!Groups I know is so clunky by 2019 standard.  It is about time.  So long Yahoo!Groups...

We're happy to announce that New York City Freecycle is moving to the trashnothing.com site.

Sign up now at:
https://trashnothing.com/freecyclenewyorkcity

The new site makes freecycling quicker and easier with:

- group posts categorized & color coded by type (Offer, Want, ..)
- automatic removal of offers that are taken & wants that are received
- instant email alerts for items you're interested in
- all your group posts in one place
- it works great on phones & tablets
- simple photo galleries, spam protection & more!

See all the features at: https://trashnothing.com/freecyclenewyorkcity

谢谢你的爱

A pun may not be funny if it has to be explained but I'll take the chance so you may appreciate the punchline in the previous post. 谢谢你的爱 is the title of a popular song by Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau.  It means Thank You for Your Love.  In pinyin (the romanization of Chinese characters to make it easier for non-native people to read Chinese) the phrase is xie xie ni de ai.  I readily associated the last three words as near the eye.  Then at some point I thought of the catchphrase See Spot run from a series of children's book.  So I got See + something that sounds like xie + near the eye, but what can that something be?  President Xi of China was a good match, although I mean no offense to not refer to him as President.  I could have drawn a cartoonish version of him, as opposed to the stick figure, but I want to avoid any misunderstood bad portrait of him.  At one time, I thought of using the nickname of an old nurse in the news, See See, but given all the news about U.S.-China relations these days, President Xi makes more sense.  Originally I was going to draw the Statue of Liberty, with different views of it as the helicopter buzzes about.  It would be a lot of work.  Luckily, a recent visit to the Statue got me a few photos that I was able to use as the backdrop edited in Gimp (the free alternative to Photoshop and its annoying subscription model).

So there you have, a pun in two languages, a bit convoluted, but it's definitely original.  That's my style, I try to come up with original content.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR LOVE

A pun for music fans of Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau.

This is the Statue of Liberty

That is President Xi Jinping of China on a helicopter tour to view the Statue of Liberty

See President Xi near the torch.

See Xi near the crown.

See Xi near the mouth.

See Xi near the ear.

See Xi near the nose.

See Xi near the eye.

PINNED TEMPLATES

A few days ago, I wrote about using Office templates to make repetitive tasks easier to handle.  The way Microsoft wants us to launch the template files, I don't like it at all.  There are just too many clicks to go through.  My approach is to save the template files somewhere easily reached, like Documents folder or top level of network home drive.  Be sure to pin Outlook application to the Taskbar.  Have Windows Explorer opened to where the template file lives.  Right-click the template file and drag it onto the Outlook icon in the Taskbar, at which point the mouse pointer should mention Pin to Outlook.  Let go.  Next time you need to launch the template, right-click on the pinned Outlook icon and the template is right there at the top of the list, similar to what I have below.  Click the item and you are ready to breeze through it.

GOOGLE MAPS WITH STRESS LEVEL?

Nowadays many of us depend so much on GPS devices or smartphone apps to guide us as we hurry from home to work or elsewhere.  It's pretty good, how did we ever live without them?  But they can be better.  How often do you hear Google Maps say "There is an accident on So-and-so Turnpike and traffic is heavy but you are still on the fastest route"?  Or when you look at the options for the few routes you can go from Point A to Point B, the highway option is dark red but is still somehow faster than the local route?  I usually choose the local, slower option.  Or whatever the other option that may not be the fastest.  When there's an accident, if it's not too bad one lane of the say, three-lane highway is unusable.  If you are unlucky to be stuck in that lane, you move slowly toward the wreck and then some a**hole in the next lane will try not to let you in, oh because they are so important.  The stress in such situation must be high.  Maybe some day we all will have biotech equipment on us that feeds the phone vital data like blood pressure etc and based on that the GPS app will also list stress level as a factor for taking so-and-so route.  I know I hate to be stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway so even if I have to stop at every red light on the local street, at least with that I can divert my eyes briefly from the sorry sight of traffic jam when I stop at red lights.

TEMPLATE IN A TEACUP?

Every now and then I would meet a computer user who says he has some template file to help speed up some repetitive task.  Microsoft Word may not be the best program to create forms but it does the job.  In the case of said user, he would have some MS Word document, say Request-Form.docx.  A bonafide MS Word file, that he opens, then erases a word here and there and enter the new information.  Then he Save As some other names, say Request-12345.docx.  I am such a stickler when it comes to language and terms, the idea of calling such a document a template annoys me to no end.  That's not how a template is supposed to be.  If one day he forgets to edit certain words, then the document is wrong.  Hopefully it won't be some sensitive information that is sent to the wrong people, but it's a possibility.  If the world is still all pen-and-paper like not so long ago, my user would be taking a completed form and use correction fluid to cover up the old info, wait for it to dry, then write in the new info.  The electronic method is not as tedious, but you get the idea.

A real template file, or for simplicity's sake, template, is a file that when you open creates a new document, based on the template's name, with some number attached at the end.  For example, if you have a template to contain Help Desk requests and name it HDRequest.dotx, when you double-click it you get a new file named HDRequest1.docx.  While the first document is still open, if you double-click the template, it creates HDRequest2.docx, so on and so on.  Let's say the request has some boxes to hold the requester's first name, last name, and contact number.  You create the template with those fields empty.  When you launch the template, the new document is also empty in those fields.  Whatever you do or not do to the new document, nothing will reflect in the template because the new document and the template are two different files.  Not so with the crummier method that I described in the beginning.  Let's say you open some faux template and filled in some fields, then instead of saving under a different name, you use the same name and unwittingly select Yes when asked to confirm the overwrite.  Your faux template has been changed, unintentionally.  You will have to re-create it by removing certain words etc until it's back to its original format.

Many programs support the use of template.  We already saw the example with Microsoft Word.  Excel has it, so does PowerPoint, and Outlook too.  Let's create a template in Outlook and see how it's used.

Let's say everyday you need to send an email to the four messieurs as shown above, about some repetitive topic, of course.  You create a new message as usual, enter Mr. Fahrenheit and Mr. Fancy Pants in To field, then Mr. Magoo and Mr. Ed in the Cc field, some meaningful Subject, and finally something useful in the body of the message.  If you already have signature auto-appended to all your new message, do not include the signature in the template.  For example, if my signature already includes Qaptain Qwerty and the easy-to-remember phone number, an Outlook template like that above will generate a repeat of the name and phone.

Save the "message" and choose the format to be Outlook Message Format - Unicode (*.msg).  When you select Outlook Message Format, the location the file is saved is automatically set to the user's Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Template .  

To use the template, the way Microsoft wants you to, as seen in  Outlook Help, is tedious.  You have to click New Mail / More Items / Choose Forms / Users Templates in File System .  I think I have a better system, but I'll save the tip for the next blog entry.

IF FOUND PLEASE CALL OWNER

This past Saturday, I found an LG smartphone in the municipal parking lot by the New Utrecht Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.  I have a knack for finding lost items, probably because I keep my eyes on the ground to avoid tripping or stepping on undesirable stuff.  One time, the iPhone I found had no lock whatsoever so I was able to someone who recently had a conversation with the owner.  Another, I cannot recall how I did, maybe I said "Call home", and was able to connect to someone the owner knew.  This time, the phone was locked by fingerprint so I was stumped.  I think I pressed the unlock button one too many times eventually I was offered the chance to unlock by passcode, which of course I failed.  The phone started to go dim and it took me a few minutes to realize that its power was low.  4%!!!  Luckily, I had a micro-USB cable in my car so I was able to power it.  I don't know if it's because the phone now had a steady supply of power, but it showed the message "If found please call owner" with a button, I think, below to press.  I tried that and was connected to "Mom", who couldn't meet me soon but told me to drop it off with an Alex in the nearby eyeglass store.  By now the phone and its owner should be re-united.

It's such a good idea to have the ability to call someone related to the owner of a smartphone, all from the lock screen.  Granted the average person would try to wipe a found phone or make some bucks out of the incident.  Yes, I am pessimistic.  But on the off-chance that some decent human being find a phone, why not make it easier to have it returned.  Of course, you would not set the function to call the phone itself, what's the point, right?  You would set it to call your next-of-kind, or your room-mate, someone nearby.

I tried to find out how such function can be had but have no success.  The low-tech method is to design the lock screen background to have the message "Call owner if found at so-and-so number".  I think I used to have my wife's phone number affixed somewhere on my phone, another low-tech solution.  At the other end, I found some enterprise app that can remote-wipe a phone, plus showing the If-found message, among other functions.  I think what I encountered was done via some Android apps but for the life of me, I couldn't find it.  You would think Google knows everything, but not always.  Maybe someone in the blogosphere can educate me?

BRING NYC BACK

Bring it back, bring it back
Don't take it away from me because you don't know
What it means to me...

CityStrides recently had a major overhaul.  Lots of cities are now recognized so there is no need to individually request for them to be added.  Streets are now all real streets and not highways, buildings, bodies of water, etc.  Some streets that were mistakenly removed for being confused with Creeks or highway-style Turnpike were added back.  Examples are Cromwell Crescent in Rego Park and Union Turnpike, which is mostly an avenues with lots of traffic lights and red-light camera, but definitely not a real turnpike like Massachessetts Turnpike or Pennsylvannia Turnpike.

It was a bit scary for a few days to see all my ranking went low, like 4% complete instead of, say, 25%, for some given city.  I waited for it to be fixed but in the end had to write to Mr. CityStrides and now all is good.  Except that now there is no New York City (NYC) as an entity in itself.  In its place, not exactly the same, we have the five boroughs - The Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island.  Plus, in Manhattan there are further breakdown of the the island-city into Manhattan Community Boards xyz.  I was really happy with my #1 position in NYC but now I have to settle with being #1 in The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island.  All meaningless really, just bragging right, and nothing of real value.  Hopefully some day when things settled with this major overhaul, NYC will be brought back and the many Manhattan Community Boards will be abolished.  OK, it's not really Love of My Life we are talking about here but it's still nice to have it back.

RIDGEWOOD RESERVOIR, FUR REAL!

This weekend, I finally visited the Exercise Path around the former Ridgewood Reservoir!  I was in the area before, mostly for NYRR OpenRun in the part of Highland Park that is adjacent to Jamaica Avenue, near Elton Street.  At some point, I read about how great the restoration of the area around the former Ridgewood Reservoir was.  A few times I actually parked my car in the big lot on Vermont Place, the Path is just across Vermont but I never had the chance to explore.  Yes, one time I walked around hitting easy 2- or 3-node streets for CityStrides.  But this weekend, having about an hour free before I had to be in Applebee's Queens Center for a meetup with alums from Newtown High School, I decided to give it a go.

At first, I thought I would just go up the set of stairs on Highland Boulevard, by the ballfields.  Then I said "Let's just go counter-clockwise to the next set of stairs leading down".  One thing led to another, in the end I made a loop, a slow, leisurely loop during which I took some photos shown in the slideshow link below.

One reason for my reluctance to visit the Path was that the area maybe desolate.  I don't want to be a victim of a crime of opportunity.  My walk dispelled that fear, at least for the hours around 9 A.M. and 11 A.M.  There were other people walking, running, rollerblading, and even a cyclist or two.  The loop is only a little over a mile, I think the cyclists only passed through the area and didn't go around the reservoir.  The pave path has plenty of room for people to go clockwise or counter-clockwise.

My original vision of the reservoir is that it's similar to the big one in Manhattan's Central Park.  Huge, somewhat circular in shape, plenty of water, I thought.  Recall that the Ridgewood Reservoir was retired some years ago.  There were three basins laid side by side, only the middle one still has water.  As explained in one of the info boards I photographed, over many years, the two side basins went from barren, to having low-grow plants, to shrubs, to small trees, and finally tall trees.  A forest was born.  Together the three basins, former and whatnot, form a little rectangle, with the black metal fence keeping the undesirables out.

I look forward to re-visiting the Reservoir but this time exploring the exits from it, to better explore the nearby streets.

Visit to Ridgewood Reservoir Exercise Path

KAMAL CHAOS

From time to time, when I go for a run I try to spell out a word or two.  Or even a small picture.  It is called Route Art.  Other runners do it too, some do epic work that take days and require marathon distance; others, not so.  I specialize in words and my latest effort was supposed to be Kamal, for a fan of my cartoon drawings.  Some years ago he and I worked for the same corporation.  I usually use the Strava app on my smartphone but have to switch to Runkeeper because of the First-World Problem detailed below*.  It's not quite the same using Runkeeper to "write" the word.  I use this trick to cut through a city block, by making use of the Pause and Resume function.  With Strava, when I press Pause the app simply stays so, the Resume button is right whenever I needed it.  With Runkeeper, once the activity is paused, the app seems to go haywire.  There is no Resume button to press!  I would have to "kill" the app by scrolling through the list of active apps and swipe up on Runkeeper.  A very scary feeling!  Like when a certain app in Windows freezes and you have to go to Task Manager to kill the process.  With Windows, that means losing whatever work you were doing.  Luckily, that's not the case with Runkeeper, as I can resume the run once the app is re-launched.  But it shouldn't be that way.

Perhaps because of the awkward way Runkeeper works, or NOT work with my artsy way of running, I miscalculated and ran a block long for the letter K in Kamal.  From the corner of Bath and Bay 35th, I should have run to Benson and Bay 32nd, not Bay 31st.  I also realized shortly afterward that I also forgot to write the bottom of the letter a, the one right after K.  I usually go back and correct one mistake, but two mistakes is too much for me.  I'll just try the run another day.

*When it comes to workout tracking app, Strava is the king of the hill.  It is so popular with runners and cyclists that the phrase Strava or it didn't happen came into being.  In other words, if you cannot show your activity as recorded in Strava, then people may not believe that you actually did it.  There is another app/web site called Relive that makes a little movie out of Strava activities.  It's especially satisfying to watch when the run spells out a word or draws a picture.  Unfortunately, there is some disagreement between Strava and Relive over the use of user data and Strava stopped allowing Relive from pulling data from Strava's users.  Other apps, such as Runkeeper, still work with Relive but it's just not the same.  I told you it's a First-World Problem.

LOST: CAPTAIN AMERICA; FOUND: GREEN BLOB

Many years ago, I saw the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith, on an airplane.  I think it was a return trip from Asia, so many hours on the plane, I could only sleep so much and eventually decided to watch a movie to pass the time.  I didn't see the whole movie, probably started watching a quarter of the way in.  I knew that Will Smith's character was homeless and got stuck with a son, tried to go to job interview, slept in homeless shelter etc.  I didn't catch the ending either but there was a scene that made me sad.

Supposedly Smith's character, Chris Gardner, was trying to get to a homeless shelter in time for something, maybe dinner, maybe curfew, but he was in a rush.  He dragged his son along and when they were hurriedly crossing the street the little boy dropped an action figure of Captain America in the middle of the road.  There was no time to turn back, they had to move along so the kid was crying the whole time.  Or at least that's what I recall, I haven't seen the movie again since then.  The toy meant a world to the little boy and it was gone.

Yesterday, as I was out CityStriding, near the end I crossed Flatbush Avenue Extension near Dekalb Market, from the L.I.U. side to City Point.  Coming from the other side of the street, there was a group of women each with a kid or two.  Some kids were in strollers, others were held by the hand by the, supposedly, mothers.  One of the walking kid dropped a green blob toy, probably one of those that you can get from a toy vending machine.  For 50 cents, or maybe $1 now, you get this toy that comes in a half-dome, maybe with a folded paper teaching you how to play it, or not to eat it.  The kid immediately shouted but the mother just went on crossing the street with the group, pulling the boy along.  I quickly scooped up the toy and made a U-turn to give the toy to one of the woman in the group, then turned again to continue my trip.  I think the boy was happy to get his toy back.  He may have a lot of other toys at home but at that time, that little green blob was his favorite.

GET RICH QUICK... NOT!!!

In this day and age, the typical scene in a subway station, before the train arrives, consists of many people, if not all, with the nose glued to the screen of their cell phone.  Same thing while the train is in motion.  Many people are probably playing some connect-three games, the more annoying ones are watching movies or video clips without a headphone so that everyone nearby has to here the clips too, and the others perhaps do Facebooking or what-not.  Maybe, just maybe, some are making beer money with the down time.  You don't necessarily have to be a beer-drinker to make beer money.  It's just a phrase to refer to some minimal amount of money one can make on the side.  You have the gig economy like Fiver and Uber then you have a whole cottage industry for people with smartphones to make nano-pennies on their "free time".

• I'll get straight to the best one, in my opinion.  None of that "watch to the end" or "you won't believe it" click-baiting...  So there is this king-of-the-hill search engine called Google and Microsoft wants to get into the game.  MS came up with its own search web site, Bing, supposedly short for Bing is not Google.  To attract users, MS, with its deep pocket, offers Bing users rewards points for using the new search engine.  Bing is not new any more but the battle between the two titans still rage on and you can get Amazon gift cards, albeit slowly or however quickly you use Bing, just by using Bing, either via the web site, the smartphone app, or even the Edge browser.  You don't necessarily have to use it as a search engine.  Read the news, take quiz of the day, it's actually pretty useful.
• Next we have the Shopkick app.  As the name implies, you are supposed to go shopping via the app.  There are different categories of stuff to shop for, or just window-shopping, and sprinkled here and there are "surprise" buttons you can click to earn a point.  There are also video clips you can watch to earn three or more points each.  If you happen to walk by a sponsor store, you can get even more by just walking into the store (with the app enabled), by scanning particular items as instructed by the app, or by buying certain things as the apps dictated.  Not a good app to have if you are a shopaholic, but it's always a battle out there.
• Last, and least, is Swagbucks.  It is a combination of both of the above, and more.  You can search with it, via the app or the web site, but it's throw of a dice if you'll get any points with the search.  You can watch video clips but it takes much work to get a few points.  Not only you have to watch the clips, you have to interact with the text articles dispersed among the clips.  There are different categories of video clips but they are not useful at all.  For example, the News category should really be called Historical as the news shown is nowhere current.  The Music category has just Country Music, if that's what you like more power to you.  The only thing that I use Swagbucks for is the Daily Poll.  Just one question with multiple choice answer, you can get a quick buck with the Poll.  I am sure they can build a profile of me over the many days I answer the Poll, but it's less harmful than those surveys that promise to take only 15 minutes or so.

LONG ISLAND MOTORING

Up until recently, I was working as a field technician, with the majority of the time driving to many places in Long Island, or to be exact, Nassau County and Suffolk County.  Occasionally, the job also involves driving up north, as far as Sleepy Hollow.  It was a big change for me, as before that I mostly commuted by subway.  I used to think traffic woes only existed in busy commercial areas like Manhattan or certain parts of Brooklyn or Queens but was I wrong.  I thought parking shouldn't be a problem out in Long Island, but like those huge mall parking lots being full during the holiday season, some lots in Long Island area just not big enough.  It was a painful, but I also learned something useful, and lest my mind forget I better make a note or two here:

• Most office buildings offer a place for the general public to buy food.  In my book, skipping lunch is a sin.  Someone fought hard for that right, I shouldn't squander it away.  I always try to find time for lunch, but in some remote office park in Long Island, the answer may not be so apparent.  Lots of time just asking around is enough.  I enjoy walking around so if the building I work in doesn't offer a food place, the building across the street may.  Of course, if you are a picky eater then this won't help you.
• Along with the food place usually there's a restroom.  It's not just for relieving oneself, but also for washing the face to feel refreshed, like during those hot summer days.
• While parking is not as easy as I thought it is, there usually is some places to park, if you don't mind walking a little bit.  As a long distance runner, a few blocks of walking is almost nothing for me, but I can see how insurmountable the task is for the typical couch potatoes.
• Some local communities work with their town officials to prevent people parking on their blocks.  Everyone on the block have their own garage so it's not because of lack of parking space on the street.  I suppose an outsider once or twice did something bad, maybe a loiterer or whatever, to those communities. So these communities have local regulations that say No Parking from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M., to force people to park elsewhere.  It's just one of those things that make me think, "That's why we cannot have nice things."

ON MANHATTAN BRIDGE, CYCLISTS BELONG ON THE NORTH SIDE

We New Yorkers like to complain a lot and here's my current beef.  After work yesterday, I walked from Brooklyn to Manhattan via the Manhattan Bridge.  The Brooklyn Bridge was closer for me but I didn't want to mingle with the many tourists there.  Besides, there isn't anything to separate the cyclists from the pedestrians.  It amazes me that accidents between cyclists and pedestrians don't happen everyday on the Brooklyn Bridge.  On the Manhattan Bridge, cyclists have their path on the north side of the bridge, while pedestrians are to walk on the south side.  It's a perfect arrangement, isn't it?  I do my walking here, you do your riding there, separated by a few subway tracks and lanes of vehicular traffic.  Or so I thought.

During my walk I witnessed at least five bicycles on the pedestrian lane.  There was a guy rollerblading too, although I am not sure which lane he belongs.  I think since he traveled at speed higher than most walkers, he should be in the bike lane, too. Back to our two-wheeled annoyances, are those cyclists ignorant of the two separate paths?  Or they are just too lazy to enter the bridge at the proper places?  Human nature usually disappoints me, I'll assume the worst that people just do whatever convenient for them, rules be damned.  But just in case there are those out there who somehow don't know the rules and come across this post, and then start to ride on the proper lane, then my job is done.  For now anyway.

I'M WALKIN' HERE! I'M WALKIN' HERE!

And I sure walked a lot.  New York City is a pedestrian paradise, in some ways.  Yes, there are many rude, or even evil, car-drivers and then there are also many lawless cyclists ready to knock down pedestrians.  In general, the great thing is one can walk almost everywhere.  Or run, for that matter.  I used to be an avid runner, got up early in the morning to run a few miles, wash off the dirt, then go to work.  Then I started working at a job that required a car commute, a commute that would be so much worse if I didn't leave the house by a certain hour in the morning.  That meant no more running in the morning before going to work.  I was able to walk a lot, before work or after, or during lunch breaks.   I still ran on the weekends, or during the week on those rare days when I finished work early.

Wouldn't it be nice to visualize all that walking and running on one map?  Yes, and that's exactly what the web site CityStrides offer.  It is free to use, with some extra features if you pay for a subscription.  There are a few subscription tiers, I think anyone with a job should be able to afford the fee, just to support the work of the one man who runs the whole thing.

Below is my map of New York City, i.e. the five boroughs (The Bronx, Manhattan, Brook, Queens, and Staten Island) combined.  My activities only cover about 25% of the entire NYC so there is much work left to be done.  There is no fame or fortune to claim, just bragging rights among friends or friendly competitors.  A few people already covered the entire city, measured by some other means. The movie The World Before Your Feet chronicles one such feat.  The guy in that movie didn't have a full-time job and achieved the goal in about six years.  I have other obligations to satisfy so for now I am happy with my slow progress.

MADE-TO-ORDER OUTLOOK

With the new job comes a new laptop that needs to be configured my way.  My usual customization include:

• Create a folder in Outlook called something like Addressed To Me.  I read it somewhere for the idea, to avoid wading through the many email messages that do not mention me specifically but rather address some distribution list(s) that I belong to.  Recent versions of Outlook has this option as a filter, or Focus, but I like the actual folder to hold messages addressed to me personally.
• Having the Addressed To Me folder is more useful when it is coupled with a rule that move messages there when the criteria is met, i.e. I am addressed directly.
• Even better, there is an option to open the Addressed To Me folder when Outlook is launched.  By default, Outlook focuses on the Inbox when it is launched.  I think because of this option, the Focus alone won't do what I need.
• I always read my email when I first turn on the computer.  To get Outlook started at login time, I place a shortcut to Outlook in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup .  Note that ProgramData is a Hidden folder, to see it you would need to enable seeing of Hidden folders.
• One new "feature" with the more recent versions of Outlook is NOT opening a new email in its own window.  I find that annoying.  To open the new email in its own window, you would need to click on some button to pop-out the message.    Too much work!  So one additional customization I have to do is to check Open replies and forwards in a new window, in Outlook Options, Mail, as shown below.

NEWTOWN HIGH SCHOOL (ELMHURST) AUTUMN ASSEMBLY

Hello again, Blogosphere!  I recently changed job and won't be spending many hours stuck in traffic any more.  The new job will involve subway commute, even as bad as it can be sometimes, at least I won't have to fight for parking spots, watch out for crazy drivers, etc.  In theory I should have more free time, so I think it's a good time to re-visit blogging.  I like to write, to produce original content, and the nano-pennies I make with Google Ads won't hurt.

I've been active in helping run a Facebook group for alumni of my high school, Newtown High School in Elmhurst.  The group has over 2,500 members and every now and then I host a meetup to meet people in person, outside of Facebook.  The next one will be:

Saturday September 28, 2019
Applebee's Queens Center
90-15 Queens Boulevard
Elmhurst, NY
noon to 2 P.M.

Link to Facebook event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/942908752727240/

If you prefer to have nothing to do with Facebook, use the Google Calendar button below:

BUY NOTHING

It's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do
Hey baby, I think I will Konmari you

Supposedly that's what I said to my attic, but it's a major work in progress.  Marie Kondo is all the rage these days but I haven't read her book or watch the Netflix show.  What I've done over the years is try to give things away via Yahoo! Freecyle and more recently via my local Buy Nothing Facebook group.  "Local" or maybe even "hyper-local" is the key word with Buy Nothing.  There are Buy Nothing groups in many neighborhoods and members can be in only one such group, among a few other restrictions.  The idea is to give very locally and in the process know your neighbors better.  Find your local Buy Nothing group below and give the idea of giving locally a shot:

BUY NOTHING!

STRAVA CLUB - STRAVA ART

First there was "Strava or it didn't happen", meaning unless you can show that Strava recorded your run/walk/ride it didn't happen.  Everyone is on Strava, so it seems.  Next came Strava Art, the art of drawing pictures or spelling words using the Strava app.  Strava, the company, wanted to be more than just record people's exercise.  They want to be part of the social media phenomenon, thus born Strava Club, where like-minded people can get together and share info.  Surprisingly, there was no club for fans or practitioners of Strava Art.  So I decided to create one.  In the beginning, it was just my "GPS writing" or "gwriting" but lately there are a few good drawings of animals and other objects.  Check out my little Strava Art club in Strava at the link below

Strava Art Strava Club

PPTC GROUP RUN - LOVE RUN 2019

Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote, "How do I love thee? Let me count the miles." And count the miles I did, with nine other runners.

Check out the Relive video

https://www.relive.cc/view/2134496363

From the practice run I had a few weeks ago, I learned that the "i" looks better, less slanted at the bottom, if I start the run on the side of the Grand Army Plaza arch. We would basically run along Eastern Parkway, so the closer I was, vertically, to the bottom of the parkway the better.

While doing the left side of the heart, Strava almost messed me up. I just paused it while at the intersection of Park Place, Grand Avenue, and Washington Avenue, ran around the corner of Prospect Place and Grand Avenue, as I was about to Resume, I noticed that the Pause point was actually at Sterling Place and Washington Avenue. Strava does act weird sometimes, in this case it was a block behind where I actually was. Being the perfectionist run-artist that I am, I ran back the intersection of Park, Grand, and Washington, press Resume, waited a few seconds, then Paused again. Ran around the corner of Prospect and Grand, verified that all was good, then pressed Resume. And that's how we had the first relatively rounder corner of the heart. There were many more Pause and Resume, each time I paused the run to show my running mates the progress.

Also from the practice run, I realized that I should take advantage of the width of Eastern Parkway to make a rounder bottom of the heart. It came out pretty good. The group had to be careful crossing the wide Parkway, NOT at the zebra crossing, but we did wait for red lights, so it worked out. Very worthwhile, as we all know round-bottomed hearts make the rocking world go round.

DIY I {heart} U

While I would love to have you join me at the Love Run on Saturday the 9th of February, 8:30 A.M., by Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza, should the timing not good for you, here's a turn-by-turn direction on how to get it done.  One slight change I will implement is the start will be on the northern side of Union Street, where the tail of the first arrow is.  (The run starts from the green hexagon and ends at the red hexagon.)  The baseline of the letters and symbol is Eastern Parkway so we might as well start as close to it as possible, vertically.

The letter P means you pause your watch or app at those locations, then resume recording where the letter R appears.  Most of the time, the app or watch would be fooled into drawing a straight line between the two points, so we get a less blocky heart.  One time I tried to spell MISSY but Strava at the last minute changed the Y into a T, so it really happened before.  Hopefully it won't happen to you.

There ya go, have fun spelling "I {heart} U" on your own.  Some people may be able to learn guitar by watching YouTube videos, but others may need Dan Smith to teach them, so no guarantee my little turn-by-turn instruction will get you there but give it a shot and share with me the outcome.

I {HEART} U

If spreading love is the Brooklyn way, you can do it with me this coming Saturday the 9th of February.  I will lead a run for the Prospect Park Track Club that will spell out "I {heart} U", as shown below.  It'll cover about 4 miles, at least that's what Strava recorded when I did the test run last week.  I made a sleight of hand, or rather sleight of foot, to make the lines that seem to cut through the block, like the right side of the heart symbol.  I suspect Strava measured the distance along the straight line.  We'll actually run along the two legs of the right triangle, so it's a longer route.  The shortest distance between two points if a straight line, ya know?  See, who said high school math/trig isn't useful?

PPTC hosts the event but it's free to the public.  Your fellow runners may encourage you to join the club and we may retire to some cafe to grab a much-deserved breakfast, Dutch treat.  An hour or so of your time is all you'll spend.

See you 8:30 A.M. at the corner of Union Street and Prospect Park West on Saturday the 9th of February!