HALLELUJAH FOR WARMER WEATHER

 After a few weeks of freezing cold weather, Brooklyn NY and nearby area finally had some warmer weather.  Funny how 40 degree F is considered good weather.  It is all relative, I guess.  Maybe it is a sign of being older but I used to prefer cold weather.  I can dress for it, whereas when it was scorching hot, no matter how little clothes I wear I would still sweat profusely.  But not this winter.

First it snowed heavily.  As usual, unlike rain, snow just silently fell.  I like to shovel snow in layers so I did some in the morning.  Then another shovel job later on when it finally stopped.  Thanks to a huge tree and its expanded tree pit, my sidewalk is narrower than most of the block so I didn't have too much to do.  Being the civic-minded type, I cleared a path from the sidewalk out to the street.  Most people would just clear their sidewalks and would create snowbanks separating the sidewalk from the street.  People who want to cross the street would have to either climb over the snowbanks or go to the corner in hope of finding something more navigable.  I also cleared a path for my alley.  It's always good to have multiple exits from a house.

Next day, next task was to make sure the car can leave its parking spot.  I was fortunate enough to find a spot on the left side of the one-way street.  Department of Sanitation's plower always push snow to the right side, so the unfortunate cars that were parked on the right side ended up being locked in by tall snowbanks.  If you really need to get out, you would have to move quick and blast through those snowbanks, whether with professional help or lots of your own time and elbow grease.  Not in my case, but I still had much to do to make sure the car is useable, to get to work the next day.  The windshield obviously needed to be cleared of snow and ice, but a recent law in New York State required that the roof also be free of ice and snow.  It makes total sense, especially on highways.  You wouldn't want to be hit by a small avalanche of snow and ice that can temporarily blinds you or worse, like cracking your windshield.

I think overall the City did good with clearing the roads.  Not only the avenues were plowed, the side streets were too.  The challenge was in finding parking spots, which this year I was lucky and always managed to find a place to park after I came home from working in New Jersey.  Mind you the spots were not perfect, in that I had to spend an hour after parking to dig around the car as much as possible to ensure a smooth departure next day.  I didn't want to be late for work because I couldn't easily exit the parking spot.  I tried to be considerate but one night I had to park in the third spot of a three-car strip.  A car was already in the first spot, under normal circumstance I should park in the second spot, but there was a good chance someone would park behind me and I would have a difficult time getting out next day, because of all the snowbanks on the side of the road.  Somehow someone was able to take the second spot, it seemed the driver was able to backup into that spot.  All my worrying was not necessary.

Park, shovel, drive, rinse and repeat.  At long last, temperature reached 40+ degrees and while parking spots are not back to normal, i.e. there are still a few small hills of snow taking up precious parking spots, at least getting in and out of whatever available spot is not as difficult as it was just last week.  Well, tonight I did have to park at a meter spot and to my surprise even on Presidents Day, the big holiday about Presidents, the meter will need to be fed tomorrow.   I already have my alarm clock set to remind me to move the car before the meter goes into effect.

MEET-UP AT CASS 124 AVENUE O BROOKLYN NY

For a few years now, for my local Buy Nothing group, I help organize a regularly-scheduled free Swap Meet, or rather Meet-up, a physical event where people meet in the flesh, to give away items or take free items.  The group is fortunate to have the support of the local public library, Ulmer Park Branch of Brooklyn Public Library.  Because most of us work during the week and the library isn't open on Sundays, all the events so far are on Saturdays.  Some members, however, work Saturdays so they could rarely attend the event, unless they take the day off or not feeling well enough to work but can take a break from being out sick.

Through working with staff at Councilman William Colton, I was recently able to find a place that opens on Sunday which agreed to host us.  It's the Chinese American Social Service Center, or CASS, at 124 Avenue O.  It's a smaller place and not local to Bath Beach and Gravesend, but it's not far either.  Hopefully the usual crowd from the Buy Nothing group will attend, especially those who worked Saturdays.  Depends on how things go, maybe we will have it regularly, say, every other month.  We are already doing the library event every other month, CASS can fill in the gap.

Come attend the event!  Donate some portable, clean, unbroken stuff, take some, do both, or do neither, we are flexible.  Even better, come volunteer your time to help sort the donated items, to help keep things tidy, or to load stuff into the St. Mary's Church van that is scheduled for a 3 PMish pickup.

FAUX LFLs AND FOR-REAL ONES

Not too long ago, I discovered the Local feature on LibraryThing.com. You may recall that LibraryThing's primary use is for cataloguing one's book collection.  It has expanded into other areas.  With Local, you get a map of places in your area that offer books, whether for free, at a discount, or at the normal prices.  So you have Little Free Libraries and their kind, thrift stores, and bona fide bookstores, whether big chains or independent ones.  All in one big map!  I love adding the Little Free Libraries that I know about, plus similar places that are not registered with LFL, i.e. no charter number, or those with charter number but no longer listed in the official LFL web site.

It was fun for a while but in the end, I cannot stand the not-so-big map that LibraryThing Local offers.  It takes up about a third of the screen and cannot go full-screen.  It's a lot of zooming in and panning around.  I am taking a break from LibraryThing Local and already re-visited my Google Map called Little Free Libraries Faux and For Real.

I have been to many LFLs and similar places in Brooklyn and Staten Island, some areas in Carteret NJ and nearby townships, too.  However, since I will soon share the map with my local Buy Nothing group, for Bath Beach and Gravesend areas, I am focusing on Brooklyn for now.  There are more Brooklyn places to visit, but I will first finish posting what I already have.  Enjoy!

LFL FAUX AND FOR-REAL

GRAVEND LITTLE LIBRARY

 It is a cold and windy day, the type that one would be better off sitting in bed, covered with a blanket, the heat on, doing something enjoyable like reading a book.  That was my plan, at least to stay indoor as much as possible, but then I happened to look around the Little Free Library app and learned that there is a new one in my neighborhood.  It is called Gravesend Little Library and its charter number is 217085.  Until recently, 20abcd to me is considered new, but now it's 21abcd already.  Nice to see that people are opening new LFL and register them.  I know about dressing in layers but up until today I only do that for the upper body.  Today, I dressed in layers for the lower body, too, to make the short, but cold and windy, walk to Van Sicklen Street and Avenue V.  From the hint in the LFL app, I know it's near Gravesend Cemetery, but I could not find it at first.  Then it almost hit, it's attached to a utility pole!  I love the guerrilla tactic but not sure how long the utility company will allow it.  It was good to see that even though it is new it did have some books.  I added five books and didn't take any.  I signed in via the app too, First Customer, yay!

HAPPY JAR 2026

 At the beginning of 2025, I set out to resume blogging, to go side-by-side with a Happy Jar.  The Jar would have a note, with a few words to jog my memory, each note would be explained in more details on this blog.  Like many New Year Resolutions, it worked well for a few months, then the blog stopped getting updates.  No new notes in the Happy Jar either.  Still, as the year winds down, I see that at least I had 40 posts made in 2025.  That's a big jump from the previous years, whose number of posts were in the single digit.  A new year, a new hope, I will try again in 2026.  There are 52 weeks in a year, hitting 40 isn't such a bad thing.

In other news, I really love LibraryThing.com and expanded its use to my yearbooks collection for my high school, Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens NY.  The collection aims to catalog all the publications that my school produced over its 125+ existence.  Most of the entries are yearbooks, but I have a handful of literary magazines and other club magazines, too.  Take a gander at, change the catalog to that of Newtown Publications.  I love seeing all the covers and many have links in the Comment field to see the inside of the yearbook.

Qaptain Qwerty books on LibraryThing

One thing LibraryThing tells me is that over the years, I already spent over $1,000 on buying yearbooks.  Most are from eBay and Newtown itself, but AbeBooks and Amazon provided some.  A bunch were donations by generous alumni or teachers, thank you so much.  Still, I would like to get some financial support to keep the project going.  I turned to GoFundMe to make it easy for Newtown alumni to contribute to the project.  I already got $225.00 collected out of the initial $800, hope you can help me reach me goal!

Newtown HS Yearbooks Project

JHS 73 CLASS OF 1968

Lately I spend a lot of time with the alumni of Newtown High School of Elmhurst, Queens NY.  I am sure you saw the few posts about the Class of 1985's 40th Reunion, which came and went, with success, whew.  Before Newtown, I went to JHS 73 in Maspeth, Queens NY and I wrote some years ago about my time there.  Maybe it was just proper timing, the post was my most commented on, almost 150!

I recently received via email a link to a YouTube video.  The sender is from Class of 1968, which is almost 15 years before me.  I don't recognize any teachers, but the format of the yearbook is pretty much the same between 1968 and 1982.  Students are shown in group only, with a nickname each student themselves selected.

Enjoy!  Thank you, fantansam!

I NEED MY POPPY FIX

 Life sure is interesting.  I have this book, "The Poppy War" by R.F. Kuang, possibly from a bundle that I picked up from someone who moved away from my neighborhood.  She hated to throw them away and put in a free offer in the NextDoor app.  At least that's what I vaguely recall.  My intention was to re-distribute the books through my local Buy Nothing group or drop them off, a few at a time, at the many Little Free Libraries I visit every now and then.  For some reason, I set "The Poppy War" aside to read.  Maybe because I suspected it's about the Opium War that the West waged with China.  My late father used to commented that China lost the war because each soldier had two guns, one to shoot at the enemy and one to shoot drugs into their body.  Maybe I want to know a little more about China's history.  For months the book sat on a stack near the bed, waiting to be read.  Not long ago I saw some mention of the author R.F. Kuang.  I cannot even remember what the mention was, but it got me into starting to read the book.

At first, it seemed to be a chick lit, i.e. a piece of literature from a woman's point of view.  Not something a regular guy like me would be interested.  But once I start reading something I try much to finish it.  It seems to take place in China, because of the names, but there are other names that don't sound Chinese.  I stuck with it through the first few chapters.  Things got more interesting, some martial arts were involved, before I know it I was bringing it to work to read during lunch-break.  That's always a good sign.  Recently I finished it and discovered that it's merely Book One of a Trilogy.  Argh!  It turned out to be a popular series, Brooklyn Public Library has a long waiting list.  I will wait but I will explore other avenues.  Maybe some Little Free Library out there has it.  I know The Tom Lynch LFL in Staten Island has many books.  Maybe New York Public Library may have it.  NYPL covers Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island.  I commute through S.I. every weekday.  At one time, my Brooklyn library card was linked to NYPL so that I could borrow materials from NYPL.  Time to re-establish that link, assuming the option is still available, it's been a while.

Life is funny, eh?  One day a book was ignored, some time later its sequels are highly sought after.