I YEARN FOR YEARBOOKS

 I run an active Facebook group for my high school alumni.  One feature of the group that makes it lively is the yearbook collection in the group.  After so many years out of school, people lost their yearbooks.  Maybe it was lost during a move, maybe it got flood damaged, whatever the reason, people love to see the pages of the yearbooks.  By some luck, when I got involved with the alumni, my yearbook was sitting right there on the shelf behind my office desk.  I was able to scan the pages and share the content with my class.  But it was just one book, 1985, and the alumni group that I run have people from all over, as far back as 1956 and as recent as 2007.  A few people lent me book from their own year, like 1971 and 1956.  A few other people helped by doing the work themselves, by scanning and uploading the pages.  But for a school that existed over 125 years, there are many yearbooks totally missing.  Enters eBay, mostly.  I set an alert in eBay to notify when the school name, "Newtown High School", is part of an offer.  Newtown yearbooks are hot items on eBay, a few times I had to enter a bidding war, sometimes I lost, other times I won.  But at $70 or so a pop, buying yearbooks from eBay is expensive.  From my point of view, the best case scenario is when someone offer the book(s) to me for free.  It actually happened twice, in bulk.  The first time was when dear Mr. Weinstein passed away and Mrs. W didn't want to keep his yearbook collection.  The school was offered first but they didn't want it.  Other people in the alumni group want pieces of the collection, some may have mentioned willing to re-distribute.  Luckily, many recommended that I be given the collection, because I had the track record of scanning the pages and sharing the work for the group to enjoy.  Another occasion, a teacher decided to give me a collection that cover a few 1990s books.  Over the years, I got a few more, usually it started with someone offering a parent's book and the group would in unison recommended that I be the benefactor.  Thank you, alumni!  With great power comes great responsibility, I won't let you down.

The latest, possible donation I just learned a few days ago is from a 1969 alumnus whose mother attended the same school in 1946.  The donor knows someone in the alumni group, I provided my contact info to the group member and now I just have to wait.  One of these days, I will make the drive to Bayside, Queens NY to pick up the items.  Yearbooks are valuable to me, I prefer to personally pick them up instead of having the items sent through the mail.

DEPOSIT GOAL MET

 Some months ago, against better judgement, I joined the Reunion Committee for Newtown High School (Elmhurst, Queens NY) Class of 1985's 40th Reunion.  I was on the committee back when we had the Silver Reunion (25 years).  I cannot remember why it was painful, but it was.  Lots of work, monthly (?) meetings, hunting people down in many social media platforms, including Plaxo and Friendster - who remember those!?  Facebook was somewhat new for me at the time.  This time around, we already have a good base of interested people, but what I found out recently is fifteen years after the other reunion, many people are no longer active on Facebook, or left the platform altogether.  I cannot blame them.

Proceeded we did, admission price was set and a deadline for collecting x dollars to hand over to the hotel to secure the event space.  I was somewhat worried.  We live in interesting times, a bizarro world with events making writers at the satirical website The Onion scratch their heads.  Inflation, bird flu, uncertain economic future, will people plunk down x dollars to see a bunch of people from high school?  But plunk they did and we now have enough money to cover the deposit.  Whew!  I was worried for a while we won't make it and have to refund the money and lose some more money because the billing service we use charge x percent for every transaction.  Maybe we'll hemorrhage our fund because of the service charges and have to use our own money to cover the refund.  I know of at least one horror story of someone trying to do a reunion and lost $1000s.  OK, not this time for Newtown Class of 1985, whew!

THE IMPORTANT OF BEING APPRECIATED

 I run an active Facebook for the alumni of my high school, Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens NY.  It still makes me chuckle that in the early days of my time on Facebook, I joined an alumni group for my year, 1985, and quickly made a post asking if anyone was playing whatever word game I was addicted to at the time.  In those early days, I play games tied to the Facebook ecosystem.  I think it took some effort to play non-friends, or maybe it wasn't even possible.  I already had some friends but they were not playing the word game I was interested in.  So I was looking for new players in an alumni group.  Nowaday, in groups I run that's an automatic decline.  Keep the topic relevant to the group.  Occasionally, I let things slide, perhaps on a Friday evening, but most of the time I run a tight ship.  No spam, no politics, everyone needs to play nice, etc.  We should just reminisce about the good old days, pay homage to some teachers who helped you, better thank them now before they die.  Many people appreciate my work and told me so, but this week two nice things happened.

I am helping to bring about the 40th Reunion of my Class of 1985.  One person, not even from my year, asked me if I would go.  I have to go, I am an organizer.  He went ahead and paid for my admission ticket!  It's over $100!!!  A day later, I made a car trip from Brooklyn to Elmhurst to pick up a bulk order of gym shirts.  The Internet is full of spammers and scammers offering school shirts for purchase.  I keep in touch with the Principal at my high school and according to him only Target is the official sellers of the school's ware.  Or by some stretch, Funky Otter or something.  I know that it's not these fake accounts that lament nobody like their shirts so they come to the alumni group to show the shirt and conveniently list a link.  They usually like their own posts too, maybe to fake activity.  I wish my high school would have an online store for alumni to buy merch but right now the only way to do so is via my volunteer effort.  I would setup a Google form to collect info like what shirt sizes, what colors, where to send the shirts.  When there are enough requests, I send the order to the school and they get it ready in a week or so.  I would then make the trip to pick up the shirts, laboriously pack them for mailing via USPS.  I only charge the school price plus USPS fee.  It's a slow process but the alumni get the real thing, good quality for a low price.  The school subsidizes the cost of the gym shirts and we alumni also reap the benefit.  During this most recent trip (yesterday or Feb 25, 2025), I was given a zippered hoodie by the school as a token of appreciation.  I suppose it has a value of $30 or so.  It is a very nice gesture, thank you very much, Newtown!

I HEART iMOVIE, SORT OF

It is indeed true that Necessity is the Mother of Invention.  No, I didn't invent anything that can change the world drastically.  It's just that all these times as a Mac owner I rarely play with iMovie, which is part of the iLife suite of multimedia applications bundled with every Macintosh computer.  When my son was young, I may have dabbled a bit, baby videos and all.  Maybe my Mac back then was too old and slow, or maybe I didn't have the time like I do now during the pandemic quarantine, but I didn't make anything out of iMovie.

I run a very active alumni group for my high school and one day came across a YouTube video that turned out to be popular with the group.  Then some time later I discovered that the video was blocked by YouTube, because of some copyright issue with the music used.  It's still there, maybe viewable in some Communist country that doesn't care about copyright laws, just not available where I live.  I was able to contact the person who posted the video and after much waiting finally got a hold of the video file, some 700 MB in size and in the WMV format.

The entire video is 35 minutes in length and would need to have certain sections having no sound because of copyright.  From my past dealing with uploading videos to Facebook, it's best not to have a big file.  Facebook needs to do some processing and after the long wait to upload the big file, say anything 300 MB or bigger, there would be another delay before the video is viewable.  I was sure iMovie could do that for me - chop up the video into more digestible sections and zero out the sound level anywhere that there's music that may offend some copyright owner's feelings.

If it's something I have no idea how to proceed I would read up, perhaps spending an hour or so going through the online help.  But iMovie looks simple enough so I dove right in.  Making the first few clips was a pain!  Sure I got them made, but I was doing it the hard way.  Eventually I found the correct way, as far as I know, and I was quickly Splitting clips, Joining them, etc.  In the end, I was able to even re-combine all the various clips into one file to re-upload to YouTube, without the offending music.  If you are from Newtown High School of Elmhurst, Queens, New York, Class of 1994, check out the video:


NEWTON HIGH SCHOOL OF ELMHURST, QUEENS NY CLASS OF 1994 SENIOR VIDEO

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:

SCENE FROM A RIDE: VERRAZANO!

My son is finally into cycling.  In recent days, he actually asked me when we would be going cycling.  Today, after tutoring class and lunch, instead of a walk in Forest Park, we rushed home to get ready for cycling.  Something else came up and I was not sure if I would be needed elsewhere but it all turned out in my favor and we did go cycling.

On a recent ride, I realized that in my neighborhood we actually have very few bike lanes.  When we made a big loop of the Coney Island Rail Yard, it was only on Neptune Avenue that we finally found a bike lane.  The rest of the way we just had to share the road with cars.  Luckily there was plenty of room for the cars to pass our short bike-train of three (me, son, and nephew).  To really enjoy cycling without the fear of being hit by cars, we would need to be on the waterfront by the Belt Parkway, or on the Riegelmann Boardwalk (aka Coney Island Boardwalk) between 5 AM and 10 AM, or start from Plum Beach toward Queens and the Fuhgeddaboutit sign.  Today, we checked the Belt Parkway waterfront off our to-do list.  We didn't go all the way to Owl's Head but instead turned around shortly after passing under the Verrazano Bridge.  It was a beautiful day, even if we sweated a bit.  I brought along a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies and two bottles of water.  We stopped for photo-op near the bridge, but the sun was not in our favor so we took better photos on the way back.  Along the way, I pointed out to son and nephew telltale signs of parked cars that might suddenly swerve into traffic (tail-light on), anglers who arch back to swing their baits out into the water, yapping cyclists traveling side-by-side, reckless children (isn't that an oxymoron?), accompanied by parents or not.  While not as bothersome as driving, cycling is still full of hassles.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed the ride.  On the way back, near home, I pointed out the triangular playground that mere weeks ago son and nephew were newbie cyclists limited within the fence of that very playground.  I am so happy.

Earlier in the day, I took a stroll in the Corona-Elmhurst area.  Years ago, the reason we moved from the Bronx to Elmhurst, Queens was partly because of my father's job at some box factory.  During a subway strike, he had to stay at a friend's apartment to be able to get to work.  Ironically, shortly after we moved to Elmhurst, he got laid off from the job.  Over the years, I am curious where this factory was.  I have a vague idea of where it was and today made the trip to find it.  Unfortunately, over the years things changed and I think the building now is some public school, namely Elmhurst Educational Campus.  The word "Campus" makes me think about schools, like Newtown High School nearby, that received failing grades year after year.  After unsuccessfully shutting down the school, the City tried to rename the schools and replace a big chunk of the personnel, coupled with renaming of the school.  Supposedly, the change qualifies as making the schools all-new again and qualified for federal money.  One of the shot below even has Newtown's tower.  The stairs are for traveling over some LIRR rails.  For a few years, each morning I would go straight from Denman Street to get to the footbridge and cross over to catch the B58 to get to school at JHS 73 in Maspeth.  The area was desolate back then.  Today it is well-developed, possibly with much manufacturing replaced by residential buildings.

ELMHURST PARK, JHS 73

Instead of the usual forage into Forest Park, this Saturday I visited Elmhurst Park and nearby area.  Elmhurst Park is relatively new, especially to me since I haven't visited the area in a while.  See if you can figure what it used to be.  Don't cheat by going to the last photo.  Likewise, can you figure what used to be on the same block that is now P.S. 58?  Garlinger Triangle may be the clue.  JHS 73 hasn't changed much since I last visited.  The only difference this time is I took a panoramic photo of the front of the building.

Elmhurst Park, in uh, Elmhurst, Queens.  It is on Grand Avenue near a railroad track, which is to the right in the photo, but not shown.

Elmhurst Park plaque on the ground.  I purposely included my colorful running shoes in the photo.

Panoramic view of Elmhurst Park from the inside, with bench area on the left, then the comfort station, playground, and hill.

Elmhurst Park's $2-million comfort station.

Elmhurst Park Playground as seen from the hilltop.

P.S. 58 community playground.

P.S. 58, the School of Heroes.

Garlinger Triangle in the foreground, PS 58 in the back.

Garlinger Triange, memorial to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in The World War.

JHS 73 main entrance.

Haven't figured what used to be on the same spot as Elmhurst Park?

From Gas to Grass!

Newtown High School Elmhurst 1985

My reunion committee has been relying mostly on Facebook, Classmates, and MyLife to find our long lost high school classmates. Well, really the ones with names that are not too common. Still, even though it is the year 2009 with the Internet being a part of many, if not all, people's lives, many people manage not to show up anywhere. Whenever possible, I asked people to use the personal connections they have with the old friends to make the connection. It's been over 20 years and while some people moved out of the area, their parents or other family members stay.

We are now making use of Internet telephone directories to find people. We do get lucky sometimes and some unique names would translate into a phone and an address. As I prepare to tell people over the phone where to go to join our Facebook group, I thought it may be easier to have them go to

http://NewtownHighSchoolElmhurst1985.blogspot.com

instead of the longer FB address with all those numbers. If you know any Newtown '85 people, please send them there! Newtown H.S. in Elmhurst, NY, that is, not the one in Connecticut or in Australia.

Not THAT Newtown

My high school friend Maria P. has been doing a swell job of looking up people all over the Internet to invite to the 25-year reunion next year. Naturally, for a task that big, problems were encountered. Not just from people having the same first name and same last name, like "George Lopez", but even the school name is not that unique. The Newtown Maria and I went to is Newtown High School of Elmhurst, Queens, New York. It is a landmark building with soaring towers. Then there is this other Newtown in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Lots of time THAT Newtown's location is simply referred to as Newtown, CT. I imagine a few of these email exchanges happened:

Maria: I see you graduated from Newtown High School.
Person X: Yes, in 1985.
M: Great, please join our FB Newtown '85 group.
X: Sure... Uh, I don't know any of those people.
M: Huh?
X: Hey, wait a minute, this is the group for the Newtown High in Elmhurst, New York. I went to Newtown in Sandy Hook, Connecticut!.

I enjoy writing a line or two of poetry sometimes and here's one I conjure up for the topic. It is a haiku, a short form of poetry, with just three lines, five syllables in the first and third lines and seven in the second line. That is a loose definition of haiku, the way my son's third grade teacher defines it.

I went to Newtown
Of Elmhurst, soaring tower
Connecticut? No!

Second Home USA

Enjoy the following slideshow of photos from my second home in the U.S. Click the speech balloon gadget in the lower left to show or hide the text. Walk through the slideshow manually is recommended as I find the speed is too fast to read the text.