WHAT IS YOUR (WORD) GAME?

As I spend most of my time at home, I find myself much involved in various word games on the smartphone or the laptop computer.  Before the pandemic, I regularly played Lexulous, as a Facebook app, with the only player I can count in the environment, and Words With Friends.  Through one of those ads that kept bombarding the WWF interface, I checked out Scrabble Go and am kinda addicted to it.  I may be wrong but it seems the tiles in Scrabble Go are purposely distributed as really lousy, to nudged players toward using the diamonds collected, or worse (for the players) cough up real money to buy power-ups etc.  The ads are a pain, too, but I just used that down time to close my eyes briefly.  In the Scrabble Go world, good players seem to be difficult to come by.  For me, a good player is someone who moves regularly and not once a day, but also someone with an average point per move similar to mine.

At times, opponents in Scrabble Go took too long to move so I recently resorted to playing Duel games.  Instead of having all the time in the world for each move, there's a time limit, go pass that limit and you lose your turn.  The board is also smaller and the game is limited to five moves.  It sounds stressful and it is.  Not a great way to relax but I hate waiting.  I do wonder if the players are real people.  Words With Friends have that, computer players, somehow I find it unappealing.  I remember in the old days playing chess against computer opponents.  The first few levels the computer would take forever to move, or make quick, totally dumb moves.  Then at some point it got really smart and never make mistakes so there's just no point of playing.  Some of the opponents in Scrabble Go Duel are like that.  They are really awful and try to spell long words but miss the high-score tiles altogether.  Then there are "people" who use fancy words that are found only in some medical dictionaries.

I miss playing the crossword puzzles in the free newspaper Metro New York, which not long ago combined with the other free daily news, AM New York.  I actually play the puzzle in both papers but I prefer Metro's because the grids are larger, easier on these old eyes.  I was really happy that the combined newspaper kept the larger format, same puzzles.  Now that I'm stuck at home as a non-essential non-employee, I cannot pick up the newspaper any more.  Recently I went online and printed out the puzzle for that day, plus the day before.  Yeah, I'm an old-fashioned guy who still prefer pencil and paper.  When you do the puzzle interactively, it's too tempting to click some button to get the answer.  I have lots of pencils anyway.  I rescue them whenever I see one laying on the street.  Happy Word Playing!

THE NEW NORMAL, UGH

The new normal is the new phrase in this trying time.  I hope it won't stay too long and we will eventually go back to the old normal that I was familiar with.  Something as simple as a grocery trip is all too complicated.  I used to just go to the store and buy what I need.  Ordering for delivery or pickup never crossed my mind, but last week I used the service, to avoid spending too much time outside of the house.  At first I thought delivery service was a no-brainer but it turned out delivery would take longer, list a week away.  So the next best thing was pickup service - you order what you want, you pay for it ahead of time, then you go to the store between certain assigned hours to pick the items up.  Simple, right?  There was a mention of a verbal confirmation will be made but it just didn't click in my head what that means.  So I went to the store, with mask and gloves, and learned that they were still one day behind with the order.  I get it, people not working, maybe things didn't get delivered, whatever.  I guess at least the store is still open, that there's a system for people to order online for pickup or delivery.  I'll be back out tomorrow to get the stuff, once verbal confirmation is received.

ZOOMIE ROOMIES

Zoom.us video conference service gained much popularity during this COVID-19 pandemic.  Free for 40 minutes  or available at some reasonable price, the web-based service is used by people quarantined in their houses to interact with other people quarantined in other houses.  I've seen Zoom meetings between members of orchestras, yoga teachers and students, the list goes on and on.  Just prior to me losing my desktop support job, because there's nobody around to need my support, I kept overhearing the manager of the group talk about users wanting to use Zoom.  Now it's everywhere and tonight I had some fun playing a trivia game over Zoom.

It is quite a lot of work to organize the game but I think we got the right people for the job.  Someone came up with all the questions and answers, the format, and someone else tallied the scores and sent the various teams into their Breakout Rooms so they can talk among themselves.  I named my team Zoomie Roomies, to reflect the fact that my team of four are split into two different physical rooms, two per room.  We were roommates of sort, but over Zoom.  I think I coined the phrase Zoomie to refer to users of Zoom.us service, but maybe someone already did that.  It does give me an idea for a cartoon, in a day when the current pandemic is over but we will have other issues related to Zoom.  Stay tuned!

LEARN WITH MAC GEEK GAB

I regularly listen to the Mac Geek Gab podcast.  Cool intro music but what I like the most are the quick tips etc.  Mind you, most of the time I cannot apply the tips but it's still good to know.  My Mac is not at the latest and greatest version of Mac OS X so those tips simply don't apply.  Other tips like WiFi meshing or RAID setup also don't help because I don't have the hardware.  At least not yet.  They do talk about iDevice's iOS and I finally found an applicable tip, namely the Shortcuts app for iPhone and such.  It's sort of like programming for the masses.  I haven't done much with it but quickly cobbled together two Shortcuts "scripts".  One is to turn off Bluetooth then turn on Low Power Mode.  I name it Save Energy.  Supposedly I should use that script each night before going to bed.  In the morning, I would run the Normal Energy script, which undoes those settings.  Just something to explore the Shortcuts app.  There is an Automation portion of Shortcuts that I haven't explored.  Logically, these scripts should run automatically at certain time of the day, as long as the iPhone is on.  Something else I will explore is what to play or act when the iPhone sees my car's Bluetooth system.  Happy Exploring!

NYS ON PAWS

Quarantine and loneliness can go together well.  A few weeks ago Governor Cuomo of New York State stated that the State was to be on P.A.U.S.E., where the acronym translates to some contrived meaning that basically says only essential businesses can stay open.  Shortly afterward the wordsmith in me thought of New York State on P.A.W.S.  My contrived meaning is Pets Are Wovewy Sidekicks, where Wovewy = Lovely, just the way pet owners talk to their pets, kinda like baby talk.  I wouldn't know since I never have a pet but I watch pet videos every now and then.  My little joke/pun is actually behind the time.  I thought the government would declare that everyone needs to have a pet.  On their own, people already ran out to animal shelters and cleared out all dogs and cats etc.  It's totally understandable.

A friend mentioned the lack of nipple rings but I'll them out for now.

DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB

New York City's current dilemma is so depressing I finally decided to take my mind off current events by watching a movie.  I used the Crackle app on my iPhone and after some scrolling picked Dr. Strangelove, aka How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  It is one of those movies that I saw snippets of back in the day of channel-flipping.  It is also the movie that got me to love the tune When Johnny Comes Marching Home.  Maybe it was the suspense and action that were pulsating on-screen, the tune is so memorable.

Without reading up about the movie, of all the times I saw short sections of the movie I didn't know that Peter Sellers played a few different roles in it.  What a talented man!  I knew him mostly as the clumsy Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther movies.  The Strangelove movie deals with nuclear annihilation but had its funny moments.  My favorite part is when Group Commander Mandrake asked a Colonel to shoot the Coca Cola vending machine to get him some coins so he could make a call to the President of the United States, to give the President the code to recall the B-52 bombers on their way to attack Russia.  The Colonel told Mandrake that if there really is no imminent nuclear war then Mandrake will have to face the wrath of the Coca Cola company.  Such absurdity is in many places throughout the movie.  Someone trying to reach some important general by phone and he was busy on the toilet seat and didn't even want to take the call afterward.  The Russian chairman insisting that he's more sorry than the U.S. President about the impending nuclear holocaust.  Some high-ranking general believing in conspiracy theories and putting in motion something that ultimately doomed the world.  Not a good choice of a movie that would cheer me up, even with the funny moments.  One man can really doom the world if not enough people try to stop him.

THE HISTORY OF LOVE

I picked up the book The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss, off the front porch of some house in Park Slope when I went for a run there last month, some day around Valentine's Day.  It is a common practice in that area of town, people just put stuff out on their porch to give away, sometimes with a sign that says "Free", other times none.  Sometimes I even carry books to the area and donate to the few Little Free Libraries in the area.  On that day, I failed in my mission to declutter because I think I also picked up some other books.

The History of Love sounds like an ambitious title, so grandiose, so historic.  It's sorta like the movie Inception, a book within a book.  Yes, there are characters inside the book that are connected to a book called, surprise surprise, The History of Love.  The beginning was pretty sad, much about an old man with no relatives counting the days until he dies.  So depressing, maybe that's why I couldn't get far.  Then a girl named Alma was introduced into the story, I didn't catch on right away that she was in the same universe as the old man.  As a matter of fact, in the same city, this great New York City of ours that is mostly a ghost town because of COVID-19.  In theory, with NYC on lockdown I should have plenty of time to read etc but I was just not in the mood for it.  Eventually I did and finished the book after a few nights as before-bed reading.  Once I saw how the story turned out, that the girl was trying to find the real people behind the book, that she would eventually meeting the old man, I went through the book much faster.  I did have to read the Wikipedia entry afterward to make sure I didn't miss anything.  In the old days, that would be a Cliff Note or Monarch Note.  Yup, I pretty much got the gist of the story.  Supposedly a movie was made out of it, but I am reluctant to see it so soon.  I'd rather see the movie, if I ever will, some time later when what I remember of the book is gone or mostly gone.  I think it's more enjoyable that way.

In the spirit of decluttering the house, I am thinking of offering the book to my local Buy Nothing group, although I am not sure if anyone will want it.  Who knows, when my local library first closed down for the immediate future I thought about raiding the nearest Free Little Library but I never followed through with the idea.

HURRY UP AND QUEUE UP

Like many New Yorkers, I have been hunkering down at home but yesterday I had to make my grocery trips.  I heard about the need to queue up outside the store, to keep the inside of the less crowded to maintain proper distance among the shoppers.  I finally experienced it and it was not so bad.  First it was the Chinese supermarket on my block.  It was rainy but there was an overhang outside the building to keep the people on the queue not as wet.  It was a good thing that the store had an employee at the sole entrance/exit to maintain order.  Some shopper, intentional or not, just blissfully walked into the store.  The people at the front of the store should be closer to the entrance but I guess there was no overhang there so they were some 20 feet away instead.  I recall when we lived under the Communist regime of Viet Nam, standing in queue was a new reality too.  Lots of things were rationed, we had to stand in queue to buy rice, sugar, etc.  As a teenager, I made a little money by getting in the queue to buy stuff for some of the neighbors in the apartment complex.  The queues then was a lot worse than what I experienced yesterday.  It didn't wrap around the block, even with people maintaining six-feet distance.

The queue at the Walgreen across the street from the Chinese supermarket was also short.  Maybe it had to do with the rain.  I don't mind rain at all and have this crazy idea that disease doesn't get distributed as easily when it's raining.  Not just because droplets don't stay in the air as long but many people don't like rain and rather stay indoor.  While I was standing in queue, some guy drove into the parking lot then asked if that was the line to get inside.  He then got upset and drove away.  You would think everyone knows this new reality by now but obviously some don't.

Even though the waiting, at both stores, didn't seem too long, it does add up.  When you need to make a grocery trip, allocate extra time for the queue.  It didn't happen at Walgreen but at Sun-Hing the line to pay was long, or at least longer than usual.

PICKUP LINES IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

Many people got creative now that they have a lot of times on their hand with having no places to go, to job to earn money from, nobody to hang out with, too.  Musically-talented ones wrote song parodies and even perform with guitar and such.  Heck, I myself took a shot at cartooning but I am not rich yet, still waiting for that rich patron to visit my Patreon web site.  I still have another cartoon idea but how about some puns and such.  There's a list of Covid-19 pickup lines going around so I decided to make my own lines.  Not that I need it, just something fun to do with the extra time on my hand.

COVID-19 pickup lines

Roses are red
Violets are blue
When pandemic ends
Let me be your boo

With curves like yours, I wouldn’t flatten any

How do I love thee?
Let me count the plies

I want to be forward with you
That’s just how my TP rolls

We are made for each other
Like macorona and cheese

I hope it’s only your smile that is infectious

With ventilators in high demand, I am afraid to look at you because you are so breathtaking

Let me serenade you while you wash your hands

I see you have P.P.E. but don’t you need some T.L.C. also?

I am sure under that N95 of yours there is a pair of luscious lips smiling at me.

FLATTEN THE CURVE - FINALE!

That's all, folks!  Gojira saved the day!!!  Just my silly idea of how one city can Flatten the Curve.  Of course, in the real world it doesn't work that way.  We just have to do our part and interact with as few people as possible.

FLATTEN THE CURVE - FRAME 3

Here it is, the long awaited conclusion to FLATTEN THE CURVE.  Well, actually no, I plan to have two more frames...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/flatten-curve-3-35299735

FLATTEN THE CURVE - FRAME 2

FLATTEN THE CURVE - FRAME 1

I need to get back into a routine.  One that includes me sitting down and draw cartoon(s) first thing in the morning.  It didn't happen today that's why only now I have my second post for Patreon.  The kicker is not that I lack ideas, I have many ideas, but somehow I just couldn't get started.  The fact that my wife uses my office as her work-office (she's lucky enough to still have a job and can work from home), so I don't have my stuff where I need them to be.  For instance, it took me a while to find the paper that I need to draw on.  I found something similar, but I need my stuff in one place, some place easy to find.

Without further ado, here's my idea of what the Japanese would do if their city got attacked by a Big Curve, frame 1 of more:

PATREON FIRST POST

There, I made my first cartoon for Patreon.  This one is a freebie!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/35220182

PATRONIZE ME!

When I was first told I won't be needed at the office any more because most, if not all, people will be working from home.  There's just no need for a desktop technician to be around, unless said technician can also work from home, but I am a contractor with limited access so that wouldn't happen.  I jokingly thought maybe it's time to follow-up on all those work-from-home spam email I regularly get.  I am sure there are a bunch of them in my Spam folder, thank you Gmail.

Actually, there is a more honest way to make a living from home, or at least make some beer money, even though I don't drink beer (or any alcohol for that matter.)  I heard much about Patreon, the platform for creative types to get patrons, subscribers who foot the bill for the creators to keep the creative juice going without selling their souls to the big corporations.  Or something like that.  It cannot hurt to try, I suppose.  I do have a lot of free time, my kid is all grown-up.

I am all set with Patreon, payment arrangement made, Patreon widget added to this blog's sidebar, why, I even have a couple of cartoon ideas to draw.  I suppose in the beginning I should try to cast a wide net and offer the 'toons to everyone.  I do worry that it won't be fun and game if I have to constantly bang out materials to keep patrons happy but let's get thing up and running first.

HIGHLIGHTS: CLASS OF 1982 WILLIAM COWPER JHS 73

Even before the current self-quarantine/lockdown scenario in New York and across the U.S., I already put in a lot of work for the general Newtown High School group on Facebook.  It helped that I inherited a stack of yearbooks from a popular teacher after his passing.  Besides scanning the yearbook pages, I also arranged for occasional luncheons and do research to help the members locate old friends.

With even more time on my hands, I also scanned pages of the yearbook for my own Class of 1985 at Newtown and even went back to JHS, namely William Cowper JHS 73 Class of 1982.  I know, the school is now named after a popular teacher who passed away in an accident, but for some reason the name has a hard time sticking in my head.  The yearbook, named Highlights, is not complete yet but you can find the first 10 or so pages at the following link:


https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10150384086182542&type=3

TECH TIP: CHROME ENABLE-FEATURES PASSWORDIMPORT

I love discovering useful features of common software.  At all my previous workplaces, Internet Explorer 11, warts and all, was the default browser.  Or at least on the Windows 7 computers that I upgraded to Windows 10.  As a result, the need to transfer Chrome passwords from old machines to new machines was simply not there.  On a recent project, the need arose and I learned from another technician the -enable-features option.

On the old computer, go into Chrome Settings and export the passwords.  The user would have to supply the Windows password.  The file is saved as Chrome Password.csv in the place you select (flash drive, personal folder etc), guard it with your life!

On the new computer, make a copy of an existing Chrome shortcut then add to the Target field -enable-features=PasswordImport , as shown below.  Launch the Chrome copy, go to Settings then Password, you now have the option to import the list of passwords. Have user visit a few sites that require password to verify the import worked then delete the .csv file.  Also delete the copy of Chrome shortcut, just to keep things tidy.

FORD!

This week in Route-Art: Ford!  Actually, it was last week, but with this self-quarantine thing going on it is difficult to tell time.  To be exact, it was this past Saturday.  On Facebook, I help run an alumni group for my high school and other than uploading pages from the few yearbooks I acquired over the years, I try to do something different every now and then.  I've been using Posterino to make photo-grid of the teachers' faces, word-cloud of the teachers' names, and on Saturday it was a favorite teacher's birthday so I decided to use my skill in route-art to enliven the group's Wall.

The teacher's last name is Ford and there is a street not too far from me by the same name.  I wanted to do my run there, so I can name the run FORD BY FORD, but it is not close enough to walk over and would require a bus ride or a car drive.  Social distancing was already announced then so I decide to do it in my own neighborhood.  Little did I know that run would be one of my last runs for the immediate future.  These days I do rope-skipping in the backyard in the morning, then some time after lunch it's yoga in the dining room, both activities are done with my son.  Last but not least, I would do a mile or three on the elliptical in the living room.

Hope you enjoy this little Relive video of my Ford run!  Relive now offer for free one music track to add, sorry that's the best I can do.  After the run, I regretted that I didn't use kerning to keep the rest of letters closer the F.  Oh well!

TERRANCE QUARANTINO

Coming soon to a screen near you, the long-awaited Kill Bill: Volume 3 by yours truly!  It's my life-long dream to direct it and now that I, for all intent and purpose, have no job, no public library to go to, cannot even go out for a run, I have plenty of time and with today's technology, a movie can be made with just a smartphone and one person playing many different roles.  I already have an alias to go with the movie - Terrance Quarantino!

Seriously, I have no plan to direct any movie during this self-quarantine period many residents of New York City are going through.  No, I have no signs of infection, just no job because the place I worked have most people work from home.  Being a contractor doing physical computer setup, there's no future for me when this pandemic struck.  Normally I would spend a lot of time at the public library but that too is closed.  At first Brooklyn Public Library announced that they would operate at reduced hours, something like 1 P.M. to 6 P.M. and closed on the weekends.  Shortly after, it was announced that all Brooklyn libraries would just shut down.  Not that I would travel that far, but same thing for Queens and NYPL (which covers Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island).  So what's left to do?  Again, the normal thing, oh not so long ago, would be to go for a run.  I'm a slow runner but I can do a few miles out then back.  Ten miles, eight miles, whatever, something to do to take one's mind off the pressing matters.  Not anymore.  Now the outdoor is a dangerous place, you don't know who can infect you.  Who knows, soon we may be in lockdown mode like some other cities.

Time to hunker down and stay at home as much as possible.  Here's what I plan to do:

• Work on maintaining a Facebook group for alumni of Newtown High School (Elmhurst, Queens, NY).  If you attended that school and don't yet know about it, check it out at https://www.facebook.com/groups/47486807610/
• Resume maintaining a family tree that I started some years ago.  It is a lot of work, with people dying, being born, getting married etc, it needs updating every so often.  Well, for the immediate future, I do have time.
• With the library closed, one of my source of entertainment is no longer available.  Sure, Overdrive is available for digital content but I'm an old-school guy, I still watch movies on DVDs and such.  A sister of mine left a box or two of VHS tapes in my attic, I might watch some of those old movies after all.
• Last but not least, this blog needs more regular posting.  Facebook et al are nice but can be so chaotic sometimes.  I like to go back to old materials every now and then.  A blog is good for that.  It's just me and my own stuff, no need to wade through pages and pages of other people's stuff.

Hang on, COVID  Cave-Dwellers!

THAT'S AMORE

The past few years for Valentine's Day, I led a group run that spells out something related to that over-commercialized event.  The first year it was "LOVE", the following it was also "LOVE" but packed into a neat little square, in the style of that famous Robert Indiana sculpture.  Last year, it was "I {heart} U", where the heart symbol was where the {heart} is.  A Facebook memory reminded me, belatedly, that this year it should be "xoxo".  I said "belatedly" because I totally forgot about it and already designed the route to spell "amore", the Italian word for love.  It could have been the Spanish word "amor" but because of that Dean Martin song I went with "amore".  The little pun about "a moray" (eel) and "amore" is one of my favorites, so "amore" it is.

The route makes no use of any special skill with pausing and unpausing of GPS watch or smartphone app.  I am tempted to throw in one, though, to make the top of the "r" better show the arch at the top of that letter.  It'll be an optional thing.  If you don't do it, the letter still looks like an "r".

9:30 A.M. Saturday 15 February 2020
Bartel-Pritchard Square
Brooklyn, NY

We'll walk to the green dot on the "a", without activating watch or smartphone app, then start from there.  Event is open to the public, so do come if you are in the neighborhood.  I'll be on the traffic circle of Bartel-Pritchard a little before 9:30.

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: