Between renovations the Statue of Liberty’s crown was reopened for a little while. Managed to get tickets to the top.
True story, I was able to see the crash site from the office. Only had an iPhone 3 at hand, and glare from the window made it difficult to see, especially in the distance, but if you look closely you can still distinctly see the tail sticking out of the water.
Stop & Walk both illuminated… think quick: what do you do?
Apparently the Fail Whale in tech is a disease lately. The latest obvious occurrence has been New York’s MTA with their MetroCard vending machines. I noticed on Monday walking into the station, the lines in front of the vending machines were insanely long (normally 2 people max, now 15+) and presumed just a large group of tourists. Then saw it when I got off at my stop (hmm… two stations overloaded with customers? Strange). This morning it was less but still crowded (I guess some people gave up), and learned the problem myself. Apparently they can’t process credit cards lately.
Many New Yorkers purchase an $81 30-Day Unlimited Ride MetroCard,a s opposed to putting a fixed amount on a card. I suspect many do not carry $81 cash on them because we are a society that uses credit cards for convenience. So those people just pulled a couple dollars out of their wallet and bought a regular fare card with the intent to come back later. At $2.00 a fare this could provide a nice bump for the MTA, who I might add is cash strapped and looking to raise the fees after just cutting the bonuses from 20-15%.
Now regarding that bonus cut, that creates a whole new can of worms. For those who don’t know: if you purchase more than $7, you get a bonus. 20% always leaves a nice even number. 15% on the other hand leaves you with spare change. Leaving room for things like the MetroCard Bonus Calculator. What a mess. You could always put a few dollars on the card to clean it up, but then you loose the 15% bonus on that money. Over time that adds up. I’m sure many people just throw away the cards with change on it, but I find that somewhat silly.
Twitter seemed to survive the Chino Hills earthquake, so the MTA wins the Fail Whale award for today.
Damn you wet weather. Closing roads and making things a mess. 8 inches of rain in Central Park. The irony will be drought restrictions being posted later this summer.
Yikes! Considering what happened, it’s amazing how few were harmed. What’s even more striking are the parallels.
The media is nonstop with the parallels to 9/11, and for good reason (burning skyline, plane, Oct 11), but there are other strange examples of reliving history that come to my mind:
Empire State Building was at one point struck by a B-25. Also a brick building, which happened to survive rather well (larger airplane, larger building).
Thurman Munson had a somewhat similar fate, lack of experience and an airplane. Not sure if you need to be a Yankee fan for this to be the first thing you think of when you hear of a baseball player killed in a plane crash. I’d guess most would think of Roberto Clemente. But I’ve heard the story enough that it came to mind quickly.
It’s said Yankee contracts since Munson’s death require any Yankee piloting an aircraft to have a licensed instructor with them. Who knows what George Steinbrenner will do now. Perhaps ground the Yankees?
The other thing that went through my mind was that Seinfeld episode (The Boyfriend) with Keith Hernandez (of Mets Fame) where George (who goes on to work for the Yankees about 2 seasons later) asks:
You know Keith, what I’ve always wondered, with all these ball clubs flying around all season don’t you think there would be a plane crash? …
But if you think about it…26 teams, 162 games a season, you’d think eventually an entire team would get wiped out.
Just some random thoughts after watching the news coverage.
This is kind of disturbing. The MTA isn’t really a private company. As taken from their website (with my emphasis):
Since 1982 the MTA has been carrying out the largest public works rebuilding project in the country. Funded by federal, state, and local government and by the issuance of debt, the MTA’s most recent capital program has generated an average 31,760 private-sector jobs, $1.3 billion in wages, $100 million in state and local tax revenues, and $3.52 billion in economic activity annually.
That’s right New Yorkers… you by law paid for those maps, but by law you can’t have them.
There’s something seriously wrong when you have to pay for access to something paid for by your taxes. They should be given the choice of either giving up the federal/state/local funding, or release copyright into the public domain. The current situation is ridiculous.
Took an Art History trip to visit The Gates (Wikipedia Link), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Of course I snapped some Camera Phone pictures. Note I was walking the entire time, so these were all made while walking on ice.
When visiting the gates, if you ask one of the “Pole People” (the people with poles that have Tennis balls affixed to one end so they can unwrap a gate should the fabric be blown and twisted), you can get a sample of the fabric used. Rather interesting free souvenir.
Afterward we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and checked out some of their stuff. I spent some time roaming in there and got somewhat lost (intentionally didn’t carry a map, just drifted where I felt I wanted to go at the moment). Noteworthy is the Frank Lloyd Wright Living Room (who designed the nearby Guggenheim), and some of the armor and weapons they collected. Rather cool stuff.
Slightly quiet over the past few days. Several things going on. First of all school is busy (lots of work and studying). Then I’ve been hacking away at several projects. Lots of fun there. Not to mention some TV time, and just relaxing. Everyone needs some of that.
I’ll be checking out the “The Gates” in Central Park, NYC later this week as I’ll be in the city. I’ll be sure to take my camera phone and snap a few low-quality pictures (they still are pictures), and post them here for all my non-Northeastern US and international readers. So keep an eye out for those. I’m planning to put those up sometime before the weekend (likely Friday night).
CNN has a nice little article titled Iraqis’ top 10 tips for enduring blackout in the heat. Definitely worth a read. Funny, yet informative. Suddenly, for about a day, NYC and Iraq could really relate.
Took the day off. Got Korean/Japanese food (good stuff). So it was a surprise 3 day weekend. Hurray! 😀
Interesting that outage may be due to one line.
Some other linkage: