what about the plastic animals?

$5,000

I wonder how much Luis would pay for two?  Selling kidneys, by the way, is opposed by the National Kidney Foundation.

Slow Train

 

 

As promised, today we have a slow German train.   The misleadingly named Rasender Roland, or Racing Roland, on the island of Rügen.  The Rasender Roland is a narrow-gauge train that winds it's way back and forth across the island.  In truth, the Roland doesn't move all that fast.  When my father was a kid he would catch a ride by running up to the train and jumping on.

The train has been on the island for more than a century.  At one time it was an important means of transportation -the presence of the line was what enabled the resort towns to grow- but today it is mostly for tourists.

I hope nobody minds the lack of a theme in the recent posts.  I'm in a random mood.

Here are the search terms several people used to find this site today:

• heroin slang on craigslist (because I write so much about heroin and craigslist?)
• tien mao shannan
• mr. met email (Mr. Met loves fan mail.  Rumor has it he will make an appearance soon.)
• what about the plastic animals
• calories in a capogiro mozzarella and peppers sandwich
• simone perrotta's wedding
• taste of dinosaur meat
• bat cave riverside drive upper manhattan
• tien jake wedding (I didn't even know they were dating!)

And might I just say that posting videos to Typepad via VideoEgg really stinks.  Sorry if you got this post four times in your RSS feeds.

Fast Train

 

The ICE, InterCityExpress, in Germany moves along at a nice clip.  Using "one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, as my stopwatch I estimated we were traveling at 200 km/hr, which is roughly 120-130 mph.  Contrast that to my father's trip from Syracuse on Amtrak last week.  I'm not sure what the top speed was but the 300-mile trip took six hours, for an average of 50 mph (~80 km/hr).  Amtrak is cheap, especially with a senior discount, but you'll save at least an hour by driving.

Tomorrow:  A much slower German train.
Blocked Alley Update:  turns out they are working on the fish market building.

Smith College Museum of Art Men's Room

On the way back home from my sister's a couple of weeks ago I visited the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton.  The museum recently reopened after renovation and expansion.  Two people at the museum told me I had to check out the basement restrooms.  I only went into the men's room.  Artist Sandy Skoglund's had turned the interior surfaces into Liquid Origins, Fluid Dreams.

While impressive, the men's room was not the museum's highlight.  The highlight was seeing Edward Hopper's Pretty Penny.  Hopper was a native of Nyack.  The house in which I lived in Nyack was only a couple blocks up the street from Hopper's.  Across the street from where I lived was Pretty Penny which, for many years was home to Nyack's own Helen Hayes, Charles MacArthur and their son James.  Rosie O'Donnell lived in Pretty Penny, which she surrounded with a 12-foot high brick wall and even higher juniper shrubs, when I moved there.

Alley Blocked

Until yesterday the passageway between the fish market and the African Market had been open for the five years I've lived here.  Both ends were blocked off this morning.  The 115th St. end has a door.  By this evening the door was blocked on the inside by a wooden pallet and there is a big pile of white plastic bags about two-thirds of the way down the alley.

A bit to the left the Kalahari is slowly going up.  I should put up a progress report someday soon.

On the Brooklyn Bridge

Dad and Krystyna on the Brooklyn Bridge.  They liked the bridge.

Bagels in Harlem

East Harlem to be accurate.  I wonder if the proprietress of Bagel in Harlem has been here?

In no particular order, here are four places in northern Indiana that are worth visiting:

1.  Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum, Auburn.  You don't have to be a car to appreciate these beauties.
2.  United States Vice Presidential Museum at the Dan Quayle Center, Huntington.  Vice Presidents!  "...emphasizing those who have called Indiana, "home"."
3.  Greentown Glass Museum, Greentown.  You'll likely have this place, on the site of the former Indiana Tumbler and Goblet Company, to yourself.  When I visited the sweet old volunteer lady told me the story of the factory and how, when sales began to fall there was a mysterious (wink, wink) fire (wink, wink) that burned the factory down.  The owner (wink, wink) elected to take the insurance money (wink, wink) but didn't rebuild (wink, wink).  The glass is quite nice and an abundance of chicken-topped butter dishes is always appreciated.
4.  Wednesday Flea Market and Antique Auction, Shipshewana.  When the auction tires you out a slice of shoo-fly pie will give you the strength you need to raise your bid.
5.  Fourteen Places to Eat.  You can experience rural northern Indiana via the magic of those series of tubes known as the Internet.

Yes, yes I'm aware that Bloomington is in southern Indiana, but the southernmost I've been in the state is Frankfort, home of the Hot Dogs.

Tradition

On my way up to Vermont a couple of weeks ago I stopped to stretch my legs at the parking area overlooking Livingston Manor.  After reading the informative sign, I noticed the names scratched into the sign post.

New Comfy Chair

As promised my new chair was delivered between noon and 3 p.m. today.  2:57 to be exact.

North, East, South, West

From Rockefeller Center.