How to dry out wet books

I woke Saturday morning to a sound thundering through the house: the sound of water flowing through the pipes at full blast. I stepped out of bed and directly into half an inch of water.

We've had basement flooding over the years, but the water has never accumulated to the point that it was Saturday morning, not since I had begun reacting to incoming flooding with active pumping. I ran into the downstairs bathroom and realized that the water was coming from there - but where? There was water dripping from the ceiling, but the leak didn't seem to be from above. I quickly discovered that the water inlet hose to the toilet was detached and blasting water full-force all over the place.  It took just a few seconds to shut off the valve, but immediately the problem of what to do with the water needed to be dealt with. Fortunately I always know where the pumps are, and set them up immediately to begin pumping the standing water down the nearest drains. I threw towels on the floor to begin absorbing the water that wasn't getting pumped. Then I stepped back to assess the damage.

I have always said that you could get a pretty decent education from the books in my bathroom. Dozens of books, magazines, comic books, plus numerous catalogs, mailings, and other assorted things that probably should have been thrown away long ago.

Many of them were now soaking wet.

When the hose detached - disassembled, really; the threaded fitting that holds the hose captive and directs it into the tank broke apart - the water sprayed everywhere, including onto the ceiling, and onto the rack that held my books and magazines. As soon as the immediate issues had been dealt with I began to sort through the books. Those that were completely dry - and there were many of these - were put into a Rubbermaid tote to be dealt with later. Those that were wet and worth salvaging - all the books and comic books and some of the magazines - were piled up to be dealt with quickly. Those that could be discarded, old magazines with no historical value, were bagged for recycling.

I got some drying racks and spread as many of the magazines and comic books as could fit over them, taking them down as they dried and replacing them with others. I grabbed the soaked books - a paperback of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (one of my least favorite recent reads) and an Irish-bought hardcover compendium of the complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, among others, and...did something that probably damaged them worse than they already were. Something I would not have done if I had followed these links first:

University of Delaware Library - How to Dry a Wet Book


How to Salvage Wet Books - University of Michigan

How to Dry a Wet Book | eHow.com

How To - How to Dry Wet Books in 7 Steps

How to Repair a Wet Book: 9 steps - wikiHow

There are other useful links out there, but they all have the same basic instructions, mostly. Essentially, what I should have done is stand the books upright on an absorbent base with absorbent papers tucked in the front and back covers and let gravity do the work. I'm hoping it's not too late to do that.

A side note: A lot of the water was absorbed by crap that I should have thrown away long ago. If I had, if it hadn't been there, then a lot more good books and magazines would have been damaged. As it is, I can just take my waterlogged seed catalogs from three years ago and Quality Paperback Book Club mailings from last year and toss them out.

Upcoming blogging events

If you've been paying attention to the sidebar of this blog, you already know about these events. But here's a reminder anyway!

Blog Fest is coming this Friday, September 21! Gort, Joe Valenti, and Dave Yonki originally envisioned this as a political event, more about politics than blogging. After a dip in turnout for the Spring 2011 Blog Fest while Gort was taking a break from blogging, NEPA Blogs co-administrator Michelle Hryvnak Davies took the initiative to run a publicity drive for the Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 Blog Fests, bringing in large numbers of non-political bloggers. For the Fall 2012 Blog Fest Gort has expressed a desire to turn the focus back on politics, which seems reasonable given that this is a major election year. Nevertheless, all bloggers - political and non-political alike - are welcome to Blog Fest, which will be held at Rooney's at 67 South Main Street in Pittston on Friday, September 21 starting at 6:00. And any politician with half a lick of sense will know that politics is about getting your message out to everybody - which means they should be just as eager to talk to people who blog about fashion and photography as to those who blog about politics!

On Saturday, September 29, Luzerne County Community College will be playing host to the first-ever NEPA BlogCon! Michelle Hryvnak Davies is part of the "Fearsome Foursome" organizing this event. You can read more about it here. TODAY ONLY, Wednesday, September 19, you can get a ticket to this event for only $35 - a savings of over 46% form the regular price of $65!

Sometimes blogging can feel like an isolated activity. These events are your opportunity to meet and mingle with other bloggers from throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania!

End of an era: The Vintage Theater in Scranton is closing

(Note: I originally intended to use this title on a post about the end of my run of weekly appearances on WBRE's PA Live!, presenting the NEPA Blogs Blog of the Week every Tuesday. But that ship sailed long ago, and I haven't gotten around to writing that post yet. So this post gets to claim the title.)

The Vintage Theater in Scranton will be closing after the upcoming First Friday event on Friday, June 1, 2012.

I first heard about the Vintage Theater (I think) shortly after it opened, in an article in the Scranton Times. I skimmed it, and somehow managed to convince myself that the theater that had been rehabbed and refurbished and reopened was the old Ritz Theater, where my friends and I used to catch dollar third-run showings of films like Out of Africa and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? back in college. But I was wrong.

I found out how wrong I was the first time I went to the Vintage Theater. It wasn't that long ago - just last September 15th. I had been invited to take part in a Bloggers' Roundtable being held at the Vintage Theater. It was a Thursday night, which seemed like an odd time. I went into the event knowing very little about what I was getting into and prepared for anything. Well, almost anything. After actually locating the venue, I met with the three other bloggers who would be taking part, and then we sat in a line across a stage (no table involved, round or otherwise) and discussed blogging.

Towards the end of the night I noticed a trickle of people coming into the theater and looking at us on the stage with some surprise. They didn't seem to be there for the Bloggers' Roundtable, but migrated to a smaller room in the back of the theater. Some of them did take seats in the audience, and one even asked a question or two.

As the event came to a close I discovered that we were sharing the Vintage that evening with a poetry reading. I hadn't been to a poetry reading in many years, and decided to stick around and take it in. The group was called the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writers' Collective, and they presented a wide range of poems and even some prose pieces every third Thursday of the month. I found out that they were a writing group that met every Saturday at the Vintage. I was about to start working again on a very irregular schedule, so I wasn't sure when I'd be able to meet with them, but I was definitely interested.

One person stepped up to do a "commercial" - her name was Kait Burrier, and she would be presenting dramatic readings of her work that coming Sunday at the Vintage. I saw this as an opportunity to get a taste of the cultural offerings of Scranton, a place that was at once familiar and brand-new to me.

Before the Bloggers' Roundtable broke up I was approached by the people who had arranged for it to take place, and I discovered that this was the opening shot of the Scranton Pages & Places Book Festival, which would take place Saturday, October 1 at various locations throughout Scranton - including the Vintage Theater. I was presented with a pass to the festival. It would be my first full day off after working my first rotation of night shift, but I was determined to make it there.

And I did. I took in the workshops on Non-Fiction Writing and Fiction Writing being presented at the Vintage. In between the two, I became re-acquainted with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writers' Collective, who were having their weekly meeting in the back of the Vintage. I also met a writer and blogger whose posts I'd been following for several months - a startling and seemingly improbable encounter for both of us, though in retrospect it seems perfectly reasonable that I would encounter her as a part of a writing group.

I began going to the weekly meetings of the writing group at the Vintage just as soon as I could - which, from my old work calendar, looks like it would have been sometime in November. It was around this time that I was asked to take part in another event taking place at the Vintage Theater - the Scranton Bluekey Tweetup, an event designed to raise awareness of the plight of refugees. This event was organized by blogger Mandy Boyle, who I had first met in person at one of the Pages & Places writing workshops at the Vintage! Michelle, my co-administrator at NEPA Blogs, was also there (and had persuaded me to go in the first place), as were other local bloggers.

A little more than a month after the Tweetup Michelle and I were heading back to the Vintage for Pecha Kucha Night, another event that Mandy Boyle helped bring into being. This event was huge. The Vintage was crowded, more crowded than I had ever seen it before. But that would change.

My involvement with the writing group ramped up as the year went on. I had managed to miss all of their Open Mic Poetry Nights since my first chance encounter in September. The March one was going to be something special, focusing on just one of our writers for the second half of the show. I nominated myself to serve as group photographer, and manged to take some halfway decent images. A month later the spotlight turned on another of our writers, and I improved upon my technique somewhat - taking pictures indoors in a low-light situation with a tiny snapshot camera and not using a flash. (A tripod and an understanding of how your camera's Sports mode works are essential for this.)

But before the April Open Mic Night there would be one other event at the Vintage: the Scranton StorySlam.

I hadn't planned to go. It was right after Blog Fest, and the same day as the birthday party of the daughter of some of my friends, and I would be starting out more than eighty miles away. Michelle would be going as one of the judges, so I felt that her presence kept NEPA Blogs involved. Surely we didn't both have to be there! But the organizer had made a point of coming out to Blog Fest. And in a strange, freak coincidence, as soon as I began following the StorySlam on Twitter I found that I was the hundredth (or was it the thousandth?) Twitter follower and had won free admission. So now fate had decreed that I had to go, whether I wanted to or not.

That event was the most crowded I have ever seen the Vintage. It became standing room only long before the start of the show, and at halftime I had to retreat to the safety of the little room in the back where the writing group routinely met just so I could breathe. But overall, the StorySlam was a resounding success.

So we had the April Open Mic, and began making plans for the May one. This was a big one. It once again featured one member of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writers' Collective - but it was Jennifer Diskin, a member who had passed away in December, after a long and epic battle with cancer. I had never met her; I had only just started coming to meetings when I learned that she was very ill, and then that she had died. I didn't know her, but I knew that this was going to be an event not to be missed.

It was beautiful. The Vintage was crowded again - not like it was for the StorySlam, but in a manner appropriate for a memorial poetry reading. Friends read poems by her, or about her, or inspired by her, or even works that had been her favorites.  Through it all I clicked away with my camera, capturing some of my best pictures yet.

That was Thursday. Today Conor, the proprietor of the Vintage Theater, sat down with our writing group (after a particularly raucous session) and let us know that he would be vacating the premises following the upcoming First Friday event on June 1. He's planning to re-establish himself somewhere else in Scranton, using lessons learned from this venture, re-imagining the venue with a focus on art space and performing space.

We support him in this, of course. But it will take time. And in the meantime, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writers' Collective needs to find a new - temporary - home. We appear to have found one, though I'll hold off making the announcement until it's official.

The Vintage Theater. I've had a lot of history with it in just the last eight months. It was a good place, and it served us well. I will be forever grateful to Conor for all the good times we had there.

Blog Fest is coming!

The Spring 2012 edition of NEPA Blog Fest will be held at Rooney's Irish Pub in Pittston on the evening of Friday, March 30.

Blog Fest grew out of Gort's periodic gatherings of Wilkes-Barre area bloggers and others at a small bar in Wilkes-Barre.  Occasionally a candidate for local office would stop by to put in some face-time. Two years ago Gort decided to try something new: working with local political bloggers Joe Valenti and Dave Yonki, he moved the event to a larger venue - Rooney's Irish Pub in Pittston - and put out an invitation to as many candidates running for state and local office as he could. He also put out the call to local media, letting them know this was happening.

And, whaddya know: it was a huge success.

We did it again in the Fall of 2010 with a slightly smaller turnout.  (This was, however, the first time the event was dubbed "Blog Fest," on a handwritten sign in front of the place.) But in the beginning of 2011, Gort was taking a break from blogging. As the Winter started to edge into Spring I began to wonder about whether a Spring edition of the event would be held at all. Finally, while catching up on posts I had missed on Dave Yonki's blog, I came across the announcement - nearly three weeks after it had originally been posted on Joe Valenti's Pittston Politics blog. (Dave's blog is indexed by issue number, and Joe's by date, so if you miss an announcement on either one, the only way to know about it is to go back and read through every post you've missed.) While word of the event may have gone out to Dave and Joe's regular readers, the larger community of bloggers throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania were generally in the dark about it.

Michelle and I found out about this at about the same time, and with just a few weeks to go she decided to try to publicize the event to non-political bloggers and the general public. She wrote up a post for NEPA Blogs, she sent out information to the local media, we posted announcements wherever we could find available space.

In the end it was a mostly political event, less well-attended than the first one (and possibly the second.)  Non-political bloggers were few and far between.  (This may have been due in part to a major political event in Dupont and a dinner for the Luzerne County Historical Society being held that night.) For whatever reason, Rooney's seemed to be unprepared for the size of the crowd, and service was very slow. Gort, however, was in attendance, and I believe that he was inspired that night to resume blogging, and to be at the helm for the next Blog Fest.

Gort announced the upcoming Fall 2011 Blog Fest on his blog and through Facebook. Unfortunately he did this with just nine days to go until the actual event! This wasn't as last-minute as it seemed: he had been working to schedule the event so that as many candidates as possible could attend without having a conflict with their campaign and fundraising schedules. The Blog Fest was held just weeks after the worst flooding in the region's history, only a hundred feet or so from the high-water mark, as a light rain managed to re-flood many of the roads leading away from the venue. There were plenty of candidates on hand, and a few more non-political bloggers than at previous events, all of which was quite remarkable given the circumstances.

So now the news is going out about the Spring 2012 event. Michelle has issued a "Save the Date" announcement - because, what the heck, this time there are twelve weeks until the actual event, and we're going to need to issue reminders every week or two or everybody is going to forget about it.

So who is going to show up? In the past a lot of non-political bloggers didn't show up because they perceived it as a political event, and their absence made it even more so. But it doesn't have to be that way. Politics is a part of life, but life is about more than politics. Blogs are about more than politics, too; some people - especially some political bloggers - may not see it that way, but a quick glance at the live updates list on the NEPA Blogs sidebar will reveal a whole lot of bloggers who do not write primarily about politics, if at all.

Yet non-political bloggers cannot pretend that politics doesn't exist just because they, say, find political chit-chat so godawful dull that they would rather core out their ear canals with a grapefruit spoon than listen to someone drone on and on about the intrigues and treachery in some local school board or political body. This stuff affects us all - if not directly, then regionally; the corruption of judges in Luzerne County or county commissioners in Lackawanna County or whoever in Wilkes-Barre or Pittston or Scranton affects the overall perception of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and affects little things like how willing companies are to move into the area, and therefore what the likelihood that more and better jobs will ever come back to NEPA.

So if you're a political blogger, show up: you'll find plenty of candidates who want to talk to you and try to get in your good graces. And if you're a non-political blogger, show up too: you'll find other non-political bloggers who would love to meet and interact with you. And maybe the two groups could mingle a bit. Political bloggers might discover a world of blogging that exists outside of politics, and non-political bloggers might find a few thoughtful, intelligent candidates who are willing to actually listen to what normal people have to say.

But whatever you do, please keep me away from the grapefruit spoons.

Blogger meet-up November 6

Shamelessly stolen from here.

via Michelle



....announce the upcoming NEPA Blogger Meet-up. This event will be actually focused around the bloggers…what a novel thought!

We are inviting the usual political suspects, but don't think that many of them will be showing up because of the close proximity to election day. I'm sure that they will be busy vying for last minute votes.

Here are the dirty deets about the event:

The Who/What: NEPABlogs.org will be hosting an informal Blogger Meet-up. Come out and meet the NEPA Blogs (dysfunctional) family. ALL ARE WELCOME. There is no admission or cover charge. It is absolutely 100% free. You have to buy your own drinks though. Unless you serenade me with an off key version of Lady Gaga or something like that.

The When: Sun Nov. 6, 2011 starting at 5pm. Stay until the cows come home….or last call. Whichever comes first.

The Where: The Metro Bar & Grill in Dallas. For directions to the Metro Bar and Grille, please visit: http://www.themetrobarandgrill.com/

***More details here: http://nepablogs.blogspot.com/2011/10/blogger-meet-up.html – We put the "fun" in dysfunctional.

I hope you can stop by and partake in some libations with cool kiddies.

A visitor's guide for people attending the Sideshow Gathering

Please note that this is in no way officially connected to the Sideshow Gathering or its sponsors, or to any of the businesses mentioned herein.  I'm just this guy, you know?

I'm trying to think of things that could be of value to people coming to the Sideshow Gathering.  The Woodlands, while a fine multi-purpose facility that houses a hotel, restaurants, clubs, and (of course) convention facilities, can feel like it's in the middle of nowhere.  Actually, there's quite a bit of stuff just over the next hill...

First things first:  You're not in Wilkes-Barre anymore.  Seriously.  You're in Plains Township.  You may need to know that at some point.

Route 315 is your friend.  It runs parallel to Interstate 81 for several miles.  You can use 315 to pick up 81 in either direction - there is one interchange at Wilkes-Barre to the southwest and another near Pittston to the northeast.  You can also pick up the Pennsylvania Turnpike in either direction:  if you are heading north on the Turnpike, pick it up at Pittston, and if you are heading south, pick up 115 south at Wilkes-Barre and follow it to the Turnpike.  Following 315 south will also take you to Business Route 309, which has some places of interest on it.  Taking 315 north will get you to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport at Avoca, which you can also get to on 81 north.


Starbucks:  We actually have a Starbucks!  It's located at the Wilkes-Barre Township Marketplace, which houses several other places of interest, including a Wal-Mart, a Cracker Barrel, a Liquor Store, and the Super Kings Chinese Buffet.

To get there from the Woodlands:
- Turn left (south/west) on 315
- Take 315 about one mile until it becomes Business 309
- Take Business 309 about one mile
- Make a left on Mundy Street and follow for about a half mile (this is actually the second intersection with Mundy Street; you can actually get there by following the first, but then you will make a left in the next instruction)
- Make a right on Highland Park Boulevard and follow for about half a mile
- Wilkes-Barre Township Marketplace and Starbucks will be on your right

Google Maps address: 2030 wilkes barre twp mkt Place, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702 (Starbucks)


Barnes & Noble:  Sadly, this is the only bookstore left in the area.  Oh, and it also has Starbucks coffee.  This is located at the Arena Hub Plaza, which also houses a Lowes, an Olive Garden, an Outback Steakhouse, a Best Buy, and several other retail stores (including clothing stores - no sales tax on clothing in Pennsylvania!)

To get there from the Woodlands:
- Turn left (south/west) on 315

- Take 315 about one mile until it becomes Business 309
- Take a left at the first intersection with Mundy Street and follow for about half a mile  (stay in leftmost lane)
- Take a left at the traffic light (actually your second or third traffic light) onto Tambur Boulevard into the Arena Hub Plaza
- Barnes & Noble will be on the right

Google Maps address: 421 Arena Hub Plaza, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702 (Barnes & Noble Booksellers Wilkes-Barre)

Note:  When you make the turn onto Highland Park Boulevard or Tambur Boulevard, you will be turning directly opposite an entrance to the Wyoming Valley Mall, which may have some stores of interest.


Hospital: Now, let's say that the light bulb you ate yesterday doesn't agree with you today, or that angle grinder burn is really starting to feel funny, or you've accidentally sawed something off.  There are several hospitals in the area, but the closest is definitely Geisinger Wyoming Valley hospital.

To get there from the Woodlands:
- Turn right (northeast) on 315 about one mile
- Turn right at Jumper Road 0.2 mi
- Take the first right onto East Mountain Drive 0.5 mi
- Turn left



Let's say you're in the mood for unlimited food cheap, but you don't want Chinese for some reason.  There's also the Old Country Buffet in the East End Shopping Center.

 To get there from the Woodlands:

- Turn left (south/west) on 315
- Take 315 about one mile until it becomes Business 309
- Continue along 309 for a few hundred more feet until you see the East End Shopping Center on your left

This shopping center also houses a Red Lobster.

If gambling is your thing, you're in luck!  The Woodlands is a stone's throw from the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, one of Pennsylvania's first casinos, now featuring table games as well as slot machines, dining and shopping.
To get there from the Woodlands:

- Turn right (northeast) on 315 about 1.3 miles
...and you're there!

These are just some of places along routes 315 and 309.  If you drive around the area, you'll see the place is loaded with shops, restaurants, and little holes-in-the-wall.  I've just listed a few.


Also of interest:

Giant Cow (Three-O-Nina)
As featured on RoadsideAmerica.com
Located along route 309 (hence the name) near the Georgetown Deli and Four Keys Plaza, 720 Wilkes-Barre Township Boulevard.
(For being a giant cow it's surprisingly easy to miss.  It's right behind the STIHL sign  If you find yourself looking at a McDonald's, a Kmart, and a sign for CINEMA 309 XXX, you've gone too far.)

Gallery of Sound
One of a dying breed:  an independent record store.  Stop in and see what they might have that you might need!  Located at 186 Mundy Street.

Gertrude Hawk Chocolates
The finest chocolates around!  Right next to the Gallery of Sound at 174 Mundy Street.

Houdini Museum
http://www.houdini.org/
A bit farther afield, located in Scranton, PA.

From their site:
1433 N. Main, Scranton, PA 18508. Tel. (570) 342-5555

GPS Latitude: 41.432156 Longitude: -75.663338
Take I-81 to Exit 190 the Main Ave Exit, LEFT onto Main exactly 2 miles to 1433 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA. Free Parking. Enter front or back.


Knotty Pine restaurant
And one last thing, a vanishing bit of Americana.  An old-fashioned diner/restaurant located in Hazleton, PA at 26 North Church Street just off route 309.  It was announced earlier this week that this place will be closing as of November 13.  This place is easy to get to for those traveling south on 81, 309, or picking up Interstate 80 - all of these highways converge at Hazleton.

Some thoughts after getting robbed

A while back there was a situation involving a news reporter somewhere who did a story on home security in the wake of a wave of robberies in his area.  To inform his viewers on the latest steps they could take to avoid becoming victims of a robbery, he took his viewers on a tour of the most secure place he know - his own house.  He proudly showed off his security system, his window alarms, his motion detectors, and everything else that made his house robbery-proof.  His viewers really appreciated the information.  Some more than others - particularly the robbers who soon hit his house, since he had effectively cased the joint for them.

So I'm not going to do that.

A friend asked me to share with her my thoughts on what you can do to improve security and avoid being robbed.  I put together a list the other night, and I realized that this would be something worth sharing here.  If anyone has anything else to add, please leave a comment and I'll add it to the main body of the post.

1. Assume someone will break into your house or apartment.

2. The most likely way in is to force a door - but a good old-fashioned smashed window is not out of the question. That's how they broke into my house.

3. Getting in without being noticed is 90% of the work. If you can smash a window without anyone hearing or reporting, odds are you can take your time robbing the place and casually getting away. So make it as difficult to get into your place as possible. If you rent, there are probably limitations as to what you can add to doors and windows, or mount to walls. But motion detectors can always be mounted to bookcases or other furniture.

One of my mistakes: the window that was smashed had a storm window, but it was not in position. If it had been, they would have had to smash TWO windows. Which might not have made much difference.

I'm also thinking of bricking over my basement windows with glass blocks. Those are tricky entry points, but once you're in, you're in.  You may want to check with local building or fire codes before you do something like this.

4. Two things are the enemy to a sneaky burglar: time and noise. If you can slow down the intruder and force them to take more time doing things, do it. Sturdy locks on inside doors, things hidden away, obstacles wherever you can get them. (Obstacles in my house didn't pose a huge problem to these people.) Inexpensive ($25) motion detector alarms from Wal-Mart or Home Depot may help, too - I have several of them covering key areas now, and will keep them even after I get a professional system installed. I have also screwed 1/4" wire mesh ("hardware cloth") onto all of the windows in the room where the entry occurred, including the window in the door. It may not stop someone from getting in that way, but it will slow them down.

Interior doors are generally designed more for privacy than security.  Consider installing exterior doors in critical interior points where you want to restrict passage.  Pay attention to the location of hinges - a good lock won't mean much if you can just pop some hinge pins.  But remember:  security measures may turn deadly in the case of a fire.  Will that double-locked door block an emergency exit point?  Do those window bars swing out if you need to exit through a window?

5. Keep an inventory of EVERYTHING, even if it's just a photographic record. You can't report something to insurance if you don't know it's been stolen. A while back I had a beautiful Arcosanti bronze windchime hanging on my front porch, but then I became very paranoid about it being stolen by scrap metal thieves and took it down and put it in the house. Now, where did I put it? I don't THINK it was on the side that was robbed - but, oddly, I found the explanatory insert card on a bookshelf there. So has the windchime (in its gift box) been stolen? Or have I just forgotten where I put it?

6.  Don't make things easier for a burglar.  I installed a lock on one door, and then mused that it would take a burglar about thirty seconds with a clawhammer or crowbar to get it open.  Then I realized that I had both a clawhammer and a crowbar in that very room.  They are now both on the other side of the lock.

This isn't a complete list.  I anyone has anything to add, please let me know.

Inopportune return to work

Tomorrow night I will begin another four-day rotation of work, my first full rotation since the end of July.  Unfortunately this comes at a very inopportune time.

Since I discovered yesterday that my house had been broken into, I've been going through some stages - different from the stages of grieving.  I started off at a level of bemused acceptance.  Now I have worked my way up to  full-blown paranoia.  Now that the thieves know that they can smash a window, go through a house (there was evidence that they had been on the second floor, though nothing was missing up there), cut out the pipes in the basement, and exit through the back door, all while making a hell of a racket (based on the window greenhouse and can of paint that the first person through the window apparently fell onto, and the footlocker of magazines that they knocked over while getting through a draft-blocked doorway), all without being challenged or apparently even noticed, will they be back to try for more?  And will they try doing the same thing on the other side of the house?  I've shut off the water coming into the house so that if they do, I won't have another water gusher situation, but I've also installed rudimentary alarms here and there.  Now I need to have a friend over to reattach the pipe to the water heater on the side that they didn't hit (the water pipes on either side were connected through the wall, and in stealing one they jarred the other loose), and have someone come over to repair the window, and have an insurance adjuster come by to calculate the damage.  At least some of this will probably take place on days when I should be sleeping before or after work - maybe even tomorrow.

There's something else going on this week that I won't discuss, other than to say that after five years it will bring my family closure, one way or another.

Finally, on Saturday is the big Gasstock concert.

Come to GAS STOCK! « NO FRACK MOUNTAIN
Susquehanna River Sentinel: My Trail of Tears
Gort42: Gas Stock Saturday
Circumlocution for Dummies: Real Housewives? Here? (scroll to the bottom section)

I knew from the start that I was scheduled to work this day, and once the layoffs began I knew I couldn't pass up the chance to work if it came along.  It has, and I cannot.  I'll have to count on my circle of fellow bloggers to be my eyes and ears at this event.

If I had been given a choice, I would gladly have worked last rotation and taken the layoff this rotation.  But I was not given that choice.  So now I'm off to work to earn a paycheck, for the next four nights at least.

Auroras (or Aurorae) on August 4

There will not be "Two Moons on August 27" this year. There weren't any last year, or the year before, or the year before that, going all the way back to 2003 when this nonsense got started by someone who misunderstood a real honest-to-Galileo event.

There might, however, be nifty Auroras (or Aurorae) on August 4th!

Cosmic Log - Here comes the sun storm

The short version is, something happened on the Sun, and a bunch of particles got flung our way, and they may produce some pretty keen light effects over the North and South poles and surrounding regions. These things can be tricky to predict, so your best bet is to just go out and have a look whenever you get a chance. You can also check out these sites for current maps of the Auroral Oval:

Northern Hemisphere: http://sec.noaa.gov/pmap/pmapN.html
Southern Hemisphere: http://sec.noaa.gov/pmap/pmapS.html

Put your face on board the final Space Shuttle missions!

Ever wanted to take a ride on the Space Shuttle? Time is running out - but now your face can go on the trip without you!


NASA INVITES THE PUBLIC TO PICTURE THEIR "FACE IN SPACE"

HOUSTON -- NASA is inviting members of the public to send electronic images of their faces into orbit aboard one of the final remaining space shuttle missions.

Visitors to the "Face in Space" website can upload their portrait to fly with the astronauts aboard shuttle Discovery's STS-133 mission and/or shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission. Participants will receive special certificates from the Internet site once the mission is completed.

"The Space Shuttle Program belongs to the public, and we are excited when we can provide an opportunity for people to share the adventure of our missions," said Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon. "This website will allow you to be a part of history and participate as we complete our final missions."

To submit your image, visit:

http://faceinspace.nasa.gov/

Those without a picture can skip the image upload section, and NASA will fly their name.

Discovery and Endeavour's missions are the final two flights remaining until the retirement of the space shuttle fleet. They are targeted to launch in September and November, respectively. For more information about the STS-133 and STS-134 missions, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

April 19, 2010 is the deadline to register to vote in Pennsylvania

Thanks to David Yonki for bringing this to my attention: The deadline to register to vote in the May Primaries in Pennsylvania is April 19, 2010.

VotesPA.com, The Pennsylvania Department of State's online voting information and resource center: Register to Vote

This didn't really loom large in my mind, for two reasons:

1. Primary elections never really meant much to me, because until the 2008 Presidential Primaries I was a registered Independent and therefore ineligible to vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic or Republican primaries. At best I could vote on "Questions."

2. I figured pretty much everyone in the country who was interested at all in participating in the political process registered to vote prior to the 2008 Presidential election.

Karl Rove, in what little I was able to bear of his Fresh Air interview last month, maintained that his true genius lay not in his mastery of the politics of divisiveness (in which he denies he participates) but in his ability to target segments of the population who have traditionally not participated in the political sphere and bring them over to the side of the politician he is promoting.

Even after 2008, there are certainly still people whose political power goes unused because they have self-disenfranchised by failing to register to vote, thereby rendering themselves ineligible to participate in elections. I wonder if there were voter registration tables set up at the April 15 Tea Party rallies? If not, it was certainly a missed opportunity.

If you haven't registered to vote yet, April 19 is your deadline if you'd like to participate in the Pennsylvania primary elections.

Homes, Gardens, Yards, and Vandals

There was a vandalism spree in Nanticoke Tuesday morning, of which I was unaware until I woke up yesterday afternoon. I checked out my house across town on the way home from work this morning, and everything appeared to be in order, aside from the scraps of trash that have accumulated against the fence and the somewhat overgrown Forsythia bushes that I just transplanted there last year - or was it the year before?

We are going through a stretch of beautiful weather that is scheduled to end - well, sometime while I am sleeping this afternoon. It may end violently, as warm temperatures give way to cool and produce the thunderstorms which often accompany such a change. Must remember to disconnect the computer before I go to bed.

I don't mind cooler temperatures, but wet weather may make it impossible to do the yard work that is rapidly becoming overdue, at least over the next four days. But I'll give it a shot.

I'm working tonight, but if you're available and in the Wilkes-Barre area, be sure to check out the comedy night at Bentley's on route 309 in Ashley. It's for a good cause!

Leadership Wilkes-Barre Comedy Night, Thursday April 8

When fellow blogger (and co-NEPA Blogs administrator) Michelle showed up at the bloggers' gathering this past Friday, I noticed she was carrying a stack of posters. They were for an upcoming project from Leadership Wilkes-Barre, a comedy night on April 8. Doing some quick figuring, I realized that this would be a work night for me. But that doesn't mean that you can't go!

From the Leadership Wilkes-Barre Facebook site:

Leadership Wilkes-Barre Comedy Nite: Thursday April 8th at Bentley's -Rte 309 in Ashley from 7-9 p.m. The cost is $10 and proceeds will benefit the BILAA Little League Field Renovation in Hanover Township---a project of the LWB Class of 2010.

Bloggers' meetup, March 26, 2010

All bloggers, blog readers, blog groupies, and just the blog-curious in the greater Northeastern Pennsylvania area (and outlying regions!) are invited to a get-together on Friday, March 26 at Rooney's Irish Pub, 67 S. Main St. Pittston, PA* 18704 starting at 5PM.

Gort42: Blogger meetup

Local politicians will allegedly be in attendance. Opinions shall be expressed. Beer shall be consumed. As it is a Friday in Lent, I will probably forgo the nachos in favor of pizza and/or some sort of fish thing. (Menu here.)


*Not here, Rooney, Kentucky, which is where anyone following my original directons link would be taken.** My apologies. And to anyone who followed those directions, I hope the locals are a friendly, non-yankee-hating sort.

**Turns out the original link was correct, but somehow the interpretation of the embedded html code gets mangled either by Blogger or by Google, which owns Blogger.


.

Accident on the last day of the year

We shut down early at work this morning. 2:00 - just in time to play bumper cars on the highways with all the drunks pouring out of the bars.

I stayed around for another hour to help with the annual inventory, so I figured I would miss the worst of things. I mean, who is on the highway at 3:00 in the morning?

Garbage trucks, it turns out. I had one puttering along in front of me on the highway on an uphill. I passed it, but shortly after we crested the hill the garbage truck passed me again. Soon it joined up with another truck from the same company.

Which is a good thing, because the two trucks together probably saved me from crashing into the accident debris scattered all over the road a little later.

The first sign something was wrong was the car off on the left side of the highway. It was stopped but for some reason looked like it was backing up. This might have been because the red cover was missing from its third brake light, so white light was shining from its rear window, looking like a misplaced back-up light.

I don't know if it had been involved in the accident or had simply stopped to help. But a few yards beyond it there was a smaller blue vehicle off on the left-hand shoulder, sideways. It seemed to be missing its rear bumper. And maybe its rear wheels, too. There were people standing around it. There were...things in the road. I don't know what they were.

The two garbage trucks slowed and then stopped, blocking the highway just past an exit. They are protecting the vehicles. They have radios. They are calling this in. I veered off onto the exit, realizing that I myself had slowed down enough to possibly get rear-ended by any inattentive drivers following me.

There was more debris on the highway near the exit. I got a better look at this piece. It was a folded-up baby stroller.

So. What happened? I have no idea. I didn't see any coverage on the news at 6:30 this morning when I went to sleep or at 11:00 this morning when I woke up. What were the things in the road, the other debris? Again, no idea. It could have been a bumper, a rear axle, some luggage that had been strapped on top of the vehicle. It could have been bodies.

I saw a baby stroller. Was there a baby in the car?

This was the second time in ten days I was in proximity to a violent-looking car crash. Should I have stopped to render assistance? I'm not a trained responder, so there's not a lot I can or should do in such a situation, other than advise people to stay put until help arrives, and maybe some heavy lifting.

I took the exit and took a detour the rest of the way home, most of it on a secondary highway. At one point I saw two ambulances pull onto the road in front of me. Neither had its lights or sirens on. Were they coming from the accident? Was their assistance not needed? Were they carrying patients beyond the need for lights and sirens?

Tonight there will be many car accidents, and more than a few deaths. Please drive carefully. If you drink, don't drive. And watch out for everyone else on the road who may very well be drunk.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

And remember, refrigerate all leftovers promptly, and freeze anything you won't be eating in a day or two. Don't want anybody coming down with a "stomach virus" next week!

International Space Station making multiple passes over the United States

As the International Space Station gets bigger by having more and more pieces added to it, it is also getting brighter as more sunlight is reflected from it. Over the next few weeks the ISS will also pass repeatedly over the United States, giving lots of opportunities for people there to see it!
From NASA Science News:

NASA Science News for July 3, 2009

The International Space Station (ISS) is about to make a remarkable series of flybys over the United States. Beginning this 4th of July weekend, the station will appear once, twice, and sometimes three times a day for many days in a row.

FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/03jul_sightings.htm?list1291541

Check your local times and see if you can spot the International Space Station. And remember, there's lots of stuff in orbit that's visible in the night sky. Check out Heavens-Above for a listing of everything you can see!

It could happen to you: random violence and head trauma

Michael Jordan's father was killed on July 23, 1993 while he napped at a rest stop, by two people who subsequently stole his car.

I remember thinking when I heard this bit of news that this was something of an inflection point: random violence was no longer something that just touched the anonymous masses, but now it even touched celebrities and their families. This either said something about random violence, or about the preponderance of celebrities in our society.

Less than four years later, on January 16, 1997, Bill Cosby's son Ennis was murdered. He had stopped to change a flat tire and was accosted by two people who killed him while in the process of robbing him.

At this point I decided that no one was safe.

Natasha Richardson died on March 18, 2009, two days after sustaining an apparently minor head injury in a fall.

Now pitchman Billy Mays has also died, possibly as a consequence of a head trauma sustained during a hard airplane landing in Tampa. Even if the cause of death is not due to a concussion or a brain bleed, it is possible that the trauma was sufficient to dislodge a plaque deposit, and this led to his death.

We all know about deaths from violence, especially random violence. But what about deaths resulting from head trauma? The cases of Natasha Richardson and Billy Mays are well-known. How many people have sustained similar head traumas and died as a result, perhaps days after the incident? I know of at least one - my father. How many other people go to their graves without the true cause of their deaths becoming known?

Silence is the Enemy

I first became aware of this through a post on Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy:

Silence is the Enemy: Bad Astronomy

When you see something that outrages you, do you simply accept it, or do you speak out? One problem is that there are so many outrages in the world today it’s hard to know which ones to rage against.

So let me suggest this one: mass rapings of girls across the globe.

Blunt? Yes. But this is truly horrifying, and bluntness makes the point. And the problem here is lack of awareness; did you know that in war-ravaged places like Liberia, Sudan, and the Congo, mass rape of little girls is common. Learn about it in this disturbing NYT article, if you can stomach it. Reading that made my heart ache.

But that article must have been far more difficult for my Discover Magazine fellow blogger Sheril Kirshenbaum. She bravely describes her own near-rape experience, and has decided to take action, creating Silence is the Enemy, an effort to raise awareness about this appalling situation. She and other bloggers are also raising money for Doctors without Borders so that they can help take care of the victims.

Then I saw another post with this same title, on Dr. Isis's On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess:

Silence is the Enemy : On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

A few days ago Sheril Kirshenbaum of The Intersection emailed me a story from the New York Times and wrote, "I wonder if we can collaborate on something related to drawing attention to [this?]."

I read Nicholas Kristof's article on the rape of children in post war Liberia with tears in my eyes. Here's an excerpt from the piece, but I'd encourage you to read the article in its entirety. It is a perfect example of brilliant reporting.

I'm not going to write anymore. Instead I will ask you to please - PLEASE - follow the links to these blog posts. Read them. Follow the enclosed link. Post links to them on your own blogs. Do what you can to bring attention to this issue.

Just one thing more from Dr. Isis:

Finally, for the month if June I will donate all of my blogging revenues to the nonprofit organization Doctors Without Borders. This group taken on the task of caring for the childhood victims. Here are the blogs that will be joining me in the donation:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/
http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/
http://scienceblogs.com/bioephemera/
http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/
http://scienceblogs.com/authority/
http://scienceblogs.com/drugmonkey/
http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/

I'd encourage you to click those blogs and visit often, knowing that every click with not only offer you some of the best scientific content around, but that each click will generate revenue to help aid the victims of this travesty. I'd ask you to tell your friends about our efforts, pass this link on to them, and ask them to click also.

Please help. Even with just the click of a mouse.

Final Hubble Servicing Mission launches today

From the mission website:

Final preparations are underway for the exciting and challenging mission to Hubble. Liftoff is scheduled for May 11 at 2:01 p.m. EDT, and the countdown clock will start at 4 p.m. Friday.

You can watch the prelaunch activities and the mission live on the web from NASA TV. The coverage includes a web cast the day before the launch at 12:30 EDT, news conferences and status briefings.

+ View NASA TV schedule

Visit the official mission site here: NASA - Servicing Mission 4


This will be the last Hubble servicing mission. After this, Hubble will be as good as it's ever going to get! Hubble has been an incredible success, supplying amazing, remarkable images since the first Servicing Mission corrected the original errors in the optics. Subsequent servicing missions - sometimes wrongly called "repair" missions - have both replaced critical components and provided important upgrades that have greatly extended the capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope. It would be great if everyone could tune out the reality shows and other assorted offal that fill our idiot boxes and briefly watch some amazing work get done this week in one of the most challenging workplaces ever - outer space!


To see an interactive overview of this mission, go here: STS-125 - The Final Shuttle Mission to the Hubble Telescope.