Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Author: fish1964

  • City life

    I haven’t blogged in a while (my brief font post doesn’t count). I’ve been a bit busy and stressed. Normally it’s work that stresses me but lately it’s been stuff outside of work.

    Our adoption is stalled with the Guatemalan government. It’s in that black hole mode where we have no idea what is going on. So that’s stressful.

    The big one lately was our home purchase. This was very much a city event. We are buying a loft style co-op. The previous owner took a two bedroom apartment and added a wall to make it a three bedroom. We liked that. After our offer was accepted our lawyer put some language into the contract making sure that the current owner delivered the approvals to have that work done. That seemed like a formality since the work was done two years ago.

    Oops.

    It turned out the official approval had never happened. No problem, just get it done before the closing. Oops. It turns out that they couldn’t get it approved as a three bedroom because one of the bedrooms didn’t meet city regulations. No problem, just do the work to meet the regulations before the closing. Oops, can’t be done.

    Suddenly we had a legal two bedroom. Well, even if the space is identical, I don’t think a two bedroom is worth the same money as a three bedroom. So negotiations went back and forth. Finally we had resolved the issue. So now we are buying a two bedroom with a storage room (for less money).

    Does this sort of thing happen in Amarillo?

    On another note, we spent a very city style Memorial Day weekend. We had no plans so we stayed in the city. It’s always interesting spending a holiday in the city. Everyone else leaves, so the city is pleasantly quiet. Traffic is light. Parking is plentiful. It’s quite remarkable.

    On Friday we had a barbeque at a friends apartment in Brooklyn (they have a nice deck). On Saturday we needed to go to our storage unit to switch winter and summer stuff. This too, is a city thing. If you don’t have an attic or a basement or a garage, you need a place to put stuff. Storage units are common. So twice a year we go, mainly to switch my wife’s wardrobe.

    On Sunday my wife needed to organize the stuff we got from storage. So it was me and Danielle. We spent the whole day together at various playgrounds. We call them parks, but I grew up in the Midwest and to me “park” implies grass and trees. These are asphalt, swings, jungle gyms and sprinklers. Where we live there are easily ten playgrounds in walking distance. You pick the playground to go to based on what you want to do (playground A has the best swings, but B is better for riding bikes and C has good sprinklers). So in the morning we took Danielle’s bike to the close playground (bikes). Then we grabbed swim suits, went to McDonald’s for lunch and hit the next playground (sprinklers) with her scooter. After getting soaked we went for Italian Ices and went up to our roof deck to blow bubbles. And then we all went out for dinner. All in all a very good Brooklyn day. Then Monday my wife took Danielle to a baby shower and afterwards we went to Jersey for another barbeque. Not bad for a weekend with no plans.

    Hopefully I’ll have an adoption update soon…

    Loft:

    A loft is really just an apartment that is a big rectangle space. It is often created when an industrial or other type building (school, etc.) is converted to apartments. Lofts are favored by artists because you get a bunch of big space. But apartment dwellers also like them because you get to decide how the apartment will look by adding walls where you want them. They also typically have high ceilings which add to the spacious feeling. Our building is the original headquarters and factory for Ex-Lax (insert joke here). The building was converted to apartments about 30 years ago.

    Co-op:

    A co-op is similar to a condo, but different. Co-op is short for cooperative. In a co-op the building is owned cooperatively by all the apartment owners as a corporation. Each apartment owner has a certain number of shares in the corporation which determine voting rights, etc. The building is typically managed by a co-op board and each owner pays a certain monthly maintenance fee which covers the mortgage on the building and all common expenses. Co-ops are very common in New York City.

  • Font humor

    OK, that may seem like an oxymoron to most, but this web site agrees with my general distaste for MS Comic Sans. It seems like every person who first discovers fonts other than Ariel and Times New Roman goes first to MS Comic Sans. It is definitely a pet peeve of mine. The name should tell you that it is not a serious font. If you are using MS Comic Sans in an Excel spreadsheet, there is something seriously wrong.

    Of course that’s just me…

  • There is good pizza in Amarillo

    A while back I posted a blog asking where you could find good pizza in Amarillo. This coming from a New Yorker who is a bit of a pizza snob. The responses I received were Domino’s, Papa John’s, etc. so I concluded that there must not be really good pizza in Amarillo.

    The other night I was at Carolina’s and had their pizza. It was very good. Brick oven style crispy thin crust.

    So there is good pizza in Amarillo after all…

  • Marsh Ad Campaign

    We’ve been getting a bunch of emails about the new Marsh ad campaign. I’ve heard this before, from Johnson & Higgins, J&H Marsh and McLennan and Marsh, so I didn’t actually have an real expectations.

    I was a bit skeptical about the slogan, “Find the upside”. Post Spitzer there have been plenty of layoffs at Marsh and general poor morale as people leave to other firms, so I envisioned an overworked Marsh broker saying “I got your upside right here…” (use your imagination).

    I get The Economist magazine for my world news. I opened this month’s edition and saw three straight pages of Marsh ads. Today on my subway ride in there was a Marsh ad on the subway. Walking to get lunch today I saw a Marsh ad on the side of a phone booth.

    I haven’t seen five Marsh ads in the past five years, much less in two days.

    Will it work? Who knows? Does it help CS STARS? Maybe not. The campaign doesn’t mention CS STARS, at least not yet.

    There’s a big section on Workers’ Comp. You’d think CS STARS might get mentioned. And who’s this guy? They couldn’t do any better? There’s a 44 page white paper that talks about data collection and RMIS but doesn’t mention CS STARS. What’s up with that?

  • Home owners again

    It looks like we are joining the ranks of homeowners again. After renting for a while, we found a place we like. It’s not our dream place. We always wanted the classic Brooklyn brownstone with the garden in the back. But the housing decline isn’t really happening here and those places are either out of our price range or require way too much work.

    So we’re getting a nice apartment in a good co-op in our neighborhood. We’re moving really far. Amusingly, the building we are moving to is called the Ex-Lax building. Because it really used to be the Ex-Lax offices and factory. But it was converted to a co-op a while back and it has nice, big (by Brooklyn standards) loft like apartments.

    Here are a few pictures (current owner’s furniture). It has big 13 foot ceilings which I love. Makes it seem very roomy.

  • Cool Google Map mashup

    I was checking the status of my wife’s flight. She’s flying JetBlue. When you check the status, you get the usual table of actual and estimated times. But if the plane is in flight, there is a View Map link.

    This link is a Google Maps mashup, showing the actual position and course of the plane. Simple, but very cool.

  • Adoption Update

    I’ve been refraining from posting adoption news for fear of jinxing anything. But we just got some new pictures, so I can’t help myself. The process is in the final stage of the Guatemalan government, but this stage is a total black hole. It could last four more weeks, or eight more weeks or they could decide that they didn’t like the font we used in our application and kick it back to start this part all over. And there’s no feedback at all until a decision is made, so we just wait.

    But our baby is doing well. At least as far as we can tell from a thousand miles away. We get a report every month with pictures and a doctor’s report. She’s gaining weight nicely and appears to be a smiley baby. She turned five months old on April 20th. If things turn out well we could have her by the time she turns seven months.

    I’ve been holding out on posting pictures for fear of jinxing things, but what the hell. Here are two pictures of hopefully our soon to be adopted daughter.

    And here’s her big sister in her new blue cast. She only has to wear the cast for two more weeks.

  • Fractured news

    My last post talked about a very enjoyable trip to the circus. I left out the end of the story.

    Following the circus we came home and fed Danielle a late lunch. She then had her gymnastics class. We took our nanny and her daughter with us to the circus, so she took Danielle to gymnastics. This allowed my wife and I to have a rare adult dinner. OK, it was at 4:30 in the afternoon, but you take what you can get.

    We have a drink and our appetizers in a remarkably empty restaurant (just finding a place that’s open at 4:30 is a challenge). And then the phone rings. Danielle fell in gymnastics and hasn’t stopped crying.

    The emergency room was a short sprint from the restaurant. Unfortunately it was mobbed so we had to wait a very long time. Danielle fell asleep on my lap for a while. We waited some more. Finally they saw Danielle. A mild fracture in her right arm, just above the elbow. But they wanted an orthopedic specialist to see her. Unfortunately he had just gone into surgery. So we waited some more. And some more.

    About 11:00, we finally see the specialist. He puts her in a plaster splint and a sling. At this point it’s about 3 1/2 hours past Danielle’s bedtime. Remarkably she’s still hanging in there (the nap must have helped).

    At this point it seems like about a week ago that we were sitting in a restaurant having an adult meal. Oh well, it’s part of growing up, right?

    Danielle has been a trooper with her cast and sling. Here she is in her PJs (no sling at night).

    After one week she got upgraded to a full cast (it’s blue) and she doesn’t have to wear the sling. Young bones heal fast so she only needs to wear it for two more weeks. Bathing is an adventure but otherwise she’s doing great.

  • The Greatest Show on Earth

    We recently took Danielle to see Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was her first time seeing the circus and the first time I’d been to the circus since I worked for Ringling Bros.

    For those who don’t know me well, I was a professional trumpet player prior to CS STARS and I worked for Ringling Bros. for about 9 months. Seeing the circus did give me flashbacks, particularly during the tiger act. I hated the tiger act as a trumpet player. Not that there’s anything wrong with tiger acts, but the next time you are at the circus, listen to what the band is doing during the animal acts.

    The band simply loops through whatever music they happen to be playing for the act. Over and over. Endlessly. Because, obviously, you don’t know exactly when the animal will do the trick. Tigers are especially unpredictable (i.e. slow). The bandleader is watching the tiger, the band is watching the bandleader. When the stupid animal graceful creature finally does the trick the bandleader cues the band to do a “ta-da”. And then back to the endless loop for the next trick. Tigers can make a trumpet players lips fall off. The circus is a particularly grueling gig for brass players. We typically iced our lips after the show.

    I was with the circus during a tour of Japan. That was very interesting. The ringmaster did not speak Japanese. He opened the show in the traditional manner, which I can still quote:

    Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages,

    Kenneth Feld is proud to present the international edition of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus,

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH!

    I think this sticks in my brain because it was the only thing in English. The ringmaster was taught the rest of the show phonetically in Japanese. We would later meet actual Japanese people who went to the show. They couldn’t understand a word he said.

    But this was all about Danielle and the circus, not me. You get to go down to where the show will be prior to the show and see clowns and some smaller acts.

    Ringling Bros., ever the marketing geniuses, sells cotton candy with a special hat included. How else could you charge $12? At the end of the first act a bunch of confetti was shot out and landed near/on us. Danielle felt obligated to collect as much as possible:

    But of course the cotton candy was more important than the hat:

    All in all, a very good time was had by all.

  • Back to blogging

    I’ve been out of commission lately, dealing with some personal matters. So this is my first blog in a while. I pretty much missed blogging the tournament. Florida played great and totally deserved their championship.

    And baseball has begun. The Yankees won and the Red Sox lost. A perfect day. Amusingly the Yankees had to start Carl Pavano for opening day. Here was the best line from the NY Daily News today:

    A meteorite didn’t land on him during the first inning, so Carl Pavano’s day already was a success

    The article went on to describe Pavano as “working on 643 days rest”. Hilarious. If you aren’t a baseball fan, Pavano was highly paid to come to the Yankees and then proceeded to have a series of injuries for almost two years. He wasn’t great, but the Yankees offense did the trick and the bullpen was strong. Mariano Rivera, greatest closer ever, struck out the side in the 9th. That’s how you end opening day.