Another Trip. At Least I Didn't Lose My Head - Rev. JT. Smith

 While, unlike my trip to Mars this past July, I haven't been wanting to make this trip for decades, It's one that's interested me as a potential destination for a while.  Considering that it's nearly Halloween, it's appropriate that I wore my Halloween costume.

Due to its relative proximity to my domicile, this was merely a day trip.  And this time I had a couple friends with me for the ride.  Welcome to Sleepy Hollow, made famous by Washington Irving's short story The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow.

 

Go figure, the trip didn't go completely smoothly.  That my transit route took us through the Holland Tunnel (from my numerous trips to Long Island over the years) was an active choice on my part as I'm already with the traffic patterns there and, based on the map, looked to be relatively straight forward.  What I hadn't realized was just how much of Manhattan I was still contending with.  I also didn't realize that I was going to be going through Yonkers.  At least I didn't get lost.

One glitch actually worked out as a blessing in disguise.  For various reasons that are neither germane nor to be taken as an opinion, I don't generally carry much change on me.  Especially change for parking meters as I can typically avoid them.  Of course, that wasn't the case for Sleepy Hollow in late October and my ignorance of both the real layout of the town (maps only tell you so much) was on full display.  Thanks to an unintended later start than intended (just because my alarms are set and go off doesn't mean I necessarily immediately power up to them) and a need to answer nature's call, finding quick parking became something of a priority.

Thankfully, one spot proved immediately available.  As already noted, I didn't have any change for a parking meter.  It turned out that neither did either of my passengers.  Thankfully, a nice couple who were walking their dog had some quarters and gave them to us.  They'd already left before I discovered that the parking meter didn't work.

Of course, about an hour later we stumbled across the municipal car park.  And it was full.  No surprise on that last.

It's also no surprise that Sleepy Hollow fully played up on their ties to Washington Irving's story.  The  image of the headless horseman is emblazoned on all the street signs, etc.  It's even on the fire trucks from both fire departments.

Between one of my friends having difficulty with walking longer distances and hills, and the later than intended start, I didn't get to explore as much as I would have liked.  That didn't stop me from finding a location in town that is described by Washington Irving in the story, and serves as visual proof I was there.

I still haven't figured out what so caught the attention of the chap behind me.

The transit back took longer than the transit out.  Yet another glitch.  Because I know that trying to take the George Washington Bridge cannot be accurately described without "cluster" being attached to one of the words, and my familiarity with the Holland Tunnel, I tried setting my satnav to take me via that route.  The result was that I ended up in Brooklyn and no where near the tunnel.

Ultimately, we were able to re-traverse the tunnel and I was able to get everyone home safely.

I think I'll try again next year.  Only either alone or with different passengers, and maybe a little earlier in the month.  Although I have no doubt that Sleepy Hollow is like Mars in that it'd be a nice place to visit any time of the year, I also suspect that October is the best month considering the obvious tie-in between The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow and Halloween.

by Rev. J.T. Smith

Something I've Been Wanting To Do For A Long Time - Rev. J.T. Smith

From July 7 - 9, 2022, I finally made a trip that, at least part of, I've been wanting to do for over 30 years.  Granted, there are parts that that were really just lucky bonuses that I'm simply glad happened.

 

 

July 7, 2022: Greetings from the Hard Rock Cafe in Pittsburgh. I took that after getting my hotel room.  This is one of the bonuses, frankly.  In 1989, I was able to visit the Hard Rock Cafe in London.  That's where I originally got the cap I'm wearing in the picture.  (Unfortunately, even if I could relocate the t-shirt I got from the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City, I sincerely doubt that it would fit me anymore after all the weight I've put on since the stroke I survived in 2013.)  On June 20 of this year, I finally made it to the Hard Rock Cafe in Philadelphia, which is where I got the t-shirt I'm wearing in this picture.  While I finally started laying the ground work for this trip shortly before I went to the Hard Rock in Philadelphia, it wasn't until I went there that I decided to go to the one in Pittsburgh.  Other than cost of heating there, they're really fun to go to.

Greetings from Pittsburgh from just outside the Hard Rock Cafe there.  You'd never know from this picture that it was gone 9 PM at night when I took it nor that it was much darker out at the time. 

 

Taken within moments of the first, just east along the river.

 

Pittsburgh skyline outside of the Hard Rock Cafe (which was behind me and to my right).

 

July 8, 2022: Greetings from Mars.  I've been wanting to go there ever since 1990 when The Morning Call had a sweepstakes tying to the original Total Recall where the winner would get an all expensed paid trip to Mars [Pennsylvania].  I couldn't go then for numerous reasons.  Now I can finally say I've been to Mars.  It's a tiny little town, but I knew that before making the 350+ mile trip out there.  Since I had no particular expectations, I couldn't be disappointed. 😎

 

These were taken in a small community museum at the old train station in Mars.  They're only open 4 hours on Fridays and run by local volunteers.  Which means I got lucky as I scheduled this trip around my work schedule and other than generally looking around just to say I'd been there I hadn't thought about museums, etc.  The one on the right is is a closeup of the book. It was the tag is that grabbed my attention. 😁  

 

This was in a small room on the side of what to be an active auto repair garage that focused on antique vehicles and is adjacent to the museum.  Go figure they have a Mars fixation in their movie posters. 

 

Since I still had plenty of time on Friday, I went to the Evans City Cemetery where the opening of the original Night Of The Living Dead was filmed.  While I hadn't found the exact spot yet, at least I've seen that Rape has died.

 

Still trying to find the original location used in The Night Of The Living Dead.

 

I was trying to do this from memory as, while I've only seen the movie once a few years ago (thanks to Svengoolie on MeTV) I'm clearly an idiot.  I finally resorted to using the live view function in Google Maps to try to locate actual site.  What initially confused me was that when using that function they'll give you a still picture of your destination to compare it to, only the headstone in that comparison still was a completely different style.  When I later looked for stills from the movie, the headstone matches this.

 

I located this in Evans City.  Definitely a misnomer as it's really a small town.  A larger small town, but a small town nevertheless. 😎  To be fair, Night Of The Living Dead is far from my favourite movie.  I just think it's cool to have been able to go here and see where parts of the movie were filmed.

 

 

 

 

 

Basically, this is also the movie that put Evans City on the map.

 

I found the fountain of youth. (Now if it just weren't contaminated.)  This is the link that led me to it and explains its background.

 

 

This is just some things I picked up so that I can demonstrate, beyond my photos, that I've been to Mars. 😁

 

 

July 9, 2022: This is the actual location and angle where the couple at the beginning of Night Of The Living Dead was shot.  I took this on my final day of my trip before returning to my domicile, which I affectionately refer to as Area51, on the opposite side of the state.

 

Since I wasn't looking at a deadline in terms of getting back I, unlike on my trip out resulting in my primarily sticking to Interstate highways, I instead took the scenic and shorter route.  As a result, one of my pit stops was Lincoln Caverns & Whispering Rocks (which actually consists of 2 separate caverns in relatively close proximity to each other though they were formed about 4 million years apart).  I'd frankly forgotten just how treacherous the stairways in them could be.  That didn't stop me from doing it though.  Slowed me down, but didn't stop me. 😎

 

This was taken from the lowest point in Lincoln Caverns, the lower of the two. 120 feet below the surface.  Impossible is for the lazy.

 

While somewhat closer to the surface, don't let the lighting fool you. These were taken deep in the cave.  I admit, I probably should have tried night mode on my mobile phone's camera.

 

 

This entrance to Whisper Rocks is literally the highest point I reached here.  And yes, I went in there, too.  (I just didn't think to take any pictures inside.)

 

This is the top of the stairs you have to climb just to get to/from Lincoln Caverns.  Whisper Rocks is higher still up the hill and is reached via a well maintained path.  I definitely got my exercise in here. 😁😎

 

Part of the reason I went here as a pit stop was because I saw the signs for Lincoln Caverns and couldn't actually remember if I'd ever been there before.  When I was little, we used to go to the various caves/caverns across much of PA as well as the Shenandoah Valley, etc.  Even once I arrived here, I still wasn't certain.  The tour group consisted of the tour guide, myself, and a family of 4 who were traveling to near Hershey from Erie.  So I wasn't alone in that regard.  I simply had no passengers aboard Darkwind (people name their boats, I name my cars/trucks,etc.).  Once we reached the original entrance to Lincoln Caverns, that's when it all felt familiar to me.  Granted, the last time I was there I was around 9 or so.  I've been wanting to something like this since the stroke, but usually I figured on going to Lost River Caverns as it's relatively small and very local to where I live.  Lincoln Caverns is literally along Rte 22 (or is it old Rte 22?) and was not in the slightest out of my way.  Not remembering it (unlike Lost River Caverns, which I've been to numerous times over the years) just made it both more interesting and compelling.  It also allowed me to prove to myself that, even though I'm no longer able to move as quickly as I used to, I'm still able to enjoy going to public caves again.  It may not seem like much, but one more barrier created by my stroke has fallen.

 

I returned to Area51 from my trip late that night.   While I haven't figured it all yet, I'm hoping for more road trips in my future.

 

by Rev. J.T. Smith

We Desperately Need To Get Off Oil, But Batteries Are A Bad Idea For Fueling Vehicles! - Rev. J.T. Smith

I am in no way supporting Big Oil with what I'm about to say as petrol as a fuel is an environmental disaster.  There is no denying that at all.

That said, batteries are not the right way to go either for several reasons.

One of which is that batteries all wear out eventually.  Just look to your mobile phone and you'll realize this.  Then again, far too many feel a desperate need to always have the latest and greatest product and update their mobile phone every year or so.  A fact that manufacturers don't only realize but actively count on and encourage this behaviour.  Consumerism at all costs.  Great for the bottom lines of corporations around the world but utter shit for the environment.

Car companies, including Tesla, are counting on this short-sighted behaviour too.  Though of course they won't admit it as that would be bad for sales.

One of the more subtle ways of encouraging this is to place in the instructions that come with the device, including electric cars, the notion that batteries supposedly no longer develop a memory the way nickle-cadmium [Ni-Cad] batteries used to so you should recharge them once they drop to 15% rather than run them flat first before recharging.  They tell you this, not because they really want you to get the most life out of your battery (FYI, there's zero profit in it for corporations for you to not have to replace the batteries sooner!), but because they want to sell you more batteries and/or a new device sooner.

These days, the only thing that's kept around longer than the rechargeable batteries that run them are vibrators.  Then again, a dead vibrator is still a dildo. 

Now, I grant that lithium ion [Li-Ion] batteries don't develop a memory the way that Ni-Cad ones did, they do still develop that memory only over a longer period of time.  Longer enough, the manufacturers figure, that you'll be throwing out your old device and replacing it with a new one before the battery will no longer hold a charge.  But if you really want your rechargeable batteries to actually last as long as they can before they're permanently dead, then you should always run them until they're flat before you recharge them and you should recharge them until they're fully recharged before using them again.

In the meantime there's still the matter of the fact that it still takes hours to fully recharge a battery from flat (the more powerful the batteries, the longer it takes to recharge them); and as noted earlier, if you don't run the battery to flat prior to fully recharging completely you will shorten the total overall life of the battery.  (This is the end result of the aforementioned memory.)  I know this for a fact by taking two identical modern mobile phones (I inadvertently got two identical handsets, one from each of two people, due to my previous mobile phone dying completely after 4 years of service, and I kept the second as a backup) and ran the first one battery to flat every time prior to fully recharging.  That handset started getting a bit worn so I started using the second handset fresh from the box.  Only with the second handset I decided to go against my better judgement and started recharging every day or so regardless of how low the battery was.  The end result was that the battery of the second handset ended up needing to be recharged as often after one year as the first one did after two hours.  Now, neither handset will last 24 hours before going flat. And unlike Top Gear, who would fake things to get their end result, I didn't fake any of it.  That's because batteries typically lose approximately 80% of their capacity after a couple of years.

Regardless, if you do decide to keep your electric vehicle for long enough, you'll have to deal with the battery.  While some companies like Nissan are trying to make it that you would only have to replace a bad cell rather than the entire battery replace the entire battery, it's currently more common and more likely that your dealer won't be the ones to deal with individual cells; so you'll still end up having to replace the battery outright to keep that car going the way petrol fueled vehicles can currently.  At which point you have a piece of trash that still contains components that still can't be recycled; and that, in turn, continues to have a toxic environmental impact.  Yes, more of the components can be recycled, but the cost of lithium is low right now because the relative demand is low currently, but that'll change over time.  And all of this presumes you'll still be able to get a matching replacement battery when the time comes, anyway.

I fully acknowledge the fact that petrol fuel is an environmental disaster, but one of the advantages of a liquid fuel is that as long as the engine/motor still uses that fuel then it doesn't matter what shape the fuel tank takes as long as it fits into the hull of the vehicle.  And replacing a liquid fuel tank is a lot cheaper than replacing the battery on an electric vehicle.  And one of the beautiful things about classic cars is that we can still drive them now, decades after they were manufactured.  If the trend of throwing away battery operated devices, either as soon as or before the batteries will no longer hold a charge, then things like classic car shows will be a thing of the past.  Classic car shows aren't  singing the praises of Big Oil; they're showcases of lasting and durable engineering and works of art created from metals.

Even more troubling than the technical issues, there's still the slave labour and environmental problems inherent in the manufacture of batteries.

We would do far better with a hybrid car consisting of a hydrogen fuel cell backed up with solar panels.  But thanks to irrational fears due to a misunderstanding of just what downed the Hindenburg, it'll be a long time before this is more widely accepted.  And thanks to current economics, it'll be cheaper to replace an entire vehicle than only the battery when the battery can no longer hold a charge.  Batteries are a stopgap measure at best.

by  Rev. J.T. Smith

I miss being able to drive