An Urban Snowjob * Trenton February 2003

An

Urban

Snowjob

Trenton

New Jersey

17 February

2003

[ click on PICs for larger view ]

PICs open in new screen for convenience

17 Feb

OK, so it snowed once again this winter -- wowsers, big surprise! This must be the 8th thus far? This time it was basically a north-easter, which are the biggies here on the east coast, whether it is rain or snow.

The white stuff from the last storm of a few days ago was still piled high -- for some reason they neither plow nor salt my side street, but then again on recycling day they forget about Pearl Street, and when they trimmed every even small tree on every other surrounding street, this one was not on their map for some reason! Trenton is really sucky!

Early this morning makeshift city plows were doing their thing, what little they were able to do, on South Clinton Avenue, the main drag in front of my place -- all they did is pile the snow higher on the sides, which is OK I guess, for lack of a more intelligent loading of the snow in trucks, as they do in New York, and just dumping it in the convenient Delaware River, right on the West side of this wonderful capital city.

Although the main street is acceptably passable, there is not a lot of traffic -- school kids did not have school, and state and local government slouches were not working (as if they ever really are!), and many businesses are closed, simply because it is a holiday! (President's Day) -- except the little Hispanic grocery store across the street next to my other place, the brick townhouse on the left. I rarely buy anything there because four blocks away is a large supermarket that is a LOT less expensive for just about everything.

The sidewalk beside my place -- at least 14" piled up, and the drifts almost cover some of the cars in the area. The couple steps leading up to my door cannot even be seen! They were completely covered by the drifting snow!

I did not shovel the entire sidewalk the last time, so there is accumulated snow and ice below what we see on the surface.

When I started shoveling around my entrance way -- luckily I remembered there were two steps -- I almost fell into the snow when I started clearing it from the steps -- my brain was frozen and I could not see the pavement, obviously -- it was still under a foot of snow!!

With the depth of the stuff, which is NOT really all that bad, relatively speaking (I have seen and shoveled much more years ago!), I had to stop every couple shovel-fulls just to catch my breath. I had my insulated work boots on and my feet were numb

The area I concentrated on -- the entrance and where the Jeep Cherokee is parked -- it may be a couple days before any vehicles are able to go down this side street -- I came inside, worked on the pics for this page -- not only is my hip killing me and I can only move by hanging onto whatever is close by, but my left arm is very painful from the shoveling -- just took a CELEBREX -- hope it kicks in real soon!

But hey, a Superhero to the rescue! The grandson of Carlos, my next door neighbor started using a snow blower they never used before -- he cleared the street from his place to the corner -- and even did a pathway along the side of my building and in front of my middle garage that I use frequently! I gave him a vintage bottle of Old Grand Dad I had stashed with a lot of other drinkables I get my paws on at a country auction every once in a while by the box lot of mixed stuff -- have not been there in many months.

A long view from in the street in front of my three garages to the corner with Superhero and a pal of his digging things out -- at least the Jeep may be movable, but the two cars behind it may be snowbound for a few days! They were illegally parked anyway, so who gives a shit!

Hey, we are supposed to get more of this wonderful stuff tonight, so stay tuned!

18 Feb

Looking down South Clinton toward Greenwood Avenue and the Amtrack station -- snow piled off the sidewalk -- streets passable though a tad narrower than normal. An inner city blizzard is somewhat different than one in the lovely country -- way more peeps, more parked cars, less open space to pile the snow, so it just builds up where it is pushed or shoveled.

This area is VERY overburdened simply because what were originally designed as one-family homes at the turn of the last century now have 4-5 apartments in them, and each apartment may have at least one car! So much for intelligent local ordinances!

Those of my loyal readers will know about Donald, the local Godfather -- this is the little shop he has had in that same spot for 47+ years, opening shortly after 05h every morning. I go there infrequently for coffee and cream donuts in the early morning after working all night at the puter -- he is open on Christmas, July 4th, Sundays, rain, snow or shine -- ALWAYS -- except today! I am sure that his provisions of always freshly baked Italian rolls and other goodies and newspapers were not delivered due to the almost impassible streets -- maybe he went to Atlantic City to the casinos -- something he does frequently after closing at around 16h?

Donald lives on my same side street, but across the main drag. You can see the line of cars parked on both sides of the street, most of them still snow-covered -- some not yet dug out and virtually impossible to get out at this point. In the foreground-left is the side of the Hispanic grocery store.

One of the cars was totally packed in the snow, and still is as of 17h! Donald's house is the one with the appropriate snowman banner over the door, and his car is free and clear -- he keeps the special edition Mercedes stashed in a garage in another part of Trenton!

Since I basically dug out my Jeep Cherokee yesterday, I decided to go to West Trenton to see if I could get pics of snow-related stuff there. Just a lot of streets with enormous snow piles on either side and VERY narrowed streets. At the home I co-owned and lived in for years, with the koi ponds and all, it is lucky I put the floating de-icer on the large pond with the biggest fish a couple weeks ago [PIC taken on 5 February] -- you can just about see it as a red thing on the far right of the ice and snow covered pond, and it allows a single ice-free area for oxygen -- in the old days the neighbors would put floating logs in their ponds during the winter for the same purpose. The snow bank in the foreground is five feet high!

23 Feb

Sunday morning I had to get out of the apartment and took a drive to a local flea market north along the river to see how the roads were and get gas for the Jeep. Somne of the roads were water-covered -- snow was piled high in the parking lot and on the sides of the seller spaces -- only about 15 dealers showed up, and they were all packing when I arrived at about 10h.

I saw gas for $1.50/gal along the road but thought it would be cheaper where I usually go -- WRONG! I paid $1.58 at my usual cheapy place in West Trenton! It was my first fill-up since 22 January.

God Bless !

Daily Trivia

Contests

My Closeout Deals & Real Estate -->> Personal Sales

My Cigars & Goodies on -->> YardSaleNet.net

My Items on -- -- eBay

My offerings on -- -- Singapore

My Stuff on -- -- Yahoo USA

My Treasures on -- -- Yahoo Canada

This page was updated with the able assistance of an

Apple G5 iMac, the Perfect Home / Office Computer

PageMill and the PageMill logo

are trademarks of

Adobe Systems Incorporated

Back to

Free counters provided by Andale.

COPYRIGHT © 2003 - 2007

by * * All rights reserved.

due to the constantly changing nature of the Internet, some external links may no longer be valid

My Other Domains

Privacy Policy

17 Feb	OK, so it snowed once again this winter -- wowsers, big surprise! This must be the 8th thus far? This time it was basically a north-easter, which are the biggies here on the east coast, whether it is rain or snow. The white stuff from the last storm of a few days ago was still piled high -- for some reason they neither plow nor salt my side street, but then again on recycling day they forget about Pearl Street, and when they trimmed every even small tree on every other surrounding street, this one was not on their map for some reason! Trenton is really sucky!
	Early this morning makeshift city plows were doing their thing, what little they were able to do, on South Clinton Avenue, the main drag in front of my place -- all they did is pile the snow higher on the sides, which is OK I guess, for lack of a more intelligent loading of the snow in trucks, as they do in New York, and just dumping it in the convenient Delaware River, right on the West side of this wonderful capital city.
	Although the main street is acceptably passable, there is not a lot of traffic -- school kids did not have school, and state and local government slouches were not working (as if they ever really are!), and many businesses are closed, simply because it is a holiday! (President's Day) -- except the little Hispanic grocery store across the street next to my other place, the brick townhouse on the left. I rarely buy anything there because four blocks away is a large supermarket that is a LOT less expensive for just about everything.
	The sidewalk beside my place -- at least 14" piled up, and the drifts almost cover some of the cars in the area. The couple steps leading up to my door cannot even be seen! They were completely covered by the drifting snow! I did not shovel the entire sidewalk the last time, so there is accumulated snow and ice below what we see on the surface.
	When I started shoveling around my entrance way -- luckily I remembered there were two steps -- I almost fell into the snow when I started clearing it from the steps -- my brain was frozen and I could not see the pavement, obviously -- it was still under a foot of snow!! With the depth of the stuff, which is NOT really all that bad, relatively speaking (I have seen and shoveled much more years ago!), I had to stop every couple shovel-fulls just to catch my breath. I had my insulated work boots on and my feet were numb
	The area I concentrated on -- the entrance and where the Jeep Cherokee is parked -- it may be a couple days before any vehicles are able to go down this side street -- I came inside, worked on the pics for this page -- not only is my hip killing me and I can only move by hanging onto whatever is close by, but my left arm is very painful from the shoveling -- just took a CELEBREX -- hope it kicks in real soon!
	But hey, a Superhero to the rescue! The grandson of Carlos, my next door neighbor started using a snow blower they never used before -- he cleared the street from his place to the corner -- and even did a pathway along the side of my building and in front of my middle garage that I use frequently! I gave him a vintage bottle of Old Grand Dad I had stashed with a lot of other drinkables I get my paws on at a country auction every once in a while by the box lot of mixed stuff -- have not been there in many months.
	A long view from in the street in front of my three garages to the corner with Superhero and a pal of his digging things out -- at least the Jeep may be movable, but the two cars behind it may be snowbound for a few days! They were illegally parked anyway, so who gives a shit! Hey, we are supposed to get more of this wonderful stuff tonight, so stay tuned!
18 Feb	Looking down South Clinton toward Greenwood Avenue and the Amtrack station -- snow piled off the sidewalk -- streets passable though a tad narrower than normal. An inner city blizzard is somewhat different than one in the lovely country -- way more peeps, more parked cars, less open space to pile the snow, so it just builds up where it is pushed or shoveled. This area is VERY overburdened simply because what were originally designed as one-family homes at the turn of the last century now have 4-5 apartments in them, and each apartment may have at least one car! So much for intelligent local ordinances!
	Those of my loyal readers will know about Donald, the local Godfather -- this is the little shop he has had in that same spot for 47+ years, opening shortly after 05h every morning. I go there infrequently for coffee and cream donuts in the early morning after working all night at the puter -- he is open on Christmas, July 4th, Sundays, rain, snow or shine -- ALWAYS -- except today! I am sure that his provisions of always freshly baked Italian rolls and other goodies and newspapers were not delivered due to the almost impassible streets -- maybe he went to Atlantic City to the casinos -- something he does frequently after closing at around 16h?
	Donald lives on my same side street, but across the main drag. You can see the line of cars parked on both sides of the street, most of them still snow-covered -- some not yet dug out and virtually impossible to get out at this point. In the foreground-left is the side of the Hispanic grocery store.
	One of the cars was totally packed in the snow, and still is as of 17h! Donald's house is the one with the appropriate snowman banner over the door, and his car is free and clear -- he keeps the special edition Mercedes stashed in a garage in another part of Trenton!
	Since I basically dug out my Jeep Cherokee yesterday, I decided to go to West Trenton to see if I could get pics of snow-related stuff there. Just a lot of streets with enormous snow piles on either side and VERY narrowed streets. At the home I co-owned and lived in for years, with the koi ponds and all, it is lucky I put the floating de-icer on the large pond with the biggest fish a couple weeks ago [PIC taken on 5 February] -- you can just about see it as a red thing on the far right of the ice and snow covered pond, and it allows a single ice-free area for oxygen -- in the old days the neighbors would put floating logs in their ponds during the winter for the same purpose. The snow bank in the foreground is five feet high!
23 Feb	Sunday morning I had to get out of the apartment and took a drive to a local flea market north along the river to see how the roads were and get gas for the Jeep. Somne of the roads were water-covered -- snow was piled high in the parking lot and on the sides of the seller spaces -- only about 15 dealers showed up, and they were all packing when I arrived at about 10h. I saw gas for $1.50/gal along the road but thought it would be cheaper where I usually go -- WRONG! I paid $1.58 at my usual cheapy place in West Trenton! It was my first fill-up since 22 January.