Burlaki [back] on the Hudson

A small album of pictures taken during our recent Virginia/DC trip can be found via the links on the sidebar or directly here.

Pictures, Website Bulletins

One thing that we missed in our years in England was costume parties that our group of friends holds a couple of times a year. Upon our return, we are finally able to participate in that good fun again.

This fall’s party was styled after some Japanese fertility festival (豊年祭, pronounced something like Ho-nan Ma-tsu-ri). If you Google using those three characters, you will undoubtedly come across pictures of the phallic centerpiece of the proceedings in the land of the Rising Sun. Despite such undertones, the costumes at our party were primarily after common Japanese themes: several geishas, a few samurai, a ninja or two, a couple of sumo wrestlers… A few costumes were truly inventive and spectacular, such as an overgrown Bonsai tree or an Origami (made entirely of paper, by the way).

Our personal approach to party costumes is low-cost/effort first. Yet, as anyone would, we prefer to exhibit some originality. Right from the beginning, I had a brilliant idea of dressing up as some anime characters – none of my friends have more than a passing idea of what anime is, so we were guaranteed to stand out from the crowd. The problem is, I myself have a little more than passing idea about it. However, I do have a teenage child who is quite familiar with whatever anime offerings there exist on American TV. So, we enlisted Becky as an advisor and she suggested that we go as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask from the Sailor Moon franchise.

Natasha scoured our wardrobes for appropriate attributes, borrowed some stuff from friends, hand-made a couple of accessories, etc. We simplified some elements, but ended up with sufficient resemblance.
 

  

 
We were unique. Of course, no one at the party had the slightest idea of who we were, but that mattered little…

Chronicles, Pictures

One of the few fun things about working in NYC’s Rockefeller Center – there are many negative counterweights to it, trust me! – is the various fairs regularly held here. One day they display a fleet of historic fire engines and then torch an old car and demonstrate proper firefighting techniques on that as part of some Fire Safety Awareness deal. The other day it is on to interactive winter sports games to publicize Olympic Team USA. And so on.

To say nothing of a couple-of-times-a-week market during the summer.

One of these recently-held fairs revolved around cranberry. I did not bother to get into details of the occasion, but it lasted a couple of days, with long lines to the couple of points where cranberry-based products were sold – or, maybe, given away. Must have been some publicity event for Ocean Spray.

The centerpiece of the occasion was this large cranberry bog. I ended up taking a picture that did not feature a human in it, so you’ll have to believe me that it’s almost knee-deep. The machine in the corner does point to that.
 

New York City & Environs, Pictures

I was checking the score of the last night’s MNF game on ESPN, when I came across Chris Berman’s “Fastest 3 minutes in Sports”. Introducing the annual NFL game played in London, he made the frequent mistake of misidentifying one of the iconic city landmarks.

People! Let’s get this straight!

This is not the London Bridge.
 

 
It is one of the symbolic sights in the City of London, but it is called Tower Bridge.

The London Bridge happens to look nothing special – just another modern river crossing.
 

 
Can we be clear on that once and for all?

London & Environs, Pictures

High winds in New Jersey.

A big branch split off a tree at the edge of our front lawn.

Natasha always had a lumberjack fantasy.

Not what you thought!
 

 

 
By the time I came home, she already talked a neighbor into taking a chainsaw to the thickest parts… The lawn is clean, but we have a pile of chopped wood and branches by the curb. Hopefully, the township will pick it up.

Ah, the joys of homeownership…

P.S. [next day] It suddenly occurred to me that if we dumped a chopped-up fallen tree by the curb in front of a house in England, it would block the entire street. In front of our house in New Jersey, it just looks like a weird little Halloween decoration.

Chronicles, Pictures

We have a nice pond with a little waterfall and fish in the garden.
 

 
It caused us quite a lot of pain in the run up to closing the house purchase. We’ve been given several versions of the events by various sources, and were finally able to piece it all together.

The previous owners of the house liked that pond very much. They installed it over 15 years ago, with appropriate permits from the township, and enjoyed the sound of gently cascading water and the pleasing ambiance of having it in the garden. Adding to the charm, a bunch of koi fish lived in the pond.

Then, a few years ago, the owners decided to add frogs to the mix.

Yep. They figured that the sound of a dozen croaking frogs is exactly what’s been missing from the picture.

And the frogs croaked. Or barked, given that this species of amphibians is known as “barking frog”. The owners loved it.

The neighbors, however, were not happy at all. Their much younger children could not fall asleep under the constant accompaniment of frogs. I am not sure how many times, if at all, they asked our sellers to get rid of the frogs, but eventually they complained to the township. I fully understand their desperation.

The township couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything about the frogs directly, but it suddenly “realized” that the pond was built on top of a utility easement. Which is a serious no-no.

The sellers did remove the frogs eventually. Or the frogs died out, I am not sure. But when the owners applied for a Certificate of Occupancy in order to sell the house to us, the township refused to issue one unless the pond was altogether removed, correcting the issue with the easement. For practical and impractical reasons, nobody wanted to do that. The sellers’ attorney engaged in negotiations with the township, which yielded the following result: The CO was issued in exchange for us signing a document that granted us a revocable license from the township to use the koi pond – and nothing else – on this particular easement. The township has the right to demand that we remove the pond from the property at our sole expense, but nobody seems to think that this will ever happen. (Whether this will become an issue when we decide to sell the place is a point of concern, but I’m not willing to lose sleep over it for the next ten years or so.)

These negotiations ended up pushing the entire process back by a week, which sounds like an unremarkable inconvenience until you factor in all of the other inconveniences related to being in between houses.

On the plus side, we have a beautiful pond.

A couple of days after we moved in, the landscaper who worked on our new garden for the last however-many years paid us a visit to introduce himself and to offer his continuous services. Our neighbors saw him and almost had a heart attack. They inferred from his visit that we would be getting the frogs as well.

We assured them that we have no interest in that. I can’t say that I much enjoy any night-time noises. The chirping of crickets, at least, largely becomes white noise after a while…

Chronicles, Pictures

Spending all of my free time – however little of that! – in making “my” part of the house (offices, computers, assorted electronics) presentable, I am still a few days away from resuming some semblance of settled-down existence. And blogging. In the meantime, due to overwhelming demand, here are a few pictures of our new home.

Please click on the pictures to enlarge.

First, the view from the street.
 

 
A closer view of the façade.
 

 
The view from the back, which turned out in rather dramatic light.
 

 
A view of the pool and the garden.
 

 
Our garden ends where the tall trees end. There are three levels: The main patio underneath (the picture was taken an upper bedroom window), the pool on the middle level, and the “woods” on the lower level.

The pool, unfortunately, will be closed this coming Wednesday. We only managed a few short dips in the week+ since we bought the house. Even a heated pool is not warm enough in this weather…

Pictures

I’ve taken this picture a while ago, on one of the first days of resuming my Manhattan working life. There is nothing expressly special about it. I just happen to like the wide expanse of New York’s 6th Avenue above 42nd Street.
 

New York City & Environs, Pictures

It was a good summer.

Some of the best memories are now immortalized in the new album, accessible through the links on the right or directly here.

Pictures, Website Bulletins

Maybe I’ve become more attuned to noticing them in the past few years or possibly they simply were not here in my previous New York City life, but I keep coming across pretty cool modern buildings in Midtown that I don’t recall seeing before our expatriate period.

Such as this Westin Hotel on the corner of 8th Avenue and 43rd Street.
 

 
By the way, Hugin Panorama Tools Front-end rulez like no other. Half a dozen clicks was all I needed, with no manual adjustments.

New York City & Environs, Pictures

I lately find myself party to occasions where my friends – who share the same background with me and, like me, deeply loath socialism in its most manifestations – lament the approach of the end of the world as we know it on account of current administration’s proposed policies.

From where I stand, socialism has long been here in the States.

At least, if you go by the ornamentation on a building near where I work.
 

 
Bonus points if you know where the title comes from.

New York City & Environs, Pictures

I recognized in the last couple of weeks that I very much enjoy walking the streets of New York City. Even such tourist-infested locations as Times Square.
 

  

New York City & Environs, Pictures

…you can continue with your own joke here.

I’ll provide an illustration.
 

 
I realize this might be a bit cryptic for a good portion of my audience, and for that, I beg forgiveness.

Family & Friends, Pictures

… are here. We split them into two albums, which can be accessed via the links on the navigation bar or by clicking here or here.

Pictures, Website Bulletins

More photographic entertainment for my audience. Selection of pictures from Becky’s China trip and our recent excursion to Mini-Europe are now available in the Gallery.

Pictures, Website Bulletins

Lack of inspiration and general preoccupation with other matters do not leave me much room for blogging these days. In lieu of any entertaining or enlightening material, here is a snapshot from my illustrations backlog.

Combination of sunlight and ominous clouds always makes for a somewhat dramatic effect.
 

Pictures

As I have been wandering around the neighborhood area to rack up steps on my pedometer, I frequently find myself on the paths of the Green Chain Walk, a loosely connected walking curcuit in Southeast London that we first explored more than two years ago.

Here is a stretch of the Walk, running between fences of a school grounds and some kind of an estate. It feels a bit eerie, with no one in sight, evoking a vague nowhere-to-hide The Hound of the Baskervilles type of disquiet, but if you are seeking undisturbed introspection on your walk, it’s just perfect.
 

 
And here is a corner of The Tarn, referenced in that article, a quiet little park five minutes from our house. The birdhouse is one of the many made by Kimmy’s class sometime last year.
 

London & Environs, Pictures

From my little backlog of pictures taken with the expressed goal of eventually being published here on the blog, here is a view of the Canary Wharf financial district from the Grand Square of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Only 20 years ago, there were no skyscrapers in the Docklands area; the tallest of Canary Wharf’s buildings – actually, the tallest building in Britain, – One Canada Place (the one with the triangular “hat”), was finished in 1990.

On the left edge of the picture is the little circular building – the north-side entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, a pedestrian crossing under the Thames. The south-side entrance is several hundred yards to the left from where this picture was taken.
 

 
The Grand Square is part of the processional route from the river to the Queen’s House that is behind us in this perspective. At the insistence of Queen Mary, the Royal Naval Hospital (it would become a navy college almost 200 years after it was constructed) was built in a way that would not obstruct the view of the river from the queen’s residence. You can see the panoramic view of the complex here.

London & Environs, Pictures

The picture album from our recent trip can be found here or by clicking the links on the navigation bar.

Pictures, Website Bulletins

I am not very much inspired to write anything at the moment, so instead I am picking an item from my little backlog of random illustrations.

This is not a particularly good picture, but I sort of like the feel of it. It was taken with my little pocketcam in less than ideal lighting from the upper deck of a London double-decker bus. What you see are the contours of Regent Street towards where it curves on its approach to Piccadilly Circus. At night, with few people and little traffic, the street looks considerably less commercial and appropriately more regal.
 

London & Environs, Pictures