Tag Archives ⇒ southjersey

An Autumnal Halloween

October 29, 2007
· Martin Kelley

Butterfly Genus Theodorableus Butterfly Genus Francis Captured butterflies


The Bat­sto Vil­lage Hal­loween par­ty was­n’t quite so much fun this year: their web­site did­n’t men­tion that most activ­i­ties end­ed part-way through the after­noon so that the orga­niz­ers could sit in front of the old hous­es giv­ing out can­dy. We arrived on the late side so no face paint­ing or pony rides for the boys but­ter­flies. We still had fun in the first real­ly autumn day of the sea­son and Bat­sto was look­ing more bucol­ic than ever. More pic­tures (includ­ing some of the cool gear­ing in the old Bat­sto grist­mill) over on yes­ter­day’s Flickr page.

Right: rare video footage of a Genus Fran­cis­cus But­ter­fly in migration.

Site update

October 25, 2007
· Martin Kelley

Warn­ing: Geek to fol­low: Thanks to read­ers for their patience these past few days as I’ve trans­ferred Quak­er­Ran­ter to a new web host. My old account had mul­ti­ple sites on the same serv­er, includ­ing Quak​erQuak​er​.org and Mar​tinKel​ley​.com and every time there was a prob­lem on QR it would take every­thing down. After prob­a­bly a year of trou­bleshoot­ing and nev­er quite fix­ing the prob­lem QR is off on its own (on Blue​host​.com, I want­ed to see what CPan­el was like).

I’m also rebuild­ing the site to be more com­pli­ant with the new Mov­able Type tem­plate struc­ture, which moti­vates this new look. I still like the old min­i­mal­ist design ripped off of Kot­tke and might bring it back or might exper­i­ment with some­thing else that fits the new stream-of-life direc­tion the blog has been tak­en with its Twit­ter integration. 

I can’t real­ly blog about the most inter­est­ing finan­cial devel­op­ment of the day, which has to do with the end of a cer­tain wit­ness of fif­teen years but if any F/friends want to know feel free to drop me an email.

Off now to see if the town Hal­loween parade has been washed out by rain again (today is the rain date and it’s pret­ty sog­gy if not active­ly rain­ing). Expect pic­tures of cute boys in match­ing but­ter­fly outfits…

The ascent of Apple Pie Hill

September 30, 2007
· Martin Kelley

Yes­ter­day the kids and I took a road trip to Apple Pie Hill, a sum­mit of loose grav­el that tow­ers over the South Jer­sey pinelands from a dizzy­ing height of 209 feet above sea lev­el. A fire watch tow­er on the sum­mit adds anoth­er few dozen feet, enough to get a vis­i­tor over the tree­tops. On a clear day it’s said you can see the sky­lines of Atlantic City and Philadel­phia. For­tu­nate­ly for me it was an quin­tes­sen­tial­ly beau­ti­ful­ly fall day – clear and crisp. It was easy to spot the cities, both thirty-two miles away (most­ly to the south and most­ly to the west respec­tive­ly) and here’s blowups of the two resul­tant photos:
Trip to Pine Barren's famous Apple Pie Hill
Sand road to Apple Pie Hill Trip to Pine Barren's famous Apple Pie Hill Trip to Pine Barren's famous Apple Pie Hill Trip to Pine Barren's famous Apple Pie Hill
More pic­tures, from left: Sand road to the hill, the fire tow­er, the view down through the steps of the tow­er (the kids were left in the car), two year old Fran­cis eager but thwart­ed attempt to repeat Papa’s climb up tow­er. Click indi­vid­ual pho­tos for enlarged and geo­t­agged ver­sions. More pho­tos of this and out stopover at Atsion lat­er in the day on yes­ter­day’s Flickr page.

For those inter­est­ed in repeat­ing our jour­ney, here’s a map show­ing our route up and back. I was most­ly wing­ing it, depend­ing on these direc­tions from NJPines​land​sand​Down​Jer​sey​.com start­ing from near­by Chatsworth NJ, self-styled “Cap­i­tal of the Pine Barrens.” 



Oth­er map views: View Larg­er Map | Satel­lite with Route Map

Walking the Walk

February 12, 2004
· Martin Kelley

I was almost assault­ed by a Philly cab dri­ver on my way home this after­noon. He was rolling through a cross­walk I was try­ing to use to get to the train sta­tion (he had a sol­id red light, I had a sol­id green one). Once safe­ly across, I polite­ly point­ed out the cross­walk and he took it as some sort of chal­lenge to his man­hood, get­ting out of his cab, com­ing right up to my face, threat­en­ing to beat me up, run me down, etc. He also called me a choice name (one whose use polite com­pa­ny lim­its to female canines). Ah, life in the big city. I spent my train ride com­pos­ing the com­plaint let­ter going to the cab com­pa­ny and the PUC.
Use­ful sites for locals: Penn­syl­va­nia Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion (they have an online form for Taxi com­plaints). Philly­Walks, a group that edu­cates about pedes­tri­an issues.

I cross that inter­sec­tion twice a day and it’s right by one of the city’s main cab stops. If this is the last blog entry you’ll know he did­n’t like my letter.

Globalization, South Jersey Style

February 5, 2004
· Martin Kelley

Today, news of the end of WSNJ-FM, “the Cum­ber­land County”:/cgi-bin/axs/ax.pl?http://www.fybush.com/NERW/2004/040202/nerw.html radio sta­tion that real­ly was an alter­na­tive to the cor­po­ra­tized medi­oc­rity of Clear Chan­nel and its clones:
bq. It was bound to hap­pen, but inevitabil­i­ty does­n’t make today’s sign-off of WSNJ-FM (107.7 Bridgeton) any less bit­ter­sweet. One of NEW JER­SEY’s old­est FM sta­tions, WSNJ remained a bas­tion of old-time radio in a voice­tracked, con­sol­i­dat­ed world right up to the end, super-serving Cum­ber­land Coun­ty and sur­round­ing por­tions of South Jer­sey, Penn­syl­va­nia and Delaware with every­thing from farm news to a swap shop pro­gram to lots and lots of local news and information.
I’ve spent many a car dri­ve to Vineland lis­ten­ing to WSNJ. Julie’s heart­bro­ken: “i knew it was over the oth­er day…and i just want­ed to cry. i kept check­ing back and check­ing back to see if it was just a tech­ni­cal problem.”

Memo to NYTimes: Buena ain’t your region

July 25, 2003
· Martin Kelley

A nine year old in Bue­na went joyrid­ing in a bright yellow-school bus. Strange enough as that is, what’s even stranger is that the New York Times cov­ered it as a “local” story.

The only thing that sur­pris­es me about the inci­dent is that the hijack­er isn’t one of my very own next-door neigh­bor kids (for­mal­ly known as “the Delin­quents”). Sure, why not steal the bus and dri­ve to your friends house?

“He want­ed us to all get on,” said Mil­lie, 13, who lives just up the block from the boy. “He let go of the wheel, and was beep­ing and wav­ing at us. He could have killed somebody.”

No, what’s real­ly bizarre is that this arti­cle appears in the New York Times, who placed it in their “New York Region” sec­tion. Since when is Bue­na the New York region? It’s eas­i­ly a 2 – 1/2 hour dri­ve from Times Square, it’s below the Mason-Dixon line for good­ness sake (or to be tech­ni­cal­ly cor­rect, below it’s merid­i­an since the line was­n’t drawn through Jer­sey). They help­ful­ly tell us that it’s “pro­nounced BYOO-na” but I would have loved lis­ten­ing in on the phone when the reporter called down for “Bu-EN‑a” as she sure must have. Two weeks ago the Times put the Oak­lyn, NJ would-be mass mur­ders in the “New York Region” sec­tion too. Do we need to buy a cou­ple of maps for the erst­while Old Gray Lady? South Jer­sey just ain’t your region, a fact for which every native I’ve ever met is very hap­py. Every dri­ver on the roads around Bue­na were sure­ly mut­ter­ing “go home shoo­bie” when your New York plates drove by.

UPDATE: Oh no, even blog­gers are tak­ing the Times’ cue that Bue­na belongs in NYC News!