This week's editing project is a book on how rural villages in China are governed and how the status quo is being changed by government policies and in particular the widespread migration of workers to cities. It's actually not as dull as it sounds. One sentence in particular jumped out at me because I found it so relevant to Unionville, or indeed any small town anywhere in the world: "Any member’s good or bad behavior, including their words, is very likely to be in the public domain and accessible to the whole community."
Next in the pipeline: a book on the often-uneasy relationship between science and religion and then a textbook about responsible journalism. (Yes, really.)
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Repurposing
An ambitious fellow is renovating a old house near here, and this morning as I drove by I saw him unloading brand-new boxed bathroom fixtures from a horse trailer. (And yes, the trailer looked thoroughly swept out.) Wish I'd seen this resourceful guy loading up at Lowe's or whatever DIY store he went to; that would've made for a funny photo!
Fiat Lux
On this gray, rainy Saturday morning, a friend reports that he was dawdling around, deciding whether to get started on his day, and was pleased to find that his room was getting much brighter. He thought the sun had broken out from behind the clouds; alas, he discovered that the light was coming from his computer monitor, which had come to life unexpectedly.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Road food
As regular readers know, I never get tired of eating at the wonderful Mexican restaurants we are lucky enough to have around here. But on a trip to Central Jersey today I was captivated by the different ethnic restaurants that flourish there: in one strip mall along Route 1 there was an Indian curry and BBQ place (yes, that's what the sign said); a Jamaican restaurant; an Asian food store; and a Chinese restaurant. Toward Somerset there was a Hungarian diner, and a gyro place was about to open in what looked like an old gas station.
Route 1 is lined with not only shopping centers but also gigantic corporate headquarters, like Dow Jones and Novo Nordisk. I was especially intrigued by a sign pointing to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Though that's doubtless an official part of the university, I got the feeling that in central Jersey "Princeton" is kind of like "Main Line" here; everyone tries to milk its cachet by appropriating the name.
Route 1 is lined with not only shopping centers but also gigantic corporate headquarters, like Dow Jones and Novo Nordisk. I was especially intrigued by a sign pointing to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Though that's doubtless an official part of the university, I got the feeling that in central Jersey "Princeton" is kind of like "Main Line" here; everyone tries to milk its cachet by appropriating the name.
Bah humbug
Granted, it's been a long, cold (though not lonely!) winter, and there are still piles of unmelted snow in some parking lots and roadbanks where it was piled high. But I humbly suggest that it's time the red and green "Seasons Greetings" banners were removed from the parking lot of the Giant shopping center on Scarlett Road in New Garden. One friend said she even thinks they've been hanging there for at least two Christmas seasons.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Submerged
Ah, good old muscle memory. For years I've been doing deep squats at the gym, and the trainers always emphasize the importance of using proper form so as to work the right muscles without risking joint damage.
So today at lunchtime, during the springtime snow flurries, I was standing knee-deep in the middle of a little creek taking close-up photos of some of the first skunk cabbages I'd seen this season -- beautiful little green and purple things. I took a couple of photos -- and then noticed that my rear end seemed to be getting extremely cold.
Sure enough, without even thinking about it I had assumed a textbook-perfect squat position -- except at the gym there's not an ice-cold body of water toward which you're lowering yourself. I found that my hind end had in fact dipped an inch or so beneath the surface of the water.
To add insult to injury, my wannabe-artsy photos weren't even any good.
So today at lunchtime, during the springtime snow flurries, I was standing knee-deep in the middle of a little creek taking close-up photos of some of the first skunk cabbages I'd seen this season -- beautiful little green and purple things. I took a couple of photos -- and then noticed that my rear end seemed to be getting extremely cold.
Sure enough, without even thinking about it I had assumed a textbook-perfect squat position -- except at the gym there's not an ice-cold body of water toward which you're lowering yourself. I found that my hind end had in fact dipped an inch or so beneath the surface of the water.
To add insult to injury, my wannabe-artsy photos weren't even any good.
Seen around town
1. A "Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission" vehicle was parked at the abandoned Red Rose Inn in Jennersville. The parking lot is well secured with a chain across the entrance, so I'm assuming the vehicle was there on some kind of official business.
2. Vehicles from Henkels & McCoy and Asplundh were doing maintenance work along the towers that carry the high-tension wires up from the Conowingo Dam through our area. Off one back road in West Marlborough, the workers had laid down a long pathway of wooden pallets to the electric company's right-of-way so that the heavy equipment wouldn't tear up the fields. (And a few days later I saw another pallet-road being built off Route 82, opposite Apple Grove Road.) Can you imagine working in a bucket on one of those sky-high cherry pickers? Shudder.
3. Along Route 82 through Unionville, residents had neatly stacked their downed tree limbs for pickup, with the trunk ends toward the curb, as instructed. It looked like a super-organized troop of beavers had made its way through town.
2. Vehicles from Henkels & McCoy and Asplundh were doing maintenance work along the towers that carry the high-tension wires up from the Conowingo Dam through our area. Off one back road in West Marlborough, the workers had laid down a long pathway of wooden pallets to the electric company's right-of-way so that the heavy equipment wouldn't tear up the fields. (And a few days later I saw another pallet-road being built off Route 82, opposite Apple Grove Road.) Can you imagine working in a bucket on one of those sky-high cherry pickers? Shudder.
3. Along Route 82 through Unionville, residents had neatly stacked their downed tree limbs for pickup, with the trunk ends toward the curb, as instructed. It looked like a super-organized troop of beavers had made its way through town.
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