local color

a really, really, really nice day
Yesterday we went for a drive. It was absolutely gorgeous, perfect weather outside yesterday--nearly 70 degrees. In January! So we left our coats at home. We went down Route 9 through Little Egg Harbor and Tuckerton and then we drove down Seven Bridges Road, which I wrote about for the APP as one of my first stories assigned to me.

It's a pretty little road-to-nowhere that ends abruptly. It was originally intended to serve as another route to LBI, but the seabed was too soft to build a bridge across. So it just winds through wild marshes, with only small marinas and abandoned fish factories along the way.

It has several "one-hoss" bridges that only fits the width of one car at a time. A stoplight helps regulate traffic, so two cars don't accidentally end up facing each other on a bridge, where the only way out is backing up. Scrubby pine trees, tall grass and brambly bushes grow alongside the road, which sometimes dips so low, it feels like you are driving on the marsh itself.

At the end of this road is an old red-and-white Coast Guard Station, now home to the Rutgers Marine Field Station. The bushes grow high at the turn-around. The road ends with a metal road barrier, but just beyond that barrier is a small path that goes through the curving bushes. The bushes are like a tunnel and, even if you've been there before, its sort of exciting to see what is on the other end.

Which is a small beach that opens out into the Atlantic Ocean. From there you can see the very tip of Long Beach Island, Atlantic City, other small uninhabited barrier islands and miles and miles of ocean. Seagulls dip and soar and scream and you almost think you can see them scooping up fish, but never manage to actually catch them in the act.

Out on this narrow beach, we spread my "dirty" blanket, huddled under my "clean" blanket and just sat there as the sun set. I thought we wouldn't be able to see it from that perspective because we would be facing east, but the sun set right in front of us, just west of Atlantic City. Luckily the sky was almost cloud-free. Unfortunately, the one place where there were clouds were exactly in front of the sunset, just above the horizon. Nevertheless, we enjoyed most of the sunset, rolling up our blankets a little early so we could enjoy the drive by dusk.

travel

So, looking at Sioux's pictures from her trip to Hawaii made me seriously jealous. I really would like to take a vacation that is just a vacation--I can't remember the last time I did that.

Anyways, it sucks that this probably won't happen for awhile. Most of my vacation time will be wiled away a day at a time for 3-day weekends to fly home and other various spots for weddings. Not that weddings aren't wonderful--I am very happy and grateful that so many of my friends are getting married and so many want to include me in the celebration. Each guest is a huge undertaking (esp $$-wise), so when someone makes the effort to save one space (or two) for me, I am going to make the effort to attend.

Earlier, the problem was all my vacation went to one big chunk of vacation time--going to India. Dec. 2004 and March 2006. And that is NOT a vacation, no matter what the two weeks stretching across the vacation calendar may look like. I come back from India needing a vacation.

For now, I am happy taking one- or two-day vacations to NYC, Philly area, Atlantic City, etc. I would like to go to Boston and Toronto and Hershey, PA. =) I also would like to go to Vermont and New Hampshire cause those were two states I always said I probably would never have the chance to visit but would actually enjoy. And now I am close enough to do it. Plus then maybe I could understand which one is narrow at the top and which one is narrow at the bottom. Those are the two states I always confuse in those online geography tests. (now, don't go rushing to tell me that Vermont is this one and NH is this one...People keep telling me and I keep looking it up, the problem is getting it to stay in my head.)

Let's not even get started on all the places in the world I want to visit...South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Spain, the English countryside, Incan ruins in Mexico (not drinking to ruin in Mexico), Australia, Chile...and back to The Netherlands/Amsterdam and Nepal.

And, of course, Hawaii!

Random thoughts

I always hated the post New Years. There wasn't really anything to look forward to, after the smush of holidays during the last half of the year/first half of the school year. It was just a long stretch of time with an occasional Friday or Monday off for MLK or Presidents Day. We used to have this break called "Energy Break" which was on the historically coldest week of the year, puportedly to save energy by not having to heat and light the schools. It was spring break--in February.

Now I don't even have those days to look forward to! We don't get MLK day off, though we did at my last paper (with an option to use this "diversity day" for any other diverse holiday of our choosing.) I don't have any spring breaks, etc. Boo for working.

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I drove down to the very southern (driveable) tip of Long Beach Island, right at sunset. It was amazing. I was so close to Atlantic City, and I could see the sunset over AC and reaching out into the ocean. That was cool. It took me a lot longer to get down there then I thought it would. I wish it was a nicer drive, more ocean views or something. It was lots of big fancy homes and stuff. That tip is the start of the Edwin Forsythe Reserve. I think its maybe Edwin B. Forsythe reserve. Why is almost everything here named after someone and why does everyone use their middle initial? I know why I use it (to keep my byline separate from the other Shruti Mathur in journalism, who went to school in Johns Hopkins and grew up in the Baltimore/DC area) but we also use it in our articles too.

Anyways, I hope I can share this view with some people sometime real soon!

Star Tribune sale

The not so big news, but the most exciting thing in my world today is the fact that I am flying home today for my New Years vacation. I think we are also going to do a few hours worth of tourist stuff in Philadelphia today too.

The big news in my world (besides Former President Gerald Ford dying) is the sale of the Star Tribune. The surprise of the sale was something even the executive officers of the company acknowledged yesterday.

It was a surprise mainly because when McClatchy decided to buy Knight Ridder, they assured employees of the Star Tribune that it was the one paper that was safe because the Strib was its "flagship paper." There was a lot of consternation about what would happen when McClatchy spent all its cash buying KR, but the one thing Stribbers felt assured in was that at least our paper would be in the same chain, whatever other changes may come down the line.

Perhaps the sale shouldn't have been a surprise. Perhaps the jumping ship that editor Anders Gyllenhaal did last week (to take a job at McClatchy's Miami paper) should have been an indicator of major changes ahead.

All that aside, the biggest concern right now is, what next? I feel that it has been the trend that, following the sale of a newspaper, layoffs or buyouts (in the case of companies with unions, including the Star Tribune) occur. Between us, I think there is some need to weed out a few people in the Star Tribune newsroom, who really don't produce much work, while others are working their tails off, but I think those positions need to be replaced with people who do work hard, not less staff. And I am concerned about prior cuts to the night desk, especially design positions, that have not been filled. The designers are STILL working doubly hard, with no relief in sight just yet. They keep losing people but not filling the positions, so the cuts by attrition there have been ginormous.

I could take time to write about problems in the newspaper industry in general, but then I would be writing about things I don't understand fully (not that that is much different than my job, but at least there I have someone else who analyzes things and I just write about it!)

Anyway, its a big time of uncertainty and I wish my former colleagues and friends the best. I am also a little sad for me because I always planned to return to the Star Tribune someday. I hope I still have a quality paper to return to.

mail service?

My mail sucks. Last month I got a birthday card a month late--despite it being sent a month earlier. My Netflix movies are constantly three days late, which means sometimes that, despite being signed up for three a month, I have ZERO netflix movies in my posession. Annoying. Today was the worst: A bill that was due last Friday came on Monday. This was for my health insurance, something I would like to stay. Luckily, my health insurance has a 30-day grace period (that's a really long time...) so I am okay with that.

Someone suggested I get a P.O. Box. I guess I am down the street from the post office, but the idea of driving to get my mail seems odd. Plus, who knows if my P.O. Box would be any faster. It seems that maybe the mail takes a long time just getting out to Manahawkin...

NYC

I discovered that I am only an hour and a half from Jersey City, which is the same distance that I am from Philly. Which means that I am pretty much two hours from NYC, assuming I park in JC and take the train into the city. Driving into the city wouldn't be bad, except for that whole parking thing. That is not easy, methinks.

Dinner was amazing. I love Indian-Chinese food; its just this amazing hybrid of tastes and it works so well. We had my favorite dish, Chicken 65. We also had some wine.

Ravi needed to catch a train at Penn Station, so we dropped him off there, after screaming random stuff out the window at him, probably mortifying him beyond belief. Then we drove back to Jersey City where Maya and Vikram totally twisted my arm into staying the night. And by twist, they just touched my wrist and I was like OKAY! I really didn't feel like driving an hour and a half at that point.

We went to their favorite local Jersey City bar, drank some more...then finally stumbled into bed at about 3am.

The nicest part about the weekend? Spending time with friends. I mean, two of the guys on Saturday night were Vikram and Maya's friends, but it just felt like normal. And it was exciting to "crash" at Maya's place and go home in my rumpled clothes the next day, like I had friends again. I know this sounds stupid, but it is silly little things like that that make a difference to me.

I am feeling the fact that I don't have friends here in town, but I am forging a tentative friendship with a girl who works in my building and also lives on the island. Maybe some of her friends will be cool too and then I can start my own little friendships!

Blogs

I think you all should read my friend Dylan's blog: A Place Called Blog. It's just a really really funny blog. He's got this very sarcastic, dry, witty sense of humor and its even funnier if you know him because he is very stoic in person. (Scroll back and read older entries too.)

I realized my blog reading takes a LOT of time. I read a bunch of the Star Tribune blogs, some random blogs about nothing, some celebrity news blogs, SepiaMutiny and some related blogs, etc. I once stayed an extra two hours after work, just so I could read all my blogs. I can't read anymore!

But, ignoring all that, what blogs do you read?