Getting involved in Greenwich

The Connecticut House just approved tolls to fund completion of Rt. 11 in southeastern Connecticut.  See details in CT News Junkie here.  Malloy is in favor, the Senate will almost certainly pass this.  These will be the first tolls in Connecticut since they were eliminated in ’82 after deadly crashes on I-95.   This is only the beginning folks.  No source of revenue is ever left unexpanded in Connecticut.

A proposal to allow police to stop trucks on “No Thru Truck” roads, like Delavan-Ritch-Hamilton Aves, is facing criticism from, of all people, Rep Guerrera.  He’s one of the captains of the Greenwich Weigh Station being open, if possible, 36 hours/day.  The criticism from him and others goes, in short, we don’t want police randomly pulling over trucks to check their papers.  Interesting, because that’s just what they do every day at the weigh stations, and those are roads where trucks are allowed unrestricted access.  We also check their weight without any reason to believe they are overweight. 

Trucks don’t have a right to use no-truck roads unless they are going somewhere on that road, so of course the police have a right to check.  How ridiculous to think otherwise.

This is clearly just more lame legeslators bent on keeping up the tradition of nothing ever good coming from the CGA.

This should be a no-brainer, only in Connecticut will we likely see it fail.

See the Greenwich Time article here

The Greenwich Time reported last week (Click here to see article) that on Monday there will be a joint Connecticut State Police and Greenwich PD operation to catch truckers that get off the highway in Byram to avoid the Greenwich Weigh Station.  Of course, it’s a good thing that something is actually being done about this problem, but why is it a one-shot, and why is the Town of Greenwich helping to fund it?

I guess no one is left who remembers the debates about the weigh station before it was opened.  Then Sen. Nickerson fought for and got promises that the State Police would patrol EVERY DAY to ensure that trucks didn’t divert off the highway through Greenwich to avoid the station.

That hasn’t happened much, and now we’ve gotten to the point that Greenwich has to actually pay for this?  It’s madness.  The State brags every year about how much money they make off this station, they should pay all the associated costs.  I’ll bet even the Democrat legislators that love to see Greenwich pay more than their share wouldn’t argue with this.

I’ve already written the Greenwich General Assembly delegation and our First Selectman about this, you should too.  It’s outrageous.

Connecticut State Police should be setting doing checkpoints and whatever it takes to get trucks that avoid the station every day and if they can’t, then they should close the station.  A deal is a deal and we should expect our leaders in Hartford to keep their promises, especially when they’re making fistloads of money off of the station.

The Showboat is reportedly moving from the Byram River to Mamaroneck.  It can be seen from Greenwich at the Church St. Pocket Park for a little while longer.  It’s great that Billy Frenz saved it, a shame it couldn’t somehow be accommodated either in Greenwich, or at least visible from Greenwich.

I’ve kept the Byram cell tower business out of this blog because of my close involvement in the matter, but I really need to say something about the fire safety issue: There’s no way for a fire truck to get to the site of the proposed cell tower at 36 Ritch Ave West. Not a big deal with the current configuration, with some equipment behind a fence, but the new plan is to build a house that will hold diesel generators. Diesel fuel, stored in a house, and no access for fire trucks. The house is very close to the neighbor’s house and near several trees that line I-95. People should know.

For the most up-to-the-minute news in Greenwich you can’t beat listening to police and fire calls.  Up until last year, or maybe 2008, you could hear the calls on a $100 scanner.  Then GPD & GFD went digital, requiring a digital scanner, around $500.  But now, for free, you can hear the main police and fire calls online at ScanGreenwich.com .  Load it in a window on our PC and it plays in the background.  It even works great on my iPhone and plays in the background while doing emails.  You can also stream it through a WiFi radio if you have one.

It comes in handy if you see a lot of police activity in your neighborhood and want to know what’s going on.

Tom Allesi, who runs the site, asks for donations to keep it running.

Enjoy.

My father used these pencils, I remember them being around when I was in school so I used his, and preferred them because they were unique.   When I was later working as an accountant, and able to order my own pencils, I found these at the supply store we used and myself and everyone in my office used them.  That was in the 90′s.  They were discontinued in 1998, reportedly because the Eberhard Faber machine that crimped the erasers broke.

If you used the eraser a lot, you could pull it out and get more eraser because of the sleeve that held it tight, even after you pulled more out.

This was the only wood pencil made that had an adjustable eraser.  But that’s not why these pencils are now fetching $30 a piece on Ebay, it’s because of the soft lead that was prized for drawing and writing, and is the subject of endless odes in writers blogs.  (And now my blog)

Yes, half the pressure and twice the speed.  It was the Pentium processor of it’s day!

Well, this would be just an interesting history story, maybe not so interesting, if I didn’t have some news to report: The Blackwing is back !

If you spent some time on pencil blogs (I need a life), you would learn that the Palomino blue graphite HB(#2) pencils, made by California Ceder Products and sold at Pencils.com, were considered the closest match to the Blackwing 602 for writing and drawing.  Hearing that people were buying there pencils because pencil bloggers were recommending them, they bought the rights to make the Blackwing 602 from Eberhard Faber and about a month ago they released the Palomino Blackwing

Retails for $19. 95/dozen (click here to find it).  They could have copied it exactly, and included 602 and the “half the pressure, twice the speed” mark, but they wanted to distinguish it.  Also, it’s not just a Palomino blue with different paint and eraser.  It’s a pencil the company’s owner researched, made prototypes, sent the prototypes to loyal fans of the original, took comments, adjusted and released finally, two months ago, as the new Blackwing.  You can read the history of this new release here in Woodchuck’s blog, at pencils.com if you like.

I had two boxes of the original Blackwings that I gave away, admitedly before I realize they were fetching $300/box on Ebay, to a friend at work who also liked pencils.  I never used them, and it was more fun to give them away.  So yes, I bought some of these new Blackwings and I give them a thumbs up.  My friend says the lead in the originals is slightly softer, and I trust her on that.  I don’t notice the difference.  Worth noting is the eraser is white, not red, so it works better.  This is discussed on the above-linked blog.  Red erasers make a mess on paper.

I guess I’d put this down as an inexpensive holiday gift suggestion for someone who is old enough to remember these pencils.  Even it they didn’t use them regularly, if you’re over 40, you’ll probably remember seeing them from time to time and having a box will bring a smile and thoughts of a time before anyone knew that ridiculous smile symbol.

One of the fun things I get to do with this blog is tell you about anything I think you should know.  There’s a new Sherlock Holmes mystery running on PBS, it’s called Sherlock, and it’s set in 2010.  Sounds ridiculous, but this is different.  A truly great mystery with a sort of Sherlock Holmes on steroids character, you’ll love it.  Only three episodes running now, but I’m betting it will be back.

Check it out.  Click it for a link to the series’ page.