travel – Page 11

Saved by an angel?

I’ve been waiting to hear from my Mom, you know, some sort of signal, but nothing yet. When my brother passed we all heard from him the first week, then he disappeared. I had a friend jak, who passed away and for two years, I would feel his presence in the passenger seat of my car. Never in the house, but always in the car. His songs would play on the radio and I just had a sense that he was there next to me as I drove around.

But I think my mom saved me from a bad accident yesterday.

I had a friend visiting for a couple of weeks and yesterday he was headed home. We were out and about all morning and my car was fine, but at 1:30 pm, we jumped in the car so I could take him to the airport and it wouldn’t start. I kept trying and nothing. It wound not turn over. So he ended up taking Uber to the airport.

About an hour later, I was arranging to have the car towed to the service station in the morning and I ran out to get the license number. While I was there, I tried starting the car again and it turned over perfectly! I turned it off, turned it on again and same thing, it started perfectly. I drove it to the service station to have it looked at and Ubered home.

I thought that that was quite strange. Then I thought, what if Mom was protecting my friend and me from a bad accident as we drove to the airport? What if she made the car not work and then it started normally just a short time later?

I have been saved in traffic situations in the past by people from the other side. I just know it. I’ve almost been in accidents where I knew they were going to happen and nothing happened. Not too long after my brother passed, I was almost in an accident. The truck was coming right at me, I steeled myself for a side door impact and nothing happened. It was as if by magic, the oncoming, speeding truck missed me. It was as if it just drove through me and ended up on the other side of my car.

A few years back a friend was telling me about a dream he had where his mother, who had passed, told him she had protected me in an accident. As he described the details, I remembered the incident from about 10 years earlier. He had every single detail right – the color of the car, the type of car, the location, and even that the guy was on a cell phone, which caused him to drive through the red light. A brick phone at that!

At the time I couldn’t explain how my car squeezed into the size of an inch between two cars. Literally, the car had to squeeze that small for me to have survived that accident. I could never wrap my head around it, but I knew at the time it was some sort of divine intervention and when my friend explained it all 10 years later, regarding his late mother’s intervention, it made sense.

I’ve had quite a few incidents like that. Am I a bad driver or is it others? I believe it’s others, but either way, I was saved from terrible accidents by divine intervention and I wonder if that was the case yesterday where my car would not start when needed and then when not needed an hour later, it started without any hesitation.

UPDATE ON THE CAR: The service station called me this morning. There is not a thing wrong with the car. It starts up perfectly. It starts right up. THANKS MOM!

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Getting through security

I haven’t been traveling much since the pandemic started – actually not at all. But I did go to New York in the summer and then again just recently.

I noticed many changes of course and one big one is at LaGuardia airport and maybe it’s something new at all airports – the new security and conveyor system.

First off, while LaGuardia is still being transformed into something big and beautiful, many areas are completely done after years of renovation and it’s quite daunting at times. It’s huge. It seems like you walk for miles to get from one area to another. And just entering the airport and going from one area to the next is quite confusing.

As for the new conveyor system, it’s sort of a three-way-thing now. You don’t just push your bags down the line. You sort of put them on the conveyor rollers and then push them in and then a TSA Agent seems to push them in and out at will.

Coming home from New York yesterday, I was stopped, my bag went down a separate roller system and a TSA agent on the other end took it out, he called out, “Whose bag is this?” And I said, “Mine and I went over to him.

He said, “Don’t touch anything” And I said, “I know, I watch ‘How to Catch A Smuggler.” And he laughed, and said, “So do I.”

And then we talked about the tv show for a bit as he searched my bag.

It seems a small fingernail scissors set the system off and that’s why I was stopped. He let me keep the scissors and I was on my way. I was under the belief that they had allowed small things like that back on the airplanes, after all, a pen can do more damage than a tiny pair of scissors. I guess I was right since he let me through.

The above image is by Untapped New York, where you can see more great images of the new LaGuardia Airport.

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Pumpkin pickin’

On Saturday, we went pumpkin pickin’ in the Hudson Valley, one of the most beautiful places in the country.

The leaves hadn’t really turned yet, but it was still fall up there.

We stopped a few farms, got pumpkins, apples, apple cider, apple cider doughnuts, you know, the works. We also got mums for the season.

Going pumpkin picking and the works is a new tradition – a great one.

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Summer in October

Friday in NY was fantastic. It was like summer.

I usually prefer fall and would want the weather to be in the 50s and 60s, but this past summer was crap – 107 degrees or heavy rain constantly and this past week was blah, overcast and not really cool, but not really hot.

But Friday, was bright, the sky was blue, the temperature was 80 degrees and it seems like the whole city was out. Every park was full of people of all types from school children to office workers.

I watched in delight as some school boys climbed up on one of the statues in Union Square, where one of them struggled to get up there with his friends. Just matter-of-factly, two friends grabbed him by the arms and dragged him up. And then it looked as if they all had lunch sitting up on the statue base.

An older guy played the guitar and sang old hippie songs from the 1960s, and was amazing. The whole day was amazing.

I took the subway out to Coney Island. While the weather was great, strangely enough, there weren’t many people out there and it wasn’t as lively as it was in the summer. But I still enjoyed it.

Thursday night I spent with my cousins, We all went to dinner and it had been almost two years since we did that due to the pandemic, so it was very enjoyable, one of those nights I’ll always remember.

We may go apple and pumpkin picking upstate this weekend, but the weather is supposed to turn to rain again, bringing in a cold front, so we’ll see. The rain would stop us from going, not the cold front.

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Cosplay fun at New York Comic Con

I spent Saturday afternoon at NY Comic Con again. Here’s some raw footage of some of the cosplay.

It’s a subdued NY Comic Con

So I made it to NY Comic Con 2021! I hopped on a plane and got myself to NYC.

It was a bit subdued this year, the massive crowds weren’t here. They Comic Con people, Reed Pop, have been very good about covid protocols and I guess regulating the amount of people permitted into the event is one of them.

It’s all the excitement of every year, just with less people.

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NY Comic Con

I was supposed to be in New York today for the start of NY Comic Con, but I’ve been delayed, due to a family issue. Hopefully I can get there this weekend.

I am all set for my visit to the Jacob Javits Center. There is an app called “Clear” where you enter all your covid info – you have to scan a copy of your vaccine card, then scan your driver’s license, then take a current photo of yourself and then scan yourself live, to show that the photo you snapped is you!

They’re being quite careful, but still, thousands of people will be there shoulder to shoulder.

My cousin Michael is there already, he is showing his work at a booth, he’s a cartoon artist. And the photos are making me “homesick” for Comic Con.

A friend asked me yesterday what the big deal was – same thing year after year. I couldn’t explain it. It’s an experience. From the moment you get on the 7 train and see that most of the people on the train are dressed as a character from tv, movies or the comics, to the large crowds exiting the Hudson Yards train station, heading west to the Jacob Javits Center.

It’s electric. The whole four days are electric. Indescribable.

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Simple car and Uber issues

I had to go back and get something done on my car yesterday – flat tire. So I left the car and had to take an Uber back and forth. I made sure I had my phone on me at all times, didn’t want to go tracking it down again.

I didn’t know it was a flat tire, I thought it was a fan belt, because of the flapping noise the car made when I drove. The tire was not fully flat, so it was letting air out slowly and that’s why I didn’t know it was the tire. I had looked up what the sound could be online and it suggested the fan belt. I was telling the mechanic that’s it’s like WebMD, where you look up your symptoms and then you think you’re dying when you have a simple cough or something. Same with the car symptoms.

I brought the car in very early and the tire was fixed by 8:30 am, when he called me to pick it up.

Anyway, the Uber drivers – let’s talk about them. I had two, one to get home from the shop and one to go back and pick up the car. The first one and I talked the whole drive. He was very friendly and we talked about everything – but mostly about how over-developed Miami is these days, we reminisced about the old days.

The second driver didn’t say much. I had to force to say something every once in awhile, just to not appear rude in the back seat. It’s funny how people give off such different vibes.

Another thing I noticed is that each takes a different route to get to and from the same place. Even last week when I took Uber back and forth from getting work on the car, I noticed it. I guess their GPS adjusts to traffic patterns now, like Waze does.

In the past, I would tell them how to go, you know, how to take shortcuts; even going to the airport I would do that. But more than once we got stuck in traffic or hit a detour, so I keep my mouth shut now.

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The kids and the little boat

Every weekend, I have this ritual where I watch this bunch of kids head out in their boat and then return.

What I mean is, at the condo next door, I see a bunch of kids, who look to be about 16-years-old, possibly older, go out in a small boat. They leave in the afternoon and return at sunset, when the sun is at the magic hour. For some reason, I enjoy watching them. I don’t spend much time snooping, I just usually hear a lot of noise – music, people talking, etc. and I look outside and there they are.

I watch them head out and when I hear the music/noise at sunset, I see them coming in.

I think the boat is owned by an older man, because when they return, this silver haired guy goes out and checks the boat, locks it up, and does whatever it is he does. He must be the father or grandfather of one of the kids. I think one of the boys, because I’ve seen the boy alone with the older guy’s dog a few times, so it’s basically his father’s or grandfather’s boat.

I love the energy that these kids have and how polite and helpful they are. They help each other on the boat and off the boat and when they return, they help with removing all the stuff, you know, coolers, towels and such.

The strange thing is that there are usually from 15 to 20 people on the small boat. Yes, I counted. The boat looks to be 20 to 24 feet, so I’m not sure how comfortable that is, but most likely they head out to a sandbar or “the flats” and I heard the older man mention Soldier Key one time. So the kids ride out and then spend the time in the water, I guess.

I know, I should mind my own business. But I just love the scene of them going out and coming back. I don’t know why. Maybe it reminds me of my youth. For so many years, I spent it boating or at the beach, I grew up in and around the water – I went to the beach almost daily for years. So maybe I’m remembering my youth. Whatever it is, I get a kick out of seeing them.

When they started this routine, it was the end of the school year, so I thought that this was their last hurrah after school ended, but it went on all summer. They usually go every Saturday and sometimes Sunday, too. Now that it’s September, they are still at it.

It’s about the same number of boys and girls – all friends and really good friends it seems.

I know a few of the people who live in the condo building next door, but not the boat owner, so I am speculating about who all these people are.

One funny thing is that on a weekday – usually a Monday or Tuesday, a lady and man come and clean the boat. I guess it’s full of sand, dirt, footprints and the like, and they spend hours there, cleaning, getting it ready for the next weekend. This photo below is the lady this morning. She’s there early, cleaning it up.

Right on cue, she’s there Monday morning to clean the boat.

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What do Batman and Starry Night have in common?

I’m getting excited about New York ComicCon in October. As far as I know, it’s still on. I saw an ad on Instagram yesterday for ticket sales, so I assume since they are selling tickets, it is still on.

I lost my Batman/Van Gogh shirt. I like to wear it at ComicCon one of the days. I also have a Spider-man shirt and a Captain America shield shirt that I wear. That’s as far as I go with costumes.

Anyway, I ordered a new Batman/Van Gogh shirt and it arrived yesterday. I think I probably left the old one in New York a couple of Octobers ago, because I think that is the last time I wore it. It must have fallen off a chair or something and I didn’t pack it when I was heading home.

Anyway, you may remember, in April 2018, there was a story on the news about a guy in Mount Dora, Florida, who painted the exterior of a house with Van Gogh images. He had on this shirt and it was two of my favorite things combined, so I did a search online and found it. You can see the picture and video of the house and the guy wearing the shirt on the news here.

It’s just September 1 today, so I’m not trying to rush the month away. But I am getting excited for October.

Speaking of September 1, for some reason, as I get older, things move in slow motion, rather than fast motion, which you would think. For instance in the past, on September 1, I used to tell friends, remember this date, because before you know it, it will be January 1! And that was always the case.

But the past few years, maybe five, six or seven years, life has moved in slow motion and of course I love that. So September 1 to October 1 will hopefully take awhile to happen. I know Ferris Bueller says life moves too fast and you have to slow down and take a look around, but in many cases, it moves slow, and I like it that way.

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