In My Travels

Preproduction? Subaru BRZ Spotted

Tom — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 21:56:09 +0000

This afternoon, I happened to notice a Subaru BRZ in traffic. That’s interesting, because they only went into production 13 days ago in Japan, and their US introduction is not scheduled until 4/20. It appeared to be fully badged and was wearing a manufacturer plate (just the rear… New Jersey front plate laws be damned!). Since it is too late to make changes to the production cars, my guess is that this is a preproduction model that was shipped over here early for media use.

It was travelling North on Route 208 through Franklin Lakes, New Jersey when I pulled in behind it. It merged onto Route 287 South and then exited at Skyline Drive.

Sorry, I did the best I could with the pictures… Not rolling my truck at 65 mph in rush hour traffic was my top priority.

Hurricane Irene brings record flooding to Denville

Tom — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:31:51 +0000

Hurricane Irene tore through Denville early this morning, bringing with it strong winds and torrential rain. Several trees in our neighborhood were uprooted or had large sections ripped off. The Rockaway River has been rising steadily all day and as I write this, the USGS gauge above the Boonton Reservoir is measuring 9.06′, much higher than the previous record of 7.23′ set on April 5, 1984. Here are some pictures that we took of the damage today.

Columbia Trail Ride

Tom — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 20:11:09 +0000

I took a ride on the Columbia Trail from Long Valley to High Bridge the other day, continuing on to Spruce Run Reservoir before returning. The Columbia Trail is an old railroad right of way which has been converted to a mixed-use trail. The trail winds its way through the Ken Lockwood Gorge. On my way back, I stopped to fish for 20 minutes in the South Branch Raritan River in High Bridge.

Here is a short video from the trip.

More Information
Morris County Parks
Hunterdon County Parks
Wikipedia

Chrome PDF Reader sucks, here is how to turn it off

Tom — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:26:22 +0000

For a while now, Google has included built in PDF rendering capabilities within the Chrome Browser. I never liked this because while it is lightweight, it is missing many features that a real PDF reader should have. E.g.: You can’t rotate PDF files while viewing them, the printing options are far limited compared to Acrobat Reader, etc.

Today after filling in a 6 page PDF form from within Chrome’s PDF viewer, I saved the PDF file to my desktop with the intention of emailing in the completed form. It was then that I found that Chrome’s PDF handling does not save the contents of any editable fields with the saved PDF. LAST STRAW!

Here is how to disable Chrome’s crappy PDF handling:

Go to your plugins configuration page at chrome://plugins (Copy/paste chrome://plugins into your address bar)
Scroll down to “Chrome PDF Viewer” and click “Disable”
Restart Chrome and enjoy PDF files like they are supposed to be

Google has made this terrible PDF solution because they feel that they know best. They think that users should choose a lack of features over having to keep their PDF reader software up to date themselves. I disagree.

Game Fish Video from Pequest Open House

Tom — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:01:37 +0000

Here is a short video of one of the game fish displays at the Pequest Trout Hatchery Open House on April 2, 2011.

Scrambled Eggs with Perch Roe Recipe

Tom — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:14:15 +0000

I recently caught a number of Yellow Lake Perch which contained large sacks of roe. One of the old guys at my local bait and tackle place kept telling me how tasty it was to put the roe into scrambled eggs, so I wanted to try that out, but I was not able to find a recipe.

Here is what I came up with. It is quite tasty.

Ingredients

3 Eggs
2 tbs Milk
1 medium Perch roe sack (about 1/4 cup)
1 tbs Butter
2 tbs finely minced Onion
2 tbs shredded Cheddar Cheese (optional)
Salt and Pepper

Directions

Scramble the eggs in a bowl with the milk and set aside.
In a medium non-stick pan, sauté the onions in the butter until almost transparent.
Squeeze the roe out of the roe sack into the pan and discard empty sack. Stir to separate roe and sauté until they become opaque (only a minute or two).
Add egg mixture, stir to mix and continue to cook over medium-low heat.
Season with salt and pepper and cook to desired consistency as with standard scrambled eggs.
Serve and top with optional cheddar cheese.

Enjoy! If you try it, let me know how it works out for you.

Wikipedia upgrades software, all hell breaks loose

Tom — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:59:40 +0000

Wikipedia was upgrading its software to a current version of Mediawiki this morning. Things do not seem to have gone so well…

Currently, requests to en.wikipedia.org are timing out or returning the error message below. Hopefully they will get their systems sorted out quickly. While I am glad that they are trying to stay current, one would think that one of the most trafficked websites in the world would plan its software upgrades more carefully.

You say potato, I say potato, let’s call the whole thing off (or not)

Tom — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 05:03:51 +0000

So, I am a New Jersian who frequently travels to Manhattan for both business and pleasure. Due to the difficulty of traffic and parking in New York City, I prefer taking mass transit, so improved rail access to the city is something which I support. When Governor Christie cancelled the ARC tunnel project, I was disappointed.

It turns out that my disappointment was unfounded, and that Christie’s cancellation of the project was the right move. Today Amtrak announced it is planning to build a very “Gateway” tunnel project very similar in route and purpose as the ARC tunnel, but to be built for Amtrak instead of NJ Transit and paid for almost entirely as a federal project instead of the largely by NJ tax payers.

So we New Jersians get our better rail tunnel (in 10+ years…) and don’t have to pay out the nose for it! Good deal.

More Info:

Gov. Christie, Democratic U.S. senators scramble to take credit for Gateway tunnel project | NJ.com.

Mayor blames state for closure

Tom — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:59:37 +0000

Rockaway Township’s mayor, Louis Sceusi says that the closure of the Splitrock Reservoir parking lot was a last ditch effort to get the state involved in cleaning up and policing the area. He also says it is working. Read more.

Friends of Splitrock Created

Tom — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:35:49 +0000

I have created the Friends of Splitrock, a community group with the goal of preserving and promoting access to the Splitrock Reservoir.

I will continue to post major updates on this issue here, but there will be a lot more information available over at the Friends of Splitrock website. Already I have gotten some positive news from the DEP regarding the closure, so check it out.