Mattes's Musings by KC2GIK

Like so many of the recent posts I started this a week ago and just finishhing it now!! Sunday marked the 10 year anniversary of the tradgic day that changed our country forever. Ironically one of the things that I remember about both d ays was the weather wa perfect, a nice sunny fall day with a light breeze. Although unlike that day I wasn't glued to the police scanner, I decided scooter riding had to take priority. Like many towns Park Ridge had a ceremony attended by all the emergency services, including the OEM. I drove down to the ceremony to find the road closed to vehicle traffic, well most. I parked right by the memorial and joined the percession into the memorial park. It was a pointant ceremony were elected officials spoke and members of clegy lead us in moments of reflection. We then attended a reception at the American Legion Of course this entry wouldn't be complete without mentioning the monitoring. People think that because I live so close to New York City I...

When am I going t o learn when it comes to Facebook one liners can cause just as much damage as a couple of sentences. It all came down to the taxi ride going there. Every now and then I make a stop at the TDBank to withdrawl money. Last friday evening I did the normal routine. During the ride I heard the taxi get his next fair to go from the Hillsdale train station. Since it wasa fairly new driver I decided as an act of good faith on my part I would leave the money on the back seat and I left the door open while I went into the bank. That was a m istake that I will never make again! The idiot got out of the cab took the money o=ff the back seat closed the door and proceeded to the Hillsdale train station, leaving toi walk the extra few blocks. Well I always give $20 on a $15 cab since they do pull in the driveway and do loop around right to the front. This time like an idiot when I poulled out my wallet I decided to leave @$20 on th e back seat because I didn't want to ppull ...

Well I continued my streak of attending ALPCA conventions, this makes my fifth in a row and seventh overall. This year I dragged my folks down to Charleston, West Virginia. We did the trip down in two days stopping halfway in Maryland at Rocky Gap State Park and Resort, it was such a nice resort I almost didn't want to leave....I said ALMOST. Every year that I arrive on Wednesday instead of Tuesday I also think going I am mmissing something but not being there as soon as the hall opens. This year wasn't any different, however the exception was I was setting up a table for the first time and didn't want to miss any sale. I found some friendly faces behind the registration desk handing out welcoming packets to members. I grabbed mine and hunted for my table. The covention center layout itself was a bit weird but doable. They had the bathrooms sort of in the middle, in a separate room that divided the hall up a bit meaning you had to go around the bathrooms to get to the ...

A few months back I blasted Google because they had the Pacman game running on their  search engine to celebrate the 40th Anniversary. It drove everyone using Firefox nuts because even if you  weren't on Google it still fed into Firefox, Pacman sound and all. I figured this out after uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox a few  timesI did a search and found that day on Yahoo the top search phrase was "how to get rid of the Pacman noise. It made a number of technology blogs, and because I sacraficed a mouse, I put my two cents in as well. Hey it was perfect writing material once  I figured out what was going on. The only way to get rid of the sound was to  disable the  Google search engine inFirefox. Once I did that the sound was gone. I have since updated Firefox and the  Google searchb is back in there, I'm leaving it alone.......for now. Today would have been guitar hero Les Paul's  95 th birthday and in is honor Google has a playable elect...

It started out as a pretty normal Memorial Daqy. Chris, Natalie  and Zander came up this weekend, we went to  the Old Mill yesterday and while mom played with Zander I decided to do some laps. This morning I woke up earlier because I knew Mom wouldn't let me out of the house without some kind of breakfast. I woofed it down and waited for the car to be moved so I could get my scooter. I was a bit bummed because  my camera stopped working but still I was psyched. They call it the Tri-Boro parade because it goes through Woodcliff Lake Park Ridge and Montvale, every  year they alternate. Th is yea r the parade started at the Woodcliff Lake firehouse so I went down to hang out. I unexpectedly ran into a good friend Bob Hanna, actually I went to school with his son Robbie. Everytime he sees me he anno unces, "Here's trouble!", which is true and this time was no excpetion. Well he announced he put his 1931 Model T Pickup in the parade this year. After about a second he answ...

While I don't usually comment on license plate sales on ebay \or otherwise, the Congressional Medal of  Honor plates need to be examined. It's a sticky issue because somewhere down the line there was a man or woman who made a great personal sacrafice to be award the medal.  People always say you dont "win" the award, you recieve it and it 's an honor that you can put a price tag on. I feel b uying the plate cheapens the meaning behind it. Although over the years collectors have definitely tried. The plates  have made appearances at plate shows every so often. Usually collectors stare at the plate and talk to the seller about it, maybe try to talk the price down or even figure out where the seller got the plate.  I even held one in my hand, but decided the price wasn't right. It wasn't the monetary  value, but I would prefer to have a story behind how I got the license plate rather than just say "oh I bought that license plate from another collector...

This caught my eye while surfing the Internet. It seems a COBRA escaped the Bronx Zoo a few days ago. Obviously the news spread and the search for the snake (not to be confused with a NY politician) is that lastest and greatest to have a Twitter account. It seems someone is having a little fun with the incident with one Twitter  account for the Cobra, username "snakeonthetown", which is filled with extremely clever Tweets like " Leaving Wall Street. These guys make my skin crawl." and " On top of the Empire State Building! All the people look like little mice down there. Delicious little mice."   I was literally falling off the chair laughing as I compose this entry. Hey  you have to wonder what kind of person has the mind of a snake?  I could write more but nothing can match the whitty comments of this slimey reptile! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110329/ap_on_fe_st/us_missing_cobra_5 http://twitter.com/BronxZookeeper    http://twitter.com/#!/Bron...