Just kidding. But with the severe thunderstorms hammering our area this morning, I bet students, commuters and especially crossing guards wish it was. Of course, it helps if you're prepared, which is not necessarily the case...
The National Weather Service, as usual, has issued its ALL-CAPS alert:
STRONG THUNDERSTORMS WILL IMPACT BERGEN... BRONX... EASTERN ORANGE... ESSEX... FAIRFIELD... HUDSON... KINGS (BROOKLYN)... NEW YORK (MANHATTAN)... PASSAIC... PUTNAM... QUEENS... RICHMOND (STATEN ISLAND)... ROCKLAND... UNION AND WESTCHESTER COUNTIES...AT 738 AM EDT... NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR WAS TRACKING STRONG THUNDERSTORMS ALONG A LINE EXTENDING FROM STANFORDVILLE TO WARWICK TO 7 MILES SOUTHWEST OF MANVILLE... MOVING EAST AT 30 MPH.
INTENSE CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING IS EXPECTED WITH THESE STORMS. IN ADDITION... HEAVY RAIN... WITH RAINFALL RATES OF UP TO ONE INCH AN HOUR... IS OCCURRING WITH THESE STORMS. THIS COULD CAUSE PONDING OF WATER ON ROADWAYS... AND MINOR FLOODING OF POOR DRAINAGE AREAS. SMALL HAIL AND GUSTY WINDS MAY BE POSSIBLE IN THE STRONGEST CELLS AS WELL.
LIGHTNING IS ONE OF NATURES NUMBER ONE KILLERS. REMEMBER... IF YOU CAN HEAR THUNDER... YOU ARE CLOSE ENOUGH TO BE STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. MOVE TO SAFE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.
Send us your thunderstorm pictures, video, haiku or aphorisms, or post them to Flickr.
Meanwhile, expect more-than-usual train and bus delays. They're already starting. Clever Commute, your go-to source for transit alerts, is now on Twitter -- although the interface seems (to us) difficult to understand.
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Comments (30)
Big, loud strikes woke me up at 2:00 a.m. It sounded like one hit across the street.
Feeding the itty bitty Mittys a slow breakfast and hoping we get a window in which to meke the morning rounds of drop-offs.
My daughter was awake from 2 - 4:30 a.m. because of the storms. I've declared it a stay-at-home day.
"Today is Stay-At-Home-And-Work-in-Your-PJ's Day"
Or as the prof calls it, everyday.
My sinuses are killing me.......
Nothing beats the majesty of a thunderstorm.
When the thunder sets off car alarms, as it did very early this morning, you know it was right overhead.
Scared the be-Jesus out of us and the cats.
Another morning watching the ducks enjoy the temporary Watsessing Park pond. Man, they can quack up a storm when they want to.
.. got the Verizon Fios 'triple play' installed yesterday.
The first thing I tried on IE after the install was baristnet.com. Ta-Da!! It came up a lot faster than DSL. Once they got the new fiber box set up in my basement, the rest of the install was pretty quick.
I'm going to save a few hundred a year, dropping Comcast. Other than not having MSNBC the TV content is much better, with a lot more HD content available. My new fav is HD Weather, very cool.
So if any of you baristavillians are a bit queasy about the prospect of Fios, never fear, it wasn't bad at all and the Verizon Tech was super-professional and didn't track too much dirt around the house. :-)
I thought yesterday was work in your PJs day. Damn! Here I am in the office. Crap, maybe I can leave early. Hey jersegurl, see you on the 3 o'clock train.
Mellon, did they have to run new wires all through your house, or do they somehow connect to existing cable lines? I have my name on the Fios list, because I truly dislike Comcast, but hubby doesn't like the idea of having wires clipped to the baseboard all over the place.
And I thought tomorrow was work in your PJs days. Walleroo, we missed the boat (and we may need it!)
Nuts... I thought today was "Take your life into your hands and hydroplane to work day."
On the upside, I was treated to some bitchin' lightning strikes every time I found myself at a red light this morning (and quite the show at 2 this morning, too).
At lunchtime I'm going to buy PJs and wear them in the office.
Kay,
They put a Fios control box in your basement/garage near where the existing Cable comes in. There isn't any 'rewiring' necessary.
They used the existing twisted pair phone lines and the existing coaxial cable. The Fios Box sends the phone signal through existing phone lines and the TV and Internet go through the Coaxial. They supply an Internet 'router' which can be put anywhere in the house that you have a Cable outlet. It can be connected to either with ethernet cable or 'wireless' .
It was an unobtrusive installation.
MB2
I have FIOS in GR and MSNBC is on channel 103.
MMM,
Thanks, I heard from a friend, Galaxyman, that Fios didn't carry MSNBC. I'll have to check my channel guide/TV when I get home tonight to see if they carry it in Bloomfield.
I always say, if it's gonna rain, at least make it a really good thunder storm. There was a clap of thunder around 6am, so loud you'd have thought the world was ending.
Mellon, thanks for the FiOS info. I've been thinking of switching my service for a while now but have yet to take the leap.
I couldn't find my cats this morning....They were all hiding from the thunder and lightning.
Nellie,
Did you check under the covers?
:-)
The Mittys have had FIOS for a little over a year and we are pleased with it.
But, we have it only the internet connection, for 45USD/mo. For our phone service, we run Vonage.
We don't have television. It doesn't offer anything worth paying for. Our opting out is not as shocking as it used to be, we can watch what we need over the internet, hulu, Netflx, etc.
Oh that reminds me: Montclair sewer bills are due by the end of this month. And remember, the actual due date is June 1. The June 30 date printed on the stub is the last day of the 30 day grace period; if you pay July 1, you are not one day late, you are 31 days late.
Then you have to remember to pay the second half in December. If you can't remember to do that (and many can't) just mail the whole schebang in now.
Hey,
Is anyone from Baristaville going to participate in the annual Princeton Bike Ride . You can ride from 20 - 100 miles. Galaxyman and I are going so far and thinking about trying for 100 but more realistically going to go for the 65 mile route.
If there are any avid bike riders out there you should check into this.
FIOS can't carry MSNBC in towns that also have one of the other cable companies...it might be comcast. That cable company has an exclusive with FIOS and so, for example, here in Denville we can't get MSNBC
Thanks, Mellon! Yay, this makes me very happy! I have been on the Fios "notification" list for what, about 2 years now? Hopefully they will get up my street soon!
p.s. Mr Mitty, thanks for the reminder - I totally mis-read that sewer bill and thought 6/30 was the due date! Didn't we have this confusion last year too? You'd think those Smarties at the Town would make things clearer after the first fiasco. (har-de-har-har.)
Mellon, I found them huddled either under the couch or my bed--one was shaking in a corner of the bathroom. One was still missing when it was time to leave for work, but she blessedly appeared-don't know where she had been hiding. My 19-year-old cat, of course, was unfazed by the whole thing. She yawned and went back to sleep.
FIOS's on-demand service stinks, by the way.
Mr. roo,
What's so bad with it? I've had good luck with it.
I've grown to love my Fios. The home house dvr is amazing.
I only wish they were mac compatible with the Media Manager, which allows you to stream your computer music and pix's to the TV.
For that, I'll have to stick with the wii, which does the same.
I love my FIOS. The on demand feature is fine. So is the DVR. I get to watch that dreamy Don Draper over and over....
Getting the initial FIOS appointment took some doing because our place was left off the database of eligible addresses. I had to snail-mail a letter to the CEO with a map showing that the houses adjacent to ours in eight directions were all eligible for FIOS, and that I wanted, desperately, to sign up for a service that would have me paying them more money!
So, play around with the FIOS page and see if they show it as available for your neighbors before you resign yourself to waiting around any longer.
The selection of movies to rent is pathetic. And they're all truncated for a narrow screen (except for the HD selections, of course, but there aren't many of those).
Pay jerseygurl no mind. She lives in a bubble.
My doggy is deaf so she slept rhough it all. My husband and I, however, are not and were woken up by the BIG BANG! Good for the tahmaters, though.
Regarding Clever Commute on Twitter: Not sure I see Debbie's point...but I think that overall Twitter is an odd bird...but it meets the need for us.
With that said, we're in beta...and doing what we can to simplify it given our resources.
But, the bottom line is that there is one account for the train...and one for the bus. You "Follow" the one(s) you want...and you then benefit from receiving messages sent from the commuters.
Stop by this link for more info
http://clevercommute.com/blog/?p=115
Thanks
Fios is still working fine. I'm connected with my work PC now, no problems finding/configuring new WiFi connection.
And... MSNBC is available in Bloomfield. Does anyone know if it's available in Montclair?