Ed Icionsub

As a kid, we would rake leaves into huge piles that lined the street and then run and jump in them. We would spend hours out in the yard helping Dad rake leaves. Then, after we had jumped around in them, making tunnels and covering each other up with leaves like you do with sand at the beach, my dad and our neighbors would light the leaves on fire and stand around in the street tending to the burning leaves. It was a big part of autumn and a big part of being good neighbors.

Somehow it is just not as satisfying to rake the leaves from the backyard into a pile and then have to dump them into oversized brown paper bags and wait for the county yard waste truck to drive through collecting the bags. It’s just become another mindless, isolated chore that has to be done. I miss the good old days of leaves burning and all the neighbors gathered around, telling stories and jokes and being part of a close knit community.

Tags: backyard, community, leaves, neighbor

Have a good friend who is an actor and he lives in Philadelphia, which is why I titled this post “Always Sunny. . .” like the hilarious TV show. Keith loves that show and has actually hung out with the cast and is in a couple of scenes as an extra.

I would not think there is that much work for actors in Philadelphia. But actually, it is not far from NYC and is a lot cheaper to live in Philly than to live in New Jersey or New York. So when he gets work in NYC he gets a short term apartment in New Jersey. New Jersey is actually nice once you get away from NYC and the banks of the Hudson River. In fact, most of New Jersey has nothing to do with New York City.

My favorite spot in New Jersey is Atlantic City. Most people probably think of Atlantic City as a min-Las Vegas, but i think of it as the beach and the boardwalk. I spent many summer weekends on the beaches of the Jersey Shore, swimming is the surf and walking for miles up and down the boardwalk and the beach looking for seashells. And I promise you, my summers at the beach were nothing at all like the TV series, Jersey Shore.

Keith’s parents live in rural New Jersey, about an hour east of Philadelphia and that is too far for him to commute to NYC for acting jobs. They have a small dairy farm and we were out there visiting his family over the holidays. I flew into Philadelphia and Keith picked me up at the airport. Then we drove out to his family’s farm in Jersey. That was a nice drive – nothing but open fields and a lot of cows. It was nothing like the opening scenes in “The Sopranos” when Tony is driving from his home in New Jersey across the river into the city.

I’ve know Keith and his family since college and they are like a second family to me. I’ve been to their farm several times and they always make me feel like I am one of the family and very welcome. On this visit, we hung out with Keith’s dad a lot, while his mom was busy shopping and baking – getting ready for Christmas.

Keith’s dad was telling us about Arosa Energy, a company that helps homeowners, farmers and businesses with New Jersey solar power. He says that there are a lot of ways to be able to afford switching to solar power or adding solar power to your property. Now there are federal tax credits and rebates from the state, which really help with the initial cost of installation.

His dad is planning to work with Arosa Energy to add solar panels to the dairy barn and the farmhouse. He was told that there will be so much energy generated from that many solar panels that he can actually sell the excess energy to the electrical utility provider company. I think that New Jersey solar energy is going to prove to be a great investment for his dad and the farm. We might end up back at the farm in April to help with the solar panel installation. I wouldn’t mind going back to help – I think I would learn so much from working on it – and it would be great to spend time with Keith and his folks, too.

Tags: airport, Atlantic City, beach, energy, farm, installation, Jersey Shore, property, solar, utility

My old high school buddies have been talking about our upcoming retirement years. Some of them are suggesting they might move away to live in another country after they retire and sell their homes here in the U.S. I find the idea of moving away intriguing, but I have so much family here that I cannot imagine wanting to live elsewhere.

Still, the idea of living someplace where you walk out of your front door and gaze across a sand beach to a sunrise over sparkling blue waters does make me wish I could move to Mexico or a Caribbean Island. I even starting investigating the possibility of buying a nice condo near a Mexican resort to have for most of the year, with plans to travel back to the U.S. to see family and celebrate holidays.

With the idea of moving to Mexico I searched online for International Movers to investigate the cost of moving out of the country and to read up on any tips or special considerations we would have to make to move.

Obviously, International Moving is not going to be the same as moving locally. For one thing, you have to deal with Customs agents and restrictions against certain items being allowed across the border. For example, you cannot take plants across the border. But there are a lot of other restrictions that I had not considered and was surprised to learn. For example, you cannot take a Persian rug into Mexico.

To move to the Caribbean Islands is different from Mexico. You have a lot of International Shipping restrictions. No wine or alcohol, no drugs – but I mean personal medical prescriptions, not the illegal stuff – and no guns or ammunition – not even for personal protection. That concerns me – with all the stories of cartels and violence, especially in Mexico, I would not want to be a new, American resident with no means to protect myself and my family.

Rain again today. The forecast for tomorrow is rain, too. This is the worst thing about winter- the perpetual dark, gloomy sky and bitter cold rain. Not only is it overcast and depressing, but the change back to standard time means that it is totally dark outside when I get off work, so I am driving home in the dark.

The good thing about a wet winter is that we almost always need the rain and it helps replenish the water levels so that we do not have a drought next summer. I remember a couple of years ago the water shortage was so bad that I had to install rain chains on the house and the garage to conserve rain water for the garden and the lawn.

With enough chains rain accumulates in a barrel or other collector and can be used when needed. The chains have a practical use but they can also be decorative. I picked out brass chains that match the hardware on the doors of my house and the fence gates.

Wish I could say that I was the first one in my neighborhood to install a rain chain, but one of my neighbors beat me to it. I had been thinking about it and then one day I drove the back way to the grocery store and passed his house. Sure enough, he had install chains and collection barrels. So that motivated me even further to go ahead and do it.

Tonight we have the chance to see an asteroid pass by very close to Earth. The Asteroid 2005 YU55, won’t be visible to just our naked eye, so you will need a telescope to see this phenomenon. The telescope should have at least a six-inch mirror.

The asteroid will be moving fast, but you should be able to see it from an East Coast viewing spot around 6:28 pm. It is expected to pass Earth, at only 201,700 miles from us. According to NASA, that is the closest any asteroid has passed Earth since 1976.