Tag Archives: Queens

New York City Covid-19 Diary

21 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by in COVID-19 New York City, New York Lockdown Diary, Queens, NY

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Day 1- My New York State flag arrived. I decontaminated it. Then i jury rigged a flagpole out of an old pool cue and hung it, in a very safe way, off my fire escape. Then I hoisted my Bernie 2020 flag on the roof off an old pipe that sticks up high enough to be seen from the 7 train. I’m ready to vote for Biden if I must, but thats so far down the road now, who knows?

Days ago i shaved off my beard for 2 reasons. It made me touch my face and it would stop a good seal on an oxygen mask. I also buzzed my chest in case i need the paddles of life. Hey, at this juncture I want to be 100% ready for 10% possibilities. Seems the only way.

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The presidents daily displays of ineptitude only make it worse. He should stay off TV.

I talked to my bio-dad Eddie. He’s a nice guy.

I also spoke to my amazing Uncle Richard, who i fear for most. He’s a dedicated and very kind Roman Catholic Priest who learned Spanish to administer to that community. Hes an amazing and selfless leader to his flock. He sees a lot of people, I’m afraid he may have been exposed to the virus. He wouldn’t care. Hes truly kind and a great leader of Catholics.

I told him he had been a great uncle. He was the first to appreciate my intellect and helped me develop it. I was one of few 4th graders to have read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia all thanks to him. The last movie I watched with him was TOLKIEN and we both enjoyed it.

I also exchanged emails with my mother.

I only heard sirens 3 times today. My neighbor Abe works for the MTA. He says its not a gauge of police activity as the cops and EMT’s are smart and do not want to panic us. The streets are pretty empty. He theorizes they are simply not using sirens. I noted it for consideration. I will now try to listen for the Squelch they use to warn of pedestrians in their path. They have to use that.

I’m fairly well secured. I apocalypse shopped for a week and totally destroyed a high interest credit card. I don’t care.

I may be an asymptomatic carrier or I may still be negative. There’s still no way to know. I feel weird but i did drink a bit for the first time in a couple of weeks. Truth is i kicked down a paywall due to finally having a positive reversal of fortune.

Since January I have again had a subscription to the New York Times. I was aghast at the tales of the COVID-19 virus and I slowly started prepping.

Today i mostly finished my apocalypse shopping and i think people seem to have stupidly overlooked things like the sanitizer i easily bought at the hardware store. Its industrial strength and you can dilute it a lot and and its still effective. I also bought de-greaser. Its pretty hostile to viruses and the COVID-19 virus is apparently covered in lipids, aka fats, aka grease. So There’s a good shot that de-greaser will kill it. Im also good on pesticides and fly strips. Im not risking insects being carriers in New York City cramped-ness. I think im okay

As my kays and 20 bucks in quarters soak in a bath of mouthwash Im only starting this now to make my experiences known as I face what i think will be a mighty pandemic

I also put on my biological fathers Vietnam Dog tags. They made it through the Tet Offensive. Now, blessed by my Dad Johns brother, the Kindly Father Richard, i put them on to deliver me through this chaos. Im an atheist, but you cant be too careful.

Feel weird but hoping its alcohol. I had to get a little drunk tonight. I am glad i had the means to do it.

I dont feel so great but its not COVID symptoms.

If im up to it, and i really hope this is hayfever or something, I’ll talk about the art of second best apocalypse shopping tomorrow. You can still be safe. People have apparently forgotten stuff like coffee and, astoundingly- bar soap! I have a lot.

Stay safe, wash your hands. Don’t touch your face, ration your sanitizer and food.

More tomorrownyflag2

Day 2 –

The presidents racist account of the situation is a fresh insult every day. He was a complete jackass again today addressing the nation.

Heard the first siren about 4 pm. My mother panicked and broke quarantine. Im pretty scared for her. Here unwillingness to tell me what she was thinking and what she had decided to do drove her to put herself in a couple of situations she could have been exposed in. She clearly tunes out everything I say.

Mostly i argued with her that she never needed to leave the house and she just kept making excuses. Now she seems to maybe believe that she can bank from home. All so Unnecessary. Im just angry

Sunday Mar 22 – Day 3

9:08 AM  -Yesterday i spoke to some neighbors, from a distance. even the smarter people are least a bit short and angry.

i dont want to go to the bodega much. the bodega workers are okay people, but the owner is a dick and he was scared and anry on wednesday. hes taken  no precautions and ran a dirty store and now hes upset? he sold the last of the cleanser rather than use it to have customers sanitize their hans, He didnt care about playing it safe before. anger wont help him.

i find so far my OCD & fear of germs were actually crazy…..last week. now i see how very minor my OCD was. The routine i have now actually adds up.

i have outside clothes and inside clothes. once the outside clothes are on i know im funky and i can only touch my face when i am freshly sanitized.

I only heard sirens twice. I think going to sleep at 9 pm probably figures in. I picked the right time to get a memory foam bed and upgrade the apartment.

I’m okay on food. Currently obsessing on the need for one more quality spray bottle. The hardware might still be open and its cold. less people will be out. My pre-shower routine today is to go to the Hardware store. Maybe no one will breath on me. i leave at 10 am.

9:58 Heard from my mom. she seems to have pulled off her frantic move without making any overt mistakes or even seeing any humans who weren’t sealed in their cars like she was.  Some banks are closing. moms agreed to check in for 6 days.

Time start thinking about gearing up to visit hardware store.

12:12 PM- got the last couple of for real spray bottles from the hardware store. I will need some it to make it through tomorrows pharmacy run.  In 36 hours the spray bottles have almost disappeared and are going for 4.99? I have several aluminum bucksets. In good times they were for beers on ice. Now they represent the several degrees of isolation my possessions that leave the house have.

nysflag3

 

Update 420 pm. Woodside has very little foot traffic. Its something like what you’d expect in a small town.

7 Train is still running for now.

Sirens on and of since 4. last ones were closer.

Angela Merkel and Placido Domingo have tested positive. Probably because outside America there are tests. a medical friend just asked we all donate to help get PPE. i gave what i could. i wrote a letter with a card and a hundred pre-plague bucks to my nephew. I feel terrible Jake’s sixteenth falls amidst this mess. It sitting on the radiator for awhile.  Sterilizing.

I haven’t seen or heard a plane today.  That’s highly unusual being under the flight path for LaGuardia. Come to think of it i didn’t see any yesterday that I can recall.

7:39 PM the presidents press conference was again a complete an unmitigated disater. Throwing shade at possible corona virus sufferer Mitt Romney? It was a low, low moment in an already awful presidency.

The Senate’s actions are baffling, they still were going to their gym? Some of these people truly don’t believe in Science.  But of all people Rand Paul? His father was Medical Doctor. He proved you could be a nut and a medical doctor at the same time. Could he not believe in germ theory? He does love 18th century ideas like the Gold Standard a great deal, could he be so ignorant? I wonder what ever happened to the school that let Rand Paul get licensed to operate on peoples eyes. Look at the stupidity of their graduate on basic Germ Theory! No WONDER he changed professions!

8:06 PM sirens, somewhat close. lots of siren squelches.

Update 9:05 pm – squelches and distant sirens. The Mayor was just on CNN. He clearly can’t really react to Trump’s insanity as a feud at this point would just bring out the dictator that Trump wants to be.

9:47 PM – I knocked back an anti-anxiety pill and my nightly shot of jameson after the last entry.   i hear an ambulances siren squelch as i write this and look to end my day listening to a book on tape. i have all the medication i need. im still gonna venture out for more if my prescription shows up tomorrow. Because I think this will last a long time.

Monday March 23, Day 3

9:05 AM – awoke at 8 am and i dozed on and off for a half hour before i grabbed some  of my limited and precious supply of coffee. I heard distant sirens for a moment ago. The weather sucks. Its overcast and rainy, there was even a moment of hail. I heard the jets engines momentarily drown it out, the hail didnt last long. the plane seemed to be taking off.  So people are still leaving, ot at least the wealthy are. Sounded like a big commercial jet. The 7 train is still running too.

New York is now the epicenter of the nation’s impacted zone. I realize there will be no trip to the dentist to fix my wonky tooth. At least it doesnt hurt, its a potential problem, though.

The internet has moody at best since this started to get real Friday. Its up and down, spiking then lagging.

DeBlasio is now mayor of one enormous Ground Zero for the pandemic. He’s in the same position as the mayor of San Juan. The whole country is now going to get the same treatment the people of Puerto Rico got after their hurricane.

The president is a complete idiot whose making this worse.

3:47 – My meds are ready, this is about the last time I want to go out til work Wednesday.  Its pouring and thats not gonna help my limited Improvised PPE. In a sick way I feel like Im playing Tom Clancy’s The Division! This will be the end for most of the current “outside” clothes. i surely need my hoodie

4:57 PM – back and cleaned up and into my inside clothes after a rainy trip to the pharmacy. some people had masks, not everyone knew to stay back. I had to ward off some people. There is no sanitizer of any kind. There is  no dish soap, there is limited hand soap. They did just have alcohol swabs out where anyone could grab them. i resisted the urge to buy all 8 boxes. I can use atm machines and pinpads at reduced risk with these. i left 4 or more boxes.

I need B12 injections monthly. Its as much as i usually buy, I’m just gonna use them all instead of having them expire for a change.

Friday –

Wow this week was a fucking drag. I take silkwood showers twice a day. Inside clothes vs outside clothes is a constant stresser and I’m already afraid to leave the house on wednesday! Ouch!

I went up to the roof, I am not too happy with all the dog shit up there.

Prices at the Bodega are up 10% out of nowhere this week. I am gonna try to use that dump even less.  His dickishness endangers the whole building. May time for to call the Law on Mo. He’s been a dick for years anyway

Saturday- 1:29 AM

The new dat started like the old day ended. In sirens. Theres been sirens pretty much nonstop from here. Its so quiet I guessI  can hear most of the traffic going to Elmhurst. It’s getting scary. I hope Im not infected.  The tightness in my chest could just be from climbing on and off the fire escape. I definitely beat myself up climbing in and out the window. I guess I really ain’t a kid no more.

On the other hand – I never hoped I had a brittle old man injury before. This time I do. I really do.

I dont know if I can sleep. I am definitely slightly scared.

Post Sandy Long Island is STILL more desolate than Gilligan’s Island

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by in 12-12-12 Concert, Climate Change, Climate Change Evidence, Fema trailers in New York, Geological Effects of Hurricane Sandy, Global Warming, Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Sandy Recovery, Long Island Post Sandy, Long Island Power Authority, Weather Porn

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Updated 12-13-12

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy New York’s Long Island has retrograded into a

Moments before Sandy hit Manhattan

gasoline starved, powerless wasteland that is quickly passing beyond Thunderdome. Mostly it’s the fault of the highly incompetent Long Island Power Authority, aka LIPA.

People are standing on line for hours upon hours for gas like Latino’s trying to vote in Arizona. On Long Island the level of deprivation from the luxuries of the 21st Century is more like Gilligan’s Island.

Infrastructure is still recovering, there’s not a well rested cop anywhere in town and government services like routine policing and fire fighting are at best questionable. Headlining the tragedy is the town of Breezy Point, Queens, where a fire devastated over one hundred houses. Ironically, this may actually save some peoples asses, because the subsequent flood destroyed most of what was left of the town. Flood insurance is impossible to get, or if you can it’s an absolute fortune. Fire insurance is much more affordable. Not that anyone wants to see their

If you want gasoline you better be ready to EARN it!

neighbors burned out of their homes, but at least the Insurance Companies will be unable to weasel out of paying. In our complex, overly litigious world it’s entirely possible that some aggressive lawyering by the Insurance Companies could STILL get out of paying if they can prove the town was destroyed by the flood BEFORE the fire. This part of the story will likely take months to unfold.

Hurricane Sandy exposed the rotting corpse that is the Long Island Power Authority, who took over from Keyspan, who took over from LILCO. All of these entities had several things in common.

Breezy Point, Queens is geographically part of Long Island. Chest deep waters prevented any efforts to contain the blaze

They have all failed to provide reliable power for the bedroom community of the World’s Financial Capitol. Forget the guy with the Moves Like Romney, he can drain the champagne out of the pool and move back to his place in the city (as long as it’s not Staten Island).  Right now there are cops, firemen, teachers and doctors stuck, for lack of gasoline (that crazy Jimmy carter and his wild warnings about not trusting Arabs who he painted as greedy oil barons who hated us).

Personally I feel really bad for the people who are inconvenienced, but even worse is that this lesson in what happens when there is no Federal Government to speak of will likely be lost on the most Republican (and therefore most delusional and self-hating) parts of New York State.

Things won’t get better anytime soon and here’s why

LIPA– aside from rumors that out of state crews were turned away there is the very real fact that LIPA assured Long Island at least 10 days of power interruption BEFORE Hurricane Sandy even made landfall. Like 5 days before it hit New Jersey, where among other horrible events, it failed to kill Snooki, they KNEW we would have a 10 day outage. Doesn’t this mean that they could have cut as much as 5 days off the repair time? Or worse yet, does this mean they would have needed 15 days if they had no warning?

Long Island Politics– You do the right thing, you get rewarded. I was never able to establish myself politically, but many of my friends are at the middle rungs of both our local political parties. This is what I am usually told- LIPA is where people who ‘did the right thing’ end up working. No one will fire these people. Nassau County is so dysfunctional that they spent decades slowly killing the Golden Goose and point of pride that was the future Brooklyn Islanders. Endless voting and re-voting, filibusters motivated by sheer greed and basically shaking down Charles Wang for every dime he’s got. Is it any wonder he will be moving his team to Brooklyn?

It’s a terminal moraine– That’s right this place is no island at all. It’s merely a huge deposit of Canadian soil left behind when glaciers receded after our last ice age (an isolated event if Republican ‘scientists’ are to be believed). Like a sandcastle at the edge of high tide, there’s only one way it can end. Fortunately for us geologic time has a rather leisurely pace. Rest assured, this large deposit of soil that really shouldn’t be here will eventually disappear into the ocean. The sun will also go out one day too, but unlike our star, Long Island is moving towards its end much faster. Frayed at the edges, the barrier islands have inconceivably been developed for housing. Now let’s remember- these are areas where nature WANTS to flood. It’s only a couple of feet above sea level and if proper urban planning would be done it would just be parkland. Greedy and irresponsible builders developed these areas to be cabana communities. Somehow, over time many became “winterized” and people lived in them year round. Now the Long Beach, NY area is a pretty big population center and the only city on Long Island. This entire area is probably unprotectable from floods and hurricanes. It’s heartbreaking, but the

An all too familiar scene here in the Northeast

sheer inevitability of it numbs the mind.

I can’t blame people for wanting to live there. It’s beautiful. It’s also an outlying barrier, once much larger, being slowly swallowed by the sea.

It’s Climate Change, Stupid– Let’s face it, 100 year storms happen every year now.  I can’t fault Con Edison for only having a 12 foot seawall around their downtown substation. It should have been enough.  Its epic, it’s Biblical, it’s Road Warrior.

For 10 days the biggest city in the world has had little gas, therefore little traffic. Speeding is now impossible because there are not cars to weave in and out of to avoid cops. Even worse- its human capital is stuck behind the bottlenecks that bridge the excellent natural harbor that bought Europeans here in the first place. Nature has a cruel sense of humor. How a tiny island only feet above sea level could ever be allowed to become so important despite being rife with natural hazards just shows how little we know of the behavior of our planet.

Sandy was little more than a tropical storm, a Category One Hurricane. With weather more wild and unpredictable than ever, how far off can be a hit by something more substantial be? Can LIPA be allowed to continue as a political patronage pasture with no ability to respond to storms, even the smaller ones, any longer? Doesn’t cutting Long Island off from New York City have a worldwide ripple effect? By sheer weight of numbers you’re talking about a huge chunk of the people who make Wall Street, and the economy, work.  We can only guess. What I can guarantee is that there will be every effort made by the county to keep the power lines above ground and vulnerable, maintain nothing and not spend a dime on preparedness.

Frankenstorm Sandy about to pummel the North East.

It’s time for the monster that is/was LILCO/KEYSPAN/LIPA to be bought under control and invest in future preparedness. Sadly, Nassau County in particular just doesn’t want this. It’s a county with taxes so ridiculously high soon only their very well compensated local police will be able to afford to live there.

UPDATE 12-12-12

While it produced some fantastic musical performances the 12-12-12 Concert will likely be remembered more for its awesome contribution to Rock & Roll then how much good it did. While i trust the proceeds will be distributed equitably theres far too much damage to expect much impact even if it raises a half billion dollars. My trip to manhattan yesterday shows it still being held together with bubblegum and duct tape. The scale of destruction I have now seen personally is too pervasive for anything to change soon.

Now the surest sign that this disaster will continue to unfold in slow motion for years to come has arrived, FEMA trailers. This is far from over….

Double Murder in the Town I Love So Well

24 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Carjacking, Crime, Double Homicide, Uncategorized

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Queens, NY– A Nassau County3:00 pm EDT police officer was killed today, the killer went on to car jack and murder a motorist. He is currently still at large. Details are sketchy but police dogs are now involved, apparently having acquired the killers scent off some discarded article of clothing. Details are emerging, but I think I know

Accused Cop Killing Carjacker murderer Darrell Fuller is in Police Custody.

how he has managed to elude the police departments of both New York City and Nassau Counties. The lockdown on the area was straight out of a sci fi movie, Close Encounters of the third Kind comes to mind. The TV news showed bands of cops, with machine guns and riot shields roaming the streets looking especially grim.

Update-  1:41 am EDT Darrell Fuller, 33, of Queens has been captured with apparently self inflicted gunshot wounds. He prognosis for recovery was described as “unknown”. No details were provided in any sources i found for the precise location.

Double Murder in the Town I love so well. I grew up walking distance from this area

I grew up here. The median by the underpass of the Cross Island Parkway at Jamaica avenue is where I drink my first beer at the tender age of 13. I routinely walked from the Jamaica  Avenue exit to the Hempstead Turnpike exit.

Belmont Park, acres and acres of it, lies to the east of the North – South Cross island parkway. It’s a perfect place to hide. As a young truant I found out how easy it is to evade detection in there drinking my illegally purchased beer. Even should yo be spotted, I have personally evaded the police there as a kid.

The Jamaica Avenue exit is a bottleneck. You really have to use this point of access to reach Nassau County from Queens due to the parkway running the length of the border. This is where the City and Nassau County merge ambigiously. no one is sure where one ends and the other begins. This is where Darrell Fuller murdered Officer Lopez as Lopez approached his car at a traffic stop. Fuller stepped out and simply shot the cop to death. Like turning off a TV.

I know this area, i even worked a few shifts at the dive bar on the corner looking towards the overpass before it burned down. The area is usually only bad at night. There are crack heads to be seen. I had to kick hookers out of the bar twice and got confronted by an angry pimp once. That was pretty much when i quit. The bottleneck nature of the area filtered all types back and forth. Like a drain, the scum collects at the edges. Many are heading from Nassau County to engage in prostitution or buy crack, especially late at night. This simply DOESN’T happen in broad daylight in Queens Village. Even a 2 minute walk away, where there was a Son of Sam shooting decades ago, it was in the dead of night.

Nassau County Police Officer Artie Lopez was murdered earlier today. He was just 29 years old.

Today, the police in this area are HIGHLY motivated. The Park is somewhat of a maze. Numerous exits offer ways into 2 different counties, Queens and Nassau. Add in the MTA Police who patrol the Long Island railroad tracks that cross the parkway between the exits and the switching yard at Belmont and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This was a major police mobilization like i have never seen before outside riots on TV.

At the Hempstead Turnpike Exit there is an opportunity to continue on towards JFK airport. Or there is a residential area, which disturbingly includes the Old Folks home where my 94 year old Grandmother lives.

Apparently the Hempstead Turnpike exit is where the car driven by Fuller was abandoned, allegedly with 4 blown tires. At this point he carjacked and needlessly murdered some poor guy from Brooklyn who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know this part of the parkway like the back of my hand.

In the end the murderer, Darrell Fuller, was apprehended after trying to cheat the hangman by killing himself. I am glad he will live to stand trial, be convicted and have the Needle of Justice that is Lethal Injection slipped into his arm. Darrell Fuller is a murderer and cop killer and is a textbook case for capital punishment. New York MUST begin to use its Death Penalty.