Noticing Infrastructure During Traffic Jam

Traffic Jam. Abrupt as wind gusts in 2-digits MPH in both urban and suburban areas. I stay away from rush hours as much as possible, weekends to pass through to/from NYC.

Today was a 3-hour for about 25 miles ride in the car with my back aching. Last week was terribly late for lunch in the city with a missed exit then directed by GPS, which end up stuck in the ever packed and continuous construction of local highway Rt. 1/9 that connects two tunnels (Lincoln & Holland). While unavoidable travels require peak hours, I was on the I-495 (a key thruway to rest of New Jersey routes) is worst than NYC’s Times Square busy days. Parts of this route are raised, I was stuck, saw the state of the beams are deteriorating fast. Thank God my bladder control was ok this evening that I could hold it right there till I got home! Another thanks is to Governor Phil Murphy to kickstart repair works while a construction sign says NJ government spent 90-million to date on transportation projects. Is that enough? It feels like it’s never enough!

Just my 1-cent thoughts. I don’t have one, EZ-Pass is faster and cheaper when there’s no traffic jams. How much cheaper when people say when time is money? How about a revised price table for EZ-Pass, less discount on peak hours, more during off peak, car pools get priority access lanes, and further incentives for corporate accounts, transportation and logistics companies to adjust their need and use of roadways.

JFK Boulevard. The local alternative to Rt. 1/9 that I think there could be a (light) railway service with shuttle bus service to Hoboken transportation hub. Besides, this could revitalize the towns of Hudson River bank that has been like a back support administration department in a bigger community of greater New York City.

Rt. 1/9. Probably the older local highway that connected north and central Jersey for years way before the Parkway and Turnpike. How busy, how deserted the highway these days is strange. Abrupt, connects to Newark though. How about designated class of vehicles on Rt. 1/9 while Turnpike and Parkway have restrictions too?

Home & Houses: When We Grow Old…

Sociology. The older streets of your town with residential housing, how much of these buildings and houses are crippling to hold up as it was back in their days of glory with luster?

I was driving by some of these streets in New Jersey. Some houses are immaculate with architectural elements in Queen Anne, Edwardian, Victorian and Colonial styles. They are beautiful. Only when it’s kept in such condition that holds and stays like when they were built. As time goes by, the weathering, wear and tear of human use, the houses take a beating with an age in years. The buildings and houses stands erect while the ownership of them change hands. From big to small, there is a variety. Along with our economy, from up to down, they see many changes too.

The “American Dream” stays true to date. The possibility of home ownership is part of the dream. As we grow into adulthood, it is one of our goals in life to obtain a home for yourself, to start a family of your own, to have children run around in the house or backyard, to grow old in and even as an investment for future. If you are able to purchase a home, you are probably a step toward achieving this dream. However, many of us need to obtain a mortgage in order to step-by-step to fully own a home and call the dream a home-sweet-home. We work. We work and work, year after year. The dream gets closer as dawn arrives. When day breaks, it could be a sunny day you see bright light, or it could be a grey and gloomy day you see pessimism of whether you’ll make it to another day that is sunny. The days and months, the work and savings gets paid off, but the home gets older by the days we live in. We are lucky if we have additional funds to spare.

What do we do when our dream comes to fruition and like the boy from Pixar and Disney’s Toy Story who grew to the age of off to higher education in college? We don’t exactly know if the family stayed in the same town, anyhow, he left his toys for another child in the neighborhood. See, many of us do return to home, spend vacations, Thanksgiving, holiday seasons with family. The towns we lived in, the bicycles we rode around the streets in, sometimes we see them again and does it bring back memories of happiness and fun? I hope so. The only thing though is when it’s not and all you see is a rundown town, with lots of potholes, closed shops with no new tenants. Meanwhile, your familiar streets you hung out in, some homes, some houses, they still stand just like it used to be when you’re a kid and some have gone through a renovation in upgrading works. Like I said, lucky if we have funds to spare, savings we could use, gains in investment to use it for the home we grew in after about 20-years where our family would use the funds to do the renovation upgrading works. Some families continue to live in the same home, pass it on to a grown up child soon to be married with a new family of his/her own, while some of the houses we see around older towns are a mix and match of everything. Literally and physically, everything of a variety that looks awkward because the reality is not everybody is able to make an income to move up in the ladder of life, or having a family to do a complete head-to-toe renovation of a home. The mix and match gets older and older along with economic cycles of downs to the Great Recession of many foreclosures from banks that leaves the town standing still. With people moving away and out of the old to find new opportunities else where, the town still stands in a standing still state with no where to go. And, all we have left is a cold deserted scene of a western film with wind blowing on a dusty street.

Still on the 100-days of Trump Presidency

‪I was reading article from #CNN, with comment on why President Trump is flip-flopping from his campaign words to recent days. Maybe it’s because he treats most of the things he has to handle as a negotiation process, a deal, like a businessman. By giving himself the room to move and keeping his options open, hence the flip-flops, from his campaign, in his claims, in his words.‬

‪How helpful is this to Trump’s acceptance and job approval rates? The latest poll shows Trump drops to the lowest ever. To 30-something percent. Lower than any of his predecessors, to Obama and Bush. How will this affect his presidency with 3.5+ years to go. With still not hitting pass the first 100-days mark? What’s really annoying to me, for the least, is those he appointed under his administration, to be his advisors or what not. It seems like there’s too much changes, unstable, news of infighting, too “wishy-washy” if you may. Where it doesn’t show strength.‬

Well, another commentator, analyst was rather kind to Trump on #MSNBC last night who said that Trump is learning on the job. Said that he is a businessman after all. There is a learning curve to be in government, to be the President. The commentator was too nice, I think.‬

‪Anyway. To me, Trump is just over-confident, to being arrogant. At times, full-of-BS, just like his counterparts in the Congress! He’s departing from what the democrats have been doing, using more of diplomacy than hard-lining on military force.‬

‪Putting the Russian “meddling” and “hacking” that’s been roaming around this President on the side, on the latest, why did Trump just use one of the biggest bombs? This nicknamed “mother of all bombs” that holds up to 11-tons of conventional explosives. It is said to curtail the advancement and power of ISIS. I think, on this, just this by itself, instead of holding Congress member Nunes to hearings. Trump himself, instead of having Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary to talk and explain on the use of this weaponry. He owes the people, the public, an explanation.‬

What’s more? The escalation of tensions in the Sea of Japan. The confrontation of North Korea of possible nuclear capable missiles testing to co-military exercises of US and South Korea. How will this come-to? It is said that China, with the visit from Premier Xi Jin-Ping this past week to reel N. Korea in. Or, will this justify another pre-emptive attack that the media is speculating with President Trump.