mortonfox | Entries tagged with ramsey

I got a link to a coupon for a free KFC grilled chicken meal from coupontweet today. The coupon is at unthinkfc.com and this promotion is supposedly in conjunction with the Oprah Winfrey Show. The first thing I noticed on clicking the "Print Coupon" link is it didn't support Opera. I tried that again in IE. This time, it went to a link to download couponprinter.exe, which the website claimed it needed in order to print barcodes. Now, wait a minute. I've gotten online coupons many times before without having to install special software. Some of those coupons, e.g. Borders coupons, even had barcodes. So it didn't seem right that I should have to install the software.

I did a web search and came across this article about coupons.com and their coupon software. Granted, the article is a year old and coupons.com may have changed the software since then but it alleges that the software adds deceptively-named files and registry entries and doesn't remove those when uninstalled. In addition, there are privacy issues because the software collects far more information from the system than it needs to track which coupons the user has printed. Although the software may not be doing anything harmful, its behavior is closer to that of malware than a consumer application. I think (or unthink) I'll pass.

I did have grilled chicken at KFC in Ramsey this evening, but I used a direct mail coupon instead.

Downtown Ramsey - There is a spacer after every two parking spaces to make parking easier

I happened to be reading Wise Bread early this afternoon when I saw that Domino's was offering a free pasta breadbowl at lunchtime. Good thing I saw that just in time. I called Domino's in Ramsey to verify the offer. Then I went to the store and got a chicken alfredo pasta breadbowl. It was actually quite good and rather filling, and to my knowledge, snot-free.

This evening was 31-cent scoop night at Baskin-Robbins. I went to Baskin-Robbins in Ramsey. The place was crowded but I still got the ice cream without too long a wait. I got pralines and cream in a cup. Since Dunkin' Donuts is in the same building and since I had DD coupons, I also got a ham and cheese flatbread to go with the ice cream. After that, I went outside to take a look at Ramsey Fire Department's collection of classic firetrucks. They bring those out for special events.

Of course, I began the day with the free sample of breakfast cereal so it seemed like the whole day was one promo item or another. I could get used to this. :)

I got an estimate from Ramsey Auto Body. The bumper will cost $630 to replace and it'll take two days. My appointment with them is for March 9. Encompass Insurance will also be paying for a rental car for that duration so I'll call the agent to find out how to arrange it.

I was planning to go to IHOP in Ramsey for Free Pancake Day at lunchtime but the opportunity never arose so instead, I went there at night, just an hour before closing time. The restaurant was packed! People really like free food. I got my name on the waiting list and waited for some time. Then they opened up a bunch of new tables and sat everyone on the waiting list at once. I had the free short stack, of course. Here are pictures before and after adding all the syrups. I also got a salad to accompany the pancakes.

The final event of the evening was my car reached 100,000 miles on the odometer. Actually, it was at 99,999 miles when I got home but a bit of driving up and down my street was enough to push the odometer over.

Tonight, I went for the K and C's Crash Corner geocache in nearby Ramsey. It's at a bend in a quiet road near a bunch of office complexes. The cache owner wrote that this bend is notorious for car accidents in bad weather. It didn't look so bad tonight. Anyway, it's an easy cache but I didn't see it right away due to darkness. After sweeping the area methodically with my flashlight, I did see the cache and that was that.

Here's a question: How does a non-citizen and non-resident over the age of 65 buy health insurance?

Background: My parents would like to visit for a few months. They are over the age of 65. At their age (well, at any age, for that matter), there is danger of significant illness requiring a hospital stay. If that happens, costs will be in the five figures, so it would be prudent to be insured.

( Read more... )

It was 36°F this evening. A bit chilly but I went for a quick geocache in Little Falls. It was Cache n' Shop Little Falls. The geocache wasn't actually in the ShopRite parking lot. There was a little path going from the parking lot to a soccer field and the geocache was a bit off that path. No serious obstacles and the hiding spot was fairly typical, so it wasn't a challenge to do, even in the dark.

After that, I went to Subway in Ramsey. I've tried many other Subways and none of them so far stuff as much veggies this neatly into a footlong, so I'll help them through this recession. I noticed that they don't have the chicken pizziola any more. The new item this time is the flatbread, which I have to try one day because I have an email list coupon. (which I accidentally printed out on cardstock, but that's another story) So I had the Spicy Italian footlong instead. (with everything in it, and hot sauce and black pepper. Good for a cold night.)

Anyway, the guy behind the counter asked to see my food photos. I'd been meaning to make a short URL that redirects to my food photoset on Flickr but every time they asked, I forgot to do that later. Well, I remember now and so here it is: http://snipr.com/food

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the Ramsey Walking Path geocache, which is conveniently just a block from downtown Ramsey. By coincidence, I got there just in time to meet up with four geocachers. We all looked for the geocache but I figured it out first because I'd only just seen a hide like that the evening before. Then I had a spicy Italian footlong at Subway in Ramsey. The manager actually wanted me to photograph it and so I did. (Everyone knows about my food photography!)

In the evening, I went for the Laurelwood geocache in Laurelwood Arboretum in Wayne. It's a beautiful garden, although a bit dull that evening because of the rainy weather. Also, the deer kept watching as I went by.

( K-Meleon updates and new macros )

Local geocachers have been busy with cache placements over the long weekend. So today, I did two of those. The first was Critter Comfort, which was behind the Ramsey Public Library. That was an easy find (and I was FTF) but there was a supplemental question on what kind of creature that structure is meant to house. I don't like geocaches with additional logging requirements but went along with it because I was quite sure of the answer.

In the evening, I visited Dead Man's Chest of the World. This one is in Old Tappan, on a trail next to an upriver stretch of the Hackensack River. I also took a look at a rusty piece of junk near the cache site. Would be nice if, when a car rusts in the woods, the insignia and model name remained readable so that I could identify it.

Phone is getting flaky. It still makes calls and browses the web but I have to hold it a certain way or the keypad doesn't work, which makes it a bit awkward. The kicker is I'm only 4 months away from being able to get a new phone from Sprint with a $150 discount for contract renewal. So I'm looking on eBay for a cheap replacement to bridge the gap.

Another day with good weather. So this evening, I went out to Ringwood to find the Governor Mtn / Monk View geocache. It's on Governor Mountain in the southwest section of Ringwood State Park. I actually was up there five years ago for Governor Mtn/ Cupsaw. Surprisingly, that old cache is still there and still in good condition. Of course, there are geocaches older than that but five years is pretty long.

Anyway, since I'd been on the mountain before, I already knew the correct approach. I parked behind a church on Carletondale Road. I followed a local trail from the corner of the parking lot and that trail quickly joined up with the yellow-blazed trail. Although uphill, this trail is not nearly as steep as the mountain trails in Ramapo Reservation. It went up a bit and leveled off for quite a stretch before going up again towards the south slope of the mountain. I then took a short off-trail hike to the cache site, which was on a gently sloping rock face and found the cache right away. After this evening's adventure, I had a Spicy Italian footlong at Subway in Ramsey.

Consumerist used my photo of a rusty gas pump here. It was an interesting item I saw in Denville while on my way to a geocache in town. Also, NowPublic asked for and used my photos here and here but it'd be difficult to find my contributions. It seems that NowPublic asks for hundreds of photos per story.

Another geocache, Subway footlong, and grocery shopping evening, almost as though I were following a script! Anyway, the weather was fine so I went to Ramapo County Reservation to seek the Thorny Wasteland geocache. Given the name of the cache and the warnings in the cache description, I expected this one to be quite a challenge, but I didn't have to worry. The most challenging part of it was the uphill bushwhack but the hardest part of it wasn't that long. I went off-trail where the orange trail met the reservoir. The initial part of the bushwhack was steep. However, when I got to the top, I saw a grassy (and thorn-free) plateau and from there onwards, it was actually an easy walk to the cache site.

After that, I went to Subway in Ramsey and got a BBQ Rib Patty footlong. A little birdie -- okay, okay, that was ManInTheWild on Twitter -- warned me that some Subway stores had quietly ceased the $5-footlong promotion, but fortunately, the Ramsey Subway was still doing that.

Next stop was Pathmark in Ramsey, as I had run out of some critical grocery items. I noticed that store-brand frosted flakes were on sale but when I checked out, those scanned at a higher price. I inquired at the courtesy counter and got one box free (store policy for scanning problems) and the other box refunded to the shelf tag price. Nice.

It was a rainy day yesterday but the weather was fine today, so it's funny that I went to Rainy Day Women this evening. This geocache is in Ramapo County Reservation in Mahwah. Like the geocache I did last week in the same park, this too is up the mountain. This one is a little further up the mountain though. Whereas last week's geocache was at the reservoir level, this one is near the first lookout point on the blue trail. Although steeper, this evening's walk was shorter and I was there and back to the parking area in well under an hour. After that, I had a meatball marinara footlong at Subway in Ramsey.

TwitVim development continues. Summize Twitter search provides an API so I used it and made it so that TwitVim displays search results in a Vim window. I also added mappings and extended some existing commands to jump to timelines of other users. A TwitVim user actually suggested this feature and generously provided code for it, but I already had a different implementation in mind so I went with the latter.

I've been geotagging my photos, at least those photos that were taken near cache sites. My camera doesn't have GPS and thus doesn't embed GPS metadata into the JPEG files. So, up until yesterday, I'd been uploading photos to Flickr, Geosnapper, Panoramio, etc, and then adding the location data using the interfaces of those websites. (with the help of some AutoHotkey macros) However, because these photo websites recognize GPS tags in EXIF headers of uploaded images, it is less work to add the information to the image file before uploading. This way, I need only add the information to one place: the image file itself. Wish I'd thought of that earlier! So I started using ExifTool this evening to do that. Flickr and Panoramio accept location data just fine this way. Unfortunately, Geosnapper, for reasons unknown, fails to interpret the GPS tags correctly and comes up with locations that are as much as 10 miles off. I'll have to ask them about this problem some time.

Looks like Opposites Day is in effect:

Screenshot: Error... transaction has been approved

( Explanation... )

I went to the Ramsey post office this afternoon to get stamps for the new international postcard rate. Maybe I should've given them a day or two, or even a week, after the postal rate hike because they didn't have 94-cent stamps yet. So I'll continue using 90-cent stamps and add some 2-cent stamps to make up the new rate.

Rained all day today so I didn't go for any geocaches this evening. I'll save the mile-long hikes for better weather. So instead I went grocery shopping. Snagged the last bag of Valutime Frosted Cocoa at Pathmark. They had it on clearance because they're getting rid of that product line. Pity. It was the bulk-packaged generic brand breakfast cereal with the lowest unit price in the supermarket, so in a way, getting rid of it is a price hike. I'll try something else next time.

Then I went to Subway in Ramsey and had a chicken parmesan footlong. Like the marinara meatball footlong, this one is pretty messy. The sauce just drips all over. Chatted with the neighborhood teens who were hanging out in Subway because of the rain. They were big on footlong jokes. :)

( Friday Five )

Two choices for this evening's geocache: one in Ramsey and one in Congers. Based on proximity, the Ramsey cache won but I'll probably go for the one in Congers the next day anyway. So this evening, I went for Army Cache 2. It's in a wedge-shaped wooded area between Wyckoff Avenue and Woodland Avenue. Nothing remarkable yet, but there is already the beginnings of a trail through it.

After that, I went for another $5 footlong at Subway in Ramsey, just down the road from the cache site. This time I was lucky and got a parking space right in front of the restaurant, although my usual parking location really isn't that far down the sidewalk. I got an Italian BMT Footlong. What does BMT stand for? Well... some folks answered the question here, but it reminds me of the BMT section of the NYC subway.

Other updates: Posted K-Meleon macros for Readbag, for Evernote, and for Google Reader. Also added some enhancements to TwitVim that were suggested by users. As always, it's great that there are users willing to help me test the plugin on Vim platforms that I don't use. Given what I know now about Vim scripting, I would like to go back and revise some of my earlier Vim scripts but there's not enough time. Maybe later.

Today, I went to Ramapo Reservation to seek Colubrid Cache. This county park is only a few towns from home and just past the end of Ramsey, so I could go there any time, high gas prices or not. However, all the geocaches there that I haven't done yet are more than a mile from the parking area so I need good weather and a lot of daylight to tackle those after work. This evening was a good time to do one of them. The route for this one was easy. It was a steep walk up to the reservoir level and then a bushwhack along the water's edge to the cache site.

After that, I had a prime rib footlong at Subway in Ramsey, which was a repeat of the previous day's dinner. But why mess with a good thing?

Checking my postal mail, I found a notice saying that I'm a member of yet another class-action lawsuit. (How many of these am I going to get in one year?) This time, it's a bunch of Commerce Bancorp shareholders and pension funds vs. ex-CEO Vernon Hill for alleged breach of fiduciary duty and waste of corporate assets. I don't know if there's that much merit to this lawsuit. Hill neglected to separate his various businesses and keep deals at arm's length but otherwise, he ran a great market-beating regional bank for many years. It's over anyway. The company's been sold and CBH shareholders all have TD stock now.

There was a forecast for rain today but it was sunny in the afternoon. A bit under 60°F though. I visited the Saddle River Walk geocache in Upper Saddle River. It's a new listing but it's actually a relisting of an earlier multicache without the first stage. So I already knew where the hiding spot was and it was just a quick walk towards the Saddle River.

In the evening, I went to Find BrianSnat's Ammo Can #6 in Campgaw Mountain County Reservation in Oakland. I knew this one would be quite a hike so I saved it for a day when there was enough time before sunset to tackle it. Indeed it was tough. There wasn't a trail anywhere near the cache and I bushwhacked more than half the way there. The middle part of the hike was the hardest because that's where I followed the steep powerline cut up the mountain. Once I got to the top though, it was a relatively flat walk the rest of the way. Then it started raining, but only once I was well on my way back to parking. So it wasn't that bad.

I also had more $5 Subway footlongs. The people at the Ramsey Subway must be tired of seeing me by now. :)

There was a new geocache in the Skylands Manor section of Ringwood State Park in Ringwood, so this evening, I went for Skylands Manor - Pigsty. It's just off the park road near an abandoned building that could have been a pigsty. The partitions inside the building suggest some kind of animal pen.

After that, there was still time for one more quick cache before the park closed. So I visited Sunrise Step Off - Skylands Manor. This cache too is located near an abandoned building. According to the cache description, the bottom level of the building is insulated so it could have been an ice house.

Then I went to Baskin-Robbins in Ramsey for the 31-cent scoop night promotion. I got a butter pecan scoop. It was like a town festival or event over there. The place was crowded. Because the Baskin-Robbins promotion honors firefighters, Ramsey FD brought a bunch of firetrucks over, including this antique firetruck.

And finally, I got a $5 chicken teriyaki footlong sub at Subway in Ramsey. You knew I was going to do that!

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This afternoon, to seek a geocache in Mahwah, and to do some banking and get a Subway footlong in Ramsey. Then I went back to work, on a route that passed through town again. (well, it clipped one corner of town anyway) Montvale is only 4 square miles so I drive out of town to do practically everything! Maybe I misunderstood the question.

Another sunny 80°F day, another two geocaches. The first one was Ridgewood Parks #1 - Van Neste at Van Neste Park in Ridgewood. The center of Ridgewood is very busy during the day (and also during the evening, I'll bet) but I was lucky and got a parking space a mere 100 feet from the cache site. So this one was quick. After that, I went to Paramus Park Mall for a $5 Subway Melt footlong. (the receipt) I sat near the giant wild turkey in the food court.

In the evening, I went to Ramapo Reservation in Mahwah for MiniMag Micro. This was a substantial walk, a 2-mile round trip alongside the Ramapo River. It wasn't that difficult though; the riverside trail was pretty much flat all the way. Excluding time I spent looking at the ruins, I estimate that I did the walk in about 40 minutes. After that, I went to Subway in Ramsey for a turkey and ham footlong. I hope they'll keep the $5 footlong promotion around a while longer. I could eat these every day!

This evening, I took advantage of the longer daylight by going for two geocaches in the mountains. I went to Ramapo Mountain State Forest in Ringwood/Wanaque for Snow: Needles and Snow Series: Sleet. I parked in a nearby residential area for both. The first cache wasn't too difficult of a walk despite the hilliness. I followed the blue trail all the way. There was a closer dead-end road where I could've parked for the second cache but it was only a quarter of a mile away so why bother moving the car? I followed the red trail over to another dead-end road. Then came the tough part. This cache was halfway up the steep slope. I bushwhacked most of the way because I didn't see the trail at first and when I did see it, it wasn't going in the right direction. That was a tough scramble but the cache was easy to find once I got up there.

After that, I went to Subway in Ramsey for a bologna footlong. It's supposedly turkey bologna. This sub has been on the menu all this while so I'm surprised I never tried it before, not that it looks different from any other Subway sub once all the veggies are added in. :) After that, while I was walking around downtown Ramsey, I saw the town police warning some kids not to loiter and skateboard in the strip mall parking lot. It was a bit overkill because they sent two squad cars to the scene.

Had a surprise when I got home. As I've mentioned before in this journal, people have been having sex in my parking space and I know that because I've seen condom packaging litter and the used condom itself one time. Well, I caught an amorous couple there this evening. I don't know about the lady but I could tell from the odor that the man has had quite a few alcoholic beverages. Of course, I had to ask them to leave, but I suggested parking on the street where at least they wouldn't be on private property. I wonder where sex while trespassing ranks on the excitement scale. :)

Got a Where's George hit in New Zealand early this morning.

Hot day today. Temperature was over 80°F in the afternoon. Didn't go out anywhere in the afternoon but in the evening, I had a BBQ Rib Patty footlong overloaded with veggies (just the way I like it) at Subway in Ramsey.

( Friday Five )

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Morton Fox's journal

Using the nuclear option every day!

Unthinking Unthinkfc

Promotional Food Day

Matters of car and pancakes

Crash Corner

Food at Play

Ramsey "flash mob"

Ramsey and Old Tappan

Governor Mountain / Cupsaw

Not Thorny, Not a Wasteland

Not a Rainy Day

This is an error?

Friday

Army 2

On the reservation

River and Mountain

Ringwood

Writer's Block: Road Trip

Geocaching and Subway, then repeat

Not much love to go round

Friday

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May 2020

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