Kittens and Puppies!

Almost there – maybe I’ll have my cats start signing in

When branches of the government collude

Pentagon buying Chevy Volts while GM (taxpayers) lose $50,000 on each one sold. Nothing particularly new here – the Pentagon has long had entire weapons systems and ships they don’t want forced on them by Congressmen protecting jobs in their districts, but I don’t recall the head of the United States participating in this sort of thing before.

UPDATE: When will this boondoggle stop? Stray Volt turns Westchester home into house of horror. I blame Obama.

How’s he gonna explain THIS on his expense account?

Lap of luxury, Cos Cob style

Cos Cob resident charged for urinating in “J” lobby. Just curious, how much do you suppose J charges for this privilege?

Okay with me, so long as they agree to fire one administrator for each “consultant”

 

School Board wants to spend “hundreds of thousands of dollars” hiring technology consultants to teach teachers how to use iPads. I don’t care how they carve up their budget, so long as it remains fixed. That will never happen, of course, and this new cost will just be piled on top of current spending, but I thought I’d register my protest.

Buy a large dog

The unexpected visitor

From a friend:

Thought you might be able to get the word out through your column, my neighbor was robbed this morning between 10am-1pm.  Smashed in a window and grabbed whatever they could take.  We live in mid country off Doubling between North and Stanwich.  Apparently the police said there had been a similar one on Stag Lane very recently. If you post something, please don’t use my name but I never lock my door.  I will now…and set my alarm.

Rare photo of Emily Dickinson discovered

The Yellow Rose of Texas

Now there are two. My brother Anthony once (kindly) passed on the observation that every single one of Miss Dickinson’s poems can be sung, or recited, to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”. He’s quite right – try it:

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or how about this?

Doubt Me! My Dim Companion!
Why, God, would be content
With but a fraction of the Life —
Poured thee, without a stint —
The whole of me — forever —
What more the Woman can,
Say quick, that I may dower thee
With last Delight I own!

It cannot be my Spirit —
For that was thine, before —
I ceded all of Dust I knew —
What Opulence the more
Had I — a freckled Maiden,
Whose farthest of Degree,
Was — that she might —
Some distant Heaven,
Dwell timidly, with thee!

 

Antares Boyz still wildly optimistic about Greenwich real estate, or at least one of them is

44 Mooreland

After the downfall of his and Joe Beninati’s company, you’d think  Jimmy Cabrera would be a tad realistic about what the Greenwich market will support but apparently not so, because he’s listed his mansion at 44 Moorland for sale today at $17 million. That seems pretty steep for the neighborhood, considering that one of their failed projects right around the corner at 11 Langhorne Road has spent 986 days on the market waiting for a $23 million buyer.

These are big numbers, even for Greenwich, and while I understand the impulse to pay off some creditors in one big chunk and Mooreland looks like a gorgeous mansion that should appeal to those who find this type of house appealing, I don’t think those creditors should be planning any around-the-world cruises just yet.

Maybe Steve Wynn’s coming to Cos Cob Library

Wins law suit, but that’s not nearly as interesting as the accompanying photo. Rich guy like that, yet such an ugly wife!

 

Would you rather, …

The Library: it’s what’s for dinner!

Be caught giving (or receiving, the article is close mouthed on the exact details) a blow job at Cos Cob Library  or,

shoot off your wu wu and other tender parts with your new pistol?

It’s 9:00 AM and the telephone rings – who do you want answering it?

(Trying to) phone it in

You’d better hope it’s Hillary, because her boss and protector of the free world is probably still asleep upstairs. Obama attends, maybe, 38% of the daily National Intelligence Briefings – doesn’t even vote “present”. 

2006 Price for Old Greenwich waterfront

7 Little Cove Place was built in 2004 and priced at $7.5 million, eventually selling for $6.5 million in 2006. In 2010 the new owners placed it back up for sale at $7.695 million and sold it today for $6.5. Not chump change and in fact 2006 marked the high water mark, so to speak, for Greenwich prices, so I just put this out there and you can decide where we’re going.

So what’s a million get you these days?

39 Mimosa

This: 39 Mimosa Drive, $1,035,000. Asked $1.095, sold quickly, assessed at $857,570 so estimated market value was, before this sale, about $1.2. Kind of an “eh”, but decent yard, decent house, decent neighborhood – plain vanilla and what you should probably expect to pay for non-Riverside Old Greenwich shelter housing.

What you wouldn’t expect to pay, or I wouldn’t, is $827,000 for a condo on Oak Ridge (listing is in the Mimosa Drive link, above), especially when it was priced at $700,000. Went to contract after just 16 days. I have no idea whether the builder added gold fixtures and a slate roof to the place or whether Oak Ridge is suddenly hot but something stirred this buyer. Knowing Oak Ridge, I’m guessing it was gold fixtures.

Homeless man speaks at Democrat soiree, advocates elimination of corporate profits

I need a job, and we need more municipal workers!

A disheveled, unshaven man who gave his name as David Rafferty and who apparently lives under the Sound Beach / I 95 overpass and thus claims Old Greenwich residency was unanimously endorsed by Greenwich Democrats as their candidate for elected office yesterday. Speaking from atop a beer keg, Rafferty had this to say about installing a Soviet Union – model for our economy:

But as far as our public utilities go, the time has come to make real changes, not just nibble around the edges. I would introduce legislation that would permit towns such as Greenwich to easily and responsibly purchase a utility company’s now severely depreciated assets in order to establish municipal utilities. The benefits to doing this are significant. Jobs: If a town takes back the business of distributing electricity, it will be hiring a well-paid local workforce. Cost: A municipal electrical utility need only charge residents the cost of the power, plus the cost of its overhead. It need not turn a profit or pay a dividend, with those savings being realized by all local customers. [sound familiar? – ED] Control: Instead of having a discussion in a conference room in Hartford about burying power lines or deciding which trees to trim, the decisions can be made locally. Response Times: With a local workforce, power outages and emergency responses will be handled by people who live in town and know the town. Competition: With this legislation, Northeast Utilities would be faced with real competition in the form of just the possibility that a town would establish its own municipal utility, effectively shrinking its paying customer base.

UPDATE: Power outage plunges most of western Cuba into darkness.