Okay, this is really cool but …

Three lives saved when plane’s parachute deploys near Danbury. Who knew planes now had parachutes? Astonishing, and the plane itself is impressive too.

[Airport administrator] Safranek said the plane was equipped with a rocket-propelled parachute — the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System — that was deployed from the rear of the fuselage when the plane was about 2 miles east of the airport.

“The aircraft is an amazingly advanced aircraft, and it worked exactly as it was supposed to,” Safranek said. “It saved lives in the air — the three — and it saved lives on the ground.”

All of which is absolutely whizz bang stuff, but the article mentions “speculation” that the plane crashed because it ran out of gas. If that was the case, it fits neatly in with other accidents involving similarly modern technological gadgets – users become so dependent upon them or so relaxed by their presence that they forget common sense things like checking their fuel gauge, driving slowly in snowstorms even with ABS or, as in the recent case of a navy ship that ran aground, actually reading a chart. Beware.

Shocker: GHS Senior named as Intel Prize finalist and he’s not Indian!

Elizabeth Warren weeps.

Stephen Le Breton is recognized for his work on bone regeneration. I’m only half-kidding about his ancestry because, while Greenwich High School produces an astonishing number of Intel finalists, it seems that most (many?) are of Indian descent. We’re proud of all of them all, of course, but the Indians count on our “minority” performance scores, so naturally we treasure them more than the others.

But still, Stephen, outstanding job.

UPDATE: Turns out, GHS has two finalists, including Annie Zhang. Greenwich Time now profiles them both, as well as the GHS Honors Science teacher who’s been helping turn out so many geniuses these past years, Andy Bramante. Let’s triple Mr. Bramante’s pay and hire more like him while clearing out the deadwood? Just a thought, and I supposes impractical; why waste his kind of talent monitoring a classroom of video-playing illiterate, privileged dolts? Deadwood’s perfect for that job.

UPDATE Two: Lest you think that I was part of the Stephen Le Breton/Annie Zhang cohort, let me admit: although we didn’t have video games back in my day, I was exactly the kind of lazy, uninterested student I describe above and Mr. Bramante’s skill and enthusiasm would have been entirely wasted on me. Fortunately for me, I was literate and an idiot savant when it came to multiple choice tests, so I took those tiny skills and made a go of things. Digging ditches after high school in Arkansas for two bucks an hour also helped with the lazy privileged part.

So, mandatory one year prison term?

Don’t worry, Bart, that’s a Bryco you’re pointing at you!

Teen arrested on NYC bus with two pistols, a Bryco 9mm and what looks to be a Smith & Wesson .22.

The S&W was stolen in Maryland, no word on the origin of the Bryco, but I suspect we’ll find out that the young man was not licensed to carry either. Why, there ought to be a law! Oh, wait a minute …

As an aside, while Smith & Wesson makes a nice gun, even in tiny calibers like the .22, a Bryco is a POS and poses more of a threat to its user than to any intended target. Best course of action here might have been to take the perp out to Fresh Fields Kills and make him fire until his Bryco exploded, with severe results.

How’d I miss this?

Baby it’s cold inside…

A reader alerts me that 504 North Street has an accepted offer! This spec house was built on land purchased for $3.5 million in 2004 and completed in 2007, when it was priced at $11.795 million, a laughable figure in view of its final – asking, not selling – price of $6.2 (although to be fair, there’s a $6.450 mortgage on the house, so the builder’s desire to at least ask that much is understandable). No one ever bought it, until now, and I’ve always attributed the lack of interest from buyers to the design of the house as well as its price. This place is stone cold – there wasn’t a room that felt welcoming, human-sized or in any way related to the concept of actual habitation by real people.

Or that was my take, anyway. Someone, for the right price, disagreed. Probably a cyborg.

Bloomberg: No (transfat) soup for you!

He’s got time for watching what fat people drink, what all of us eat, and preening in front of cameras to denounce guns, but Mayor Mike wasn’t around to deal with the teachers union or even the looming budget deficit. Tough issues are not us, I suppose.

And From Instapundit:

Oh, and when he jets off to Bermuda, he takes armed New York City detectives as bodyguards. “The mayor also takes along a police detail when he travels, flying two officers on his private plane and paying as much as $400 a night to put them up at a hotel near his house. . . . Guns are largely forbidden in Bermuda — even most police officers do not use them — but the mayor’s guards have special permission to carry weapons. A spokesman for the Police Department declined to comment.”

Posted at 2:58 pm by Glenn Reynolds 

Accepted offers reported

 

30 Khakum Wood

30 Khakum Wood, reduced from $4.695 million to $3.695, 450 DOM

2 Marks Rd

2 Marks Road, reduced from $2.255 to $1.799, 420 DOM. I wouldn’t imagine it’s selling for that final asking price but in Riverside these days, nothing would surprise me. I guess.

Another Patriot Bank project shuffles off the scene

 

450 North Street

450 North Street, $3.675 million. Looked for $6.899 in 2009, went to foreclosure, the loan sold to Summit Development, which finished the house and put it back on at $4.195 last June, then sold the paper again and this buyer moved the house. $3.675 was the right price in 2009, says I.

Over in Riverside, 16 Hearthstone is a new listing, asking $1.7 million. I don’t think so, but I no longer have a good grip on Riverside’s inflated values. This is one of the original post-war homes in the Hearthstone development and is described as “ready for renovation, expansion or build new”, which, without seeing it, makes me assume it’s a land sale. If so, the going price for land on this street is $1.4 million and with five new houses in various stages of construction, there’s going to be a lot of competition for anything built here. Can a builder pay $1.7 for this and still make a profit? Not that I can see, but builders are an optimistic bunch and there’s probably some fool out there with the recklessness and credit to try it.

1,000 days (or so), but it sold

 

(small house, small picture)

10 Heusted Lane, 1924, 1,500 sq. feet affording “an opportunity to redo”, sold for $785,000. Started at $1.199 million in September 2010, a price that in retrospect was ill advised.

Why fix something just because it’s broke?

Cos Cob Boat Club members arrive for annual commissioning

Once again, another town non-profit has run up against the demand of certain RTM members to have a town-wide, uniform policy for the $1 a year leases we grant to various clubs and organizations. Last night it was the Mianus Boat Club’s turn, as the RTM rejected an extension of their lease not, according to at least some of the opponents, because of any animus toward the club, but because Greenwich has no uniform rules for these type of lease arrangements and it’s time we did. My response? Eh.

Other than the desire for orderly direction that some people suffer from, what’s wrong with the current non-policy? The club pays a buck (plus capital improvements since 1983 of $800,000), the town foregoes what one RTM member estimated was $14,500 in market value rent and in return gets a facility for town residents that would cost the town $150,000 to operate itself. The club’s open to all residents, so we don’t have a situation where a few select people gain a benefit at the expense of others, and we gain an amenity for our waterfront town that’s scarce: a place for townies to enjoy and access the Sound.

But if we need a policy so that accountant types can sleep at night then fine, let’s do it. What we have now is a practice where every couple of years one of these arrangements comes up for review, the process is held hostage while demands for a strict rule are aired and, when nothing is done, no uniform policy enacted, the issue recedes until the next time. Seems like a waste of energy to me.

New listing in Riverside

20 Meadow Road

20 Meadow Road, $2.395 million. 1924, (unspecified) “renovations” 2010. I remember liking this house when my old firm had it in 2003 but it took a year (and another firm, when the owners got pissed off at us) to sell, because it was overpriced (and who set that price? Oh well, that’s how this business works). Bought for $1.560 in 2002, the owners tried for $1.725 before finally selling it for $1.568. As I said, I liked the house then – a little quirky, as might be expected in a house built in 1924 but perfectly livable and in a great location. I don’t know, yet, what the current owners have done to improve it but depending on how much they’ve done, $2.4 for Meadow in Riverside certainly seems like a reasonable price.

When I die, I want to go like my grandfather, peacefully in my sleep

Not kicking and screaming like his passengers in the back seat.

Dispense with a horse!

Ford’s Lincoln Continental division announces new SUV to lure Land Rover’s younger buyers. That’s a good idea: the average age of a Lincoln buyer is 65 and many knew the division’s namesake personally, but judging from what I observe around town, it’s a temporary fix: the average Rover driver is in her mid-to-late 5os. What’s next, baseball cards in wheelchair spokes?

Slip and Slide approved for Byram

Greenwich has cut the $200,000 nose of the camel request for preliminary planning for a new public pool in Byram. First Selectman Peter Tesei has suggested an alternative:

Luck o’ the Irish

I, of course, have a similar suggestion to satisfy the clamor for a new ice rink over there as well:

That’s your mother out there on wing, eh?