My oh my, someone doesn’t like sunlight over there on the RTM

RTM suppression troopers, Erf Porter Division (Joan Caldwell, background)

He must be a vampire. Erf Porter (really, do we need to know more than that the man is called “Erf”?), furious that a fellow RTM member shows up at his double secret probation hearing demanding that it be shut down as illegally noticed, calls the police to roust the rabble rouser. It’s been my experience that when elected representatives hold secret meetings, they have something to hide. No exception here, I’ll wager. Erf erf!

If I don’t need a 10-round Ruger .22 why does Homeland Security need 2,700 armored, mine-resistant tanks?

Homeland Security

We’re still scratching our heads over the department’s purchase of a couple of billion rounds of hollow point ammunition and armed predator drones, but tanks? Really? For what?

Let me know when you start to get alarmed.

Gun meetup in Stamford at 6 tonight

With little (8 hours) notice, our state reps have scheduled a “town meeting” tonight in Stamford (115 Vine Road, Library, off of High Ridge, beginning at 6:00pm. Judging from emails I’ve seen, the anti-gun people will be there as well as gun owners. I probably won’t go, just because I’ve never seen anything particularly useful come out of these things, and I already how I’ll vote in the next election: Floren, who boasts of her “F” rating from the NRA, will not be getting my support, and I’ll toss the others overboard if they vote for any form of new gun control, no matter how watered down – I’ve decided that I will henceforth be a one issue voter, and this seems a good place to start.

And four more accepted offers

7 Hendrie Lane, Old Greenwich, 36 and 19 Montgomery, Cos Cob, and 59 Upland in (almost) Greenwich proper.

Views of Chez de la Fountaine, no extra charge

It’s good to see 7 Hendrie go off to a buyer because it’s a creek neighbor of mine, with inferior views, so its final, successful asking price of $2.395 million is encouraging. It started off at $2.650 but much as I’d have cheered a sale at that price, wasn’t very likely.

19 Montgomery tried $4.750, came down to $4.495.

36 Montgomery

36 Montgomery is that failed spec house, another one of the Tsoi fiascos, that was priced all over the place, from as high as $8.950 million (absolutely insane) to $5.490 (also stupid) to, finally, and after foreclosure, $3.295. Patriot had $3.4 in debt on the place but the current seller bought the paper at a discount, so I’m sure they’ll make out. Okay house in many respects but up a very steep driveway, a master bedroom suite that was impossibly small and failed fixtures in very bath – don’t know whether Tsoi bought knockoffs of name brands down in Chinatown or what, but there’s something wrong when this much brass goes bad. Anything under $3 million is probably a decent buy here.

59 Upland

59 Upland Road sold for $3.6 million in 2007, was asking $3.295 this time around.

Two sales reported

One Lia Fail, Cos Cob, $1.045 million, 6 Benjamin Street, Old Greenwich, $1,962,500.

One Lia Fail

Lia Fail was a plain, decent house that sold for full asking price, $1.299 million, after just 15 days back in 2004. This time it started at $1.195 and took 208 days to find a buyer.

6 Benjamin St

6 Benjamin was an okay house, but still seemed pretty modest for its 2007 price of an even $2 million or today’s sale at $1.962. But that’s Old Greenwich south of the village for you.

Offer/acceptance and a new listing

32 Ferncliff Road, which had a previous sale fall through, has another buyer. Asking price $1.195 million.

104 Brookside

104 Brookside Drive is up, asking $2.7 million. Good location, schools are North Street and Central, and 0.7 of an acre, even in the R-1 zone, isn’t bad for so close to town. Open house tomorrow and I’ll be curious to see it. The listing makes no mention of improvements made since this was purchased for $1.350 in 1999, but I assume something’s been done. Then again, maybe not: the only thing the listing broker found of note to mention was “all stainless steel appliances in kitchen”, which is perhaps less of an astonishing feature than he might think.

Busy weekend

Three accepted offers already reported this morning: a house, a condo and a rental.

255 N. Maple

255 North Maple, $2.1 million, is a 1930s house on 0.86 acre in the R-1 zone. At this price, it could be either a land sale, with a new house contemplated, or someone who is content to live in a beautiful older home that’s being given away with the land.

40 Sound Shore Drive, Unit B, asking $1.999 million also has a buyer. It started at $2.895 1,363 days ago in June, 2009 but I myself would be hesitant to buy in an unfinished condo project that no one else seems to want, regardless of price. But it’s nice space, I suppose, if you don’t mind all that truck traffic climbing the steepest hill in Greenwich, right outside.

15 Sherwood Farm Lane

15 Sherwood Lane is rented, asking price $30,000. That’s a lot of money. The owner paid $3.450 for this in 2003, added a pool, and has been renting it out at $25,000, then $30,000 for many years now, with occasional unsuccessful forays into the sellers’ market in the low $4s. I leave capitalization rates to you financial types, but I’d think this is providing a decent return.

CORRECTION: A reader points out that this is a summer rental, which command much higher rents than long term. So join me and Emily Latilla in saying, “never mind!”

Barbecue comes to Riverside, and it’s very good

Riverside native Bob LeRose has teamed up with his cousin Joey Boucher, who recently ran Joey B’s diner in Cos Cob, to open Bobby O‘s Q’s Pit Stop (the link they provide goes to an auto supply shop in California, so you’ll have to wait for that to be straightened out). I’m a big fan of barbecue so I was pleased to notice this new establishment on the Post Road where Moe’s Burger Joint was and I swung in to try it.

Turned out, Friday was opening day, but everything was up and humming, including the genuine smoker in the back of the store (the stacked hickory wood in the window is not, as I’d feared, a stage prop, but actual fuel for an actual smoker). I had their pulled pork sandwich, which consisted of a huge portion of very good, moist (a lot of commercial establishments dry the stuff out) shredded pork on a great roll – not a mere hamburger bun, but a roll that was a treat in itself. Coleslaw was okay – I like my own better, but this is far better than the stuff that’s usually served at commercial establishments – and beans and rice weren’t bad at all.

They serve ribs, chicken, even burgers and hot dogs that I’ve heard are terrific  but when I returned Saturday I ordered another pulled pork sandwich, it was that good. I’ll expand to ribs next time.

As noted, I couldn’t get their website address to work, but they’re located at 1340 East Putnam Avenue (across from Taco Bell, famed purveyor of horse meat to the Queen) and their number is (203) 990-0606. Mostly takeout, but some limited seating. Pleasant people, great food. Very much worth the trip ( but they’re closed Mondays, so don’t make that trip today).

UPDATE: A reader corrects me: the name is Bobby Q’s and the website (not the one on the menu, but …) for the establishment in Westport is here.

The airport’s buzzin’

 

Nope, much too large – I’m taking this one home for further examination

TSA baggage handlers search luggage for dildos, vibrators and other sex toys, leave personal notes when they find them. It must be working: there hasn’t been a single report of a plane highjacking committed with a dildo (possibly because the TSA imposes a 7″ limit on the weapons – who do you suppose was paid to sit around and decide on the maximum allowable length of a dildo?).

Greenwich Democrats: gun control “the most important issue of our times.”

 

If it saves the life of just one Democrat politician…

Democrat Senator Joe Manchen refuses to discuss gun control.

West Virginia’s Journal News ran an interview with the junior Senator on Sunday that covered the sequester, mostly, and it’s effects on West Virginia and the surrounding region. If you didn’t know any better, it would seem like an innocent enough conversation between a Senator and a local newspaper. But at the top of the page there’s an editor’s note with an interesting little nugget, that paints the rest of the interview in an odd light:

[Journal News] Editor’s note: This question and answer session was permitted under the condition that The Journal would not ask questions regarding gun control legislation or the Second Amendment, as requested by the senator’s staff.

Guess the senator didn’t get Frankie Fudrucker’s memo.

The Clampett Family resurfaces

Daughter Sarah somehow unearthed this family photo from last year’s reentry program up at Sing Sing – oh, wasn’t that a happy day!

3-5, dependent on good behavior

Wonders never cease, department of

WTNH, New Haven. airs an objective report on AR-15s. The reporter demonstrates the difference in rate of fire from a fully automatic military rifle (30 rounds, 1.5 seconds) and a semi-automatic AR-15 (3 rounds, 1.4 seconds) and a semi-automatic pistol (3 rounds, 1.43 seconds). Combined with the publication (February 17, 2013) by the New Haven Register of an entirely sane description of a reporter’s experience in a firearm safety/permit class, I’m beginning to wonder whether the truth about these guns is beginning to seep out from under the cloud of disgust and horror occasioned by the Newtown massacre. Or it’s something in the water up in New Haven but either way, the Democrat leadership’s rush to enact their punitive laws is now understandable – get it now, before reason is restored.