"When you doubt, abstain." - Ambrose Bierce

It's cold here. When I left for Dunkin' Donuts this morning there were snowflakes in the air and the wind was a steady 20 mph. Read: cold. But that's not the news here. All the talk on local media and getting a mention on tonight's national news: another Nor'easter arriving in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. They say this one won't have the 50 mph winds that last Friday's storm had; we'll only hit 40 mph. But it will be colder and this end of Long Island will 1-3" of snow.
It was so nice of them to arrange the full NY experience for my visit.

My first thought when I woke this morning: I go home two weeks from today.

Viewership for last night's Oscar show was down 20% from last year's level and was the lowest on record. The Hollywood people have all kinds of explanations that include no block-buster movies but it's hard not to think people aren't weary of self-absorbed celebrities whining about unfair treatment in an industry that makes its money off of deviancy. And isn't it ironic that women who complain about sexual harassment prance the red carpet with dresses that leave little to the imagination.
It's also interesting to note that the Grammy Awards had 24% fewer viewers than last year.
No, I don't expect those celebrities to see any cause/effect relationship. Too much hubris for that to happen.

I worked on my article at Dunkin Donuts for two hours this morning, came home for lunch, made a grocery store run, and then did three miles on a new route I'd scoped out on Google Maps. So I don't have any pics of local sites. But I did snag this off Facebook. It's grandson Jason ready to hit the ice for the first time at a free ice hockey event. I'm guessing their goal was to get kids interested in the sport in hopes that they'd enter a kids' hockey program. Based on how Steve described Jason's experience on the ice I doubt that's going to happen in this case. But despite the tears during his time on the ice he talked all the way home about how much fun it was.

I've been learning about the little differences between life on the two coasts. At home we have a 1,000 gallon septic tank that's nothing more than a big cement box set just below ground. All our liquid and solid drain waste from MoHo goes into that tank where the solids settle to the bottom. Near the top are three perforated pipes that exit the tank and stretch out horizontally, also just below the surface. These create the drain field for the liquids to leach into the soil. Ideally, the solids at the bottom gradually degrade, liquify, and exit to the drain field. If a septic tank is too small for the home it serves it has to be pumped periodically.

Here in the east they have cesspools. I asked someone if there was a difference and they explained it to me. Then while out on my run I saw a new cesspool on a flatbed truck, probably being delivered to a building site. A cesspool is circular and made of cement that is cast so that it has openings around its circumference. No drainfield, the liquids just leach directly into the surrounding soil.

The practical difference: a cesspool has to be pumped out every couple of years because it fills up with solids. (I've noticed the pump trucks on the roads here.) Modern cesspools are sometimes set in pairs with the first leading into a second to double the capacity.

A couple of guys at church have mentioned that their century-old houses have "beautiful" cesspools made out of bricks laid in such a way that they create the gaps. Who'd have thought those two words would ever appear in the same sentence?!

Why are there septic tanks and drain fields on the west coast and cesspools in the east? I dunno. Who would you ask about that?