{"id":15761,"date":"2012-11-01T09:06:03","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T13:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=15761"},"modified":"2012-11-01T09:14:30","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T13:14:30","slug":"were-crawling-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=15761","title":{"rendered":"We’re crawling back"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Some of the subways are back. Here’s a map<\/strong><\/a>. <\/span> <\/strong>Many buses have been running\u00a0 for two days. I rode the Roosevelt Island Tram yesterday. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Until Friday all New York City mass transit is free. A small mercy.
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Don’t bring a car into the city. It’s gridlock. Also, they won’t let you in without a full village of African pygmies in the back seat. (Joke. Joke. They’re enforcing HOV rules.)\u00a0 Our airports are back. But La Guardia, which got flooded, is on limited service.
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Hurricane Sandy will deliver in construction jobs what the stimulus bill was trying to, but Congress wouldn’t pass. There’s an irony here.<\/p>\n

The benefit to Lowes (LOW), Home Depot (HD) and companies like Clean Harbors (CLH) and Cramer favorite Eaton (ETN)\u00a0 should be massive. Need to look at a bigger list today.<\/p>\n

Remember the busted crane?<\/span><\/strong> It’s still dangling precariously 80 floors up.. Four entire blocks have been closed and everyone evacuated. Hotels, apartment buildings, Carnegie Hall, etc.<\/p>\n

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My friend, the crane expert, says the only way to get it down is to erect another crane. He emails me:<\/p>\n

Hi Harry.<\/p>\n

It’d take a few days to erect another one, probably a week. The erecting crews in NYC are world class, and they’ll have all the support they could want. I don’t really see an alternative as there are only a handful of “mobile” cranes it the world that can reach that high, and they are all too big to fit in a city street.<\/div>\n
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The crane can’t climb itself down as it needs its boom to handle the tower sections. And the boom is busted.<\/p>\n
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The boom is obviously grossly weakened by being bent over the back of the superstructure, but it is still connected by cables to the superstructure. They should be able to hold it. I imagine the geniuses at the DOB (Dept of Buildings) will be asking all the wrong questions to all the wrong people but there are some smart crane people in the city and they’ll find a way to stabilize\/secure it until they can bring it down safely. With constant motion, the boom will break off eventually. It’s extremely dangerous as it stands.<\/div>\n
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Don’t listen to the usual NYC hype and scare-mongering. Its last inspection date is irrelevant, the contractor wasn’t trying to save money and it’s not an Obama\/Romney conspiracy (yes I read that today in comments elsewhere) It’s simply stupidity and a failure of the operator’s supervision. No way was anyone going to climb up there to check it was properly set up for the storm, they would have asked the operator, and he would have told them it was all ok.<\/div>\n
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Hurricane Sandy’s death toll is now 74. Don’t become 75. Don’t walk under, or within a block of the crane.
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Cell phone problems?<\/strong><\/span> Power your cell phone off completely. Wait 20 seconds. Then it turn on. That’ll give it time to find a new, better cell phone tower. Do this when you fly somewhere and arrive at your distant destination.<\/p>\n

Two things to buy online while you’re stuck at home.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

+ The iPad Mini<\/strong>. Writes Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal:<\/p>\n

The $329 price may well tempt some budget-conscious buyers who have lusted for an iPad. But Apple believes the lower size and weight, not the price, are the key attractions.<\/p>\n

If you love the iPad, or want one, but just found it too large or heavy, the iPad Mini is the perfect solution.<\/p>\n

For the full Mossberg article, click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

+ The\u00a0 Vitamix 1782 TurboBlend, 2 Speed.<\/strong> All my kids have one of these food smasher-uppers. They take the yuchiest-looking vegetables and fruits and smash them up into liquid only serious vegetarians can enjoy (tolerate?). I believe our household is due for one shortly, too. Perhaps it will help me with the butternut squash soup that I wrecked the first time. Michael bought one for Anne’s birthday yesterday. Yes, only a Newton son would buy his wife a kitchen appliance for her birthday. Michael told me last night the thing is so powerful (two horsepower) “Throw in a shoe in and it will make soup.” One day I’ll have to eat his shoe soup. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Don’t put your backup generators where it might flood.<\/strong><\/span> Remarkably many firms did. I remember one famous story where a fellow put his pricey million dollar phone system under a bathroom. The toilets flooded.. It’s a good idea to test your backup generators at least once a week. The “big” problem with backup generators is they run out of gas from testing. I don’t make this stuff up.<\/p>\n

Jon Stewart is back.<\/strong><\/span> Last night, Jon commented on our disaster. He\u00a0 was hysterical. He began by referring to blackened downtown Manhattan as “Little North Korea” and got progressively funnier.<\/p>\n

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The girl is selling “free-range rats” for the residents who can’t buy food at the closed supermarkets. Uptown, they’ve run out of mocha sprinkles. Please watch the episode. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Harry Newton who eyes nature’s wonders. She brought us a devastating storm. But she allowed this beautiful rose to survive.<\/p>\n

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I took this photo on Second Avenue at 60th in a small city park under the Roosevelt Island Tram.<\/p>\n

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Some of the subways are back. Here’s a map. Many buses have been running\u00a0 for two days. I rode the Roosevelt Island Tram yesterday. Until Friday all New York City mass transit is free. A small mercy. Don’t bring a car into the city. It’s gridlock. Also, they won’t let you in without a full […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}