2022 – BOB’S OBS-ervations (Best Photos July-December)

                             (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on January 20, 2023)

 

As usual, here’s my bi-annual slog through 90 million pictures to pick my favorites from the second half of 2022 in sequential fashion.

It really DOES take weeks to put this together, so I hope you like it. I’m pretty sure I will……………………eventually.

By the way……….”Bob’s Obs” was something similar I used to do every year for my family on VHS tape back in the ’90s and ’00s.

 

JULY

 

7-1 and 7-9 (above) – I found a way to save some picture space.

 

7-1 – Fireworks in Ridgefield, NJ (taken from my living room – click to enlarge):

 

7-2 – Conscientious neighbor:

 

7-2 – Neighborhood Cranes:

 

7-2 – This was strange. I still don’t know for sure what was going on here. I saw this woman carrying a crazy balloon – sculpture? – in the parking lot to her car. I could see that a couple of small black balloons said “TikTok” on them, so that’s a clue………I guess. Then I saw a girl (her daughter?) wearing a “The Birthday Girl” shirt and posing with the balloon contraption. Then Mom(?) jammed it all into the back seat and took a picture (click to enlarge):

I’m not up on my TikTok culture, but was this some sort of TikTok birthday challenge?          

 

7-2 (and 7-16, 7-23) – Consistent with his bracelet and headgear:

 

7-3 – I shot these fireworks from my back room through glass (click to enlarge). As I recall, these are from Saddle Brook (a couple miles west of me):

I especially like the third one because they backlit a triple cross that’s atop a Hackensack church that’s just under a mile away from me.

 

7-3 – This shows two shots of a crescent moon that’s setting behind a Hackensack high-rise:

 

7-4 – This shows that triple cross I just mentioned. I shot this through a dirty window in my kitchen (I can’t get outside to clean it) with the tripod in the sink:

Whatever works!

 

7-4 – What’s more Fourth-of-July-ish than a string of red, white, and blue balloons from a car dealership?

 

7-4 – FIREWORKS, that’s what!

These are the first July 4 Hackensack fireworks with the new building in the way, but it’s not so bad…………they look like they’ve been shot off from that building’s roof. OK, building……..you can stay.

 

Right after the Hackensack fireworks ended, New York City’s Macy’s fireworks began on the East River, which – for all you non-locals – is on the other side of Manhattan from me.

I shot this from the same spot in my living room that I shot the Hackensack fireworks from:

A photo of Manhattan skyscrapers backlit by East River fireworks is NOT a shot you see very often – especially from Hackensack, which is at least 7 or 8 miles away from the Macy’s show (he says modestly).

 

7-9 – Colorful man with smiley-face shorts (no thanks):

 

7-9 – Looking 7 floors straight down from my living room, you can see what’s overhead (I’m shooting from the window on the left):

 

7-9 – This was the panoramic view of the Hackensack River and both campuses of Fairleigh Dickinson University (Teaneck on the left, Hackensack on the right) as I dined at a table on the pedestrian bridge between the two (click to enlarge):

BTW – the Whopper was excellent! (and, yes, that’s most of the moon to the right of the upper middle)

 

7-13 – There was some sort of summer church program next door for a bunch of kids. Here you see some boys jumping rope (dunno what the girls were doing…………building houses?):

 

And here they all are enjoying the ice cream truck behind the church:

 

7-14 – Picking up (or depositing) a can (I’ll assume the former):

 

7-16 – Uh-oh………..look out, little girl!

 

7-23 – Fish crow closeup:

 

7-26 – Two sunset shots:

 

7-27 – I woke up just after 5am and could NOT get back to sleep, so I took the opportunity to take some early photos that I usually never get the chance to take, starting with these two shots that show a side of the skyscrapers lit as I’ve never seen them before:

By the way – that local building with the lights that look like fireflies is a new, under-construction building in Hackensack with the unusual designation of “Ivy and Green”, as you can see on the far right of the top pic.

I have no idea what’s up with those lights………..I just hope they don’t interfere with my night photography (he says selfishly).

 

7-27 – An early AM, new-to-me view of the World Trade Center:

 

7-27 – Looking in the opposite direction, I see the early sun bouncing off two high-rise buildings:

 

7-27 – I decided to go out for an early AM photowalk. The first thing I saw were some of my good-looking, nosy neighbors two blocks away. Click to enlarge anything in this post that says PANO……….like this (PANO). You can click this one twice (hit back button to return):

 

7-27 – An early-AM and unusually empty Main St (PANO):

 

7-27 – Oh, look – it’s Ivy and Green again! To orient you locals who may not be familiar with Hackensack’s ever-changing look, if you cross the Hackensack River on the Midtown Bridge via Fort Lee Rd in Bogota, this is what you’d have seen last summer (PANO):

But where are the firefly lights?

 

7-27 – Well, here are some of them. Fortunately, they’re no longer there (do fireflies fly south for the winter?) (PANO):

 

7-27 – Across the street, geese have arrived in Foschini Park for breakfast (PANO):

 

7-27 – As I walk around the Ice House (skating rink), I find someone doing what I normally would be doing at that hour (but not in my car):

 

7-27 – Time to take a walk across the river on the Midtown bridge. As I look south towards the Court St Bridge, I see something I’ve never seen before: a truck on the Susquehanna railroad tracks across the river. It makes a nice picture with the bridge and construction behind it:

 

7-27 – I decide to go for a wider shot that includes the dome of the Bergen County Courthouse and the steeple of the First Reformed Church (Church on the Green) – a church that was familiar to George Washington (but that’s another story):

 

7-27 – I’ll bet that you didn’t notice a WWII submarine in the previous pic. Well, take another look here:

That’s the USS Ling and as of this past January 1, it’s been moored there for 50 years (but not for long).

 

7-27 – From Olsen Park on the other side of the river in Bogota, I took this unusual sky shot that also includes the side of the Ice House, where I found Sleeping Handsome:

 

7-27 – Now back in Foschini Park at its northernmost point – the Kipps Bend section of the Hackensack River – I came across these two photogenic ducks on a rock:

 

7-27 – The river’s fairly calm, so I was able to get a couple of shots of them AND their reflections (click to enlarge):

 

7-27 – I zoomed in on that last shot to get the duck making out with its reflection. (What the duck?!)

 

7-27 – On my way out of the park, I got this shot of a furry bee amidst some colorful flowers:

Busy day! And it’s only 8am! But that was it – photographically – for July 27.

 

7-31 – I came home that day to find festive-looking balloons in the garbage and by the time I got up to my apartment, someone had pushed them into the dumpster:

 

Interesting month………….

 

 

AUGUST

 

8-3 – Remember the ice cream truck from July? Here’s a shot of the ice cream man deciding which cold confection HE wants:

 

8-5 – One lucky girl gets to pay for everyone else’s frozen treats:

 

8-5 – I just thought that an upside-down “Stones Throw” sticker – whatever that’s about – was an unusual thing to see on a post in a supermarket parking lot:

 

8-6 – Apparently, it was “Dark Pants, Red Shirt, Weird Black Head Covering” Day in the parking lot:

 

8-6 and 8-9 – Two dogs become three:

 

8-9 – You can see Manhattan in the background. The old smokestack of the Federal Paper Board Co is in Bogota, NJ, and the crane is doing something in Hackensack:

OK – 3 locations in 2 states in 1 picture…………big deal. But I had to stay with it and see if I could make it into something else (must have been really bored that day).

I noticed that whatever the crane was carrying seemed to be destined for the top of the smokestack and appeared to have landed there:

Is that more interesting than the first picture? (Probably not).

 

8-9 – On to more illusions…………..the moving part of the back gate of the truck shows much less surface area than the stationary part, yet its shadow shows much more:

 

8-9 – Both of these photos were taken at sunset, but the top photo faces EAST and the bottom one faces WEST:

If that isn’t strange enough, this section of the bottom photo appears to have a tornado inside the cloud:

To top it all off, this steeple is just south of me. Look at its west-facing window:

Geez……..it’s even affecting my watermark!

 

8-12 – Nice sunset illumination of clouds and a reflection off a building that I think is in Jersey City:

 

8-13 – Asian lady beetle drops by for a visit:

 

8-13 – Non-Asian lady non-beetle former neighbor’s interesting – albeit grainy – sequence (click to enlarge):

 

8-16 – Well, I guess that clears things up:

 

8-16 – Brand-new wheel-less car:

I saw this in a small parking lot a couple of feet from the road near a busy section of Hackensack. I have no idea what happened or why or how:

 

8-18 – Peeping-Tom-in-training?

 

8-18 – “Lemme out!”

 

8-18 – This is the shadow of that just-south-of-me steeple (First Presbyterian Church) on the State St side of the 389 Main building at sunset:

 

8-20 – Awwwwww…………..

 

8-20 – Sunset:

 

8-23 – This is the story of a guard bug that I’ve had for 32 years. It begins at Madison Square Garden in 1990 and ends with a buzzed George Washington in 1964. (huh?)

Here we see a picture I took of Mark Slaughter (of the band Slaughter, which opened for KISS that night) holding the bug. You can read what it says:

 

And here it is guarding stuff:

 

What kind of stuff? How about a real quarter (25-cent coin) that’s been cut to simulate GW smoking weed in his pipe?

 

Don’t believe it’s real? Check out this closeup of both sides of the coin – especially the back (click to enlarge):

 

8-23 – This photo – which shows Hudson Yards (upper left) in Manhattan, the two towers of the PSE&G plant just below Hudson Yards (but actually in Ridgefield, NJ, next to the NJ Turnpike), and all kinds of colorful construction going on in Hackensack – was originally meant to be a closeup of the bright blue truck that caught my eye (and is sitting below PSE&G):

“Well, maybe I’ll include this…………and maybe I should add that…..and maybe………”. I barely notice the truck in the final result.

The evolution of a photo…………..

 

This is a compilation of 3 different commuter trains on the same tracks that are close to structures and bisecting 3 different parts of Hackensack (click to enlarge):

 

This is a fashion statement I could have done just fine not ever seeing. Is this guy serious? Is any female finding this attractive?

This is a look (and color!) that I would only expect from a former president.

 

8-27 – Did this young lady steal these balloons from a British naval ship?

Too obscure a reference? Go look up the initials.

 

8-27 – Ooo, I see a texting-while-pedaling ticket in this guy’s future:

He doesn’t look too distracted from his surroundings, does he?

 

8-30 – No comment…………happy August:

 

 

SEPTEMBER

 

9-3 – Happy Labor Day from your Nissan dealer!

 

9-3 – From the look on this guy’s face, he may have just received that burned-in Omega branding:

(Ouch!)

 

9-3 – Not sure why, but I liked this shot:

 

9-3 – Cross………….where? (PANO)

 

9-6 – “Texting-while-boarding”………….ticketable offense?

 

9-10 – The funeral procession for the world’s tallest man? (PANO):

 

9-11 – Hey……..if red, white and blue “SALE” balloons work for car dealerships, they’ve GOT to work for street light dealers too, right?

 

9-13 – I’ve shown parts of this ice cream place in Hackensack before, but never a full frontal. So if it’s good enough for Bella Hadid (https://tinyurl.com/CranberryBella), it’s good enough for you (click to enlarge):

 

9-15 – OK – this is a weird one. Let’s start with the image on the left. What you see is the side view of the front of a small strip mall about 4-5 blocks west of me. I took that picture from my kitchen window. Keep the location of the red X in mind:

Now go to the right picture. I’m standing where that X is in the left picture, but I’m now facing east – past the construction, past a house and past the front of a brick apartment building and all the way to my apartment on the roof of that building, 4-5 blocks away (my kitchen window is circled in red).

Got it? Me neither.

 

9-17 – Smoke and chug (and eyeball my watermark):

 

9-17 – Another candidate for a texting-while-pedaling ticket:

 

9-22 – The setting sun reflects off the towers in Fort Lee and the high-rises in Cliffside Park:

 

9-23 – A sign I never thought I’d see in a supermarket parking lot:

Fortunately, New Jersey’s in the process of reversing the paper bag ban.

 

9-24 – I’ll take chair #259:

 

9-24 – An American goldfinch!

 

9-24 – I happened to be walking past a cemetery’s locked funeral chapel and saw something bright and colorful inside. I placed my camera against the glass door to eliminate all outside glare and got this:

 

9-24 – I don’t recall which town set these fireworks off (or why), but they went off seemingly mid-way between me and the World Trade Center, which is visible in every pic (PANO):

Who expects great and colorful pyrotechnic displays like this in the fall?

 

9-27 – A private jet comes in low on its approach to Teterboro Airport, which is about 4 miles south of me:

 

9-27 – This interesting-looking building is on Railroad Ave in Hackensack (PANO):

 

9-27 and 11-9 – I wanted a clear picture of this without the SUV that the eagle looks like he’s about to pick up with his talons and when the sun was shining on it. I got it a month-and-a-half later and enhanced the coloring (click to enlarge):

 

9-27 – A cement pumper on a construction site encloses the cupola on the Johnson Public Library:

 

9-27 – Sears – closed and in the clouds:

 

9-28 – Sunset starts to turn red:

 

9-28 – Sunset goes all red south and west of me:

 

9-29 – The landmark Hackensack YMCA, where Mom took me when I was a kid to learn how to swim – the only class I ever failed (PANO).

This building is about two blocks from where I live and has just been sold. I thought that was the end of it, but I recently found out that this cherished and historical edifice will be torn down and a 14-story residential monstrosity will replace it……………..ugh!

 

 

OCTOBER

10-6 – I don’t know if this is true where you’re located, but the biggest bug problem lately is the spotted lanternfly. If you want to know why, go here to see what neighboring Pennsylvania says about it: https://www.agriculture.pa.gov/Plants_Land_Water/PlantIndustry/Entomology/spotted_lanternfly/SpottedLanternflyAlert/Pages/default.aspx

 

NJ wants them all killed:

 

I have no idea why this plant-hopping bug was seven floors up on my living room window screen/sill:

Sorry, PA and NJ, but with no direct access to it, I had to let it go.

 

10-6 – Chasing spotted lanternflies, no doubt:

 

10-8 (another photowalk) – I can see this directly from my living room window…………looks better up close:

 

10-8 – Tale of Two Flags – I took this PANO shot because the flag on the left was at half-staff with no wind at all, while the flag on the right sits atop a building at full-staff in obvious wind. How does that happen?

 

10-8 – A block south of the previous shot, I took this full-block-long PANO of a large construction site:

I’ve been doing this occasionally since it began and will continue to do so until completion.

 

10-8 – I’m now on Main St, where I couldn’t get this snobby girl to talk to me:

 

10-8 – “99-cent Dreams”? Sounds like everything in the store must be that price…………until you zoom in on that small sign in the window:

Big deal…………one thing could be 99 cents and the sky’s the limit on everything else (no – I didn’t bother going in to check).

 

10-8 – This looks odd………..two cell phone competitors right next to each other?

I guess if you don’t like the deal in one place, you don’t have far to go to try to get a better one.

 

10-8 – I thought a PANO shot of the truck and logo would look cool:

 

10-8 – But then I noticed something………..the store’s clock says that the time is 4:53. I took this in late morning, so I zoomed in on the clock and took a time-and-date-stamped photo:

 

10-8 – This reminded me of another clock problem two blocks away that I photographed a month or two earlier. It was at the Hackensack Bus Terminal – a place that runs on critical schedules and should show EXACT times always.

I walked over there and – sure enough – the west-facing side’s clock was way off. I took a picture and then walked around to the east-facing side and – surprise, surprise – that clock was off too with a wrong time that was different from the west-facing one! Here are those time/date-stamped images, taken two minutes apart:

Five days later, on a hunch, I walked over to another exact-time-dependent transportation site – the Anderson St Railroad Station and took a picture of their clock at 10:38am:

Unbelievable! How is it that the clocks at bus and rail facilities are not corrected immediately? BTW – I DID post these pix on a Hackensack site, but I haven’t yet returned to either place to see if the clocks are fixed. I’ll try to do that before I post this.

This just in: I was just out. I took a ride to see what time it was……….x3. NONE of the 3 transportation facilities’ clocks were fixed and two of them showed the exact same time they did three-and-a-half months ago! I asked someone sitting at a desk inside the bus terminal when the clocks would get fixed.

“It’s not my job” was the informative response.

 

Back to the photowalk……………

I’m not sure why, but I found this shot interesting:

 

From a distance, it appears that the bowling alley has a car wash:

 

I read this PANO as “It Hertz to eat hamburgers because you might get gas”:

 

And the photowalk concludes with images of something everybody wants to see – squirrel teeth:

Fun facts:

  • As squirrels are rodents they have four front teeth (two top, two bottom) that keep on growing.
  • Squirrel incisors grow about 14 centimeters a year (they are worn down gnawing).
  • The front of a squirrel’s teeth can look orange (it’s the hard enamel).

 

10-8 – Back home, fathers teach their sons how to climb fences and ride bicycles:

 

10-11 – Sunset off skinny skyscrapers:

 

10-12 – This was a smaller photowalk with a surprise ending. I decided to cross the Hackensack River into Teaneck to go to the Hackensack River Greenway, which is about 6 blocks away.

I usually don’t go there until all the leaves are down because I can barely see anything back across the river into Hackensack, but – for some reason – I wanted to go there on this day (a premonition?).

On the way there, I took this PANO of a ridiculously-long truck:

 

Crossing the Cedar Lane/Anderson St bridge (the name depends on which town you’re from: Teaneck or Hackensack), I stopped in the middle to take a PANO that included Teaneck on the left and Hackensack on the right. It may not look like it, but that’s the same straight road on both ends:

 

Some of the changing foliage colors on the Hackensack side caught my eye:

 

100’ or so beyond the river was the entrance to the Greenway:

 

Once inside, I was maybe 100-200’ past this entrance when I saw something large with a big rear end – and possibly a tail – burst out of the bushes a hundred feet ahead on the left (non-river) side, scamper away for a few feet and then re-enter the foliage.

Was that what I thought it was?

I proceeded slowly, trying not to step on anything made of wood that would make a loud snap – which was almost impossible. I scanned the thick brush for any signs of movement, but saw nothing.

Suddenly…………

 

Were there more? I continued on the Greenway path. Fortunately, there was no one else around…………..I had the entire path to myself. I scoured every inch of its left side.

Nothing (but I DID manage to take a couple of across-the-river shots):

 

I started back, REALLY taking my time.

Then I saw something in the distance. I didn’t have a rifle, but I DID have a Canon with a great zoom.

Young buck!

 

Then two deer that – from a distance – looked like two bodies with one head:

 

I took a few other pictures, but then they started to leave. I DID get off a nice shot of a doe-eyed honey (saying goodbye?):

 

There’s a separate post that includes a video about this adventure here: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=17285

So I guess I made the right decision about visiting this place before the leaves came down. Maybe the deer were there because the foliage afforded them some cover.

 

10-14 – These are 3 pictures that were combined to show the reflections of the downward sun as it set (click to enlarge):

 

10-15 – There was some event in Lodi, NJ, that ended with fireworks that are seen here behind a Hackensack high-rise (click to enlarge):

 

10-18 and 10-22 – I wouldn’t dare try to guess what caused the young lady’s reaction. Maybe she somehow was feeling the pain of what this guy must have endured to acquire all that ink:

 

10-22 – Sunset reflections by the Empire State Building:

 

10-25 and 10-27 – Fall foliage colors (click to enlarge):

 

10-27 – Fish crows like to congregate on the roofs of local buildings. Today was my building’s turn:

 

10-27 – This array of money-grabbing options is what you see when you come out of the car wash (I didn’t get my car washed – I just ran up on the property to take a quick PANO:

 

10-27 – If you look at the photos of the setting sun’s reflections over the last 2 weeks, you see the southward movement of the sun:

 

10-29, 30 – This is the street banner and venue (the Clairidge Theater) for the Montclair (NJ) Film Festival. I took this while driving home after a screening on the 30th:

 The event was the world premiere of the “Banded Together – The Boys From Glen Rock High” movie – an amazing story about a bunch of guys (and their inspirational music teacher 50 years ago) from Glen Rock High School in NJ, who went on to great things.

If you’re from NJ, chances are you know who Uncle Floyd is, his brother Jimmy was the band leader/guitarist on the Conan O’Brien Show, while other brother Jerry played sax in the same band, another guy was in The Four Seasons, the others were involved in Broadway and elsewhere………..they all did great.

The producer – from the same high school – got them all together back to Glen Rock H.S. for a reunion concert that he filmed on 12-2-21 and it became the movie. I shot the show and have a blog post about it: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=14920

Here is the movie’s trailer: https://bandedtogethermovie.com/

I also shot the movie premiere and – of course – have a blog post about it: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=17345

 

Nice way to end the month………….

 

 

NOVEMBER

 

11-2 – Crossed cranes in Hackensack, World Trade Center in the background:

 

11-2 – Woman impersonates a barbeque grill (read what’s on her head):

 

11-5 – Fish crows gather on my roof to watch satellite TV:

 

11-5 – A fish crow becomes a Dish crow and sits (I really need to put an “h” in that word) on his new commode:

 

11-5 – Same lot, same afternoon……………same call? That might make her “Paula”:

 

11-5 – Bicycles dwarfed by their shadows:

 

11-7 – I never saw someone push something that odd through the parking lot before. Maybe that’s why the (his?) woman keeps her distance behind him (“Never saw the guy before in my life!”):

 

11-8 – Looking straight down from my living room window:

 

11-8 – I saw this kid going through all sorts of gyrations and had no idea what they were about until I zoomed in. Apparently, he was trying to smash a plastic milk container that was filled with frozen liquid. He threw it, he jumped on it………….he went on for quite a while. Meanwhile, I’m snapping away not knowing what he was raging against until I saw the pix on my computer:

 

11-8 – Looking straight down once again, I see someone trying to hide a disembodied redhead in the garbage. Ho-hum………….nothing new:

 

11-9 – (left) Yeah, I voted yesterday. (right) Speaking of left and right, this undecided gentleman is trying to figure out which side to perpetrate voter fraud on. Either way, he’s prepared:

Can you guess why the question mark is purple? (think “purple states”)

 

11-9 – Meanwhile, I’m wondering if he’s the clown who left these two odd items at my front door (no, I don’t have a dog………….or monstrous energy):

 

11-9 – Will the city PLEASE get someone to rake the fountain? (PANO):

 

11-9 – An interestingly-attired gentleman with a Hackensack High School hoodie (Go, Comets!), green gloves, U.S. and Israeli flags, something that looks like a broken cane and he’s carrying a bag that says ZOLL. There’s a company by that name that makes defibrillators.

 

11-12 – My Surroundings. On the right is the back of my next-door neighbor – the Second Reformed Church. On the left – on the other side of me – is the steeple of the First Presbyterian Church. In between them is the back of my 6-story building………..except that the left half is 7-stories. That 7th-floor is my apartment – a separate unit that sits on the roof.

The two smaller windows on that floor are in my bedroom. The larger window to the right of them is my living room picture window, out of which I do most of my home photography, including most of the pix in this post. The white dot that you see in the darker triangle below the plane is where I’m sitting, typing this.

Believe it or not, there’s a third church right across the street from my building’s front door.

 

11-12 – Pointer pugs?

 

11-12 – This image is on the wall by the front door of a Korean storefront church on State St – a few blocks away:

 

11-12 – Planes appear to be landing on the roof of a former bank:

 

11-12 – Interesting-looking bench outside of a Main St eatery:

 

11-12 – Almost two weeks after Halloween, 16 pumpkins remain unsmashed outside the Johnson Public Library (also on Main St):

 

11-12 (right – and on Main St) and 1-27-13 (left and elsewhere in town) – I wonder if the medical office and the barber shop appreciate the implication that injury may afflict their patients/customers. After taking the barber shop picture on 11-12, I recalled the similar sign pairing from almost a decade prior.

 

11-13 – How unimaginative and unattractive our cars have become in both color and design. Yuch!

 

11-14 – It took a couple of weeks after last month’s sun/reflection-travel update, but it’s finally made it down to the World Trade Center at the southern tip of Manhattan:

 

11-17 – I shot this video from my living room……..never saw this before:

 

11-26 + 12-30 – Similar shots I took about a month apart:

 

11-26 – Teen-sized howitzer shell has finally arrived!

 

11-30 – BIG rainstorm and high winds from the east have soaked my screen and blown it against my window:

 

 

DECEMBER

 

Sometime in December – Cheap granddaughter!

 

12-1 – Early AM sun reflections and odd clouds:

 

12-2 – Fairly-clear Moon craters:

 

12-2 – Back on his/her heels, begging for treats:

 

12-2 – Colorful cones protect basket until net gets replaced? (just a guess):

 

12-2 – Lotta colors in this one. I’m stopped at a red light and decide to take a picture of the pink, orange and blue building whose bar/eatery has just been renamed. As I frame the shot, I notice the firetruck in my rearview mirror. Just as I go to hit the shutter, a car dressed in green whips by………click!

And then the light turns green…………..

 

12-3 – Awwwwww…………. (haven’t used that title since August 20)

 

12-3 – Redhead:

 

12-9 – As I start another photowalk, the first interesting thing I see is a skinny CarKey wind dancer outside of an open key shop that’s behind a permanently-closed Sears. I’m guessing that most people figure the key shop is closed too, so the owner has to draw attention somehow.

35 minutes later, on my way back on a different street, I see that the dancer has collapsed on its iron lung:

 

12-9 – We saw the Cranberry Junction Ice Cream Shop back in September. Here’s a side view of the place, along with the curving railroad tracks. For you locals, the overpass in the distance is Route 4:

 

12-9 – From across the street, these steps look like maybe half of a person’s foot could step on them:

 

12-9 – Winter replacement for leaves?

 

12-9 – How do you hire a smile?

I wasn’t curious enough to scan the QR code to find out. If you do, let me know so I can hire some.

 

12-9 – This is a nice looking building, but this picture is just the opening act (the headliner is in the shadows):

 

12-9 – The headliner (PANO):

 

12-9 – Two blocks from home, I saw this:

I wonder if he’s related to that girl I showed you in October:

 

12-9 – One block from home showed a sign I’ve never seen on a church before:

If you don’t know English, how can you read the sign?

 

12-10 – There was no one in this car, but the trunk was open, revealing all sorts of colorful goodies:

 

12-10 – Later that day, a camel visited the church next door:

It was a whole Nativity event that also included sheep, a donkey, Three Wise Men, a procession and a kick.

 

12-10 – The church interior (PANO):

 

12-10 – The procession (and my building with my separate rooftop apartment):

 

12-10 – I never thought I’d EVER be taking a picture of a camel walking past my building!

 

12-10 – A closeup of Elliot the camel:

 

12-10 – Elliot kicks his handler (video still):

 

12-10 – (Later that evening) This is the entrance to the church I mentioned earlier that’s right across the street from my building’s front door:

 

12-11 – The next morning, I come out of my apartment and find a house sparrow flying around in the stairwell! He kept flying into the closed window and bouncing off it. After sternly lecturing him, I opened the window and off he went:

 

12-17 – The Queen…………at least that’s how she’s identified on her overly-large purse:

 

12-17 – A nice PANOramic shot of the view from my living room window:

 

12-19 + 12-21 – Shapes of Things (great Yardbirds song). These are cement pumpers at a construction site a few blocks away, as seen from home:

The cupola on the left in the above picture sits atop the Johnson Public Library that I showed earlier.

 

12-21 – Shapeless Things. Cement pumper is fully extended at various angles:

I never saw one straight up before. Maybe that’s a gravitational method of clearing cement from it?

 

12-21 – I used to see this all the time when the building was being constructed, so it looks odd to me now:

 

12-21 – The same unit is waiting to be bucket-driven into the building’s parking area once the gate rises:

 

12-21 – This was taken straight across the street/parking lot from my living room window: the dead traffic cone, the colors, the guy on the bench (and also on the phone) staring at the wall, the “Emergency – No Parking” sign, the looks-like-it’s-about-to-fall-over telephone pole (is that the emergency?)………..it all makes for an interesting shot that I didn’t have to leave home to get:

 

12-22 – Geese flying over the PSE&G plant in Ridgefield, NJ (and past the Hudson Yards buildings in Manhattan and the cement pumper in Hackensack):

 

12-24 – All the smoke/steam should tell you that this was a VERY cold Christmas Eve:

 

12-24 – SO cold that almost all the geese in the area made their exits on this day:

 

12-24 – A few of the speedy geese beat the airplane to the Empire State Building:

 

12-24 – I really wanted this to be sharper, but……………

 

12-24 – Last-minute Christmas gift doesn’t look like it’s gonna fit in the car:

 

12-24 – The church lot is full for Christmas Eve services, so a latecomer exits one lot and enters another:

 

12-24 – When I took the previous picture, I noticed these windows near the top of the image:

 

12-25 – All the eggnogged-out geese who missed the Christmas Eve air-train outta town fly past the Hackensack University Medical Center (or as some of us still call it – Hackensack Hospital):

 

12-27 – Sunrise behind The Modern 1 and 2 towers in Fort Lee:

 

12-28 – The last hundred or so hung-over geese beat it outta town:

 

12-30 – Swerving jet (how did I know THAT was gonna happen?):

 

12-31 – Pouring rain in the parking lot on New Year’s Eve:

 

 

And on THAT note……………….DONE!!

 

Never thought I’d make it all the way through this ton of pictures, but I always do somehow.

 

I hope it was worth your time to view and read about them.

 

 

 

 

One Comment

  1. Jeff Den Bleyker (Top of the Hill) January 23, 2023

    Very enjoyable. Thanks for the effort and sharing.

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