What You Don't Know About Gravel Could Choke A Horse

In NYC, there is concrete and asphalt. Sidewalks are concrete, roadways are asphalt, and that's all there is to it.  In the GNC, we have concrete, mostly for foundations, asphalt for roadways, and we have gravel for everything in between. We have more varieties of gravel here than Dunkin has donuts. I know this because I have just researched, purchased, had delivered, spread, and graded twenty tons of Item 4. Shopping at a quarry is not something I had to do when I lived in mid-town Manhattan, but I did it last week in the GNC.

A nugget of Item 4 (I don't know why its called that, since as far as I know, there is no Item 1, 2 or 3) is about the size of a sugar cube.  Imagine twenty tons of sugar cubes being delivered to your apartment in a 4-axle container truck and being brought up in an elevator. Twenty tons of Item 4 would fill every room in your NYC apartment from floor to ceiling with enough left over to fill the swimming pool at Asphalt Green.

To give you an idea of the varieties I had to choose from, there is: bank gravel (gravel mixed with sand or clay), bench gravel (gravel located on the side of a valley above the present stream bottom, indicating the former location of the stream bed when it was at a higher level), creek rock (rounded, semi-polished stones that are dredged or scooped from river beds and creek beds). Crushed rock (rock that is mechanically broken into small pieces then sorted by filtering through different size mesh) is different from crushed stone (which is generally limestone or dolomite that has been crushed and graded by screens to certain size classes). A special type of crushed limestone is dense grade aggregate or DGA.

The most common sizes of crushed stone are 3/8, 5/8, 3/4, 1 1/2, 2 1/2.  If you really need another size, I'm sure you can find it. Crushed stone is measured in inches, but fine gravel is measured in millimeters (particles with a diameter of 1 to 2 mm).  Go figure. 

There is also lag gravel (coarse gravel produced by the removal of finer particles), pay gravel (also known as “pay dirt”, a nickname for gravel with a high concentration of metals) and  piedmont gravel (coarse gravel carried down from high places by mountain streams and deposited on relatively flat ground) not to mention  plateau gravel (gravel from a region above the height at which terrace gravel is usually found) and terrace gravel.  

There are more species of gravel, but this is a blog not Wikipedia.  

Let's not forget Item 4, which is good for driveways.  Item 4 is about $25 per ton delivered, so I just paid $500 for pebbles, and the GNC has rocks everywhere I look.  Go figure.

Building A Platform

Yesterday in the mail, came another rejection from an agent I had invited to represent my manuscript . It was my return envelope, with my three sample chapters inside, but nothing else - not a letter, note, scribble on the pages, nothing. I understand being busy, but "No. Thanks." doesn't take long to jot.

I am learning from talking to other authors that nowadays: the time from agent-finding to traditional book-on-the-shelves is now up to three years; the the average number of copies sold at an in-person, in-store book signing at Barnes & Noble is one; that if the manuscript doesn't have "robots and vampires" it has little chance of getting any traction with the first screeners at literary agencies.

We authors in the GNC (there are some) are witnessing the "disintermediation" of the publishing industry by the internet, leaving all but a special few with no access to the "old" channel.  One agent wrote to me in his rejection note that he liked my characters and plot, but that Costco and Walmart sell more copies of fewer titles than Barnes & Noble does of all its titles combined, and therefore publishers are publishing for Costco and Walmart shoppers.  My characters and plot wouldn't appeal to them.  That says it all.

So, unless you're Stephen King or John Grishman or endorsed by Oprah, I guess it has to be self-publish, e-publish and sell from your own "platform".  

Excuse me while I go the Walmart to try to find a book on "Building A Platform."  Ah yes, here it is, in the home improvement section!

Recent Snowfall Totals

According to the NWS, the snowfall in the GNC on Saturday night into Sunday ranged from over 16 inches in Elka Park to about 4 inches in Cairo.  In my neck of the woods (literally, it is a neck of the woods), the actual total, measured by me with a yard stick stuck into the railing on the front deck, when it was all over was 8.75 inches.  But that was before I started talking about it.

When worried relatives called to check on the power situation, we minimized, "Oh - it was nothing.  Just a little over 6 inches - barely covered the driveway.  Nothing to worry about...we didn't even lose power."

But for friends calling from the Midwest, who always brag to me about how much snow they get and how rugged they are, I said, "Damn!  Pretty heavy snowstorm here for October.  Cold, windy -- I'd say we got about a foot, give or take an inch.  Was out shoveling by 7am so I could go out for some groceries.  Roads will be plowed soon, I guess", though the roads had been plowed hours ago.  We love our county plowmen.

Skier-friends starting checking in around noon, wondering if Hunter Mountain was opening for the weekend.  "Well, you can hike up and ski down if you like.  We got at least 14 inches - probably more at the summit.  Not too wet - not the usual Catskill Concrete. You can make some nice turns but bring your rock skis.  Fourteen inches of snow doesn't cover 15 inches of rock!"

The last person to call was a friend in the valley who wanted me to come down and help him move furniture.  "Gee, I'd love to, really, but we got over a foot-and-a-half of heavy, wet snow and the roads haven't been plowed or sanded yet.  Don't think I want to go down the mountain today - you know, there's still one lane out on 23A near Moore's Bridge. Sorry...why don't you call Jim from Palenville.  They hardly got any snow down there."

If you want a reliable weather report from a reliable source on the Mountaintop, you had better not call me.

First snow of the season.

Time to put away the shorts and sandals.

Variety in the GNC

Traveled round trip from the Mountaintop to Poughkeepsie train station at dusk last night, about 110 miles. Here is a list of what was dead at the road side, road middle and rest stop.

• rabbit
• squirrel
• porcupine
• skunk (unmistakable)
• deer, also later, fawn (cute, but dead nonetheless)
• unrecognizable varmint sort of like a beaver, but with a long, round tail
• cat (no collar)
• bird (species undetermined), pretty feathers, not far from cat
• chipmunk
• something larger than a chipmunk but looks like one (maybe just a really big chipmunk?)
• snake 
• human, perhaps (car on fire on thruway after multi-vehicle accident)
• twelve pack of Budweiser (missed the trash can at Truck Stop, NB past Exit 19)

Returned home by 9pm.  I'm sure the list would be much longer at 2am.  Suppose you could make stew.

To Shave or Not to Shave

When I showered this morning, I decided not to shave since I would be working outside around the house and probably wouldn't see anyone until dinner time, when I would shower again and shave then.

Ran into friend at the Post Office.  He hadn't shaved, nor had the guy in line behind me.  Took a phone call on the sidewalk outside the PO - next two guys to pass hadn't shaved, one heavily bearded, probably hasn't shaved in months.  Woman passed to collect her mail - couldn't tell if she had shaved. (I'm guessing not.)

Stopped at a retail store. Clerk needed a shave (and Proactiv).  State Trooper was getting coffee - he was sharp as a tack - pants perfectly creased, hair perfectly groomed, smelling of Stetson Cologne. Clean shaven like a barber did it ten minutes before with an old fashioned hand held straight blade and hot towel.

Checked emails and the internet for news.  Ashton Kutcher, George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Zac Efron all unshaven for their paparazzi pixs.  Some with their dates on a night out, so it's not like they forget to shave.

In NYC, where I worked for all those years in those corporate skyscrapers, I scraped my face every day, without exception - Saturday and Sunday, too.Maybe skipped a day or two while on a Caribbean vacation, but day after day, year after year, never missed a day behind the razor.  As my career escalated, so did the razor: from one blade to quatro micro adjusting swivel four blade head self lubricating with titanium power vibrating handle.

Now in the GNC, its back to disposable Bics, when I bother to shave at all. Come to think of it,  I'll skip the dinner time shave today and see how I feel in the morning.

Not A Local Yet

Deli-going, in-a-hurry New Yorkers know quick-deli lingo because they are at the deli every morning on the way to the office.  New York delis are set up to get your order, get you served, get you paid and get you out in under one minute, two minutes tops if you have a complicated order.  No matter what the nationality of the counterman, every order has a short-cut name and a short-cut meaning that we all understand. For example, BLT down = bacon, lettuce, tomato on rye toast.  Who doesn't know Whiskey Jack, BWS (bagel with schmear of cream cheese) or that almost everything is to go almost all the time.

So, last night, in a pizza store in the GNC, in a hurry, late, car idling in the parking lot, I run in and order two plain slices with wings.  Guy says, "plain or spicy?".  Puzzled for a moment, I think he didn't hear me say "plain" because he was on his XBOX behind the counter when I ordered, so I say again, "plain".  He pauses the XBOX,  (I could see he was playing Halo from the disc box on the counter next to the unsold calzone), tosses the slices into the oven and retreats to the kitchen.

A few minutes go by, and out comes the guy with a plate of buffalo wings.  He adds the two slices from the oven to a tray with silverware and napkins and says, "That's $10.95".

"For two plain slices?"

"And the wings."

"Wings?"

"You ordered two slices and wings, didn't you?"  He looks at me like I have a third eye growing between my eyebrows.

"No, I didn't order wings."

"Bullshit," he says, politely, "I axed you plain or spicy and you sez plain. Wings is $6.95"

In NYC, there are at least three or four expressions for "to go".  When ordering, you can say "to travel" or "put wheels on it" or "make it roll" or "with wings".  Everybody knows a BWS with wings means a bagel with a schmear to go.  "With wings" means "to fly" as in, "I'm outta here, gotta fly."

But not in the GNC.  In the GNC, "with wings" means "I would like an order of chicken wings along with my  two plain slices of pizza."  The question "plain or spicy?" refers to the sauce that is dripping off the bony appendages when they are served to you.  "Plain" is a barbeque-y sauce, while "spicy" is a more Mexican lather.

When I am truly a local, I will know not to use my NYC deli lingo in the GNC.  Until then, I will end up with a half-dozen chicken wings drowning in Kraft  hickory smoked flavor on a tray instead of two plain cheese slices wrapped in aluminum, ready to be heated when I get home.