Scantlings

I'm sure that any of you who have caught a glimmer of my personality over the years will understand that going to Times Square, NYC on New Years Eve is something I would never, ever do. But it does have something of the Madness of Crowds about it that has the fascination of the noir. There is some publicly posted information here: https://www.timessquarenyc.org/times-sq ... ve/nye-faq

Put these two facts in apposition: 1) to get a good spot, you need to be there by early afternoon, and 2) there are no bathrooms.

This year there is a special added attraction. From the Weather Bureau:

Tonight
Rain, mainly before 4am. The rain could be heavy at times. Temperature rising to around 55 by 5am. Southeast wind 11 to 15 mph becoming southwest after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 26 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between three quarters and one inch possible.

Around our house, the plan is to get to bed early and be sound asleep by midnight so we are not bothered by any unusual noises from around the neighborhood.

We celebrate New York New Years here and then go to bed.
That gets us under the covers shortly after 9 pm.

(It is however SKN so I will do a little straight key CW in the evening.)

Three things on my "Please, Oh Dear God, Don't Make Me Have to Go" list:

- New Years eve in Times Square - though my sister-in-law lives in easy walking distance
- The Preakness - rite of passage in Bodymore, Murderland, but we go to Pimlico the week after and bet with no crowds around
- Any Renaissance Festival Anywhere

so far, so good! Best of 2019 to all y'all!

Semi, that's on my list of "will not ever do" as well. I scratch my head about man-made dates and times. As I think I said elsewhere, I can't figure out why the entire globe doesn't run on one time zone, it's far easier in every way. I also can't figure out why anyone would care exactly which day is the beginning of the "new year".

Now, if we aligned our months to the lunar calendar, so you could have a full moon on the first, and to the sun, so that we could have the new year start on Dec 22nd, things would make more sense and there would be some rational basis for it all.

Otherwise, I'd rather read a book, go to a party of friends, eat a fine meal or almost anything other than standing on Broadway with that many bozos!
(Heck, I'd rather have a broken leg set than that.)

It’s New Year’s Day down here, we saw in the new year at a friends place in a nearby village.

A bit sobering though, she has the big Ca and her blood results are going off, may be her last one.

Spectacular food and wine, everyone brought along their very best and she had been cooking for three days.

A real celebration, helps us focus on what really matters.

Happy New Year Scantlingers...

Sorry to hear about your friend Olaf. Best to eat desert first in life.

Happy European New Year to You All.

I've only experienced one public new years celebration. Cuzco Peru in the central "square". Quite the party. People packed like sardines. Mostly young South American Turists. However, there was a highly intoxicated German man who was lighting M-80s, waiting until the fuse was nearly spent, then tossing them into the air, producing explosions just above everyone's heads. That was enough for me.

Steve

Headed to the Kennedy Center to see a play. Then a night at the Watergate.
Happy New Year.

Not for money.

Happy New Year all.

I used to hike up the mountain behind my house in Taiwan to a temple that had a direct line view to the fireworks on the Taipei 101 building. It was about a 1hr climb. We'd sit at a table and drink a pot of sweet ginger tea.

When the kids were younger we'd go down South to Pingtung and buy a small arsenal's worth of fireworks. We'd set them off at a small train station that was a short walk from the house in the middle of a sea of sugarcane and rice fields. The sugar cane is gone now, but the station is still there due to the elementary school. Timed badly (?) the bottle rockets would sometimes hit a passing train.

This year I think we'll walk down to our local pub and have a beer or two. My wife is making Korean BBQ and pancakes.

Drizzle and cool. Lynne’s immersed in year end reporting, ACA compliance and making sure all benefit updates are in place for about 465 employees so she has been flat out (as usual) since the middle of November and will continue until early Feb.

In other words, we are in front of the fire, going to sup on some Beef Bourguignon she cooked up yesterday, have a drink or two while watching something on Netflix. If we make it until midnight, fine. If not, we’ll wake up in 2019.

As to Times Square? Not going to happen - ever.

Happy New Year to all.

I did it once when I was 19. It was everything you'd expect and I won't do it again.

Made it to midnight! I must be getting old.

Managed to come down with a severe cold at the end of 2018, so I just watched from the bedroom but the bride a a visiting friend of hers went up on the rooftop terrace to watch- there are at least 5 villages within view and all set off fireworks. They reported that from the terrace they thought they could see the display from Siena (about an hour away). Nice start to 2019 here. Think spring you northern hemisphere Scantlingers!

Anomaly wrote:Managed to come down with a severe cold at the end of 2018, so I just watched from the bedroom but the bride a a visiting friend of hers went up on the rooftop terrace to watch- there are at least 5 villages within view and all set off fireworks. They reported that from the terrace they thought they could see the display from Siena (about an hour away). Nice start to 2019 here. Think spring you northern hemisphere Scantlingers!

85F497B4-BB23-4035-A48C-01E890767225.jpeg

That's a nice way to spend the new year!

We had about 25 friends and neighbours over for our usual New Year's Eve get together. Good food, good wine, good company, good conversation, good singers with tunes on piano and guitars until 2:00 am. Fun.

Other friends, who would usually be here for New Year's, were in Prague this New Year's Eve, visiting their daughter who works there. They went down to the river to watch the fireworks. This video is what they saw (they didn't shoot the video but were just a few feet from the person who did). They are back now and told us it was amazing. It looks amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXfEdXxD0eE

Called people who might be interested the day before. We had a great 'losers' party--people who didn't have something arranged months in advance!