East Coast Happenings

[Diane Amberg]

Finally had frost last night. I had already stripped the garden, so my neighbors will be getting some nice peppers soon. We finished judging the local fire prevention contest entries. Now we have to hunt up the 30 winners names and send the first place winners up the ladder for county judging. We had a very poor showing of schools this year. Only 6 of 20 schools entered. Not sure it's worth all my hard work for so few. Tomorrow is Newark's Halloween Parade down Main Street in the afternoon with trick or treating among the merchants afterward.
Al and I went to a wonderful memorial service for our beloved Mac Macleod at First Presbyterian Church. Great service with many testimonials and shared memories. We were escorted by a pipe band from the church to the nearby social hall for tears and tales among family and friends. Some of this ashes are buried with his wife Meg and some will go home to Scotland. He has passed on to Tir Nan Og.

[Diane Amberg]

Got my peppers delivered to neighbors and some came home to roost already... a nice pan of stuffed peppers were delivered just in time for dinner. Perfect timing as Al has to leave for a Newark Planning Commission meeting soon. They are still working on the new Comprehensive Plan for the city. We now have seven people running for mayor next month. Several are for all the wrong reasons. Some of the locals are all upset because U D bought the huge old closed Chrysler plant site, tore it down and are building a new technology center on it. It's properly zoned for it and will be really high tech and modern. The way some people are talking, one would think the place will be spewing black coal smoke as from old steel factory tall polluting chimneys. Hardly. 
A small tight few are really pot stirring about things they know nothing about and can't do anything about anyway. It will create lots of good clean jobs and put at least part of the property back on the city tax rolls.
It will be interesting to watch it all play out. Some of the ridiculous accusations remind me of a certain small county I know. I expect to hear "sheeple" and "kool aid" any day now.

[Diane Amberg]

I got to watch something very interesting for awhile yesterday. My back yard neighbor just had solar panels put up on the south facing part of their roof, which faces our house.  They are very unobtrusive and nice looking. Of course, today it's cloudy with rain. I told Sally I can't wait for the first time their meter runs backward. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to recoop the instillation cost and how much they will really save over the long haul.

[Diane Amberg]

I'll be glad when things slow down a bit here. We got our local first place fire prevention winners off to county judging and Al managed to get all 30 of our local winners' certificates made up. I found someone else to do all the parent calling for our awards program on Nov 21st. It's nice that for once I don't have to do that too!
Had 57 kids for Halloween; that's a lot for here. The leaf colors are really beautiful  now. I think I'll nudge Al into going leaf peeping one day soon.... after we get the box of bulbs planted. We started, but haven't yet finished. Having some health issues. My right eye is having a pressure build up and may need lazer surgery soon.
I'm starting to get the boxes up from the basement to see what I need to order soon for the firehouse kids' Christmas party....and I'm scanning old photos and newspaper articles for our 125th Aetna history book that should be ready next spring. Whew!
     Don't forget to change your smoke detector batteries now that we have changed our clocks back.

[Diane Amberg]

So can someone tell me what has become of the birthday dates on the calendar? I know some folks, but not all.
Finally had some great pumpkin pie last night. I surely do love it.
I had an unusual issue come up over ionization smoke detectors. Yes, there is a tiny bit of radio active material (Americanium 124) in them. It puts out alpha particles that are extremely weak and not harmful unless someone wants to cause trouble and start breaking open the little ceramic containers in the detectors and breathing it. She was scared to death. It took awhile for me to convince her it wasn't the same stuff as  Three Mile Island. I had to teach her a science lesson to convince her.

[Diane Amberg]

So, as part of our fire company's 125th anniversary, Friday night, at our  monthly regular company meeting ,all our vets who could be there, were given a fire service challenge coin and a "thank you" by The Delaware National Guard's  Adjutant General, Frank Vavala. There are about 74  living vet members,  with the oldest being 96 and two others in their 90's also. Most of the 74 were there for the ceremony. Several are still deployed. As one would guess, all branches of the service were represented, from WWII forward. We have two women also. It was a very moving ceremony and presentation.
Today we went to our local Appleby's for Al's free vet meal and one of our oldest fire company vets was there too. Good times chatting again.

[readyaimduck]

Diane:
I know you are versed in the codes of the Fire Dept, so, do you know if the ISO has the minimum requirements for downloading or reading as to per capita of small towns? <200.
This would be a volunteer Fire Dept within the City Limits.
   If this is in the wrong lounge, please let me know and change it.

ready

[Diane Amberg]

Ready,I'm no ISO expert, but it has to do with fire insurance...the resident's distance from the closest fire department, available water supply and certain firefighting equipment numbers per capita. Yes, you should be able to look it up. Most larger cities have it available and most fire companies know their own ISO rating. For example, here in town we are a three and the rural part of our district is a six, mostly due to water supply.   You might ask your fire company, or look up the town you are insterested in. ..ISO rating for .....Kansas. We have people call us quite often, asking, as they have just moved in and are setting up their insurance. Most very rural areas are nine or ten. Can I be of any more help? Try this too.www.isomitigation.com.

[readyaimduck]

Thank you Diane.  Our rating is about to go up due to bookkeeping, and the ones in charge do not know the minimum amount of people needed to go to meetings. 
   I will research some more.

ready

[Diane Amberg]

I think I'm no help at all. Am I trying to answer the wrong questions? Book keeping and meetings? I don't understand. Are you talking about a business or a fire company? Do you have an ISO review coming up?