I've found myself doodling a lot recently -- obsessively, really. I've been posting photos on Instagram and FB, but I was thinking I should here as well. Here's an embedded version of my FB album of doodles. I'm still expanding this album
The post that I've embedded says to ignore this, but don't ignore it. That was just for FB friends.
I'm frustrated at how this embedding works. You don't seem to be able to see this album in its entirety unless you go to FB. Please note that these photos all appear on my Instagram account under @barschall
Sunday, January 7, 2018
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Updates: fourth quarter 2017
- filming Fine Fixtures Commercial d. Rochelle Scharf 12/7/17
- filming music Video for Franke: Bad Tattoo
- Creative Block/ Bloc et Blocage, a film I appear in, has won 4 awards: a) silver award in Best Drama category at Mindfield Awards, Los Angeles; b) Spotlight Silver Award; c) Prindie featured filmmaker; semi-finalist at Los Angeles CineFest;
- National Monolog Slam, Edison NJ 12/2/17 instagram post
- Continued to appear at improv mixers at The Magnet, Armory, PIT, and Triple Crown
- competed in the Cabaret Showdown -- 6th Anniversary link to FB event 11/12/17
- friends have told me that they spotted me in my background roles on "Wizard of Lies" and last winter's Hallmark Christmas movie.
completed courses
- Musical Theater with Jeffrey Saver 9/18/17- 12/20/17
- 12/12/17 Mary Tierney Theater Workshop; Theater for the New City
law related courses
- NYIPLA fall one day program 11/16/17 link to program
- CLE on venue in Patent law with ENYIPLA 11/8/17 photo with other representatives of falati.com
- "Understanding the Protectable IP of Jewelry and Fashion," NYIPLA 10/24/17 programme
- "Ethics Considerations in Intellectual Property Practice," IIPS 9/27/17
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Updates: Fall 2017
I'm just copying this from my ongoing updates blog at this point. It would bear some editing
- Creative Block/ Bloc et Blocage, a film I appear in, has won two awards: a) silver award in Best Drama category at the Mindfield Film Festival, Los Angeles http://la.mindfieldfilmfest.com/winners.html; and b) spotlight silver award spotlight silver award
- Magnet Musical Mixer 12/12/17
- filming Fine Fixtures Commercial d. Rochelle Scharf 12/7/17
- National Monolog Slam, Edison NJ 12/2/17 instagram post
- Magnet Musical Mixer 11/14/17
- Cabaret Showdown -- 6th Anniversary link to FB event 11/12/17
- Armory Comedy Jam at The Tank 10/24/17 armory jam on instagram
- Magnet Musical Mixer 10/17/17
- Musical Improv Jam, Pit Striker Theater, 10/11/17, hosted by Vern
- Musical Improv Jam with Steve Ling 10/9/17 Triple Crown
- friends have told me that they spotted me in my background roles on "Wizard of Lies" and last winter's Hallmark Christmas movie.
- 9/19/17 Magnet Musical Mixer, Magnet Theater, NYC
completed courses
- Musical Theater with Jeffrey Saver 9/18/17- 12/20/17
- 12/12/17 Mary Tierney Theater Workshop; Theater for the New City
law related courses
- NYIPLA fall one day program 11/16/17 link to program
- CLE on venue in Patent law with ENYIPLA 11/8/17 photo with other representatives of falati.com
- "Understanding the Protectable IP of Jewelry and Fashion," NYIPLA 10/24/17 programme
- "Ethics Considerations in Intellectual Property Practice," IIPS 9/27/17
Friday, November 17, 2017
Oma and Opa's deaths
When I was a kid, my dad intervened in his parents' marriage. They lived in a small one bedroom apartment. My grandfather got a bed in the bedroom. My grandmother was sleeping on the couch, not a foldout couch, just an ordinary couch.
My grandmother was being treated for cancer. My father felt she deserved a proper bed, so he rented a second apartment for her two stories up in the same building.
My grandfather was furious, because he felt his wife had left him. He stopped eating and died. He was 86 when he died.
My grandmother died six months later. My father had her body autopsied. She was clear of cancer when she died, one of the first successful radiation treatments for breast cancer. She was 79 when she died.
She died from the stress of losing my grandfather. I remember her giving me-- just before she died --some of her gold items that she had managed to carry with her out of Germany when she fled the holocaust. She told me she wanted me to have them because she didn't have anything to live for any more now that my grandfather was gone.
I still have those things in my safe deposit box. One of them is a gold locket with a picture of her and my father when my father was a baby
They lived in N.Y. We lived in Wisconsin. We shouldn't have left her alone like that, but we did.
Still I was surprised. She never got along with my grandfather. They often bickered. She often complained of him. He seemed crotchety to me.
Yet she couldn't live without him.
My father thought he was helping, but he hastened their deaths.
I concluded at the time that there was something about relationships that had to include fighting and at least low level abuse, that somehow people couldn't survive without those things, even if they complained about them
My grandmother was being treated for cancer. My father felt she deserved a proper bed, so he rented a second apartment for her two stories up in the same building.
My grandfather was furious, because he felt his wife had left him. He stopped eating and died. He was 86 when he died.
My grandmother died six months later. My father had her body autopsied. She was clear of cancer when she died, one of the first successful radiation treatments for breast cancer. She was 79 when she died.
She died from the stress of losing my grandfather. I remember her giving me-- just before she died --some of her gold items that she had managed to carry with her out of Germany when she fled the holocaust. She told me she wanted me to have them because she didn't have anything to live for any more now that my grandfather was gone.
I still have those things in my safe deposit box. One of them is a gold locket with a picture of her and my father when my father was a baby
They lived in N.Y. We lived in Wisconsin. We shouldn't have left her alone like that, but we did.
Still I was surprised. She never got along with my grandfather. They often bickered. She often complained of him. He seemed crotchety to me.
Yet she couldn't live without him.
My father thought he was helping, but he hastened their deaths.
I concluded at the time that there was something about relationships that had to include fighting and at least low level abuse, that somehow people couldn't survive without those things, even if they complained about them
****
I'm bringing this up, in part, because of the recent "me too" scandals. The way male mistreatment of women seems so pervasive.
Monday, October 23, 2017
Confusing elevator buttons @MTA
Update: I was in this elevator recently -- and they FINALLY fixed the button labels. Yay!!! I'll have to get a picture soon.
*******
I tweeted about this before, but that didn't change anything. I also really want to get into more detail how the elevator buttons at the Times Square Subway Station in NYC are confusing. This elevator is one of the most heavily used elevators in the world, I suspect.
The Times Square Subway Station accesses at least 12 different subway lines. People who use the elevator have to figure out which level corresponds to which lines -- but you can't.
Virtually every time I get into this elevator there are people who are confused. *
Here are the buttons
\
Now, in a better world, these buttons would be labelled, from top to bottom
- N, Q, R, W, S and uptown 1, 2, 3
- downtown 1, 2, 3
- A, C, E & Port Authority Bus Terminal [through a 1/4 mile tunnel that includes a ramp that is too steep to be considered wheelchair accessible]
- 7
Labelling, a floor "mezz," short for mezzanine, is totally meaningless. How is a tourist, or an older person who is becoming confused, supposed to figure that out? Normally, they probably think of a mezzanine as the floor in a hotel where there's a nice lounge. You're not going to find that in the NYC subway.
"7 AVENUE PLATFORM" -- how would anyone guess that the MTA thinks that the downtown 1, 2, and 3 are the 7th avenue train? They're only on this avenue for part of their route. Also, again, it's only the downtown trains that are on this platform. The uptown trains have to be accessed via the upper mezzanine and a second elevator. Also, for someone who doesn't know where they're going, the number 7 on this might be confusing, because they might think it refers to the number 7 train.
The tunnel on the lower mezzanine is really a very useful thing, if you're not in a wheelchair. It takes you over to 8th Avenue without having to outside. You avoid traffic. You avoid getting rained or snowed on. It's perfectly good for strollers and wheeled luggage. But it's not useful if you don't know what it leads to: just lower mezzanine. Above ground, the MTA advises people to use the street to get to the 1, 2, 3, 7, N, Q, R, W, & S if they're near the Port Authority Bus Terminal. That doesn't make sense to me. The tunnel is a wonderful resource. Maybe even someone in a wheelchair might use it if someone strong would help them.
"Flushing Platform" has become out of date. The number 7 train also now goes to the Hudson Yards, to the west, not just Flushing to the east. But for the casual tourist, what is Flushing anyway? That's sort of obscure for non-New Yorkers. Wouldn't they be more likely to recognize the word "Queens?" The 7 doesn't just go to Flushing to the east. It has a number of other stops in Queens.
-------
*footnote
I personally use this elevator quite often, because my neurologist advised me not to wear a backpack or carry a heavy purse, because of my disk issues. She told me to get wheeled luggage, so I go everywhere with a shopping trolley. This is actually a medical condition that makes me do it, so I try to take an elevator when I can, to avoid carrying the trolley up and down stairs. Because I'm in there so often I observe how people are riding up and down the elevator several times, because they're not sure which floor to get off on.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Hike up Mt Beacon -- warning very gross
On October 22, I hiked up to the overlook on Mt. Beacon.
Let's start out with the pretty pictures that I posted on FB.
You can click on this to get a better idea of what I saw that was pretty.
Now for the bad part. Warning some of this was gross. You might not want to read the rest of this blog. I'm just warning you.
First, there was a problem getting there. I was looking for Mt. Beacon on Google maps. Instead Google insisted on trying to send me to something called Beacon Mountain in Fishkill. I'm not sure if that was the same thing or not. In any case, Google maps wanted to take me up a road called Mt Beacon Monument Road. I was unable to find this road, only driveways in the area where it wanted me to turn.
I certainly didn't see any "Base Camp Bed & Breakfast," which should have had a sign if it was an extant business. Anyway, I got better directions from this website:
http://hikethehudsonvalley.com/mt-beacon/
They sent me to a parking lot that I had passed without much thought blindly following Google maps to a dead end on a private road.
It looked like the parking lot had overflowed, but when I went in there, at about 2:30, there were spaces. I guess some people had left.
Now this parking area is very nicely provided with 3 chemical toilets. This turns out to be important. When I'm hiking in NH, we use the woods; but this trail is very heavily used -- being in the NYC metro area -- and the woods are pretty open -- not much underbrush -- so going off behind a bush is not such a great option. Plus, of course, this is a high Lyme Disease area, so going off the trail is not such a great idea. Therefore it's a really, really good idea to have chemical toilets at the trailhead.
But -- these toilets are apparently serviced on a MWF schedule, which is fairly frequent
OK, very nice try guys. UM -- but this is Sunday -- and it's a lovely warm weekend and the place is overflowing. And the fact that the toilets were serviced on Friday is just not cutting it; no toilet paper and ... [you might not actually want to look at this picture. I wish there were a way of making it peek-a-boo on this blog, where you wouldn't have to look at it unless you click on it, but I don't know how to do that.]
Um. Yeah.
And, also, they have very nicely provided a trash can. Again, this is important for a heavily used trail in the NYC metro area. It appears that this trash can is probably emptied on the same schedule.
After that, I was much more careful to stay on what seemed to be the trail.
When I got down, I wanted to find out who was maintaining this trail, so I went to the bulletin board and found a QR code
Now, I've gotten a bit savvy with QR codes. I have a QR code on my resume that leads to my updates blog -- and I've got a QR code reader app on my cell phone -- so I was excited to demonstrate my prowess with my QR code app. Unfortunately, the link that this QR code leads to seems to be broken. All I could get, despite trying three times, was
Not very helpful.
Still there were a few useful things on this bulletin board, which I'm going to put here so that I can find them again easily if I need to. As usual, if you want to see these images larger, you should click on them..
Let's start out with the pretty pictures that I posted on FB.
You can click on this to get a better idea of what I saw that was pretty.
Now for the bad part. Warning some of this was gross. You might not want to read the rest of this blog. I'm just warning you.
First, there was a problem getting there. I was looking for Mt. Beacon on Google maps. Instead Google insisted on trying to send me to something called Beacon Mountain in Fishkill. I'm not sure if that was the same thing or not. In any case, Google maps wanted to take me up a road called Mt Beacon Monument Road. I was unable to find this road, only driveways in the area where it wanted me to turn.
I certainly didn't see any "Base Camp Bed & Breakfast," which should have had a sign if it was an extant business. Anyway, I got better directions from this website:
http://hikethehudsonvalley.com/mt-beacon/
They sent me to a parking lot that I had passed without much thought blindly following Google maps to a dead end on a private road.
It looked like the parking lot had overflowed, but when I went in there, at about 2:30, there were spaces. I guess some people had left.
Now this parking area is very nicely provided with 3 chemical toilets. This turns out to be important. When I'm hiking in NH, we use the woods; but this trail is very heavily used -- being in the NYC metro area -- and the woods are pretty open -- not much underbrush -- so going off behind a bush is not such a great option. Plus, of course, this is a high Lyme Disease area, so going off the trail is not such a great idea. Therefore it's a really, really good idea to have chemical toilets at the trailhead.
But -- these toilets are apparently serviced on a MWF schedule, which is fairly frequent
OK, very nice try guys. UM -- but this is Sunday -- and it's a lovely warm weekend and the place is overflowing. And the fact that the toilets were serviced on Friday is just not cutting it; no toilet paper and ... [you might not actually want to look at this picture. I wish there were a way of making it peek-a-boo on this blog, where you wouldn't have to look at it unless you click on it, but I don't know how to do that.]
Um. Yeah.
And, also, they have very nicely provided a trash can. Again, this is important for a heavily used trail in the NYC metro area. It appears that this trash can is probably emptied on the same schedule.
Now, again, this is a very heavily traveled trail -- and there are a lot of people on it. Some of those people have worn some short cuts and some long cuts: lots of trails all over the place. Sometimes it's hard to see what trail is a real trail and what trail is a short cut.
In any case, near the Overlook, which was my destination -- since I started too late to go up to the fire tower -- there was something that looked like a trail going up to the ruins of the building on top of the old train line. It wasn't really a trail. It was a 'short cut'.
As I got closer to the ruined building, the short cut got quite steep with slippery loose rocks. I put my hand down on a pile of rocks to steady myself. This loosened an object composed of at least two bricks and mortar. This object had originally been part of the now ruined building. This object struck my leg. Even though I was wearing long pants, I got some nasty scratches.
When I got down, I wanted to find out who was maintaining this trail, so I went to the bulletin board and found a QR code
Now, I've gotten a bit savvy with QR codes. I have a QR code on my resume that leads to my updates blog -- and I've got a QR code reader app on my cell phone -- so I was excited to demonstrate my prowess with my QR code app. Unfortunately, the link that this QR code leads to seems to be broken. All I could get, despite trying three times, was
Not very helpful.
Still there were a few useful things on this bulletin board, which I'm going to put here so that I can find them again easily if I need to. As usual, if you want to see these images larger, you should click on them..
A couple more notes.
I could really see what a bad drought we're having. Everything was dry as a bone. I got a fire danger warning on my e-mail last week. I'm not quite sure how I ended up getting weather alerts e-mailed to me, but somehow I get them. I hope we don't end up like northern California.
Also, the website said that the roundtrip to the overlook should take 1.5 hours. Right. As usual, I'm slow and it took me over 2 hours -- though it must be said that I spent quite a bit of time talking to people about my Vibram five fingers hiking shoes, which I love, and which everyone is curious about.
Thursday, September 14, 2017
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