us44mt's Journal

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New Replicas
We've most definitely have been in the summer doldrums around here lately. My wife took a new part time position which eliminates any few days getaway. I wanted to take the boys to Pocono Raceway for qualifying day and they were so looking forward to it, but the ominous forcast that day canceled that. I felt so bad for the boys, the were so looking forward to it, but they understood. Can't do anything about bad weather. But we are doing a Renegades game tonight and a Skyhawks game with fireworks next week, so that will be some good times.

Jason now starting football practice. 2 down, 46 or so to go. It's frustrating, he just isn't aggressive enough to do football and I'm taking the whole group to all these practices to see him play 6 plays a game (minimum playing time requirement), but he loves the game so we do it. I think the team is going to do well, a much better coaching staff than last years group.

My remedy for the doldrums is getting a new group of replicas. This bunch arrived today.

Great looking US 82 Mississippi blue shield.

No, this isn't a lonely stretch of US 82 in the middle of the night. This is in my downstairs which is probably a much more scary place. Nice reflective white paint on the US 82.

These white shields are hard to get and even harder to get delivered! So I got a replica. Great looking with the bold numbers. Funny how the eyes play tricks on you. I looked at it and thought the shape of the sign was more narrow than the off the road green/white sign I have, but they matched up about perfectly.

The sign this one is modeled from one that was on ebay once. It is a perfect match for the original, less road grime and wear.

The signs for I 86 in New York are cropping up in Orange County (quite prematurely I might add), but I prefer the state name I 86 from long ago. Only a photo or 2 exists from the old I 86, but Jake has the knowledge to do it right, another great sign.

This is a great looking US 83 Texas shield. Unusual with the flat top 3.

Much thanks to Jake, Kim and Rod for there efforts.

I don't know lot about Blackberry devices. They are nice, but I don't know about their reliability. I'm now on my third one in 3 months. Always the same problem, the screen just turns white while the phone still operates. Always seems to occur when the battery is about 25% or lower. I guess as long as Verizon keeps giving them to me, I'll keep using them.

He's not having a real good season and is having trouble catching up to the fastball, but he makes a great picture. And he'll always be my little all star.

I have a dilemma. I got my bank statement today from the account I created to sell some stuff for a friend of mine on ebay. Somehow, it accumulated $0.01 of interest this month. What can I spend this new cash windfall on?

Impatient People Are Fun To Watch
Had to take Matt to NYC today for a fillup. The ride down was good. The ride back was going quickly until about 6 miles before our exit off the Thruway in Harriman. There was a backup that took about 40 minutes to clear. And we enjoyed it. How? By watching how some people ahead of us would make violent moves with their cars to gain maybe 2 or 3 cars advantage over their previous position and maybe clear the jam about 10 seconds earlier. It was quite funny to watch. It reminded me of watching a nascar race when cars pull out of their pit stalls into traffic. People were making moves with total disregard if the people who they were cutting in on were going to cut them some slack and let them in. One guy ahead of us must have swapped lanes 8 times. He used all 3 lanes available. Reminded me of one of those people in a supermarket checkout line that kind of straddle 2 lines to see which will empty out sooner. The time passed quickly and eventually we made it home.

Today started bright and sunny, fairly decent so I made a quick trip into Ulster for some more outline hunting. The day turned overcast quickly, but it was still a good day to get out as the next 2 weeks are kind of busy. I want to head to the upper area of Ulster, but I had Marky with me, so we ventured just a little deeper than last trip. We went up Rt. 32 to the Rosendale area, over towards the north side of the Shawangunk Ridge near Mohonk, through High Falls and onto the Lucas Turnpike.

hesterprynne02 mentioned in an earlier post that Lucas Turnpike Ulster County route 1 as the possible location of outlines and she was correct as the part that I traveled yielded 3 outlines, all in pretty old shape. I was glad to get these photos as a few of the shields on UC 1 are now being replaced. Thanks for that information.

A recycled shield that should be retired, preferably at the S.H.I.T.

Another A route shield. Ulster County 6 has quite a few outlines, 6 I've seen.

The Ulster count is now 36 shields. I was aiming for 30, so with a good part of Ulster still to see, I think I can reach 50. 11 new today. Enjoyable stuff.

Cost of cable? With the digital tier and phone service about $149 a month.

Watching Rivera give up back to back homers in the 9th and the shocked silence of the Yes crew: PRICELESS.

Not the best of weeks for the Bronx Bumblers.

It's another beautiful Friday. Time to document some more history (or in my case, look for Ulster County signs). I had Little Mark with me today. I never know if he's going to enjoy being out for a ride or not so I decided to just skirt the lower part of Ulster from New Paltz, up and over the Shawangunk Ridge and over towards Ellenville. Nary a fuss from him, thanks Marky. It was another successful day as we bagged 7 new outlines. A couple were found way up in the hills above Ellenville. It seems we have success the more we get away from state highways.

Ulster has quite a few suffixed county routes, but the first few I had traveled yielded no outlines so it was quite cool to find this 18A.

Then later, the 22A.

Unusual looking directional for these parts.

A great day for climbing the cliffs of the Gunks if that is what you're into. Not for me.

A great view of the ridge looking towards Mohonk and the tower.

A good day.

It must be the fake rust effect
Or maybe the reflectors are diamonds. It has to be a record. $1275 for one of those fake ugly shield 66's. 3 people bid over $1000 bucks on it and 4 or 5 others went over $500. Hard to believe.

Added a couple of cutouts, nothing too spectacular, but good for the institute.

A nice US 11 cutout. It has a pole mark on it, but I have no clue where it may have been used. Maybe Joe K. put it on a pole on his yard for awhile to increase its selling potential. Whatever, I like it.

A B. I. N., not a terribly high price. Not the best of condition, but we've seen worse. Geez, I now have authentic cutout shields from 5 states, woo hoo!

As long as I'm writing about my boys, I should give Matthew his space. He finished up his bowling season this week and finished with a 150 average, up 5 pins from the previous season. He looks forward to it alot and the owners of Colonial Lanes in Chester deserve alot of credit for letting his group bowl for a reduced rate on a weekend.

We gave Matt a birthday present today, a month early, but this way he can wear it before the weather gets warm. A super sharp looking Tony Stewart racing jacket, one of the better looking Nascar jackets I've seen.

Move over Big Papi. This is my new favorite Red Sox player.

Walked 3 times in 3 at bats scored twice and stole a base in a 14-10 loss. He felt bad because he made the last out when he ran out of the baseline to avoid a tag. But I explained that it wasn't his fault, with runners behind him he had to run. At least he didn"t try to pull an A-Rod slap as seen here.

There is one kid on the team I feel real bad for. They have been practicing about a month and I haven't seen him hit a ball yet. Yesterday, 9 swings, 9 misses. I will be so happy for him once he makes any kind of hit, even an out.

Ulster Outlines

After a few weeks off, I had long planned for this day to be a travel day. My wife was scheduled to be away at a seminar but decided not to go. Nevertheless, I decided to do the trip. I couldn't decide whether to venture far into Conn. near R.I or stick closer to home and go to Ulster. Since I had Matt with me, I decided to go to Ulster. Jason had kind of a sad look when he saw us leaving and asked if he could go. I told him that I was going to be doing sign photos. It took him all of 1/100th of a second to say that it was ok, he would stay home.

I'm finding much the same it seems in Ulster as with Orange County. Some roads with, some without. I think the percentage is a little lower in Ulster at this point, they seem harder to track down than Orange.

There used to be a few UC 11 shields, this was the only one left. Not the oldest I've seen, but the first that has vines growing on it.

I was surprised to see any of this kind. The directional signs on US 9W, NY 28 and US 209 were all of the generic county type except for a pair on US 209. 3 of the shields spotted were of the recycled type.

Its a conspiracy I tell you. Orange has no 44 outlines and neither does Ulster. There are a few of these tiny font shields floating around Ulster.

Otto had a few photos of these shields when he had his site, but I really had to search almost the whole route until I found this one. They've been replacing these I guess.

The shields for NY 213 west of US 209 don't look real old , but they all seem to have a weatherbeaten look to them.

I circled this mountain for about an hour until I found a spot for an unobstructed view of it at the Ashokan Reservoir bridge. I'm not sure the name of this mountain. I don't think its Slide Mountain, the highest in the Catskills. The level at the reservoir was a bit lower than I thought it would be at this time of year.

This photo from the pulloff area near Minnewaska on US 44 doesn't do the view justice. This is one of my favorite areas to drive. They're not the Rockies, but the Catskills are quite awesome.

This was the best view I've ever had of the Skytop Tower at Mohonk. I used to ride with my mom to SUNY at New Paltz as a kid and I always thought it was an interesting structure, even though I had no idea what it was.

It was a great day, about perfect weather topping out about 70 degrees. We found 12 outline shields. The Ulster count is now at 18. I'd like to see if I can find a dozen more. I don't think Ulster has the same amount as Orange.

In this day and age, I'm surprised the Burger King joint on 9W in Kingston gets away with having rest rooms that are so totally handicapped inadequate. It may meet all legal requirements, but try to get a wheelchair into the doorway and stall. Disgraceful. Good thing the kid could hold it.

Ouch!
Beautiful spring day in these parts and as usual, me and my youngest went to the park for about a 3 mile walk. While doing a lap around the park, we passed the park caretaker who was working on a gate. He said hello and said what a great day it was to take my "Grandson" to the park. I just smiled and kept on walking, but my legs all the sudden started aching tremendously :-)

Current Mood: amused

When it comes to embossed replicas, it would be hard to top this.

Compared to what was previously available. So good, that the Arizona, which was the first sign I ever acquired, now goes into storage.

Most people who come to my house like the color signs, so this will fit in well.

Thanks to Jake for the fine effort on these beauties.

Finished up the Orange County journey today (cheers) and this will be my last entry on the subject (double cheers).

Only was successful on 1 of 5 roads today, but overall, photographed 23 shields I hadn't seen before. Now the totally useless statistics I like to come up with.

Total Orange County Routes traveled: 93
Total number of roads with shields at time traveled: 65
Percentages: 69.9% with, 30.1% without
Total number of shields photographed: 125
Total number of routes with multiple shields: 33

I started doing photos for the gallery I created on May 28, 2008. In that period of time, 8 of the ones I have photographed have been removed.

Most shields that remain do not have any kind of date marker on them, but many of the white outlines seem to be from the 1992-95 range. I did see an outline that was put up in May of 2000, quite odd since many of the pentagon shields are older than that, some by quite a bit.

When I started tracking the routes, I thought that I would always find an outline at a county or state border. This was not all that correct. County roads that traveled into New Jersey had outlines on 7 of 8 roads. Outlines were on 2 of 3 routes that ran into Ulster County, 3 of 6 routes into Sullivan County and 0 of 2 into Rockland County. That worked out to 12 of 19, 63.1%, lower than the overall percentage.

The highway department seemed to be determined to rid these outlines on certain New York state routes. Route 17K is the worst offender as 6 of 7 signs of roads that end there were of the pentagon type, although further away, most roads there had an outline. Route 17M in Monroe was poor for outlines also.

Good areas were located in the Cornwall area and northwest Orange County was good, but that is an area where they seem to be concentrating on replacements.

Only 4 of the good old outline shields remain, they were all accounted for this week.

Another Ulster shield seen today was way ancient. I will try to do one daylong sweep on as many roads as I can hit.

It's kind of amazing. Every day around 8:30pm, all these critters start circling me, like I am the great god of food or something. Sometimes, things get comical.

This may be the grey tiger cat's first appearance over the doggie fence since we have gotten the dog, about 2 years now. It amazes me how utterly lazy this cat is.

Uh oh, there is definite tension in the air as a confrontation is imminent.

And let the battles begin.

Continued in my journeys around Orange County in search for county outline signs. traveled 12 different county roads today and was successful finding outlines on 9 of them, a 75%, fairly equal to the total of 73%. 88 routes down, 5 to go. I'm going to miss these trips as I really enjoy getting out and hunting these signs down.

I was concentrating on the southeast part of the county today. It amazes me how desolate and barren parts of the county remain, especially the southern part of the county which is about 40 minutes from the big city.

I think the Orange County Massage Therapists Society should put me on their payroll based on all the customers that I send them with neck strains from asking "WTF is that guy taking a photo of?"

Didn't find anything too great today. I thought I might spot one of those old style outlines. there was a photo of one from 2003, but that shield has been replaced. As far as I can tell, only 4 of those remain, 2 on county route 11, 1 on county route 49 and 1 on county route 88 (which is actually a recycled county route 100 sign).

Did spot this old Ulster County outline sign. I'm going to try to get more shots of those as they are disappearing also, but I'm not going to do the same effort as I did with Orange County.

The generation gap between me and Jason was never more evident than it was today. Even though we only got hit with about 5 inches of snow, it was very windy and cold when I went out to clean up the yard. It felt quite brutal out there, snow blowing back onto me whichever way I had the snowblower angle and I was pissing and moaning every second I was out there. As I'm working out there, Jason comes out and starts hitting a ball around the yard, running as if he was running the bases, sliding and getting covered with snow and loving every second of it. I asked him what he was doing., He says he has to get ready for practice in about a month. Gotta love that dedication. And his team this year is the RED SOX, whoo hoo!