Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

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  • A Dance Parade, Protesters, Painters & People Stealing Garbage

    A Dance Parade, Protesters, Painters & People Stealing Garbage

    People protesting something going on in Turkey.
    People protesting something going on in Turkey.
    A crazy guy dancing with a toilet seat. He usually does this by the large black cube at Astor Place.
    A crazy guy dancing with the molding from a van window, I think. He usually does this by the large black cube at Astor Place.
    This guy was taking a break from dancing to the tune of a nearby Buddhist meditation group. Shortly after this, he took a bag of trash from the public bin and walked away with it.
    This guy was taking a break from dancing to the tune of a nearby Buddhist meditation group. Shortly after this, he took a bag of trash from the public bin and walked away with it.
    This is Francis Virella. He wants to make it big as an artist.
    This is Francis Virella. He wants to make it big as an artist.

    Today, there were all sorts of things going on in Union Square. We just happened to be walking through and saw a crazy guy dancing, another crazy guy stealing a bag of garbage from a public trash can, had a conversation with a guy that wants to make it big as an artist, and then wandered into a dance parade. It was a lot of fun, and the random, amazingly entertaining things that you can just stumble into is one of the reasons I love New York City.

    You can see the rest of the parade photos, in a higher resolution in my Flickr gallery by clicking HERE.

  • Don’t Use Sprint if You Want to Own Your iPhone

    Just an FYI. Don’t get #Sprint.

    When you finish your 2 year contract, they won’t unlock your iPhone 4s for domestic use on other networks. They also won’t lower your bill after your phone is paid off and you by all rights own it completely. And they’ll tell you some bogus story about how it’s because you don’t really own it. They do, because you got it at a subsidized rate, even though common sense tells you that the cost of the phone is included in the higher rate, which is why #TMobile has separated plan cost from phone cost in their new offerings.

    They’ll also try to spin some web of garbage about how even if the iPhone 4S were unlocked it wouldn’t work on US GSM networks, even though it’s the same hardware that is used by AT&T and Verizon and T-Mobile and it has GSM radios and CDMA and works on Canadian frequencies which are the same as US frequencies.

    So basically I pumped about 2400+ bucks into Sprint over two years and now I can’t even use my phone the way I want, where I want, despite being the legal owner. Why? Because there is no law to compel Sprint to unlock these phones yet. The other big 3 do it voluntarily and legislation is unfolding that would compel unlocking, but I can’t wait that long and continue to pay the same rate I was paying when I was paying off the phone. Basically, Sprint is a greedy sack of crap company that won’t unlock phones for customers because they’d rather trap you and keep sucking the money out of your pocket while offering you subpar service at an inflated rate.

    Well guess what? There are better options. One of them is the one I mentioned above: T-Mobile. They have a great plan set up. 50 bucks a month for data/text/talk + phone cost, and phone cost goes away after 24 months when you own your hardware. Unlike Sprint. Who keeps you at the same rate, even though you paid off your hardware.

    But, I don’t trust plans anymore. I don’t want to deal with it.

    I’m so through with Sprint that I just ordered a 5S from Virgin Mobile cash up front. I’ll use their prepaid plan and be locked in at that rate for the rest of my life if I want, 35 bucks a month unlimited talk/text/data. And you know what? I still may not be able to take my phone with me when (or if I ever) leave Virgin, but I’ll know what I’m getting up front. And the cost savings over time are more than worth it to me. 93 a month on Sprint versus 35 a month on Virgin plus the up front cost of the phone is still a savings of almost 1200 dollars over 24 months.

    Suck it, Sprint.

  • Yeshiva University

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    I can see this place from the end of my block but I rarely have a reason to come this far uptown. I was on 181 this morning dropping off an Amazon return and snapped this photo while waiting on the bus. I wonder if there are any kosher or Israeli restaurants around here?

  • The Attempted Burglar is Back in the Building

    The girl that lives next door sent me panicked messages saying she saw the person that tried to break into her apartment again, out in the hallway on our floor. I don’t understand how this person is back here again. How do you attempt to break into someone’s apartment, get caught, and then show up at the building again wandering around like nothing happened?

    The police detective involved in the case said there’s nothing he can do to keep her out of the building. That’s up to the building owners. It just seems like it would be common sense, from a legal point of view, to prevent someone from being within a certain distance from a place they tried to rob previously. Now, the only thing to do is get the building owner to state that she is not allowed on the premises and then have her arrested for trespassing, but if she’s a crackhead and is coming here to buy drugs and rob people, will that even stop her? What a mess.

    Oh, and she’s still wearing the same hoodie.

  • The Would-be Burglar Was Arrested

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    Over the past few days, we’ve seen the person that attempted to break into our apartment and our neighbor’s apartment wandering around the building in the stairwells and out on the streets. My wife took the photo above. As you can see, the person did not even bother to throw away the hoodie. Or leave the area.

    We stayed in contact with a detective that was working on the case. Me, my wife and the girl that lives next door told him that we’d seen the suspect around the building and neighborhood multiple times so he came and reviewed the security footage. Turns out it’s not a he. It’s a she, and she is a crackhead that used to live in the building and is sleeping on the roof. I couldn’t make out features under the hoodie and just assumed this person was a man, I suppose because it seems a little unwise to do breaking and entering as a woman, when there is a greater chance of being overpowered by anyone inside. She has been arrested before for breaking into people’s apartments and stealing in order to support her drug habit.

    Yesterday, my wife and the girl whose apartment was almost burglarized saw the suspect in the morning and I saw her in the afternoon, out on the street. I called 911, but the cops never showed up. That’s really disappointing. I waited outside for almost 15 minutes and then gave up. I went into the subway to try to get the transit cops to come out and arrest her, but they weren’t interested in helping. Their conversation with their colleagues was too interesting, I guess. I went home, and when I got to my floor, the building superintendent told me she had gone into one of the apartments in the building. I called the detective to let him know and found out later that she had been arrested.

    I’m not sure what she’ll be charged with, but hopefully it’s something that keeps her away from our building for a while, or permanently.

  • May Flowers (Updated)

    May Flowers (Updated)

    These flowers were in front of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

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    It was a great place to stop and have a banana.

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  • An Update on the Break-in Attempt

    Around 9 PM, another cop knocked on my door. My neighbor had finally returned home and found my note taped to her door. Her parents were there as well. The cops took my statement and information again and this time at least told me to keep the photos in case they found or find the guy so they can build a case against him. My neighbor also wanted copies of the photos so I sent them to her. Funny thing is, we’ve lived next door to each other for a year but until tonight I never even knew her name. Nothing brings people together like misfortune, I guess, but it’s nice that we’ve managed to turn this into an opportunity to get to know each other.

  • Attempted Break-in by a Criminally Stupid Criminal

    Attempted Break-in by a Criminally Stupid Criminal

    This morning I woke up to the sound of banging. I went to check the door because I was expecting a package today (another book for my MA Arab-Israeli Conflict course), but no one was there. I figured it must have been the people downstairs that are renovating the apartment below ours. When I walked back down the hallway I heard banging on the window in our bathroom, so I went to see what was going on.

    When I stepped into the bathroom I saw a guy standing there on the other side of the window out on the fire escape. I couldn’t see him clearly because the glass is frosted, but I could see a silhouette. I wasn’t sure what was going on at first because it was 10:30 am, very sunny and the corner of the building is still visible from the street because the trees haven’t grown leaves yet.

    The guy must have seen me through the window as well. He moved over to his right, towards my neighbor’s apartment windows. I figured the guy was going to run or something, but instead he started kicking in the glass of my neighbor’s window. I peeked through the blinds to double-check, because really, who is stupid enough to keep trying to break into a apartments when they just saw someone in the next apartment? I saw glass falling. I went to the bathroom, opened the window, peeked around the corner and saw the guy leaning into the window, so I shut the window and called the police.

    I can’t imagine the guy didn’t hear me open and close the window, unless it’s louder standing on the fire escape than it was for me inside. The whole time I was on the phone with the police though he kept at it, breaking glass on the window. When I got off the phone with the police, I went back to the bathroom, cracked the window open, stuck my hand out and snapped a few photos. Then I shut the window. I heard more glass breaking.

    About 5 minutes later I heard the guy go up the fire escape to the roof. Two minutes later the police were at my door. I gave my statement and two cops went through my window onto the fire escape to look at the neighbor’s window. They confirmed the glass was broken. I showed them the photos I took. The weird thing was, the cop was using her iPhone to take a photo of the photo on my iPhone screen. I asked her if it wouldn’t make more sense to just forward the pictures to her and she declined. Seems like it would be better to have the real photo for ID purposes, especially since tattoos are clearly visible in my pictures.

    While I was talking to the cops they got a call over the radio saying that a suspect matching the description of the picture had been spotted. I didn’t hear it exactly, but the sergeant I think replied, “He’s still wearing the same clothes?” Then they all ran down the stairs. I imagine they got the guy. Or at least I would hope they did.

    I don’t believe in something like slut shaming, but I do believe in shaming criminal stupidity, especially in this instance, when I don’t know whether the cops caught this guy, so I’m going to share these photos I took of the guy, as a sort of public service. If you see this guy, don’t let him near your windows.

    Glass on the fire escape. The metal window gate is an old one that’s been there for over a year.
    My neighbor’s window.
  • End of the Semester Rush

    End of the Semester Rush

    With the end of the semester fast approaching and the amount of work I have to do becoming ever more depressing, I haven’t had time to really think about and process my trip to Israel. I haven’t looked through the photos. I certainly haven’t had time to blog about it in any depth. I could rush some posts and throw some pictures up here, but that wouldn’t really do the experience any justice. So, I’ll have to wait and hopefully I won’t forget too much before I have a chance to get it written down. Or typed down?

    Anyway, for now, here are some cool photos I took of the C train and 168th street train station in Manhattan.

    The C train sitting in the 168th Street station.
    The C train sitting in the 168th Street station.
    168th Street Train Platform
    168th Street Train Platform

  • Women’s Half Marathon

    Because my wife kicks ass, she went out to Central Park on Sunday and ran a half-marathon and then came home and told me about it like it was no big deal.

    This is the awesome medal she got:

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    She’s working on building herself up to doing a full marathon. I’m sure she’ll have a medal for that soon as well.

    Congrats sweetie!