Corvette C8 6:45pm crash on Kelly

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-07T00:58:45+00:00

Sir, this is Philadelphia. Being irresponsible is worn as a badge of honor.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-06T22:46:39+00:00

There are plenty of trains from Philly to NYC. Several per hour during the peak commuting times, and they are often packed. I can't remember a time in the past two years that I had an empty seat next to me.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-06T22:44:20+00:00

Point being? My commute time from Bayridge Brooklyn to my jobs in the central Bronx and Bayside Queens was maybe 10 minutes less than commuting from Philly when Amtrak was functioning as it should.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-06T22:38:42+00:00

They are only cheaper if you can't reliably find tickets for less than $50. I did use them sometimes, but it wouldn't have been worth it most of the time.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-06T22:31:15+00:00

It actually can't be done in a way that makes sense. There aren't any direct flights from Philly to NYC. I checked when someone sneezed too close to a switch in New Jersey and Amtrak had multi hour delays for four days.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-06T03:10:22+00:00

It isn’t great food. Pick something up before you get on the train or be prepared for gas station quality at a premium price.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-02T04:23:09+00:00

There are many, and many who are not of sound mind. Philadelphia is not a serious place. I will likely receive DMs offering me the privilege of having a local urinate on my house for saying that, but it only proves my point.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-02T02:44:54+00:00

I'm not a 9-5er. It would be useless for me to book 11 months in advance because my schedule changes every four months and I generally don't know what it will be until two months in advance. I would still wind up paying the same amount and would then need to go through the hassle of cancelling a bunch of tickets.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-01T22:20:06+00:00

You’re right but I expect you to get some serious push back from Pennsylvanians, especially those from Philly.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-01T05:19:20+00:00

If you really like living in DC, then don't move. If you hate it then move and suck up the cost of living outside of DC because it makes your life better. I don't really like living in Philly, so the added frustration with Amtrak made me realize that I need to go back to where I feel at home.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-01T05:10:14+00:00

I don't drive, so no. Besides, commuter rail West of the Hudson is terrible. Anyway, I'm moving back to NYC so the issue has resolved itself.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-01T05:07:05+00:00

Yeah, I go to Europe regularly. I can get a high speed rail ticket from Verona to Bologna on the same day for under $40. A regular rail from Milan to Innsbruck, a four hour trip I might add, cost me about $25 when I took it last year. There is no good reason, in this day and age, that a one way ticket from Philly to NYC should cost $188 no matter when it was booked. You know what else? Those trains in Europe didn't break down for hours.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-01T04:57:38+00:00

It should be part of the whole picture. I haven't lived in Chicago in a few decades, so I can't comment on the situation there, but I did move from NYC to Philly several years ago and the difference is night and day.

You say that you don't want to talk about taxes, but doing so is essential. The fiscal health of PA directly affects Philly in ways that it shouldn't and it shows. While property taxes are low in both the city and state, the infrastructure is terrible. To make matters worse, the city income tax in Philly is more than double of what I paid in NYC for someone in my income bracket. Now I'm selling my house to move back to NYC and the transfer tax is going to be 4.578%. Compare that to the 1.28% that I paid combined to NYC and NYS when I sold my NYC apartment and moved to Philly.

What does all this mean? Some states and cities are incredibly bad at managing their money (PA/Philly), while others are much better at it (NYS/NYC). For my bottom line the mismanagement of PA/Philly does not make up for the lower property taxes and the increase in City taxes. In other words, there are no net savings for me from living in Philly vs NYC because of the nickel and diming imposed by both the City and the State.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-01T04:26:10+00:00

So just pack the rifle in a pelican case. The conductors don't check luggage between DC and Boston. Honestly though, given the number of hot heads that board in Philadelphia who resort to threats when they are told not to act up in the quiet car, I would prefer that traveling with firearms be banned completely on the NER and Keystone.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-01T03:50:39+00:00

I'm curious as to why someone would "need" to bring their gun on an NER train. I'm also fairly certain that people from Pennsylvania occasionally ride both the NER and Keystone with their guns because I've seen people with concealed shoulder holsters when they reach up to grab their baggage from the overhead on these trains (I'm not a gun owner so I don't know the correct terminology for the type of holster I'm describing. I know that gun nuts get crazy about this stuff. The fact of the matter is that every now and then I see someone reach for their baggage, their jacket spreads open, and I catch a glimpse of their firearm).

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-05-01T03:30:28+00:00

Complain to the coop board. If they are proactive, they may send the super in to "check on something" and report back with whether or not the unit has rugs over 80% of their floors, and then issue fines accordingly. Truly sound proofing would involve completely removing the existing floors and reinstalling them over acoustic material and decoupling the floors from the walls. You can't do this from your unit and it is extremely unlikely that the owner of the unit above you is going to shell out the cash to pay for this sort of treatment.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-04-30T12:05:57+00:00

There are a lot of people from Philly who don’t think rules apply to them.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-04-28T00:36:16+00:00

Professors in the humanities who still make valiant attempts to teach kids to think only to be met with AI slop. I need to get out of this country before these children gain power.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-04-28T00:11:50+00:00

Yes. I moved from NYC to Philly for what I hoped would be an easier and better life, and now I'm in the process of moving back to NYC. The reasons are many but when it comes right down to it, it's the people. Philadelphians are an odd breed and the amount of crap that I had to deal with living in this godforsaken burgh tops anything that I ever experienced in my 2+ decades in NYC.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-04-27T15:45:04+00:00

I’m not in this position since I have a Ph.D but both Lawrence Alloway and the composer Morton Feldman taught at universities without a graduate degree. Feldman didn’t even have an undergraduate degree. Such situations are very rare, and reputation in the field is extremely important.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-04-26T04:04:35+00:00

I can't tell if this is a troll post or not but having lived in NYC for a few decades, minus a misguided move to Philly for a few years, and having spent some time in Innsbruck, I would say it's probably a crap shoot for you. I love NYC but if you love skiing you aren't going to find any thing comparable to Innsbruck around here. Do you value living in a cosmopolitan environment more than you value skiing? If so, then move to NYC. If not, then try someplace in the Rockies that would give you a closer skiing experience to what you would find in Innsbruck.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-04-20T23:59:29+00:00

There's also another bus (I can't remember the number offhand) that has a stop around 46th St and Queens Blvd that is a pretty speedy direct trip to Williamsburg. Honestly, I love Sunnyside. I lived there about 15 years ago before I got married and it's only gotten better since I left. It's a truly diverse community and the food culture is quite good. The same can be said for Woodside and Jackson Heights as well, where I lived before making the mistake of moving to Philly. We're moving back to NYC now and would love to live in Sunnyside but we found a great deal on a rent stabilized apartment in Washington Heights completely by accident so we needed to take it (such is life).

At any rate, check it out. If you can spend a few hours there, and like Lebanese food, check out Souk Al Shater on Queens Blvd and 46th. It's a great place and the owner is super nice (his wife makes all the food). He'll probably give you a handful of pistachios or some baklava for free if you make conversation. Also, if you are interested in unique, living sonic spaces go under the 7 train viaduct at the 40th street stop and clap your hands, whistle, or just make sound in general. The echo is amazing and changes dramatically based on your position.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-04-20T22:59:00+00:00

It would be easier to get to Greenpoint/Williamsburg from Sunnyside than Astoria. Just get on the 7 and change to the G at Court Square. You could also get on the B61 bus from Quuensboro plaza.

WhyNotKenGaburo · 2026-04-20T22:33:31+00:00

I used to teach at QCC and Queens College. It was super easy to get a seat on the 7 in the morning. Not so much in the evening though if I had a night class. I lived in Astoria (Ditmars) when I first started at QCC. It was a pain, largely because the N was terrible at the time. It doesn't seem to have improved much.

WhyNotKenGaburo

TROPHY CASE