Monday Meanderings - 11.5.2012

News reports and photos of the devastation of superstorm Sandy were very sobering. Among them, I saw photos of water flooding into the Battery Park Tunnel. BR (before retirement), I worked with a customer whose offices were at 55 Broadway in lower Manhattan.  If you looked straight down to the street level from the office I worked in, you could see the entrance to the Battery Park Tunnel. From the same window, if you looked two blocks to the right, you could see Ground Zero.

For a number of weeks we have passed a billboard (sponsored by a jewelry company) that had a life-like photo of a young man on a ladder, painting the message, "Joan, will you marry me?" Thought this was a clever ad. However this week, the message read, "Marry me, Catherine Wyndham - love, William." I'm guessing that if you buy the ring at the sponsoring jewelry store, you get to put your message on the billboard.

Without fanfare, Bank of America posted to my account my share of a class-action court settlement, labeled "Overdraft Fee Settlement." Since I had no knowledge of the settlement, or that I had even had an overdraft, for that matter, I looked it up on the Internety thing and found that this was way back in 2001. I can't remember what happened last week, let alone back in 2001, so I assume that I am due a settlement. Now I just have to figure out how to best invest my $1.24.

Keeping Austin weird. Here's a photo of some people in Austin waiting in line to vote. Notice anything unusual?

That's right. The guy in the suit and tie is completely out of character. This is Austin, after all. Oh, the guy in the Big Bird costume? That's John Kelso, humorist for the American Statesman. Turns out the guy in the suit was his bodyguard, in case someone took offense.