JCC Extends Usage of Outdoor Pool through the Cold Seasons.

The giant new bubble rises near the existing indoor pool.

The many facilities and services of the Bridgewater JCC on Talamini Road are among the best offered to this community and its surrounding area.

In particular, the JCC’s swimming pools are one of the numerous amenities used extensively by its members.  The JCC boasts a heated indoor pool, two outdoor pools (a large one and a small one), and several outdoor kiddy pools.

They are used for lap swimming, competitive swimming, training and swimming classes, fitness classes for older adults, summer programs for the kids, as well as for general, casual use. 

All About Knitting

 

 

Each Monday, those of us who blog for Courier News web site, MCJ.com, receive an e-mail which shows the number of ‘hits’ (the frequency of your visits) received by each blog for the prior week.  The results are sorted in numerical order, with blogs receiving the highest number of ‘hits’ listed first. 

Those rankings are established solely by you, the reader, and reflect the popularity of any specific blog which, in turn, is determined by your interest in the subject matter and the frequency and skill of postings by the author(s).

Sports themes are very popular, followed by a variety of other topics of general interest.  There is one blog, however, which has attracted my attention over the years during which I have been writing.  It is a weekly standout and different from all of the rest.

School Board & Union Appear Close to sewing it up.

On June 12, 2012, Teachers  rally at the Board of
Education meeting in the cafeteria of the
Bridgewater-Raritan High School. (Bergeron Image)

I called him yesterday afternoon, but before I could pose the question, Evan Lerner, President of the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education, anticipated my query by saying, “The answer is we are waiting for the BREA’s (Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association) salary guides." 

 
“There are two things left to complete,” he explained:  1. the salary guides and, 2. some contract language that still needs to be worked out.”
 
Mr. Lerner does not anticipate any glitches with contract language, emphasizing that “It’s not a problem.  Some of it we already have, and some still needs to be worked out.” 
 
The tentative agreement which has been reached locks in top-level numbers consisting of annual percentage pay increases.  Those percentages must be spread out over employee salary guides.

The 9/11 Wars: A Survivor

Last month, on a Tuesday in the second week of our vacation in New Hampshire, we had gone out for a walk and sightseeing in the picturesque lake town of Meredith.  On the edge of its main thoroughfare, we waited at a crosswalk that would take us to Town Docks where tourists regularly line up for great lobster rolls.



The undaunted courage of our American soldiers

 returning home manifests itself as much on an ordinary

 sidewalk, as it did in foreign fields of fire.

Cars had stopped to let us by, and one of them was honking for us to get on with it, but I was too preoccupied with observing the young man and woman walking away from us.  I would have only a moment to snap a telephoto shot of the American hero which you see in the accompanying image. 

I don’t know which of our three wars he fought in.  Nor do I know how many tours of duty he may have served on behalf of America.  But it seemed from his age and injury that it must have been Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan.  Which one of those military theaters of operation was the cause of his missing limb, I wondered?

The Unfinished Ceramic

The expression, "Stop to smell the roses"

 is merely a metaphor intended to prompt us

 to cherish the beauty that presents itself to  us daily.

I found it growing in the mulch, next to the leaves of one of the large Leatherleaf Viburnum bushes which stand in a row on the side of our back yard.  This huge mushroom caught my attention when the sun shone upon it on an especially bright day, before we left for our vacation Up North in New Hampshire.  

 
When we returned, there it was, just as healthy as before, with the sun causing it  to gleam like a piece of unfinished ceramic:  an irregular bowl fully glazed at the top, but earthy brown and seemingly unglazed at the bottom – an admirable work of nature, as are all things.
 
This particular fungus measures about a foot across and appears determined to hold out for another couple of weeks before it succumbs to its eventual destiny, which is that of all living things.  I’ll watch it advance to a ripe old age and admire its tenacity as it continues to bask in the sunshine of each day.
 
Thanks for reading.  Have a good weekend.
 
(Click on the image for an enhanced view.)

The Predator in our Garden

A Praying Mantis assumes its innocent-looking

 posture as it waits for its next victim.

One of the most humbling experiences for mankind is that whatever it discovers or develops is merely an acknowledgement or an application of what already exists in its natural state. 

 
For example, the United States was the first nation to have applied military stealth technology with the deployment of bomber and fighter aircraft, one of which – the F-114 Nighthawk – was used extensively in 1991, during the Persian Gulf War.
 
Because its approach could not easily be detected by radar, the F-117 was a fear-inspiring ground-attack aircraft.  Nature, however, has its own way of employing stealth in the design of its predatory creatures, one instance of which is the Praying Mantis . . .