My Peculiar Habit

In full disclosure, I must confess to having never had a problem with liquor-- until, perhaps, now.

There was no alcoholism in my family. My father would drink an occasional beer on weekends, but I saw him tipsy only once, when I was seven or eight years old. My mother gave him hell.

No one else in the family drank. I remember a quart of blackberry brandy that set on a shelf low in a kitchen cabinet. It stayed there for at least 15 years and the level of brandy in the bottle never changed.

I take an occasional drink, but I've been drunk only once, when I was in my early twenties. That was quite enough. I will drink a beer or a snifter of liquor or a shot of whiskey when I remember to, which isn't all that often. In short, I don't have a problem with consumption of alcohol. My problem, it seems, is collecting alcohol.

For the past three or so years I've been buying a bottle or two of liquor whenever I get paid. Since I get paid twice a month, you might guess I've accumulated quite a collection. You would be right.

It started when I decided it would be nice to have a few bottles to serve guests-- perhaps a bottle each of rum, whiskey, vodka, and tequila and a few mixers. I bought a cocktail shaker and proceeded to buy one of each.

There was only one problem-- I didn't stop.

So now I have, let's see, 65 bottles of assorted liquor. I can't believe it. I have eleven brands of bourbon, thee Canadian, two Irish, and five scotch whiskys, five types of rum, six nut liqueurs, and fruit liqueurs in lemon, orange, currant, raspberry, blackberry, pear, peach, plum, apple, and cherry (three different cherries!). I have vodka, tequila, ouzo,cognac, schnapps, aquavit (nasty stuff, that), absinthe, and a healthy assortment of bitters and flavorings.

Many bottles have intact seals; most of those I have opened were only for a smell and a taste. I've yet to empty or even half-empty a bottle, even of my favorites (crème de cassis and crème de mûre and amaretto). Some bottles may never be opened.

In pursuit of my collection I've learned a lot about liquor. I know the various types and the ways they are made. I know the difference between whisky and whiskey, a single malt and a blend, a pot still and a column still, what a peated scotch tastes like, what makes a bourbon a bourbon, why Tennessee whiskeys can't be called bourbon, and which countries are famous for what (Slovakian plum brandy, anyone?). When I go to the liquor store these days I almost always know more than the resident expert.

As hobbies go it's an innocent one, if expensive. I must admit to feeling as if I'm sitting on top of a powder box, though. What if a horde of near-alcoholic distant relations or acquaintances or a congregaton of neighbors converge on the house and I feel obliged to offer them a drink? It would be one hell of a drunk. Ringwood would be talking about it for decades.

Getting Legal

My then 18-year-old Miata in 2012 above Fontana Lake, NC

Changing my papers to reflect residence in New Jersey wasn't difficult. I spent a couple of hours at the DOT office in Oakland and left with a new license and tags for my car and two motorcycles. The difficulty came later, when I took my 1996 Miata for inspection.

I took my car to the private inspection station at the LukOil station in Wanaque-- or was it Haskell? I'm never sure where one town starts and other ends. To my surprise the car failed.

The reason wasn't out of bounds emissions but rather lack of communication with my car's computer. The man in charge told me the car had been disconnected from the battery.

The car had not in fact been disconnected from the battery, but my battery was five years old and due for replacement, so I ordered a replacement and installed it-- and new plugs and plug wires, since it had been a couple of years since I changed them. I drove the car around as the garage had suggested and took it back for reinspection-- same problem.

I drove to another private inspection station and got the same result. They suggested I have the computer rebooted by the dealer, so I did something I have never ever done in my life-- I took my car to a dealership. I told the service manager at Ramsey Mazda I wanted the computer rebooted and a explanation why oxygen, catalytic converter, and exhaust gas recirculation vale sensors were showing as offline.

The dealer kept my car over the long Memorial Day weekend and called me on Tuesday to tell me it was ready to be picked up. I had my sweetie drop me off on Wednesday morning. The clerk at the service desk told me the Miata needed oxygen sensors and a catalytic converter, to the tune of $1300.

Yeah, right. I paid only $2300 for the car.

I wasn't about to pay until someone explained what was going on with the computer, but the service manager was off and the person in charge was reluctant to let me speak with the mechanic. Initially I decided to sit in the waiting room until Heather got off work but I soon said the hell with that and kept pestering people until I got the name of the owner of the dealership. I called and left a message on his machine, and wouldn't you know it, within 15 minutes I was chatting with the mechanic while a nervous assistant service manager fidgeted and sweated.

I left satisfied with the mechanic's explanation-- the car needed at least one of the oxygen sensors replaced and the O2 sensor wouldn't report until it did-- and until the O2 sensors were functioning the sensors down the line (oxygen sensor heater, catalytic converter, EGR) would also show as incomplete.

In other words, the service manager had lied to me. It was entirely possible my car needed a new catalytic converter, but that couldn't be determined until the oxygen sensors were replaced.

I paid and left. When I got home I went online and ordered two Bosch oxygen sensors. The forward sensor was less than $35. I could have gotten a generic rear sensor for the same price, but opted to pay a little over $100 for a sensor that wouldn't require splicing wires.

Two days later the sensors arrived at the house. I called Community Auto Repair in Wanaque and scheduled repair for the next morning. They installed the new sensors while I waited.

Surprisingly, the car ran better with the new sensors. Definitely, one of them had been bad.

I put the car through a drive cycle. If you don't know what a drive cycle is, it's a series of maneuvers that will force the computer to do all its checks and turn the sensors on. It consists of things like revving the engine to 2300-2700 rpm for 20 seconds and 4300-4700 rpm for twenty seconds, driving for three minutes at 50-55 mph,  driving 13 minutes at speeds between 15 and 35 mph, and driving at exactly 25 mph for three minutes. That's not exactly easy on high speed roads, so I took the car down Long Meadow Road and annoyed a lot of van drivers bringing volunteer workers to the Jehovah's Witnesses world headquarters complex being built just a mile or so from Sterling Mine Road.

After the drive cycle the O2 sensors reported ready. How did I know that? I had ordered a code reader from Amazon. It was easy to plug it in and check the status of my car's computer. The O2 warmers and catalytic converter sensors also read ready, but unfortunately the EGR was still offline.

I had no idea what an EGR was, so I read up on it when I got home. The valve could be cleaned, but since my car has 135k miles I thought it might be a good idea to order a new one at a price just above $100. Then I said the hell with it and ordered a new catalytic converter, which also cost just a little more than $100.

When the parts arrived I had Community Auto Repair install them and put the car through a drive cycle. When the sensors all showed ready status I took the car back to the LukOil, turned it off, and read the codes so I would be positive the car was ready for testing.

To my surprise, the car again failed, and for the same reason-- plugging the official code reader in had cleared the computer.

That meant another couple of damn drive cycles to get the computer to update-- and it meant going back to the drawing board.

I called the DOT and was told to take my car to a licensed emission repair facility. If the computer was unreadable there they could do some paperwork and I could apply for an exemption. I figured that meant my car would get a tailpipe probe, but that didn't worry me. The check engine light was off and the car had no codes and the sensors were all online. And so I took my car to the Sunoco station on Franklin Avenue in Mahwah and told them my woes. The very nice man who worked on my car did a capture of the computer readings to verify everything was as it should be, then said "Hold your breath" and did the official inspection. To my surprise, and his, the computer retained its settings and my Miata passed inspection. I now have a huge ugly New Jersey inspection sticker on the inside of the lower driver's side windshield of my car.

I gave the inspection guy two cinnamon sugar cake donuts from Antie El's Market in Sloatsburg.

How it Started

Sweethearts in the virtual World Second Life.

Before this year my life was spent in warmer climes. I lived at various times in North Carolina, Arizona,Tennessee, Georgia, and, for four years, Orleans, France. It snowed in all those places, but not much, and when it did the snow didn't stick around for more than a few days. Winters had plenty of mild shirtsleeve days (some places more than others), and Novembers and Marches were pleasant.

I had heard plenty about the weather in the Northeast, and I wanted none of it. I didn't think any force on earth could move me above the Mason-Dixon line. I especially wanted to avoid New Jersey. Somehow the state just rubbed me the wrong way.I was never sure just why. The draconian gun laws? Definitely. The pollution? That was certainly part of it. The Mafia? Ditto. The political corruption? That too. Chris Christie? The icing on the don't move to Jersey cake.

And yet here I am.

It all began in 2006 when I met my now spouse when I was exploring the virtual world Second Life. For those who don't know what Second Life is, imagine the real world crammed onto your computer screen with all the opportunities to socialize, make money, build things, fall in love, and make a nuisance of yourself. Only you can fly. And teleport. That's Second Life.

I had had no intention of falling in love when I came to Second Life, but I did. And yes, with an avatar. The emotions were real enough. We met in SL in November 2006 and in Philadelphia (the real Philadelphia) in March 2007.  Before long I was spending all my vacation days in Rockland County NY.

My partner was Exuberance. That's her avatar's name. Her real name is Heather. My avatar's name is Cheyenne. My real name is Dallas (one city name is as good as another). We had ongoing wonderful adventures in Second Life and in real life we got to know one another more intimately.

In 2009 I had the opportunity of retiring from my job of 20 years, and I took it. I spent the next four months with Heather in Sloatsburg, and after that was back and forth for a month-and-a-half at the time.

I had hoped I could talk Heather into moving to Atlanta, where I had a sweet little (paid for) cottage on a lake in Atlanta. As she rocketed up the career ladder at her job I realized that with me retired my nefarious made little sense, and we started looking for a house to buy.

Houses were more expensive then, and in our price range there were only disasters-- homes with black mold, homes that were falling down, homes that had been gutted, homes with no parking space, and one memorable house on top of a hill that broke Heather's car when we tried to get to it.

We were looking further and further up the Hudson Valley (which would have meant a hella long daily commute for Heather) and at parts of New Jersey where I really didn't want to live. In the meantime we were visiting the New Jersey Botanical Gardens and thinking how nice it would be to live in Ringwood, in the Skylands less than ten miles from Heather's place of employment.

Finally, we found our house.

We went through the usual real estate paperwork hell and we moved Heather into the house in November. I drove back to Atlanta and sold my house to the first couple who looked at it. I didn't even get to the hire a real estate agent place; I just told people I would be selling and word of mouth did it well.

I left Georgia at noon on January 27th with the top down and sandals on my feet. I arrived in Ringwood at 9 pm on the 28th; it was six degrees and the wind was howling. The top of my car was up, of course,and I had stopped in Pennsylvania to put on closed-toed shoes, but I nonetheless nearly froze to death just unpacking my car. I had arrived just in time for the worst winter in years.

So now I've been in NJ for almost five months and am belatedly turning my attention to this neglected blog. I had hoped to document things as they happened, but I've given up on that and will just fly by the seat of my pants from now on. I'll post about my experiences as a person new to New Jersey and will talk from time to time about grits, which I miss. The Ringwood Luncheonette would be perfect if it only served them.

Oh-- we took time off amidst the confusion of new home ownership to get married. We were wed on April 23rd.