I walked and/or parked at the Fanwood train station working and going to school in NYC for years while living in Scotch Plains. If you work midtown, switching in Newark isn’t such a big deal, and if downtown, you’re better off taking the Path to WTC anyway. It’s a reasonable commute to NYC and lots of folks do it.

Scotch Plains schools are above average.
Crime rate is low.
Route 22 provides lots of convenient shopping. If you already know how to drive it’s not so bad.
As for the historic downtown, I really only shop at CVS. For a walk in a downtown, we drive 5 minutes and walk around Westfield.

During non-rush hour times, route 78 is about 7 minutes away from the north side of town. As for living near the Plainfield border, I recommend against it, but the police must guard that border well. But one might also live near the Westfield border, so there is a plus and minus.

The main highway, route 22 absolutely sux and getting to rt 78 is neither easy nor direct. The train doesn’t go to NYC and its not even in Scotch Plains, its in Fanwood, the antique stores are a small step above thrift shops and the historic town center has been decimated by 50′s urban renewal and only 2-3 antique buildings are left. lets not get started on the long border with Plainfield…

The Rhode Island pick (my home state) is also ridiculous as its one of the most expensive and least accessible parts of the state–you are trapped on Newport island with all the tourists but without any real services and shopping options. plus the beaches are better on the mainland in Narragansett. everyone knows that.

No matter, it’s still spiraling out of control, as the council and mayor make cosmetic alterations and jam it down our throats at a later date.

This year? Probably more of the same.

At N Hunterdon, they even had a (allegedly) “student-organized” presentation on the budget in an assembly. Of course, no dissenting views or arguments were posited.

On the way to school this AM, I gave my daughter three fairly simple dissenting arguments. Thank God, she actually saw the validity of each. Maybe the brainwashing maggots haven’t run their full course yet.

There ought to be some sort of law against this type of electioneering and disinformation by teachers and administrators.

Yeah, right.

Somebody should tell those folks not to hold their breath.

“Bysiewicz said the state must get federal stimulus money “into the hands of Connecticut entrepreneurs as quickly, efficiently, and transparently as possible” and make critical investments in health care and transportation.”

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-connecticut-business-closing.artapr21,0,5093916.story

I like the NY one better, Wading River. That has to be at least a two hour commute each way to NYC with about 1.5 of that spent on the LIRR if it is on time. Wading River has nice rocky beaches and their own pine barrens and I bet you can hear a banjo or two playing when you go for a stroll.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/02/0219_affordable_suburbs/33.htm

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/02/0219_affordable_suburbs/31.htm

Great, this should boost my sale value when I move up into a mediocre, unaffordable community.

“Obama to lean on credit card CEOs”

http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/21/news/economy/credit_card_crackdown/

Read the fine print folks it is more bailout for the banks and less credit for you.

The Rep on the phone told me the best they can do is defer payments for two months, nothing else. I stressed that I was unemployed now for 6 months and asked politely if there are any exceptions at all. His response was, “Well, you should’ve lived within your means and can’t expect a bailout.” Pretty nice, don’t you think? I simply said thank you and hung up the phone. I suspect that these reps are getting these calls all day long or they’re p*ssed off because they live in buttf*ck, Iowa.

Keep dreaming about credit card debt forgiveness, the only one who can give that to you is a judge.

The credit card meeting where Obama will take credit for lowering your rate by a few basis points is also to take away charge cards from kids (there goes Abercrombie and Fitch) unless the parents are on the hook for the debt as a co-signer. They are also going to remove a fee to pay by phone. Big whoopee!

This legislation is about the securitzed credit card debt and bankers bailout. They are going to bail out the investors not you the debt serf.

The current legislation in the Senate and House will increase Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s ability to borrow from the Treasury to $500 billion, up from $100 billion. It also allows the National Credit Union Administration to borrow from Treasury up to $18 billion, up from $6 billion.

The belief that if you challenge or question, you are somehow against the children.

Every year the same letter writers to the local paper insist that the budget must be passed, no matter what. Good times bad times does not matter. In fact we are told all the more important that me pass the budget in bad times, as we must equip our children with the tools they need to succeed and on and on.

To read some of these letters is almost painful in how uninformed these exppert are, and their inabilty to write clearly and rationally. They are all the same fluff cheer leader type pieces.

The most disturbing aspect to me however, is how so many wrap this up as it is for the children, when in reality for most it is for the homeowner, who have been brainwashed to believe that the more he/she spends on the schools, the more their property will be worth no matter what.

And yet these same home owners at some point in the future will ask some of these same children (who will be homebuyers ar some point),to pay big bucks for their house with the 10K, 15k 20k a year or more tax bill to boot.

Yes nice gift you gave to the children, you did not do it for them, you did it for you.

I was under the impression they were trying to hurry-up some consumer safeguard legislation that isn’t due out until 2010. Yes/No?

They called one of my daughters last week and out of the blue, raised her interest rate to 21%. Luckily, she is able to pay it off.