it's wild to me that lombardi was a goddamn chemistry teacher in addition to being a high school football coach. that's actually his tie back to new jersey. he was born and raised in brooklyn and went to school at fordham. he needed a job so he became a teacher at a catholic school in englewood for a few years and also rose up the ranks of being a football coach.

pizza, bagels, the feeling that my rights matter more than the rights of the gun someone has on them. you know, normal things.

and 99.9% of people will continue to vote for the incumbents because "eh, they're doing a good enough job". for the smattering of people who vote in municipal elections as it is. jersey really needs to force all of them to be on even years to coincide with national elections, but that will never happen because all parties are happy with the lower turnout keeping incumbents entrenched for as long as they choose to stay basically.

i feel that this is something that is well served by the county government, but that still requires buy in from municipalities. somerset county has an excellent county library system, but not every municipality in the county wants to participate. bedminster has a pretty solid public library for only being municipal, but it could be so much better if they would just join scls. but they won't, because nimbyism (the bedminster horse people think themselves superior to all other living beings).

libraries are great overall tho. it's not just that they have more than books. they have free internet access if you don't have it at home. most of them have services like notary publics that are free as long as you're a resident. they host all sorts of programs for you to learn new things and gain new skills. libraries are one of the last great egalitarian forces we have that are government supported.

local government being nonpartisan does nothing to help it. you'll still get partisan people running for it and they'll run things as if they were partisan. the only thing it achieves is that they don't have an r or d hanging on the back of their names on the ballot.

nimbyism is a huge hindrance to everything, and yes, it's almost always the wealthier fractions in the big houses that want to vote against anything that would be long term beneficial for the whole of the town. it also boggles me that people really don't understand that you should never leave your car doors unlocked and just leave your wallet and stacks of cash in your unlocked car. like, sheer amazement that this is such a thing in wealthier suburbs.

if the seller refuses to have it pulled, walk away from the deal. if it's leaking it will cost you a small fortune to remediate it. and dep will make you fully remediate it.

it means one that meets the criteria of the real id law. it's has extra scrutiny so you are who you say you are, are legally here, etc. law went into effect in 2005, naturally the feds did not give the states a red cent to implement it, and they've had to extend the compliance date for over a decade at this point.

it's supposed to end up that you can't use your license as the id you need to show upon entering a federal building or getting thru tsa security at the airport. if you have a passport/passport card, those will always be acceptable id

not even worth that much effort. kid i went to high school with just showed up at the somerville dmv office with his brother's birth certificate and got a real nj license with his brother's name and birth date and his picture.

i know pooja in warren used to do a lunch buffet. not sure if they still do.

one thing you start to notice when you travel to certain other parts of the country: you get the jersey expats who miss the good stuff from back home that you can't get in other parts of the country and open up spots for it. this place is doing it right with both the boars head and the taylor. if you showed me some dilusso in there, the circle would be complete.

https://tenor.com/view/perfection-michael-fassbender-perfectionist-perfect-gif-7910211

Glad you were able to get it done!

call your new insurance company asap. they can change the start date and issue you new docs. this is a thing that does happen and your insurance company will make sure you're not driving uninsured at any point.

call the record exchange in princeton. those guys know their shit. they had a decently sized electronic section last time i was in. didn't leaf through it too extensively to be able to tell you if the selection is sufficient for you to deem it "good". if you have something specific you're looking for, you can call them and ask if they have it and if not, they might be able to get a lead on getting it for you.

or as we call it, friday. truck crashes on 78 are frighteningly common. there was the one where the truck fell into the little gorge thing in the median around berkley heights where they had to bring in cranes to get it out. the stretch between 287 and 24 sees these a lot.

cry me a river? i could not give one slight fuck if the people handling my paperwork aren't "courteous" so long as they do their jobs correctly and complete my transaction without issue. i will take the brusque but honest new jersey attitude over the fake nice bullshit you get from the south or the midwest any day of the fucking week.

the issues with getting appointments is a pretty major problem they need to figure out better. personally i had no issue getting one for my real id, but i also did mine back in 2021 so idk how it is now. having to drive all the way down to flemington to do license things is annoying. they really need to move the somerville office to a bigger spot (how about renting space at the shopping center at the somerville circle and expanding) and do both licenses and vehicle transactions there.

long story short, they're going to convert some of the mvc locations from being either license or vehicle only back to doing both, because complaints. requiring appointments will not be going away. plus not all of them.

not sure why you're getting issues like that. every state basically does a "not for real id purposes".

start with your insurance company. if they're sending your insurance one set of codes and then a bill to you for different ones, that's proof of fraud right there. your insurance company is going to take swift action to make sure they're not paying more out to the doctor than they're supposed to. compare the explanation of benefits you get to the bill you get, and if things are different, that's your proof.

otherwise, contact dobi which is the arm of state government that deals with this sort of thing.

idk, my doctors are part of summit health and whenever i need to make appointment for bloodwork, the first thing they ask me is "what lab do you use" so i could easily direct them to the lab that will cover my labwork (as it turns out my insurance pays for their internal lab just fine).

because it's what makes financial sense for doctors. overhead for running your own practice is out of control and insurance payouts are slimmer than they used to be. being a salaried doctor for a major practice and just doing doctor stuff and having someone else there that deals with the insurance payments and all that jazz is a way better deal for almost every doctor. plus changes made under the aca have encouraged this along with all the hospital consolidation. this is why almost every doctor is now a part of summit health, atlantic health, rwjbh physicians practice, hackensack meridian health, or optum (i'm hesitant to include cooper in this because i can't tell if they have a network of doctor offices in addition to the hospitals, but it would not surprise me if norcross has his hands in this sector as well).

btw, this isn't just a new jersey thing. this is happening all across the nation, for the same reasons. we're actually an outlier in that we have multiple system options. many parts of the country have but one option that you're stuck with whether you like it or not.

further, if you're getting a bill from a doctor's office that doesn't match up with what your insurance was billed, that's insurance fraud and incredibly illegal. don't just sigh and pay it. report it. don't let it just go by the wayside.

we went to lsc during the week between christmas and new years like 5 years ago (whenever they had the star trek exhibit) and woof. packed to the gills, not a super pleasant experience.

more malls should do what the garden state plaza has done with its garages that let you know how many spots are available in each garage and on each level. it's not a perfect system but it makes it easier.