Central New Jersey

New Jersey on Twitter

twitter_birdieHow can you use Twitter to connect with people live in your location?

One of the wonderful parts of working on this post is “meeting” so many different people who live near my home in Central New Jersey (mostly Central). Over the past two weeks I’ve “collected” these new friends (in no particular order):

realestatechick

Real estate goddess, cycling chick, aviatrix
deirdre

Deirdre Breakenridge is President of PFS Marketwyse, a full service marketing communications firm and the author of two recent books, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and PR 2.0, New Media, New Tools, New Audiences. You can read Deirdre's blog, PR 2.0 Strategies.
lorisefp

Lori's Earth Friendly Products: Our mission is to bring natural, healthy, kosher products to our friends, and the world. We carry: Fiber Juice, other fiber products, Stomach Friendly Coffee, Garlic Spray, VitaTops, High-Fiber Pasta and Mac & Cheese, Soy Entrees and Textured Soy Protein.http://www.earth-friendly.com/
jerseybites

Jerseybites.com delivers fabulous and easy recipes, food products and restaurant reviews across the Garden State and beyond.
issues_logo

An original comedic web series about life in a NJ comic book store. Insanity ensues. http://www.issuestheseries.com/
mikeconaty

Marketer, video producer, web guy & rabid jazz fan, working with nonprofits & businesses to effectively use old & new communications tools. http://michaelconaty.com/
phigirl

likes knitting, running, yoga, writing and taking photos (see Exile in Suburbia)
rn

Rutgers-Newark website designer. Photoblogger. MFA Grad Student.
liajen

social entrepreneur, cause-related marketer, social media learner, direct selling executive, instructional designer, wife and adoptive mother, living out loud! http://liajen.wordpress.com/
grahamgudgin

A teacher, a seeker, a part-time tarot card reader. An ex-pat Brit, a stay-at-home Dad. See his blog: An Englishman in New Jersey
eva

It's all about having fun! Organizing Coach, Founder STO / Eva's Edict 5 Minutes #EE5, Speaker, Writer, Volunteer: Intergenerational Programs, Wife, Mom

How did I go about getting these contacts in Twitter?
1) I put “New Jersey” in a search column in TweetDeck and left it there. Each time I start up TweetDeck, I see more tweets about New Jersey. But truthfully, I didn’t find too many new people this way.
2) I asked people I already follow in my location if they wanted to be included in this post. I got much enthusiasm! Some of them suggested other people they follow who live locally. In general, that’s the best way to find new folks to follow; see who your favorite twitterers are following!
3) To make the contact more genuine, reply (use the @, as in @leoraw) to specific tweets to get to know others better.
4) Every now and then, look over everyone else’s tweets, find a good one, and retweet it! To retweet, put ‘RT @twittername’ at the beginning of your tweet. Retweeting is a great way to build community.

Other posts on Twitter:
Twitter Basics for Librarians
A Meaningful Tweet

Update: I hope to meet a few of these “tweeple” (Twitter for “people”) on Thursday morning.
Note: to anyone in this post, feel free to DM or comment below any corrections, edits, suggestions.

Sky Watch in Edison

swftomSky Watch Friday is a photo meme with photos of sunrises, sunsets, blue skies, gray skies, pink skies, dark skies and any other kind of sky posted by bloggers all over the planet.

tree_detail
OK, I lied. This first one isn’t in Edison. It’s on my block in Highland Park, but I want to learn the name of the tree that has these branches. Maybe in the spring when the leaves come back.

rpry_2flags
I took this photo yesterday at about 5:30 pm, when I was picking up my son from an after school program. The school, RPRY in Edison, New Jersey, is a Jewish Day School, so both the U.S. flag and the Israeli flag were flapping around in the sunset. Today they are probably flapping even more; the wind has been howling since this morning, and a poor woman in Mountainside, New Jersey was killed when a tree fell on her car.

rpry_basket
This shot was take above the basketball court at the school.

Ruby Tuesday Visits Rutgers

rutgers_brick
Before attending my business meeting at Rutgers today in this building, I photographed a detail of the red brick building across the street (above photo, Winants Hall).

rutgers_lamppost
Do you think Rutgers chose red as their color so I could use their new emblem (the PR department had it redesigned last year) for Ruby Tuesday?

For more Ruby Tuesday pics, visit:
rubyslippers

Ruby Tuesday: Bench Roses

rose_bench
Last week Mary asked for a “macro.” Not sure how close a macro is, but I did enjoy this bench of roses I found in New Brunswick.

roses_on_bench
A little more of the bench.

bench
And here’s the bench in its setting on Easton Avenue in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

For more Ruby Tuesday pics, visit:
rubyslippers

Sky Watch in New Brunswick

swftomSky Watch Friday is a photo meme with photos of sunrises, sunsets, blue skies, gray skies, pink skies, dark skies and any other kind of sky posted by bloggers all over the planet.

across_river
I took this photo standing in Highland Park looking across the river at New Brunswick last month in early December. I believe that steeple is in Cook/Douglass Campus of Rutgers (Voorhees Chapel?).

old_new
These last two photos were taken this morning. Much bluer sky, right? The above shows the contrasts of old and new architecture in New Brunswick.

street
This is Easton Avenue in New Brunswick, one block from the College Avenue campus of Rutgers University. I was visiting my favorite computer fix-it folks: Cyber Knight Computers.

My World by the Tracks

My WorldMy World is a meme played by people all over the planet. For more information and to see other places and wonders, visit My World.


There are railroad tracks on the edge of Highland Park; one could travel these tracks all the way up to Boston or down to Washington DC. Most of the trains, though, just travel between New York City and Philadelphia. You can see the train bridge in my post on the Raritan River. There’s a station in New Brunswick, on the other side of the Raritan, and one in Edison, but none in Highland Park.

trees by the tracks
You might able to tell why I bothered to head over to the tracks with my camera from the above photo. The land bordering the tracks is all nature: trees, shrubs, plants, dirt.


A path runs through the trees near the tracks, used by hikers and joggers.


This little evergreen bush was the only greenery I could find.


Ah! One tree with pretty fall foliage.

Chabad at Rutgers Remembers

Chabad House at Rutgers will dedicate a new wing to the Mumbai victims.

In an article at MyCentralNewJersey, Rabbi Yosef Carlebach, the director and founder of the Jewish center at Rutgers University says:

“The attack last week was not only an attack on Chabad or the people of Israel but on every living being that believes in life, in humanity and decency.”

And his son, Mendy Carlebach, went to school with Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was brutally murdered in Mumbai. The article states:

“Even after he moved to India in 2003, we kept in touch via email,” Mendy said.

He said he last spoke to Holtzberg when they met at the rabbis conference in New York last year.

Mendy said Holtzberg told him of the new Chabad House that he had just purchased in Mumbai. “Gabby described it as an open house for Indians, Jews, everyone who could always come for a meal and a smile.”

Read the whole thing.

Fall Foliage In Highland Park

window with foliage
It’s been a beautiful autumn here in Central New Jersey. The color is everywhere; I think the weather has been cooler and damper than previous autumns, and the trees are loving it.

yellow and red foliage
These top two photos were both taken on my block. The one with the window is directly across the street, and the other, with the reds to each side and yellow in center, is looking down the block.


These last two photos were taken outside my kids’ school, which is in Edison, New Jersey, just over the border from Highland Park.

autumn leaves
How does it look where you live?

 More links to beautiful autumn photos on Carmi’s Thematic Photographic: Autumn post

My World: Donaldson Park on Raritan River


I really wanted to get a photo of Donaldson Park from up high. It is a big county park on the edge of Highland Park, and the Raritan River flows right next to the park. I couldn’t get the whole park, but I got a nice tip of it in this photo. It’s on the right of that white streak in the river.


In order to get this photo, however, I had to park my car on a side street near this busy highway, Route 1, which runs from Maine to Florida (I think). The bridge goes bump, bump, bump as all the cars go over it. I don’t think I’ll be venturing out like this again. I got too nervous from all the cars and bumps.

oak leaves
On my way back to my car, I photographed these pretty fall oak leaves.

 More on Donaldson Park

This is part of a new meme called My World (brought to you by the Sky Watch Friday folks).

Ruby Tuesday: October Snow

snowing in Highland Park in October 2008
The snow in October, unusual for Central New Jersey, inspired me to take these photos. It’s my neighbor’s tree; most probably a “burning bush” (thanks, EG Wow and Carletta). The yellow-leafed plants with green “sticks” are what’s left of my hostas.

snow in October
My son just called and told me it is RAINING in northern New Jersey.

For more photos with a little red or a LOT of red, visit Mary the Teach at http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/.

ruby tuesday

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