Sizzle, Sizzle!

Yesterday I had dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Weehawken. Ruth's Chris is a well known steakhouse with many locations throughout the US but I'm not sure that many Hobokenites know that this one exists so close. Its located at Lincoln Harbor and one could actually walk there. In fact, from the seat I had I could see the Hudson Tea building.

Here is a link to the company's web site.

Election Time and Hoboken: US House Race

This year's race for our district's US House of Representative seat (13th District of NJ) is between the incumbent Albio Sires (Democrat) and Joseph Turula (Republican) . I found it interesting to note that the 13th District is 46% latino and in fact the incumbent was born in Cuba and came to the US when he was 10.

Albio Sires was elected to the seat in a special 2006 election after the seat was vacated by Bob Menendez who replaced Jon Corzine as a US Senator after Mr. Corzine became Governor of NJ. Prior to that Mr. Sires was the speaker of the NJ Assembly. You can find out more about Mr. Sires at his campaign website.

Congressional website
VoteSmart profile
GovTrack profile

The challenger, Joseph Turula, is a lawyer who lives in Jersey City. Not much came up when I did a Google search. This is not so surprising as the district is heavily Democratic with Sires beating his Republican opponent in 2006 with a 58% point margin (77% to 19%).

Getting Out of Hoboken

Yesterday morning I had plans to meet up with a former colleague in Montclair. We were to meet at 9:30 at the Starbucks on Bloomfield Ave. I used to live in Upper Montclair and knew it should take about 30 minutes. In fact Google Maps says it should take 29 minutes and up to 50 minutes in traffic. So I left at 8:45 thinking that would give me enough time as I thought the traffic would be in the other direction going toward the city. Was I wrong. I didn't arrive until 10:20, a 90 minute trip to go 15 miles! The whole hold up was getting onto 495, the road coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel. Traffic was diverted along the service road until the intersection with the Turnpike ramp and with stoplights every block I must have sat in traffic for an hour. However, once on Rt 3 I flew.

If I get a job where I can live in Hoboken I will most likely have to drive to work heading west so this was definitely an eye opener for me.

Election Time and Hoboken: US Senate Race

Everyone knows about the upcoming Presidential election and the two major party candidates, John McCain and Barak Obama. But how about the local elections? In New Jersey we have a US Senate seat up for election. The incumbent is Frank Lautenberg (Democrat) and challenging him is Dick Zimmer (Republican). Frank Lautenberg was a long time senator from NJ and retired in 2001 after serving from 1983. After Senator Torricelli withdrew in 2002 from seeking reelection, Mr. Lautenberg ran for that Senate seat and easily won by a 10% margin.

Dick Zimmer was a US Congressman from southern NJ serving from 1991 until 1997. He decided not to run in 1996 as he ran for the US Senate seat vacated by Bill Bradely. Mr. Zimmer lost that election to Mr. Torricelli by a 10% margin.

To find out more about each candidate click on these links below:

Mr. Zimmer's Campaign Website
Mr. Lautenberg's Campaign Website
GovTrack page for Senator Lautenberg

Challenge!

I'm challenging myself to blog daily for the next 10 days. If any of my readers blog, I welcome them to join me.

Catholic Churches In Hoboken

I'm Roman Catholic and attend mass at Sts Peter and Paul on Hudson at 4th st. But within a few blocks there are another 3 Roman Catholic churches:

Our Lady of Grace (Willow and 4th)
St Ann's (Jefferson and 6th)
St Francis (Jefferson and 3rd)

So today I took a walk with my camera and took some shots of these 4 churches. Enjoy!

St Francis



Sts Peter and Paul





St Ann




Our Lady Of Grace

Hoboken House Tour

Its been awhile but I wanted to let everyone know about the upcoming Hoboken House Tour sponsored by the Hoboken Historical Society. The date is Sunday October 26 from 10 am to 4 pm. Its a self paced tour. You redeem your ticket at the Hoboken Historical Museum on Hudson Street at 13th Street for a map of the houses that will be opened to tour. For more details and where to get tickets click here.