Boston: From Baling to Boiling
May 2, 2010
Boston is enduring its second aquapocalypse of 2010. A month or so ago it was rain and floods. Now it’s a cracked aqueduct breaking the water supply line. Bostonians are boiling water, scouring supermarkets, etc.
My thoughts are with my Boston buddies. I hope no third aquapocalypse awaits.
Meanwhile, here in DC, it’s hot, and I’m not sure how to coax the mighty-looking air conditioner into life…
Football Loyalties
January 10, 2010
Maybe I should have divided loyalties about today’s NFL playoff game between the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens. I have after all just moved from Massachusetts to Maryland.
But sports loyalties are stubborn things, so it’s the Pats I’m rooting for. And after 20+ years in the USA, I’m still not sure that football isn’t played with a sphere.
I wrote the above while waiting for Chinese food about an hour before kickoff. I don’t believe there’s anything in there that might have jinxed the Patriots…
Snow in Silver Spring
December 20, 2009
If we moved south because we didn’t like Boston winters, we picked the wrong year, or we didn’t move far enough, or… Anyway, the Washington Post reports that the DC region begins to dig out after record storm.
Saturday’s storm broke all records for a December snowfall and buried the Washington area, forcing authorities to suspend public transportation, declare a state of emergency and plead with residents to stay home…
The storm began in the Gulf of Mexico and continued northeast along a track meteorologists call an “I-95 special,” growing most intense over the Washington area. New York and Boston also had heavy snowfall, but by the time the storm reached that area, its heart was over the ocean so those cities received less snow…
Some areas, particularly in Southern Maryland, experienced wind gusts up to 40 mph. The total measured snowfall at Reagan Airport at 8:58 p.m. was 16.3 inches, but it was as high as 23 inches elsewhere in the region. That would be more snow in a 24-hour period than the region typically gets in an entire winter.
Meanwhile Boston braces for a great white wave, and Universal Adam features the Snowmageddon tweets.
I took the photo yesterday morning, less than halfway through the storm. It’s part of the rather good Flickr group Sprung from Silver Spring.
Hanging on to the Hub
December 13, 2009
Having left Boston, do I still need the Globe? I certainly value some of its content. But I no longer need to visit the paper’s main page frequently.
I’ll follow links to Globe content from various places, notably Largehearted Boy and Universal Hub. LHB, a music and lit blog, is based in the deep south (of the USA), but frequently links to Globe content. A recent link goes to an article on collecting music in the age of downloading.
UH is very much a Boston blog, curated by Adam, a former near-neighbor who I never had the pleasure of meeting in real life (although we were in the same room at least once). The most recent post at the time of this writing proclaims today Malls Suck Day at the Globe, on the basis that there are three articles comparing malls to downtowns, with the comparisons being in favor of downtowns. It’s good to see that the Globe isn’t pandering to its mall-based advertisers.
Good Luck Balloon Leaves Roslindale
December 4, 2009
I packed up the last things from the Roslindale apartment on Wednesday morning. To be more precise, they should have been the last things, but I was so tired I probably missed a few things. And a lot of things I threw out.
And one thing, I let float away. We had a helium balloon bearing the slogan Good Luck left over from a weekend potluck. I took it out onto the deck, and let it float away. It too was tired, so it didn’t spring straight up into the air. Rather, it floated across Walworth Street, rising enough to clear wires and rooftops.
May the balloon of good luck float toward you, good people of Boston.
About to Miss Boston
November 30, 2009
I’ve been in semi-denial (or at least some fraction of denial) about leaving Boston, but having just told the US Postal Service to forward mail to Silver Spring, Maryland seems to stamp the move with enough reality that denial is no longer an option. I’m missing some people and places already, and I’ll probably post about things I miss sometime in 2010.
Universal Adam pointed to a “missing Boston” post from Alex Howard, who made a similar move earlier this year. I’m already with with Alex on several of the items on his list, such as Jamaica Pond and the Arnold Arboretum.
Craigslist Before Moving
November 3, 2009
The less stuff you have to move, the easier the move. We’ve been trying to live by that as we prepare to move from Boston to DC. We’ve lightened the load in many ways: giving things to friends, donating things to thrift stores, putting stuff out on trash day, and… Craigslist.
I’ve been disappointed with the response on Craigslist. Items such as air conditioners, humidifiers, didn’t get any responses. We managed to sell a bookshelf (several people responded, we sold it to the person who could come and collect it) and a small couch (we delivered).
Still, that’s probably what would have happened had we used classified ads, back in the day.
Like Etsy But…
October 31, 2009
Another weekend, another Halloween… but I’m getting ahead of my blogging. Last weekend saw the last SoWa open market of 2009. SoWa is a silly term for the south end of Boston’s South End.
It was a lovely sunny October day, we bumped into some friends, we bought some art… The print of dinos reading is by Eric Sturtevant: our home life sometimes resembles the picture.
The two smaller prints are by Chen Reichart, whose blog and Etsy store are called botodesigns. The autumnal print seems to illustrate that we should become a two-Android family soon. Chen and her partner were kind enough to compliment me on the tshirt I was wearing, and to ask where I got it (Threadless, Star Men in Moon’s Milk).
Indeed, the SoWa market is like Threadless, Etsy, and similar web sites come to life, in ways that demonstrate advantages of real life over the web. The market has a good selection of tshirts, crafts, etc. It also has an antique market next door, in a rather wonderful old trolley barn.
The market also provides the chance to meet the artists: that’s face-to-face, the ultimate social medium. On Sunday it had sunshine, halloween candy and other seasonal flavorings. Now, time to post this, and get ready for halloween itself.
Fun Day, Now For Sunday
October 18, 2009
This post is partly a pretext to showcase the photo, of which I am immodestly proud. Maddie is more justly proud of the taller-than-her tower. She built it at the Museum of Science yesterday afternoon.
In the morning, Maddie braved a villain-themed 6th birthday party by herself.
Max and I went to the warm heart of Roslindale. We cut haircuts at the Rialto (I’ve just posted my 5* review at Yelp).
We went to the Farmers Market. It was the last of the year, and, judging by the weather, it’s time for this particular good thing to come to an end for 2009. Kudos to the Creek River String Band (here’s my photo, here’s the band’s MySpace) for providing music despite cold fingers.
We got back to the party just in time for Max to have cake. Then back home for a little rest, then off to the site of the construction in the photo.
Lesson For Harvard: Don’t Blow the Grocery Money on Lottery Tickets
October 17, 2009
“Don’t gamble with the money you need to pay the daily bills” is, according to Beth Healy of the Boston Globe, a basic rule of family finance.
The university [Harvard] disclosed yesterday that it had lost $1.8 billion in cash – money it relies on for the school’s everyday expenses – by investing it with its endowment fund, instead of keeping it in safe, bank-like accounts.
I found this story particularly interesting, for multiple reasons. First is the set of quotes Healy scatters through the article. A former Dean, still at Harvard, remarked on the “interesting way to handle the grocery money.”
A Stanford spokeswoman said that “it would be highly unusual for the California school to put funds from its general account into long-term investments.” Did she use the phrase “more Ivy than brains”? The Globe doesn’t tell us.
Second is the vast sum that Harvard needs for everyday expenses. The University could buy a lot of groceries for $1.8B, even if it shopped at Whole Foods.
Third, and last for now, is the question of oversight. Shouldn’t someone be watching the financial wizards who manage Harvard’s money?
