Day 49

Today was our first trip to the Watertown public pool this year. It's really a great facility to be open to the public for no charge, I'm very impressed. The weather today wasn't quite warm enough (in my opinion, not Nikki's), but we swam for a while anyway. We're going to try going back on the 4th, maybe there won't be so many people then.

Day 48

Continuing the bumper sticker theme. I love the wiring is not a hobby slogan. One of my video game buddies is an electrician, and he's always giving the other guys shit after they improperly wire their homes.

Day 47

It's the bumper sticker on the left that gets me. The cross and flag, clearly implying that if you're not a Christian, you don't belong in this country. I envision a day when atheists like me are not safe in America. I know this guy would be first in line at the pogrom signup.

Day 46

Technically, I missed Day 46. This is the picture I meant to take that night, but I didn't actually take it until morning. Just illustrating the heat this week.

Day 45

This is one of the new routes home I've been experimenting with. I'm not sure whether I like it as well or better than my others, but it is competitive on drive time. It may be too heavily weighted on the highway side, though. Everyone knows that I like the back roads.

Day 44

I got my hair cut at an actual barbershop. The barber used hot lather and a straight razor to clean up around the edges. The way I see it, women have day spas and men have barbers. Next time I go, maybe I should ask if I can get a shave and a haircut. There is very little in this world as relaxing as a shave from a barber with a straight razor. First the hot towel, then the hot lather. The shave. Another hot towel, then the astringent, then a cold towel. Maybe even a little aftershave. That's good stuff.

Day 43

Nikki and I went for a great walk today up the Charles in Waltham. This picture is the fish ladder at the dam by Moody Street. We stopped at the midpoint of our walk and did a little shopping and got some "frappes" (milkshakes to the rest of the country). I bought a pinhole camera, which I spent several hours assembling this afternoon. I haven't seen that much Elmer's Glue since grade school. Hopefully, I'll take a few blogworthy pictures with it soon. I still need rubber bands to hold the whole thing together.

Day 43

Saturday, Nikki and I had a nice breakfast at the Spot in our neighborhood before taking the cat to the vet. I woke up at 6:30 on Saturday, which was shocking and disconcerting. I didn't know what to do with all that time awake and not at work.

Day 42

This week, I'm participating in a Google "User Experience Research Study" for Google Earth. Which is awesome, because I'm such a huge Google fanboy. They tell me I'll get a tshirt and a $100 gift card, but I just like giving Google my opinions.

Day 41

I grilled again this evening. I know it's only concrete, but our "yard" was looking pretty good a few weeks ago. I had swept up all the dog poop, organized my grills, and started killing off the poison ivy. Then all of a sudden the second floor started parking their scooter in the middle of the patio and the first floor dumped a pile of trash back here. Now it looks like a landfill. I'm pretty upset about this.

Day 40

One of my male coworkers had to borrow a pink umbrella to make it out to his car during a rainstorm. It's only funny because he was so embarrassed.

Day 39

Look at stu's glowing eyes. This is his favorite place to hide from the medicine.

Day 38

I'm barely even tan, and look at the contrast.

note:

I was away from both cell and internet service for several days. I didn't forget, though. I took the pictures, and now they're posted. So there.

Day 37

Last day of the drought: This is my mother's house. Her orchard and garden are doing great this year, but there might be less fruit than usual. They have a blight that's hitting the apples and blueberries.

Day 36

Day four of the drought: This is the lodge where we had my uncle's 90th birthday party. There were relatives in from all over. Boy, do I hate some of them.

Day 35

Day three of the drought: This is one of the springs on my dad's land. If you peel the moss back, the water is cold and clear and delicious. I can hardly bring myself to buy spring water, because when I was growing up we had this spring, plus two houses with spring-fed water. Much better tasting than the crap that comes in a bottle.

Day 34

Day two of the drought: This is the foundation and driveway of the house that my father is having built. It's very exciting stuff.

Day 33

The first day of the drought: This is the book that I read all of while waiting for my flight to get cancelled.

Day 32

I spent a lot of time today staring at my desk doing nothing. On days like today, it's good to have pictures of happy, tropical places to stare at to pass the time.

On the plus side, I went out and had dinner with Frank (aka Frankie Maddog, Frankie Two-Pound). We went to a restaurant called, by coincidence, Frank's Steak House. It's right near his house on the Arlington/Cambridge line. I had prime rib and good conversation, and I hope it happens again sometime soon.

Day 31

Cool, I've stuck with it for a whole month. Just 11 more to go!

Because I haven't, I decided to throw up a traffic picture for yesterday. Just one more place where people try to go straight from the left turn lane. The difference is, here they also try to go left from the straight lane, which makes it just that bit more exciting.

Day 30

We went down to Rhode Island to go to my buddy Jim's cookout on Saturday. It gives me hope that maybe one day I'll be able to have a house and a yard. Of course, I'm not eager to have to move to Rhode Island to make that happen.

It's shaping up to be a very social few days for me. Dinner with Joe on Friday, shopping Saturday, cookout Sunday, and perhaps dinner with Frank on Tuesday.

Day 29

You would never know from looking at this row of loading docks that there is an awesome European bakery inside that door. Well, there is.

Day 28

See the kind of shit I put up with? Madness!

This is my cubemate Carly. She sits behind me and laughs a lot. Another coworker made her these "concentration glasses" out of a Dunkin Donuts drink tray. The idea is that they would act as blinders and let her focus on her work without distractions. Of course, they became their own distraction.

Day 27

This is the half-assed parking space that comes with my apartment. Don't get me wrong, it's better than street parking. But of the three spaces available at this house, mine is definitely the crappiest. Even when I park touching the porch, I block the whole sidewalk and kind of stick out into the street. I would love to get my hands on the driveway, but the folks downstairs were too quick for me.

Day 25

I know we're getting a little bit out of order again here, but I had to try to touch up this picture a little bit. This is the memorial for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. It is a somber and moving place, much more tasteful and well put together than most of this country's public memorials. It gives me hope that we won't end up with some monstrosity at ground zero.

The picture is taken from one of the two black gates at either end of the site, which represent the innocence before and the pain after the moment of detonation. The main focus of the picture is the empty chairs representing the victims. They are grouped according to the floor on which they died, and the small chairs represent children. It really tugged at the heartstrings.

I'm sorry this is centered, blogger won't let me left align it for some reason.

Day 26

This is the only picture I remembered to take of Oklahoma University Medical Center, where I was working this week. It's the biggest hospital I've ever seen.

Day 24

This is Oklahoma City, right outside my hotel. Yep, Oklahoma sure is flat.

Day 23

This is one of my (many) pet peeves. This drink says 100% juice in at least three places on the bottle, two of which are visible here. But if you look down at the ingredients, what do we see: Natural Flavors, Vitamin C (which is really ascorbic acid, a preservative), Acacia Gum, and Beta Carotene. So how does that add up to 100% juice? Fucking bullshit, man. That's GW Bush's fault, too. Ever since his appointees re-wrote the guidelines that define what qualifies as 100% juice, the bottlers have been playing fast and loose. I hate it.