Catching Up

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 18:51:33 -0500

How’s it readers!
Been a busy past couple of weeks. I’ve been putting in some long hours at the office, working west coast hours on top of my already long east coast hours. When I’m not in the office I’m in my apartment creating 2 new websites on free lance, and learning a new CRM. So it’s been bit tiresome trying to keep up with everything, but its nice to be busy and refreshing to know that this extra work is helping keep the lights on my apartment.
With all thats going on I haven’t had a lot of free time to update the blog with my most recent adventures, so I figured I would catch everyone up on whats been going on with a readers digest version of the last month or so.
Check out the Pictures, Jill and I are trying to stay festive for each holiday. We carved a pumpkin on Halloween and had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at a friends house. The pumpkin carving was a lot harder than I remembered when I was younger, as you may notice from the teeth and crooked eye line of the jack-o-lantern.
My parents visited which was a really good time. Below is a picture of my dad ridding public transit. If you know my father you would imagine that he had quite a bit to say about “how many people they let on these damn things.” It was fun to have them, we ended up at a BC football game and then visited some of the Irish bars down by Quincy Market. Afterwards I brought them to a beer bar in my area that serves really rare beer.
Speaking of beer. I have continued my passion for brewing even in my tiny kitchen. I have made two beers in the last three months. I would have made more but downing 5 gallons of Oceanporter between Jill and I takes some time. My next beer is an Imperial Amber Ale, its currently in the later stages of the fermentation process. Come visit and try it!
I’ve been reading an amazing book about running. This has sparked a particular interest in a more natural style of running (barefoot). The book advocates, quite convincingly, the importance of running with minimal foot protection, labeling the modern running shoe as a virus that cause the modern epidemic of knee and foot injuries. Its really convincing stuff and they book is written in a way that is really entertaining. I plan however on reading a little more about the barefoot running before I slip off my nikes and start running the streets of Boston in the wintertime.
Wednesday marks the completion of my first three months in Boston. This is weird because it feels like just yesterday that I was wrenching Ikea furniture together. I’m starting to glide into that nice area of stability. I’m no longer the new guy at the office, I’m starting to understand the T, and I’m stepping into traffic a lot less (thank god!). The apartment is coming along nicely as well. That is, except for a pesky mouse that Jill and I can’t seem to get rid of. I hope to explain more about a recent run in I had with the little guy in the coming weeks. But until then I hope everyone had an excellent turkey day.
Cheers!

A Big Splash!

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 17:49:00 -0400

How’s it readers! 
City smarts; there is definitely a learning curve. I am reminded of this every time I get confused at a cross street, step out in front of a bicyclist, or get on the T in the wrong direction. But everyday that I survive is a day that I come little bit closer to calling myself prepared for city living.
The reason I mention this is because something happened to me the other day that I thought only happened to people in movies. It happened last Monday morning while I was waiting for my train at a crowded T platform on Commonwealth Ave. It had rained all night and a good part of the early morning. Luckily the weather broke long enough for me to make the two-block walk from my apartment to the station. The platform was moderately crowded and I found my place amongst the commuters and 8am classers, linked my gaze with theirs, and stared down the tracks in anticipation for our 7:30 chariot. It was while we were all staring in this direction that a speeding car driving from the opposite direction entered a large puddle off the back of the platform and sent a wave of water over everyone. This wasn’t a small isolated splash, this was an S.M.D., a splash of mass destruction that left everyone on the on the platform utterly soaked.

I took the majority of the blow to the lower half of my body, soaking my sale-rack khaki pants to the point where they became translucent in the areas where they stuck to my claves and thighs. I peered over the black iron fence that separates the waiting area from the busy commonwealth Ave and stared into the now turbulent puddle. It stretched nearly the entire length of the platform and was an estimated 6 inches deep, filled with muddy, oil-laden Boston street water. “Fantastic!” I exclaimed. “Looks like I’m wearing dirty pants all day today,” I joked to the drenched women next to me who found no humor in the situation.

To say that people were mad would have been an understatement; the anger was palpable. I however, wasn’t as angry as everyone else; these types of odd cosmic misfortunes are common in my day-to-day life. In fact, I found the entire situation rather humorous because the splash had soaked everyone and not just me. Which I’m counting as a victory in my ongoing battle with the universe.
In the end we all dragged our wet and frustrated selves onto the train and away from the splash zone. Eventually my clothes dried and I went to work as if nothing had ever happened. I did take away some valuable lessons from this. The first, is to look the other way. It’s amazing how blinding our daily routines can be. Everyone, myself included, were so engrained in the morning routine of staring down the tracks trying to spot the train, that none of us saw the speeding car coming from the opposite direction. In this case we all got wet, however this could easily happen while crossing a street or some other situation that could be potential life threatening. The second lessons I learned, and arguably the most important, is to warn others of such dangers, especially my girlfriend, who stands on the same platform about a half hour after me. I was only reminded of this when I received her frustrated text message that read: “I’m Soaked!!” Oops.
Cheers

The Hustle

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:22:38 -0400

How’s it readers! 
First of all, let me just say that I am safe and alive after the Pats v. Jets game on Sunday. There were some dicey moments for sure, but that’s to be expected when you are 1 of 4 other people wearing a Jets jersey in a bar packed with Patriots fans. So thanks to everyone for you text messages of concern. And NO, I didn’t have anything to do with Tom Brady’s fender bender. All jokes aside it was a fun Sunday. One of my oldest friends came to visit and we had a really good time.

Anyway, Thought I would touch base real quick, I know I haven’t posted any pictures of the apartment yet, or talked about the move or anything, but I’ve been really busy with my job hunt. “The Hustle” as I’ve started calling it, has taken up quite a bit of my energy, but thankfully the results of it have started to show this week. I’m closer than I was last week, which at the very least is a move in the right direction.

Here are some shots from around town, I promise more once get a chance. Thanks for reading and all your comments!

Cheers!

Fugitive Soap

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:36:59 -0400

It was my first job interview. I had spent the morning fabricating my refrigerator to hold my homebrew keg and I must of let the time get away from me because when I looked up at the TV clock it said 2; my interview was at 3. The job was only a ten-minute walk away but I wanted to freshen up and shower, and I was suddenly feeling crunched on time.

The shower in our new apartment is interesting. The water pressure is fine and the water gets plenty hot enough, but there is a huge window inside the shower that makes my bathing visible to the outside world. The window is off the back of the building and faces a large parking lot to an adjacent apartment complex. For obvious reasons we had to install a flimsy brown vinyl curtain to block the view of potential peepers. This works fairly well, except when the window is open and air is allowed to blow the curtain around. Being someone who has always wanted an outdoor shower I always shower with the window open.

During this particular shower episode I was in a bit of a rush because of the interview. Everything was going fine when suddenly my underarm scrubbing went array and my bar of soap slipped out of my firm grip, and disappeared out the window. NO WAY I thought, slightly embarrassed but very amused that I had just lost my soap out the window.

Now, losing the soap out the shower window is definitely a first for me, but what I did next tops everything. For some reason my brain had stopped working, perhaps it was the shock of losing the soap, perhaps it was the job interview jitters, but for whatever reason the majority of the decision making section of my brain thought it would be a good idea to stick my head out the window and see where it landed. I ducked underneath the vinyl curtain and squeezed my nude upper body out the window and spotted the fugitive soap, it had missed the parking lot and fallen into a small alley just under the window. HAHA YES I giggled audibly, only to be hushed by the sight of an elderly man and women looking inquisitive at the wet naked guy leaning out of the third floor of their neighboring building.

At this point I’m not only soapless but I’m red with embarrassment. I pulled myself back through my window, finished my shower and went to my job interview. While this has made a rather humorous mid-afternoon blog entry, the real story would be from the people in the parking lot, who were walking into their building when a bar of soap came crashing from the sky, and upon looking for its source found the bust of the soapy assailant hanging out his shower window.

I’m sure they would have ended their story with: “This neighborhood is going to hell!”

Cheers.