First of all I don't know why the text on my last entry came out the way it did but I didn't write anything of any note. I am sitting on the porch of my hotel. Pictured below.

Though the original picture is right side up you get the idea. I am sitting in the second to last chair at the far end. The weather has become gorgeous. The complete opposite of what the weather forecast predicted. It is sunny and warm at about 78 degrees. We were supposed to have a tropical storm today. Instead we got warmth. I took an island tour today. It took about 2 and a half hours. It was a  tour that included a long list of famous people.. From James Cagney, James Taylor to Billy Joel, Diana Ross and Walter Cronkite. They all have or had homes hear. I can't go into a lot of detail mainly because I don't feel like writing a lot. I have one more day here to enjoy. I will include a few more pictures. I have a ton to look through. I'm not sure where I'm going to post the entire album. I understand Windows is going through more changes so I don't know if I will post an album there or open up a new account somewhere else It will. In any event here are a few more pictures.

  Above is my hotel at night. At the moment I am sitting far to the right on the porch. OK. Enough of this computer nonsense. Tonight I am going to to the most famous restaurant on the island, The Black Dog Tavern. Maybe I'll report in tomorrow but ... 
I'm outta here.       .

Good morning from Marthas Vineyard

Good morning. It is 7:24 in the morning as I write this. The shot above was taken less than an hour ago. Today looks beautiful at the moment though it may shower later on. I won't be writing much on this entry but I will include a few pictures from yesterday which was overcast but warm. Breakfast beckons and I'm not quite sure what's on the adgenda for today. For now here are a few shots from yesterday.

That's it for the moment. More later.
I'm outta here.

So here I am some 13 hours before I leave for Marthas Vineyard. I am packed, not too much but it appears I will be taking my laptop with me. The weather isn't going to be great especially after Saturday. It was 85 and beautiful. The trees are starting to turn but I have no idea what it will be like on the island. It's about 85 0r 90 miles from here. As I said the weather will not be ideal. There may be some showers tomorrow. There looks to be a thunderstorm on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday look to be a bit better. It will not be cool. It seems the temperatures will be 70 and above for so at least I won't be dealing with cold temps. 

I may well be reporting in from down there, at least it's down there from my perspective. OK enough about what hasn't even happened yet. To finish up with yet another zipper head from Cambridge encounter. A lady comes to the counter and says, "Hi. I have an unusual request."

I'm thinking, "What could it be? I've been doing this for nearly 40 years and I've heard just about every request you could think of in regards to the deli. Did she want to buy one slice? That's not unusual. Did she want me to cut the slice in half so she could eat half on the way home and save the other half for later?"
I say, "Well what would you like ma'am?"
She asks, "Do you have any wooden crates that you're throwing away? I need one to bury my dog."
Sure! They're on sale! See! It's in the flyer. Right after the Land O LAKES cheese. Wooden crates to bury your dead dog. $8.99 ea. Save two bucks!
Again I say, what's wrong with these people?

I'm outta here Monday, 6:30 am, and I'm outta here now. 

Then there was the butcher who backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

First of all the little twirly globe thingy on the right now says I live in Cambridge, yesterday it said I was in Chelsea which is close. Before that it said I was in a city about 30/35  miles south. Originally it said I was in Boston which was fine. I was unaware I had moved so many times in the last month. Maybe I was moving in my sleep. You know sleep moving.

"Shhh...don't wake him. He's sleep moving."

I guess you move everything into another house in the middle of the night, then move everything back before you wake up with no recollection of what happened. Well you have to admit it at least sounds plausible. 

Speaking of Cambridge, our local ultra liberal, granola crunching city, their bizzaro thinking surfaces again. The city wants to soften the stress one would feel when you have received a parking ticket. They printed yoga positions on the ticket to help you combat the stress of receiving it. It wasn't clear as to whether you are supposed get into the yoga positions right there on the sidewalk, or wait till you get home. All I'll say is this, I'm in Cambridge 5 days a week and it would not surprise me one bit to see a Cantabrigian lying pretzel like on the concrete. What's wrong with these people?

So I have to say that I'm getting anxious to get away as my trip to Marthas Vineyard commences Monday. The weather doesn't look that great with only one day partly sunny, Monday. Tuesday through Thursday show varying chances of rain. I hope for change because Tuesday is still a ways out and you never know. It's about an 80 mile drive from where I am just north of Boston to Woods Hole on the elbow of Cape Cod. Woods Hole is also the home of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute which is probably worth a trip in and of itself. The island is not all that far off shore. It will only take  45 minutes to get there.

I may bring my laptop with me because the hotel has wireless Internet access. I may be able to report directly and post some pictures from the days events though the word events might be too strong a word. There is the ocean of course but I won't be doing any swimming. There are bike trails through wildlife preserves. I'm sure there are historical sights. I know there a carousel that's supposed to be the oldest continuously operating one in the U.S. complete with wooden horses. The date eludes me at the moment. If it's close by I'll check it out apart from that. I do want to see the gingerbread houses I think there might about 300 of them. Here are a few pictures I found on the web.

  

  

I hope to get a few shots of my own. I know very little of the history of the Island. I do know that it has 15,000+ year round residence. The population swells to around 75,000 during the vacation season.

OK I've yapped on long enough. It's coming up on 8 pm and and I haven't even had my supper yet. Later.

I'm outta here.

     

I can't think of one.

I really don't have a clue what I am writing about. I'm hoping it will come spilling out as I type. Is this really typing? I mean there's a keyboard... wait a minute. I'm not going to go off on that stupid tangent.

A couple of nights ago I heard the ice cream truck coming down the street. The weather is still pretty nice and someone might still want an ice cream but my first reaction when I heard that annoyingly creepy version of "Turkey in the Straw" or in the hay or where ever the turkey chills was ,"Oh go away! It's over!"
I know the person driving the truck is just trying to make a buck, but after three months of this truck slowly creeping, with the creepy music, up the street, between 6 and 6:30, every night for over 90 days plus, it's time for him to go away.

I do remember when I was a kid and I heard the canned music coming up the street, my mind went vacant as all thoughts were swept aside but one. Ice cream! Reacting like a trained animal, triggered by the music, I and I would guess most of the kids in the neighborhood, would rush to a parent begging for money because the ice cream man was coming! There were a lot of kids in my neighborhood. There aren't too many in my present neighborhood. All those kids are now aging baby boomers, closing in towards, hopefully, retirement. I do find myself thinking and saying things my parents used to say. The other night I was watching the news on my least favorite station. Why? I don't know. This is the station with all the flashy graphics and everything is "Breaking News"! There was one story they covered to death. Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots, was involved in an early morning traffic accident in Boston.
There were endless shots of his car being put on the flatbed truck, shots of the other vehicle and shots of glass in the street. In between they interviewed people on the street. Some were witnesses, others were just asked of what they thought about the accident. The Patriots issued a statement that said Brady was fine and there would be no further comments at this time. The station had reporters all over the place and down at the stadium. They all told you the same thing, but from a different location! Now that's definitive journalism! There were 4 T.V. helicopters hovering over the stadium. What kind of information were they trying to gain by hovering over the stadium for a few hours? All the while repeating the same three shots. As I watched one guy being interviewed I said to myself, "Ahh, you just want to be on television." Then I realised my father used to say the same thing! Funny about that.

To finish up there was this woman who came to the counter. She told the guy she wanted to buy her kids some baloney. She bought it for them last year and they loved it! Imagine that! Baloney as a treat! She continued asking the guy questions as to the various qualities of each baloney. Who knew buying baloney could be so complicated? Fortunately I wasn't dealing with her. I was doing something else until I heard, "Hey Paul maybe you can help this lady with her question?"

 The question? Here we go.  "Which baloney is the most interesting?"
Lets see. The Wunderbar German Baloney is endlessly fascinating with it's thorough knowledge of English literature and the Renaissance. Slap a couple of slices on a plate, pour yourself a glass of wine and prepare yourself to be riveted. Instead I said, "The Deuthmacher German baloney is my favorite!"
Only in Cambridge.

Well I know I haven't been around for a bit. I took a break from the computer.  I have to deal with a computer at work and and sometimes it's too much. So I took a few days off. An also because I have a new toy.

It's not new but new to me. There's a bit of damage to wood surface on the headstock (where the tuning pegs are) where somebody for some reason scraped the model name decal off. Why? Anybody who knows something about electric guitars knows what it is. Apart from that it's like new. Most importantly it plays well. 
I'm typed out .
I'll be visiting around.
I'm outta here.    

Another Blog

First of all I am starting to write this on Labor day and for the first time in a few years I am not laboring. It is another gem of a day. I probably won't finish this today but I don't care. There surely is a feel of fall in the air. I don't know about anyplace else but the weather man (I say that because he was a man at least as far as I know.) said that September was the sunniest month and I can't wait for scenes like this.

The above photo was taken from a tower in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery about 5 years ago. I'm can't remember if this before the  peak color or post.

Ah politicians. Politics is a bit of a sport around here and the political ads are in full swing. We take a back seat to no one when it comes sneaky, underhanded shenanigans. John Kerry, our Herman Munster look a like senior senator bought himself a yacht. Hey why is there a ch in the word yacht and why don't you pronounce the ch? But I digress. I can't remember how many millions of dollars it cost him, but the media found out and they also found out that he had docked the yacht in Rhode Island. Docking it there gets him out of paying a Massachusetts tax, I'm not sure which one. There are so many. He also didn't pay the excise tax. That's a tax on any kind of vehicle. If you buy a car they charge you an excise tax every year. I suppose they feel they just don't have enough of your money. He was asked why the yacht wasn't docked in Boston Harbor since he has a residence in town or why it wasn't down at his little summer shack on Nantucket. He said the yacht was down in Rhode Island because the company he bought it from is there and it's there for "maintenance". According to reports the boat has been in the harbor several times and the law states that if you make an out of state purchuse and bring it into the state within 6 months you owe money. It's the "You bought something out of state and we want more of your money tax." This has forced me to postpone my yacht purchase. It cost him, or actually more correctly his wife Teresa Heinz, yes, of ketchup, fame a cool $7,000,000. He owes the state about $500,000 for the one tax and $70,000 for the excise tax. I don't even know what excise means. 

Also concerning politics. One of the three people running against our incumbent governor "forgot" to pay some taxes. Whoops! The best one is the guy running for state auditor. You know the person who is the watch dog making sure that there is no funny business with the states books. He didn't pay some income taxes. Whoops again! He said it was just an"oversight". You can't expect the auditor to remember to pay his taxes every year. Government. What a racket!

Canterbridgian Tales.

Canterbridgians are what people from Cambridge Ma. are called. I have railed against the people of Cambridge many times and to be fair not everybody in Cambridge teaches or goes to Harvard or are decendence of the people on the Mayflower. Most are regular people, but you can spot the pompous stuffed shirts a mile away. Where else can you see a guy in a tweed jacket with the elbow leather elbow patches wearing a pith helmet. 

Where else can you see a

pruney, pasty white, 70 year old woman who looks like she's a refugee from the Mt.Auburn Cemetery across the street shopping for her brie and merlot wearing a little tennis out fit. Who wants to look at those Rand McNally road map twigs you call legs. And please! Don't bend over! Then there was the lady who came to the counter. She was nice enough as she bought her turkey and ham. Then she annouced that she wanted some cheese. I suggested the Land O Lakes American which was at a very good price. $2.99 lb.

She replied, "My dear I never buy anything that's processed!"

Yeah right except for the ham and the turkey.

Still I have a soft spot in my heart for Harvard Square. I spent a lot of my teenage to early twenties there because it was and still is such a hip funkey place. It was the place to buy records and clothes and maybe a mind altering substance or two. I got to see the band Chicago before they were famous on the Cambridge Common. The same with Alice Cooper. There were free concerts every Sunday on the Cambridge Common. Neither band is a particular favorite of mine but it was free and they were unknown at the time.

Well that's all I got in me for this go round. The week ahead looks to be beautiful weatherwise and I still have two more days off coming to me.
Hey I finished and it's still Labor Day. It's 9 in the evening but I finished so I think I'll post now.
I'm done.
I'm outta here.

Hey, it's just a hurricane.

There's been talk of Hurricane Earl for several days now. Hurricanes are tricky things. It's always tough to tell where they are going to go and how powerful they will be. Up here in Massachusetts Cape Cod and the islands will get the worst of the storm which at this point (about 4p.m.) the ocean is starting to churn on Nantucket and the wind is picking up in Hyannis on Cape Cod. The Hurricane has been down graded to a category 1 storm which I see on the television involves winds of 80 mph. At one point yesterday (Thursday) it was a category 4 storm. I think that means winds of around 140 mph. Still 80 mph winds are nothing to sneeze at and I don't recommend sneezing in the wind if you know what I mean.

All the local TV stations have their "storm coverage" on as I write. I admit I'm a sucker for this stuff. At least for an hour or two. It's the same for a large snow storm. With a snowstorm it does get a bit comical after a while. Reporters placed in various locations report the obvious.
"We now go to Carl Dork in Marblehead. What's it like there Carl?
"Well Dartanian as you can see the snow is falling at quite a clip." (Cut to a shot of the snow falling through a street lamp) "And it's really piling up on the ground." (Cut to a shot of the snow on the ground.)
"Back to you Dartanian." 
Waiting for a hurricane is no different. Earlier in the week, knowing I had Friday off, I did have thoughts of going to the ocean before the storm got here, to get some shots of the agitated ocean sort of like this one taken 3 years ago in Maine except then it was a beautiful spring day.

 Well it turns out that where I am in the Boston area we will get the late summer version of a Nor'easter snowstorm with some heavy rain and winds. All of this will happen later in the evening somewhere between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. So much for picture taking opportunities.
I did find it amusing yesterday at work where people were talking about the storm. Just like a snowstorm people had some crazy information about storm. One guy said the wind was 199 mph. This happens often when we are waiting for snow. All the meteorologists will say, "We are expecting 4 to 6 inches of snow." Invariably someone will say, "I heard we are going to get about a foot of snow!"

It's not all that hot right now at 76 degrees but it is about as humid as I can ever remember. The dew point is somewhere in the 70's. It is bad timing that this storm is happening right at the beginning of the holiday weekend especially for those business's on the Cape and the Island. And yet the weather on Saturday through Monday and the rest of next week looks to be near perfect.

And that's all for now from eastern Massachusetts. Back to you Congolia.
I'm outta here.

Hot and aggrivating two days

That's what I was on Monday and Tuesday as I went to work. I was aggrivated because I had a 12:30-9 shift and because there is a lot of contruction going on in and around my city square. There putting up a hotel or should I say they are putting up another hotel because where I live is only 5 miles from Boston and the main highway runs through my city. I know it makes sense because business people and tourist can stay here and be in Boston in about 10 minutes. That, of course depends on the time of day. Well if it's not construction it's road work. If it's not roadwork it's the gas company. I live very close to the square (meaning the center of town). I have to go through two traffic lights to get through it and normally this takes 5 minutes. Monday it took 25. I Iive 5 miles from where I work in Cambridge Ma. I give myself an hour to get there when I start work anytime after 7 a.m. My next snag was going by Tufts University which is in the city that I live in. It's approaching fall and all the students are descending into the area. I knew I was in trouble when I hit Cambridge. There are cars and vans double parked all over the place because students are moving in. There are 30 colleges and universities in the Boston are alone. This translates into 250,000 students cramming into an already densely populated area. The next city after mine is Somervile. It normally has a population of 90,000. Students are moving in there as well. My route next takes me into Cambridge. Another city of 90,000. Even more students moving in there with the two heavy hitters Harvard and M.I.T. I go through Harvard Square on my way to work. It is normally congested with cars and people.

This is Harvard Square. This is the very road I travel on. Harvard Yard is on the left. You can see one of the entrances on the brick wall on the left. The reason it doesn't look crowded with cars and people is because this was taken at 6:48 on a Sunday Morning.

 Tuesday was even more aggravating than  Monday. We were unusually busy and of course we were understaffed to handle it. As the afternoon wore on I couldn't get off the counter and time was running short. I had things to do. Orders to place on the computer that had a time limit. I admit at getting stressed and not being all that pleasant and friendly to customers. I wondered could the hurricane coming up the east coast and possibly hitting us in some form on Friday be the cause for all this extra business? On top of that we are in the middle of another heatwave. Today it's 91 not quite as bad as the previous days but it's getting more humid. Tomorrow (Thursday) promises to be at least just as hot and more humid. At least I'll be in an air conditioned store for 9 hours.

This summer has been a hot one at least for the Boston area. Around 30 days have bee 90 degrees plus but we have not had very much rain except for last week. Consequently I have seen a few trees already beginning to turn color. Photographically it could be a very good fall. 

OK. several months ago back on spaces I made a little photo album of photo's I had taken up until that point. Now I have not taken nearly as many photo's as I took in the last two years but be that as it may here is a little photo album of some pictures I have taken since the last photo album. Set to music. It's blues music which I happen to love. I wish I could play the blues as well as whoever is playing them on this track. So here they are Photo's 2010 part 2.

So here I sit in air conditioned comfort waiting for my final load of laundry to dry. They are talking the hurricane up. At this point it looks like the Boston area will get 30 to 40 mile an hour winds on Friday evening. Cape Cod and the islands, Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket are under a hurricane watch. Further down the east coast they are definitley going to get hit at least as of now. Speaking of Marthas Vineyard I am chomping at the bit to go there but I will have to wait until Serptember 27. I hope the weather cooperates and please no hurricanes!

Time to get and sort some 2000 socks. OK I exaggerated a wee bit.

I'm outta here.