Sunday Oct. 31 Halloween.

There's one house in the neighborhood, actually around the corner from me, that does it up big for Halloween. These people decorate their house like nobody else around here. I was walking past one my way to the Square, the center of town, to take some pictures of what was a combination ribbon cutting ceremony for a new restaurant/campaign appearance of the Governor. Some of the pictures ended up on a local website. Check out the house.

 It was a brisk fall day. The sun was bright at 11:00 am when it wasn't ducking behind the continually moving clouds. Sometimes you come across a typical fall scene.

It was nice to see the square not clogged with traffic.

This is the restaurant that used to be a bank I mentioned a few blogs ago. This was the official ribbon cutting/grand opening/campaign stop event that actually drew a fair amount of people. All the city pols were there. It was so crowded when I went inside that I decided not to even try to take pictures. I picked what I thought was a good position near the door by a lamp post. I was in a better position than the photographers from the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe.

The man on the left is the owner of the restaurant. The mayor is in the middle and a city counselor.

All four local television network affiliates were present. The camera is really stuck in your face. 

 

Govenor Patrick arrives. I had a great spot.

 Following behind Patrick is Congressman Ed Markey. I believe he's the Chairman of the Committee that comes up with other Committee's.

 That leering man behind Patrick is the Congressman Markey. I didn't recognise him when I was taking the picture. When I looked at it later my first thought was Groucho Marx.

Left to right, the mayor, the governor and the congressman.

It's been a busy day. It's 11:35 pm as I write this. I was out most of the day. I took time out to watch the Patriots Game at 4 and finished all these pictures off before I started this. Time for bed.
I'm outta here.

We interupt this program to bring you nothing.

Boy I have been busy! Here it is 9 pm. I've been home 3 hours. I've managed to eat supper and deal with 5 phone calls. Two political calls. No, not Bill Clinton. He called during the election to fill Kennedy's seat. As far as I can remember Bill is doing well and says hi. One from the city explaining what we can and can't recycle as we have a new trash collecting  system, involving rather large green receptacles. I can recycle a mayo jar or a spaghetti sauce jar. If I would be so inclined to buy some. As an aside, if you grew up Italian with lots homemade sauce it goes against your grain to buy pre- made sauce. I confess I have though. And  BOY have I digressed! This is what happens when I wing these blogs. Any way I got these phone calls two of which were from friends. I am certainly grateful that I friends who I see on a regular basis and who call me. Tonight I just wanted the day to end. The first friend called telling me that he was pressed for time because he was attending some economic seminar and then wouldn't shut up. Reminding me again that he was short on time to talk. He kept talking. Friend number two just called to say hi and was in a chatty mood. I was polite and chatted back. There was no call for me to be rude but still I just wanted to say,
"I don't want to talk any more, I don't want to think any more. I just want the day to wind down." After all that happened I sat down in front of the computer and started this endless blather. See I can't say "babble" cause that's Toodies thing and I can't say ramble because I would be infringing on Carole. See! That was more blather! Speaking of this very computer. It apparently died 3 nights ago. I came home from work and tried to turn it on and nothing. It's a laptop. I bought it last January. I lugged out one of my dinosaur computer. It was in need of mucho updating. I learned that most of the time when this happens to a laptop you unplug and take out the battery. Put the battery back and plug it back in and it restarts.

So today it was a beautiful summer like day. I took my camera to work. I was getting out fairly early at 3:30 and this would be one of my few chances to take some fall photo's. I have mentioned and photographed the Mt. Auburn Cemetery many times. The trees are really turning color now and there is no better place to witness this locally than Mt. Auburn. This is a shot from the parking lot where I work, of the cemetery across the street.

Now here are some I took between 4 and 5 this afternoon and the sun was fading fast.



I couldn't decide if this tree looked pregnant or had a beer gut. It could be that this tree was stuffing his bark with socks to impress the lady trees or maybe it's a tree with a big booty. 



There are a few more that I will post next time. At 172 acres there's so much to see. I have to take the audio tour which takes you to the graves of famous people. Great exercise as it is all hills and valleys and truly spectacular on a bright fall day.
Now I really have to turn my brain off. I'll be around to visit tomorrow morning then it's the late shift. Goodnight.
I'm outta here.
 

more nothing

The fall colors are somewhat muted around here. I have not been on any fall foliage  trips this year and the window is quickly closing. I did venture out today to check out a local reservation that I have not been to since the 70's. Today was overcast with a chance of rain I was not there 10 minutes when it started to rain. Here are a couple of shots but nothing stood out. Still it's a nice place. I have no shots of the wide open field. I was out of there quickly.

Maybe I'll get lucky on Wednesday as I'm off. The weather looks to be nicer. And speaking of work. I was speaking of work wasn't I? Of course. I often mention things that people say. Anyway a woman came to me looking for a certain Irish cheese. At first I couldn't find it but then...
"Oh here it is. They've changed the wrapper. It's pink in honor of Breast Awareness Month....I'm sorry I meant Breast Cancer Awareness Month."
Fortunately she just laughed. Still I just want to be clear I support both causes.
Speaking of sushi. The two guys who work the sushi bar in my store are Chinese. I find it amusing when I see their name tags. Ben and Ken. It seems they figured that their real names would be near unpronounceable to westerners so rather than giving someone a case of the Heebie Jeebies they became Ben and Ken the sushi guys. And don't forget January is Heebie Jeebie Awareness month. Another cause I support.

Well it's been a rather busy Sunday. Company from 4-6:30 then again at 7 to about 9:30. The day is almost done. I think I'm almost done.
Goodnight.
I'm outta here.

The Pequot Hotel



The hotel at night



The lobby



A horseshoe crab



The underneath



Recently (About two weeks ago) my city staged a re-enactment of colonial times, Why I don't know and when I was there there weren't many people but the whole thing ran about 10 hours all day long. Well I suppose 10 hours isn't all day long but then again what is? Sorry I just boarded the tangent train. I'm getting off here. Any way to sum up, I was asked to take some pictures of this event for my neighbor's daughter's local web site. Here are a few of them.



OK. I have to get back to doing something or should I say something else. After a day of nothing yesterday I have decreed this a day of something.

I'm outta here.

A blog about nothing

So far today I've done nothing because I believe nothing is the thing for me to do today. Of course writing this is something because it requires me to be somewhat coherent. A skill I have not needed today up until now. A few question popped up on my last blog entry in no particular order. The estimated take in that 1980 robbery  was $25 million. Beth and Horace might have wondered what I ate. OK you can stop holding your breath. It was nothing fancy. I'm basically a meat and potato's guy. The restaurant featured general fare. Some of this and some of that. I had steak tips, garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. I will get a bit more adventurous next time I go. Perhaps seafood.
Carole I am curious. You said you saw Sam Adams at your local supermarket. Has it just gone into your area?

I see why I can't upload photos now. The image uploads have been disabled due to maintenance. At least that's what it says near the top of the page here.

Toodie you asked how my date went. I can sum the evening up with the absolute truth by saying two words and an initial.
Dinner and BJ's. It's not quite as exiting as it sounds. BJ's is a warehouse store. I was going to look for a winter coat and or an IPod. Neither of which I purchased. I instead went home with Green Acres the first season for 10 bucks. A show I found stupidly amusing when I was in my teens. Yes Toodie the evening was a whirlwind of excitement.

I'm sure it's the same all over the country but the political TV ads are coming fast and furious. Sure they're annoying and they are vicious. One ad called the opposing candidate "a dopey terrorist".
"Joe Gasbag is for lower taxes and more jobs. Jim Shifty wants the government to have all your money and pulls the legs off of butterflies!". And on and on it goes. The tone of these attack ads has taken on the air of a wrestling grudge match. In fact WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) owner Vince McMahon's wife is running for the senate in Connecticut. It wasn't that long ago that we around here went through this stuff when we had that special election to fill a seat in the senate. I think it was last January.

OK. There more nothing that I have to get to though there's plenty to do but as Beth says, "Its not going to matter much in 100 years". There I've done too much of something already. I'm exhausted.

I'm outta here.

A bit of time to spend.

Yeah I've got a bit of time to play with my computer. That's what I mostly do with it. It is an invaluable source of information. For though when I do spend time on the computer it's usually doing some pastime like choosing, editing or altering photo's or little movie clips. I might play a game and of course coming here. I've had little time to myself the last two weeks and this will continue until Wednesday. That will end my streak of eight days straight since my last day off. Yeah it's a bit of a whine but this can happen when you work retail. I was here  planning a quick visit on Friday but had to leave because my dinner date arrived 15 minutes early and it's not nice to keep a lady waiting.  Not only that, she was treating! It doesn't happen very often. And speaking of dinner I went to a new and a little unusual restaurant. Restaurants have been popping up around my city for the last 10 years. Because of my cities close proximity to Boston and the local hotels nearness to the main highway into town. More and more out of towners are staying here thus all the new restaurants. But I have digressed. The restaurant I went to was formally a bank and a notorious bank. You could sit in the outer restaurant which wasn't very unusual but very nice or you could sit in the vault.

I don't have all the particulars but in 1980 the building was occupied by the Depositors Trust bank. A group of local city policemen and and some from a now defunct police force, broke into the bank by some ingenious method through the ice cream shop next door. Not only did they take all the money but they went through all the safety deposit boxes.

It was one of the biggest bank robberies ever. While the bank was being robbed the Memorial Day parade passed by and people lined the street. The most interesting aspect is many people did not want to report what they had lost in the safety deposit boxes. Who knows what people had squirreled away in those boxes? There were all kinds of speculations as to what was hidden away. Money. Not legal money though. Stolen items, drugs, illegal weapons, all things that you would want to keep secret. It remained unsolved for 7 years until some infighting amongst the thieves resulted in someone ratting someone else out. I don't  have the dollar figure but that information would be out there somewhere. I remember watching a piece on the robbery on 60 Minutes. Anyway the vault was full so we had to eat in the outer restaurant. The food was very good and reasonably priced.

So here I am on Monday morning with a few free hours before work. It has been a grueling two weeks with tomorrow being the eighth day in a row. I work till 9 tonight and 5 tomorrow. I can't wait for this stretch to be over. OK I whined again. I tried to upload a few more pictures but for some reason they are not uploading properly. Oh well.
I have an hour of freedom left then I must get ready for work. I should be back on Wednesday. Until then...
I'm outta here.

One more week...

Hello. It's been a while. I just had a week to forget, at least work wise. Apart from the 6 days I worked, I wasn't home very much and when I was I had company. I'm not complaining about the company. It's good that I still have friends that want to visit me. Two of the friendships go back over 40 years. The strange but true thing for me is that I can now refer back to things 40, no make that 50 years ago. A half a frickin' century! I remember hearing my parents and people of their generation making these references back when I was a kid.
"I haven't talked to him in 25 years."
You hear that when your 10 or 12 and it's a concept that you can't grasp. They are referring back more than twice the time of your whole existence. It's a foreign concept. But here I am talking like they did back then.
This whole ramble I just went on is nothing more than my way of dealing with aging. Most of the time I don't think about it. I wasn't thinking about it when I started this entry. It started when I wrote about knowing people for over 40 years. This blog is not about aging or work. In fact I don't know what it is supposed to be about. I just had some time so I thought I'd check in with you. I had no clue as to what I would write about and I don't know how it will end. I will visit after I post this entry. Oh and thanks to the people that gave me suggestions as to where I can post photo albums. I haven't decided yet. 

Yup. 3 more pictures of you know where. I have finally gone through all the pictures. I do have them all saved and separated basically by locale. Along with all the pictures I have a good amount of clips that I have assembled into  15 minute plus extravaganza that I put on a DVD for myself and a couple of friends. It's too long to post. I will probably squeeze a couple more short movies from from the lot of clips. 
On a lighter note, well I'm not sure if it's more humorous or ironic. A bit of both I suppose. I was sitting in the lunchroom at work and somebody had left a newspaper from the neighboring city. As I killed time turning the pages I came to the police blotter. There is a school for the blind in the area though I won't mention the name. The headline read something like this.
"Man Arrested For Indecent Exposure At XYZ School For The Blind". Yes I know there is nothing funny about being blind or being a flasher and yet, despite knowing no details of the incident, that headline made me chuckle. Maybe you just had to be there.

Alright I now know where this blog will end. Right here.
I'm outta here.