car

Fun With Snow and Parking

Posted on by grahams

The 5-6 inch storm that hit Boston was a 12-14 inch storm in Chelmsford where I work. It was snowing when I woke up yesterday, and although it was enough to disrupt traffic, it wasn’t enough to keep me from trying to get into work. It took 1:45 to complete my 27 mile commute, most of that was getting through Brighton and Cambridge and to the highway. Looking out the window all day at work I knew the commute home was going to be a nightmare, and I was right.

I sat on Route 3 for about 45 minutes without moving at all… For some reason the plows intermittently plowed the right hand lane, which caused all kinds of traffic as people merged. This, combined with the usual traffic of people getting on 95 north (I go south) meant a nightmare commute. It ended up taking me about 2 hours to get to Alewife. I decided to park my car at Alewife over the weekend so I didn’t have to worry about the parking situation on the street here. It’s only 5 bucks a night, and since it is supposed to be above freezing the next few days I figured it was a small price to pay to wait out the snow. If the situation seems less grim here tomorrow I will probably go get it and bring it back. I took the Red Line to Harvard and then took the 86 bus to Brighton Center. My commute home ended up being 3 hours when I walked in the door to our apartment.

In a stunning bit of serendipity, I had decided to make a stew in the crock pot, which was a pretty comforting meal after such a cold day. I had put it in the pot before I left for work in the morning, so it was pretty much all ready to go when we got home… We just kinda chilled last night, both of us had pretty bad days..

Homosapiens have outgrown their use

Posted on by grahams

Open request to Massachusetts: Fucking finish Route 3 already… The road is completely paved, the lines are painted, and the ramps have been renovated… What the shit are you still working on?

I’m finally shifting further into the “new stuff” here at work… My new cubicle is awesome… It’s a little bigger than usual (it’s at the end of a row, so I got the leftovers) and I’m in a row with all the CAD guys, so the lights above my cube are all turned off… I am not a big fan of fluorescent tubes, so this is a good thing… In addition to the lack of overhead light, this cave is in the middle of the building, so I get no windows either… I have mixed feelings about this… On one hand, I hate glare, OTOH, I have no idea what’s going on outside… There’s going to be a lot of upfront design and documentation to take care of before any code is written (or at least, any non-prototype code).

The aforementioned accident was no big deal… I tapped someone’s passenger side doors, nobody was hurt, and my car only got scraped up a bit… I was stopped at a stop sign, looked left and right, moved forward, and a car I didn’t see was moving in front of me from the left… I haven’t actually heard from the lady yet, she mentioned she was going to be out of town for awhile… Not sure if insurance is going to be involved, she said she would get an estimate first… It was a shitty way to start the Labor Day weekend, though… Other than the bad start, the trip was great… We didn’t hit traffic in either direction, and the weather was great.

CSH Welcome Back Weekend was a ton of fun… Met tons of new people and caught up with lots of old friends. Had far too much to drink Friday night (turns out I was correct to avoid Everclear all these years), enjoyed the picnic on Saturday once we finally figured out when it was, had great food all weekend, and perhaps signifying a trend, we didn’t encounter traffic in either direction. Even made it back in time for the Sunday Night Film Club’s screening of “Le Monde du Silence (The Silent World)”, which was surprisingly amazing… I was never into the Cousteau stuff when I was a kid, but this was really entertaining..

Ok, enough effluvia… This album (Busdriver’s “Fear of a Black Tangent”) is really good, you should check it out…

Postage will be paid by addressee

Posted on by grahams

Got our itinerary for our flight out to SiVi in two weeks, and wouldn’t ya know it… We are flying United…. Yep, that’s right, the airline who’s employees are currently striking…

My roommate, Jon Parise just took off about an hour ago. I didn’t really get to give him a hearty goodbye, because he stopped by during our meeting, but I should be seeing him this weekend.

The garage said that they weren’t sure what was wrong with my car, but that they found a problem with the fan (it was working intermittently). I am taking it to the adirondacks this weekend, so I should know by monday if it is still hosed… Damn car…

It’s hard to look through a telescope when it is covered by a tarp.

Posted on by grahams

Stellafane was somewhat of a bust, all things considered. While it was great to see Dad, Chuck, and Johnny again, the weather was less than savory. I would say that Stellafane is much less fun when you spend most of it under a tarp.

Friday night was fairly clear until 1am, which provided some nice viewing, but Saturday was overcast most of the day, and towards the end of the day it poured, which really sucked. I ended up going to bed at 9pm just to get out of the rain.

Oh, did I fail to mention that my car still overheats?!?!? Most of the way up and all the way back I had to stop every 50 miles or so to let the car cool off for awhile. That’s 3 times that Mr. Joe Legno told me the same problem was fixed and it hasn’t been… He will be hearing from me. :)

Chuck started back for NJ a little while ago, which is why I am into work so early today. The office is VERY hot this morning, I pressed the override button for the thermostat, hopefully it will cool down soon. I suspect that the cooling is just busted, and it will probably take weeks to fix.

My roommate, Jon Parise is allegedly visiting today, for a week or so, which is way-cool. It is always fun to geek-out with Jon, and it will be nice to get to hang out with him without the pressures of classes getting in the way.