corinna

OMG beautiful weekend FTW

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What an awesome weekend in every respect! Friday night had some friends over to watch the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica as well as the Webisodes (worst. name. ever.) , , and Audra all came over for snacks, pizza, and drinks. The webisodes were OK, but definitely not up to par. The premiere was good, although it could have been tightened up, as some of the plot points were a little weak. But it definitely set up for an AWESOME season, imho.

Saturday morning, Chuck arrived from NJ for a weekend visit. We parked his car over at Alewife and headed out to Kelly’s Roast Beef for lunch. We did all kinds of things this weekend, including heading out to the MFA, Summer Shack, flew (and not crashing) my helicopter, saw “The Departed” (was amazingly awesome), and a bunch of other stuff. He left yesterday afternoon and got home safely without any trouble. Totally awesome.

Corinna and I watched Four Brothers last night, which was a steaming pile of crap. I expected an enjoyably trashy flick, but it was just terrible. There were about 3 minutes where I actually enjoyed watching it.

Even if the terrorists don’t win, we still fuck it up

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Last weekend and I headed down to NJ… I was going to Wired NextFest to give a little support to , who was there representing Ensemble Robot. Corinna planned on heading into Manhattan with me so she could visit the NYPL as well as her college roommate and family. Friday night we drove down after work, me driving the whole way, Corinna watching 5 episodes of BSG as part of her massive catch-up effort. I made her watch the 4 hour miniseries the previous weekend, and in 8 days she made it through all of Season 1 and 2. We are going to have some people over this Friday to watch the terribly-named Webisodes as well as the Season 3 premiere. She’s an fracking junkie now.

Saturday, we parked in Hoboken and took the PATH up to 33rd. We grabbed a slice of mediocre pizza (Presto) and split up. I headed over to the Javits Center.. To be honest, NextFest was kind of a bummer.. There were some interesting things, but it really didn’t grab me… After seeing Gib’s panel discussion, I headed over to meet up with Corinna over at Sara & Dave’s place. They live down near Battery Park, so I took the opportunity to head over to the World Trade Center for the first time since 2001. It was really tough for me; I bounced back and forth between sadness and anger. I can’t believe it’s still a fucking hole in the ground. WTC7 has been completely rebuilt, but the crater looks like it hasn’t changed in ages.. I moped my way over to Sara & Dave’s, which gave me time to bounce back, and we hung out with those guys all night, eating some Indian food from Baluchi’s and catching up. We made it back to Hopatcong around 11am, and I passed out pretty quickly.

Sunday we hung out a bit for hitting the road.. Corinna plowed through another 5 episodes… She skipped out on the film club, but I headed over to Harvard Square to catch The Science of Sleep. It was enjoyable, but not great… I think Gael Garcia Bernal is overrated, and kind of annoys me, to be honest..

Bathroom Update

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got a call from the contractor a few days ago asking her to be home at 3pm yesterday to sign off on the bathroom. Corinna and I called bullshit on this right away, looking at the work left to be done in the bathroom. I advised her to call the company before she left work so she didn’t waste any of her time. When she did, they were “running behind, but should be done around 6pm”. I left work a little early so I could be home at ~5pm to have a word with the contractors. When I got home, the owner, site manager, and plumber were there, surprised that I came home.

They started off saying they hadn’t finished, and that they’d have to come back to finish the access panel for the water shutoff as well as the radiator. I took this opportunity to add the chase they were on contract to install to box out the steam main. They looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears. My temper flared instantly, as I knew they had convieniently forgotten about this work. I calmed myself down (“He took a duck in the face at two hundred and fifty knots”) and pointed them to the original sales agreement which specifically mentioned either moving the steam main into the wall or boxing it out. I was originally concerned when I saw the plaster guy doing the walls but not boxing in the pipe, but I remembered someone mentioned they usually use some kind of panelling for those tasks. But I honestly think they were trying to not do the work, which pisses me off.

I’ve continued to updated the photos of the job, but don’t be fooled by the titles, “Day 15” is not elapsed time, but worked time. This wednesday will be the 4 week mark since the beginning of this job. “Day 15” doesn’t count weekends or the several days (one stretch was 4 days in a row) that they didn’t do a god-damned thing.

Return of the Roommate

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was around this weekend, visiting his parents who moved from NJ to NH a few weeks ago. I hadn’t seen him since the 30th, but this was the first time we were able to really hang out in years. Friday night Jon got a ride to my work (which is really close to NH) and we drove back to Boston to meet up with to grab some food at Tasca before seeing Peeping Tom and Gnarls Barkley over at Avalon. The tickets said 7pm, but I checked the Avalon website (which is terrible, and took forever to navigate) which said doors were at 6pm and the show started at 7pm. Now, I’ve probably seen 100 shows in my life, and I can’t think of a single time where the show started “on time”. We got there at 7:03pm, and not only was there a 7:05pm game at Fenway (which Avalon is across Lansdowne from), but there was a line of over 100 people outside the venue. As we got on line, it was clear that Peeping Tom (the band I was actually there to see) was already playing.. So I missed about 20 minutes of their set waiting on a line outside, and was pretty pissed. But I calmed down once I got inside… The part of their set I caught was good, they even played a Lovage song (“Anger Management”) sparking an internal debate over whether it’s a cover song if you play the song of another band you are in… Who knows… I’d like to see Peeping Tom as a headliner though.. With only one album under their belt it might be difficult, but Patton isn’t afraid of playing covers, so I think they could put on a good set.

After a quick stage flush, Gnarls Barkley’s 14 piece touring outfit took the stage. Another band with only one (relatively short) album under their belt, but they put on a great show. I was impressed as to how an album recorded by a producer/laptop weenie and a vocalist/lyricist was translated to stage. They did a faithful rendition of most (if not all) of the songs on the album, but with an album that’s only 35 minutes long their set was really short. Whatever, I mean, I’d rather have one tight set than one padded with crap, but a few well-selected covers might have been nice. But whatever, the show as great, even if it ended before 10pm. This is the real reason the show started so promptly, because the bloodless motherfuckers at Avalon didn’t want to interfere with their lame dance club night. Hey, I’d be happy if shows always started on time, but I think a 15 minute delay is appropriate if half the audience is waiting online outside.

Saturday, we had brunch at Moogy’s before heading to Harvard Square and MIT for some tourism. We caught the Fogg Museum at Harvard which was great, as well as the new Stata Center, hideously designed by Frank Gehry. After tourism, we had some delicious Imperial Pizza, and Jon and I headed to NH to have a shower at his parents’ house (our bathroom is still not done) and to meet up with Garrett at “Boston” Billiard Club in Nashua, NH. It was a great time, Jon and I quickly reverting to our old “Garrett Music Quiz” selves… It’s amazing how much he DOESN’T know about music. I mean, even if you can’t remember the title “Penny Lane” you should be able to figure out it’s The Beatles…

Sunday, Corinna and I caught Beowulf & Grendel with the film club. It was a really good adaptation of the poem (as I remember from reading it 15 years ago). It focused on Beowulf hunting Grendel, but none of what came after that. I guess that should have been obvious from the film’s title, but I was oblivious. Anyway, it was really enjoyable (besides Sarah Polley, who’s delivery was dead as a board and who didn’t even try to fake an accent).

A tired morning entry

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A generally fun weekend… and I tidyed up the kitchen and started putting the shelves to use. They look even better populated than they did empty, I took some pictures; I try and get them up later today. We also installed some bifold doors in the closet near the bathroom, which was a bit of a chore.. Corinna thought it would be a simple job, perhaps puffed by the cabinet success last weekend, but I knew it couldn’t possibly go smoothly. We had to remove a shelf and shorten it by about two inches because it stuck out beyond the closet and the newly-installed doors were hitting it. Removing this shelf was a nightmare… There are also ~2″ gaps on either side of doors, which we had planned for and have wood to fill, but nothing is true in our apartment, so it is going to require some planing.

Sunday we went to Duxbury to swim in ‘s pool.. It was such a perfect day to spend in the water, we always have a great time out there, many thanks to Sir Adam.

The contractors are apparently going to start our bathroom renovations tomorrow, which is exciting… Even though they were supposed to give us 1.5 weeks notice, yet they called Corinna at 5pm on Friday saying they were starting Tuesday… So we had to have a mad scramble to get the tile and sink… On top of all that, I have to pad hours in the beginning of the week, as I am taking Friday off to go to Jersey for some boating with some of my friends..

Another shot of the finished shelves

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Corinna just put the finishing touches on our big project for last weekend. We built some open cabinets/shelves from scratch for a space in our kitchen. Our goal was to make them look like they fit in with the existing work in the apartment, and I believe we were successful. Check out this set over on Flickr to see the project from start to finish.


Ben and Aimee

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Ben and Aimee
Originally uploaded by seangraham.

Ben and Aimee’s wedding was this weekend. The whole affair went off pretty smoothly, but it also kept me rather busy. Everyone here at work is asking how my long weekend was, and I have to let them know that it was more of a short weekend… More accurately, it was a weekend with periods of partying punctuating a hum of stress and schlepping. But what else can you expect from a wedding… :)

and I arrived in Jersey around midnight after work on Thursday. Friday, Ben and his family (who I hadn’t met before) arrived, so we entertained them and kept the 4 dogs (two are my parents’ and two are Ben & Aimee’s) in line. Saturday was the rehearsal dinner, and so we were moving food and drinks over to the hall for a lot of that day. But once we were set up, it was great seeing all the family and friends who had come out for the wedding.

Sunday was the big day, and I was standing with Ben, which required me to get into a tuxedo for the first time in my life. The ceremony was at 11:30, but we had to get over to Bretton Woods for pictures and whatnot by 9:30. The weather held out for pretty much the whole day, although it started getting overcast after the ceremony, but we were inside at that point. Everyone seemed to have a great time.. Ben and Aimee seemed so comfortable; Television and movies have taught me that people are supposed to freak out before their wedding, but these kids had it together.

Monday was very relaxing, we spent the day on the boat and caught Superman Returns at night. That movie was fantastic… People seem rather polarized by it, but I thought it was great.

Anyway, there are tons of pics of the weekend up on Flickr, so if you care, take a gander. I also created a Flickr group for the wedding, so if you think you should have access to that drop a line to Aimee or myself.