These trees normally stand straight. They did not last night.
This winter has been kind of a bust as far as snow goes. Thursday I was wandering around in a t-shirt because it was 60 degrees! And then The Snow Came. The kids had a snow day, I worked from home, and Dad decided to go into the office. He was sad that he missed the traditional breakfast of all snow days, french toast. I explained that you only get french toast if you stay home. Its in the rules. Really.
The snow is that heavy, wet kind that takes out trees. We only lost the one branch (at the front of the stairs, just for the extra drama), so it could have been much worse. After Dad got home (I made him send me a Glympse so I could watch him drive home), we decided to go out and brave the roads to honor our family tradition of Friday Night at the Mall (don’t ask. I don’t know how it started). We got dinner and toddled off to Newbury Comics to see what they had.
Dad and Alpha settling in to wait for Beta and I to finish. It was a while.
We had a grand time. Beta found some quidditch goggles, and had enough money for them, so now she is their proud owner. I found so much stuff I would love to own, but I don’t want to actually pay for/store somewhere in my house. Alpha swears she loves comics, but she never seems to find the one that sings to her. I’m waiting for her to discover Sandman.
The drive home was beautiful, because the trees were all spangled with snow. They glowed in the headlights. There were a few new branches on the ground, which was a little nerve-wracking, but it looks if it was going to fall, it has.
This afternoon, Dad had to go down to Willimantic to help out one of his old clients. Of course, we stopped by Panera first for lunch (because Panera). He left from there, and I wandered down to a display of snow pants on clearance. On the day after a snow storm. I love how this works.
One pair of snow pants for Alpha later, I dragged the girls and Beta’s friend Lambda out to sled. First at the Senior Center here in town (which seems to be frequented by the little kids), and then Woburn Street School. They had the whole place to themselves, and spent about an hour blazing trails, building jumps, and sledding.
One of my favorite TV series is Sherlock, the modern update to Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous character. There are three 90+ minute episodes per season, and the seasons are spaced two years apart.
The latest season has been much anticipated by fans, so much so that the first episode, titled The Abominable Bride, warranted a limited cinematic co-release with the premier on television.
Meghan, bless her heart, found out about this release and that one of the lucky cinemas to have some showings is near us. My Christmas present was a pair of tickets. Naturally, one was actually for her. (Though she had the good taste to not point that out.)
Date Night!
Meghan’s mom came up to babysit the girls. Since we were going to be out late, she planned to stay overnight. (That plan changed at the last minute: she developed conjunctivitis the same day, and still came up, but elected to drive herself home when we got home — at 10 pm.)
Meghan and I drove into the city a bit early to have a nice dinner. Not knowing the city all that well, we parked the car around the corner from the cinema and followed our noses.
Meghan at Papagayo
We stumbled upon a hole in the wall called Papagayo. Unlike the nearby restaurants with flashy signs and prices to match, our meal was very tasty and surprisingly inexpensive.
After dinner we had time to kill so we took in some local flavor. Within a couple of city blocks we had encountered two universities, a handful of theaters, Macy’s, Chinatown, and a strip club.
Alas, it was time for the movie so we shuffled back to the cinema and headed up. You can already find the episode on television so I’ll not bore with details; I will say that it was good. My favorite scene was when Sherlock came to (the first time).
Beta and I seem to be the more adventuresome side of the family. Today we went hiking in the Middlesex Fells Reservation because we’d never been.
For our first look-around, I chose to start near the off-leash area at the Sheepfold, thinking we might be able to let Butter off her leash for a bit. Sadly, the area is not fenced in at all, and she won’t come on command when there are any distractions. (Butter will come when called at home, she’s not totally devoid of training, but the possibilities of squirrels and other dogs and dead things to roll around in are just too much for her to resist.)
From the Sheepfold parking area, there’s a straight shot up to the Bear Hill observation tower (about a mile) so we headed up. The view from the top is impressive.
Beta brought along a book to identify animal tracks, and we found some animal tracks that were neither human nor dog — we think they were bobcat.
Unbeknownst to me Beta did NOT bring socks, however, and her waterproof boots quickly gave her a blister. We discovered this at the tower, so we turned around and headed home a bit earlier than I had planned. She promised me that she would bring socks next time, and she was so miserable by the end of the hike that I kind of believe her this time. I think she enjoyed the hike otherwise, though.
Quincy Market. The girls wanted nothing to do with this selfie.
Another year, another amazing fireworks show on Boston Common!
The weather has been abnormally warm this year. Christmas day was in the 60’s, and NYE was in the upper 40’s during the day. The fireworks, held at 7 pm, were not uncomfortably cool.
Being a tradition, we like to make an evening of it. We took the train in, arriving at North Station and walking around the city. Even though we have a train station in town, the parking sucks and the fares are higher so we head down the road to Anderson RTC in Woburn. The MBTA makes outbound trips free on NYE after 8 pm, so it’s even cheaper to take the train (and just as convenient).
The carousel doesn’t have any horses, but it does have squirrels, owls, and a sea turtle
On the greenway in front of Quincy Market there is a carousel. December 31 is the last day of the season, so the kids like to get in one last ride. This year we arrived after dark so all the lights were on.
After the carousel, we headed across the street to Quincy Market. The Christmas tree was still lit and the holiday show, Blink!, was still running. It’s just a small light show and music that plays a few times an hour, but it’s a nice touch.
Dad and Beta making bad faces for the selfie
We got dinner at the kiosks in Quincy Market. It was nothing to write home about except this year there was a teenage guy playing rock hits on his guitar in the central seating area that Alpha was quite taken with. Meghan gave her some money to throw in his guitar case. It was all very cute.
We got some dessert and hot chocolate on our way out, and ate it on the way. The kids got cannoli, which weren’t quite as good as what’s available in the North End but seemed to be pretty good regardless. Meghan and I shared a slice of German Chocolate cake.
Heading home, and all smiles!
With the weather being so nice a lot of people turned out this year, and the hill overlooking the baseball diamond was downright crowded.
A funny thing about these fireworks: they always seem to have more than one climax. We always have to wait for a few moments to make sure they’re really done this time, before heading out. We caught a train from North Station before 8:30, had the girls in bed before 10. No, we didn’t stay up until midnight either.
We’ve been a Microsoft-free household for the better part of a decade. I had one lonely copy of Windows XP on a virtual machine so that I could occasionally use iTunes to manage my iPad. Everything else runs some variant of Linux, OSX, or iOS. Until yesterday, Christmas day.
We purchased new hardware so the girls can a) run their Windows-based games, and b) stop fighting over the other “fast” computer. It wasn’t a terribly expensive machine (<$200) but it offers decent performance. We went completely over to the Dark Side and purchased it from our local Microsoft Store.
I was pleased with the whole process — I rather prefer the tenor of the Microsoft Store over the Apple Store (located a few storefronts away in the same mall). Windows 10 is supposed to be so much better, too. I’m not a fan of the interface but it is intuitive for some tasks.
I have just, as I type this, finished removing malware. Already. Less than 24 hours after turning their new, fully-patched Windows laptop over to the kids, there is malware on it. The built-in Windows Defender virus and malware scanner didn’t detect it, of course, but it was clear that something was wrong when I borrowed it back to check on it.
Color me unsurprised. I’m just glad that I took a whole-disk image before first boot. I think I will be restoring it to factory settings before too long. (the bastards don’t include recovery media anymore.) I’m also glad that tools like MalwareBytes and Spybot Search and Destroy have free versions.
It’s that time of year again: Beta’s fifth grade class concert.
By accident, I managed to snap a good photo of Beta while everyone else was looking away.
The concert was pretty good overall, but the real highlight was a kid in the band who was responsible for banging a cowbell (more cowbell!). He was way in the back with the rest of the percussionists, and half in the shadow, but he was the most enthusiastic member — and his timing was spot-on.
One of Meghan’s friends raves about a grocery delivery service called Hills Home Delivery. After listening to their sales pitch, trying some sample food, working out the costs, and checking reviews online, we wanted to give it a try ourselves.
Our first delivery came tonight. This is several months worth of beef, chicken, pork, sausage, fish, and veggies, packed into a freezer in our basement. There’s a turkey and some cookie dough, too. Not pictured is several shelves of dry goods: pasta + sauce, flour, sugar, paper towels, and toilet paper.
This isn’t completely new to us, Meghan already buys her coffee and a few other things from Amazon, but wow that’s a lot of food all at once.
The delivery guys were friendly and professional, and pretty darn close to on-time. (Ten minutes late, but our delivery was scheduled for 5:30 pm — it’s night-time dark already, and rush-hour traffic is in full swing. I don’t consider that ‘late’.)
On paper, this looks like we should be spending the same or less on food than we’re spending now — and we can cut out a bunch of time at the grocery the store. We’ll just need occasional trips for fresh things like dairy, eggs, and fruit.
Us: We are going to the Bookstore! Do you guys want to come?
Children: NO! (They didn’t even look up from their computers.)
Us: If you’re sneaky, you may get to see your Christmas presents!
Beta: I don’t want to see them. If I do, they’ll turn into underwear!
Us:
Beta: I know that’s not true, but I don’t want to risk it.
Backstory: a long time ago as the ice sheets from the latest ice age slowly receded, an island was carved out of the Maine coastline. My father purchased a few acres of land shortly before humans showed up in North America to jack up the prices, intending to build a vacation home when modern building methods were developed.
Taking a quick break on the trail
A house never materialized but we made annual treks to the island, called Islesboro, for years while I was growing up. After my parents lost interest, I occasionally went there on my own to go camping until finally I, too, got busy with life and stopped going.
Fast-forward a couple of decades, to last Sunday night in fact. Meghan and I got to talking and we realized that we’re really only a short drive away from Islesboro nowadays– only about 3 ½ hours from door-to-ferry slip. Why don’t we go? So we booked a room for Friday night and started rearranging our schedules.
A little more backstory: When I used to go up by myself, I generally spent a my first night at a little motel on the mainland, just a mile from the ferry slip. This motel was about as bare-bones as you can get: little cabins with a clean bed and a shower, and if I recall correctly it was about $25 / night back then. They family that owned it made you breakfast in the morning (Best blueberry pancakes I’ve ever had.)
The hotel is still there, under new ownership and a new name but still relatively inexpensive – and still clean and comfortable. They also accept dogs, so we could bring Butter instead of trying to board her on short notice.
We left mid-day Friday, after I finished up my tasks and morning meetings at work — my employer offers some scheduling flexibility and I put in a number of extra hours over the course of the week to make sure my promised deliverables were deliverable (I have to explicitly mention this since some of my co-workers may actually read this blog).
Megh standing near the peak of Mt. Battie. The tower is a memorial to the soldiers of ‘The Great War’, dated 1921.
The trip was rainy as hell on the way up. We detoured into Freeport to visit the LL Bean store — even if you’ve been to a L. L. Bean store, it’s not as big as the L. L. Bean store. The girl-folk went inside to procure winter jackets for the kids, while I took a nap in the car and walked Butter around in between squalls. (Did I mention I’ve been staying up late all week to get stuff done?)
Hiking upwards on the Tablelands Trail, Mt. Battie
We arrived in Lincolnville around 5:30 pm. The rain was still coming down and occasionally pouring, but the breaks were getting longer. After settling into our room, and letting everyone (including Butter) stretch their legs a bit, we headed back up to the road to downtown Camden in search of dinner.
We found a nice tavern, away from the main drag, called the Smokestack Grill. Not much ambiance inside — it looks a bit like a sports bar with large TVs over the bar — but the building is an old mill so there’s architectural interest. I had a jalapeño cream cheese and bacon burger, Meghan had calamari, and the girls split a fried shrimp dinner. The bill was quite reasonable, our server was attentive and friendly, and the food was delicious. Butter, sadly, stayed in the car and waited for us.
Afterwards we went back to our room and got ready for bed – except me, I stayed up until the rain stopped so Butter could get in a short walk — she is a princess and doesn’t like to get wet, and sleeping in close quarters with a wet dog is not high on my list of things to do. I didn’t have to wait too long, and we were all in bed early. There’s something about travelling that just makes you tired, even if you’re sitting in the car all day.
Saturday morning was sunny but really breezy and chilly. The kids were divided on whether or not to go to the island, so I cast the deciding vote: no, the seas are rough and I don’t want to spend $70 to have two seasick kids and a sick dog – we’ll come back for that. Lets go do something else this time.
Right up the road, between the motel and downtown Camden, is a state park called Camden Hills State Park / Mt. Battie. We drove in, paid our fee, found a place to park, and went hiking up the ‘Tablelands Trail.’ It takes you right up to one of the peaks, which overlooks both the Penobscot Bay and downtown Camden, from nearly 800 feet up.
After playing around on the peak for while, and after the clouds started playing peek-a-boo with the sun, we headed back down to find some hot chocolate in Camden to warm us up. The breeze was making us chilly even when we were ascending on the trail, so without the sun we got downright cold.
Camden starts to shut down before October, so while a majority of shops were still open there were a few that have already closed for the season. We window-shopped and walked around downtown for an hour, and hit the road for one last stop down Route 1.
The Maine State Prison “showroom” for prisoner-made woodcraft. The store is still staffed by prisoners and prison guards. The items inside are made with impressive quality, including furniture that is as nice as a high-end store (but much lower cost)
For whatever faults the Maine prison system may have, they maintain an intriguing program of teaching trades to prisoners, including woodworking. The finished products are then sold to the public.
I’ve been stopping at the Prison Store in Thomaston for as long as I’ve been going to Maine. The last time I was there was in 2001, and the store was still attached to a working prison; in 2002 the prison was closed and subsequently torn down, but the store remains.
Unsurprisingly, we came out with some gifts for family and a few things for ourselves.
After Thomaston, we made a bee-line for Bath (home of the BFC – Big Friggen Crane – at the Bath Iron Works) and the interstates so that we would be home in time to make dinner.
All in all, it was a fun little jaunt, even if we didn’t actually step foot on the island. Next time I think I’ll try to just take the day off instead of squeezing five days worth of work into four.
Over looking Penobscot Bay – Islesboro is the big island in the middle, stretching the width of the picture. If you click to view the full-size version you can see the ferry.Looking down on Camden from Mt. Battie. There is a trail that descends from here into town, which looks like it might be a good hike for next time. The color is a little washed out because we’re pointed right into the light.Taken from the tower on Mt. Battie, looking off to the south east.Mt. Battie isn’t the highest peak in the park, it merely has the best view. Mt. Megunticook stands 400′ higher — I think I’d like to tackle that next time.
(at the front of the stairs, just for the extra drama), so it could have been much worse. After Dad got home (I made him send me a Glympse so I could watch him drive home), we decided to go out and brave the roads to honor our family tradition of Friday Night at the Mall (don’t ask. I don’t know how it started). We got dinner and toddled off to Newbury Comics to see what they had.
