A Hot Day in Boston

I took a long, hot walk through Boston on the Saturday of my stay in Massachusetts. I wanted to see a bit of the Freedom Trail and wander around Boston Common.

I was staying in a hotel that straddled the Mass Pike (I-90) in Newton. The nearest T (subway) station was about 2.5 miles away in Newton Center. The hotel staff recommended a $10 cab ride, but I had a whole day to kill, so I decided to hoof-it. I had a nice walk up through a very respectable residential area, past a private school or two, and into a nifty little downtown area.

The T is comfortable and fast and takes you right into the center or Boston. I got off at the municipal building (featuring a big "Beat LA"
banner in support of the Celtics) and walked along parts of the Freedom Trail. This winds through Boston, old and new, past many of the places where the United States of America was born. There are historic taverns, and statues, and several very old graveyards hosting American heroes and ancient enigmas.

I followed trail to Boston Common, a 50-acre park in the center of the city that dates from the 1630s. It is the oldest city park in the US and fronts the Massachusetts State House, which also proudly wore Celtics green. The Common was filled with picnickers and tourists, Tai Chi'ers and free-speech activists, and an old-format religious group singing and preaching to a crowd that included listeners and ignorers in about equal measure.

A part of Boston Common is the Public Garden, added in the 1800s and featuring a 4-acre pond with ducks and swans. The pond is bridged by what is said to be the world's smallest suspension bridge. On this day, it was host to an accordionist busker. At the far end is an equestrian statue of George Washington.

There was a watercolor painting workshop under way in the Garden. I kept wandering past painters hard at work and wise enough to stay in the shade.

The loveliest thing I saw was a pair of swans nesting next to the pond. I'd never seen swans nesting before. The nest was carefully fenced-off and folks watched from a respectful distance.

Leaving the Public Garden, I headed down Boylston Street to Copley Square where an older building was admiring its reflection in a newer neighbor. And there was a fountain in which families were cooling themselves and a group on a self-advertised field trip provided the music.

I caught the T back out to Newton Center and strolled back down the hill to my hotel, a float in the hotel's tiny pool, a light supper and so to bed.

"I Wished to Live Deliberately..."

On the Friday of my Boston sojourn, I went to Walden Pond to visit the site of the cabin that Henry David Thoreau built in 1845 as part of his experiment in simple living. He wrote about the two years he lived in that cabin in Walden, Or Life in the Woods, published in 1854.

I had not set out to visit this shrine to the transcendental movement; it was too rainy to be a tourist in Boston so I was wandering purposely aimlessly and found myself on the road to Concord. All of the sudden, I saw a pond on one side of the road and a parking lot entrance sign on the other. The word "walden" jumped out at me and I turned right.

I had found the Walden Pond State Reservation, maintained by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It surrounds the pond and includes a small swimming beach, beautiful views, and many trails leading to the site of Thoreau's cabin. It was here that Thoreau settled in to try a simple life.

I walked through the woods to the site of the hut. Thoreau abandoned the place after two years. It was salvaged into other uses; the boards went into other construction projects and the roof became a cover for a pigsty. The site was lost for years but was rediscovered in the 1940s.

Starting in the 1870s, friends and followers of Thoreau started to visit the site they thought had been where Thoreau lived and wrote (they were off by a bit) and began a tradition of leaving behind a stone in memory and tribute. There is now a sizable pile of stones.

Across the pond there is a steep bluff known as Emerson's Cliff. I found a small stone there to place on the pile by the hut.

Concord has a great deal else to see. The Minuteman National Historic Park is there. It includes the Old North Bridge where the American Revolutionary War started.

I'd like to head back there some time and spend more than an afternoon.

At Fenway Park

I got a chance to see the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park last night. I'm killing time in the Boston area while Colleen plays bass at Berklee and I figured I might as well try to get a ticket to what turned out to be the 418th consecutive sell out of Fenway.

I'm an Orioles fan, but I do like the Red Sox. Besides, baseball is baseball, and we're talking about Fenway Park, one of the classic old ball parks.

I had pretty good seats (not as good as that picture would suggest; that was taken on my way to the men's room). I was in the grandstand on the first-base side and close to home plate. I was fairly far back, though, just a row in front of standing room.

I sometimes enjoy going solo to events like this. I've done several large rock concerts as a solo and now this ball game. There's a certain freedom to being an unknown.

The Red Sox lost this game, 8 to 0. They had had an emotionally active game the night before in completing a sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays, a good team. There were fights and outbursts and drama. The game I saw was against the Mariners, not one of the better teams, and the Red Sox looked a little flat and made a few errors.

In Boston

I'm typing this in a smelly smoking room in a Sheraton Inn in Newton, Massachusetts. I'm in the Boston area through the week-end. I brought Colleen up for a three-day "Bass-Lines" program at the Berklee School of Music. She's staying in the Berklee dorm and I have a cheap (and stinky) room just outside of Boston.

We drove up today. Colleen is almost done with the first 6 months of her graduated driver's license; she can drive with a parent along in the car and I used this trip as an opportunity to give her some (guided) experience driving on various kinds of highways. She has now driven Delaware's SR1, parts of the Garden State Parkway, several different interstates, and the Merritt Parkway. She did well.

We got into Boston in the late afternoon and got her checked-in at Berklee with no trouble. We then met some summer friends at Quincy Market for a nice dinner. After that, I dropped Colleen off at her dorm and headed out to this hotel.

I got terribly lost heading back out here. It was dark and Boston is tricky. I got here, though, after a few false leads. This hotel sits astride Interstate 90 -- the Massachusetts Turnpike -- Looking out my window I see three lanes of headlights and three of tail-lights.

I used Hotwire to book this place; it didn't have to be special, just a place to sleep for a few nights. My plan is to play tourist but be nearby if Colleen needs me. I didn't count on a smoking room, though. I hope they can move me tomorrow.

Seen Around Dover...

I took a brief walk around Dover this noon for my lunch hour. It was a pleasant day for a walk, with a carry-out Caesar salad from 33 West as my reward.

On Elm Terrace, I came upon a rose bush that has climbed up a neighboring tree. A group of pale pink blossoms were glowing in a shaft of sunlight at about second-story level.

I've mentioned before that Dover is a city of flowers. Delaware's Capitol City fills with tulips each spring. The city does a great job of maintaining flower beds and planters downtown. The residents do their bit too.

Later, over on Governor's Avenue, I spotted three young men running along in front of a Chrysler dealership. They appeared to be about high-school age. There were two out front; one carrying a soccer ball and one carrying a pair off cleats. The third fellow was carrying what looked like the goal and net. He was having a bit of trouble keeping up.

You never do know what you are going to see next.

We Have Eggs

The bird who has taken up residence in one of our hanging plants this spring was off the nest when I finished mowing the lawn this morning. I took the opportunity for a peek and found a pair of eggs in the nest.

I must say that I was a bit worried about where the nesting bird might be. I worry that it will abandon the nest, which is quite close to our front door and so sees lots of human traffic. But the bird was back and perched on the eggs just now, so I will not worry.

With luck, we'll soon get a view of very young birds. I wonder what sort of birds these are?

UPDATE: Thanks go out to Rich, our Honest Hypocrite, for pointing out that the bird nesting on our front porch is a Mourning Dove.

What's (Not) Wrong With This Picture?

The News Journal had a story this morning on the possible effect of high gas prices on travel to Delaware's designated 20-something drinking and beach town Dewey Beach. The story ran in the 55-Hours week-end preview section. It was teased on the front page with the picture at left.

I find it troubling.

In Fueling the summer bar wars, Ryan Cormier writes about the possibility that upstate party folks will forgo the drive to Dewey, at four bucks a gallon, and do their drinking in upstate bars. Good news for the upstate bar owners, but bad news for the down-state bar owners.

But, as a down-state driver -- and as the father of a newly minted downstate driver -- I have to say that I'm thrilled to think that the young woman pictured here will not be driving around here.

Well Done, Dover Post?

Several of the newspapers that make up the Dover Post family of publications -- the Sussex Countian, the Milford Beacon, the Smyrna Clayton Sun Times and the Middletown Transcript -- have launched new news sites that are, at least after a quick tour, very nice. Ironically, the Dover Post site itself does not appear to have been updated yet (at least not as I write).

Update (5/29/08): The Dover Post site has made the change!

According to an editorial in today's Sussex Countian, the on-line make-overs came with the help of new parent company Gatehouse Media. It appears the writing was on the on-line wall:

... while we will certainly be printing the same paper we have since 1886 every Wednesday, there is little doubt that news-gathering and news distribution is moving in a digital direction.

These are very local weekly newspapers, and they have for a long time provided a close-focus look at their communities. But things are moving faster than the printing press can produce a tabloid-sized newspaper:

There are advantages and disadvantages to a weekly paper. On one hand, we get nearly a full week to work and develop stories that happen between Wednesday and Sunday. But then again, everything that happens between those days is, well-developed or not, old news by the time it gets to the paper.

I hope this means that these papers will continue their in-depth reporting, but will update on an interim basis. They have included lots of RSS feeds, so we can read along with them. And, when we do, we should take notice of their advertisers. That's how this business works, after all.

We Have Guests, Again

A bird has taken over one of the two hanging flower baskets we have outside our front door this spring. It's the second time we've played host to basket-nesting birds.

We first noticed that the flowers in one basket were looking a bit more stressed than those in the other. On closer inspection, we found the beginnings of a nest and we started to see a bird coming and going.

For the last few days, this bird has been sitting there steadily; I assume there are eggs under there.

I think we'll happily sacrifice the flowers for a few new birds.

Among the Many Things I Did Not Know: Why 88888 is So Interesting

Back in November, I posted about rolling 88,888 miles on my Prius. I thought it was just a way-station on my journey of obsessive nerdiness, but that post has had something of a life of its own.

The folks over at Delaware Liberal used it to start a "Guess Mike's Mileage" contest. That was cute. But I've also noticed a steady stream of hits on that post generated by Google Searches for "88888." The most recent, today, was by a web-surfer in Chahārmahāl o Bakhtiyārī, in Iran.

I've noticed that a number of the 88888 searchers are in that part of the world, so I finally got curious enough to follow-up and found two interesting facts about 88888 that may explain why that number is bringing readers.

First, the number 88,888 is a mathematical curiosity:

888888 is the only five-digit repunit such that the product of itself and all truncations of itself plus and minus one results in twin primes.

What? Don't ask me, I just work here. In any case, I've seen 88,888 referred to in several places as a lucky number. These two things are likely related.

More recently, 88888 is apparently the account number used by Nick Leeson for the speculative trades that led to the collapse of the UK investment bank Barings in the 1990s.

I just thought it was neat that my car's odometer had 8's straight across.