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The last few weeks have been very interesting, eventful and noteworthy. It’s great when life gives you oodles of blog-blurb-able material; the only problem is that I haven’t had enough time to write it all down! Since I seem to have a few minutes before bed, I’ll try to squeeze out as much as I can. Where to start…

New Job!

In a few weeks, I start a new job as an administrative assistant at the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity at MIT. Although leaving the family business is bittersweet, I can’t wait to get started. I’ll be working directly for two professors, each of whom is conducting fascinating research in compelling fields (photovoltaics and nano-technology). Peter Drucker recommends that young workers be given job descriptions that are broad and challenging, and this job appears to fit that particular bill. In addition to basic administrative duties and class logistics, I’ll have the opportunity to take part in web design, construction project management, community outreach and a host of other activities.

Albuquerque w/the Sprout

The weekend before last, Whitney and I went Albuquerque for her cousin’s wedding. It was a great time, as we got to see Native American petroglyphs dating back centuries, the Tent Rock formations near Los Alamos, and old town Santa Fe.

The trip was a wonderful experience, with the exception of car rental (insurance is such a rip-off!) and the flight home. We spent 5 hours waiting in the terminal in Albuquerque, unable to leave due to heavy thunder-storms and hail in Denver; we passed the time goofing off and going through a book of Mab Libs we had picked up at the airport bookstore. We eventually made it to Denver, although we were too late to catch our connecting flight to Boston. This would have been a catastrophe were it not for Sprouty’s widely dispersed network of Peace Corps friends. Heather, one of her best buddies during her service in Mauritania, generously picked us up at the airport and gave us shelter until the next morning, when we returned home. Our plane circled Boston and then angled down over my native South Shore as it made it’s landing approach. We were granted a breathtaking view of the city and its environs, from the Longfellow Bridge, to the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, to the Georges Island in Boston Harbor.

Crouching Dragon, Worn Out Biceps

The Boston Dragon Boat Festival is drawing nearer and nearer! Excitement (and perhaps anxiety?) is mounting as Living Root Dragon Boat club squeezes out as much practice time as it can before hitting the lanes this weekend. Last week, I spent at least 12 hours on the river; supposedly the Charles is perfectly clean, but I’ve still got my fingers crossed lest I start growing a third eye-ball on my shoulder. The number of paddlers amassed under the Living Root banner is truly staggering: 75 people, on three mixed adult boats and one youth team. I’ll be paddling as an alternate on the 1st team, and then Whit and I will be drumming and steering respectively for the high school kids. The kids are fantastic, and their enthusiasm is indefatigable. Boat 1 will be exciting too, although a different species of excitement; as a new club, we’ve got a lot to prove this year. Last year’s best time at Boston was rather lackluster. This year is going to be different.

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For those who may not know, I paddle on a Dragon Boat team on the Charles River. We hit the water about two weeks ago, and the vast majority of our practices to date have been in the blinding rain and cold. It always seems to happen this way: the build-up to our first race always seems to occur during nasty weather, then the rest of the season is gorgeous and idyllic.

My team is set to rock and roll at our first race, which happens to be in Boston! June 9-10, come out to the banks of the Charles River near the Weeks Bridge and cheer us on! Or come paddle with us; we’ve still got several slots available on one of the THREE TEAMS we’ll be fielding!

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A couple of weeks ago, I participated in the 48 Hour Film Project. The way it works is that teams of writers, videographers, actors, editors, and others meet at 7pm on a Friday night. The team leader (or producer) gets a call from from the project’s organizers, who tell him/her what their team’s assignment is; this consists of a film genre and several things that their finished movie must contain in order to qualify. In our case, the genre was Science Fiction, one character had to be named Thea Quimby, a shoelace had to be prominently displayed, and the screenplay had to contain the phrase “When you come up with something good, let me know!” The team then has 48 hours to write, produce, film, edit and submit a finished film.

Our movie is entitled Extraction; it centers around a dentist/novelist who derives inspiration for his books from his patients. He yanks their teeth out, then hooks them up to his computer, which then turns their life stories into a finished MS Word document. Bill Gates is such a clever fellow!

I played Roger, a frat boy/stoner. This was a bit of a stretch, since the closest I’ve ever come to an herbal experience is the time I spilled an entire container of oregano onto the chicken breast I was cooking. Personally, I think I did a better job as Scrooge in my 5th grade production of A Christmas Carol.

Nota bene: Kara typed the text of the story that the dentist extracts from the tooth in the final scene. She did a really great job! It’s posted on her blog; I highly recommend checking it out.

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All men look for love; many look in the wrong places.

One such gent just sent Kara an amorous email via Friendster; something tells me that he’s nursing delusions of fluency in the English language.

…i’m seeking a single lady that does not have the heart to tease me up with her sugar coated mouth, telling me she loves me, at last what she has for me was just to enjoy the sweetest part of me and left me lonely….. i want a woman that i could be with, with an endless journey or till the calls from heaven….

This is powerful stuff; Dead Poets Society woman-wooing stuff. His ardent entreaty continues:

Because I am so motivated by love! Nurturing is a huge characteristic of mine,
Not torturing.

I ask you: is there a red-blooded woman alive who would not swoon with delight upon receiving such a message as this!

The text of this Leibesbotschaft can be found in it’s entirety on Kara’s blog. May this serve as a cautionary tale against spammers labouring for love on the World Wide Web!

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This afternoon, my landlord hit me with some bad news: come this fall, I’m out!

Have I been evicted? Nope. Do they hate me? Not a chance: I’ve been a model tenant (their words, not mine). So…what gives? Why have they decided to give me the proverbial boot? The answer, dear reader, stems from the fact that this apartment was almost too good to true, right from the beginning. Allow me to explain.

After college, I took a job which required me to spend two years traveling, almost continuously. Since I spent 70% of my time on the road, it didn’t make any sense for me to spend any money on an apartment. In August of 2005, however, my situation abruptly changed. The traveling ended, and consequently the time was right to get my own place. I casually mentioned this to my sister Kara, who fortuitously found an apartment listing on the bulletin board of the JP Licks in Davis Square. I called the number, interviewed, and was accepted into the apartment of my dreams:

• 2 minute walking distance from the Davis Square T stop;
• Large living room, dining room, and full kitchen;
• Washer/drying inside the kitchen; and
• Cheap Rent!

The landlords, a very nice older couple living on the second floor, have an adult daughter who is carrying their third grandchild. The plan is for she and her husband to move into the first floor. This is entirely within their rights, since my lease is up in September. Still, they’ve always treated me very decently, and it’s hard to hold a grudge against nice people. While I’m not thrilled with the prospect of searching for new digs, 3.5 months is plenty of notice.

So, I ask of you, my legions of loyal readers: anybody know of any apartments opening in the Cambridge/Somerville area this summer/fall?

Note to prospective roommates: although my official move-out date is in September, I can be flexible for an attractive apartment.

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My software-engineer roommate is taking the plunge and moving in with his girlfriend this Saturday. My loss, his gain: he’s been a great roomie, and she seems like a nice girl. Due to the short amount of notice he gave me for finding a replacement, he offered to pay rent for the entire month of May. Although I appreciated the offer, this didn’t sit well with me; I’d have a hard time charging someone for something they won’t use.

Instead, we came to an arrangement: he pays for the month’s utilities; and in exchange for my paying May’s rent, he’ll give me six one-hour lessons in any programming topic of my choice! This is really fantastic. I’m leaning towards PHP, since that’s what powers this Wordpress blog. If you come back here in July, don’t be surprised to find Rich Text pimped out and fully customized!

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According to my handy-dandy “This Day in History” widget, today is the 218th anniversary of the mutiny against Captain Bligh of the HMS Bounty. A little bit of research on Wikipedia yielded some interesting details. For instance:

In a remarkable feat of seamanship and navigation, Bligh navigated the overcrowded 23 foot (7 m) open launch on an epic 47-day voyage first to Tofua and then to Timor equipped only with a sextant and a pocket watch, with no charts or compass. He recorded the distance as 3,618 nautical miles (6710 km).

After Bligh returned to England and reported the mutiny to the Admiralty, HMS Pandora, under the command of Capt. Edward Edwards (yes, that was really his name), was dispatched to scour the Pacific Ocean for the mutineers. Pandora arrived in Tahiti on March 23, 1791, and within a few weeks had caught 14 of them, who were placed in a make-shift cell on the ship’s deck (inexorably referred to as Pandora’s Box). Edwards spent 3 more months searching for mutineers, and then set off for England. As Gilligan taught us, however, no ocean voyage is complete without a minor calamity:

Heading west through the Torres Strait, Pandora ran aground on a reef (part of the Great Barrier Reef) on August 29, 1791. The ship sank the next day, and 31 of the crew and four of the prisoners were lost. The remaining 89 of the ship’s company and ten prisoners (released from their cage at the last moment) assembled in four small boats and sailed for Timor, arriving there on September 16, 1791.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Cat o’ Fine Tales

In other news, I just heard that my pal Sadie is going to be moving to Rhode Island. For those not familiar with Sadie, she is the most prolific - if not only - feline blogger on the internet. (I’ve always wondered how she managed to type without opposable thumbs, but I digress.) This is sad news indeed, as not only will she be leaving Cambridge, but she will also be taking my friends Britta and Kai with her. Please keep in touch, Sadie!

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Last night was the Sprout’s belated birthday celebration. Belated because she spent her real birthday in Central America, easing the plight of the world’s poor. How do you best celebrate the birth of such an altruistic spirit? To my thinking, nothing short of a full bore, multi-sensory assault would do.

We went to dinner at Casablanca in Harvard Square. The food: delicious! She had the Grilled Striped Bass and I ordered the Stuffed Red Pepper in White Bean Crepe, with a Spriced Apple Tart for dessert. I would highly recommend it, although don’t go in a hurry. The service was a bit on the slow side, making us late for the next phase of our evening: drinks with friends at Redline. What a great time! We got to some some great people we hadn’t seen in a little while, and some that you just can’t get enough of. Whitney’s MSH colleagues were represented, as were the Living Root Dragons. My opera-singer friend Alexis even made the trek out from Hartford for the occasion.

The evening would have been a great success if I’d stopped there, but I was determined push the envelope. At 11:45pm, an hour when anyone with a lick of sense should be making a b-line for home, we went to the Brattle Theatre for the East Coast premiere of Black Sheep. This black comedy (presented by the Independent Film Festival of Boston) has all the elements of a great comedic slasher flick:

• A troubled hero, paralyzed by an irrational fear of sheep, caused by a traumatic childhood event;
• His evil brother, determined to use science to warp nature for profit; and
• A rampaging hoard of genetically engineered, flesh-eating, mutant sheep.

Comedic Genius Defined: imbuing docile animals like sheep with a snarling, slobbering blood-lust. My one criticism of this movie was that its creators suffered from a surplus of comic inspiration. 20-30 minutes of material could have been trimmed from this movie without a problem, particularly some of the gorier parts.

Boyfriend Folly Defined: taking Whitney to see this movie for her birthday. I don’t think I’ll ever hear the end of it.

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At the b^tt-crack of 2:45am this morning, Sprouty left for Central America, where she’ll spend the next two weeks healing the sick, helping the poor, and avoiding the local produce. It won’t be a picnic, holding down the fort by myself, but fortunately for me, Skype is on call, ready to close the gap. It’s not exactly a “pin drop” kind of connection, but it’s better than pigeons or ESP.

She called my cell during a 45 minute layover in Texas to check in, in case I might have been overcome by irrational visions of Canada geese being sucked into jet engines. Fortunately, that image only came to me after she had landed (while writing this post, to be precise). Something else occurred to me after the conversation, and I’m p.o.-ed that it didn’t pop into my head during our call - Whitney was in Houston!! Yeah, you heard me. I’m so damn witty, I can’t stand it.

Take it away, Whitney…

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This Sunday, the Sprout and I took a lovely walk from Boston’s North End down to Faneuil Hall. It was one of those crushingly beautiful early Spring days: a vibrant blue sky, with light wisps of cloud to accent the purity of its coloring; a constant, cool breeze brushing our faces, a foreshadowing of the following week’s gray dreariness. Altogether, a magnificent day.

Our path took us along the wharfs of the North End and Financial District. Looking out at the harbor reminded me of a picture I’d once seen, in a coffee-table book I happened upon in some-or-other bookstore. It was a book about the waterways of Boston, and it contained a fascinating map of Boston, hand-drawn in the late 18th century.

I’m not sure if this is that picture or not, but it certainly is striking. Imagine all that land, created the hard way: Man-Made Land, “terra infirma”, if you will. The proper name is something like “filled land”, or “claimed land”, I’m not entirely sure. Imagine all those throngs of Bostonians, living, working, playing, what-ever-ing on places that didn’t exist two hundred years ago. Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Charlestown, Southie: like pieces of dried fruit that have been pumped full of hydration, and swelled to twice their customary size. Gives new meaning to “Back Bay”, doesn’t it?

As a kid, I remember hearing that should Boston’s long dormant fault line (a fairly active one, by geological standards) once again start quaking, the motion would cause all that fill to assume the physical properties of a liquid, compromising scores of buildings and crippling the city. Perhaps there’s some validity to that story, or maybe its an urban myth, best kept in a drawer with stories about Pop Rocks and spontaneous human combustion.

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