My Boston Vacation Trip

Wow... a week plus in Boston can really wear you out when you're running around seeing friends and dealing with unfinished business in town. Anyway, fun activities this week included:

• Perlick and I failed to go the Brehznev's: he even called the day before, asking them, "Are you open tomorrow?," to which they replied, "Yes, yes, open." Unfortunately, it appears they only understood half of that question. The Korean place we went to in Chinatown was acceptable, but nothing close to a substitute.
  
  
  
  
• Had a very nice dinner with JMD at Flora, one of the fancier restaurants in Arlington. I've wanted to drag her there for a long time now, considering that she has lived in Arlington for years and had never been there. Their cod cakes are very tasty (I think they're made with salt cod; nice texture), as are their pan-seared scallops.
  
  
• Took a trip out to Ashburnham to see the house Mort and Sarah are looking at; I was glad to give them my input. Heh... even in my free time, I end up shimmying around attics and crawl spaces. The place is definitely a fixer-upper. We also had the experience of calling up the cops to shoot a diseased/dying racoon that was flopping around next to the crawl space hatch. The cop pulled the 12 gauge out of the back of the cruiser, and popped the racoon with one round. It didn't make nearly as much of a mess as I expected (i.e., double-ought vs. racoon ≠ expected big splatter).
  
  
  
  
• Dinner over at AJ and Guy's place in Watertown, along with Mort and Sarah. Had a fun time being prep chef for Guy. Dinner was lovely--thanks for your hospitality!
  
  
• Drove in to Cambridge to clean up some things left behind in the basement of my old apartment. Threw a bunch of stuff in the trash; moved some stuff (refrigerator, Unistrut parts) to JMD's basement. One thing Bird left behind and needs to get rid of is this 6 foot tall 18" rack mount cabinet. Any takers among my readers? Anybody opening up a home data center? Available for pickup from the back porch of the apartment formerly known as the Roost.
  
  
  
  
• Went over to dinner at a former coworker's place. They bought property in Sudbury, and are currently building a house--this is probably one of my coworkers who is as hands-on as I am--he already built a house down in Connecticut. He actually bought a used Bobcat (i.e., skid-steer loader) to work on the house--it's pretty much the ultimate cordless power tool. And you can buy accessories too! I'm totally envious.
  
  
  
  
• Spent another two days helping Bird with the kitchen renovation. We nailed down an oak hardwood floor (pneumatic nailer, thankfully), and did some drywall and framing work. It was cool to work on the kitchen, and to spent time up with Bird and Jen in Dover (including a nice dinner at Blue Latitudes).
  

Whew. I have realized that I probably approach maintainance of friendships with the work ethic and drive that most people apply to a job. I'm glad that I saw the folks that I did, and I'm sorry if I didn't get to spend more time with many others. Anyway, I'm driving down to New York tomorrow. Hope it is more relaxing than this past week.