carwreck.com: around Boston harbor...

Out on the Huraki Gulf in New Zealand, race number 4 was finally sailed after nine days of postponements due to either too much wind or too little wind. During the third leg of the race, Team NZL pounded through a series of three slightly larger waves and her mast broke just above the first spreader. No one was hurt. Alinghi, the Swiss boat, finished the race alone giving her a 4-0 lead in the series.

My TiVo was programmed to record the race live on ESPN2 at 7pm EST but instead they aired something else and showed the sailing on a tape delay at midnight. Now I don't have the fourth race and can't find any information on whether they will re-air it at all. Race 5 is scheduled for tonight at 7p and I made sure that the TiVo was ready and waiting to capture the show.

I trekked out to Worcester last night to see Phish. I don't really need to go into a long explaination of how the evening went because Skadz and Lukwam both have done a pretty good job of summing up the disappointments and the highlights of the evening. I generally had a good time though. I look forward to heading down to NY tomorrow to see Phish again at the Nassau Coliseum.

This is the beast my brother and I are taking care of this week. She's quite a handful!

Sometimes she gets a little confused...

I write all of my posts for this site in a journaling program before I paste them into MovableType. This is partly because the journal program has a spellchecker but also because many of the posts I start never actually make it onto the site. In many cases I get part way through writing a post before I realize that it's not appropriate reading for a particular segment of the people who I know read my site. It's gotten frustrating for me to have to worry about who reads my site before I put something there. That could be why I feel that many of my posts are mundane, generic bullshit.

Now I sometimes start writing without the intention of anyone ever seeing the words and I've found that I can be amazingly frank with myself. Writing to myself has proven to be very satisfying.

The phone rang at 0830 this morning. It was my boss Steve calling to say that a 48 foot sportfishing boat had sunk at its dock at a nearby marina. He wanted to know if I could come help. We were on the road from the office by 1000 and Steve was in his dive gear and in the water by 1045. We attached eight salvage bags totaling twelve thousand pounds of flotation to straps we passed around the hull of the boat. We added air to the bags from our compressor and as the boat's coamings broke the surface we started four three hundred gallon-per-minute pumps and pumped the boat dry. We left the marina at 1500. Not a bad days work.

Whoo hoo! Recreational Equipment Inc. is opening a store in Boston! Now I won't have to drive out to Framingham or up to Reading to visit the best outdoor store in the world.

Everyone argues about which blood type is the "universal donor" and which is most rare, etc. I've always known that there was a definitive answer but never found the information. Here is a simple chart which sets it all straight.

- If you are blood type A, your donor should have blood type A or O

- If you are blood type B, your donor should have blood type B or O

- If you are blood type O, the donor must have blood type O (type O is called the "universal donor")

- If you have blood type AB (the "universal acceptor"), your donor can have blood type AB, A, B or O

Now I just need to find info on the rarity of the variations, like positive and negative. My blood type is O- and I am constantly being contacted to give blood.

Oh man, this is not good. At least 26 dead, dozens injured in raging Rhode Island nightclub fire.

I get tons of marketing phone calls on my home phone. There have always been laws in effect which stipulate that if you ask to be put on a "do not call list" they are required to honor that. If that same company ever calls again they are in violation of that law and could be subject to a fine.

Well as of January 1st, the state of Massachusetts has put into place a statewide do not call database. Here's a news article about it. You can go to www.mass.gov/donotcall and add your own number ot the database. It looks like it takes a little while for it to work.

These are large files, but if you've got the time, take a peek at some video of me driving around Boston in the snow. Notice where the headlights are pointing. There might be other videos in that directory if you look hard.

I woke up this morning to find my brother out on the roof shoveling snow into our backyard. Apparently an "ice dam" had formed along the eaves of our roof at the back of our house. An ice dam is formed when snow piled up on the roof is melted by heat escaping through the roof. The melted snow runs down the roof under the snow and then freezes when it reaches the eaves where the roof is colder. The roof surface is colder at the eaves because cold air can reach the underside of the roof. Now you have an ice dam. As more snow is melted by heat from inside the roof, the water has no where to go and moves backwards and upwards, working its way under singles until you have water dripping down inside your house. Ugh!

Amid this weather emergency, while people all over the Northeast are being warned to stay at home, I decided it was necessary to go out driving. For fun. So here I am more than six hours later and just getting home. What a great time out there. The roads were in fantastic shape. By that I mean that they were poorly plowed and clear of most other traffic. My kind of driving!

So, it's snowing outside and it's supposed to keep snowing for a long time. Here are a few things I've heard while listening on the local amateur radio networks:

-- State of Emergency has been declared in numerous states in the Northeast. In Pennsylvania the State Police have closed the Interstate highways and will stop you and issue a $500 ticket.

-- State of Emergency has been declared in MA as well but I'm not sure what that means.

-- The forecast has been increased to 18 to 24" with most of the snow coming in the next 12 hours.

-- A joke was made that if it snowed three feet some of us might have to get a third boot...

In case anyone cares, I've upgraded MovableType to version 2.61, enabled TrackBack and upgraded my RSS output to RSS 2.0. If you'd like to subscribe to the RSS feed for this site you can use http://www.carwreck.com/index.xml. Thanks to Lukas and Gregory for help.

If anyone is so inclined, come visit me at the New England Boat Show at the Bayside Expo Center. I'll be there today from 11 to 5 and then on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

It occurred to me that I haven't mentioned that I'm back at work at Sea Tow Boston. I took a week here in Boston to get back in gear and then started work again on Monday. It's good to be back and I look forward to the paycheck.

I stayed in last night instead of going to the Analog Lounge @ Vertigo where I usually can be found most Wednesday nights. I needed the downtime since I haven't slept all that much since I've been back in Boston. I was wiped out and the rest was welcome.

My car has been the victim of more vandalism. Someone felt it was necessary to smear a load of mustard underneath the driver's door handle of my car. They went through great pains to wipe away the excess so that I would not notice and reach under to open the door. Fortunately their cleaning efforts were not good enough and I was able to notice that something was wrong. There was a huge amount of mustard underneath the handle; it looked like a lot more than one single McDonalds packet. Ugh. Anyone wanna move to north-central Canada with me? I hear you can go for days without seeing a single person.

Here is an amazing Boston.com article about the cost overruns in the Central Artery Project. It totally points the finger at Bechtel one of the main engineering firms handling the planning and management of the Big Dig.

I've finally grabbed the pics off of my camera from my trip. I really didn't take that many photos, but here is a small view into what I did down there.

I've been back in Boston a few days now and have already packed in tons of fun; and I haven't even been back to work yet! Monday had me out with my brother (he missed me) and some folks who were right out of Scrubs. Tuesday was the regular Turntables and Beer and it was so awesome to be back. There were even three new people this week. Wednesday the Analog Lounge held captive my attention. The drinks flowed freely and some interesting times were had. Benny played a great set and Daniel Spurling showed us some moves too. Thursday was off to the Phoenix Landing to catch the legendary Technical Itch, a drum'n'bass DJ and producer (he's a record label too!). So much music in so few hours! can I keep this up?!

Wow! This is a LOT of mail on my desk. I have tons of bills to pay and lots of magazines to catch up on. And now I have some TV to watch too, since yesterday I joined the ranks of TiVo owners. I don't really watch that much television, but I find that when do turn the tube on I watch whatever lame show I happen to find. Now I can quickly flip on a show I really want to watch like the America's coverage on ESPN2 or the Monte Carlo Rally. Maybe I'll watch a few episodes of Modern Marvels.

Last night was my first time back at TurnTables and Beer (now known as TTB) and it was excellent. Sean's loft is quickly becoming an awesome place to have this as well as a great place to hang out. Ah, the joys of getting rid of undesirable roommates and installing your own people. :-)

Tonight I head back to the regular Wednesday event at the Analog Lounge at Vertigo.

Maybe I'll go back to work next week...

I made the final leg of my journey today, leaving from Bedford Hills and stopping in Hartford for lunch with a car racing friend. Then it was the last hour or so into Boston and I was home in my own house!

What a great feeling it is to be back in Boston. This is really my home right now and I love it here. I'm glad to be back and am reenergized to get on with this as we know it here in Beantown.