carwreck.com: around Boston harbor...

I've had a hard time fully articulating how I feel about the "War" which is going on in the Middle East. I am not fully in favor of it; I agree with some of the point s regarding why people like Saddam Hussein need to be controlled somehow; and, having been in the military, I am fully in support of the efforts of our servicemen. An aspect of this war I really don't like however, is the way the US media is handling things. I could go on for a while, but instead I will provide this link to a great article which says some things which resonate with me.

I up on my friend's roof on North Washington Street last night to see if there was still traffic travelling north on the elevated highway. When it was obvious that the road was empty it was easy to conclude that traffic was being allowed to drive the new Central Artery tunnel. We piled in a car at about 2am and headed south on I93 from the Causeway Street entrance ramp. Traffic was light and it was easy to see that in some places the northbound lanes were in fact completely blocked by construction cones. Taking exit 18, we took a quick U turn across the bridge near Frontage Road and headed onto the new, raised northbound lanes as we headed back towards Downtown. The signs looked modern and the road was fresh with rough concrete; we were excited!

The road curved to the right and it was clear that we were far to the East of where the old road was as we then plunged downward towards a glowing, orange orb that was the entrance to the new tunnel. The brightness of the amber lights in the first hundred yards was overwhelming but the quick change to a lower intensity white lighting allowed us to start looking around at the walls of the new tunnel. It looked surprisingly similar to the old tunnels around Boston with a similar color scheme to the tiling yet everything was bright, clean and shiny. There even were electronic signs flashing us a welcome to the new I93 tunnel. We tried to estimate where we were under downtown but were horribly mistaken when suddenly the road curved up and we emerged next the the Fleet Center with the Zakim Bridge stretched out before us in all of its glowing, blue glory. The bridge was a surreal finish to our first trip through the new Central Artery. It was like being in a cage, with all of the suspension wires crisscrossing in different directions. It was beautiful and we cheered.

Dipping off the highway at Sullivan Square, we headed back towards North Washington Street with a quick stop to drop me off in Charlestown. I had taken my first ride through the Big Dig. It had only lasted about 5 minutes but it was worth the wait.

I learned two things today. The first thing I learned is that the fifth "surchargeable event" on my driving record is going to be removed. The insurance company which made the mistake is contacting the Merit Rating Board of the RMV and the event will be stricken. Win one for me.

The second thing I learned today is what it feels like to drill a 7/64 inch hole in the forefinger of one's left hand. Lose one for me. Lose one for me.

Today was strange. After a couple of hours of hard work doing some final preparation on two of our boats, we did a huge operation of putting those two boats in the water and taking the one which spent the winter in the water out to get overhauled. It was a complicated operation which became more and more difficult at each step. Because of this big project I didn't get to each lunch until after 4pm at which time we spent a while staring at CNN on the office television.

I was hungry. The chaos on the TV was mind boggling. The amount of unexpected email I received when I looked at my computer was mind boggling. The late lunch may have set up a low blood-sugar situation. My head started reeling. I was a little dizzy. I was confused. The TV was too loud. Air raid sirens were going off. And then it started raining.

I had a tiring day.

The suspense is killing me. Well, sort of. What I'm taking about it that the other day I received a license suspension notice from the MA RMV. It says that due to my having five "surchargeable events" on my record they will suspend my license until I complete some sort of driver training program. The five events listed are two "surchargeable accidents" and two speeding tickets in 2001 and one speeding ticket in 2002.

There are a couple of problems with this notice however. I have a hearing scheduled if I want to appeal the suspension. Of course it is my first reaction to want to appeal the suspension. The problem is that I have a hearing scheduled for for the 2002 ticket which will not have taken place until after the hearing date for the suspension. So it is possible that I could be cleared of one of these five events and the suspension would be uncalled for. The second problem is that I am supposed to receive a packet of materials "within a few days" of this notice arriving. The material will further explain how the hearing will work. I am told that if the materials do not arrive within ten days I should call a certain number. Ten days from receiving the notice is after the scheduled hearing date!

The final problem I have with this notice is that I have no recollection nor records at all of one of the "surchargeable accidents." I called my insurance company to see if they knew what it was but they had only the same information; that an event had occurred. They suggested that I call the RMV. Upon calling the RMV they told me that a one-car event had taken place on that date and they provided me with an insurance company name and a claim number. That was all they could provide. I called the second insurance company and asked for information associated with that claim number. Surprisingly enough (not!), that claim number identified an accident on a different date, involving TWO cars (a Mercury and an Audi, neither are cars I've ever owned). They said I would have to call the RMV to get the problem resolved. Calling the RMV again resulted in denials of responsibility and I was given a special phone number for the Liaison to the RMV for that particular insurance company. By this time it had reached 4:45pm on Friday afternoon and people stopped answering their phones.

Now I have to wait until this coming week to further pursue this problem.

Does anyone have a Soundblaster 16 ISA soundcard they would be willing to give me. They are only worth about $5-$10 but I can't find any in my house or at the local computer stores. It's for a project I'm working on... Don't ask.

There's a ringing in my ears which won't go away. I had hoped that the ringing would go away on it's own but it didn't. I've tried hard for a long time to find ways to make the ringing go away. Sometimes I think that I might be able make the ringing go away by making another, different noise to either blank out the ringing or to distract myself from the ringing. But I've yet to figure out how to make any other noise. So I sit here in silence listening to the ringing... wondering if I even want the ringing to go away.

There's been lots of talk lately about alternative ways to post to your weblog. Michael over at Cruftbox has been posting audioblogs to his site and Lukas has been doing regular text posts but doing them while riding in a car. Now Keith over at unrelatednews.com has taken another step with his video blogs which he records while traipsing around New York City. His posts are hilarious!

It's pretty crazy that I should read this article in Boston.com about setting up an Internet cafe at the Base Camp of Mount Everest since I am currently reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer which is about climbing Everest.

It's a little bit aggravating that the shop in which I spend all day working each day is currently 44 . The office connected to the shop (where this computer is) is fortunately somewhat warmer at 64 . I come to work, walk inside and begin work without even needing to take off my jacket or any other layers. Brrr.

From my posting of this post and the last indicates, however, that my bosses had to go to Gloucester for a meeting and are not in the office. So I can sit here at this computer instead of sanding and painting the boat out in the 44 degree shop.

I find it a little bit interesting that people like my friend Keith are constantly thinking of ways to push the technology and limits of their weblogs with video, post site updates live from an event (Cruft), or endlessly adding features and automation (Lukwam) further blurring the line between their unwired lives and their virtual existences. All this happens while I consider deleting this site on a daily basis. I like what I have now since it is fairly simple and all, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, sometimes a site like this can be a burden. I would go as far as saying that an infrequently updated website is worse than no website at all. In the past events in my life have driven me to completely nuke this site and replace it with a variety of blank, black pages or some other such replacement which was devoid of any information. Yet at the same time a completely blank window expressed very well what I wanted to say at the time. For me it was a lot of information. This must just be the natural progression that I will always go through with this site. I guess thats also part of the fun and interest of keeping a site. For some it is constantly pushing forward in one direction tweaking, tuning, and refining as you go, and for others like me it will always be changing, zigging and zagging, taking unexpected twists and turns. As is my life, I guess this all fits me pretty well after all.

The Swiss "Alinghi" Team backed by Ernesto Bertarelli has won the America's Cup, taking the oldest sporting trophy in the world away from New Zealand. Alinghi won the fifth race in a best-of-nine series raced on the Huraki Gulf off Auckland. More news about the racing can be found at the official America's Cup site.

I'm posting from Pound Ridge, NY at Lukas' father's house. The Phish show last night was amazing. The show was constantly increasing in energy with each song, each jam and each set building on the previous. They playd Bathtub Gin, Bouncing Around the Room, Tweezer and the most amazing Harry Hood. The jam in Harry Hood was mind blowing and the entire 17000 person crowd was going completely berzerk. I was lost in the music and wanted it to go on for ever. That was the end of the second set. They came back on for their encore and played Contact which is one of my favorite songs by Phish. Most of the encores for this tour have been one or two songs. Last night they played three songs, finishing with a crazy Tweezer Reprise. We had to sit for a while after the lights came back on just to catch our breath.