What happen to all the snow?

Just a week ago we had 10.5 inches of snow, the warm weather rolled in on Christmas Eve. as of today, Saturday there isn't any snow, just a pond where the street is. The birds are loving all the water. I just know we're going to get slammed with snow one of these days.

The Maple Tree

This picture was taken just before twilight on Christmas Day in Billerica, MA, it's one of my favorite trees at my parents. It a Sugar Malple Tree, the sap runs like a river in the spring. The base of the tree is sticky unil the spring rains wash it away, but what does remain is a sap stain.

Christmas

Picture of my parents tree in the livingroom right in front of the picture window where it has always been places for the holiday season.

Michael and I stayed at my parents Christmas Eve. I cooked shrimp scampi over rice, hmmmm that was good. My brother Jimmy and his wife, Daisy, cooked prime rib dinner for Christmas. The Prime rib was outstanding. They did a great job, from soup to nuts.

My older sister Carol and her husband, Jim flew in from Florida arrived at 4pm. They made it in time for dinner with us. One of my younger sisters Dottie showed up with her husband Bob, and son Matthew. Michael and I had to get going we had a two hour drive ahead of us. So we left before my youngest sister Beth came with her husband Paul .

A More Festive Christmas Rat 2008

Here's a better background for the Christmas Rat, a gift bag with Merry Christmas instead of the map of the United States, that hangs on one of the walls in my office..

Merry Christmas 2008

In my office here at work I turned my Halloween Rat into a Christmas Rat, ribbon around his neck and a snowman hung around his neck. With everything going on with my family this is the best I could do.

I hope everyone has joy, happiness, bright lights, sprigs of fresh greens and much laughter this Holiday Season. May there be Peace this year.

Harvard Square

Michael and I were in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA this past weekend - Valerie had a Christmas party at her place in Watertown, next town over from Cambridge. We saw her new place, WOW, main floor, living room, dinning room, kitchen, half bath front porch and back deck with a huge yard and garage, The second floor has 4 bedrooms and full bath and the third floor 3 bedrooms. Great location !!!

Out of Town News is in Harvard Square, I work here to over a year when I was in college. It was a fun place to work and a lot of great people worked there. I always had people to go out with after the place closed at 11pm. Maybe that's why my grades were pretty bad that year. When I left there to work at Wang Labs it wasn't fun anymore and glad I left. Staying out side in all weather, winter was the worst part of the job. The place is for sale and Sheldon Cohen the owner when I worked there in the late 70's is planning on buying the place back.

Here's Valerie in Harvard Square the day after her party, she stopped by for breakfast and was on her way to work, she is an acupuncturist. If you ever want someone to do an outstanding job I'd recommend Valerie.

This is the Charles Hotel in Charles Square in Harvard Square where Michael and I stayed the night of the party. Still a great place to stay and great location.

Our first snow

Last week we got our first snow of the winter season, it wasn't much and was all gone by the end of the day. It was bitchin cold after it snowed, in the low 20's brrrr, I know it will get colder as the season goes on, it winter here in the northeast.

High water on the marsh

The water is high on the marsh, but during a full moon cycle the water is even higher and the marsh grass is completely covered. Kind of looks like a pond

The Marsh

The marsh is just down the street from my road. Today my office closed early at 12 noon so I had some time to get some pictures of the marsh during low tide.

Looking down to the right of the bridge that is part of Route 6A. People kayak though the channel during high tide. some start from the ocean others just start from the parking area near the mouth of the channel. This is the bridge that kids jump off during high tide in the summer.

Another view of the marsh, when the moon is full this whole area gets flooded.

This angle shows one of the channels that run through the marsh.

It was cold at the beach

I can't believe how cold it has been even before Thanksgiving this year. Saturday was the coldest, I thought it was January, 20's during the day and teens at night, Brrrr only 5 more months of this. I'm so looking forward to a day in the 40's, April can't come fast enough.
The bay had rough water, there were good size waves which is something there normally isn't. Even though it was sunny it was windy and cold.

Husson Girls Soccer Team

This past weekend, Michael's sister Janis came down from Hampden, Maine to hang out with us. Janis's daughter, Michelle (number 22) plays soccer for Husson College, http://static.husson.edu/cache/, in Bangor,Maine. Michelle and her team were in the national college soccer playoffs, playing the soccer team from William College at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. Williamstown is a town in Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts. It took us three and a half hours to travel from Cape Cod to the end of Massachusetts. We drove out to Williamstown on the Mass Pike. Williams College, http://www.williams.edu/, has a great looking campus.
The day was cloudy, windy, cold and there were snow flakes. I forgot how cold the 30's are, of course I didn't plan well in the clothing department, I found that one has to be dressed warmly and not fashionly, also I was glad the season Soccer Mom that Janis is, packed well and had plenty for us to keep warm.
The game was exciting, Husson (go Green) gave Williams a run for the title. As cold as it was the women were in shorts and t-shirts, Yikes how did they keep warm. The game was exciting and of course very fast pace they don't shut the clock off, except at mid game for a ten minute break. There are two periods , each at forty five minutes each and a ten minute break between periods.
Even though Husson lost 3 - 0, it was a great game and it was worth the cold and snow. It was also great to see Michelle since I haven't seen her for over a year.

Hey Mark

I would like to give Deep South Mark a shout out.
I really like his blog and his collections he shows on there.
If you get a chance check him out.

This evening

I know this picture really dosen't show how bright the moon is tonight

Michael and I had a few stops to make on the way home. One thing were looking for are two more pillows for the dinning room chairs. We got two at the Hyannis Homegoods, and have been checking other Homegood stores in Braintree, Plymouth and this evening Falmouth. Damn, none of them have any pillows that match or even coordinate with what we have. Nice fabric and design and also all feather.

Well, we were in Falmouth after work, got there around 5pm, the ride home was long do to heavy traffic. On the way home I noticed the moon was out, the area was very light even though it was really dark out. It gets really dark here on the Cape, not much light pollution. The picture is of the moon from the top deck.

Heavy traffic payoff

Yesterdays commute was a breeze and took only 50 minutes or less to make it to work here in Randolph. This morning we were stuck in heavy morning traffic. Doing the car crawl on Route 3, from exit 14 in Hingham, all the way till after exit 17 in Braintree, where the rotary is. As we were getting close to exit 17 I looked over to the land fill just off of Route 3, on the left, there was a huge buck at the top of the ridge and I was just stun to see him there with all the traffic below, most of it going into Boston and about a third going to Route 128 to add more cars to that morning back up. Then just to the right of him was a small herd of does with a few small one.

I've never seen anything like it where I live and to see it in Braintree, a small city just a few miles from Boston.

The camera was in the back compartment in my briefcase. I will have to keep the camera up front with me so I don't miss out on a photo opportunity again.

Halloween night at my parents home

Friday morning

Here's Pat from HR in her office this morning as I was going out to take pictures of the Flying Monkey.
Pat hopes to be walking with out the aid of crutches any day.

Halloween

Here at the May Institute, Allen, who works with the kids at the school was dressed up as a Flying Monkey from the Wizard of OZ. He was greeting the kids today as they were being dropped off.

After the kids were dropped off Jean was able to have her picture taken with Allen the Flying Monkey.

Here's Allen the Flying Monkey going after Tonya one of our accountants, guess he didn't want to provide her with receipts at this time.

Allen is waiting for the buses this morning.

Cupcakes in NYC

When Michale and I were in NYC couple of weeks ago, we hit three places that were known for selling great cupcakes. Here's a picture of the box from Magnolia Bakery.

I wanted to taste a cupcake from each bakery I had on my list, okay I know that wouldn't be possible since the list consisted of over 20 places. So I select the top three from my list and at each place I always ordered the same kind, yellow cupcake with butter cream frosting. The frosting color may have changed from pink to blue to yellow but the color did not change the flavor. All three had great cupcakes and I couldn't really decide which one was the best. Guess I'll have to try again in May When Michael, Valerie and Robin are in NYC for our yearly, long weekend. Other than Magnolia at 1240 Avenue of the Americas and 49th Street, Billy's Bakery 184 9th Avenue and Buttercup Bake Shop 973 2nd Avenue, between 51st and 52nd Street. Anyone of them is worth the trip.

The Plays we saw

Michael and I saw The Marvelous Wonderetts on Friday, Legally Blonde on Saturday, and Alter Boyz on Sunday. All three plays were great and I would recommend any one of them.

Hotel Affina 50 on 50th Street

We checked in at the Affina 50 on 50th Street between Lexington and 3rd Avenues. This was too weird, we got the same suite we had in May of this year, Suite 2004. The configuration was a L Shape with a foyer, good size living room, small kitchen, large bedroom and small bathroom. The balcony ran the back of the living room to back of the bedroom. There was a door from the bedroom and another door across from the kitchen. After getting settled sin the room we headed out to enjoy the city.

Jamaica Station

Michael and I left home on Friday morning to catch a bus at the park and ride in Plymouth for Logan Airport. We were flying on Jet Blue, leaving at 11:45 and arriving at JFK just 45 minutes later. We took the Air Train from the terminal to Jamaica Station and bought both our tickets for the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). We walked over to catch the LIRR to Penn Station, but there was some sort of switching problems. After waiting at the station for 30 minutes I ask a woman who works there when the train would really be in, she said take the subway E line downstairs, we did and were at the Affina 50 in less than an hour.

Jamaica train station

Picture from the lido deck (the upper parking lot at work)

The lower lot was filled when we got in this morning so we had to park on the upper parking lot, we call the lido deck. The only good thing about parking up here is the view, the body of water in the pictures is the Randolph, MA reservoir. It would be nice if the town had a walk way going around the reservoir, it would give everyone a safe place to walk instead of the street here in the industrial park the school is in.

The Little Angel

My sister in law, Daisy, aks Virgina, sent me a picture of her granddaughter, my grandniece, Alisa, she is 17 and graduating 2009 from High School. Where does the time go??

My Mother's update

It's been a while since I posted anything. My Mother found out she has cancer in her upper right lung. Before anything is done she is having a full body MRI done as I type this. My sister Dottie drove Mom and Dad to the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA. Mom will get the result on Tues day when she meets with her doctor and three other specialist will be doing the surgery on her. At almost 82 years old, Mom's doctor told her she's in great health and doesn't see any reason not to proceed, well that is once he has the full body scan.

My Parents Home

Garden around the mail box, sedum in the front and a mum behind it, too bad the mum is the same color as the sedum. This is the back yard that as kids we would play in for hours and it seemed so large.
This is my favorite tree, a sugar maple that was planted by my Grandpa Jim, my Dad's dad. In the autumn it turns a brilliant orange. Next few picture are of the front of the house just from different angles

The leaves have started to change color and dropping all ready and the temp's are falling too. It's been going dropping in the 40's at night and in the 60's during the day. Have to enjoy the weather while I can befor the tempature is in the teens or twenties during the days. Yikes winter will be here before I know it.