Hometown Birthday

I got exactly what I needed yesterday after the scary Friday – a day in my hometown with Keene Friend solving the world’s problems while sampling beer as autumn started to descend.  Keene Friend’s birthday was Friday so we had some celebrating to accomplish.  My wife and I arrived at his house mid-afternoon but there was no answer when we knocked at the door.  Buddy was especially upset that his dedicated walker was not responding to his mental summons.

Birthday Boy at Elm City - Yet Another Bar Shot

We eventually woke him up to discover he’d gotten off his third shift on Saturday morning a couple hours late so he was operating on three hours sleep.  In a veteran move he didn’t let that dissuade him or us from moving directly to the Elm City Brewery where my wife dropped us off before making a bee line for her good friend – TJ Maxx.  We were fortunate that our favorite bar tendress was holding court at the Brewery and greeted us like long lost friends.  Keene Friend and I settled in for the long haul while meaningless college football games swirled around. 

It turned out to be a great afternoon as the steady rain picked up and we abandoned a planned move to the nearby sports bar and remained under the care of our favorite bar tendress.  It turned out she’s the daughter of a guy that graduated high school the same year we did so our egos took a bit of a hit but she was great sport.  We entertained phone calls and texts all afternoon from friends who couldn’t make the birthday celebration.  The Cantankerous Friend was the only spot not heard from.  He was apparently too busy trading barbs with conservatives to answer our messages.

The Two of US With Our Bar Tendress

The College Roommate was heard from and he offered his gynecological observations on 1970’s basketball movies.  We’re still trying to figure that out but we assumed beer was involved in Pittsburgh.  My wife eventually showed up to squire us to dinner at Margarita’s.  She checked with the bar tendress and we received passing grades – apparently we are now considered harmless.

The Robin Williams Memorial In Front of a Prop from the Movie

On our way to Margarita’s we passed by the center of Keene where a heartbreaking monument to Robin Williams has arisen around the last remaining vestige of the movie Jumanji which was shot there. 

Margarita’s was a lot of fun but the main event was awaiting for our ride home.  Shortly after pulling out from our parking space a state police car pulled us over to ask why we didn’t have our headlights on.  We’d had the car serviced earlier in the day and the mechanic had apparently turned off the automatic headlights. Since we were in the middle of downtown we hadn’t noticed it but the police had.  For some reason they came to my window on the passenger side.  They said they smelled alcohol and I proudly proclaimed that would be me and that my wife was our designated driver.  They said they still had to test her which she passed with flying colors although she did direct some fairly dirty looks in our direction.

Birthday Cake!

We returned to Keene Friend’s home where we were joined by Keene Friend 2 and his girlfriend for some birthday cake.  The days events started to catch up with Keene Friend who started to fade with only his three hours of sleep and facing the day’s onslaught of beer.  He was banished upstairs for some well-earned rest while we caught up on the day’s college football carnage and relived my wife’s sobriety test repeatedly.  Another in a long line of great Saturday’s spent in my hometown.

After posting yesterday I found a couple news photo of the accident that caused so much fun for me yesterday.  You can see where the guard rail was taken out that I had to dodge below.

Debris Field

Any dedicated reader of this blog will tell you that Friday is by far my favorite day of the week which is what made yesterday so troublesome.  It was the first day of the week that I didn’t have any meetings scheduled at work which is reason enough to celebrate and count the hours down to the weekly ritual of First Friday celebrations.  I decided to use my lunch hour to sneak out and get a quick oil change on the car since that pesky Toyota warning light was castigating me every time I turned the car on.  That is when my adventure began.

I was travelling on Interstate 290 doing about 70 MPH and approaching the underpass below the Mass Pike. Since my exit was coming up I was in the right lane.  Just as I entered the underpass I noticed what I thought was trash falling from the Mass Pike.  Milliseconds later I realized it was not trash but some pretty hefty debris including guard rails and large pieces of some sort of vehicle.  I didn’t have time to do anything other than try and dodge through the debris as it rained down.  I thought I made it until I heard a fairly good thump and my driver’s side tire immediately went flat. 

Where I ended Up - Accident on the Overpass in the Distance
You can Barely Make out the Overturned Truck to the Left of the White Truck

I was past the impact area by this time so I pulled over and looked back.  An 18 wheeler was overturned and still careening along the overpass.  I got out to look at the damage and while I didn’t have any major damage, the tire was toast.  My heart was going a little faster at this point when I realized how lucky I’d truly been since some of the bigger pieces of debris could have crushed my car.   The car was also coated with oil that had rained down with the debris.  My plan wasn’t to change my engine oil through osmosis so this was unwelcome. 

Car Covered in Oil Spots

I knew I had to get the car into a safer spot to change the tire so I nursed it about a quarter mile up the road where I could get farther away from the highway traffic.  I then had to figure out where all the tire changing equipment had been ingeniously compartmentalized.  I solved that puzzle with traffic buzzing by and got the car jacked up and the deceased tire off.  A state police car pulled up fresh from moving the debris as I was preparing to put the spare tire on.  Just as he pulled up another 18 wheeler rumbled by in the right lane and the rumble was enough to cause the asphalt below my jack to fail. My car unceremoniously fell to the ground.

Car Resting on Chassis with My Understating Statie

The statie and I were equally dumbfounded.  He said, “Well it looked like you had everything under control up until that point.” Obviously a master at the art of understatement, he was a good guy and called a tow truck which came in about ten minutes.  He also added my car to the accident report so if anything serious develops I’d be covered.  The tow truck lifted the car and I finished changing the tire which allowed me to get off the highway.  Strangely all this took place and I was off the highway in less than thirty minutes.

I went straight to a car wash which got the oil off the car before it dried and then since I was already in the neighborhood I got the oil changed in the car, my original mission.  I stopped by the tire place where I bought the tires less than two months ago.  It turned out I bought some sort of protection plan when I did that and it only cost me $40 to replace the dead tire.

By the time I was finished with the insurance company we were rapidly approaching First Friday celebration time and you could describe me as desperately in need of liquid refreshment.  I took care of that requirement in so short order while explaining my highway adventures to my co-workers.  While I was doing this television news in the bar showed the major accident on the Pike with the truck overturned and traffic backed up for miles.  The damage was fairly impressive and we all agreed Someone must have been watching over me.  It was at that point it come home to me just how lucky I had been.

I had dutifully reported all these events to my wife who was typically over-concerned.  Once she ascertained I was in fact whole in body and mind she observed that I had carelessly gotten some drops of oil on my pants while changing the tire on the interstate; probably the only reason I got a reprieve.

Our Two Newest Neighbors

When I came home she was nowhere to be found until I remembered the next door neighbor had just returned from the hospital after giving birth to twins.  Babies are born with the ability to attract my wife from a great distance.  I was halfway across the driveway when I heard the neighbor comment that I’d found her.

So Glad I Was Able to End the Night with This young Lady

She was happily squiring one of the young fellows around.  They were beautiful babies and my wife reluctantly parted with her new charge so she could escort me to dinner.  We ended the night at Zorba’s – huge surprise!  The medicinal effects of pizza and products of the brewer’s art went a long way towards assuaging the turmoil of earlier day’s events.  Needless to say the second half of the day was significantly better than the first.  I am a lucky man on so many levels.

Autumnal Randominity

(I know it’s not a real world – get over yourself) 

Bit of a catch up day here as I paused to remember 9-11 yesterday.  The weather has definitely turned towards autumn which is a Godsend.  I think the word I’m looking for is “crisp”.  I don’t think there’s a better place in the world to be than New England in the fall.  My wife and I have agreed to disagree about this sicne she considers temperatures below 70 as hardship living.  I love having the windows open and having to burrow deeper under the quilt as the nighttime temps head south.  I don’t think I’ve slept sounder in my life than in the past week, semi-intoxicating (and the leaves haven’t even turned yet!).

Birthday Boy at One of His recent Public Speaking Appearances

Today is also the Keene Friend’s birthday.  I don’t think I’ve ever met a better or more genuine person.  His first thought is always on what he can do to help those close to him.  I consider myself blessed to call him friend and knowing he’s had my back since the 7^th grade.  My wife and I are heading up to Keene tomorrow to hang out and celebrate his day with him.

Mother In Law's Birthday

It’s kind of a birthday laden week around here as a number of other people at work are also marking their day (January is very cold).  No such excuse down in tropical Panama but one of my favorite people in the world celebrated her 82d birthday on Wednesday.  My mother in law was subjected to a joint chorus of Happy Birthday with me singing.  I’m glad she withstood that auditory horror enough to allow her “kids” to take her out to dinner along with my father in law.  One of the PanaGals sent some pictures and both my wife and I wished we could have been part of what looked like a fun night.

Hump Day Luncheon Partners

On that same day I had one of my hump day lunches with my favorite son where we commiserated about our fantasy football fortunes.  Since he’s the league commissioner he had to take a higher road than I did as I wallowed in recrimination at my ineptitude.  I’m facing the Wing Man and certain defeat this weekend.  My son is continuing his house hunting with the ABFA now that the wedding hullabaloo has subsided.

My Wife Poring Last Night

My wife spent the better part of two hours poring over 900 official wedding photos which she accessed electronically last night.  The photographer did a great job capturing the emotion, excitement, fun, and love that permeated the day.  My wife selected nearly 200 that she wanted to get printed and thought she saved the selection in the web site’s “my favorites” section.  When she summoned me to review there were only two photos there so something wasn’t done right.  I was immediately assessed as the culprit.

Sample of the Artist's Work

Culprits were the name of the game in finishing my latest foray into the world of Vince Flynn and his uber-hero Mitch Rapp, Memorial Day.  Mitch is back to doing what he does best which is thwarting terrorist attacks which brings the attendant body count.  As with all of Flynn’s books the pace was relentless and the tension peaks in the second half to the point I literally could not put the book down.  The last quarter of the book was the best action I’ve read in this series of books which is saying a whole hell of a lot. 

Mitch deflects one nuclear bomb attack only to learn his work is not done.  He has to battle terrorists as well as holier than thou progressive Washington politicians.  One aspect of Flynn’s books than I enjoy is the set up for the next one.  He always introduces some secondary characters, usually villains, who aren’t definitively dealt with in the current book.  In other words they survive, but have exposed themselves to Rapp’s radar, never a healthy course of action.  This wets the appetite to continue to the next book expeditiously which I did five minutes after finishing Memorial Day.

Take Note and Remember

The words below are the same I publish each year on September 11 to remember that day in 2001.  With the rush and bustle of everyday life people have a tendency to soften or even twist what really happened that day.   The Wahhabi fundamentalists that launched these cowardly attacks have been allowed to regroup and flourish in the last six years to the point they've carved out their own little pseudo nation.  That’s good on only one front – they’ve provided a target rich environment.  They cannot be reasoned with or rehabilitated,  they can only be killed like the mad dogs they are.  Never forget and continue to make them pay.

I was assigned to the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. I remember a beautifully clear day where the oppressive summer Washington, DC heat was finally gone. We had recently dropped off my daughter for her freshman year at Boston University, my son was a junior in high school, and my wife worked at an adult day care facility in Northern Virginia. I was actually in a satellite office in Crystal City while our Pentagon offices were refurbished.

My morning routine was to head out for a run along the Potomac River where there was a nice running trail. I ran around the Pentagon and glanced over at the helipad where I had taken several trips out of and then wound my way down to the river. I had just reached the river, on the opposite side of the Pentagon from the helipad, and turned south when I heard a very loud bang. There was always a lot of construction going on in nearby Crystal City so I initially thought that someone had used a little too much explosive for a new roadway. 

Red X Where Plane Hit
Blue Line Where I was Running 10 Minutes Before
Yellow X Where I was When the Plane Hit

As I continued my run I heard police sirens blooming from every direction. I reached a gap in the trees and could see a column of smoke rising from the Pentagon. I had just about reached the point where the running trail nears National Airport and I was greeted by a truly surreal sight. The airport, in reaction to the earlier attacks in New York City, was being emptied. People, with their luggage in tow, were wandering down the running trail with no real sense of where they were going, only that they had been ordered to leave the terminal. I gave directions to the nearest hotel to some and then headed back to my office, by now the sirens were almost deafening and traffic had come to a complete stop in both directions on the nearby George Washington Parkway.

When I reached my office I learned the true scope of the disaster and watched the towers fall on a TV someone had set up in their cubicle. There were a series of follow up explosions as transformers blew up in reaction to the Pentagon disaster. A couple guys and I made our way over to the Pentagon to see if we could help with any evacuation but the area was already cordoned off. We helped the rapidly growing casualty collection in the south parking lot; there were a lot of dazed civilian workers. The military, even those wounded were trying to help out; we all realized we had just gone to war.

Eventually we were ushered away as more of the professional emergency workers showed up. I returned to my office and decided it would be a good idea to let my family know I was alive. I called my wife who had heard and was just about to go into full blown panic mode. I called Boston University because I didn’t have my daughter’s dorm room number with me and when I explained where I was calling from the operator connected me directly, even though that wasn’t usually allowed. I spoke with my daughter’s roommate who promised to find my daughter and let her know. A similar call to my son’s high school followed by a call to my mother’s house. I had to leave a message there since she out shopping and she later told me that was the best phone message she ever received because she had convinced herself I had been killed after hearing the news on the car radio.

All buses, my normal way home, were shut down at the Pentagon. Washington DC was shutting down and everybody was released from work at the same time. I went to the Metro station and waited while five different trains, packed to the gills, went by until I was able to squeeze into one. I rode it as far as I could and then walked up to a nearby mall where I could wait for my wife to come pick me up.

I sat in a bar and watched the day’s events unfold on TV. One of the other patrons claimed to have been driving on I-395 and saw the plane plow into the Pentagon. He said he would never forget seeing the airline lettering so clear and so close. The plane went right into the area near the helipad, where I had run ten minutes before. After an hour the entire mall closed and I had to go wait outside a bookstore, also closed, for about two hours before my wife was able to get me.

One of the most memorable and cherished things from that horrible day were the phone calls we received all that night as friends and family from around the world, knowing I was assigned to the Pentagon, called to insure I was okay.

My wife was a little shocked the next day when I told her I was going back to work but I needed to, I was so angry. It didn’t help when I arrived at the Pentagon, smoke still rising with bodies still unrecovered, that I was greeted by a group of protestors reveling in the destruction. It took a lot of self restraint not to kick some serious ass at that point.

I was so glad Clinton was out of office because I knew he would have been incapable of making the tough decisions required by this act. He would have thrown a few cruise missiles and called it a day.

We as a nation learned that day that there are some people who cannot be reasoned with and needed to die; that was the only way to end the threat and that you couldn’t do it from a distance.

I also remembered the way the country came together for a short time and I felt glad my kids were around to see it; to see what a united America was like. This eroded over time as the politicians felt safe enough to stop cooperating again, but it did happen. It was another object lesson for evil as well, don’t wake up the sleeping giant, when you do, be prepared to experience unprecedented wrath. These were my memories of the day when everything changed, but maybe not enough.

Tinseltown Invasion

The Fence I Have to keep Clear

Chaos reigns at work today.  Our facility is bordered by two major thoroughfares which is very handy for a transit company.  That is until they decide to shut down one of these main thoroughfares so Hollywood can film all day.  The movie Sea of Trees has been filming is Worcester for the past few weeks and today they descended on our neighborhood. 

We could work around this with some assistance from Worcester’s finest except for one thing – Mathew McConaughey.  This means every single woman who works here has been trying to sneak out to see their favorite heartthrob.  I was just talking with one of the cops charged with keeping the site pristine.  He asked if I could assist with moving the crowd of “gawking females” lining our fence line away from the camera shot.  So I get to earn a lot of cool points by directing these ladies back to their desks.  This may be something I never recover from.

Hollywood in Worcester

Date night yesterday and the wife and I journeyed to Worcester since the local theater is pandering to adolescents this week.  It was a little nostalgic to return to what used to be our normal haunt.  We went to see the Hundred Foot Journey because I couldn’t think fast enough to avoid this obvious chick flick about the French and cooking.  Sometimes you have to take one for the team and this turned out to be a good thing because this was a truly charming movie.

A family of Indian restaurateurs is displaced from India and end up in the French hinterlands where they try to open an Indian restaurant across the road from a very prestigious French restaurant.  The movie is technically about the young Indian chef’s rise to fame but the absolute best parts are the evolving relationship between the two heads of the establishments- Helen Mirren and Om Puri; two actors at the peak of their craft.  They have so much chemistry that the youngsters are kind of left in the dust.  There’s the usual culture clash but this movie gets it right by focusing on the people involved.  My wife was gushing about the French cuisine which is almost a supporting actor in the plot, I just thought it was funny as hell; very entertaining.

I just realized I am embarking on my fourth year of writing this blog since I started in September 2011.  I glanced back at those first posts and was a little amazed how much it’s grown and how important it’s become to me.  I actually look forward to the writing each day which is kind of weird.  Thanks for putting up with me.

Dental Heat and Waffles

I had another appointment yesterday with my new and extremely attractive dentist (dutifully reported to wife).  I found the upside to a hot dentist is very small fingers so there was no attempt to stretch my lower lip over my chin.  The downside is that damned male pride which has gotten me into so many health related issues in the past.  There was no way I was going to answer in the affirmative when she repeatedly asked me if she was hurting me at all (just a flesh wound).  My attempt to be suave and debonair failed miserably when during the final rinse I forgot my lips were temporarily incapacitated by Novocain and dribbled water all over myself.

The Start of My Football Fantasy Career

I could have used some more Novocain for my bruised ego as my first fantasy football weekend mercifully drew to a close last night.  Is losing to your daughter 128.5 to 69.7 some sort of record for ineptitude?  Looking at the league standings I managed to select the worst, by far, team.  At least I had fun on draft day but this promises to be a loooong season.The stake was firmly driven into my chest last night with my daughter's player lighting up the scoreboard while mine seemed to be in some sort of animated coma.  As I pondered my humiliation my faithful companion Buddy the Wonder Pooch requested his late evening constitutional.  It was nearly midnight but when I walked outside I was inundated with light. They weren’t kidding about last night’s harvest moon, it was cooking.  Living in the country, away from city lights, can offer some spectacular night skies.  Last night was a perfect example and I appreciated the splendor of Mother Nature as a salve to a battered ego.

Last Night's Moon Burning through Clouds

In other NFL news Ray Rice was finally given the punishment he deserved for knocking out his wife.  Any man cowardly enough to strike a woman is beneath contempt and he should have been shown the door months ago.  The NFL finally acted when they saw the video of the punches, apparently for the first time, yesterday.  This begs the question about what they thought happened in the elevator when they saw him dragging her unconscious body out which resulted in only a two game suspension.

How Did They Think She Got There

The Waffler in Chief will bestow his strategic vision on dealing with ISIS this week.  His hesitancy and mixed messages over the past year will serve him poorly in executing it since he’s allowed them to burrow into the infrastructure so effectively.  I’ll wait to see the follow through because every time in the past few months he’s made a decisive statement about the situation (or any situation) he invariably backs off, sometimes in the same press conference.  It’s time to stop being a community activist and act presidential.  A Damascus to the Euphrates parking lot seems appropriate at this point. 

It's Time 

Red Zone Interrupted

I’m not saying I’m having second thoughts about putting the house up for sale (because I am) but if I knew I would be wrenched away from the clutches of my favorite autumn obsession – the NFL Red Zone – well more thought would have gone into it.  The first showing of the house occurred yesterday at 4:30 which was thankfully in the arid atmosphere of the second half of the football day when the action isn’t as mesmerizing as the 1 to 4pm games.  I was still a bit petulant about having to abandon Couch Potato Position 1 just so some strangers could inspect our home.

After Saturday night’s epic exertions (see yesterday’s post) I wasn’t expecting to feel exceptionally spry.  The ibuprofen assisted in that arena as my wife flitted about the house isolating the odd molecule of disorder that had the temerity to intrude into her pristine house.  Buddy was amped up as he sensed something big was on tap and he kept getting glances from my wife as she located another dog hair on the floor (he really did not want to know what she was thinking at that point).

He was even more excited when I loaded his kennel into the car.  I’m sure he had visions of a long drive (which he loves – weird dog) to some distant location where he could amble around fresh scented environments.  We were taking him with us because the realtors said potential buyers don’t like to be startled by a seemingly bloodthirsty, insane dog trying to get at them from inside a cage (go figure). 

Alas Buddy was denied the long trip as we only went to a nearby restaurant to wait out the visit.  We backed into a shady spot we could see from the bar and opened the windows so he could nasally inspect this new location.  In what was truly a sign from heaven addressing my understandable separation anxiety the bar had the Red Zone going full throat when we entered.  My wife and I enjoyed a great meal together where we decided we weren’t ready to sell the house yet.  This will make handling any offer less than the asking price easy to respond to.  Somewhere the ABFA is smiling.

The Patriots played a typical half of football yesterday and were comfortably ahead at half time.  Unfortunately they play two halves in the NFL and the Patriots seemed to forget that.  They are usually the better team in the second half but they laid a real egg as they wilted in the Florida heat.  For the first time in a long time they looked completely unprepared from game action.  I’m convinced Belichek used this as a devious tool to convince his team they’re not as good as everyone was telling them they were.  He’s willing to sacrifice one game early to get his team a mental edge.  He’s playing chess while everybody else struggles with checkers (at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself of today).

My first week of fantasy football continues its descent into absolute chaos.  There is just no way to sugar coat the size of the debacle.  My daughter and I each have one player remaining for tonight’s game.  If Victor Cruz can set a new NFL record for touchdowns and yardage I just might finish a less embarrassing second to her.  I officially suck at fantasy football.