Sunday, June 26, 2011

Do Not Worry

It's been a busy weekend, full of a lot of activities -- I'm actually surprised how much I (and we got done) this weekend. I'd like to start this post with a short passage from Hemingway:

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."

I had picked up Movable Feast again after seeing Midnight in Paris for the second time. It was a great movie, and I heartily recommend it. Woody Allen really captured the beauty of Paris similar to what what he did for NYC in Manhattan, plus he touched on some timeless themes about how we live and we fulfill ourselves, be it through jobs, passions, higher pursuits, etc. I was very taken with the Hemingway character in the movie who spoke with a direct voice, full of insight coupled male heroic bravado. Anyway, in regards to the quote, I connected with it on the level of how do we actually say anything meaningful in life, art, music, or whatever. My brain at least is always thinking on some many levels, I frequently prevent myself from starting AND completing many things. I get sidetracked and ask too many peripheral questions. How do you stay focused? Something a 12-year-old could tell you, focus on the truth. Thank you Hemingway.

This weekend I also attended the Design for Drupal conference at MIT on Saturday. This was a big event focusing on the designer community (hence the name), engaging and to integrating it into the larger Drupal community. For those not familiar, Drupal is a VERY popular content management system-- essentially a tool that lets you manage your website without knowing fancy code. I had an excellent time there, and it's been refreshing so far with my new job to be in a position of actual doing. At my last job, I grew accustomed to what seemed like a million meta-conversations that seldom resulted in getting anything done. Related, it's been nice to focus on the facts at hand (website development, meeting new people). If you live in a sea of gray long enough, you begin to forget what the truth is.

After the excellent conference, Rosanne and I got to eat some dinner and we moseyed our way over to the Brattle Theatre to watch a classic. As you probably don't know, I've been focusing a lot more on film this year (yes the film as in the higher culture variety as some people like to make fun of me for,), and part of that mission has been going to great places like the Coolidge Theater in Brookline, the Dedham Community theater, and now the Brattle. We got to see a restored version of African Queen that was great. Some parts of the story I didn't totally buy (why did they have to sink that German ship if Boghart had a decade's worth of gin and food?), but the movie really shined in the interactions between Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Good stuff!

Today was equally action-packed as we went to the Wilson Mountain Reservation in Dedham, the Arnold Arboretum, and also found a new friend. Walking all around the parks today, Rosanne and I made the obvious conclusion we needed a dog. How can you not walk a trail without a dog? That's what we thought too. Based on that, we visited the Angell Memorial shelter and the Animal Rescue League. Well, we didn't see any dogs, but we did bump into one fine cat. In one of the crate/cage things we saw this little guy named Russo. Russo had almost died when he was dropped off, as he was suffering from a serious wound. He was basically saved by the the emergency vet in Walpole (same vet we took Wyatt too last year), and has been recovering for the past two months. We met him, and he had the best personality. Just a few moments ago I was hanging out with him and he was purring like he's know me for 10 years. We really connected with him, and we took him home. The little guy's eight years old, and it felt to bring him home --welcome to the family!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Much Happening

What better time to squeeze in a blog post than right before the weekend closes. Reading Roadielocks on a regular basis, I get to see my lovely wife share with the world with her verve and lively prose, so I will use her as an my inspiration for today's post (been a while).

Just a quick word of warning, this initial post will not contain photos -- so I'll be violating my own sacred code of blogging (thou shalt always have photos in thou post). Let's get on to it.

Yesterday was sports-theme day, as RL and I went to the Bruins parade in the morning/afternoon, and I also went to the Revs game by night. First, let's talk the parade. While I was hesitate about waking up early(ish) on Saturday, it seemed like a good idea to experience parade. Winning in Boston is big, so I really couldn't pass this up (one million people felt the same way). RL and I took the commuter train in, and I was hit by the fact it seemed like the entire student body of Dedham High was at the station. I never knew so many 14-year-old's were into NHL hockey. It could have been a lot of worse (basically got some bad jokes and fashion), we made it to South Station okay.

We plunked our buts over at Government Center as we waited for the Bruin's brigade show up with with Lord Stanley's cup. We got to see the Cup (held by Tim Thomas), and the whole Bruins team strut their stuff. It was nice that the pace of the parade was actually a lot slower than previous parades have been up here, so you actually got some time to process what was going on. I remember at a Patriot's parade everybody passed in what I thought was 15 seconds.

After the parade, RL & I got to walk around the city, hit the North End, culminating with a visit to the Common. Along the way we did to see one pretty funny event. After we left the North End, we snaked through the Bank North Center, and low and behold their was still major Bruins activity left to be had. We saw the Duck boats returning (now empty), but I also got to see this very TALL guy on this bike. I got to see Chara on his bike zoom by the Duck boats giving the some folks a pretty hardy cheer. Pretty cool! As RL mentions in her blog, this kind of got me motivated to get the bike rack on the ASAP.

Later on, we headed back to Dedham to see our friends, Curt and Marieke. I saw the Revs tie with Chicago with Curt (excellent company, frustrating game) and Rosanne got to see Bride Wars (I think) with Marieke -- a good ol' gender divide, boys do the sports, girls do the chic flick. Definitely a good time!

Today, we were able to resume our tour of religion by going to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Dedham. Here were my takeaways in brief:
  • Nice people
  • Very white (however, most places around here do)
  • LONG mass (75 minutes long)
  • Seemed very similar to a Catholic mass with all the overhead and singing
  • Cool sermon on the holy trinity -- use of 3 musketeers to help explain concept
  • Too much book juggling, one second it was the Book of Common Prayer, then it was the hymnal
  • Everyone took the wafer (Eucharist) together at the alter -- seemed very communal, none of this one at a time business
  • Didn't like the alter was behind this ornamental gate, seemed symbol of some kind of hierarchy
  • Got to see an old co-worker unexpectedly, very nice!
We are already have visited a Unitarian church (written about in an unpublished blog post), so we need to figure out where we go next. I'm thinking the Shakers -- what do you think?




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