Five Years

This one's hard to believe.  It was never the intent to be out here longer than it took to get my degree, figuring that, once I'd had my stint at Harvard, I'd be employable pretty much anyway (that last bit's still basically true).  But here I am, and tomorrow, the 11th, is when I rolled into town in a tiny uHaul.

A lot has happened since my last post, nearly two years ago, so let's catch up.

Workplace changes

Harvard was wearing on me after three years, and by the summer after commencement I'd pretty much had enough.  It takes a special kind of person to stick with an Ivy; I'm not that person.   Work was running out, I was doing more content entry than development, my patience with high ed politics was thin enough to read through, and it was time to move on.

I looked at several places, but ended up hitting it off real well with the folks at Velir -- then almost walked away from the offer.  Thankfully they chased me down, because that probably would have be the most boneheaded thing I'd ever done.  Been here 18 months now, and thoroughly enjoying it.  The work's interesting, the people are something else.  I'd never really thought about working in an agency environment before, but I love it -- lots of variety and the opportunity to actually learn from other devs rather than being isolated.

Still, couldn't leave well enough alone at Harvard

While I say I was ready to leave Harvard, I never did get entirely away.  Two months after leaving SEAS, I was TA for one of Jen Kramer's fall Extension School courses before taking on 1/3rd of the instruction for the spring CMS course.  I've continued to team-teach that, as well as teaching a new course, Developing for Drupal 8, all on my own.  So for all those people who stopped assuming that I was faculty when I left Kenyon for Harvard... now I kinda am.  So there.

If you're wondering how this fits with me needing to leave Harvard for my sanity, the Extension School is entirely a different beast from working as staff.  Quite a bit of freedom to run your course as you feel you need to, and you answer to your students first (which is, I suppose, how it should be). 

Down one cat; other went crazy, then un-crazy

We lost Honey between Christmas and New Years of 2015; something went entirely whacked with her blood pressure and she pretty much went into a terminal bloody nose.  Punkin, who'd have you believe he really doesn't care, took it pretty hard -- he truly believed when we got in the car to drive back after New Year's that we were going to find Honey, and he was devastated when she wasn't waiting for us back at the apartment.  About March he started chewing all his fur off and didn't stop until he could double for one of those weird hairless breeds, only really super pink.  He knocked that off late in the year and now he's back to normal... or as normal as he gets.  I looked into getting a buddy for him, but he told me No.  I could actually hear the capital "N" when he said it, too.  Well... I could barely hear it over the screeching, but it was definitely there.

Took up a New Sport

If you notice an awful lot of Facebook statuses with me complaining that I broke something, dislocated something, sprained something, or just generally feel like someone threw me down the stairs, I'm probably not being metaphorical (well, maybe that last one).  A month after starting at Velir, I also took up Shaolin Kempo Karate.  It's a lot of fun, and it's made huge differences in my fitness, balance, and focus.  I'm a late-stage purple belt right now (hopefully be blue very soon, but that depends on nothing else falling off before I test).  I used to call orange belt "the awkward stage", but I've come to the conclusion that pretty much any stage I'm in is the awkward stage (the more things change, the more they stay the same, you know...).  

I'm not going to say I'm good at karate (because for one thing, if you start that up, you should hang up your belt -- everyone still has something to learn), but there are definitely things I'm suited to.  Having always been a little scrappy, it probably goes without saying that I love to spar.  That's also typically where I manage to inflict injury on myself (yeah, no one has caused any of those aforesaid injuries except me).  I'm also just in love with trying to have as big of a mental inventory of techniques as I can -- to the point where I invented a style die specifically to practice recall.  I never do anything by halves, that's for sure.

In Conclusion...

None of this was expected five years ago, that's for sure.  The setter in the city was expected to always be something of a transplant, not so much a city-setter, but that seems to have been what's happened.  Life grabs you, takes you down a path, but it rarely tells you what's coming next (and if it does, bet on that being a fake-out).

Harvard Grad

It's taken a while for it to actually sink in that it's over, that I've got my Master's degree and it's got Harvard on it*.  I think I'll still be putting "Bachelor's" on those forms you fill out that ask about your level of education for years.

If you're a guest coming in from anywhere other than a Harvard Square hotel you get up at 4:00 in the morning to get a shot at a seat (and that's if you've got a ticket, mind.  No ticket, no entry).  I started at the Extension School itself and found most of my Capstone class right off the bat;  I think all but one of us walked.  We followed a set of bagpipes across the Commons, around the outside of the Yard's iron fence, and in through the Sever Gate -- to stand around waiting for about an hour while everyone shows up.   Then all the schools yell like mad to let everyone know they're there and the procession starts. 

I really can't describe Morning Exercises.  It's similar to other college commencements I've been to, while at the same time being very different.  A *ton* of music, all live.  A student address -- in Latin.  Way too many honorary degrees (in the heat, I think if they'd have gone for one more, there may have been a riot).   The local sheriff in a top hat and silver cane yelling his lungs out.   More bagpipes.

Seriously, you may want to watch it for yourself.  Unfortunately this year the recording missed the call to order, so if you want to see the sheriff, you'll need to look up the 2014 (and I recommend it; it's everyone's favorite part).  

Evidently while all this is going on the parents are pretty much acting like heathens.  Wish I was kidding; Dad had to keep his foot hooked through his chair when he stood up to take a picture or else someone might have yanked it out from under him and walked off with it.   I wonder how many fist fights security has had to break up over the years.

Diploma ceremonies are separate, because there's an insane number of people to deal with (I can't get exact number, but estimates are 32,000 people in attendance), and ours was in a local church.  It was about a million degrees in there, and everyone just wanted to get done and out.  I suspect my acceptance picture, when it comes, will pretty much look like I got hit with a brick.  A sweaty brick.

The diploma itself is entirely in Latin, v's for u's and all, which appeals to the nerd in me in a big way.  And no, I can't remember how to translate it any more (though I did get the gist of the Latin address, so I'm not THAT rusty). 

And I guess that's really that.  We didn't stay for the Afternoon Exercises -- too hot, and we were about worn out (and it's all speeches anyway; exciting maybe when it's Oprah, less so when it's an ex-governor).

*Even if it is the Extension School, which Harvard itself swears up and down is the real thing, and which HBS and HMS grads look so far down their's noses at that they get a crick in their necks.    Whatever.  I learned a ton. 

Extreme Weather

I've meant to write about a number of things -- my capstone course, the new apartment, the madness that was the Balmer gift announcement launch, all kinds of things.  But stuff kept getting in my way (in fact, most of those things on that list got in each others' way).

But I can't not write about the weather.

Boston has been smashing winter weather records in the last two weeks.  It started with 2 feet of snow, continued with another 16 inches within a week (breaking the 7-day snowfall record) and just blasted past the 30-day record with almost 70 inches in the last 17 days.

Know what storm season previously held that record?  Yeah, the infamous Blizzard of '78.  That year.  The year that was so wintery that it's enshrined in "back in the day" jokes everywhere.   There were actually two major blizzards that year, so back home got hammered as well (and actually got the heavier-accumulations, I believe).  Boston's great blizzard was about this time and was incredibly damaging.  We've been lucky this time -- our problem is so much snow that we've got nowhere to put it.  The damage due to winds and flooding, though not completely absent, has not been nearly so bad.   We're only now starting to see roof collapses.

I don't have may great pictures of this one.  Of the last 11 workdays, I've made it to the office for 5.  Of the 6 that I was snowbound, 2 were Harvard snow days, something that's virtually unheard of.  I was unable to shop one weekend, and barely made it the next.  So I'm only going to give you two pictures.  If you're really interested, you can hit up the major news outlets; they have tons.

That weird little bump?  That's a 3' light post. 


The interesting thing to me in all this has been how disastrous the commute has been.  My move required me to start taking the bus (an experience in itself).  I have three routes I can take.  One comes up the hill right to the complex -- but not in the snow.  The other two require a 3/4 mile walk through uncleared sidewalks (you can be fined for this, but due to the accumulation, most cities aren't bothering; they know people can't keep up); one takes me into Alewife to pick up the train and the other takes me all the way into Harvard.

Tomorrow the trains won't be running.  All the routes with snow routes will be on them and all services will be intermittent.  It's a real mess.

Before you go smirking at the fact that we shut down over a little snow, keep in mind that Boston already has three major transportation problems that the snow just makes worse:

• The T's old, and an awful lot of it is above ground
• The streets are narrow, as are the sidewalks.
• There's no parking.  Anywhere.  Ever.

You put those three together, and you essentially have no way to get anywhere.  I've had days where I could have driven to work (with some teeth-grinding and dents in the steering wheel), but wouldn't have been able to park anywhere.   I've had mornings where I tried to walk and was given the choice between a foot of powdery snow or walking in the road -- something that many people do, and a number of people pay heavily for when they get hit by someone who didn't see them or couldn't stop.  And even if you make it to the bus stop there's no guarantee you'll fit on the bus.  Two of the days I made it in, we deadheaded most of the trip due to a full bus.

I can't find official numbers anywhere, at least not that are quickly accessible, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen this much snow in my life.

Edit: I snagged this chart from Boston.com* that shows the current totals for this year and where they stand in the records.

*Epstein, David. "The Great Snow of 2015." Boston.com. N.p., 10 Feb. 2015. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.

Back to Walden

Just a handful of new Walden Pond pictures from this morning.  I went out and walked in the pond about a quarter of the way around and then hopped for a bit until I found a dry spot where the rocks weren't  sharp and I could put my shoes on again.  Ouch.

If you look close there are some bluegills in some of the photos.  They wanted to eat my toes.  There's a frog in there, too.  A really green one.

Whales and Wild Dogs

Been a while since I've posted, but it's been a rough winter and spring and I'm only just now getting to have some fun!

My sister and brother-in-law were out this weekend and part of the week (actually, they're probably still out here, sort of, because the airline's trying to keep them here).

They were here a number of days, so we did quite a lot, but unfortunately I don't have a whole lot of photos this time around -- and awful lot of our travel involved water and critters, which isn't the greatest environment for your average camera.  I've got a few, though, so we'll see what we can get out there.

Saturday

I could have sworn that I wrote about Logee's Greenhouse before on this blog, but looking back I sure can't find it.  Logee's is basically a wilderness under glass -- six greenhouses, some built over 100 years ago and still in pretty much the same form they were when built.

And the best part is that some of the plants are that old.

The coolest thing about Logee's is their 114 year old Ponderosa lemon tree (you can see a picture of the tree on this page but it's nowhere near as impressive as it really is).  The Ponderosa gives lemons the size of a small melon -- they can weight up to five pounds.

And yes, I brought one back with me.

The evening's entertainment was a whale watching trip.  We tried not to have too high of hopes -- the whales don't always read the boat schedule, but we figured on a nice boat ride at least.

What we didn't realize was that the whale boats are COLD.  Not just nippy, but freakishly, send in the Saint Bernards, cold.  It was a beautiful day, and we hoofed it up to the front of the third level to make sure we got a good view.  Leaving the harbor was pleasant.

Then we picked up speed.

Let me tell you, moving at 40 mph into gusty 20 mph wind sounds fun, but it also drops the ambient temperature to 50-something, makes you deaf, and makes it hard to breathe.  It also knocks your hat off.  I ducked down to rescue it and found out that sitting on the floor was probably the place to be, so we spent the next hour freezing to death and making silly fish puns below the edge of the boat.

When the whales showed up, the cold stopped mattering.  They're amazing.  That's all I can say.  A cell phone camera is almost a waste of time on them, so I didn't bother, but they are seriously cool.  We saw 7 whales -- quite a lot -- and two mother-calf pairs, which the biologist, who had been doing this for quite a while, had only seen once before (and that's ONE pair, not two in one trip).  They were all fin whales, not the charismatic humpbacks, but trust me, that didn't matter at all.

This year has been a good one for whales, so if you're thinking about a whale watch, do it this season.

Coming back I pinned myself to the front of the boat briefly and attempted to take some photos of the sunset.  My fingers were freezing off and we were back into the 60 mph wind -- and boucing -- so don't expect miracles here:

 

Bet you don't have that in your back yard.

Sunday

I'm not sure what the deal was with cold weather sitting right on the summer solstice, but Sunday was good and cold, too -- and we decided to spend it on the water again.

We'd planned to head to Spectacle Island, but instead ended up at Georges -- and I think we're glad we did.  Georges Island contains an aging military fort, Fort Warren.  It was essentially obsolete the day it was built, and never saw any real action of any sort, but it's a neat place to visit.

Something you have to realize about New England parks is that they seem to be happy to let you fall off a cliff and die if you're so inclined, so this disintegrating fort has a bit of an edge to it as you explore.  The place is not restored -- it's in the state that it was sold and recovered as a park.  There are placards around explain what everything is, but you're not going to find reproduction military equipment and dioramas set up.

Instead you find eerie, high-vaulted rooms with slit-windows and cracking plaster; dark, tight staircases that you aren't sure you're going to be able to maneuver, and pitch black hallways to nowhere that end in bricked-up nothing.

It is insanely fun to explore, though, perhaps all the more so for not being polished up.  Again, no great pictures, as you can't get a feel for how dark it is in there in a cell phone picture (if you're really feeling put out by the lack of photos, go into your favorite image editor, open a 4" x 6" document and use the paint can to fill it with black.  You'll get the general idea.)

But that said, we also found some very pleasant grassy places -- in fact, one of the first things we did after landing (and having lunch) was to find our way to the top of the walls and lie down on the cannon pads and soak up the sun (remember, it was cold).  Fairly certain that the other folks visiting the island thought we were nuts, but we were happy.  After we poked around, we found ourselves another big flat rock on the beach and dozed there for a while.

I do have a couple views of the view from Georges:

You can kind of see the creepy darkness in the bottom photo -- that's not all contrast with the outside brightness there.

Monday

We decided to toss in a quick trip to the Sam Adams brewery before going to the Franklin Park Zoo Monday morning -- if you're ever in Boston, go to this short little tour. 

I don't know quite how they do it, but the tour is a very nice one -- and they don't charge.  They ask you to donate to a couple of causes (the causes change periodically), but you don't have to.  The tour itself is quite funny and informative -- and the place is actually quite small!  (Yes, Ohio folks, believe it or not, your bottled Boston Lager comes from closer to you than to me).  We got to taste and touch all the ingredients for beer (well, except yeast, but you could breathe that in, and water, but we all know what that tastes like).  We saw the equipment they use both for local contracts and as a test kitchen.

And then after the tour they give you all nice glasses and you have a beer tasting. 

Yeah.  Really.  For free.  Three types of beer and you get to learn about how to taste it.

I was certainly impressed.

So, perhaps reeling a bit, we headed to the Franklin Park Zoo.

The Zoo is beautiful; I'm not sure I've ever been to a prettier one.  It's also quite small, but that doesn't really matter.  They don't have too many "usual" things -- though you've got your tigers (rescues) and your lion.    We got to see pretty much everybody, though some were sleeping.  The giant anteater was amazing -- and huge -- and he was also very active.  He looked like a slightly warped Afghan Hound.

The guests took themselves around yesterday and today, but my sister did make me dinner yesterday, and I'll leave you with this jealousy-inducing photo, courtesy of my brother-in-law:

Flaming Kombucha

It's been a while since I've written anything, because, hey, you probably don't want a narration of my classes or my work.  Things will get more interesting when it warms up again.

Meanwhile, tonight, after a somewhat rough weekend (6 hour homework stretch, then I went nuts and cleaned the apartment top to bottom... except the cat room), I decided I was going to make myself some candied kombucha scoby.

If you've never seen kombucha, it's a fermented tea drink.  It's somewhat tricky to keep going without killing it or yourself, but thankfully the temperatures and humidity around here are just about right for it to grow without going moldy.  So mine's been going since I moved here, and I tend to let it go a little too long.  This results in the scoby -- the bacterial mat that floats on top and does and the work* -- being very thick. 

That means you can scoop it out and candy it, which I'd never done.  So for some reason at 7:30 at night I decide I have to do this.  So I dig out the scoby (carefully -- I never touch the kombucha with my fingers if I can help it, to avoid contamination), slice it up with a steak knife (it's like cutting raw liver**), dump sugar on it, and start heating it up.

8 minutes later we have kombucha rockets.

Imagine chunks of candied fruit shooting two feet in the air trailing molten sugar.  Now imagine one of them smacking you in the hand.

Well, I watched the kombucha chunks shoot into the air from over by the sink, while running cold water over my hand and wondering how the heck I was going to get close enough to turn the stove off.   Meanwhile a napalm kombucha chunk hit the microwave and stuck. 

Eventually I managed to dive in and turn things off.  Even more eventually I got the floor cleaned up.  The stove still isn't as I'm waiting for the surface to be good and cold.  My hand is unhappy.  The remaining unexploded kombucha hunks are in the fridge.  Maybe tomorrow I'll try one.


*and now I'm sure I've made it so you never want to drink kombucha.  Ask me about hot dogs some time.

**see previous note

I went to the woods because...

... I wanted to pick some apples, but somehow I ended up at this pond:

 

Yes, this is Walden Pond.

I knew it was up here, and I knew it really wasn't that far, but I didn't realize just how close it really was and how easy to get to.

It's a local swimmin' hole, but even with all the people who were there today (and there were a lot), it was pretty quiet once you were off the main beach.  It's just a beautiful spot.  I can see why you'd be happy living there in a tiny little house and just thinking all day long.

There's a full path all the way around, and I'd say the loop's about two miles, just from how long it took me.  There are several other trail loops, but I had apples in the car and was wondering whether they'd be cooked when I got back (they were fine), so I just did the main loop.  

It is beautiful.  No questions asked.  I think I may have cheated, going there on a fall day, and I'd already just about driven off the road repeatedly on the trip out since the area itself is so amazing (seriously, NE mountains are something else).

And of course I got the chance to stand on some hallowed literary ground.

That last one's the view from the house site down to the pond.  It's up a bit, and tucked back off an inlet.

I don't have a whole lot else to say here, except that now I've got to try and pick up Walden again (and maybe finish it this time; I'm fairly sure I've read all of it at one time or another, but not all the way through).  Instead I'll end with the rest of my camera roll: