From the sculptor: “‘We Are Still Listening,’ was created from a magnificent regal tree which once stood in front of the Hadley-Conant home, a family of musicians of the 1880s. I wish to dedicate this sculpture to the honor of the Hadley-Conant family, the residents of East Somerville, and those musicians who will continue this tradition through musical performances and events in Symphony Park.”
I wanted to check this thing out after hearing it mentioned about a week ago as they did an unveiling. I also did a little lookup on Henry Hadley, I had no idea. That’s what learning is all about! He would later go on to create Tanglewood, and to think it all started right here in East Somerville!
Anyone who knows me well enough would know that I am always trying out new and artsy type things. Here’s a computerized drawing of myself that I had been playing around with. Reminds me of a baseball card so here’s mine. Collect them all! And yes, I am wearing a hoodie that says Claw & Order: Boston Lobster Unit.
Today was sort of a busy day as after shift I had to take a drive over to Earth-1 because one of my mom’s cats was due for his yearly exam and shots and things of that nature. I’m glad to say that everything checked out fine. Strangely cool and windy today but it would appear that today is the last day of that crap and the weekend looks to be pretty good. I have a bunch of things planned that I want to get done over the weekend so we’ll see if I can push myself to do them all.
The driver’s side window on my mom’s 2003 Toyota Camry LE won’t go down anymore. It appears to probably need a new regulator and possibly the motor to go with that but she’s been having a hell of a time tracking one down, probably because the car is pretty old by this point. We’ve tried all the usual routes but if anybody has any ideas, let me know. It would only be a problem in the summer because it would get sweltering in there, but she doesn’t drive all that much anyway. And she can still roll down the other windows. Just don’t get pulled over because the window doesn’t go down, would have to open the door!
While I was working out in the gardens today I couldn’t help but notice that the lilac trees were starting to bud and bloom, so naturally I had to whip out my camera because that’s what we photographers do, and the result is the picture you see above. Check out the little fuzz on the buds.
Started out the morning after shift by heading to HQ for a team meeting. We’re having a team dinner in a couple of weeks at a function hall in town so that’s something to look forward to. Anyways, the meeting has basically just hashing out some details of things that are coming up, most of which I had already knew. It had been a while since we had a meeting though, so it was kind of cool to see everybody.
As our first grilling session of the season, I fired up the grill late this afternoon and fired up some strip steaks. Normally, I like to conduct a deep clean before starting the season, but I skipped that for now. Because the propane tank in the grill was nearly empty, I replaced it for the one in the outdoor heater. On Wednesday, when I replace the door screens, I’ll probably go get that one refilled again. That’s my current plan anyway.
I might do this overlapping column thing on LD’s website later this weekend. I need to study to code and then implement it. I think it might look cool but we’ll see. I also need to add some more graphics for more visual appeal.
After work, I did a bunch of things today that I wanted to complete today and over the next few days, just in case you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to.
Cleared off the back deck in preparation for us pressure washing it clean. I’ve been doing some research on how best to tackle the job on the composite.
I did some research on how I’m going to implement some of the things on LD’s website.
Because the previous flowers had faded, I purchased an Easter bunch of flowers for the vase. There are some stunning blue hydrangeas in the mix that attracted my eye. Perhaps a photo will be forthcoming.
The lavender seedlings on the windowsill are starting to sprout. Pretty exciting!
Played around a bit with my social media accounts and made this “drawing” of myself.
Disassembled an old dehumidifier for ease of disposal. Also preparing to replace the glass panes with screens on the house doors and to bring out the grill from storage. I have a feeling we’ll be doing a lot of grilling this year, as we did last year.
Cleaned up some leaf/yard waste for the town pick up tomorrow.
As I was cleaning up some stuff out front, I noticed a tiny bunny scurrying about. When it heard me poking around, it raced to safety, but I left it alone and am delighted that they seem to be doing fine. We were so distraught last week when we disturbed their nest unknowingly but they’ve all left now to live their lives.
The town is starting to dig up all the streets in the neighborhood around here to reline all the sewers I believe. It makes getting around pretty annoying and I have to plan my route accordingly every morning so I’m not late. Going to be wonderful I’m sure once they start working on the entire street in front of the house. Not.
I’ve been trying out a new knee brace for my right knee. So far I’m liking the way this one feels. It’s more or less to stop me from overextending the tendons that hurt when I bend it too far. Ah, the joys of aging. Like they say, “I really don’t mind getting older, but my body is taking it badly.”
I’ve just received word that one of my photos has been selected as winner for the Duxbury Beach Reservation! In addition to being featured in their 2023 calendar I’ll be getting some prizes. (although now that I think about it, 2023 is a year away, so it’s going to be a while!) Still, this is fantastic news and I’m pleased that the vision I had for this particular photo resonated with the judges!
Thank you for everyone who has supported me in this endeavor!
Ended up being a rather productive Saturday as we did a little reorganizing of the home office here and cleaned up a bit. To relax we ended up watching the story of The Tinder Swindler on Netflix. In between all that I happened to notice Carson just hanging around on his cat tree and was lucky enough to grab this picture. Such a handsome, sweet and cute boy. He really saved us during this pandemic.
Making Kindness the Norm. LD found out about this thing where you color this image and then submit it and you get a sticker and maybe some other things if you’re lucky. Seemed like a good thing to do on a crappy weather day. My particular entry is on the left here using colored pencils. You still have time to get your own in if you’re interested and let’s face it, kindness should be the norm in this world of ours. Last night we also binged watched just about every episode of “Unbelievable” on Netflix. It’s really good, definitely recommend.
Think I’m going to attempt to make an Irish Beef Stew tonight. Perhaps I’ll update this entry as to how it all turns out.
For some reason I feel the art style of this caricature of me would fit right in with the art style of the Mad Magazine issues of the 1970s of which I used to own a few. I distantly remember having one that came with a record that you could place on a player and depending on where you placed the needle would have 6 or 7 different endings to the song. It was some paper thin like vellum kind of a thing. I remember you had to be careful not to bend it because then it was pretty much ruined. I even remember the name, It’s a Super Spectacular Day. It’s amazing what our minds can remember. I can remember that but can’t remember my schedule from last week.
Well, what do you know? Thanks to the magic of the Internet it still exists!
Some of my best pictures are up for sale on various media. If you’d like to support my work you can visit this link, and I would be greatly appreciative. Lots of Cape, Lighthouse, and even some animals to choose from.
Sending Love from Greys is now available on the online shop. I’ve been playing around with the idea of having physical media of my best photos with me all framed and such to sell at live venues. I still need to figure out a bunch of logistics and cost but this may be a better way to get some of my work noticed better. I’m also working on some other side gigs for the fall, so we’ll see.
Click to see more of product
Kind of too hot to much of anything today although I did do a Wegman’s grocery run in the morning and took some calls. I have figured out that I want to also watch the movie The Lighthouse, in addition to what I mentioned yesterday.
Ospreys looking
at eachother
I forgot to mention we saw a lot of osprey’s on the last trip. Here’s a photo of two of them just looking at eachother.
Woke up at the crack of dawn to get ready to drive over to the Ville to take my mom to get her 2nd COVID shot. Arrived a bit earlier than her appointment time but nobody was really there so they took her right away and now it’s done. Hopefully she’ll only have none to mild symptoms. She didn’t have any after the first shot but I hear the second one is a little tougher. In the early afternoon she heard of some food giveaway that a guy running for mayor is involved in just outside of Union Square so we took a drive down there and she got a box behind the Holiday Inn, loaded right into the back of the car ala contactless pickup. I was actually impressed by what was inside. Gallon of milk, bag of apples, bag of onions, some large carrots, two tubs of cream cheese, a large tub of yogurt, a package of hot dogs, some chicken in a marinade, some other things I can’t remember now and some masks. It was a better haul then I was expecting – it reminded me a little bit of those Imperfect Foods boxes we sometimes get, but for free. She said she’d probably only do it this one time and leave it for people that might be more needy, but it is a weekly thing if one so wishes to keep going proving that there is help out there if you know where to look. God, I hadn’t been in that part of the city in forever. It’s amazing how different some of it looks with these big developments taking over. There’s this huge one right next to the old Buddy’s Diner, which to me looked a bit comical with these big pricey looking living spaces right next to this tiny little diner car building. (I’ve never actually ate or been inside Buddy’s but I hear it’s an iconic site).
Can’t wait for the weather to get just a little bit warmer as I want to fire up the firepit and enjoy the nice smell of burning embers. Speaking of that, the Choc Sparrow had these cool wood pellet burning towers to keep folks warm waiting outside and had the loveliest aroma. Makes one want to look into getting one, although I suspect they are pretty pricey and probably pretty hard to find in stock.
Somerville residents homes all lit up. This one has a working Ferris wheel on the porch over to the right by the Santa head!
Took a ride tonight around Somerville to check out some of the homes decked out for the holidays. Here are some of them that we visited. Very impressive displays! Perfect weather for checking them out tonight!
Red Colored Leaves and Gourds are signs of Autumn in New England
The get together yesterday afternoon was really fun. We even burned some logs that our guest brought over from downed trees in her area and we learned how to burn them successfully. In fact, we think this was the best fire that we ever had. Good lessons to learn moving forward. She also said she’d help us with our gardening and landscaping in the future (hobbies of hers and she’s really good at it). Also love her bohemianism and seemingly free-spiritedness!
This afternoon’s movie watch was Real Women Have Curves. Not a movie I would generally see but I thought it was actually pretty good. While I was sautéing up some tofu for LD (with peppers, onion, zucchini and spinach – trust me, it’s good!) I googled around and learned that in 2019, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” so that’s a big deal.
I noticed today that according to my records, our jukebox is 10 years old today (meaning we bought it and have enjoyed it for 10 years so far. Where did the time go?)
I’m also a little crinkled up today from the way I slept last night. I didn’t want to disturb Carson, the cat, from where is was sleeping toward the bottom of my legs. So for hours it felt like I stayed crumpled up so as not to bother his sleep! #LifeofCatOwners.
Finding this amazing heart shaped rock at the beach today was a high point.
Went to the beach this afternoon just to get some fresh air and some new surroundings for a little while. Walking along the shoreline looking for rocks I came upon this heart shaped rock and thought it was amazing. The little groove in the top was just perfect. I was so lucky to have seen it lying there in the sand among all the other rocks. As a plus it also looks like a whale if you tip it sideways. It was a great beach day, a little cloudy but not too cool, and the beach wasn’t busy at all. I thought taking a picture of it with the waves crashing in the background might make a cool shot and here it is.
Maybe this could be a sign, who knows, but even if not, I’m definitely keeping this one. For the longest time I told LD I could never find any decent heart shaped rocks at the beach, but then I find this!
The story behind the photo: A few years ago, we went to the Fluffernutter Festival in my hometown of Somerville, MA. It’s a yearly celebration now honoring the invention of the product Fluffernutter, which was invented by a door to door salesman in town, Eventually he sold it to the company that still makes it today with their factory in Lynn but originally it all started right here. Anyways, this one particular year they somehow got Susan Olsen to come down and check it out, How could I not go? I grew up watching the Brady Bunch. I would get out from school and go home and put on Channel 56 which reran them everyday. I think it was a couple of cartoons, and then the Bradys and then the Monkees – amazing how TV has shaped me. In fact, I believe everything about life can be explained in various Brady Bunch episodes but that’s a discussion for another time. (Perhaps one day I will write a thesis about it but I digress.) Anyways, she was amazing. Kind of makes me want to meet the rest of the “Bradys”. As a side note, Florence Henderson visited the local hospital here a few years back and had I known this at the time I probably would have met Mrs. Brady, but it was sadly not to be. Also Peter Brady has visited Dedham a few times at Kings in Legacy Place so there was a possibility of seeing him as well. We missed Jan once in NYC, she apparently was downstairs from a restaurant we were frequenting at at the time but another miss. I figure Greg and Marcia would be the hardest to get to meet. I have no desire to meet Bobby (sorry!)
If you want to cast a vote for me for the cover of the town calendar then head on over here on facebook and like the image. I’m not expecting to get the cover since it’s a winter image but share some love anyway and boost my ego a little bit. The picture shows the luminary night where one night in December the town common is lit with bags that have candles inside them.
Facebook post going viral (available for purchase)
This is amazing. My photo on FB so far has become pretty well liked (for me anyway) but I was really blown away by the number of shares of this image so far, and climbing. Pemaquid Light is probably my favorite lighthouse out of the many I’ve visited. I enjoyed clambering along the cliffs just behind it. I can remember when I took this, we were leaving for the night when LD did one final pass and I just shot it from out the car window (ah, miss that old Saturn – many adventures in that automobile). I think what makes this one must be the cloudy sky and I also like that I got it just as the lighthouse flashed. So I feel a lot of my shots are just lucky and are taken right off the cuff. I’m just pleased they come out so well. This was also time we witnessed two skunks frolicking around the area and being amorous (and hopefully not malodorous) .
I downloaded the Star Trek Console Watch face for my Versa 2. I’m sharing it here in case you want to download it as well (it’s free) and you’re into Trek. I’ll use it for a little while before reverting back. The nice thing about the Versa is you can have up to 5 different watch faces. For those that care my current stats all time so far for the year are: 1,604,234 steps, 2140 floors, 679.37 miles and 793,033 calories burned.
I got an email back from those town calendar people. They seem to like what I sent them but we’ll see if they actually end up using it. There’s no monetary prize or anything like that, but I figure it’s just another way to get my name and work out there.
We appear to be having some small pumpkins growing, although not in the pumpkin patch we set up but rather in one of the raised boxes where I put some leftover seeds just to see what would happen if anything. These would be the 3rd generation of the “Sean the Pumpkin” that we had two years ago now – actually seeds from his “son”. LD has named this little pumpkin Penelope Pandemic. An apt description for the times I’d say.
It’s back! Reissued and remastered on De-Lite Records and Tapes. Once again available wherever fine music is sold! Sure to be a collectible item for lovers. Pick yours up today and groove!
I kind of like this one. This is a closeup of a painting I saw as I was getting ready to leave the island of Nantucket a few years back. It caught my eye just the way the strokes and dabs made the boats and I love the reflections.
