When I watched baseball as a kid, it was a really simple affair which basically boiled down to "I hope the Mets win".  My friend Matt Hansen and his father were WAY into baseball, and that's where I became interested.  I didn't know anything about statistics, rosters, or even the minor league (beyond it's existence).  We'd watch a game on TV or listen to it on the radio, and occasionally go to Shea to watch a game.  At some point, though, I stopped paying attention to Baseball.  As an adult, I had convinced myself that I stopped caring around the infamous strike, but the math on that doesn't work out, because the strike was in '94 and I'm pretty sure I stopped caring much earlier than that.  Regardless of when it happened, it happened.

I managed to avoid Red Sox fever for many years of living in Boston...  When I moved here in 2001, it was amazing to me how serious Boston sports fans were...   The startup I was working for, Rovia, had it's office right on the corner of Yawkey Way and Brookline, across the way from Fenway (and, troublingly for my waistline, directly above the Best Sausage Company).  It was a madhouse in the summer, you either had to leave the office at 5pm or wait until the 2nd inning or so before the streets calmed down enough to make it to the T.    I'd be walking to the office from the T at 10am on a day with a 7pm game, and I'd already be getting harassed by scalpers ("NEED 'EM??  GOT 'EM???).   This city breathes it's sports, especially baseball..   You see team colors all over the city on game days..   Every bar with a TV is showing the game..   People simply assume you're at least familiar with what's going on with the team.

When I was working at Goodrich, I won two sets of tickets to the company seats.   The first was in August of 2004 in what would turn out to be the lead up to their World Series win.  I really enjoyed the game and got my first glimpse into what it is about this team and this park that made people crazy..   But it faded quickly, and even though the Sox were in the playoffs and ultimately the Series, I didn't pay much attention...  Local friends had parties to watch some of the games, and I attended, and cheered on the home team, but it didn't stick.

The second set of tickets was in 2006, and this time around things were a little different.  The first game I attended was with coco_b, and neither of us were particularly into baseball...   But when I got tickets to the 2006 Patriot's Day game, Corinna suggested I bring roryk along, because he was into the team.  It was at this game that the flint was sparked, although it took awhile for the fire to take. 

It was after attending this second game that I slowly started paying more attention to the sport.  It was Spring of last year when I first started to recognize "the symptoms", but the finishing blow was the new HDTV.  Rory, adamfletcher and friends started coming over to watch games all of the time, and I found myself checking the scores even when I was unable to watch the game. 

I'm fairly certain that the World Series win last year was what set the hook in my cheek.  This year, I followed all of the off-season dealings, watched a bunch of spring training games, woke up at 5am to cook pancakes and bacon for a bunch of guests for the Opening Day game in Tokyo, and have seen or listened to at least a few innings of almost every game this season.  I pay attention to scouting rumors and news, I have read books on the game, I read Baseball Prospectus and the local sports sections baseball coverage, i discuss player statistics, sabermetrics, and scouting rumors...  It has gotten completely out of hand.   And I love it.

adamfletcher and I headed over to the Orpheum to see Ween last night..  Neither of us had ever caught the band live before despite listening to them for years, and it was totally awesome.  They rocked out for 2+ hours, no opener, to a packed house..  The Orpheum is a lousy venue, but they made the best of it...  The crowd was totally eating up the show, and the band rewarded them with a good mix of new stuff as well as classics...   I would have loved the nostalgic "Pork Roll, Egg and Cheese", but you can't always get what you want... :)

OK, so I've completely neglected my journal for a long time.  I'm going to try to fix this starting now.  Here are some updates...

All of our photos are posted now, and I tried to put reasonable descriptions of each one.  If you want the abridged version, coco_b is working on a shorter slideshow.  Our trip was totally awesome..   We flew, with adamfletcher, out to Pamplona, arriving on Friday.  After a long post-travel nap at the hotel, we woke up around 5pm to venture out into the town.  We ended up at a Pintxos (regional name for Tapas) bar and had some snacks and a few plates, but we eventually met up with rioma, his bride to be, and some other friends...  That was a pretty early night, so after dinner and drinks we headed back to the hotel.  Saturday was the big wedding day, so after a late breakfast we took a nap to make sure we'd be able to survive the wedding festivities...   The wedding started at 6pm, and we were told it might keep going until 4 or 5am, so we figured the rest would do us well!  The wedding was beautiful, although I found church far more tolerable when you can't understand anything the priest is saying.    The reception was completely out-of-hand, with a cocktail and appetizer hour, 7 courses of the main meal, and then, as advertised, dancing and drinking until 4-5pm.  I believe there is even some footage of me dancing like a schmuck while quite intoxicated, but I hope my friends will hold onto that footage until my presidential campaign or something...

Sunday was the beginning of our proper tourism, and we started to explore Pamplona...  This continued Monday, and between these two days most of our friends who had come out for the wedding went their separate ways.  While it was great seeing all these people, it was also nice break away on our own.  We saw all kinds of amazing places in Pamplona, but a common retreat for us was back to the Plaza del Castillo, drinking and chilling.  On Tuesday, we rented a car for the rest of our trip and drove up to San Sebastian for a day..  Then we proceeded to drive up into France overnight, and then down through the Pyrenees..  We eventually ended up back in Pamplona the day before our flight back to the states.  There are obviously lots of details I've glossed over, but I think pictures speak louder than words in this situation..  If I talked about every town we visited, it would mostly be "X town was so damn beautiful, I can't really express it in words"...

Corinna has gone crazy painting our place, and now all but one room is painted.  I picked a pimp-ass color for my office, I'll try and remember to take a picture of it soon.

For some reason after months of not really attending any shows regularly a bunch happened to occur all at once.  Of course, things were kicked off this Saturday past when coco_b, adamfletcher, and jeffm and myself all had the extreme pleasure of seeing The Police at Fenway Park.  I was really excited about this show, but in the back of my head there was always this nagging fear that it would be a bunch of old guys who couldn't quite play anymore pretending they were young again.  Beyond that, I generally avoid arena shows in favor of small clubs.  The odds of me seeing this band at a club are virtually nil, so I decided to make an exception to my rules...

As soon as they took the stage and kicked into Message in a Bottle, however, any fears were put right to bed.  They rocked so hard, it was such a great show, it has instantly jumped into the top 5 shows I have ever witnessed.  Their set list was great (I could have done without "Walking in Your Footsteps", but you can't please everyone), and hit just about every song I wanted to hear.  By the encore, I was thinking they were going to skip my favorite song, "Next to You", but after the main encore they snuck back out on stage and kicked into it as their last song.  When they broke into it I probably jumped 3 feet out of pure excitement and adrenaline.  I actually for a split second considered trying to scalp tickets for Sunday's show, but realized I'm not made of money.  =)

Last night I went out to Cambridge to see Negativland at the Middle East as part of their It's All In Your Head FM tour..  It was also a great show, but in a completely different way.  The band was basically doing a live radio show from the stage, and if you've ever heard their Over the Edge radio show before, you know it can been a pretty crazy melange of samples, music, noise, and scripted weirdness.  They even handed out blindfolds at the ticket counter to enhance the "Radio Viewing" experience.  It was really enjoyable seeing these guys work, although by the 3rd hour of the show (as it approached midnight) I was getting pretty sleepy...

Tonight I'm returning to the Middle East and meeting up with a bunch of friends to see DJ Z-Trip.  His stuff can be real hit-or-miss for me, but his technical ability is simply astounding, so he at least possesses the chops to knock it out of the park.  I saw him a few years ago when he toured and it was a pretty enjoyable show, so hopefully he'll pull it off again tonight.

Dad was up this weekend, both for a visit and to bring back Hawkeye.  It had been awhile since he had been up to Boston, and he had the honor of being the first overnight guest in our new house.  The house is still a complete mess, with boxes all over the place, but at least now all of our stuff is in the house now (and out of storage or my parents' house).  Now it's just a matter of unpacking it all and putting things in their place.  I'm trying to get rid of as much crap as I can as I unpack things, especially a lot of the geek cruft I've accumulated over the years...  I have several boxes which are just full of cables, and that's just ridiculous!

Anyway, I got home from work a little early to meet with the RCN technician who was there to install the two CableCARDs into my new Tivo Series3 HD.  It took about 45 minutes, some of which was the technician waiting for someone at dispatch to pick up the phone and activate the cards...  You would think they would just do that before sending out the tech, but that would make sense.  Anyway, after the dispatch guy putzed around for like 20 minutes they were eventually up and running with almost all of the channels, but Discovery HD, HDNet, and HDNet Movies had no picture or sound.  I made an executive decision to neglect to mention this to the tech and deal with someone over the phone instead.  This morning I read on the Tivo Community Forums that those three channels were the only members of the HD Tier, so I assumed that the HD Tier was not activated on my account.  Sure enough, a quick call to RCN resolved that (in theory, I'm at work so I can't test it.. :P).  Now I just have to get an HD television... :P

After the tech left my dad called and said he was mired in traffic on 90..  Pretty unusual, since most people are leaving Boston around that time, but who can predict traffic around here...  Anyway, Dad arrived around 5:30pm, and Corinna got home for work soon afterwards..  After a quick tour of the new place, we hit up the Summer Shack in Cambridge for dinner..  I normally might have preferred the downtown location, but I was pretty hungry and it was a home game for the Red Sox, so it tends to get a little hairy down there...  Dinner was awesome, and afterwards we headed back to the house and took a walk along the Charles before settling in for the night.

Saturday was pretty busy, we left the house pretty early to head over to the Museum of Science.  We weren't actually going to the museum, though, instead we were picking up a Duck Tour there.  We got there around 11am, but they were already sold out until 3pm, so we ended up heading over to Harpoon Brewery for one of their tastings.  It was a pretty good time, even if I'm not the world's biggest beer fan.  I did manage to get a case of their draft root beer, which is delicious.  The Duck Tour was OK, but I think it was pretty redundant for someone who's lived in Boston for 6+ years..  I did learn a bit about Charlestown, which I had never really explored much...   I made some BBQ chicken and grilled veggies for dinner and we watched a movie which was terrible.  Never watch this movie, and reprimand equalize andrat_girl3 for making me write about it.  I now realize they hate me with every fiber of their being.  Little did they know that not only did they attack me, but their car bomb also took out coco_b and my father.

My dad left Sunday morning, but before he did I made some french toast and bacon for breakfast...  It came out pretty good, I used half a baguette I had lying around for a few days, so it was good and stale and really sucked up the custard.  After dad left there was much napping and eventually we saw Crazy Love with the film club.  It was a small turn-out, but it was a good time.  The movie was almost unbelievable, just a crazy story..  We had a good time afterwards discussing the film and other randomness..  adamfletcher turned up towards the end, he was passing by on his way to play pool with gib at Flattop's.  After we finished chilling with the film club peeps we popped over to Flattop's to say hi to the two of them, which was cool...

I've been really busy, for obvious reasons, but here's a quick update as to what's going on:

• We're still go for both closings this Thursday.  Everything seems to be on track, all the repairs to our new place that we asked for in the Purchase and Sale agreement have been taken care of.  In addition, we have a verbal agreement with the seller to move our stuff in on Wednesday (but not ourselves), but we need to get that signed off tomorrow or else our movers will have nowhere to put our stuff on Wednesday morning.  =)
• Speaking of movers, I'm packing, packing, packing...  coco_b has been working a ton lately, even this Saturday and today!  So I've been doing most of the packing, which is okay with me, especially since this will hopefully be the last move for many years..  I've pretty much got most everything except the bedroom packed up now...  Not sure if we will have enough boxes for everything, so there might be a last-minute scramble for boxes tomorrow.  Or, I suppose, we will just have to buy a few boxes from the movers and box up the last of the stuff while they are moving what we have boxed up.  We'll see though..  Many thanks to rat_girl3 and equalize for helping us out with the boxes.  They just moved into THEIR new place, and the timing just so happened that while they were emptying their boxes we were in need of them...  They were life (or at least wallet) savers!
  
• For some reason I've started to sort of follow the Red Sox.  I'm not sure what happened, I think it's roryk's fault.  Perhaps it was only a matter of time before I caught the local disease.
• Yesterday we took a break from work and packing, and headed out to adamfletcher's folks house for grilling and pool chicanery.  It was awesome, we had a great time as always...  It was a much needed break from all the adult seriousness the two of us have been dealing with lately...

On Saturday, I turned 30, and thanks to my lovely girlfriend, my family, and my friends, it was a great weekend!  On Friday we hung out out with friends at adamfletcher's place...  We played all kinds of board games and snacked on delicious food prepared by Adam..  As board games can be, it was tense at times, but I hope everyone had a good time.. :P  coco_b bought me a Cake Batter flavored ice cream cake from J.P. Lick's which everyone enjoyed, especially me!

Saturday morning, Corinna woke up early and made me brunch!  I usually wake up several hours before her on Saturday's, and I sure as hell don't usually get treated to awesome bacon and french toast!  It was really awesome being able to just kick back and relax while someone else did the cooking for a change!   I also opened some gifts and cards I received in the mail..  My parents got me the Talking Heads Brick, which is badass!  I also got another season of South Park from tatyana which rules...  Then, for dinner, Corinna had another ace up her sleeve, taking me to the wonderful Grill 23 for dinner, which was fantastic...  What is better than the gift of meat?  Nothing.    After we got home we enjoyed the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who, and all was right in the world...

Sunday we just hung out and caught Les Ordres with the film club, which was pretty good...  Thanks to everyone for such a great birthday!

This year's Halloween Party at Sean & Kelly's was as awesome as ever.  It's always great to be able to able to see so many of my friends since we've all scattered away from Rochester.  This year's party was a bit different than years past, with Master sophusalexander now present and accounted for.  Other friends of Sean and Kelly's brought a young child as well, so a "Swear Jar" was instituted (the proceeds of which go to christmas presents for the children who we damaged).  At the end of the party, I believe there was nearly $90 in the jar (with the typical "fine" being $1).  Not too bad for a bunch of foul-mouthed drunks...


adamfletcher created the above time-lapse video of the party, starting Thursday night (before coco_b and I arrived) and continuing until Sunday morning when people began to depart.  I believe he said that he kept 1 out of every 400 frames, which (if my math is correct, is one frame every 13.3 seconds or so).  You'll see the perspective change as we moved the camera on Friday morning to a corner-mount on the wall.  I don't know how much work he put in to preparing for this, but it went off without a hitch.  Yesterday he put up all the raw DV files up on a server, as well as a ~100MB WMV "rough-cut" just so people didn't have to download a few gigs of DV.  Anyway, I downloaded it all yesterday and cut together a version to stick up on YouTube as well as burn to a DVD.  Other than the "title cards", everything else you see is Adam's (all the "real" work).

A generally fun weekend... coco_b and I tidyed up the kitchen and started putting the shelves to use. They look even better populated than they did empty, I took some pictures; I try and get them up later today. We also installed some bifold doors in the closet near the bathroom, which was a bit of a chore.. Corinna thought it would be a simple job, perhaps puffed by the cabinet success last weekend, but I knew it couldn't possibly go smoothly. We had to remove a shelf and shorten it by about two inches because it stuck out beyond the closet and the newly-installed doors were hitting it. Removing this shelf was a nightmare... There are also ~2" gaps on either side of doors, which we had planned for and have wood to fill, but nothing is true in our apartment, so it is going to require some planing.

Sunday we went to Duxbury to swim in adamfletcher's pool.. It was such a perfect day to spend in the water, we always have a great time out there, many thanks to Sir Adam.

The contractors are apparently going to start our bathroom renovations tomorrow, which is exciting... Even though they were supposed to give us 1.5 weeks notice, yet they called Corinna at 5pm on Friday saying they were starting Tuesday... So we had to have a mad scramble to get the tile and sink... On top of all that, I have to pad hours in the beginning of the week, as I am taking Friday off to go to Jersey for some boating with some of my friends..

adamfletcher called me this afternoon and asked coco_b and I to join him and a bunch of people at Dali in Somerville to celebrate his 28th birthday. Photos were taken and Sangria was consumed.

This weekend rocked, plain and simple. Adam and I spent 48 hours preparing for Sunday's meal, which turned out fantastic (and leftovers mean a fantastic lunch as well). We only made the grilled jerk pork (which is what required the multi-staged, 48 hour brine/marinating process) and the orange sauce, and skipped on the slaw and chorizo fried rice, but it still was amazing. Ming Tsai doesn't disappoint.

This weekend was also the glorious IC3 weekend, which was also not a letdown. Friday night's "2000th Dish Special" was a whole bunch of fun, and last night's "21st Century Battles" were great. Mad props to Bobby Flay who definitely worked on improving for this rematch. He cooked some dishes that blew us out of the water (wish we could have tasted them), and he deserved to win.. But I think we can all look forward to the "Best out of 3" battle in the future. :)

I lost my wallet for about 30 minutes this morning, which pissed me off. Sometime yesterday I must have decided to put it in my tool drawer (obvious location for it). For some reason I didn't think to look there right away this morning, and my heart was skipping many beats. :)

Oh yeah, Sunday afternoon I got some pizza at the Boston House of Pizza, which is a block away from my pad. It was probably the most acceptable pizza I have had here yet... It isn't Enzo's, but it will do. :)

Time to do some work and kick back to some Meat Beat Manifesto....

I get 12 free dialup hours through bluelight.com, which lets me check my email over weekends until the DSL comes through. So here I write...

When I got home from work on Friday, there was this cat kinda chilling in the stairwell, which was extrodinarily peculiar, because it was behind the second (locked) door to the building. I assumed it belonged to someone in the building, and thought nothing of it. When I saw it there a few hours later, I started worrying. I posted a note on the door, and asked around.

Friday night I had my first real get together-type-thing here at the new apartment, and Steve Bower, Adam, Molly, Rory, and Frances came over for food, drink, and B.S. It was cool, cuz I hadn't seen Steve in about a year. Saturday morning the cat was still around, so Molly and Adam took it to make sure it was fed. It turns out that the girl in apartment 2 left for the weekend, and the cat must have scooted out past her when she was leaving. All is well now, but I think Molly was getting attached to the idea of owning the cat. :(

Saturday, I went out to Harvard Square to meet up with Jon Whitney and see Fellini's Satyricon at the Brattle, which I had seen a long time ago, but didn't really remember. It was allegedly a new print with the original un-edited subtitles, but the print seemed a bit beat up for a new one (tape, scratches, etc). The movie is definately out there, and it left me a little screwy for the rest of the night. After the movie I met some more of Jon's friends, which was cool. I wasn't feeling very well though, so I left early. I made it home in time to catch Walken n' Weezer on SNL, both of which were great. The new Weezer album is growing on me more with each listen...

The Sopranos season finished tonight, and in retrospect I am very happy with this season. It was the darkest season of the three, but I think all in all it was better than the 2nd season, while perhaps a bit shy of the first. Rory came over to watch it with me, and we also watched the hit-man documentary afterwards.

This cold-illness-type-thing is waning, but it is still annoying. I want it to go away, so I am gonna hit the sack.

Dinner was awesome last night, and Adam and Rory really seemed to enjoy it. I would probably pass on the parsnips if I did it again, but all in all it was a very simple and tasty recipe.

I am listening to the first of my two new CDs, and so far, so good....

I got my first "Report Card", which is Graham-Family-Speak for "Pay Check". It is about what I expected to get for one check, maybe a wee bit lower. I may have to re-evaluate my withholding situation after I do some math.

It is too damn hot in the place, so I am bugging out in 15 minutes. Adam and Rory are coming over for dinner after work today. It is nice having furniture now; people can come over and have a place to sit. :)

Hehehe... Adam was just yelling at someone on the phone.... that's funny.

I finished my overnight trip to Boston to move some stuff into my new apartment! On second look at the apartment, it is definately nice, but I was wrong about the "recently redone floors" (they were recently coated, but not sanded). That's ok thought, because they still aren't bad. Adam really liked my apartment, and it is only about a 5-10 minute walk from his place, which is way cool too. I am within a 3 minute walk of Cleveland Circle, and therefore lots of other stuff as well. :) Should be a really fun place to live.

Sprint PCS was good about helping me change my service/phone # to a Boston area, but my voicemail is still screwed... I have been trying to work with them for a few days, but no luck.... I assume they will finally straighten it out in a few days (otherwise we will have words.. :P).

Around 2pm today I am going to leave for yet another trip to Boston, this time searching for an apartment. I tried to call some of these places yesterday, but all of them were closed for "Patriot's Day", which is a holiday that is only celebrated in New England, apparently (I don't care, I will get it off next year. :P). So I have to make some calls today and set up some appointments tomorrow to look at places. I found a few that I am interested in, but I have to see if they are available now and if they are truly as cool as they looked in phosphor.

I am charging up my MP3 player's batteries for the trip, and doing some laundry so I don't have to be a dirtball while I am crashing at Adam and Rory's. :)

I officially accepted the offer from Rovia today, sending back the letter signed and all. So I guess I am now committed to living with Massholes. :) I will make sure to watch alot of The Sopranos, however, so I don't begin to develop some annoying accent. And also, never fear, a water fountain will never be a bubbler.

The letter said that my start date was May 1st, which I can stick to, but I will be busy these next few weeks finding an apartment and moving into it. I might live in Brighton near Adam and Rory, or perhaps somewhere else, but wherever it is, it will be near mass transit, since I don't plan on having another car for awhile.

I am going to break Boston in right, though, by seeing a concert less than a week after I start work. :) I am going to go see Autechre at the Middle East, which I guess is actually in Cambridge, but whatever. I have been wanting to see these guys for a long time, so it will be cool to finally do so (and to see another concert, which is something I haven't done since I saw Moby in Rochester). The concert is on May 7th, which is a Monday (odd, no?), and for those of you not in Boston, the 2 prior days they will be playing in New Jersey and NYC.