hey jud

The snowy decks give away the winter date, but seeing the Nantucket Lightship moored at Rowes Wharf brought me a burst of summertime anyway. It was always a welcoming sight as the ferry pulled into Nantucket Harbor for the start of our August vacation, precipitating an immediate trip to town to tour the ship. Now that it's been restored, I'm eager for another tour, and am just waiting for the day I walk by and see the hatch open.

Wondering why I didn't link to the Boston Globe story of the restoration? You have to pay $2.95 to get it. Hard to justify since the whole paper only cost 50 cents when the story was originally published.

As the original Google cook, I owe my personal 15-minutes of fame to the joint technologies of searching with Google and blogging about it with Blogger. Of course it was my daughter, Meg, who got me started with it all, back when she was working on the development of Blogger. So as a proud mom, what could be better than celebrating the confluence of these two favorites in the announcement of Blogger's purchase by Google. I'm cracking open a bottle of champagne and toasting the vision and dedication of the team that created Blogger and helped to launch the weblog phenomena.

The early morning street scene here shows today's agenda once people start waking up. Unfortunately we're not even one of these. We'll be traveling several blocks with shovel to uncover our car. Hopefully we'll be able to remember where we parked it before the storm hit.

One of the good things (maybe the only good thing?) about a big snow storm is that you get to see your neighbors and sometimes meet a new one. The tipoff was the green and orange Charles River Rats jacket, so I knew the guy shoveling out his car two away from ours, was a rugby player on the team Peter used to play for back in the 80's. And what could be better. He told me they're planning a 30th reunion for May 10 and hoping to locate as many ex-players as possible. Thanks to the storm, we'll be there.

Perhaps they're uncovered or even gone by now, but this was the street scene walking home through the North End last week.

This weekend's warm weather helpfully melted lots of snow, making for a slushy walking mess, but still did little to help city parking problems. Snow piles, though smaller, still block many potential parking spaces. Really exasperating though, are the protected spots, ostensibly earned by shoveling out the space and then using odd pieces of furniture to mark it off limits to other parkers. As seen below, city streets are taking on the look of an overflowing yard sale.

When does the statue of limitations on claiming a space run out? Will I ever get a parking place on my own street again?

Opening last night's beer of choice, a Pete's Wicked Red Rush Ale, reminded us of a similar red ale from our past, so we brought out the saved bottle for a side by side comparison. It looks like we had a good idea going when we brewed our Headlands Red Tide Ale for Father's Day in 1998. Described as a paralyzing Irish Red Ale, the name and tongue in cheek reference to gymnodinium breve, were Mike's creations, but we all took part in the brewing, bottling, and of course, the final drinking. It was a fun time when all of us were together in California and able to spend a Saturday at the Mt. Tam Brewing Co., choosing a style for our beer and mixing all the ingredients. Weeks later we came back to pump the finished beer into bottles, cap them off and label them with Mike's computer designed and generated labels. We still have one unopened bottle of that special brew, and the next time we're all together, we'll have to open it and see how it's aged. Amazingly, the dad in whose honor it was brewed, has barely aged a bit.