Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Words by which living can be done by you


Clarinet embouchure

Beff has a giant print of this picture that she uses to illustrate proper clarinet embouchure. It was taken in Piazza Popolo in Rome (I think).

It's also a good illustration of Mac OS X 10.7.


Selective deforesting, part trois

This is on Taft Avenue, which is parallel to my driveway and about 100 feet east of it. The owners of the uglyass McMansions at the end of Taft Avenue won't be going to work today.

I did not hear the tree come down at all. Right now someone is paid to be at the scene, apparently with his own snowplow truck, to advise people not to drive any further. Or in the case of pedestrians, to go around the house.

Apparently the force of the sproing when the tree fell was enough to snap the telephone pole at the end of the local line (third picture).






Update 4 pm. NStar is on the case! They parked a van in front of the tree and are currently doing nothing. I remember this is pretty much how they handled our power outage with Irene.


Second update: Crews worked with heavy machinery until 1 am Thursday and got power back for Taft Avenue. The felled wires are still being fixed.


Dam then and now

The nearby Ben Smith Dam, built in 1840, created the sluice to power the mill in the center of town. On October 13, it had this flow over it


This morning it looked like this. Ride 'em cowboy!


It's also making some fun splishy splashies at the close edge.


Pronounce THIS


Selective deforesting, part deux

These taken on the walk below.



Summer Hill end run

It turned warm after Sandy, but the roads and woods were too wet for a bike ride. Hence yet another variation on the Summer Hill walk. This time it's 2.42 miles.


And the flyover is as follows.



Note the detail "Sid's Airport" on the map. Do you see it on the flyover, just before the  1⃣  mile mark? We had wondered, on our walks, what that long strip with traffic cones was. From ground view, it looks like this:


Russian bots love this site

Famous people I have seen at airports

  • Teddy Kennedy (BOS)
  • Robert Parish (BOS)
  • Dwight Evans (BOS)
  • Gloria Estefan (DEN)
  • The Miami Sound Machine (DEN)

Post-Frankensandy

The Governor gave all of us the day off.

At home, it misted and there was little wind in the morning, and I walked to Shaw's and back. Bagels, dontcha know.

Around lunch time, the wind started, and dramatically blew open the outer front door. Which I secured by going outside and kicking it. I picked a few dropped limbs from the road.

The mail was delivered.

There were five five-second power outages, then an hourlong one, the power came back, and there was another hourlong one.

This morning I picked up a dozen and a half small maple tree branches from the yard, two larger ones, and sawed a very big branch that had fallen from one of the pine trees. The pine trees always lose big branches in every storm no matter what.


We were fortunate to be spared a direct hit. Irene was much worse by comparison: huge limbs down, wind gusts that sounded like freight trains, and flooding in the basement that I had to bail out by hand, since sump pumps don't turn on when there's no electricity. By comparison, the wind yesterday sounded like somebody bought the cheap wind machine and was learning how to play it. And the basement flooding was a mere trickle.


This morning I drove to the Hudson BJ's to get provisions, and it had no power and was thus closed. So I went to the Natick one, exiting the Pike on a very crowded ramp — since those exiting from the other direction had to navigate around a flooded ramp. Route 27 was flooded in Sudbury, so I had to improvise a route passing by my dentist to get back, and there was yet another detour around a felled tree, and a mini-detour around downed power lines.

And the sun came out.

Then it went back in.

Everybody's yard signs are still standing.


And cats lack that seventh sense about approaching storms. They were blasé about the whole thing.


Sandy Beat Goes On

Sunday


Monday (Sandy)


Tuesday


Wednesday (Adirondack chairs are back out)


Thursday


Friday


Saturday


Sunday


Monday


Tuesday


Wednesday


Thursday (Athena)


Friday


Saturday


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Two halves make a whole

We now have two half-yard glasses. They are better as tchotchkes than as glasses, as experience has proven. But when the occasion presents itself, we can totally go yard.

File under jokes that were better on the drawing board.


Sunday, October 21, 2012

Winter walk extended

This is the walk across the Assabet and back, extended by passing the house with the Too Many Christmas Lights. This version is 2.06 miles.