Blogrilla

Good news! The car is behaving better than it EVER has. Its running better than when I first got it! I never knew this car had this much power. All along there must have been a problem with the plugs or the wires that prevented it from firing correctly. But wouldn’t I have heard it? I do tend to listen to a lot of news or music in the car and don’t spend so much time listening to the engine.

I still think I would have heard the cylinder not firing right. Maybe not.

Or it could be that I’m over estimating the difference between yesterday and today. The car had a lot more power than I remember and as I drove to work I seemed to get up to “cruising” speed much faster than I used to. Is that because the wires have been fixed or my foot was a little heavy today? I think its because the engine is tuned up better than it used to be.

The wires were $110! Holy cow! HOW MUCH WIRE DID THEY PUT IN THERE?! Maybe its … you know, “special” wire? The labor was only $165, though.

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traffic continues to look good at SmartTraveler 

and at the MSN traffic monitor.

Maybe it won’t really be a problem. I saw on the news that some people were very upset because the city scared people too much and now there’s nothing to be concerned about. I think this is like the Y2K bug. If nobody had done anything there would have been huge problems. But since people have made the arrangements they were encouraged to make (vacations, working-from-home, etc) its addressing the problem.

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The car is all better. The Pine Banks Brothers took care of it. It turned out to be a spark plug wire that was damaged/bad and was arcing which caused a cylinder in the rear to misfire. They had to take off the manifold to get to the wires and the spark plugs. Since they’re so hard to get to, Chrysler uses long-lasting platinum spark plugs that are supposed to last 90,000 miles. So my guys changed the plugs while they were in there.

So new plugs and new wires. Plus the labor involved in getting to the wires.

I talked to Liz on the phone a few minutes ago and she sounded exhausted. She’s got to go pick up the kids from camp sometime in the next 30 minutes. They had a good time there yesterday. Gabriel complained that he was bored in between the swimming, the crafts, the games, the toys and the other kids. We weren’t terribly sympathetic to his plight. Ben and Chloe had a wonderful time! They have another week coming up at the end of August, too.

I got the word today that I should plan on going to the SAP Tech-Ed event in San Diego (http://www.sapteched.com/) in October. I’m not all that thrilled about it, though. It would be nice to stay closer to home, but I’m not sure I can get the same education anywhere else. Its kind of a unique opportunity to catch up on SAP’s cutting edge technology.

I should go.

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The following post was meant for July 6th, 2004.  I don’t know how it got posted here today or where it came from. 

Yesteday we went to the beach on Plumb Island just outside of Newburyport, MA. Its up on the border with New Hampshire. We had a really good time. We spent a couple of hours there an nobody got sunburned. The kids we well behaved. In fact, Ben was really great. We didn’t have to correct him even once.

The beach is really quite steep there and the waves had a tendency to sneak up on us. I didn’t mind standing around in the water and we told the kids they couldn’t go in over their waist. The water was about 58 degrees and the air temperature was only about 75.

It felt good though. I mostly hung around in water that was around the middle of my calves. Grace would grab my hand and make me take her in the water to chase the waves. Then when the waves came around again, she would turn around and run away from the waves shrieking. It was fun, but it made me a little dizzy.

Last night we ate some mexican food and watched “Secret Window” with Christian Slater. He was fine, but I thought the story was a little weak. It was ok. It wasn’t bad enough we had to turn it off. We still have another movie called Paycheck — Ben Affleck takes these jobs but gets his memory erased and he has to follow the clues — I think someone is trying to kill him while he’s doing this. It looks like fun.

Also the Bourne Supremacy is coming out soon. I enjoyed The Bourne Identity quite a bit and think the next movie will be good too.

This evening we set off some fireworks.

YES! Strictly speaking its not 100% leagal in the city limits, but we didn’t think anyone would turn us in. We got some a while back that spewed sparks. The packaging said something like “Flowers of Light and Fountains of Illumination” — I suspect the chinese translators left out that they wailed like a banshee!! I was quite put out, to be honest. I didn’t mind firing off a bunch of sparks but I was afraid the cops would come down on us.

But they didn’t. All is well.

I’ve dropped Liz off in Wakefield where the fireworks will be held at 9:45 tonight. We’ve got a babysitter for Grace while we take Ben and Gabe and Chloe to their first fireworks! I think they’ll really like it. Liz has staked out a great spot and there’s a band playing and she as a book. She’ll be fine. I just hope I can find a decent parking place.

This morning I went to REI to pick up sealant for the tent seams — I guess they’re not quite water tight. While I was there I saw the Kelty Sunshade was on sale for, like, 30% off. Its normally $185 and I got it for only $130. It was a splurge. See, yesterday when we went to the beach I was really quite uncomfortable hanging around on the beach baking in the sun. Don’t get me wrong, I had plenty of sunblock on but I just didn’t really have anywhere to be. So I think with this I’ll be able to spend hours on the beach and not have to bake in the sun.

I cleaned out the pig’s cage and we cleaned up the bedrooms and the playroom and had a decent time today.

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I was on the bike tonight and pushing myself to pedal harder and go faster.  I was sweating hard and pushing myself to do better.  In my mind I was remembering a 9th grade football coach (Coach Russell) encouraging me to do better while.  Helping me to push myself.  Helping me to succeed.

I walked away from Football because I was too lazy.  I didn’t want it enough to put the effort in to it.  It wasn’t worth it.  And I regret it now.  I wish I could have stuck with it.

But as I pushed myself to go harder and pedal faster it felt great.  I was thinking about work and thinking about a promotion for which I’m applying and thinking about how I’m going to get it.  I was imagining myself doing great during the interview and standing tall and succeeding.

Someday I’d really like to run in a marathon.  Seriously.  I’m not in good enough shape to consider running in the Boston marathon in 2005, but maybe 2006 I could do it.

As I pedaled harder and got myself pumped up and going I felt an old pride from competition-based achievement.  And then it occurred to me, as I considered what it would take to run in a marathon and what it would take to achieve more at work, that competition is not necessarily very compatible with taking care of a family and bringing up children.  I’m not sure I can do all this without taking something significant away from my kids.

Maybe there’s a place in between, though.

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I think he tends to prey on peoples’ worst fears and to pounce without foresight. That Tawana Brawley thing still sticks in my mind. Still, sometimes I think he gets it right. He was certainly on the right side in the that african-american who got gunned down on the stoop of his apartment building in New York a few years ago. Amidou Dialo — I think that was the name of the hatian guy who was brutalized by police. When I lived outside NY City we heard plenty about him. And I still think he’s an opportunist and is not to be trusted. But sometimes I think he gets it right.

Al Sharpton, riding the donkey and slapping Bush

Just as the Democratic convention threatened to sink into a sleepy sea of optimism, the Rev. Al Sharpton stepped up to save the day with a smoking speech before the Black Caucus. With all of the emotion but none of the weirdness of Howard Dean’s scream, Sharpton railed against George W. Bush for having the “audacity” to suggest — as he did last week in an Urban League speech — that African-Americans should consider the Republican Party as viable “alternative” for their votes.

“The insult there was that he acted like we have become Democrats by some unthinking process, rather than that we had been rejected and treated hostile by the Republican Party,” Sharpton told an enthusiastic crowd. “They promised us 40 acres and a mule. We waited and nothing happened. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Bush, we waited around with the Republican Party through Herbert Hoover. Still didn’t get the 40 acres. Didn’t even get the mule. So we decided we’d ride this donkey as far as it would take us.”

Sharpton dismissed Bush as a cynical interloper, and he made it clear that African-Americans should work within the Democratic Party, even if they have differences with it. “If Democrats deliver for us, we’ll deliver for them,” Sharpton said. “If Democrats don’t deliver, we will deal with Democrats. But we don’t need anybody that never did anything for us and with us, telling us that they’re an alternative. Even if we’ve got trouble in our marriage, we’re not going out with just anybody available to us.”

Sharpton said African-Americans choose to be Democrats because the party is aligned with their interests. “We’re not going to allow four more years of Bush based on some flimsy personality analysis,” he said. “We did not come this far to be talked to about who smiles right and who preaches right. We’ve got enough smiling and preaching to make up for everybody. ”

And he made it clear that he, for one, isn’t ready to “get over” the disenfranchisement of African-American voters in Florida in 2000. “We got this right to vote through bloodshed, through sacrifice, through house burnings, through church bombings. We come to Boston not just because we just were added on. We died first. We suffered most. And we can walk in here with our heads held high and our shoulders back.”

As the crowd exploded in applause, Sharpton contrasted his run for the presidency with Bush’s experience of “being born on third base and thinking he hit a triple.” “I wasn’t even born in the stadium,” Sharpton shouted. “I had to fight through the parking lot, get through the front gate, go around through the crowd, and thenhit a triple. But we’re here now, and we ain’t going nowhere. No backing up. No selling out. No bowing and scraping. This is our day. This is our time. We’re here, and we’re not going back.”

– Tim Grieve

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I can’t believe Kerry is STILL trailing Bush 46 to 48 points! How can this be?! Are 48% of people not paying attention at all?! Do they have no idea that their votes matter? I mean maybe they don’t understand what’s happening. Why are people still behind Bush? Christ, what do they see in him?

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So the auto repair shop is down the street from me. It looks like they’re going to need to keep the car through tomorrow because they think the trouble is a bad wire on a sparkplug at the back of the engine and they have to take off the intake to get to it. I’m assuming this is different from a “manifold”.

Whatever. Based on the weight in his voice when he warned me that this is what would be required it sounds like a pretty big deal. Removing the “intake”.

So they asked me to leave it with them and call back tomorrow around noon. So, that’s fine.

They also called me “Bwobby”

With a double-u. Just like they were from “Bwastin” or something.

I hate being called “Bwobby”. On the one hand, the way it ignores all formalities of every kind and goes straight to the nickname is kind of endearing. It makes me feel like they like me even though they don’t know me. But then a lot of salesmen do that so it makes me feel kind of skeevy; like they’re trying to pull one over on me. And the accent just makes me laugh.

Overall I don’t care for “Bwobby”.

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Since the democratic national convention is in town the Secret Service decided they had to shut down all the roads that pass next to the Fleet Center in order to ensure that no van laden with explosives can get near the event. This is ok for places like “Causeway St” and things like that, but unfortunately the primary north/south artery that runs right through the city happens to be adjacent to the Fleet Center. So Interstate 93 is being shutdown miles away from the city. Commuters will simply have to find another way to get in.

We’re a grown up city and we have all the modern conveniences. Like commuter trains! All the Boston-bound commuter lines that service the northeastern part of the state all arrive at a single location. Predictably, its called “North Station”. Can you guess where the terminal is located?

Yup.

Right underneath the Fleet Center! So the Secret Service said we had to shut that down, too. So, no highway access from north-of-the city and no commuter rail access.

Instead the commuter trains will be stopped outside of the city where passengers will transfer to buses, which will move the passengers in to and out of the city.

All the local TV shows have been doing pieces on what to expect from the closures. Everyone has a pretty good idea of what to expect. Those people who could schedule vacations for this week have done so. Anyone who can work at home, is doing that.

My house is seven miles north of Boston on a track that many thousands of people will use as a shortcut to get to the last stop on the subway. My house is about a mile north of that stop. I think that tomorrow traffic will be unbearable for much of the city.

I commute AWAY from the city and early in the morning so I don’t expect too much trouble from the DNC hoopla. But a neighbor of mine who also works here just called to warn me that there was a terrible back up on the highway already.

“What?! That can’t be! They’re not supposed to shut down the highway until 4pm!”

He reiterated that the highway was HORRIBLY backed up and that if I could get away now, I should head for home right away!

Chicken little.

Turned out there was a roll-over accident that had backed things up.

See? Everyone’s got the traffic jitters.

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I played another game of chess at http://games.yahoo.com last night and while I lost (again) at least my opponent was polite about it. I noticed that I wasn’t playing very aggressively. Like always I would line up a plausible defense and wait for my opponent to make mistakes and I continue to dislike this style of play. I need to find another way. Its ok if you’re a kid playing against other kids who make lots of mistakes but I think I need to be more aggressive to be more successful.

So far I’m not doing well.

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