I've come to the realisation that this should be my theme song.
It seems as though I have been destined to be a revolutionary.
Born a bicentennial baby. Also born on Bastille Day. Also descended from figures in the English Civil Wars.
Even my senior quote from my high school yearbook was a quote from King Missile: "Just Protest, even because it's Saturday, and there's nothing else to do."
Free Tibet. Free Iraq (meaning US get out of Iraq-that's the only way they'll know freedom). Free Darfur. Is East Timor still in turmoil? Free them too. Free America. Free yourself.
No, not that kind of ride. I can't afford gas anymore.
So we walk.
Put your feet up, we're about to go around town in search of spring blossoms and colorful gardens.
The cemetery borders the business district in the background. Also on the right is the train station, I wonder if the trains that go by several times a day wake the dead. Oh, hey Owen.
Yes, this house is purple. Do not adjust your computer screen.
Yes, that is a painted recycled tire. We Vermonters are quite inventive when it comes to recycling and gardening. Notice the recycled railroad ties in some of the other gardens.
Treehouse!
I just like the top of this house a lot and the ironworks around the chimney.
Friday video is a little early as I won't have much time Friday morning to upload this. Hope you like it; a little homemade creation taken a couple of weeks ago. It was still stick season/mud season when I took this (a few ice chunks still clinging to open rock faces). But now I know what it looks like to drive at 300 mph.
If you don't know what stick or mud season is, please allow me to educate.
In addition to the 4 seasons everyone knows, in the north country, stick season is when the leaves have fallen but there's no snow yet, or after the snow has melted.
Mud season is when the snow melts and the dirt roads turn into a muddy, rutted, difficult to drive, bloody mess.
Then there's black fly season. No explanation necessary.
Also there's the not-so-old joke (or maybe it is) about the 4 seasons in Vermont:
Almost Winter.
Winter.
Still Winter.
Construction Season.
Anyway, I digress. Spring has sprung forth, here are some photos I took today.
That's Sierra's new word. She said it over and over this morning. She was in a very happy mood this morning, and why shouldn't she be? She's been going outside everyday now playing with some older kids in the sandbox in our condo complex. The weather has been gorgeous - about 75 F / 22 C all week. This morning coming in to work, seemingly overnight, everything is springing up green. Buds and leaflets on trees, green grass, and flowers! Yes even flowers! And the 5 game win streak for the Red Sox!
There are lots to be happy about. Quite the turnaround from the dismal end to last week. As long as I can still carpool and afford gas, I'll stick with this company.
Apologies for the moodiness today, but I need to rant here, so brace yourselves.
2 weeks ago, my IT guys sent a company wide message: No streaming audio allowed henceforth. Ok, no problem, I can deal with that, I can bring in my MP3 player even though this means I won't be up on the leading edge of indie rock during the week. I later learned that this is the humpy emailing puzzle retard's fault. Apparently she got the bright idea to do it herself, but she lacked speakers. So she goes to the IT guy and asks him for speakers, he says "what for?". She says so I can listen to the radio online. He says well you're not supposed to be doing that. She says why not, so and so does it (another co-worker who also cannot stand LL). Then the email went out, no more streaming audio.
But that's just the start of it. A day later, I try to get onto Facebook. Denied access by Barracuda firewall - Social Networking. I try Youtube (so I can do my Friday videos). Denied. (When embedded in a blog, it shows up as an empty space.) Red Sox Nation Ning, Flickr, livejournal. Denied. Denied. Denied.
Bastards.
But here's the kicker. I missed a company wide meeting on Wednesday while in New York where the CEO announced - after over 9 months of planning that the office would relocate from 35 miles away to the next town over from where I live - that we would not be moving the office due to our numbers not being met and the current economy being the way it is.
This totally blows because I've been anticipating it and it would help out a number of us that live in the more urban area from having to drive to the Mad River Valley. Carpooling isn't working out as well as I'd like it to although it seems that more of an effort is going to be made and HR is going to restart an effort in coordinating a vanpool, of course they're reluctant to pay for or subsidize it at all. But they've been doing that whole song and dance since they've been anticipating the move and courting more commuters from Chittenden County. Now that gas is about 3.50 a gallon give or take a couple pennies, it's really starting to hurt so much so I'm seriously considering leaving the company, I've already started looking online. When I started working there, I was just a newly married guy. Now with a child, I would really like to be home more with Sierra instead of the added commute time.
What was also disturbing was when it was announced, the local townies, one of them my manager were high-fiving and celebrating - how rude and inappropriate. She said and did a couple of other things which were also rude and inappropriate, and that really bothers me.
I wish I could be like Peter Gibbons of Office Space: "I don't think I'm gonna go anymore."
To finish, since it's Friday, get your Doc Martens on 'cause we're going back to 1994 and doing some moshing with Nine Inch Nails. To sum up: it just about sums up my day.
Thanks for your support all. I quite enjoyed the bread, T.A.R.D.I.S. cake, macaroons, coffee and marshmallows! You all are too much!
It all was very sweet the last two days. He was a sweet old man, and my dad, his sister and his brother all spoke fondly this morning of him. I wish I had more memories but having spent the better part of the last 14 years over 100 miles from the rest of my family will do that to you. There was more laughter than tears the last two days and I'm very thankful for that.
And now, picture time. It's a little unnerving seeing your last name on a headstone, but I had to take a picture shortly after the committal. (These gravediggers don't waste any time.) Notice the nice little camping scene on the lower left.
Sierra liked playing in the sandbox top more than the actual sandbox itself.
Charlotte joined in the fun and her Poppa stopped by and thought it'd be a great idea to spin them around in the sandbox top which is cleverly disguised as a red crab.
My mom took this at the girls' party - her cousin Charlotte and friend Eliza are looking at her like she's nuts.
Ok, I think I'm done tinkering with colors. The yellow shown much brighter on a desktop so I'm going with sort of a Sox theme. Red, white, blue, and Fenway Green.
The photos were from last Tuesday on the previous post from my 4 day weekend. Since then I haven't been doing much but I'm heading back to NY to be with my family tomorrow- weather should be great 60s maybe 70s (15-20C). My grandfather passed away on Monday. Save the tea and sympathy though, we weren't all that close, but thanks anyway. He lived a full life, he was 78. He was the last of his generation on that side of the family, and now I have one lone grandfather left as my grandmothers have already passed.
But it has made me a little contemplative on my own existence.
Things I've been thinking about:
Life is short.
Life is what you make it.
Life is too short to be angry or hurt or to have an attitude or a chip on your shoulder.
Make sure your loved ones know how much you love them.
R.I.P Grandpa D, aka Dink, aka Bob. We will miss you. I know I'll miss the clam bakes and riding the 4 wheeler and snowmobile, among others. Here's to wishing we could have had another beer together.
Nice win today, but what is going on with the Detroit Tigers? 0-7 is no way to start with such a talented squad.
Sierra had a gorgeous early spring weekend for her birthday. Still a little snow on top of Mount Mansfield but a beautiful backdrop for my little girl's party. We saved you some cake, and she got her first bike!
Back to work for me tomorrow, 4 day weekend's all over. ...
::passes the Kleenex:: Don't cry too much, I know I did when I was putting this together.
I know I'm such a sap.
It is kind of slow in the beginning, but stick with it, it's well worth it towards the end. It goes waaaayy over IANO's 1 minute protocol at a total of nine minutes, but screw it, it's my baby's video.
And now, without any further ado, the video you've been waiting for:
-Depart from Cambridge heading northwest on the A14 to Huntingdon. -Visit Hinchingbrooke House, home of my ancestors for 89 years from 1538 to 1627. It was sold to the Montagu family who were Earls of Sandwich and yes, inventor of the Sandwich. -Sightsee the rest of the small town of Huntingdon.
Day 9
-North on the A1(M) to Peterborough -Stop at Applied Energy, manufacturer for our company's electric tankless water heaters. -East on A47 to King's Lynn -Lunch at Maggie's as seen on Gordon's Kitchen Nightmares. Yes they were actually a success story. -Visit Houghton Hall, famous home of Sir Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister.
Day 10
-Through Lincolnshire -Stop in Ingoldsby, the town some of my earliest ancestors hail from with the same name -Stop in Waddington, another ancestral namesake town -Back to the A1 north to York
Day 11
-All day in York
Day 12
-To North Yorkshire to my namesake town, which on Google Maps appears to be a single house? -North York Moors National Park
Day 13
-Long travel day through Middlesbrough up A68 to A69 -Hadrian's Wall -M74 to Glasgow
Day 14
-All day in Glasgow -M8 to Edinburgh at end of the day
