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I had planned not to use this as a diary-type "what I did today" journal, but, what the heck, I'm in the mood. At least this one has some multimedia links (let me know if any of them aren't working).
First of all, I'm obliged to complain about the weather. I always used to think that autumn was my favorite season, but I'm having a hard time remembering why. I guess, having grown up in South Jersey, I think of fall as being mid-to-upper-60s, but here in New England it seems to go straight from upper-70s to mid-50s and below. So apparently the only way to get room temperature weather is to stay in my room and hope for Indian summer.
So anyway, today I decided to go to the hardware store. The nearest one I knew about was Economy Hardware in Central Square, but then I remembered someone mentioning one near Tufts. After a quick glance at the map, I figured it was about a mile away so I'd just walk there.
First I went through Powderhouse Square, which I had been calling Powderhouse Circle because it's a rotary, and, being from South Jersey as I mentioned, I call rotaries circles. But no, it's really called Powderhouse Square. I'd driven through it before, which can be something of an adventure; if it were just a rotary it would be okay, but they added a bunch of traffic lights of various types, mostly blinking, which just make it terribly confusing about who has the right of way at any given moment. Well, when you walk through it, you get to push a button that turns all the lights red, which is sort of fun, until you realize that most drivers have learned to just ignore the lights completely, or never noticed they were there in the first place. Anyway, I managed to get to the middle of thecircle rotary, and found a neat direction marker with a plaque at the bottom declaring it to be the James A. Reynolds Traffic Circle. The date on the plaque is 1886, but I'm not sure what that refers to; I guess when the streets were laid out? The other date is washed out by the sun in my picture, but I'm guessing it's when the plaque was added, probably 1936. I took some other pictures of the direction marker, including one suitable for an album cover (feel free).
From Powderhouse Square, I got a little disoriented. I knew I had to go roughly northwest, and I had it in my mind that College Ave went north and Broadway went west, so I took Powder House Boulevard, which is between them, figuring it would hit Boston Ave. It's the kind of boulevard with houses owned by people who put random statuary in their yards: a dog, a fountain, Jesus in a bathtub, whatever works. Eventually I got to the Alewife Brook Parkway, which was confusing, but I was happy to find another one of Sonik's Signs Of Life, this one a larger than normal picture of a blue wizard/mountain guy. I then turned left down the parkway and noticed an interesting-looking configuration of buildings, as well as what looked like a tattered flag draped over a fence but turned out to just be some shirts. Upon closer inspection I noticed a guy sitting nearby with his back to me, and I got the impression that he actually lived in this secluded spot near the creek so I hurried along on my way.
Soon, though, I ran into Broadway, so I knew I had gone the wrong direction; apparently Broadway and Powder House Boulevard run more or less parallel, even though they both feed into Powderhouse Square. Whatever. So I turned around and wandered back in the general direction of where I was guessing the hardware store would be. After a while (and some uphill climbs) I realized that while I still had a pretty good idea of how to get home, I had no good idea which way the store was. It wasn't helping that every intersection only had a sign for one of the street names; what's up with that, anyway? I guess it saves money, but it sure is unhelpful. Anyway, I was pretty much resigned to head home and drive, remembering that now that I have a garage I don't have to worry about losing my parking spot, when I figured out (thanks to some Tufts buildings with signs showing their addresses) that I was on Curtis Street, and I was pretty sure that I remembered that Curtis turned into Winthrop, which was where I was headed. So I turned around, walked back up the hill and down the other side, finally reaching the hardware store... only it was 5:35 by now, and the store had closed at 5:30. D'ohh!
At least now I had my bearings, so I headed down Boston Street towards College Street and home. On the next block from the hardware store was Grant Park, named after an infantryman killed in World War I. I thought this was neat, having noticed before how rare WWI memorials are (compared to most other wars, including the Revolution and especially World War II). Even more neat, though, was the time capsule from 1992; it won't be opened until 2092, so I probably won't get to see what's in it, but it made me reflect a little bit about some nice things that happened that year: I graduated from college and got my first real job, at a small software company in Silicon Valley (this was before they were called "dot coms"); a Democrat was elected President, and although I didn't vote that year, I was glad to see a change; Nirvana was on the pop charts, at a time when "rock" and "pop" were nearly opposites; and things were generally starting to get a little exciting as my generation became adults. I'm not sure what I'd have put into a time capsule other than a few CDs (with longboxes, remember them?)... maybe some ripped jeans and a flannel shirt.
Oh yeah, so, why did I need to go to the hardware store? I wanted to get an A-B switch for the cables connecting my TV, VCR, and TiVo. I realized recently that while I can watch stuff on my TiVo while it's recording something else, I can't do that with the VCR, unless I re-route the TiVo output directly to the TV rather than going through the VCR. But in order to watch the VCR, I'd need to put things back that way. Thus, an A-B switch to control the TV's input. Fortunately, the VCR is newer than the TV, and has multiple inputs, RF (coax) and RCA video (composite); I use a splitter from the cable coming from the wall, one straight to the VCR and one to the cable box (which is then connected to the TiVo and VCR via composite cables). This is how I can record different channels simultaneously on TiVo and VCR, though the VCR will only get non-scrambled channels (i.e. no HBO). I realize these details are probably not interesting, but perhaps some of you have been struggling with similar issues and this will give you some new ideas. One of these days I'll just be able to get a DVR (preferably running open source software) with multiple tuners and removable media (perhaps DVD+RW?) and all these problems will seem as quaint as recording ATARI BASIC programs to a tape recorder.
Tomorrow: Davis' [sic] MegaMaze! I'm not entirely sure why I'm paying to get lost again, but I know it'll be fun anyway.
First of all, I'm obliged to complain about the weather. I always used to think that autumn was my favorite season, but I'm having a hard time remembering why. I guess, having grown up in South Jersey, I think of fall as being mid-to-upper-60s, but here in New England it seems to go straight from upper-70s to mid-50s and below. So apparently the only way to get room temperature weather is to stay in my room and hope for Indian summer.
So anyway, today I decided to go to the hardware store. The nearest one I knew about was Economy Hardware in Central Square, but then I remembered someone mentioning one near Tufts. After a quick glance at the map, I figured it was about a mile away so I'd just walk there.
First I went through Powderhouse Square, which I had been calling Powderhouse Circle because it's a rotary, and, being from South Jersey as I mentioned, I call rotaries circles. But no, it's really called Powderhouse Square. I'd driven through it before, which can be something of an adventure; if it were just a rotary it would be okay, but they added a bunch of traffic lights of various types, mostly blinking, which just make it terribly confusing about who has the right of way at any given moment. Well, when you walk through it, you get to push a button that turns all the lights red, which is sort of fun, until you realize that most drivers have learned to just ignore the lights completely, or never noticed they were there in the first place. Anyway, I managed to get to the middle of the
From Powderhouse Square, I got a little disoriented. I knew I had to go roughly northwest, and I had it in my mind that College Ave went north and Broadway went west, so I took Powder House Boulevard, which is between them, figuring it would hit Boston Ave. It's the kind of boulevard with houses owned by people who put random statuary in their yards: a dog, a fountain, Jesus in a bathtub, whatever works. Eventually I got to the Alewife Brook Parkway, which was confusing, but I was happy to find another one of Sonik's Signs Of Life, this one a larger than normal picture of a blue wizard/mountain guy. I then turned left down the parkway and noticed an interesting-looking configuration of buildings, as well as what looked like a tattered flag draped over a fence but turned out to just be some shirts. Upon closer inspection I noticed a guy sitting nearby with his back to me, and I got the impression that he actually lived in this secluded spot near the creek so I hurried along on my way.
Soon, though, I ran into Broadway, so I knew I had gone the wrong direction; apparently Broadway and Powder House Boulevard run more or less parallel, even though they both feed into Powderhouse Square. Whatever. So I turned around and wandered back in the general direction of where I was guessing the hardware store would be. After a while (and some uphill climbs) I realized that while I still had a pretty good idea of how to get home, I had no good idea which way the store was. It wasn't helping that every intersection only had a sign for one of the street names; what's up with that, anyway? I guess it saves money, but it sure is unhelpful. Anyway, I was pretty much resigned to head home and drive, remembering that now that I have a garage I don't have to worry about losing my parking spot, when I figured out (thanks to some Tufts buildings with signs showing their addresses) that I was on Curtis Street, and I was pretty sure that I remembered that Curtis turned into Winthrop, which was where I was headed. So I turned around, walked back up the hill and down the other side, finally reaching the hardware store... only it was 5:35 by now, and the store had closed at 5:30. D'ohh!
At least now I had my bearings, so I headed down Boston Street towards College Street and home. On the next block from the hardware store was Grant Park, named after an infantryman killed in World War I. I thought this was neat, having noticed before how rare WWI memorials are (compared to most other wars, including the Revolution and especially World War II). Even more neat, though, was the time capsule from 1992; it won't be opened until 2092, so I probably won't get to see what's in it, but it made me reflect a little bit about some nice things that happened that year: I graduated from college and got my first real job, at a small software company in Silicon Valley (this was before they were called "dot coms"); a Democrat was elected President, and although I didn't vote that year, I was glad to see a change; Nirvana was on the pop charts, at a time when "rock" and "pop" were nearly opposites; and things were generally starting to get a little exciting as my generation became adults. I'm not sure what I'd have put into a time capsule other than a few CDs (with longboxes, remember them?)... maybe some ripped jeans and a flannel shirt.
Oh yeah, so, why did I need to go to the hardware store? I wanted to get an A-B switch for the cables connecting my TV, VCR, and TiVo. I realized recently that while I can watch stuff on my TiVo while it's recording something else, I can't do that with the VCR, unless I re-route the TiVo output directly to the TV rather than going through the VCR. But in order to watch the VCR, I'd need to put things back that way. Thus, an A-B switch to control the TV's input. Fortunately, the VCR is newer than the TV, and has multiple inputs, RF (coax) and RCA video (composite); I use a splitter from the cable coming from the wall, one straight to the VCR and one to the cable box (which is then connected to the TiVo and VCR via composite cables). This is how I can record different channels simultaneously on TiVo and VCR, though the VCR will only get non-scrambled channels (i.e. no HBO). I realize these details are probably not interesting, but perhaps some of you have been struggling with similar issues and this will give you some new ideas. One of these days I'll just be able to get a DVR (preferably running open source software) with multiple tuners and removable media (perhaps DVD+RW?) and all these problems will seem as quaint as recording ATARI BASIC programs to a tape recorder.
Tomorrow: Davis' [sic] MegaMaze! I'm not entirely sure why I'm paying to get lost again, but I know it'll be fun anyway.