So Day 7 was our last day in the Boston area.  There wasn't any ice skating (at least not for the people from Alabama) so we pretty much got to waste time until our flight.  We decided to go to Salem since a lot of people had been and told us what to see and what not to see.  They also mentioned to Laura that there were lots of little shops with obscure items in them and Laura was kinda pumped about it.  I think it might have been a letdown once we got there and saw what they had to offer.

As it turns out, Saturday was the day of the Salem CultureFest 2006.  There wasn't anything too impressive there...  a large gazebo-like structure where a "band" was playing and some little tents for vendors:

Either way, we successfully killed a couple hours in Salem and drove back to Manchester, NH where we originally flew in at the beginning of the trip.

So today was almost entirely skating.  The day started off with Caitlin as Mr. Potato Head and kept going from there:

I think the highlight of the day for our group was Caitlin and Michelle as Luke and Darth Vader:

I can't believe I took the picture, but the one thing that went terribly, terribly wrong with their program was that Caitlin's (Luke's) lightsaber broke (half of it promptly fell to the ground and remained there for the rest of the program):

Everyone did very well this competition.  There were a lot of medals, but unfortunately, no purple.  (Caitlin wanted a purple because it's pretty - not because it's 6th place).  Better luck next time I guess.

This morning Michelle had freestyle.  I think she got a 2nd place for her performance.  I was playing around with my camera and managed to get a picture of her in the air:

We headed into Boston for a tour of the Samuel Adams brewery.  The tour was your normal beer tour.  The only negative thing I can say about it is that the tour is in a warehouse and it is not air conditioned at all.  The best thing I can say about it is that they give you a free glass and a bunch of beer at the end.  They let us try their normal Boston Lager, Summer Ale, and a new beer based on a German "rauch". 

On the way back from the brewery, I saw something that would not have been out of the ordinary in Alabama, but in the middle of Boston seemed a bit too redneck:

So if I had an old school bus sitting around, the first thing I would do is park it next to the other run-down cars in my yard.  The second thing I would do is load it full of junk and use it as a storage shed.  And the third thing I would do (once all the stuff in the bus got melted by the sun) is install two turbin roof vents on top like it's a house.

So from Sam Adams we went over to the Prudential Center to pick up the Duck Tours.  We had Major Groovy the self-proclaimed hippie as our guide.  I would highly recommend this tour to anyone going to the Boston area.  Ours took about an hour and a half, counting quite a few minutes sitting in traffic (ours started at 4:30pm):

While on the tour, Major Groovy let all the children "drive" the duck (it was on water, so they couldn't hit anything).  Once that was over, he opened it up to adults and Michelle and Caitlin took him up on it. 

So is it just me, or does it seem like both of them were heading straight for land? Doesn't sound too good when you're in boat mode.  On the land part of the tour, we drove past a place Major Groovy finds amusing...  it's a combination Dunkin Donuts and sushi place:

You'll see the "Osaka Sushi Express" sign in the window of the Dunkin Donuts shop.  Wow.

When we got back to the Prudential Center, we decided to go up to the observation deck which I believe was on floor 50.  From there we could see quite a few sights of downtown Boston (and take some pictures if you have a decent lens on your camera)...  Here is one of the Charles River at (near) sunset:

This is all of Old Ironsides that we saw:

See it back there behind the building?

Here is a picture of the Old North Church from the Prudential Tower:

And last, but not least, a picture of Fenway Park from the Prudential Tower:

Today my father-in-law and I headed down to Connecticut to see the Connecticut Defenders play a baseball game.  As you might expect from a minor league team, they had interesting mascots.  Their current one was Cutter the Eagle:

And the one they just recently changed from (the team changed names for this season) was Tater the Gator:

A little strange that the old mascot was still around, but if you have the suit, wear it.  As it turns out, the game was early (10:30a) so it was a benefit for school children and several hundred Navy guys from sub school.  Check out all the white behind Cutter in the picture above.

We had to head back after the 7th inning to be sure we'd make it for Caitlin's performance this afternoon.  She got yet another 1st place medal in the Freestyle event:

Tonight we had a very excellent dinner at Legal Sea Foods.  I tried clam chowder for the first time ever (to my recollection) and it was quite good.

So this morning Caitlin and Michelle skated a routine together.  They actually got first place (yay):

In the afternoon, we ventured over to downtown Boston to check out Fenway Park:

I must admit it was quite a good tour of the stadium.  The guy talking to us had a lot of funny stories and could field pretty much any question he was asked.  We got some good advice there:

We got lunch/dinner at the Boston Beer Works.  Then we headed over to Quincy Market where we saw this cow painted to be a short bus:

The ladies did some shopping.  As you can imagine, we were quite tired after all of that, so we headed back out to our hotel.

So today Laura and I went separate ways...  Laura went to go see the girls ice skate at "worlds".  Here is a picture of the crew from Alabama:

There were several events for all of them, but the one that sounded the strangest to me (and Caitlin was in so we have pictures) was called "surprise".  Apparently they tell you as you go onto the ice what it is they need you to do.  I'm sure it's to test some sort of skill or concentration since Caitlin had to push a kickball around the ice with a hockey stick.  This isn't quite as odd as seeing a hockey player do spins, but it's close:

So while Laura was watching ice skating, I took a trip down into Boston on the "T" to see a thesis defense at MIT.  It is impressive to me that it took him 6 years just to get his PhD (this was time spent completely after his undergrad work) and this is about average for the MIT programs.  While I was in Boston, I had to kill some time between events, so I walked around a bit.  I did see the Old South Church which makes me wonder where the Old North Church is relative to it:

We had dinner at this amazing Italian place across the street from our hotel called Linguini's.  It's a dad-and-daughter type show, but it has some of the absolute best Italian food I've ever tasted.  I'm sure we'll visit again this week if we get a chance.

One thing I forgot to mention...  on the way down I-95 to Boston, we noticed a very amusing car:

I think it was originally a Mercury Topaz.  In addition to the "Rap is to Music like Graffiti is to Art" bumper sticker, he has the perfect example to back it up.  Oh, and he named his masterpiece:

I am not sure what kind of shaggin has gone on in the "Shaggin Wagon", but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a good experience since it was in a Mercury Topaz.

So this had to be one of the longest days of my life.  Laura and I were up fairly late (11:30p-ish) getting our ducks in a row.  Once we finally went to sleep, a storm was rolling through the area and as luck would have it, our power started blinking (almost every minute).  Get out of bed, walk across the house, and re-start the clothes dryer.  One minute later, repeat.  As you can imagine, it didn't start off as a very restful night.  The alarm went off at 3am which is always pleasant.  The things you have to do to make a 6am flight with two suitcases and two boxes full of stuff.  The check-in process was surprisingly efficient at the Delta counter.  Security wasn't too bad either, but I remembered to substitute my normal hiking boots for tennis shoes.  I have to remember to do that every time I fly from now on.

Everything was just ducky (since we got them in a row the night before) until we boarded the plane.  We were walking down the aisle looking for seat 12D and 12E.  I'm sure this has happened to everyone at some point, but we got to our seats and one of them was taken.  And not taken by some big, burley biker dude that you can either reason with or be afraid of.  It was taken by a 6-ish Asian girl that spoke about as much of my language as I did hers.  And of course, there was an avalanche of humanity behind us trying to get to their seats.  Great.  So we ducked into the row in front of her.  Bad choice.  After two people passed, we were now blocking the proper owners of that row.  So we ducked into the row behind her.  We noticed that there was another Asian child and a lady sitting across the aisle from her.  We asked the lady if the little girl was with her and she responded very plainly "no".  We finally managed to hit the call button as going back against the flow is not only a bad idea, but is downright impossible.  Fortunately there was a flight attendant in the back of the plane that came up to assist us.  I guess it must have been the uniform that scared the Asian lady into honesty since when the flight attendant asked her if the little girl was with them she nodded yes and signaled for the little girl to move.  WTF.

The rest of the trip was uneventful except Laura insists I managed to get us on the smallest plane ever built from Atlanta to Manchester, NH.  While waiting for our luggage to be launched out the hole, we decided to go into the gift shop for the baggage claim.  Yes, that's right, there is a gift shop IN the baggage claim.  While I went back outside to catch our luggage as it came out, Laura apparently had a very interesting conversation with a Manchester native that worked in the gift shop.  Their conversation went something like this:

GS: "Are you from here?"

L: "No, actually I'm from Birmingham, AL."

GS: <strange look on face>

L: <laughter>

GS: "So what are you doing up here?"

L: "Actually, I'm up here for a figure skating competition."

GS: "Oh, are you a figure skater?"

L: "No, but my sister is."

GS: "Oh, have you ever been up here before?"

L: "Well, my family was stationed outside of Boston when I was younger and I have family in New York..."

GS: "So this is your first time to New Hampshire?"

L: "Yes."

GS: "Oh.  Well, you're probably just going to want to go ahead and leave."

I'm not entirely sure how their conversation ended, but Laura did join me a few moments later at the baggage claim and let me know that a Manchester resident was more or less telling us that even with all the negatives that are associated with the state of Alabama, we should get back on a plane and leave Manchester as soon as possible.  Wow.

So after we retrieved our massive amounts of luggage, we started walking to pick up our rental car.  Little did we know we had our bags on one end of the airport and we had to walk to the complete other end of the airport.  Literally (we had to go from baggage claim A all the way back around to the opposite end - dodging mass amounts of people as we went past ALL of the ticketing/check-in counters and the other baggage claim). 

The one thing that went smoothly...  I am a Hertz #1 Gold member, so our car was sitting in the parking lot unlocked and waiting for us.  I got the cheapest thing they offered on their web site that wasn't a Focus or Metro.  I believe their web site promised a Grand Prix.  Well, they certainly deliverd something a lot better:

I couldn't believe we got a 2007 Camry.  It's just a 4 cyllinder, but it's night and day better than most of the alternatives.  And it was just big enough to fit all of our luggage in the trunk.  Yay.

So on the way from Manchester, NH down to Marlborough, MA, we decided to stop at the Nashoba Valley Winery.  We took a wrong turn and ended up at Colonial Candies instead.  After visiting for a bit we decided to try for the wine again.  So after having troubles figuring out where on their property the visitors section is, we went inside and realized a tour was about to start.  The tour didn't really hold our interest as we've been to California a few times and taken real tours.  The tour guide was funny though and that helped.  They did have a still on premesis.  Apparently they make their own booze (grappa, vodka, gin, etc) in addition to wine.  After sampling a few of them, we decided to head on to our hotel as we were tired.

As it turns out, our hotel is right next to PC Connection corporate headquarters:

So we checked into the hotel and carried all our junk up to our room.  Except it wasn't our room.  We walked in to two unmaid beds and a suitcase obstructing the door.  Turn it around.  Go downstairs.  Complain.  They gave us a new room.  Carrying all our crap back up again.  Yay.  This room wasn't already occupied.  Good.  Except there aren't any drawers and hardly and hanging space.  Very unusual for a decent quality hotel.  Who in their right mind makes a wardrobe where the hanging bar runs from the door to the back of the piece?  Why not just make it run side to side like the rest of the intelligent world?  Seriously...

Laura and I were in the Dollar Tree store in Hoover on Saturday and noticed this little gem:

Is this a coloring book about coloring with God?  Or is this in fact a coloring book about death?  I don't know, but I was a bit afraid to touch it.

Another Barons home game on a thursday...  more $1 beer.  This time I think we realized that we weren't the only people drinking the Yuengling....  they ran out of their keg in the bottom of the 1st inning.  I'm not sure how many other kegs they went through that night, but they did have it again in an inning or so...

So I remember a long time ago being at Christian's place and making fun of him for having extremely old pretzels (almost 2.5 years actually).  The other day I was cleaning out the chip cabinet and noticed a bag of pretzels that had not been opened yet.  They're not quite as impressive as Christian's bag, but this one managed to make it over 1.5 years.  They actually didn't taste too stale until the third one I tried.

One thing that is interesting about these pictures is you can tell that in the span of almost a year, the price of pretzels increased about $0.20 per bag.

I think this picture pretty much speaks for itself.  And no, it's not mean to play with a laser pointer around a cat.  Especially when the cat needs exercise...

So I took off on Friday night to go visit my family and some of my friends in Huntsville.  Everybody seemed to be doing well.  My mom had grown some HUGE lillies.  I'm not really sure how she receives mail.  I'm pretty sure the postperson would have to get out of their truck to put it in the mailbox (they request a "clear approach"):

So I met my friend David for breakfast at Little Rosie's.  We used to go there once a week for their incredible breakfasts and occasionally for lunch.  It's one of the things I miss most about Huntsville.

After a while, I met Keith and April for lunch.  We always pick something in Hampton Cove as it is very convenient to them.  They had just finished playing golf:

We went to a place they frequent but I have never been to before.  But you better believe I had heard of it:

If you look these guys up in the Yellow Pages the name of the restaurant is actually "China Cook", but that's not what the sign looks like.

After lunch, I got to see their new house which was incredible.  After spending a bit more time with them, I headed back to Birmingham.  Our friends Nick & Amy just bought a house (in Calera) and they were having a bunch of folks over as well.  I don't have any pictures from their house, but I did steal one of their cat Jasper.  Unfortunately the light was very dim in the room, so I Photoshopped the brightness of this picture.  It might look psychedelic, but you can easily tell that Jasper is putting the hurt on a Yuengling.  Go Jasper.

Sometimes I can't help but be amused at the advertisements I see on the side of the road.  The latest one I think is funny is called Poop Be Gone.  Of course, it does make me wonder if this is a local business that sprung up after someone watched Envy.

So Laura wakes up one day to the sound of a backhoe in our front yard.  As it turns out, it was the Birmingham Water Works changing out our water meter.  Apparently the bills we were seeing weren't normal (we'd get a $30, then a $9 and a $9 just to repeat again) and our meter kept getting stuck.  So they were out here digging in the yard to replace it with a working one.  I'm afraid our water usage will go way up - anyone know how to get the meter stuck again?

Ah...  our brand new meter with less than 30 cubic feet of water used.  Sadly we're probably WAY higher than that now with sprinklers in the summer, etc.

And then there was some home improvement by us.  There are quite a few places in our house that leak air and believe me, we're paying enough for air conditioning.  So I have taken it upon myself to slowly replace things that aren't energy efficient (for example the door between our garage and the house didn't seal at all and wasn't insulated).  So I went to Home Depot the other day and bought a ton of stuff and brought it home in the Home Depot truck:

Notice the 16 foot long boards that didn't really fit no matter where I put them?  The bed of the truck was only 8 feet long, so sticking them straight back would have made them unstable to travel.  After getting home I wished I had put the ends of them against the tailgate and the rest of the board over the cab.  It would have been a little trickier to go on the interstate, but it would have made them much more stable on surface streets.

So that's 4 16' pieces of pressure treated wood (for the deck), two rolls of insulation and 3 sheets of plywood (for the plant ledge), a door (for the garage), and another door (for the attic).  It will probably take me several weeks to actually complete all of these projects, but at least I don't have to rent the truck again.

A group of us went to the Baron's game a couple weeks ago for $1 beer and $0.25 wings night.  As you can see from the pictures, the Hoover Met isn't quite as nice as the brand new stadium we were in a few weeks ago in Mississippi. 

And so then the highlight of the trip to the Barons....  included in the $1 beer list was Yuengling:

So for those of you that have no idea what Bocce Ball is, Wikipedia has a decent description.  We had a bunch of friends over to play.  It was actually quite fun.  For those of you that came over, you ate some of this...  can you identify it?  Laura really wants to know, so email her your guesses, seriously, she means it.  Not kidding.  She really, really wants to know.  We thought this was a funny picture:

So Laura and some of the ladies ran off to Crazy Bill's Fireworks.  Not sure how much they spent, but they came back with a large paper sack full of stuff.  One of them was called the "Hen Laying Egg".  We couldn't help but call it the "Pooping Chicken":

Here are pictures of a "Scatering Fish".  Obviously the translator didn't know how to spell "scattering":

And there were many Roman candles:

I guess that after everything was said and done, the cats weren't taking the noise too well.  If any of you happen to know the dynamic between CB and George (she hates him for constantly trying to "play" with her) you'll realize how strange it is that they both decided to hide from the noise under the same end table:

"Honk If You Publix" (You can't really see it in the picture, but I thought it was pretty funny).

Hummingbird:

Normal Bird:

I couldn't believe this one when Laura told me about it...  apparently you don't need to pass the driver's test to get a driver's license in the state of Alabama.  I guess this answers a lot.

This came up because someone we all know and love is turning 16 this summer.  Of course, the person we know is an excellent driver (honestly one of the better ones I know), but considering how many people I knew when I turned 16 that were stopped from driving because of the driver's test (and backing in a straight line and parallel parking), I think this is doing society an injustice and quite frankly putting a lot of us in danger.  I spend about 40 minutes a day in the car and that makes me a target for all of those drivers that probably couldn't pass the driver's test but are driving anyway. 

Here's one for thought...  somebody that shouldn't even be driving gets their license.  They have a *huge* wreck and total their car and the car of someone else.  Hopefully everyone walks away, but the fact that they shouldn't have been driving in the first place never comes up and they get to KEEP THEIR LICENSE.  Very sad state of affairs.

Reference:

DPS PDF link

So for the past several MONTHS, every time I logged into delta.com to check my SkyMiles balance, I get a pop-up window (probably supposed to be a survey or an ad or something) that is apparently not a valid page:

So thinking that Delta has no idea of what was going on (I was probably right) I sent their web support an email telling them that they've had a web page error for several months.  A little over 25 hours later, I get the following form letter:

So I'm typing away on my computer, minding my own business...  And I received an ICQ contact request.  Thankfully I have my Trillian settings so that I have to authorize people before I see their messages...  just the request for this one was bad enough:

I try to keep my blog G-rated (except for any picture involving Christian, of course), so I blurred out an expletive, but you pretty much get the gist of the message.  I wonder if it's a sign that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Britney Spears have "made it" in life.  Pretty sure ICQ spam is not part of that benchmark.