t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


god, a busy day today. in a nutshell, the early part of this morning, todd brought in his new pet dog, laurie put her new plant cutting (the original plant belonged to her grandmother) on my windowsill because my workspace is one of the only space in the office that gets real sunlight, carrie gave me a gift bouquet of daisies, and amanda's hoochie shoes continue to fascinate my feeble mind.

lunch time i went with rebecca and amanda to harvard square so they can buy next month's t pass. i just basically tagged along for the ride, a chance to get out of the office. unfortunately, rebecca had a 1pm meeting and the train going back to kendall took forever to arrive, and because we were underground she couldn't call the office and alert them she'd be a few minutes late. not even working one week in the office and amanda and i have already gotten rebecca in trouble!

3pm i had an appointment in porter square with a mortgage lender from hunneman. how do you pronounce that word anyway? honeyman? i got lucky and was able to get a ride from laurie, who just happened to be leaving for the rest of the week, her stressful project now finally over and she can enjoy a nice four day weekend. while in the waiting room i bumped into bill mancini, the guy who showed me the place on gore street this past tuesday. he asked what i thought about the place, and i told him it was maybe 2 or 3 on my list of places i'm interested in. he took that news and told me to call him if i had anymore questions. finally, the mortgage lender arrived and we went to a private office, where he asked me a bunch of questions, filled out a form, and photocopied my most recent paycheck stub and bank statement. i saw a sign that said pre-approval in 24 hours. and here i was thinking that it'd take days of credit checking before i find out how much money i can borrow!


hunneman
office

porter square
church

sunflower
in the
station

porter square
escalator

after work i got changed into my running clothes and headed down to government center to meet julie for our semi-weekly afterwork run. while waiting around government center, i realized that it's actually a pretty good place to take photos of people, just the way the station is set up sort of higher up than everywhere else. shortly thereafter julie arrived, tanned, a head full of curly sun-bleached hair, holding a bottle of water in one hand and a small bag of extra flavor corn chips in the other hand. we proceeded to get on the blue line, but not before fumbling with the small hidden pocket of our running shorts to get our mbta pass out. on the blue train to revere beach i noticed that julie and i were actually wearing matching colors - orange top, blue bottom. julie was very eager to reveal to me how she can change the ring sound on her cell phone to any kind of music. i was slightly embarrassed on the train when her phone started to chime all these different tunes.

so julie and i ran a segment of revere beach. not too sure how far we ran, but a safe bet would probably be 2 miles. there was a point when the traffic was so bad that we were actually running faster than the cars on the side of the road. also, for some reason, revere beach is like a magnet for bikers of all kinds, from cruisers to sports. every so often i'd hear the roar of a motorcycle engine. because today was rather cold (70 degrees), there was hardly anyone at the beach - which made for good running because there was no sidewalk traffic, but not as interesting because the open air flesh festival that is revere beach (the first public beach in the usa, by the way, according to a large sign at least, and who are we to argue against supposed facts on large signs?) was nowhere to be seen. on the way back, we walked on the beach in our sneakers. we saw a gigantic seagull (must be the king of seagulls), saw an assortment of empty shells, saw a dead skate floating belly up in the water, and saw some plovers speed walking through the surfs. the beach smelled fishy, and wasn't particularly clean, both onshore, where besides the litter of shells, there were also a line of seaweeds and bits and pieces of garbage; offshore, the waves hitting the beach was just this brown sludge color, not particularly appetizing.

speaking of appetizing, we went back inland to world famous kelly's roast beef. it took a long time to get our orders, but it was worth the wait. without a doubt, the best roast beef sandwich i've ever had, despite the fact that i don't eat too much roast beef sandwiches. but definitely the standard that all other roast beef sandwiches should be compared to. we also got a medium serving of fries. by the time we ate underneath the boardwalk, the sun was slowly going down and the moon became brighter and brighter in the sky. a homeless man approached us for either change or food. although i refused to give him anything, julie handed him some change. after we were done eating and had some fries left, she suggested that we give them to the homeless guy. when i approached him with the fries and asked him if he wanted them, he told me he'd much rather prefer change than food. well! i gave him the fries anyway, whether he wanted them or not. when it finally became dusk, julie and i were both suddenly attacked my hungry mosquitoes biting our legs. we made a quick exit, continued back to where we came from and then eventually arrived at the wonderland t stop to head back in the direction of boston.

i took julie to the office because i had to go back and grab my stuff. i gave her a quick tour, she grabbed a courtesy srm ball, and then we left to go visit the gang at the cellar on mass ave, celebrating rebecca's new job.

when we got to the cellar (got off at central station and walked), there was but only klea, david cronin, and jared (plus rebecca of course) at the bar. it was a low voter turnout, but with so many tsh people scattered throughout the greater boston area (and with joel in san diego), it was to be expected. we stayed to drink and chat and watch the red sox lose again to the indians. i'm starting to hate baseball again. i always start hating baseball when september rolls around.

after the cellar, everyone headed in the direction of harvard square in the quest for food. klea and rebecca made fun of my short running shorts, and i used the ibook memory box i was holding to cover myself up. hong kong restaurant was a final resort option, which fortunately we didn't have to take. when we got to harvard station, jared, rebecca, and julie all went home while i was stuck with the two drunkards (david and klea) in our continuing search for something to eat. the three of us ended up at charlie's kitchen, where david's sister-in-law kimberly was working her last night as a waitress in that restaurant. david and klea both had burgers, while i, still full from kelly's roast beef, opted for the homemade rice pudding, which turned out to be sort of nasty and not like any rice pudding i've ever eaten before (more like potato chunk pudding). at the bar right opposite our table sat a man wearing red pants. can this night get any better? i should've asked him where he got his. in the restaurant there were television monitors tuned in to some destiny's child concert film. for much of the time i was there, i was gawking at the television, mouth agape, mesmerized by beyonces, one of the sexiest women i have ever seen. can this night get any better?

after eating, i bid farewell to david and klea and went below ground to wait for my bus. when i got home, i installed the 256mb memory chip i've been carrying around since leaving the office with julie. it installed without a hitch, and powering up the ibook the machine informed me i had 320mb of memory available. fan-tas-tic.

with memory properly installed, i started to pack my weekend stuff in a little suitcase, in preparation for tomorrow's trip to long island. it's going to be interesting! i hope i'm not forgetting anything. i couldn't find my gps though, but i don't think it's that big a deal for me to bring it. i hope to do some reading this weekend, maybe work on the website a little bit more, find a dark spot to watch some stars, and get some nature photos. just some sweet relaxing, nothing complicated.