I spent last week in Boston. Tried it “red-eye” style this trip and it made life easier on both ends. United has the Economy Plus where they want you to pay $50 more to get a couple more inches of leg room. I didn’t have a seat assignment and the flight was over booked. I held out and got upgraded. I wanted to spend a couple days checking out the area, but I stuck around home for a regional nuclear medicine meeting. I left Portland at 11 PM and got into Providence, RI around 10. I drove straight to Boston’s North End (cool, historical part of town) and bummed around for a few hours. It was 40 degrees warmer this time, but there was still snow everywhere. Monday night it snowed hard, but by the next morning the 3 inches of new snow had melted.

Thursday night I met my cousin Ellen at her cool place in Lexington. She lives in an old high school that has been converted to condos. Her’s used to be part of the auditorium.

OK, Mass. has THE WORST drivers in the country. I was repeatedly cut off on the freeway. I was napping on Lexington Square when some lady in a Benz SUV banged my bumper, woke me up, and drove off. MA driver: worse than UT: worse than OR: worse than CA.

Last week the whole family went to “Bridge to Teribithia”. Great show. Shannon read most of the book to the kids over the past month.

This morning’s cavity score from the dentist:
Grace: 4
Dylan: 2 (same tooth)
Gavin: 0
I didn’t get any cavities until my mid 30s. Since then I’ve only had a couple.

Reading this book sparked a conversation on a flight from Portland to Denver (en route to STL). A guy at the end of my row saw what I was reading and started asking me about it. Turns out the guy behind me was listening to the audiobook of the same thing on his iPod. The guy on my row has heard the author talk about the book on the Imus radio show. Apparently a movie is in pre-production based on the book with Liam Neeson as Lincoln. Great book my neighbor recommended. I’m almost half way thru it. Lincoln was just inaugurated.

Meth? Four days before VH is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Eddie checked into rehab.

The production line for our main product is shut down for a month. This is AFTER $100M was spent upgrading the plant over the last year. It’s pretty much the same issue that shut it down a year and 3 months ago. Very frustrating!!

This is Snowball, our friend’s puppy that we watched last weekend.

Work and weather conspired to limit my riding early this week. The commercial flight bringing our raw materials from the Netherlands had mechanical problems and had to turn back. That meant big trouble for us. There have only been 3-4 days in the 17 years I’ve been doing this that we had to ration material or refuse orders. Monday was one of those days. Tuesday morning was bad, too. It snowed on Tuesday and Wednesday, so yesterday was my first chance to ride.

Dylan and Gavin met their lacrosse team and coach last night. They start practice tomorrow.