The Real Charlie

Another Thing That Never Happened When I Drove To Work

I've been taking the train most days for almost two full months. Early on, I noticed that Eddie, the morning conductor on the front of my train, seemed to know everyone, bantered with the regulars, and was generally a funny, pleasant guy. I also heard rather quickly that he was about to retire, taking a buyout from the commuter rail operator.

When I got on the train today, I was slipped a little piece of paper and a woman whispered to me the cryptic words "it happens right after Wellesley Farms." The paper had the lyrics to "For he's a jolly good fellow," and instructions to sing once we heard the whistle. Once we pulled out from Wellesley Farms, a shrill whistle was heard, and both decks of my packed double decker car burst into song. Eddie was duly impressed, and touched. At South Station everyone stopped to shake his hand, and wish him well in his retirement.

When you ride to work alone in a car, that never happens. The commuter rail can be unreliable at times, too hot often and too crowded always. But it is always just a little bit of community, at least for forty minutes each way weekdays.

Strep and Mexican Cheese

Last Friday I started to feel really run down at work. I thought that I was having a Lyme disease relapse - I get this from time to time - but I powered on through the day and got home. We celebrated Stella's birthday (yay two years!) and after that I collapsed. I didn't even eat dinner. I woke up on Saturday with a 102 temperature and a sore throat. My sister spent most of her childhood with strep or recovering from it (and eventually got her tonsils out, which ended the problem forever), so I knew the signs. I went to urgent care (my doctor doesn't swab on Shabbos), got the throat culture and the penicillin, and went home. I am 80% better today, but bizarrely, my culture came back negative! The doctor said to keep taking the penicillin, the test was probably incorrect. Maybe I have stealth strep? As usual, I blame my two little petri dishes for bringing me this little gift from one of their play dates.

In other news, MMWR warns us, again, of the dangers of unpasteurized cheese. This time, drug-resistant salmonella from Mexican-style cheese. Not cheddar. But eating cheese from your local corner market is still safer than eating a dead beached whale. In the same issue: fishing fatalities. To the fisherman, not the fish. That wouldn't be news.

Thus Spake Stella, and Open Studios Results

So we drove into Brookline today for Brookline Artists' Open Studios, during which I got four great collages by the very cool and very hospitable (as in he let my children eat most of his corn chips and mess up his son's magnetic art board) Fred Free. Specifically I got this piece, this smaller piece, and two others. I have a cool new office with huge, bare walls in need of some interesting things. Combined with some work that I have at home, and an old picture of my father in the loading dock of the warehouse my grandfather built, I can get a nice little office gallery going. Oh, and Abby Whileshenaps, the award-winning artist who happens to be the love of my life, whose studio is located two feet away from my side of the bed and who is the mother of my children, is supposed to make me a bird. Someday. Ahem.

Anyway, on the way there Roxanne dozed off after Daddy sang some Passover songs, and Stella (who will answer inquiries as to her age with a hearty "Two In April!" and queries as to her mission with an emphatic "destruction!") held forth with the following story:

"Once, there was a dragon, who ate one hundred waffles. The people all went down the hill to see daddy get off the train. Um, the end."

Abby and I listened respectfully, and did not laugh out loud. We are still trying to understand the subtext obviously embedded somewhere in all of this.

No More Speed Trap Warnings

So my reading public no longer gets speed trap warnings, as I am no longer driving to work much. But I figured that I'd share some interesting things that I see from my Worcester-Framingham line commute into and out of Boston. If you ride the rails with me, you might see these things too, or you might be sound asleep or engrossed in the Wall Street Journal like the other 80% of the people on the train.

Wellesley Hills: the little shelter here is on the back of old Wellesley Hills station, designed by the great H.H. Richardson. Like most of his beautiful train stations, including the one in my native New London, Connecticut, it is sadly underused and in disrepair, now a frame shop and a cleaners in the shadow of an ugly post office.

Wellesley Farms: another H.H. Richardson station, next to a little pond. This one is a gutted hulk. Some of the landscaping, designed by Richardson's good friend and neighbor in Brookline, Frederick Law Olmstead, survives here.

Near the 128/Pike interchange: you pass through an oddly pastoral landscape, the grounds of the Martin Golf Course, and then over the Charles River. I have seen Great Blue Herons from the train here, and some cool modernist office buildings north of the tracks, near the Pike.

Newton: the stops here are rickety shacks on the edge of the turnpike. Each used to have a nice Richardson train station, all demolished for the Pike. I smile at West Newton and Auburndale, looking at the cars sitting in traffic. Near Newtonville, look north of the tracks for the National Guard armory, a nice old Victorian drill hall, complete with "MVM" lettering for the old Massachusetts Volunteer Militia.

Brighton: the graffiti picks up and starts to get pretty complicated here, the surroundings more urban. Brighton used to have a Richardson train station, also Pike-ified, Allston has a knock-off station designed by H.H.'s successors that is now the Sports Depot bar.  Some neat train cars in the big CSX yard next to the Pike.

Yawkey: a parking lot, with beautiful old Fenway in the background. Sox fans, and medical area commuters, deserve so much better. Ever more complex graffiti in this area. Check out the neat Fenway Studios building south of the train line after Yawkey Station, but before the Pru Tunnels.

Back Bay Station: grungy, smokey, loud, the cloaca  of the line. What a loathsome place to start or end the day. I can't wait to leave and emerge into the light along the Pike, with Chinatown and Bay Village to the north and the architectural variety of the South End to the south.

South Station: the Gillette plant and the postal center sit to the east, stark and industrial. Along the tracks, just before the station, the railroad workers have built a little house for a dog or a cat, complete with bedding and food. Watch for the sleek Acela trains, and the rare sighting of the Lake Shore Limited with its archaic sleeper cars.

Here I cut out the side door from South Station onto Atlantic Avenue, after tossing out my paper and my chewing gum. I am amidst the towers of the Financial District, and there are more things to see -  beautiful, strange, historical, mysterious. Another post.

On The Road Again

So I have early morning meetings three days this week, which means driving to work (my employer pays the ridiculous parking charges) instead of the train. Today I drove in, and the only good things were listening to the radio (I need to get an iPod to drown out the cellphone conversations of my fellow passengers on the train) and getting to chit chat with Roxanne on the way to nursery school. I missed relaxing on the train, reading my paper, looking at the big buildings as I walk to work from the train station, spying on my fellow passengers, etc. Someday my train will be un-air conditioned, or a hour late coming home, and I'll curse it six ways to Tuesday, but for now, I have to say it is working out OK. The job in general is awesome - busy, stimulating and incredibly varied. I stayed late tonight, and was happy to do so.

MascotMatcher(TM) 2008

This is the 17th anniversary of the first run of MascotMatcher™, the system that uses mascot vs. mascot combat modeling to predict the victors of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. I have skipped years here and there, but I am excited to present it on The Real Charlie this year. Thanks as always to Adam  for getting me rolling on this each year.

EAST

Play In Game: Coppin St. Eagles vs. Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers: Birds against armed hillbillies? Back to the nest, chirpie. Mountaineers.

UNC Tar Heels vs. Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers: Your alpenstocks will do you no good against, um, gooey asphalt? Tar Heels.

Indiana Hoosiers vs. Arkansas Razorbacks: The sharp-spined pigs will slash away at whatever Hoosiers are. Razorbacks.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs. George Mason Patriots: I saw enough angry drunks on my way home from work on Monday to know how tough the sons of Erin can be. Salute your flag and go home, Georgie’s boys. Fighting Irish.

Washington St. Cougars vs. Winthrop Eagles: Mammals usually beat birds. Cougars.

Oklahoma Sooners vs. St. Joseph’s Hawks: Again, I have to go against the birds. Just think about the feather mites! Sooners.

Louisville Cardinals vs. Boise St. Broncos: What is it with all of these birds? I mean, their bones are hollow, you know. Broncos.

Butler Bulldogs vs. So. Alabama Jaguars: Wild cats over little pugs. Jaguars.

Tennessee Volunteers vs. American Eagles: Oh come on, that name is just cliché. Volunteers.

MIDWEST

Kansas Jayhawks vs. Portland St. Vikings: The Norsemen will live up to their merciless reputation. Vikings.

UNLV Runnin Rebels vs. Kent St. Golden Flashes: The rebs will run home to their mommies, and Kent St. will, um, expose themselves? Golden Flashes.

Clemson Tigers vs. Villanova Wildcats: I hate feline on feline combat, but I usually pick specific over general, so: Tigers.

Vanderbilt Commodores vs. Siena Saints: The ancient PCs will send these saints marchin’ out. Next year, how about upgrading to the Amigas? Commodores.

USC Trojans vs. Kansas St. Wildcats: Latex won’t be enough to protect USC from nature raw in tooth and claw. Wildcats.

Wisconsin Badgers vs. CSU Fullerton Titans: Rodents never stand a chance against demigods! Titans.

Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. Davidson Wildcats: The eternal battles of cats vs. dogs, and wild vs. domestic. Wildcats.

Georgetown Hoyas vs. UMBC Retrievers: Fetch me my slippers, you dogs are done. Hoyas.

SOUTH

Memphis Tigers vs. Texas Arlington Mavericks: Why do people even bother against wild animals? Tigers.

Miss. St. Bulldogs vs. Oregon Ducks: Quack, quack, quack. These dogs at least have a chance against a bunch of waddlers. Bulldogs.

Michigan St. Spartans vs. Temple Owls: Whooo will lose? More birds disappear in a puff of feathers. Spartans.

Pittsburgh Panthers vs. Oral Roberts Golden Eagles: Again with the birds. Also: Oral? Panthers.

Marquette Golden Eagles vs. Kentucky Wildcats: This is tiresome. Come on, only New Zealand was the Land of Birds, and look how that turned out? See any Moas lately? Wildcats.

Stanford Cardinal vs. Cornell Big Red: I am breaking form to pick Cornell, because my father went there, and other wise this basically a battle of colors, and I don’t have a good chewing gum joke. Big Red.

Miami Hurricanes vs. St. Mary’s Gaels: Forces of nature are almost unbeatable. Hurricanes.

Texas Longhorns vs. Austin Peay Governors: We all recently learned about what happens when governors get too horny. Longhorns.

WEST

UCLA Bruins vs. Miss. Valley St. Delta Devils: The old basic rule of MascotMatcher ™ was always to go with Satan. Now, we’re for the Lord, or at least da bears. Bruins.

BYU Cougars vs. Texas A&M Aggies: Knee length shorts or not, these cats will be buried by the sons of the soil. Aggies.

Drake Bulldogs vs. West Kentucky Hilltoppers: Back to your stills and your cousin-wives. Woof! Bulldogs.

UConn Huskies vs. San Diego Toreros: They may fight bulls, but against these fierce dogs from the Nutmeg State, they will use their capes as crying towels. Huskies.

Purdue Boilermakers vs. Baylor Bears: Hard to beat a good stiff drink. Boilermakers.

Xavier Musketeers vs. Georgia Bulldogs: It is also hard to beat men with guns. Musketeers.

West Virginia Mountaineers vs. Arizona Wildcats: Once you’ve beaten black lung, some feral kitties are easy prey. Mountaineers.

Duke Blue Devils vs. Belmont Bruins: See above. Bears, Satan, blah, blah, blah. Bruins.

Beginning

So the new job is off to a good start. I like my new boss a lot, the commuter rail is working out fine so far, my assistant is cool and I have a great office. My workload is heavy but very interesting and varied. Tomorrow is my first "drive in" day and features a big meeting at 8 AM with some heavy hitters. On Tuesday I meet The Lawyers, which is a sort of vaguely big deal. My main problem is that the free "house coffee" stinks, and I am having to pay up each morning to keep fully fueled. Now I remember why, during my previous tenure with this organization, I brought a thermos most days.

Also, a big kiss to my darling Abby, who opened a show on Friday night at Artstream in Rochester, New Hampshire. Check out her post, with links, here. I love the picture, too. It captures Abby very well. The show is going great thus far, and I remain far prouder of all three of "my girls" than I do of my own meager and pathetic accomplishments.

Ending

On Friday at around 4:15 my assistant quietly came into my office. My bosses had said goodbye and left, and I had no more papers on my normally cluttered and stacked up desk, no more files to review, no more emails to answer. At 3:30 I had called my indispensable outside legal counsel for the last time, to tell him what cases I had left in the hands of my colleagues, and the consultant who will cover for me for a while. I had thrown out my chewed up Bic Clicks and put my well worn and much feared green editing pencil in my briefcase. I was looking at the weather for the weekend on the web. "You know," she said "you could leave early today. It's your last day." I hemmed but said okay, I could tell the staff were eager to see me go so they could leave, too. I looked over the desk one last time, shut down my computer, put on my coat and hat. I turned off the lights, and stood for a second, looking at the dark, empty room where I had worked for five and a half years. I went out and said goodbye, a few people hugged me, most shook my hand. I took my ID card and my code card off my lanyard and gave them to my assistant.

I took the elevator downstairs and stopped by security to give them my parking pass. As I went out to the car, a hearse was arriving, hurrying to pick up a deceased resident before Shabbos. I had worked there for exactly five and a half years to the day, in a nursing home building where 200 very old, very sick people die a year, and I had never seen the hearse before. A solemn young man in a black overcoat hopped out with the special brown folder that I know is used only to pick up death certificates. As I drove away for the last time, I saw the hearse backing up to the unmarked back door that leads to the morgue.

Tomorrow I will take the 7:25 train downtown and start a new adventure. Ground Rule #2 remains in effect, but I'll let you know how it goes.

My Morning Wrecked Car Spotting

Winding things down at my job this week, I was pleased to see that Universal Hub featured something I've been noticing for five and a half years: the ugly, rusting wrecked car in some guy's driveway on VFW Parkway in Roslindale/West Roxbury. You can see my comment on UHub, and or drive by to gawk at this decaying vehicle, which is becoming one with the earth even as we speak. Do note, however, that this area is speed trap central, and watch the posted limits. I've discussed this before, in this forum, on Universal Hub, and, once, in the Boston Globe.

Universal Hub also has me all anxious about my forthcoming move to the commuter rail. I'll be riding the rails from Wellesley Square to South Station most days, and apparently the Framingham-Worcester Line is just terrible. Hopefully, it won't be any worse than Route 9 traffic. It can't be, right?

On A First Name Basis?

So I took Roxanne to "Early Arrival" at nursery school on Monday (really called Early Drop Off, but we re-branded it Early Arrival in our house after it became apparent that Roxanne thought we were going to simply drop her off on the corner and speed off), a task that I enjoy, as we get some nice daddy-daughter time together, and that I will soon miss, as my new commute will not allow me to drop her off. She had on a new all black ensemble (thanks to my Mom and Dad) on which she was effusively complimented by her teachers. I chatted with the teacher and then shouted goodbye to Roxanne, who was already ensconced in some drawing. "Bye, Charlie!," she shouted back. The teachers cracked up and I gave her a kiss, and a gentle reminder that, hipster wardrobe or not, I am still daddy to her.

I am winding things up at the old job now, among them my retirement savings accounts (a 401k and a 403b). The fund choices at my current gig are just adequate, at the new job not much better, so I am rolling the nice little pile of cash that I've accumulated, and in which I am fully vested, into an IRA that I established previously with rollovers from prior accounts. Right now that small IRA is 10% in cash and 90% in Blackrock Global Allocation (MDLOX), a nice fund in the "tactical asset allocation" model that has done well in recent years. MDLOX has a nice track record going back a decade or more and I'll keep it.

But for the new money, I am actually going to pick up a new asset class - Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, TIPS. These are US Treasury bonds that pay a lower coupon but adjust the principal value up each year to keep pace with CPI inflation. The breakeven CPI rate is around 2.5% -  an easy hurdle to beat, especially at this point in the economic cycle.  The problem with TIPS is that the principal adjustment is taxed as ordinary "phantom income," which is not great in a taxable account. But in an IRA, that is no problem. So this is step one in my process of picking up some "alternative assets" - some real return securities, in a tax sheltered account. The next step is picking how the TIPS exposure will be executed - ETF, fund, etc. Stay tuned, if you care.

Speaking of retirement funds at work, here is a neat trick, not original to me. Every year, increase your deferral rate by at least 1% until you hit the maximum dollar deferral ($15,500 in 2008 if you are under 50), especially if you get a raise. I've been doing this for a few years. I don't miss the 1% of my salary, and it helps that retirement fund grow a little quicker. And yes, when I start the new job I'll bump the rate up 1%, just as if I'd stayed put, regardless of how much of a raise I am getting.