The Real Charlie

Explain My Commute To Me

Back to an old theme here, namely traffic and commuting. I normally take the Worcester-Framingham Line into South Station, and it is mostly OK - usually around fine minutes late getting into town, usually on time getting home. Today I got a text message (the T will send you texts if your train is having issues) that the line was having delays due to weather related issues - specifically, wet leaves on the tracks. Seriously. So I drove.

I was prepared for delays on the Pike due to glare or extra traffic due to people diverted from the train (which ended up with 60 minute delays and cancelations), but the Pike was pretty average - the usual slow spots, nothing crazy. Downtown, however, was another matter. It took me 45 minutes to get from the Pike exit at South Station to the corner of Purchase Street and Oliver Street. That is basically a few blocks. No accident, no closed lane, but lots of gridlock and road rage. I contributed more than my share of the last item.

I am mystified by this and have two theories. One, could the traffic lights have been off due to the time change, and they were acting like it was 9:15 instead of 8:15? Two, could the drivers have been off because of the time change, and they were acting like idiots? Any traffic theoreticians out there? Anyone else sit on Atlantic Avenue in Boston for way too long this morning and have their own idea? I'm thinking of walking tomorrow...

Slightly Famous

Check it out, my house and the artwork of the lovely and talented Abby are on the Cookie magazine blog here. The article has a few mistakes (like the spelling of our name...) but it's fun to see our abode and our stuff online.

MBTA Complaints

I have generally avoided being one of those bloggers who always is kvetching about the T. As old readers know, I was once well-known (well, at least on Universal Hub, and thanks to that once in the Globe) as a spotter of speed traps and dumb driving in Chestnut Hill. But once I stopped driving to work regularly, I stopped blogging about my commute. Part of that is because my life as a commuter rail rider (Worcester-Framingham line) has been generally easy, and often on or close to schedule.

But today was pushing it. The train was about five minutes late this morning, not too bad. Right outside of Boston, in the CSX yards, it came to a screeching (literally) halt and the power went out. After ten minutes sitting dead still, getting colder and colder, motion resumed and heat returned, and we limped into South Station, twenty minutes late. This afternoon the train was pretty much on time, but with blasting heat and filthy dirty.

I could blame financial woes or the winter or what have you, but I have no point, just the grouse that my commute is making me cranky. So I'm warning the world, I may be about to become one of those annoying T bloggers with a litany of complaints. But it might get me writing on here more often, and would that be so awful? Don't answer that...

The Running Man

I walk home from the train with a group of men and women, usually the same group every day (when she was littler my older daughter called this the "Daddy Parade," although it is about 30% women.) Often I walk with a couple who live down the block and have children similar in age to mine. They are nice people, he a software guy and she a fixed income investment manager. A few weeks ago they told me about the Running Man. This is another regular passenger on our train who jumps off as soon as we enter the station, runs up a flight of stairs, across a bridge, down another flight of stairs, across a parking lot, dives into his car (strategically parked next to the exit) and peels out onto the street. He does this every day, and they find it very strange and very funny.

So today I was walking across the bridge and I looked down into the parking lot and saw him. When I say run, think sprint. A fast sprint. I was just gobsmacked seeing this grown man sprint to his car. I sauntered along and eventually ran into the couple from down the block at the crosswalk. "I saw him!," I told them. They pointed out that he was a few cars away from us, sitting in his minivan, still getting himself settled into his car. We speculated on the way to our houses about why he runs - an nanny who goes home at 6, a kid who goes to bed early. I told my older daughter when I got home, and she speculated that he has another job as a "emergency doctor at an emergency hospital," or that he always needs to go to the bathroom after his train ride home.

My neighbors warned me, "you will now be obsessed with the Running Man." You know what? I AM NOW OBSESSED WITH THE RUNNING MAN!

The Scooter Guy

Saturday afternoon we decided to take the girls out for a late afternoon/early evening excursion. I needed to get some beer, and we wanted to get the girls dinner, so we decided to drive into Brookline on Route 9, stop at the Wine Gallery (which, despite its name, is an unbeatable destination for beer, especially domestics) and the get some Chinese food. We cruised in OK, but the rain started to pick up around Newton Centre, and by Chestnut Hill it was pouring, and traffic slowed way down.

That's when we spotted the Scooter Guy. This was an mustahcioed man riding a tiny motorized bicycle of some sort, no lights, dark clothes, puttering along in the breakdown lane. My kids were getting antsy in the car, so spotting Scooter Guy became a game. We'd be sitting, and he'd zoom past. We'd move again, and pass him. Every time we saw him, my daughters would cheer and wave out the window. It went like this for around fifteen minutes, from the Atrium Mall until around the Longyear Museum, where we finally left him, on the sidwalk, trying to restart his seemingly stalled out engine.

So who is Scooter Guy?

A Time To Post, And A Time To Link

There is a time to post, and a time to link. Behold Suldog's description of a case that he was a juror on. I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I won't quote, but will urge you to click through and revel in the stupidity of two grown men who hate each other for no particular reason.

Thanks to the glorious Universal Hub for the link, and for making my day.

The Four Species

So Sukkot starts tomorrow evening, and this is a Jewish holiday that I have come to love in recent years. Firstly, you get to do construction (and thanks to Abby for making 5769's sukkah building refreshingly free of cursing, crashing wood and abrasions, due to her excellent power drill skills). Second, you decorate by hanging all sorts of stuff from the roof and walls of your sukkah, thus indulging the repressed Christmas tree decorator hiding out inside many Jews. And third, if you choose, you buy the Four Species. The palm branch, myrtle branches, willow branches and etrog that you can shake and gawk at during the holiday. If you have no idea what I'm talking about google "lulav" and all will be revealed.

Now I can order my lulav and etrog from my shul, but that would deprive me of my annual trek to the crowded, hot basement of the Israel Book Shop in Brookline, where young men from Monsey work feverishly to assemble our lulavim, and where one can choose etrogim ranging in price from $45 to over $100. The lulav is basically imported sticks and come "free" with the etrog. This is one of my relatively  few annual encounters with the most Orthodox part of the Jewish community, and it is always an interesting one. The gentlemen are curt but polite as they deal with a guy (me) who is obviously not frum. In recent years I've brought Roxanne with me, and she finds the whole scene fascinating. This world of men in beards black hats haggling in Yiddish, Hebrew and English over lumpy lemons is a world away from her temple nursery school's neat and tidy world of Conservative Judaism.

So as we are leaving the store (purchases: lulav, etrog, two plush lulav and etrog sets and a sheet of lulav stickers) we pass a man in typical "black hat" Orthodox uniform: beard, dark suit, black hat. Roxanne turns to me and says, "Daddy, why do we always see that guy at the Israel Book Shop?" I keep a straight face and explain that we see a lot of guys who look like that here, but they are, in fact, different guys. Someday I may have to take Roxanne to Boro Park, or, God willing, Jerusalem, to prove that more than one guy is running around in a beard and black hat.

Fall is in the Air

This morning, for the first time this season, I felt cold walking outside in a suit coat, at least until I heard the train whistle and had to run like hell. I stopped for coffee downtown and ordered hot, not iced. And we are planning out our annual sukkah party. Yes, my friends, fall is in the air here in greater Boston. I love this season.

The Parrots and the Sheep

Those of us who work downtown are, by and large, a fairly drab lot. Brighter and more varied in dress (and, it seems to me, ethnicity) than when I worked downtown in the late 90s, but there are still a lot of dark suits, blue shirts, ties, sensible shoes, etc. That's why I love it when I come across a little knot of bike messengers. I saw a group this morning on High Street. Bright shirts, tattoos on display, much hardware pierced into the face, hair in many colors, etc. The Financial District is the home of a flock of crows, and the bike messengers are the parrots who fly with us.

And I'm trying to stay out of the flock and not sell securities in a panic. I have a lot of stocks and ishares that are getting hit hard - none catastrophically, yet - and other securities that I just feel anxious about. I feel like the market is going through a cathartic self-cleaning that would actually get done sooner and neater if the government would just back away a little bit. I blame our quadrennial presidential foolishness for about 50% of the hype and hysteria. I keep trying to keep myself out of the panic, but it is hard, and to prepare for some bargains for sale very soon. Big, very successful investors that I know and work with are out buying distressed debt and properties and having a ball. Glad someone is.

Rites of Fall

Several signs that fall is approaching:

1) It is 8:34 and very dark out.

2) My calendar is filling up with weeknight appointments, split evenly between nursery school, work a temple-related (either religious or governance, the later being basically religious for bourgeois suburban Jews in America).

3) A gentle email went out this afternoon reminding the staff at my office that the last day of casual summer is Friday. That would mean back to neckties for this citizen as of Monday, except that I ended up with three business meetings this week, which means neckties Monday through Wednesday this week too.

4) Universal Hub has its annual pool on when the first student tears open the roof of their rental truck on the Storrow Drive. Like most posters there, I am betting on Friday afternoon.

The good news is, I happen to love fall.