Celebrate the Season!

No, not that season.  The one we’re in right now.  Autumn.

Somerville is celebrating the final SomerStreets of the year on Sunday October 19th with the Monster Mashed UP Festival.  Major streets will be closed, ghosts and goblins will walk among us, and fun will be had by all.  Also, there will be pumpkins, face painting, a parade, costume contests (for pets and their people) and, you’ve probably guessed it by now, craft vendors.

I’ll be there in my tent with all sorts of things to tempt you.  Things that make great host gifts, things that make gifts for yourself, and yes, things that make great holiday gifts as well.

Details are here.  Please come!  It’s a rain or shine event.  We’re hardy New Englanders after all, and this is only Autumn.  Winter is, as they say, still coming.

See you there!

~Kelly

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Municipal broadband for Cambridge?

Oh, please please please let it happen.  We did notice a question about our internet service on our last resident survey so it got us thinking about it again.

As some of you may have noticed, Kelly and I have had repeated issues with the quality of our Internet service here in Cambridge over the years.  It is something that both of us care deeply about as both of us have worked in IT and both of us are everyday users of the Internet for personal and business purposes.  But considering that we live in what I would consider the technology capital of the East Coast, the quality and quantity of Internet service providers is terrible, frankly. Cambridge considers itself a major center for innovation and it certainly is, but it is also somewhat ridiculous that for many people Internet connectivity is both expensive and unreliable.

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A Gentle Reminder as We Approach the Holiday Season

I know that there are a lot of people who follow this blog who understand this.  I also know that there are a lot of people who follow this blog who might not.  I’m asking you to read this post and try to understand before you ask the dreaded Holiday questions of one of us who works in the Service Industry, Retail, is in Food Service, or is a Professional Musician of some type.

Why I Can’t Spend the Holidays With You – A Guide

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Congratulations, #AlisonBechdel !

One of my favorite cartoonists (whom Kelly and I had the privilege of meeting a few years ago) has won a MacArthur “Genius Grant“.  ThinkProgress also has this interview with her.

I am so excited for her.   I literally cheered when I read the news.

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So… Scotland… I hear you might be single soon…

Wow.  Just, wow.

I am amazed, truly amazed, that this movement for Scotland to gain independence may actually succeed after all.  The referendum is set to take place this Thursday.

And it is an extremely complicated issue, one that I would imagine the overwhelming majority of Americans (including myself) understand very little, outside of having seen the superb (but historically inaccurate) movie Braveheart.

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Another maritime mystery closer to being solved

The Canadian government announced yesterday that it had discovered one of the lost ships from Franklin’s Expedition, the British Arctic exploration voyage led by Captain Sir John Franklin that disappeared in the 1840s.  While it is still unknown whether the shipwreck is that of HMS Erebus or HMS Terror, it is pretty clear that one of the two vessels has been found by an remotely operated underwater vehicle using side-scan sonar.

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Back to School Shopping with Local is for Lovers

Somerville Local First, Local is for Lovers, and Arts at the Armory bring you:

Local is for Lovers Market- Back to School

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Direwolves and the Stark children

As I am rereading the entire Song of Ice and Fire series (as it exists so far), I am spending a lot more time wondering about some of the symbolism in the series.  And it seems to me that the direwolves are literally and figuratively the symbols of the Starks, and each individual wolf is a reflection of its owner.

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Largely forgotten, the burning of Washington 200 years ago

Wow.  It occurred to me that today is the 200th anniversary of the burning of Washington, D.C. by a British invasion force.  I am struck by how such a historic event has largely been forgotten.

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