A message from TEA about his vacation.

TEA thinks through what he says.

Foursquare Humor

Is this funny or just weird?




I do like the badge though.

The Perils of Being The Fair Haired Boy

Once every summer vacation, TEA gets a sunburn. This is not a lack of due diligence on my part but a problem with TEA being so fair of complexion and really quite skinny.

Last year, it happened as TEA was making a sand castle while this year the cause was boogie boarding.

You see, TEA has no butt to speak of and as a consequence, his suit falls a little low. He is reminded to pull it up quite often (we have even worked out a signal so that he knows to pull it up while he is in the ocean and I am standing in the surf) and for the first couple of days of the trip, it worked out well.

Yesterday, however, when he spent five hours in the ocean, out of six on the beach, the exposed area was sun kissed. He was a hurting camper last night, even going so far to exclaim, "but I still have the tan line from last year".

Today, he does not want to go to the beach, and that is his choice, as I could use a day out of the sun as well. Ray Ban Wayfairers + A Lot of Sun = Awesome Raccoon Eyes...I look like a reverse Paul Sorvino.

So, I guess...in some bizarre way, TEA's hide got tanned.

I am a bad father.

Another Observation from Maine

Why are all the blueberries in New England grocery stores, large and small, from Michigan? Now I have nothing to bad to say about Michigan or Michigan blueberries. They are tasty and do what they need to do...but we are in Maine for frak's sake and one of the things Maine is known for is their blueberries. When I think of Michigan, I think of the Great Lakes, basketball, and woefully bad football. When I think of Maine, I think cold water beaches, lobster, incomprehensible accents and blueberries.

The lack of Maine blueberries is...disturbing on level that I cannot properly verbalize. Maine without blueberries is like corn on the cob without butter or ketchup on steak. It is something that cannot happen.

Does Michigan have Maine blueberries?

An observation about obsession

Being without a smart (or a phone entirely) for three days should have relaxed me and allowed me to "enjoy" being in Maine with my family, but...

The opposite happened. When the end of days comes, I am sure that it is going to be one of those things where I am up going because I cannot cope with the loss of technological infrastructure.

That...or I will join a cannibalistic rape gang and terrorize the countryside.

That should be the new iPhone commercial...

"Without an iPhone, you will turn into a reaver."

Keywords

Even though I have taken a bit of a posting hiatus, seeing that I had no real way to post until yesterday afternoon, the weird keywords keep coming...

Here are my favorites:

• "dating an academic" (Yeah, no clue.  My advice...don't do this.  Anything that compels a person to spend years studying a single subject with such intensity is a clear sign of a personality disorder.  In addition, my natural distrust of experts is also a reason to say no to this.)
• "forbes ranking rpi" (Hee hee)
• "futile cynicism?" (Do you really have to ask?)
• "half life cosplay" (OH DEAR GODS! Rule 34.)
• "inflatable arms hair" (Do I even want to know?)

Anyway, thanks for playing along, internet.  These make me chuckle.

Pictures from Maine

Yes, they are. They are also beer free.


They look cute sometimes, don't they? They can be demons.


Long Sands


Fun for whom, exactly? It gave me a headache. The rest of my family ended up at a bar.


I had to make him take a ten minute break from the water so his hypothermia was not too extreme


Not a great angle and I am that fat. I am twenty pounds heavier than I was last year at this time. I blame Obama for this.


Nubble Light House.


TEA was not impressed. He was also very cold.


"I don't know what I want to look at but I have to try it."


It is amazing, he will do things that freak me out.


Another shot of the Nubble Light House

At another point, I am compelled to share the story of the cab ride with a cabbie/philosopher of Southern Maine. It was...enlightening.

Notes from a large and underpopulated state

• If you are a property manager and promise WiFi, it is important that you have the actual key for the access point.  Failing to do so, you should be able to provide something else.  Failing that, it should not fall to the renter to connect to the AP, determine the correct key, and then provide it to you.
• As you know, I love the iPhone.  I was not, however, prepared for the freak storm that popped up out of no where and fried my phone's ability to take a charge.  Luckily, a friend has a spare that she is letting me borrow.
• There is no good pizza in Maine.
• People who tell you that some place in Maine has good pizza are lying, shills for the pizza place that they mentioned, or from a place that does not have good pizza, like Boston.
• When purchasing a sweat shirt for your mother, it is important to realize that if you get her a large, you may have to return and exchange it.  I was smart enough to realize that purchasing anything that was in size "Extra Large" was a life limiting move.
• When deciding to pick up the tab for dinner, the person that you are having the most trouble with on the vacation will order the most expensive entree of the meal and only eat half of it, complaining how it was not good.
• When everyone has responsibility for shared cooking, make sure that you get the breakfast course.  People are a lot less picky when they are waking up to cooking smells.
• Left over pork chops can be turned into pulled pork with a little bit of time, a little bit of ingenuity, and securing the buy in of the two eight year olds that it is okay.  

The Greatest Bar and Other Places of Interest

Sorry, I have been...busy (as well as technologically challenged) for most of the week. It has been interesting being disconnected, but...in the next 36 hours I will be back to almost normal...for me.

Anyway...I am going to go all the way back to last Thursday to start this post.

As you may have gathered, I have not been around. I am currently in an undisclosed location, north of Boston. While I was packing, I was stressing out more than usually, and it seemed like a good idea to drink a four pack of Sugar Free Red Bull, which made sleep damn near impossible. It did leave me time to pack and do laundry and fret and such, and when I finally fell asleep at quarter to five, that two hours of sleep that I felt so good, but then there was Habitat.

Now, being a little bit of a planner, I had asked Teacher Dave for an easier day, and to be done early. As the Ploughman Poet once wrote, "the best laid schemes of mice and men, gang aft agley." It was fine, actually, with the exception of one pickup which was unscheduled and difficult. It was hot and I was gross. Now, I had planned on being able to take a shower before meeting up with HJ77 and that plan was ruined, but I was able to mask my disgustingness but feeding her craft beer (UFO, for those keeping track at home) at McGeary's before I could shower. Teacher Dave was unable to meet up with us, which was disappointing (but they became Facebook friends, which works) and she and I got ready and headed up to Ford's show, which was great. Then we had a quick dinner (full of coconut shrimp, naturally) at DeJohn's, a stop at the afterparty for Ford's show, and then a quick nightcap at McGeary's (where we were unable to meet up with Ms. Lee).

Saturday started out with a trip to the Miss Albany Diner (Scrapple FTW!) and then a side trip out to Schenectady. We ended up getting on the road for Boston around 1:30. It was a great ride. There were sing-alongs to George Michael/Wham! and a mix made on the fly.

Then we arrived in Boston!

(An aside to people who really want resident parking permits in the City of Albany. They make parking extremely difficult sometimes. There has to be a better balance than what Boston is doing, especially around the State House and Common.)

I purchased my ticket for the 6:45 train (with the full knowledge that there was an eleven ten) and we looked for a place to kill a couple of hours. We ended up, for a little bit, at a place called "The Greatest Bar". What makes this place the greatest bar? Is it the plastic pint glasses? Is it the proximity to the Garden? Is it because HJ77's sister likes it there? We do not know. I could not determine the cause of the greatest-ness, so...I guess the greatness must be considered alleged. Anyway, because I was spending time with HJ77, I missed my train, and we did a quick tour of North Boston...including Mike's Pastry. What is so special about this place? Why did we have to wait 45 minutes to get what was being offered inside? Sheeple.

Then...it was time to take the train north. I would say that it was pleasant, but I fell asleep. It was full of drunken fans of some team called the Red Stockings who had beating a team from New York called the Yankees, or as they were saying, the "F***in' New York Yankees" in that adorable accent that they have, at some game that is similar to rounders, as it was explained to me. Quite an experience.

Then I was in Maine...which is the subject of another post...