So the Red Sox got Adrian Gonzalez, the first baseman they’ve been drooling over for years, in a trade from San Diego.

Last night the Red Sox got Carl Crawford, the outfielder the entire major league was drooling over, via free agency.

Can Cliff Lee, the pitcher the entire world is drooling over, be far behind?

I actually read a report on espn.com yesterday that talked about how the Yankees might actually be getting both Crawford and Lee this winter. I guess not. Where’s the article talking about the Red Sox getting them both? I hope to see that sucker published today.

Where did I get the pictures?
cubbies crib
PRO Rumors
NY Daily News

Okay Robert, we’re going to go over this again so that you can finally start doing it right, okay? Here goes…

Kids’ school = North
Work = South

Got it? Now stop going South when you’re taking the kids to school. I know you went straight to work each of the previous three days, but that doesn’t mean you can forget that the kids go to school to the North, not South.

Again:

Kids’ school = North
Work = South
You = Directionally Challenged Dumb Ass.

We have a great big tree in our living room.

I hope the kitty doesn’t eat it.

It was 30 years ago today.

Is our cat as bad of a picky eater as I am… or is she sick?

The last few days she’s been spitting up a lot, and yesterday she full on puked. She vomited a few times in the first couple of weeks we had her, but she’d been fine for quite a while. Now it seems to be starting again.

We attributed a lack of appetite over the last couple of days to her not feeling well, but this morning she was meowing like crazy waiting for food. When I gave it to her… she walked away. She doesn’t like anything. We’ve tried a whole bunch of different foods and she just doesn’t eat anything.

This is the cat I deserve. After all those years of being the world’s fussiest eater and driving my mother crazy, I now have a step daughter who has moments of extra fussy eating behavior, and a cat that is so fussy she makes the two of us look like total omnivores.

Yup, this is the cat I deserve.

There is a Christmas tree stand sitting in our living room. There is not a Christmas tree in it.

The Christmas tree is in the garage. I’m too pooped to put it up tonight, but it’s there and it’s ready to go.

HoHoHo

Hopefully Santa Claus will bring us the gift of a kitty that isn’t sick and puking all the time. Poor kitty.

Last night I learned one of the major down sides of Christmas tree shopping.

It’s fricken cold out!

The cold was bad. Really bad, but what was worse last night was the wind. We had quite the blustery evening going for us last night and when the wind is blowing very hard it’s difficult to judge the quality of a Christmas tree. I had never thought of that before, but it was true. The wind was whipping the branches around and the trees were trying to bend right out of the little tree stand thingies.

Tonight I will brave the cold again, but this time the wind seems much more manageable. I have also put the liner into my jacket so I will be a tad warmer than last night.

The real downside though is that Jen, the love of my life, is still not feeling all that great and I am going to do the tree hunting alone. She trusts me to not get a crappy tree… just like the Peanuts gang trusted Charlie Brown to not get a crappy tree… and we all know how that turned out.

Blockhead!

Look at this picture:

That was taken with Jen’s old camera phone on September 17, 2007. It is Rush (playing, “Dreamline”) at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY.

Why is this photograph relevant today?

Because today I bought two tickets to see Rush at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY on April 10, 2011… that’s why.

Rush isn’t coming to New England on this leg of the tour, so we’re damn straight going to them!

Last month I posted this.

That post contains two links. One is a wikipedia entry with a list of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts. That page includes the coordinates of a bridge in Methuen that I had been looking for ever since reading the little book photographed at the top of the post.

Unfortunately the coordinates aren’t correct, or at least they don’t point to the right spot on either Google Maps or Bing Maps. They are pretty close, but not exact. The bridge I was looking for is no longer crossing the Spicket River, as the coordinates suggest, and it is on the other side of route 93.

While out Christmas shopping with the love of my life on Saturday we drove down Hampshire Road and I noticed a guard rail along what looked like a gully crossing, or a drainage pipe. I happened to look out the window and, boom, there was the stone bridge I’d been looking for. At least I thought it might have been. I only actually saw one arch, but it sure looked like a crumbly old stone bridge to me.

Later I redoubled my Internet research efforts and found this newspaper article. To quote the article:

The bridge is visible from the street, but the lot it’s on is a hole in the wall — people who don’t know the bridge is there can easily drive by without noticing it.

I did not know that it was viewable from the road, but I do know that I had driven by it a bunch of times without ever noticing it.

I had a bunch of errands to run on Sunday morning so I took my D90 with me and stopped at the bridge to take a few pictures. I also took the opportunity to take a few more pictures of the Spicket River, which used to run beneath the Sands bridge until it was diverted as part of the route 93 construction project.

Here are a few pictures.

This is the arch I saw from the car on Saturday.

Why hadn’t I seen the other arch from the road? Because a big chunk of it has collapsed.

I braved the wilderness to get a look at the other side of the bridge. This side is in much better shape.

The Spicket used to flow here. Now it’s just a puddle.

Look Ma, no mortar. Yes it’s in pretty crappy shape, but it’s been standing like this for 175 years. I somehow doubt the bridge that replaced it in 1959 (there’s a picture further along) will still be standing after 175 years.

Here’s a quick look underneath one of the arches.

In this shot, your humble narrator was walking across the bridge. It’s still strong enough to hold my fat ass, but I made sure to walk quickly and not jump up and down or anything.

Here is a landmark to help you find the bridge for yourself.

After a short hop down the street I took a picture of the Spicket River, where she stands today.

This tree sort of fascinated me a little. Okay, I’m weird.

Here is the new Hampshire Road bridge. While driving away I saw that it has the date 1959 on it. We’ll see how this one looks in the year 2134.

I saw this after picking up some lunch. Hope everyone is all right.