Did I spell that right? My step daughter was trying to remember what this moon is called. I had no clue so I took a picture. Fascinating.

I was driving on Osgood Street in Methuen today and decided to take River Street to avoid going through the huge intersection with 113 and Pelham Street.

Fascinating, I know.

So there I was on River Street and there to my left was… ya know… the River. So I stopped for some pics.

I can’t say if the river looks all that high here, but it sure looked really high everywhere else I saw it so I am going to assume that it looks high here too.

The downed tree that crosses the entire river is the reason I stopped. Look at all the pictures I didn’t take of it.

I focused on the water through the trees using autofocus. Thank you D90 and your eight billion point autofocus.

Was that tree down in the water before this past storm? I don’t know.

I love the goldish color of the water.

A wider… crappier view.

Totally unrelated…

One of the places in town I’ve wanted to take pictures of but never got around to is the train station on Railroad Street. I just happened to be parked behind it this morning so I took a few quickies. I want to get it from the front, but I didn’t have time today. This’ll do for now.

I did this after getting my hair cut. That’s how I spent the first part of my morning on the first day of Spring. A bad hair cut and a few bad pictures.

Now the Mrs and I are going to hang out and be lazy for the rest of the day. Sounds like the best plan ever.

Happy Spring.

They sucked last night. With the exception Shawn Thornton at less than 2:00 into the first period the Bruins rolled over and died… again… and let Matt Cooke more or less off the hook for potentially causing Mark Savard permanent brain damage.

Go Team.

The 3-0 loss to Pittsburgh last night was painful to watch. The lack of effort, the lack of heart, the lack of interest was just crushing to Bruins fans everywhere.

But…

At least we didn’t have this happen to us…

(Make sure you look at the score and the clock. Florida was winning by one goal with less than a minute left when this happened. This goal forced overtime.)

Okay, here is your Friday morning traffic update.

Route 117 in Lincoln still closed at route 126.

Route 20 in Wayland still closed at route 27/126.

Enough all ready, I wanna have my morning commute back.

I got all excited this morning as we were heading North on route 93. I was bringing the kids to their dad’s house and listening to WBZ radio. The traffic report said 93 South was clear all the way to Boston and 128 South was clear all the way to the Mass Pike. After dropping the kids off I jumped on 93 South and started making my way to 128. All highway babie! Jen had called too and said it was smooth sailing all the way. Nice! No flooded back roads for me today!

Then I reached Dascomb road and everyone slowed to a crawl. So looks like it was back to the flooded back roads once again. It’s okay, at least I get to give my readers an update. (Feel free to insert a sarcastic tone of voice)

(This page has gotten more hits out of these floods than I’ve ever gotten before. Tuesday through Thursday were the biggest site traffic days I’ve ever had. It’s kind of embarrassing that people looking for info on closed roads are being exposed to the crap I write about. It’s also kinda fun.)

Do you love Star Wars? I do. I have been obsessed since 1977. I love Star Wars, really I do.

Do you have an iPhone? I do. I’ve been obsessed since January of 2009. I love my iPhone, really I do.

Mashable posted an article today that announced what is clearly the most drool worthy geek fan boy creation in the history of mankind. In the history of the universe. In the history of all universes.

Attention, “Star Wars” Fans: The iPhone Lightsaber Duel is Coming

Read the article! Read it read it read it read it!!!

I want it.
I want it.
I want it so baad!

I have to leave now. I need to go wipe up this puddle of geek fan boy drool.

A Star Wars bluetooth lightsaber duel game. Clearly the greatest thing in the history of things.

&#8250Robbie Faints&#8249

Things looked a little better today, flood wise. The flooded baseball field that I sort of see as a kind of bench mark or something has cleaned off quite a bit. A good chunk of the shallow outfield is no longer swimming. There were still ducks but they had a significant reduction in the area available for swimming.

Jen discovered that Shawsheen Street in Tewksbury is now open. That’s good news as it shaves a little time off the morning drive. There is still some water on the road and I saw a DPW crew working on it but it is passable. Good news.

There were two roads in Concord, MA that were closed the last two days but are now open. I don’t know the names (Hawthorne was one, maybe?) but they are the two roads I failed to get pictures of yesterday. Fitting, eh? Anyway, they are open today.

Route 117 is still closed where it crosses route 126. Route 20 is still closed too. Hopefully they will be open soon. I had no traffic problems from either of them today, but last night they were both still big hang ups. I just managed to get around both of them.

Keep up the good work drying off, everyone.

I mentioned earlier today that this morning I wanted to take a few pictures of a baseball field on Pelham Street in Methuen but I couldn’t find a place to park. Well on the way home tonight there was room for our van in the flooded park and ride so I pulled over and took a few.

They suck.

The sun had already set behind me so everything looks gloomy, and the field isn’t nearly as flooded as it was yesterday. You can see the infield now although the outfield is still a vast lake. The ducks and Canadian geese were still hanging out though.

Click on the images and then when you get to Flickr click on the all sizes button and maybe you’ll see some actual detail. Maybe not.

The Spicket River runs behind this field somewhere so I am assuming that’s where the water came from. I’m probably wrong though.

Here’s the view from just beyond left field. Like I said, the infield is drying out already but there is still enough water to give sailing lessons.

The geese are apparently Blue Jays fans who are working on their double play combinations. See? They are Canadian geese? Toronto Blue Jays fans? Right, I’ll shut my cake hole now.

The ducks swimming in center field went more for a relaxed, pastoral kinda vibe.

The water somehow looks deeper the further out you go. Is the field slopped toward the center field fence?

The parking lot looks much better than it did this morning but it is still mostly closed off. I was actually parked at a bus stop. The vehicle you see here may well have been stuck there since the weekend.

The good news here is that the water is definitely receding. Hopefully in a few days the roads will be open and I won’t have to drive all over creation trying to get to and from work.

Continue to keep dry folks!

I’m wearing a green shirt. I have that particular base covered. However, I think I should be exempt from having to display my Irishness via the color of my clothing. My bright, glow in the dark, see it from low Earth orbit, red hair should be enough to signify where my people came from.

Here is the wikipedia article on Saint Patrick himself.

Here is the wikipedia article on Saint Patrick’s Day.

We had the traditional(? is it traditional everywhere or is it just around here… here being greater Boston… more specifically here means my parent’s house) boiled dinner on Sunday. This coming Sunday we are doing it again at my parent’s house. My mother is going to be hard pressed to top the meal my beautiful wife prepared last weekend.

The only downside to my celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day is that I don’t drink. I do not experience the drunken revelry, I only get the sober revelry. I don’t think I’m missing anything, but many people seem to disagree. Oh well.

In the Boston area the holidays just keep coming. Today is also Evacuation Day. The city of Boston celebrates the day the British army evacuated the city in 1775. It was George Washington’s first victory in command of the Continental Army. I believe it is truly worthy of celebration. I just wish more than Suffolk county would declare it a holiday. Getting Saint Patrick’s Day off as a result is just a coincidence of course. Of course.

Here is an article on the history of Evacuation Day.

So many reasons to celebrate. Enjoy them all.

Last night while driving home from work I was making killer time. I zigged around that closed road, zagged around the other closed road, and was on track and heading for home.

When the traffic in front of me stopped.

In a spot where it has never stopped before, never mind during our current flooding crisis.

I spent a pretty significant amount of time not moving. No clue as to why, but it had to be road closure related, right?

I was in Wayland on route 126, South of where it crosses 117. I went with the assumption that the problem was caused by that intersection and I pulled out my iPhone… have I mentioned the iPhone is the greatest invention in human history? I was right near Waltham Road and I know a lot of drivers take that road regularly so I used that as my starting point. I plotted a course around the traffic light and shortly after was working my way around it.

When I reached 117 the traffic was stopped there too so I kept going and mapped out the route to the next big road that joins route 126. When I got there I made my big mistake. I should have skipped that road and mapped out a route all the way to route 2. 126 was still gridlocked. If anything it was worse than it had been at 117. I read the lips of a driver going in the other direction (the traffic was stopped heading back to 117 as well) who said that the jam I was in went all the way to route 2.

So I mapped out a route starting at the next big road on my right (there were no roads that went anywhere on my left) and waited patiently for the traffic to get me there.

After 15 minutes my patience was long gone.

Finally after 20 minutes or so I managed to turn off 126 at Baker Bridge Road. From there it was on to Sandy Pond Road and all the way to route 2. I took an illegal left turn onto 2… sorry about that… and hoped that I could get back onto my route after the light at Walden Pond. If the right turn off of route 2 at Walden Pond was clogged up I was going to take 2 all the way to route 495 and suck it up highway style. Fortunately the road was clear and I got home about a half hour later than normal.

The complete traffic jam was at least three miles long. Maybe someday in the future when all of the roads are open again I will figure it out exactly. I can’t imagine anyone getting through the whole length of it in under an hour and a half, maybe more like two hours. It was a total disastrous mess.

Here’s a map of it:

I can tell you love my MS Paint drawing skills. That blue line is perfect, isn’t it?

Today’s commute started off ambitiously. I took my camera with me because I wanted to take a photo of a baseball field on Pelham Street in Methuen. It was completely under water and the ducks had moved in. There is a park and ride right next to it and when I passed it yesterday I noticed a bunch of cars parked there. I figured I’d leave home a few minutes early, park in the park and ride, snap off a few shots, and then go to work. No luck. The park and ride is closed. All of the cars I saw are apparently abandoned. I couldn’t see any good place to pull over so I abandoned the mission.

When I got to the on ramp for route 93 South I saw that Cross Street was closed and barricaded. I had a new mission! Camera phone pictures of closed roads! I got four and missed two. Let the fun begin!

We start with Cross Street in Methuen, the source of inspiration.

I drove a very long time before seeing another closed road, but when I did it answered a lot of questions. This is route 117 in Lincoln… the very source of last night’s traffic fiasco. All of the cars that should have gone West on 117 suddenly had to go North on 126. Add in a two minute light cycle at route 2 and you have a 3+ mile back up that starts in Concord, crossed the entire length of Lincoln, and ends in Wayland. Nice!

I saw this one yesterday and completely forgot about it today. I think this road is called Sherman’s Bridge Road. It’s in Wayland.

Here we come to the source of Monday’s morning woes, route 20 in Wayland. Note the one jack ass driving around the barrier. I hope he gets stuck.

And now that that is over with I can start looking forward to tonight’s commuting ridiculousness.

As long as I have my GPS equipped iPhone I can handle anything! Bring it on! (famous last words)

Here is some video I found at the Lawrence Eagle Tribune website showing some of the flooding in Methuen today.

The damn is in slightly worse shape today then it was a couple of weeks ago when I took this.

Hopefully things are starting to recede now. I’m not sure when the rivers are going to peak, but it should be soon if it hasn’t happened already.

Keep dry everyone!