It's all about the Vig

Heh.

Space: The Final Expenditure

Some people believe that space exploration funding should be stopped, and that the money could be put to better use here on Earth. How naive... If the funding was cut off, that "chunk of money" simply wouldn't be spent at all.

Meanwhile, private enterprise is making headway towards pushing this activity above the profitability make/break point.

Busy Morning

Although there was very little idle time to think about taking pictures this morning, I still managed to snap a dozen pictures on the fly... only one of which didn't come out blurry...

This is looking into Harrington Corner from the bottom of Pleasant Street.

I had been waiting through one green light, while the cars in front of me had to wait for jaywalkers, and so I missed that light. While waiting through the red light again, I took out the cellphone, put it into camera mode, and waited to see if we'd get snookered by jaywalkers again, hoping to get a picture of the situation down there. It's a daily problem, trying to go with a green light without some dickhead(s) blundering out in front of you.

I guess the only way to do it would be to get my little pocket video cam going whenever I'm going through either that intersection, or the one at Chandler and Main...

Yesterday, on the way home from work, I took this picture:

Those are metal plates covering the new derivation tunnel at Grafton and Franklin, where spelunkers have been working for a month. During colonial times, there were gold mines all over this area, and I'm beginning to believe that the city, in its eternal quest for revenue, unearthed some material indicating that one used to exist somewhere down there... Maybe they found the map in amongst all the other goodies in David Rushford's hidey-hole.

Whatever they're digging for down there, though, the metal plates were off this morning, and so I've avoided that intersection like the plague.

After The Flood - The Saga Continues

I noticed this afternoon on the way home from work that they filled in the strut-breaking hole that had developed in this months old Water Department project.

It all began on February 7th when a pipe broke under that spot and Main Street was flooded. Twelve days later, I mentioned that it was still a hazard to navigation. And last month I felt the need to mention it again, since I tend to be going past this monument to municipal mending several times a day.

There had recently developed an erosion of the dirt filling that hole, deep enough so that if you got forced into it by traffic coming in the other direction, it'd feel like a tire fell off.

But, gee, they "fixed it" by putting some more dirt in today to level it off...

I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation as to why this has taken so long to finish up, but let's face it... this may be Main Street, but it's far enough out from the Hanover Theater that it shouldn't affect any of the spinoff spending.

Opining Under Stress

As the crashing economy looms like a 500 pound gorilla over their shoulders, it's great to read about people coming up with optimistic ideas, such as this little gem in the Worcester BJ, "Worcester County's economy may get worse before it gets better, but when it does finally recover, Worcester could be the next Cambridge, a panel of area bankers said during a discussion this morning."

The Heart of the Commonwealth, Wormtown of the 70's, Paris of the 80's, City on the Move, and The City That Reads will now become... [fanfare, please!] ...The Next Cambridge.

...maybe this means that Harvard will be renting out the old courthouse, the memorial auditorium, AND the voke building to store their petty cash.

Dianne Williamson

It's columns like this that should keep Dianne Williamson off of any layoff lists at the T&G. This is the kind of journalistic work that fulfills the otherwise dying promises of the Fourth Estate, ie- to inform their readers about what's going on.

Sulzberger should give her a brand new Prius, and drive it up here himself to present it to her personally.

Signage

I discovered this sign in the parking lot at 173 Grove this morning.

It's there to give people who are parking in the lot an indication of where the pavement ends. It's a practical sign, and anybody would easily see how it's a good way of gauging where the pavement ends and the grass begins, while trying to park in the spaces that are right there next to the grass.

But it's definitely a picture of a sign that can be displayed out of context, ...isn't it? I'm sure I'll find an out of context use for this picture at some point, sooner or later, especially with the marijuana decriminalization initiative going onto the Massachusetts ballot this Fall.

Empty Advice

The Research Bureau should be renamed "Research Chest of Drawers"... As a piece of furniture in the city, their greatest value is lending the appearance of that "fully occupied" look in the Mechanics Building on Main street.

Their latest product certainly provides the kind of information that would rest well in a drawer... They recommend that the city sell, among other things, the airport.

Of course, the Research Chest of Drawers website does claim to be in contact with those who, most definitely, would know that the city's been trying to sell the airport since the beginning of time, because it says, "In order to disseminate the results of its research, the Bureau staff maintains regular contact with public officials to keep them apprised of its work."

Apparently, that regular contact doesn't include paying any attention to what's actually going on all around us... They'll probably recommend in some future report that the empty mall on Front Street should be redeveloped...

Myanmar

NASA has before and after satellite shots of Myanmar that make Hurricane Katrina's effect on New Orleans look like a brief rainshower.

Interestingly, in that article NASA refers to Myanmar as Burma. Even more interestingly, this morning on WCRN, Peter Blute kept calling it "Minna-mar". And even more interestingly, Laura Bush was apparently tasked yesterday to forward some kind of political positioning, spinning the devastation in Myanmar as somehow being exacerbated by the government there...

Meanwhile, a couple of hours ago, "The information we are receiving indicates over 100,000 deaths," the U.S. Charge D'Affaires in Yangon, Shari Villarosa, said on a conference call.

Consequently, I have to say that being politically forbidden to call it Myanmar (at NASA), being intellectually incapable of pronouncing Myanmar (Peter Blute), or being used to forward a political agenda concerning the government of Myanmar (Laura Bush), all tends to evidence a political mindset that, in the face of such a horrific disaster, I simply cannot comprehend.

B.I.C. 8, chapter 6

Just when I thought it was safe to start wrapping up this thread, they go back to the starting line and begin digging in another direction...

We already had a script in development for the movie version, but now it'll have to be put on hold.

So they're digging a trench here in this picture, from where they originally started with a trench a month ago, only this time they're digging right across the street instead of along the street. Not only this, but they also had holes dug at the very beginning of Grafton Street, on both sides of the road today.

As a matter of fact, there have been so many bright red cones herding traffic into single lanes around the new rotary, it's beginning to look like the much ballyhoo'd opening of the new square last November was merely another PR "mission accomplished."