Tag Archives: Cambridge

May1

09-Feb-13 – New England blizzard/storm NEMO!

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Saturday, 09-Feb

 

I’d been hearing all week about how horrible this storm was going to be. Every news outlet said that we’d be buried, and there was literally no milk to be found in any store. Eggs were gone, bread stored up. It was a bit ridiculous.

I didn’t believe it. The storm started on a Friday, and I had actually biked to and from work that day, running into nearly no trouble in either direction. It was actually a bit easier than normal, to be honest, thanks to the complete lack of traffic on the roads.

So when I woke up on Saturday, I wasn’t expecting too much snow to shovel. A quick look out my window seemed to confirm my thoughts, but I figured that I should do a quick check out the front door… you know, just to be certain.

And when I opened the door, I looked at a wall of snow.

Ok, not literally a wall, but it did come up to nearly waist height. It was a low-wall of snow. Marybe a cattle-fence-level high wall.

But either way, it meant a ton of shoveling had to be done. So I ate a light but hearty breakfast, clad myself in the armor of a New Englander (basically pure arrogance covered by a few layers of waterproof gear) and set in motion clearing the front.

I didn’t stop moving for nearly two hours, flinging the semi-sticky snow into massive piled on our front yard. I pressed forward until I’d cleared everything but the cars and the driveway around them, only stopping once to get a slightly better shovel from the back shed.

With my work for the day complete, I ate a quick second breakfast (it was barely after noon by this point) and went about getting ready for some snow-based adventures. Foremost of them was an event being held in Davis Square – an impromptu snowman making event.

When I arrived at Davis, on cross country skiis borrowed from Marla, I was met with dozens of people making some of the most intricate snowmen I’ve ever seen.

Truth be told there were only a few snow”men”, the snow not being very useful for pacing. Instead, there were tons of huge sculptures that had been carved from the fallen powder, ranging from octopi to hindu gods stretched out on the ground. There was even one section, where a drift had piled the snow high, where people had built an igloo city made up of nearly a dozen domes, all connected by small carved paths.

Overall though, my favorite sculpture was one made by nature herself (the real nature, not some hippy girl). It was simply a statue in someones garden, but the snow blanketing it was so perfectly arranged that it had the feel of some old and weary traveler making his way through a storm. (Ed Note: Shush. Ben’s allowed to be poetic sometimes)

Personally, I teamed up with a girl I’d met to decorate a trio of stone statues. Instead of covering them up, we used big hunks of ice from the pavement to graft wings onto their backs, transforming three dancers into three angels. It wasn’t fancy, but I was quite pleased with myself when it was done.

Once my work in Davis was done I pulled the skiis out of the snowbank and moved onward, deciding to do some exploring around Alewife and into the small paths nearby.

I only spent about an hour exploring the area, to be honest, but it was quite an adventure in that short time – the snow around Davis had been well packed down, but around Alewife no one had been through yet and I was laying down first tracks in nearly three feet of powder. Having Marla’s skiis helped a bit, since she’s a bit taller than me, but even so I had a bear of a time breaking through the untouched trailed. I had a blast.

 

Dec20

My apartment search: the 2012 edition.

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26NOV12

 

I haven’t really looked for an apartment in years, at least not since I moved out of Miriam and Adam’s place back in 2009. I’d done some quick looking while in Christchurch, but nothing worked out enough for me to take it too seriously.

So when I finally accepted a position here in Mass, and it was time to really buckle in and find a new apartment, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

And whatever I did expect, was definitely not what ended up happening.

First off – I have a roommate. Marla. She’d actually given me a call a few months back asking if I was looking for a place. I couldn’t commit to anything until I had a full time position, but thankfully (for me) Marla hadn’t had any luck in the weeks between her asking me and me accepting the new job.

So, I wasn’t really expecting to find anything right away – Marla’d been looking for nearly two months at that point with no luck, and I’ve usually had pretty bad luck with apartments anyways (see Mafia landlord and the insanity of trying to renew a lease).

But, we found a few interesting places and scheduled times to look.

Marla had found an amazing 2-bedroom cottage near Alewife, complete with a wood stove and a back porch, and even with a small shed out back to store our bikes. I’d found an interesting one too – a place double-listed as both 2-bed and 3-bed, in Western Cambridge that came complete with off-street parking and a small front garden.

So we scheduled out times to meet the agents. Monday for my place, and Saturday for Marla’s. That’ll be important soon.

Monday rolls around, and we meet the agent. The downside of the place that I found was that it was through a rental agency – thus we had to pay a full months fee. But we figured that it would be worth it to find an amazing apartment, and sat down with the agent to figure everything out. Now, this guy was not what you would call a salesman. He was friendly and helpful, but aside from that he was kinda clueless about the place overall.

But whatever, he could still show it to us. So we headed off to view the place.

The place that was right near Alewife.

With two off-street parking spots, and a small front garden.

The place with a back porch, and a wood stove.

A place that even had a small shed out back where we could store our bikes.

If it’s not obvious at this point, it was obvious to us – we were seeing the same place that Marla had found earlier on in the day. The same place that she had scheduled us to see on Saturday, when we’d be meeting with the landlord. Who wouldn’t charge us a one-month rental agency fee.

We said our goodbyes to the agent, and walked home. Talking about the situation we were in.

The place was, in a word, perfect. It was a full house, but small enough and cheap enough for two people. It had amazing bedrooms, tons of character, and even had a Kiln in the basement that we could use. We were in complete agreement that we wanted the place, and wanted it now.

But… there was the matter of the agency fee. We could, theoretically, wait for Saturday to roll in and just see it with the landlord then. Bypass the agency all together. But from what Marla’d been seeing, places like this go fast, and the agency could easily have it rented within a day or two if we didn’t jump on it right away.

So, we decided on full honesty and full disclosure. We called the landlord that night, since it was still pretty early, and told him the whole story. We all discussed, and he said that he’d prefer to call the agency himself, since he had been dealing with them so far. Painfully slow minutes ticked by as Marla and I waited by the phone (waiting by a cell phone isn’t nearly as dramatic as an old-school rotary phone, FYI).

Finally, he called us back. He’d discussed it with the agency, he said, and they may be willing to negotiate with us about the fee. He left it to us to deal with everything, saying that he liked how we’d dealt with it, and was definitely ok with us as tenants of his.

So, we planned, schemed on how to approach it, and finally called the agency.

I did the calling this time, since Marla had called the landlord, and through the two of us combining our amazingly shrewd negotiation techniques we found ourselves walking down to the rental agency, planning on signing the papers that night.

The crux of the deal was that we opened up with a fair offer – 50% of the intended fee. It wasn’t our fault that they’d double-listed the place, but we still wanted to be above the line and honest with the agent.

And they agreed. And we signed the lease. And that ended one of the shortest apartment searches of my life – from start to complete in a single night.

Dec18

NERAX – A cornucopia of amazing beers!

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03 NOV 12

 

Marla called me up one day, asking if I wanted to go to a beer tasting.

My response was simple and to the point, if I recall… I simply stated, “Yes. When and where?”

So it turned out that it would be the same day as my third Halloween party, the 3rd of November, and would be right down the street from where Mike lived in Somerville. So I invited him along, packed my car with my costume and a few other odds and ends, and headed into the city to meet up with Marla and her friends.

And when I arrived… whoa. In heaven, there is a room that mirrors this room: taps lined the bar, and the entire back wall was packed with small casks of specialty brews. There were dozens of different breweries represented, and each had a few beers in stock to show off. The selection could literally have been deadly if one tried to sample them all.

So, after quick introductions between everyone, I started in on my first glass – they served the beers in portions ranging from ¼ pint to a full pint, and our general tactic was for each person to get a different ¼ pint and then we could all share so that we’d get to try out the most beers, while still retaining a bit of mental capacity.

Now, I’m pretty well versed in the language of Beer. But I didn’t even come close to the level of “beer-fu” that Marla and her friends have. I heard more terms and phrases in the two hours that we were there than I’d heard in years… probably since I took my last ROTC course – those guys’re big on their terms and phrases.

But after a good few beers tasted and many recommendations heard, it was time to head out – I was actually meeting Daniel and company at the climbing gym down the street later on in the day, so I didn’t want to slow myself down too much before.

Mike was heading out at the same time so we both went in on some pulled pork from RedBones, who happened to be a partial sponsor of the event, and thus had a table full of BBQed goodness. It was amazing, and after a quick nap at Mike’s place (really the only cure for the lethargy brought on by BBQ and beer) I headed onwards.