Power Outages, Vacation, and the Philly Connection

A power outage here at the house tonight almost prevented my posting for another day, but thankfully I am back up and running. There is nothing more instantly debilitating than losing power at your house. When I arrived home from work to a powerless house, my thought process went something like this.

6:30 (Pulling into driveway) "Hey, the garage door opener isn't working."
6:32 (Walking into house and noticing all lights and appliances off) "Ahh, it looks like a power outage is to blame."
6:33-6:40 (Walking around outside with dogs) "Hmmm, I guess the computer and television will be unavailable."
6:41 "Wait, I can't heat up or in any other manner prepare food."
6:41:30 "Wait, it's too dark to read in here."
6:42 (While standing in the closet with a candle looking for a t-shirt) "Uhhh..."

And that, my friends, is how you find yourself sitting solo with a magazine and an oversized sandwich at a Philly Connection 15 minutes from your house at 7pm on a rainy Monday night. It's not a good place to be mentally. Actually, it's just literally not a good place to be. Luckily, I called home and the answering machine picked up, confirming that power had been restored. It was just in the nick of time as well, for my next move was to go watch the movie Salt by myself had the power still been out.

A far cry from last week, which we spent in Boston and Nantucket. We had a fantastic time in both places. In Boston, we walked around and saw a number of the historical sites in addition to taking in a Red Sox game at Fenway. Let me offer this piece of advice. If you find yourself in Boston looking for Fenway, do not operate under the otherwise reasonable assumption that people wearing Red Sox shirts and jerseys must certainly be headed to the same place you are. I pity Paul Pierce or Tom Brady mulling about that town searching in vain for someone sporting Celtics or Patriots gear. Over the course of three days I saw zero Bruins clothing items, one Patriots t-shirt, and two Celtics items (one shirt and one hat, I believe). Red Sox gear, meanwhile, is everywhere. It is unreal.



After Boston, it was on to Nantucket, which is just a flat out different world. Anytime in the course of a day you can notice a ring for sale for $121,000, a woven basket for sale for $2,500, and then sit next to a guy at a bar who starts off a conversation- "well the thing about snow in Vermont is...", you know you have ventured onto foreign turf. It was a beautiful place, though, and we had a great time. While walking around the island, I came upon this gravestone. If you have to go, and I suppose we all do, this seems like about as good a writeup as you can have...

He was a seaman on board the ship Northumberland 84 guns under the command of Sir Geo. Cockburn that conveyed Napoleon Bonaparte to St. Helena in 1815 and received marked notice from the Great Emperor. He was also a seaman in the Albion 74 in the attack on the city of Washington in 1814. In 1820 he was shipwrecked on the island of Nantucket where he resided the remainder of his life. He was well known as a successful master rigger for 50 years. Honored for his integrity, respected for his uniform courtesy and beloved for his kindness and generosity.