June 3, 2007 by admin.

In between the wedding ceremony and the reception we had a couple hours to burn, so we headed up to Niagara Falls to see the spectacle and have a (not-so-) quick snack.

One of the ‘Maid of the Mist’ tour boats, shrouded in the spray:

…if you look closely, you can barely see the boat in the panoramic picture above.  Gives you a sense of the scale of the place!!!

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February 19, 2007 by admin.

Assorted scenes from Chicago…

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February 12, 2007 by admin.

So I’m a little behind in sorting through all my photos…  I thought I’d put up these pics from last year for those of you scattered all around the world - or whom I might have forgotten to send copies to at Christmas.

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January 16, 2007 by admin.

I froze my feet waiting to see the fireworks.  By the time these things finally went off at midnight, I wanted to set off pyrotechnics in my shoes just to warm up…

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January 15, 2007 by admin.

Okay, so it was a little antisocial of me to not go to any New Year’s parties…

But, you know, I always just kinda feel lost at events like that - so I find it’s more exciting and fun to take the bike into town and dodge taxicabs and drunken revelers.

I don’t usually attend many of the First Night celebrations. I’m not really into the performance art-type stuff that much, and a lot of events are oriented more towards little kids. Maybe next year I’ll take advantage of the First Night discounts for the museums. If I’m not traveling, that is…

But what I do like about First Night are the ice sculptures and fireworks. So, I took the road bike and went into town to see the sights. The bike is probably the best way to get around Boston. So I got to see both fireworks displays and all the sculptures (except for the one at Northeastern that I couldn’t find).

I was a little disappointed by the ice sculptures this year. Apparently the organizers wanted some insurance against the warm weather that ruined previous ice displays, so they arranged for some sculptures to be made of plastic boat wrapping instead. And some of the ice sculptures were mounted on scaffolding instead of ice pedestals.

But they were still impressive and pretty. I’ve put a selection of my pics online. Hope you enjoy…
(larger pics oline at
http://www.lee-toma.net/photos/061231_First_Night_Boston/ )

Lee

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November 26, 2006 by admin.

It’s good to get out and burn off a few calories after Thanksgiving.  Thanks to Steve & Liza for hosting our bike day.

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November 21, 2006 by admin.

Sighted in Quincy on November 4th.  Sometimes ya gotta do a double-take.

I think he coulda hung a couple more tires off the side mirrors?

I wish I’d gotten a pic of the pickup truck full of mulch, riding like a classic low-rider…

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November 15, 2006 by admin.

I am a bit of a railfan.  I sometimes joke that when I was little, I wanted to grow up to be a railroad engineer.  Yet, when I got my engineering degree, I was surprised and more than a little disappointed that I didn’t get to work on trains.

Anyway, I’ve wanted to visit the local Edaville Railroad for a long time.  And as a bonus, I got a taste of cranberry country while I was there.

Well, it turns out that Edaville is geared to kids.  What’s that you say?  Yeah, I know, I’m still a kid.  I mean it is geared toward little kids…  Holiday decorations and stuff for the kids riding around on the train with their parents.  So, I felt more than a little out of place there.  But it was still interesting to learn more about cranberries.

One of only a handful of native fruits, the Pilgrims called it the “craneberry” because the blossoms reminded them of the head and bill of the Sandhill crane.

In my travels, I’ve seen crops like corn, soybeans, sunflowers, corn, rice, strawberries, beans, grapes, corn, olives, peaches, apples, corn, wheat, cabbage, corn, tobacco, corn and… more corn.  Yet cranberries are special - kinda rare and different.

New England is not well suited to growing most conventional crops, but the cranberry is unusual in that it thrives in the wet sand and peat found in southeastern Massachusetts.  The cranberries grow on the vine, and are harvested by flooding the fields (bogs) and threshing the berries loose with a mechanized harvester.  They are then packaged up and shipped to consumers throughout North America, who then make cranberry sauce once a year.  And they only eat it ’cause it’s got so much sugar in it…

Personally, I prefer to make cranberry sauce with as much apple as cranberries.  Kinda dilutes the tartness of the berries enough to be more palatable, and reduces the need for sugar.  I also like to add strawberries, even if that is less than traditional.

Anyway, back to Edaville…  On my train ride with the kiddies, I spotted a fox, a crane, and then a hawk.  And following the birds skyward, I also saw a helicopter.  Screw the kiddie rides!  I wanted to go on this one!

So, I bought my ticket and went on my first helicopter ride, getting a front-seat view of cranberry country from the air.  It was a short but sweet (and loud) ride, and I liked it a lot.  I can see why Charles (currently working on copters in Afghanistan) would want to fly…

Enough writing.  My attention span has expired.  Here are my pics.  Hope you enjoy.

~ Lee

Edaville Railroad - colorful cabooses
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