Below are the 8 most recent journal entries recorded in mceuen's LiveJournal:

Sunday, September 14th, 2008
10:58 pm	Skyline Trail Since it wasn't completely rainy on Saturday I decided to go hiking in the Blue Hills Reservation. I had been wanting to hike the Skyline trail for some time, but since I usually get there late in the day there's not enough time. This time I got there early in the day and was pleasantly surprised to be able to hike it in four hours, even with lunch and other stops. It's possible to get to and from both ends by public transportation, though you have to figure it all out yourself. I took the commuter rail to Readville, walked down Neponset Valley Parkway, and then hiked down Burma Road--essentially a grass path that goes straight through the swamp. Not the most interesting part of the hike, but it was serene and peaceful. I went over to some other trails that weren't well marked, and in fact I'm not sure if the path I followed was actually one on the map. I wound up in someone's back yard at one point, but I was able to backtrack and get to the abandoned freeway ramps. Following these led me to the humble beginning of the blue-blazed Skyline Trail. As the name suggests, the trail goes up and down hills and offers many views of the Boston skyline at various points. I didn't get any pictures this time, so next time I'll have to remember to take my camera. I've posted the very-exciting track log from my GPS in GPX format here. The trail ends by a skating rink, and there's a stop for bus 238 right there. It comes by hourly, even on weekends, and goes to the Quincy Adams T station. I lucked out and only had to wait a few minutes for it, though it wouldn't have been a really long walk to the T station itself. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
9:53 pm	Cable woes I'll break my longstanding blog silence to complain about the cable company, since what else is a blog for if not to air petty grievances? The relationship between Comcast and I got off to a great start last year. It took me two weeks to convince them to take my money and let me be a paying customer. Apparently the previous tenants at the apartment hadn't scheduled service disconnection (though they insisted they had) and the guy who lived there that I'd been talking to didn't have his name on the bill. Not Comcast's fault, you may reasonably say, but just wait. After talking to several representatives about the problem, one finally mentioned that I could take a copy of my lease to a service center and use that as proof that I wasn't trying to pay for someone else's cable. So I biked out in the heat to North Cambridge, waited patiently in line, and showed my lease to the representative, who acted like using a lease to establish service was the craziest thing she'd ever heard of. Returning to square one, I called Comcast for the 10th or so time and got a helpful representative who suggested that I take my lease to a service center. Luckily I managed to avoid getting caught in an infinite loop, and eventually I got connected to the rare helpful representative who gave me a direct number and was finally able to utter the magic incantations to let me get hooked up, as the ads so eloquently state. This year wasn't quite as much fun in that the issues all got resolved in the day, but amusing nonetheless. In the big roommate swap the cable modem is leaving, so last week I bought a replacement. I didn't get around to connecting it until today, and after I did I realized that I'd probably have to call customer service to have the new modem registered. Simple, right? If you aren't registered, you get redirected to a useless page that instructs you to download software that won't actually help you connect to the Internet. Not wanting to go down that route, I called customer service only to find that there was an estimated 30 minute wait. Being impatient, I went to work and engaged in a live chat with a somewhat helpful representative, who told me that to register the modem I'd.. have to call customer service. After I complained about the wait he told me that he could have a technician call me later in the day. Unsurprisingly, nobody called within the call window, so I called back and this time was immediately connected. This representative told me I needed the serial number from the modem (which I didn't have with me) in addition to the MAC address (which I did). I called my roommate David, who read me the serial number. Armed with knowledge, I called back a second time and got stuck in hold queue limbo--no music, your-call-is-very-important-to-us spiels, or anything. Third time was the charm, though, as I got a knowledgeable representative who didn't even ask for the serial number, just the MAC address. Maybe if I call back again they'll tell me that cable is free or something. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
2:44 pm	Obviously I'm not a blogger To borrow from Lebowski.. I was going to complain about the DMV (RMV here) or other stuff, but perhaps it's time to admit that I never get around to blogging when I have ideas. For now I'll have to content myself with cleaning out comment spam and promising to be less lazy in posting pictures and posting ideas when there's actually stuff to write about. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 1st, 2007
8:31 pm	My semi-annual blog post! For my semi-annual blog post, I will note that Zipcar and Flexcar recently merged. I've been using Zipcar in Boston for the last year and a half. Every time I mention not having a car, I always think of this Onion article, but it's true that without Zipcar I probably would have kept my car. The main thing that had been bugging me was the insurance situation (you were only covered up to the state minimum), but with the Flexcar merger you now get actual good insurance. For weekend trips within their daily mileage limit (above 180 miles you pay extra) it looks like it's now cheaper than traditional rental cars. The only drawback is that you have to be a Zipcar member to drive. They should have associate memberships or something so that you can share driving on longer trips with people who pass their background check. It would be great advertising, too. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
11:01 pm	Portugal I thought about blogging from Portugal, but I decided I'd rather travel than hang around Internet cafes. One drawback of that was that I didn't get to see what the most popular website in Portugal was. I've noticed this previously; once in Latvia I went into an Internet cafe and everyone was on the same site. So to make up for the lack of blogging, here are some photos which may or may not be organized and tagged in the near future. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 17th, 2007
1:50 pm	The Boston Left Wait a minute. Why am I posting on St. Patrick's Day instead of drinking green beer with the rest of Boston? Good question. I guess I should make this quick. I suppose everyone who moves to the Boston area has to comment on the local driving customs eventually. They could be worse, I suppose, given the occasional streets with four (or so) lanes and no lane markings, the complete lack of not only directional signage but also indications as to which lane you need to be in to go somewhere, and other things that make me glad to have experience driving in Argentina, however brief. The thing that gets me, though, is the Boston Left. I see this on my bike all the time. It happens when cars are stopped a traffic light and the first oncoming car wants to turn left. Normal drivers would yield to oncoming traffic, but Boston drivers squeal their tires and cut in front to make that left turn as soon as the light turns green, or perhaps even before. To be fair, it makes a bit of sense at the majority of intersections don't have a separate left-turn lane. Otherwise that car would block traffic in one direction. Boston drivers evidently accept this as rational behavior, since they tend to yield and allow the aggressive Boston Left. The newcomers like me who refuse to assimilate keep things interesting. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 14th, 2006
9:17 pm	Groundhog Day Despite the favorable comments-to-posts ratio I had going, it seems like I can only go on for so long with a one-post blog. So I'll blog about the radio in the morning. It plays the same thing every day at 9 a.m., but not "I Got You Babe", as the post title might lead you to believe. What I usually do is set the alarm for something before 9, like 8:45. This gives me a couple of snoozes during the French news, which is on the radio from 7-9 in the mornings and provides a fun introduction to the day (except for when they're on strike and have to replace the news show with music). Then at 9 a.m. sharp there's a crossfade from French news to piano music, then the same recorded voice every day saying, "You've been listening to Radio France Internationale, which airs weekday mornings from 7-9 right here on WJIB. Stay tuned for another 22 hours of relaxing music on WJIB, where it's easy as the breeze." Then more music, then the little call letters jingle ("740 WJIB... Cambridge / Boston"). If I were less lazy I would look through the Unicode spec to find the right glyphs for those little notes like they have on TV closed captioning. They must be somewhere, right? Then there's the music that sounds like the theme from Bewitched but isn't, the intro to.. "It's 9:00 on WJIB, and time for the big bands and crooners hour! From 9-10 weekday mornings WJIB brings you the best big bands from the '30s, '40s, and '50s, ... and the fringes of the '20s and '60s, too, but mostly '30s, '40s, and '50s. So sit back and relax for more great music coming your way!" And they might repeat "easy as the breeze" too but by this point I've usually turned the radio off. But if I don't then I'm treated to the same Irving Berlin classic in full orchestral fanfare for two minutes before there's finally something else that isn't the same every day. So yeah, I should probably get up earlier. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 10th, 2006
11:27 pm	Cambridge There has to be a blogging equivalent of l'esprit d'escalier, which is what the French say happens when you're going down the stairs and you think of something that would have been really witty in the conversation you were just in. The point of this (the last blog was random and this one will be too) is that I always think of cool blog topics when I'm out riding my bike or taking a walk or basically anywhere that's not in front of the computer. As soon as I sit down the words fade. So instead, how about, uh, the sports team? Actually, speaking of the French and sports I did get to see the last part of yesterday's World Cup final. I got there too late to see any real goals being scored--I don't watch enough footsoccerball to see anyone actually score a goal--but I did see Zidane's headbutt and red card. The bar I was in in Cambridge was crowded but not crazily so, with perhaps slightly more vocal Italy supporters (though there was also a guy yelling "allez les bleus!" every 3 minutes). The ABC coverage cut to people watching in Paris, Rome, and in City Hall plaza in Boston. I guess if I had been thinking I would have gone there. (5 Comments |Comment on this)