Gellin

I'm almost too tired to blog. After concentrating on cleaning up the existing Pleasant Street Sundance School, which incorporated two big dump runs and moving the oak desk and couch, I met with Tyler on the EnerNOC Deal.
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Also set up meetings with Lec and Sprint.
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Tomorrow, I'll turn the keys over to Eyk and end the first Sundance phase.
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Things are starting to gell.

Sports Circle

UMass Track Alumni has been contacting me. Considering that I only ran for two seasons, and not very well at that, I'm surprised that they have a record of my participation. My old coach, Ken O'Brien is still there. I don't think he liked me much, because I started beating some of his highly recruited kids right away, and I was a marginal walk-on. He used to call me "Maverick", ostensibly because I shouldn't have been doing what I was doing. But in Track, they can't bench you. When I saw their email list, it was interesting that not too many of my teammates were contacted.

It was fun to run at UMass, but I was not particularly talented and only had a few races that I was proud of. We won the Freshman New England Cross Country Championship and there were great guys on the team. I lost touch with all of them.

Collegiate athletics is a huge committment. Ryan and Katelyn competed in lacrosse for St. Mike's through their senior year. Mike asked me if I minded if he stopped playing in his sophomore year, and I actually felt a little relief. He had played at Tilton, and had great years at Marblehead High. When he was at St. Michael's on a Friday afternoon, I called him because I was excited for his weekend in college... kicking back and revving up with his buddies. He said that he had Lacrosse practice at 9:00PM that night, and I felt pretty bad for him. Friday nights in college are not for lacrosse.

I missed a lot of Ryan's games because I was in California for GTE his senior year. But I flew back across the country on a Wed. to Bentley College for his last game... an expense that my boss, Art Hadley, wasn't too excited about. I had been tying Ryan's skates and going to his games for 15 years, and this was his last - and I wouldn't miss it, even at the risk of my job. He was the Captain of the team, but they had a poor record, and I think that he missed a lot of recognition because of that.
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Some of the most exciting games that I remember were played by Katelyn's Women's Lacrosse Team at St. Mike's. It always seemed to be raining and miserable at the games, but she had a very competitive team her Senior year, and we were thrilled when she was named MVP.
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Now we're waiting for Kid Nestor to emerge in June for Ryan and Courtney. It won't be long before we're tying skates again.

Time for Tender.

By this time tomorrow, all of the heavy lifting to get Sundance Pre-School moved to the new Gerry Playground location will be done. Joanne has done a great job and has really concentrated on the task at hand. I'm proud of what she's accomplished. The site is perfect and the facility is getting rave reviews. It has been exhausting - emotionally, financially, and physically. But it's done.
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Now I'm going to finish the Herreshoff Columbia Tender and launch in June. The basement tiling job can wait.
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Sopranos are on. I'll catch you later.

Crazy Boredom

Does this Blog seem boring lately to you? I just read the last couple of posts, and it was tough going if I say so myself. What do you want me to do??? Invent exciting stuff??? Make stuff up??
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Sometimes life flattens out. It can't be all crisis and triumph.
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In the meantime, suck it up. Something screwy will happen soon.
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Apparently, some guy from the Shangdong Province in China doesn't think it's so bad.
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He or she Googled the blog and had it translated into Chinese characters yesterday. There was no Chinese character for "Nanepashemet" so that stayed in English. The Site looked pretty funny.
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I was able to tie into this because there are free "hit trackers" out there that can show the IP address of anyone who hits the blog site.
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The tracker also notes what site it came from before it accessed the Blog. So if someone gets on the Blog after a Google search, you can see what the key words of the search were and what Google results occurred. If a Google translation occurs, you can see that too.
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Since the Nanepashemet site gets so many hits, it comes up early in a Google search. Anybody checking out a Peep of the Week name always shows in the Google list. For example, I got a lot of hits from people looking for "Kristen Bitter Silk", when Kristen's Boston Globe article was posted on the Blog last fall.
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If you think that this is cool, then you are slightly more depraved than I am.
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How's that for breaking the boredom? Time to get back to the cubbies.

Sunday Projection

Big push tomorrow for Monday's Sundance opening. It's supposed to be stellar weather again.
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First thing in the morning, I have to spray paint the backs of the cubbies because nine of them will be exposed on the floor with coat hooks attached to them.
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After spraying, I'll install the closet shelves while waiting for the cubbies to dry. Then the cubbies have to screwed in place on the floor or on the walls, after which the coat hooks have to be attached.
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I'd like to think that this will all be done before 12:00 noon, but nothing has gone according to plan on this project. I'm leaving Monday morning free to get the rest of the bookcases, the desk and the rugs out of the old building, otherwise, I'll try to get this done tomorrow if everything goes to plan.
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Sound like a fun Sunday to you?? Pretty mundane. I can't wait.

Watching Paint Dry

When I finished cleaning up after two coats on the cubbies, it was 6:09 PM. Emory Glass, the next door neighbor told me I could use his outdoor water spigot because we don't have one at the new building, and I need to fire up the pressure washer to clean the playground equipment.
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A day of painting behind me. The key to the Wagner Spray unit is to really thin the Latex with Floetrol and water... almost to the point where it doesn't seem like its going to cover.

Spring Weekend

It's Saturday morning and sunny. Time to paint the cubbies. I'm feeling pretty optimistic that the Wagner will do the trick. Otherwise, at 30 minutes per cubbie unit, I'm looking at 7 hours of brushing. That gets me done around 3:00 PM.
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I still have to hang the closet shelves and get to the Pleasant Street clean out.
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Katelyn is painting her apartment this weekend. It's Mike's birthday tomorrow. Hope he's having a nice weekend in DC. I hate to paint. Fishing season will start in a few weeks. Ryan kicked in for a new Garmin Fishfinder and I am supposed to upgrade the seat cushions, but I am behind in this. Lyrid Meteor Showers are tonight. 30 shooting stars per minute. I guess it's time to get to the cubbies.
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How is your weekend shaping up? Mine sucks.

Stymied

I spent virtually all day trying to get two paint spraying systems to work with latex paint. My Fuji HVLP system, which performed so well with the marine varnish on the Yacht Tender, failed miserably with the latex. So I went to Home Depot and bought a Wagner Spray painter, which gave initial promise, but then also shit the bed.
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Meanwhile the cubbies could have been completed by brushing.
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The weather was great... what a wasted day.
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But tomorrow, I'm going to give it one more try by thinning the latex paint. I think that was the problem. If not, I'll be brushing well into Sunday.

Keep it Clean

Earth Day.
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I'm all for environmental legislation. The effects of the regulations have been dramatic, even in my lifetime. Fish are in Boston Harbor, and turkeys stroll down my driveway.
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But you have to admit. Environmentalists typically are obnoxious, alarmist and annoying.
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Al Gore - my point exactly. I suppose that this is the price of a cleaner Earth.

Tsunami Warning

Tomorrow, I have to pull out the HVLP sprayer and spray paint the fourteen 1'x8' cubbies that I made for Sundance between eight and six years ago. They've held up pretty well but are really dirty and stained from usage. I'd love to get two good coats of white gloss enamel on before the end of the day. It's amazing how much faster spray painting is than brushing. I love to spray and hate to brush.
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While they are drying, I'll put some 1x12 shelves in the closets.
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I hope that most of the new Sundance work will be done tomorrow, so that I can turn my Saturday attention to cleaning up the old Sundance building for a good transfer to Eyk Van Otterloo. Somehow, I don't see this push being complete until Sunday, but I'd love to get some Tender or tiling work in too.
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I know what's going to happen. As soon as the Sundance work is done, the Nanepashemet Telecom tsunami is going to strike. I can feel it. Rest will have to wait.

Peep of the Week Day

And you thought I forgot!
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Oh ye of little faith!!
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Normally I'd have to give that Korean psycho the nod for the ultimate annoying act. But screw him... he gets nothing.... not even POTW.

Plus NBC is such a whore for publishing his "manifesto". You give a mass murderer his ya yas. That's such bullshit. Somebody's media executive head should roll, but it won't.

Now back to business.

ANNOUNCING....
Nanepashemet Peep of the Week for Week 16 of 2007

Amy Mann
Mike DeLia
Mike Elsier
Bobby Brown
Ryan Nestor
Robert K Cheruiyot

All for good reasons. I couldn't bring myself to choose some annoying candidates because they were way off the charts.

Armed and Dangerous

This Virginia Tech stuff is getting more and more bizarre. At first I thought that the problem was gun control... just keep the guns out of the hands of insane people. And that is the central focus.
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But toss in the effect of violent video games as well as shoot em up, body count movies on the criminally insane and you have a mass murderers merit badge training program. I heard an expert on the radio saying that you can't control society to eliminate this risk. It is the price of freedom.
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I don't buy that.
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I would never keep a gun in my house. You never know when you might flip out over some non-sensical event, and five seconds of insane passion buys you a lifetime of grief. Even when I thought we had an intruder in the house a dozen years ago, I relied on my pal, Louisville Slugger, as my weapon of choice.
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Unfortunately, it was a false alarm.