HAPPY NEW YEARS

Celebrating New Years with my wife and our friends in Providence.

TAG YOU'RE IT!

Saw Shane today...We met on the highway after we both realized we had left work at the same time.

FIRST NIGHT PREPS

This is in Boston Common...The ice sculptors are struggling to keep the ice frozen in this warm weather we've been getting...

STAKE OUT

Sometimes you have to stake out a story while working in news...

STATEHOUSE

In Boston the Statehouse is right next to where I work.

HARRY POTTER AGAIN

I saw Harry Potter again for the third time and the experience is different...I laugh at the reactions of the background characters...
I then watch the scenery in all the action sequences and realize all the extra work put into it...like watching the shingles scatter during the fight with the dragon...
Then I look at the ending
scenes and look for any peculiarity I may have missed...and most of them are funny too...They added a lot of background humor behind the dark theme...
I still don't like the last conversation between the three main characters...When Hermione says "It's all going to change now isn't it?" and Harry responds with a shrug, "Yeah." they could have been talking about their pubescent hormones raging, instead of the impending Doom of having Voldemort around...Kind of Degrassi if you ask me.

PLYMOUTH'S BURIAL HILL

This is one of the oldest cemeteries in the United States going back to colonial times and some of the countries earliest European residents are buried here...It has all the markings on the side you see which is the opposite of what you would think looking at it in person...

WHAT THE?...

Who would name their store this? It is in Salem MA if you are interested in buying your liquor there...Me, I'll buy mine at the State Liquor Store in NH where it is tax-free.

Merry Christmas

Santa got Drunk and Astor, the Dutch Sheep, asked for a radio controlled car.

CHRISTMAS PARTY

Went and Celebrated Christmas with my in-laws...Heather's dad and I tried to keep up with her aunt Donna...Drinking Shots With my Wife's Aunt Donna.

CHURCH TIME

Christmas Eve service filled to the rafters with people who never go to church...

Celebrating!

I'm celebrating Christmas Eve with my wife's folks...If I don't get arrested and news don't break...HOHOHO!!

Sometimes life hands you lemons...

BLESSINGS of TECHNOLOGY

This guy on the right was talking in full volume the whole time I was on the T riding to my car. He had half the car in hysterics with what he was saying on the cellphone,

"WHAT'S YOUR NAME?...NEVER HEARD OF YA!...MUST BE THEY LEFT IT OFF THE LIST!...HERE'S WHAT I'LL SAY...BYE BYE!...MERRY F---ING CHRISTMAS!,"

Don't ever hold back buddy...You tell 'em.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM I-93

AT FENWAY

A player went to the Yankees today and I didn't shave in his honor. I covered the managements reaction to the loss and it is funny they looked right in my camera when they said it is never a good thing when they find out something like this from the media...I guess we knew before they did...Here are some pictures from Fenway Park

Working: Stories with no segue

I drove all over Mass. today and had a roller coaster of emotion with the stories I was covering...First I went to the zoo to cover a kid who was feeding the giraffe...then I went to a press conferance where they told us they got some guy who had kidnapped and abused a woman in front of her two year old kid...Then I went and edited the story for a reporter at the scene where they were rescued...then I went to a viewing of a game show Deal or No Deal with the person who was on the gameshow...then I went to Logan Airport to cover a possible plane crash because its landing gear wasn't working...but fortunately the 80-something people survived and it landed with only a few sparks...talk about a roller coaster.

Santa Not so Nice

So I was doing some research and discovered the reason Santa is supposed to be this guy really concerned with how well children behave...He used to have a companion...Sometimes he was a shrivelled dwarf who carried a bundle of switches to beat bad children...other times he has had a moorish slave accompany him...known as Black Peter...other times he actually travels with Satan himself...





When people became senitive to the problems with this they consolidated the reward of good behavior and the punishment of bad into Santa...I know that Saint Nick would be rolling in his grave if he knew that was the message children got...Saint Nicholas was someone who gave gifts to those who needed them and like Christ gave gifts to those regardless of wether they were deserving or not...

CAPITAL NEWS 9

I stopped by to see a couple of my buddies who work there...

I saw Matt Colomb and Joe Calderone at the station in Albany on my drive back to Manchester...

Matt directs for the station and spends a lot of time in the control room...

Joe works in sports there and spends some time before doing his segment putting it together in the Sports office...

While Joe readied himself in the studio I decided I would help Matt in the control room by doing the "difficult" job of teleprompting for Joe...A teleprompter is what Joe reads off of while the segment is going on...The script appears on a monitor in front of him and I had to follow along as he read so the words would come out right...

I met someone there with yellow shoes...

Early Christmas

This is a scene from the movie I went to with my family...We have a tradition of seeing a movie on Christmas and since this weekend was easier for our schedules we made the trip this weekend...We saw Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe...It was well done and I don't know if they could translate all the books to movies but it would be nice to see more of these movies...

We also took in the view of a well lit house on our way home...The owners took a lot of time putting it together...OCD

FANCY TOILET

Why would anyone buy a transparent toilet bowl lid?

LEO'S PLACE

I went this place in Harvard Square and they have Pepsi in a glass bottle.

YELLOW CAR AGAIN

It's amazing how much these cars stand out...all the others blend into the bleak morning light but the yellow comes through like crazy...

Commuting can be a little taxing...I have been working a lot lately and so I get up at 5:30 Am and leave for work to get there at 8Am...then when I am done with work...(today it was at 7:30 Pm) I head home and get home around 9:20Pm...making it a Looonnng day...but I ain't complaining because this is the first Christmas all the gifts will be paid for before New Years...yay!!!

FATAL ACCIDENT

I wear my seatbelt these days mainly because of all the car accidents I've covered where the driver would have survived if they had just worn the belt...Today I had to go to a car accident that didn't look that bad...In fact many know in my youth I have had similar accidents...It just was a simple tip-over...But this tiny school bus had a driver who was ejected from the vehicle and crushed by the vehicle because she wasn't wearing her seatbelt...It is really sad when I have to go to a scene like this...and to know that so many people's Holiday season is ruined because this bus driver has died.

Christmas? or Yuletide?

Today is a very important day in Roman Catholicism...
Norwegian Festival of Lights...It is the feast day of their Saint Lucia...and in the Northern part of Europe they celebrate this festival of lights with carols and and a young girl representing the virgin martyr goes from town to town with a crown of candles and saffron bread...

The celebration seems to be linked to pre-Christian solstice celebrations and Saint Lucy is supposed to be one of the earliest saints...She seems to bare a remarkable resemblance to Juno Lucina "Mother of Lights" the Roman goddess of childbirth who was attending the birth of the Sun Child born in winter...
Today is also the day that the Council of Trent began in 1545...it is one of the most important "ecumenical" councils for the catholic church because it had to address the reformation...they canonized the deuterocanonical books of the Bible like Macabees and Ecclesiaticus...I am always at a loss when one of these books are chosen for the readings in mass...

SUBWAY SARDINES

The train was filled to capacity and the last person on got their rear stuck in the door...I got jostled at one point and one of the angrier riders said (imagine an angry voice) "You're NOT going ANYWHERE!"...Like it was my fault she was stuck in a subway car with 738 other people...I looked at her and imagined a little monkey in a winter hat...It was warm in there though...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD

Robert Wood's Birthday is today and he decided to share his birthday and golden vocals with an ensemble of other birthday celebrators...Grover Washington Jr. and Frank Sinatra even showed their faces for this all-star cast of musicians...Dickie Betts played a couple of chords and they all joined in for a great rendition of "Happy Birthday to Us All"...Connie Francis wanted to make a remix but Dionne Warwick said that was only for has-been Pop artists and as a Diva would have nothing to do with a remix...Then she saw in the future them all eating cake...After they all settled down Bob made a promise to himself to only do duets.

O CHRISTMAS TREE

We brought our tree home tonight...And after we set it up (and moved it away from the heater ) (and then fretted about the lights)(and moved it back against the entertainment center) (then redid the lights)(then sprayed the whole bottom with hot sauce and vinegar so the cats won't deal with it)(and Heather said she didn't want the tree anymore)(then we moved it back where it started) I got to put up a few ornaments tonight...Here is my favorite from my parents...it has a voice recording of them telling me that the picture on it was of them when they were expecting with me...and that they didn't know who I would end up to be...But they're glad I turned out alright...

RICHARD PRYOR'S DEAD!!!

He died at 8am this morning of a heart attack...I am going to miss him.

DUSTY'STHINKINGHARDER 12/10

DUSTYS THINKING HARDER 12/10

I live in a world where Christmas isn't even spelled with Christ in it anymore...that's if they even say Christmas anymore...Sometimes they refer to it as a part of the holiday season...

I was very glad to hear something that lifted my spirits a little. Charlie Brown Christmas was almost a failure. Why would that lift my spirits? Because it was almost a failure because the people in charge thought that it would not survive the ratings because Linus quoted straight from the Bible in one of the harder translations. They said it wouldn't work. And they were wrong.

I also have a hard time with Christmas because it is a time when you are always searching for the gift that is equal or better than the gift you recieve. But then when you recieve the gift that is less than the one you bought (and worked hard to make sure it was better) you are sad instead of happy because of the accomplishment. Then you see that more people are taking the season to far with their tackyness and commercialism and you want to tell people that the best you have felt around Christmas was when you were at the Rescue Mission or some other charitable place helping them have a nice warm meal...Christmas is the time to celebrate when Jesus was born.

And maybe some people should remember that the night Jesus was born he was in a manger, lying in swadling clothes, in his mother's arms and listening to the sound of shepherds murmering their surprize at the birth of this person. There were no wisemen, they came much later, and their gifts were symbolic of his eventual death as a sacrifice...
The shepherds were just simple guys working in the fields who had heard the messiah was born. There were no golden gifts or whatever. There was just an overwhelming joy and the smell of farm animals...

Try and remember that while celebrating Christmas...it really is a celebration of someone's sacrifice...