jmharvey's Xanga

Year in Review

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 07:44:16 GMT

I guess some people still read this blog, and I haven't updated in a while, so here goes:

2007 was pretty good, overall. I'm going to my first NFL game this saturday with Riad (Pats at Giants, going for 16-0).

I got a fair bit of travel in:

- Billings, MT, in January, for a research trip for work, alone. Made a side trip to Badlands NP and Wind Cave NP (and Wall, SD). Also Devil's Tower, WY.

- Phoenix, AZ in late january? (not sure of the date) Saw Helen and Jeremy. Side trip to Las Vegas, NV, for 12 hours.

- South FL in early March with Joe. Saw the Sox in Ft. Myers, stayed with Joel in Naples, went to Miami Beach and Everglades NP.

- Seattle, WA for work, alone. Side trip to Vancouver, BC, to see Grace, and Eugene, OR, to see Anna.

- Sam's houses in NH and ME, late summer, with the Fort Awesome crowd.

- Vegas, July, Jeremy, Chris, and others. DefCon.

- New York, NY, early September (driving/train). Saw Shea Stadium.

- Dublin, late September, to see Joe. Side trip to Oktoberfest in Munich.

- Cleveland (driving), mid October, with Chris. ALCS games 3 and 4 (ouch).

- Phoenix, late October, met Helen, Jeremy, and Adam. Side trip to Denver. WS game 4 with Girl Sam (not ouch).

- Indianapolis, IN, for work, with Yuran, met Jeremy and Alex, early November.

- Toronto, ON and Niagara Falls, ON, early November, with Shuang.

- Ireland, met the rest of the family, mid November. Extended layover in Chicago, IL, on the way back.

- East Rutherford, NJ (driving, with Riad), later this week.

Other interesting parts of the year: Gautham and Sam moved out (and away), Ellen and Bigtime moved in. I went to my first NHL game and a couple of Celtics games. Went to 6 Sox playoff games (3 home, 3 road), including WS games 1 and 4. Work went well. My Corsica blew 3 cylinders, so I sold it for parts and bought an Altima. I replaced our bootleg cable setup with a digital OTA setup. Started flying lessons over the summer, but the busy travel schedule in the fall made it hard to continue. Want to continue soon.

Early Sox Memories

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 09:34:29 GMT

My response to the Varsity Dad question, "What's the key formative age for forging sports-fan allegiances?"

I remember going to my first game when I was 5. Kind of. It was July 15, 1988, and I only know that because on our way in to Fenway my mom was explaining why the Red Sox had fired John McNamara (her explanation was, "because they couldn't fire the whole team.") I remember that conversation and I remember walking up the steps of canvas alley and seeing how BIG everything was. But I'm not sure I was really a fan in my own right at that point.

But two years later I became a fan for real. July 17, 1990. The Twins turned a triple play to kill a sox rally in the 4th, which prompted my dad to explain how rare triple plays are, and how lots of baseball fans go their whole lives without seeing one. I had to go to camp the next morning, so we had to leave the game at 9:00. Which was the bottom of the 8th inning, no out, Sox up one, one on, and Boggs up. After much begging, my dad agrees to let us stay to see Boggs. And, of course, he walks. Despite my best 7-year-old efforts, we leave, and as we're outside waiting for my mom to pick us up, a roar goes up from the stadium. As my dad and I are trying to figure out whether boggs scored from first on what must have been an amazing play, my mom pulls up.

"What happened?" we ask.

"You didn't see it?"

"What?"

"The triple play."

"We saw the triple play."

"Really? How long have you been out here?"

"A couple of minutes."

"Oh, no, there was another one."

Right. The only game in major league history with two triple plays, and we miss the second one by one batter. My dad promised never to make me leave a game early ever again, and he kept his word. That fall I glued myself to the TV for the ALCS (and hated myself for thinking that Dave Stewart just seemed cooler than Roger Clemens).

By opening day 1991 I was smuggling a radio into my second-grade class to listen to the game. As a seven year old, I had no idea how to tune a radio to a particular station, heck, I didn't even know there were different stations, I just figured you fiddled with the knob until it worked. Eventually my teacher figured out what I was trying to do, and though I thought I was being devious, my teacher took my radio, tuned it to the sox game, and had the whole class listen to the game for the last hour of the school day.

So, with a little prodding from my mom, my dad, and my second-grade teacher, I was a full-fledged Red Sox fan at age 7.

Little Things

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 04:53:49 GMT

It's the little things that make life interesting.

Watched Natural Born Killers. It was pretty good.

fantasy football

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 03:40:02 GMT

Draft was tonight. My team:

1) Shaun Aexander
2) Steve Smith
3) Steven Jackson
4) Brian Westbrook
5) Antonio Gates
6) Eli Manning
7) Plaxico Burress
8) Michael Vick
9) Reggie Bush
10) Deion Branch
11) Joe Horn
12) Mike Vanderjagt
13) New York Giants Defense
14) Jacksonville Jaguars Defense
15) Chris Cooley
16) Keenan McCardell
17) Ben Roethlisberger
18) Ahman Green
19) Reggie Brown
20) Alex Smith
21) Jay Feely
22) New England Patriots Defense
23) Antwaan Randle-El
24) LenDale White
25) Heath Miller

you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave

Thu, 18 May 2006 13:51:26 GMT

I'm in Beijing. Living in the tourist bubble, for the most part. The muzak in the hotel lobby seems stuck on "hotel california." Which is ok, I guess.

The trip so far:

Monday: BOS to JFK to dateline (crossed near north pole)

Tuesday: Dateline to PEK. Flew across siberia and mongolia. Ate dinner, went to sleep.

Wednesday: Tourist bubble. Summer palace, temple of heaven, forbidden city, tiennamen square. Spiel at national pharmacy. Took a cab to walmart, cabbie dropped us off farther from walmart than we started. Walmart was a lot like american walmart. Bought a camera. Hit a bar in something like americatown, I guess.

Today (thursday): Tourist bubble in the countryside. Great wall, jade gallery, ming tombs, cloisenne gallery. I'm pretty exhausted.

World Baseball Classic

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 02:57:23 GMT

Went to see venezuela-italy today at Disney. It was pretty cool. 80% of the people there were rooting for venezuela, 10% for italy, and 10% didn't really care, but mostly wound up rooting for Venezuela (I was in the third group). The venezuela fans were really into it. There were hundreds of venezuelan flags (and not little handheld ones, I'm talking like 4' x 6' ones). Lots of chants and cheers, mostly in spanish.

Back to Boston tomorrow. I'm supposed to fly out at 6, but Joe's on a noon flight and Kathryn's at 2, so I'll try to get bumped to an earlier flight.

Islands of adventure

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 21:40:25 GMT

I'm all wet.

Maybe I shouldn't have gone on the raft rapids ride right before leaving. Oh well.

Ride count for the day:
Hulk Roller Coaster: 3 times (2x in the front row)
Fire Roller Coaster: 2 times (1x in the front)
Ice Roller Coaster: 1 time (in the front)
Bluto's river rapids: 2 times
Jurassic park raft ride: 1 time
Spiderman ride: 2 times
Dr. Doom elevator ride: 2 times
Cat in the Hat ride: 1 time
Plus a stunt show and a dr seuss zoo. The cat in the hat ride was kind of cool in its own right, in that it was like stepping into the book. The roller coasters were great, but they beat me up a little. There were no lines most of the day, which basically meant no recovery time between rides. I don't feel so great.

A real blog entry

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 03:21:09 GMT

Wow... a real blog entry.

I'm on vacation. Like, a real vacation, where I don't have to do anything, and I get to relax. In Florida.

I was going to go to a baseball game today (Dominican vs Houston in Kissimmee) but slept late and went to the grocery store instead. You have to be creative at the grocery store when you don't have a kitchen of any sort in the hotel (no fridge, even).

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(an aside: I'm watching the oscars right now, how does Brandt (mr lebowski's assistant from Big Lebowski) win best actor?)

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Yeah, so, groceries. We managed, but we're not exactly gourmets this week. We had dinner at Charley's Strakhouse for Kathryn's birthday. (it's me, Joe, and Kathryn here til thursday). It was Fan-tastic. Like, yeah, you could taste the cedar chips from the grill in the meat.

Tomorrow Joe and I hit Islands of adventure. Roller coasters. I love roller coasters. I havne't been on any in several years though, maybe one day at Six Flags New England since I was at Islands five years ago. Kathryn kicks back by the pool.

Tuesday we go to Fort Myers to see the Sox play the Orioles. Maybe meet up with Joel in Naples. It's about 200 miles away, so it's an all day trip. Maybe talk to Joel about business. We'll see. When tuesday rolls around I'll also have a chance to firm up my business schedule for the next couple of weeks. That will be good. I hope I've got a couple of days of prep time before my next big deadline, but it's possible I'll have to jump right into the thick of things when I get back Thursday.

Right, so, Wednesday. It's still up in the air what we do during the day (maybe grab a free day at Islands, a one day ticket is good for 5 days this week, for some reason). Then we hit the WBC at disney that night (venezuela vs. italy).

Thursday I bum around and go home. Maybe islands again, I'm not sure. Maybe something else. The rental car is in my sister's name, I should have checked to see if I could drive it, but I didn't. Oh well.

Mmm... that steak was good.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 04:03:28 GMT

grep gry$ /usr/dict/words

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 19:48:36 GMT

Back, and better than ever

I gotta say, this was a good year.

I'm thinking about going to RI today. It just seems like I should. So far this year I've been in:

USA: MA, NH, ME, VT, CT, NY, PA, OH, MI, IN, IL, MO, KS, TX, OK, NB, IA, SD, MN, ND, MT, ID, UT, NV, AZ, and CO.

CAN: AL, SK, MB, ON, and QC.

AUS: VIC, SA, NT, QLD, NSW.

So that's 26 of 50 US states, 5 of 10 Canadian provinces, 4 of 6 Australian states, and 1 of 2 major Australian territories. But no Rhode Island. And it's like a 45-minute trip.