Mall Cop

Paul Blart: Mall Cop. It's a new Columbia Pictures movie. I was just watching the trailer on apple.com and noticed something very interesting. A lot of it was shot in the Burlington Mall! (For those of you who don't live near Arlington, that's our local mall.) I nearly couldn't believe what I was seeing, but Legal Sea Food and a very distinct Burlington Mall kiosk can clearly be seen. No idea as to when they shot it, but I'm sure it was a few months ago at least. Here's the link to check it out:

Paul Blart: Mall Cop trailer

De-pantsing

When writing for a major news source, details are important to a story. Early on in reporting class in college, I was taught how to structure the details of a news story. Important/general, eye-catching items go at the top. Not-so-important, filler info items go at the bottom. It's called an inverted pyramid structure.

That in mind, there was an article this afternoon on ESPN.com that caught my eye. I started reading at the top...In summary, this past weekend, a football coach (Mike Singletary) was trying to motivate his team (the San Francisco 49ers) during a halftime speech. To emphasize his point that the 49ers were having their tails whipped, Singletary pulled down his pants. Hmm, ok. I appreciate knowing that, John Clayton, senior writer for ESPN and football Hall-of-Fame writer. Now, what else is going on in sports...

"Singletary was wearing boxers."

Whoa! Whoa!! Where'd that come from? But I kid you not. That was the second to last line of the article. By putting that line in there, John, you're telling me that Singletary wearing boxers actually has some impact on this story. That's like telling me there was cheese on the pretzel Bush, Jr., choked on! That the child Michael Jackson dangled was wearing pampers!

I know baseball is now over for the year, but to me that came straight out of left field.

Snow show

Hey, no snow! I can't say I was too sad to wake up this morning and find that all of the snow forecasted to hit Boston dumped in eastern NY/western Mass. In fact, I even took the time to document how well uncovered the front lawn was by snow.

There was some excitement in front, however, despite the noted absence of snow. For a few weeks a section of the sidewalk out front of the Wrights has been set for replacement. Today, that replacement happened. Great news for those walking by and those pushing lawnmowers.


Even more exciting was the case of the missing piece of asphalt. Donna, the next door neighbor, who has some mental deficiencies, was sure one of the kids in the neighborhood had gotten to the asphalt too quickly and knocked out a piece. Exhibit A in picture below.


Once I caught on to what she was getting at, I quickly assured her the hole was for accessing the piping underneath. "Ohhh, I've got one of those, too. Actually, I've got two in my sidewalk," Donna quickly quipped. She's always trying to one up me.

For those of you not in New England, here's a few shots of the tree out in front of the Wrights.




Most of the trees around Boston still have their leaves. It will still be a few weeks before everything really starts coming down. Then the fun of raking begins, and after that, undoubtedly snow! Have I ever told you how much I enjoy spring?

It's coming...

It looks like Boston is going to get its first taste of snow tonight. Right now, it's rainy/drizzly and in the low 40s, but the forecast is for it to get colder overnight. Looking at the radar, New York is pretty well covered in snow, so I don't think it's going to just scoot its way around us. Guess we'll see what it's like in the morning!

My trip to Sunnyvale

The first week of September, I attended a quarterly meeting at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, Cali., for the program I am a part of at work. It was quite the experience flying all the way across the country, and marked only the second time in my life I'd been in California. I didn't do much at all during the two days of meetings but I was able to make up for it by seeing family who live in the Bay area!

My bed at the hotel--it's nice traveling for business as I get put up in business suites. This particular room had a living space and a bedroom with a flat-screen TV in each space.

The living space, more or less, with the couch not able to be seen off to the left.

I live life dangerously so I took some photos while driving to my cousin's house. I really wanted a shot of the mountains out there and this was one of the best views of them I got.

And there's cousin Margo and Steve's house!

Here's their littlest guy, Simon.

This expression of his cracked me up.

My cousin and her husband have three boys, and after watching them live life for an evening, I couldn't help but think that it was a glimpse at my family in its early days. This was the oldest, Zach, playing with my uncle Bill.

The whole family.

My uncle Bill and aunt Betty.

I had a direct flight to San Jose, but on the way back I had to stop over in Salt Lake City. Flying into SLC, it was absolutely gorgeous with the Rockies and the Great Salt Lake rolling by underneath. Unfortunately, I had an aisle seat so I couldn't take any photos from the plane, but I did get some once we were on the ground.


While it certainly wasn't a thrilling business trip, I had a lot of fun seeing that area of the country--not to mention family. Here's looking to next year's trip!