Month: October 2011

Dude, Where’s My Car?

A long time ago, I figured out that this LessonsLearned thing was only going to work if I am willing to share even the stupidest mistakes from which I am learning.  So here we go.   I have learned to put a reminder on my calendar, even a little tiny one, if I am going to have to change my routine.  This time, I was minutes away from making a mistake into a really big mistake.

I have now commuted to Boston hundreds of times.  And almost all of them on the bus.  So at the end of the day it was a very well-paved synapse path in my brain that led me, via the T, to South Station, then up the escalators and out the center door of Gate 2 to my bus to New Hampshire.   This time, as I reached for the door I said “Oh no!” (or words to that effect) as I remembered that my car was in Somerville, and that I should be taking the Red Line to Davis Square to get it, not getting on the bus at all!

It was a complicated scheme that including watching Baby Lillian the previous night, staying with Sally, and commuting in on the Red Line.  The rest of the plan was to include taking the Red Line back to Davis and driving home, and eventually that is just what came to pass.

I was, however, haunted all evening by the notion of how close I came to figuring this out five minutes later than I did, on the bus and headed up I93!

Sally thinks I need the new Apple 4S so that I can say to it “remind me to go to Davis when I leave work”.  But I think one or two words on my calendar around the 5PM spot (“drive”/”davis”/”get car”) would have done the trick!

Pumpkin Parking

I learned some useful things about attending Keene’s famous Pumpkin Festival:

1. Arrive early.  The party starts at noon, but things are setting up all morning, so arrive early to get a parking spot – read on…

2. Arrive from the West.  Drive right into town.  Get as close to Main Street as you can, and plunk down your money to park.  There’s no getting around it, so at least get close.

3. If you arrive from the East, friendly and well-meaning volunteers will direct you to a lot 1.5 miles away from Main Street with a shuttle bus and tell you that it’s your only choice.  Politely ignore them and drive to a closer lot, maybe one you can walk to.  Better yet, pass by town and arrive from the West!

This will raise an eyebrow…

or at least let you show off the ones you have…

Kris has been following this blog and she sent me a lesson to share:

“I learned that there is a product called Men Only hair color for Men’s mustache’s and beards. This works great to tint your eyebrows. You can mix just a little bit at a time and dab it on with a q-tip, wait 5 minutes and you’re done. This is a very inexpensive and easy alternative to spending money on beauty salon eyebrow tinting. The packaging for the mustache and beard and the overall hair color is almost identical so make sure you get the mustache one. Enjoy!”

Feel free to send me photos of your success with this and I’ll post them!

Worth 1K Words

I have learned (I hope) to take my camera (in its waterproof bag of course) on every kayak ride,

On this day, the late afternoon light and the calm water combined to make this amazing illusion: at water level the shoreline and trees made an absolutely perfect reflection.  It looked exactly like we were riding in the sky.  It was kind of eerie and very very cool.  I so wanted to capture it!

This is an approximation, but taken later from the boat ramp, much higher up.  In our actual boating experience, the sky blue was all around us, not dark like this.  But you can get the idea.