Gentlemen of the Road

Several months ago my daughter had turned me on to Mumford & Sons and it's no surprise I like this band given how much I like folk music, rock music and harmonies.  Well, several weeks ago I just happened to get an email from a ticket service hinting that there was going to be a rare show coming to Portland around the same time I heard mention of a rumor that Mumford was going to be coming to the States.  I mentioned this to my daughter, who was excited; and I told if she could get tickets when they went on sale, I'd pay for them.
Well, the rumors were true and the tour was rare, not only in makeup but in number of stops -- only four in the US.  Click on this Gentlemen of the Road link to learn more about the tour.  The tickets themselves are unique because they're like passports, with multiple pages describing the show and places to get stamps of each of the bands playing, and a beautiful plastic, almost holographic ticket inside.  Best of all, when the tour is over, you have a code for a free download of an "album" created from the live performances of this tour.  Oh, then to add more anticipation, just a couple of weeks before the show it was announced that the Dropkick Murphys would also be on this stop as well as headlining an aftershow concert at the State Theater.  This tour selected unique cities and venues to do these shows; and the shows are like festivals -- outdoors with multiple bands on two stages playing all day and early evening, followed by multiple shows that evening at intimate indoor venues...in this case in the quaint and historic Old Port area of Portland.  (We never intended to go to these but in my younger days, maybe)
On to the show:  Shel and I get to Portland to meet up with my daughter and her boyfriend who arrived earlier in the day.  The whole Eastern Promenade area of Portland was closed off.  So we chose to park at a garage near the Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum, which was offering free rides on the line that runs up the bay to the Eastern Promenade and the show.  As it turns out, immediately after turning onto Fore Street to get the parking garage there was a parking lot advertising $6 parking all day.  Woo hoo!  So we had a couple of blocks more to walk to the museum...no bigs, it was a perfect Maine August day.
At the museum we learned about the narrow gauge railroad history in Maine, looked around the museum and got onto a couple of cars...not a bad way to kill an hour waiting for my daughter to arrive, only 3 bucks apiece.  Then at 1:00 we hopped onto one of the renovated old cars being pulled by these little engines and rode up along the beautiful harbor to the show.  (there will be pictures!)
We arrive at the venue and what a gorgeous place for a concert...high on a hill that overlooks the bay.  We had a great time listening to the bands and enjoying each others' company.  My daughter is now 21 and these moments don't get to happen that often, which was really the whole point for me in going.  The show itself was mostly secondary.  Good thing because it wasn't managed well by whomever.  The lines to everything were insufferably long.  There weren't nearly enough vendors and the layout was not conducive to freedom of movement.  So you had a situation where there's hours-long lines to everything with people having to walk through those lines to get anywhere.  I don't know what they (whoever they were) were thinking when they laid it out the way they did.  But the music was excellent and the company even better.

AND SHELLY TOOK THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS:

the conductor

A Day of Sightseeing

Shel and I had originally planned on going sightseeing on Saturday, since the weather report was great for the whole weekend; but then the weather report seemed to show Saturday might be iffy, we were missing my cousin's daughter's graduation party and we could use a day to chill first.  So we decided we would do our sightseeing on Sunday and that decision was rewarded with perfect weather -- in Maine that means sunny, in the high 70s and very little humidity.
We wanted to get out and enjoy the outdoors and also be able to take our furry, four-legged friend with us.  So we chose to go to Fort Knox, Maine, to look around the fort and also for me to ride up to the observation tower of the new Penobscot Narrows cable stay bridge near Bucksport.

Observation deck at the top of one of the towers holding up the new bridge

Todd and me at the entrance to Fort Knox

The photos taken from the tower were taken by yours truly, the rest were taken by Shel, who got tired of taking photos.  So I have none to share with you from the second half of our trip, which was to take her around some of the cute coastal towns I'd been working in lately, show her some of the great views of Penobscot Bay and visit Holbrook Island Sanctuary, a small state park in Brooksville, ME.  I do agree though, how many photos of the beautiful coast of Maine can you share without getting boring.
All three of us had a very good time, one of the highlights being to grab lunch at a little seasonal stand called Bagaduce Lunch, which is located on the town line between Penobscot and Brooksville, overlooking an inlet of Penobscot Bay that becomes a little river separating the two towns.  I do wish we had snapped a shot there.  I had the obligatory and expensive (10 bucks) lobster roll and Shel had the haddock sandwich, which was basically a whole haddock between two buns.  Great stuff!
If you would like to see the remainder of the photos we took and I encourage you to do so, you can see them at the following link.  They include photos I took from the observation tower and those that Shel took of the fort and the area around the bridge, including this one:

Old and new bridges, looking from Fort Knox toward Verona Island

Oh, the Maine Park Service has this little booklet that's free that has a page for every state park, where you can add your attendance stamp.  We crossed off two this day and plan on trying to visit many of the others.  Maybe we'll share more photos later.  Please let me know in the comments if you cannot access the rest of the photos.  They're at Facebook but my account is open.  You should be able to see them.

Looking Up



The barn at the family farm --
symbolic and relevant

 As a testament to the philosophy that, if you just keep grinding in life, good things will eventually happen or at the very least turn around for the better, I give you the first quarter of 2012.
After a completely horrible 2010, I never would have thought 2011 would be even worse but it, in fact, was, having spent the entire year unemployed.  While there is a certain freedom in not working, it is not something I recommend.  Not knowing when that job will finally come is a harrowing experience.
So enough of the past, which I've never had much problem forgetting luckily, and on to the future.  The turnaround began with finding a job I could afford to take, which was doubly lucky given the fact I would've had to take it anyway since my WC was running out; but other than the fact I had to drive 60 plus miles to get to this job, it paid enough to pay my bills.  In the midst of that happening I got the love of my life back and that relationship has never been better.  If you know me, you know how important to my happiness that development is.
Those of you who know me know the bitter details of all the things that happened over the last couple years (and you all deserve thanks for the support) and so you know how far down that was and how far back up it is with just those two things happening.  Now add to that that two weeks ago a much better job fell in my lap, which I will start tomorrow.  Not only does it have a significant pay increase, it does not involve selling anything.  I'm very much looking forward to it.
The icing on the cake is that I became a grandfather for the first time a few days ago (yes, I'm still not sure how I feel about that LOL), though I suspect I'll warm up to the idea -- having a grandson, that is, not the getting old part.  Also, my daughter, son-in-law and grandson will soon be moving into the family farm that has been in my family for generations.  Knowing that your children are healthy, happy and grounded in the family tradition is arguably the most important of all.

Me and PJ, taken at the family farm.

If you look to the left of the barn, you'll see a canopy of sumac trees.  That was cut down last fall and yesterday I threw it all into one brush pile to burn later.  I'll try to use this blog a little more often to update on my projects around the farm, which will include a family get-together area using the foundation of the old silo that used to sit where you see that canopy, and the progress of the next generation moving in.

A Fine Example

You've heard me rant before about the nature of the average human being, how selfish and arrogant and frankly idiotic most are. This entry will not be another of those but a tribute to the kind of person who seems to have gone extinct.
My grandfather passed away yesterday morning after a few years of ailing health. He was a man of few words, yet you always knew where he stood. There was no fudging the line between right and wrong with him. He believed what he believed without hesitation and his actions always comported with those beliefs.
He was a child of the Depression, one of The Greatest Generation; people who knew hard work and hardship, yet were always there to lend a helping hand or give a piece of important advice, WHEN ASKED. He was never one to meddle in your business but you always knew the answer to a dilemma by watching the way he lived his life.
No truer proof of the quality of people exists than the quality of their children. My grandparents raised some of the most genuine, kind and hard working people you'll meet...learned, charitable and respectful to all, just like they were.
My grandfather was like a second father to me, except he was always there when you needed him; a counterbalancing force to the man who was my biological father. If you needed some cash, he'd put you to work; if you needed some advice, pull out the cribbage board and have a chat. He never uttered many words but said much.
I could go on and on and on with specific examples of my fondest memories -- from working cutting wood with him, to playing on a softball team together when I was a teen and he was 60, to the way he looked through you peering over his glasses with that "no bullshit" way of his -- but the point of this post is merely to attempt to articulate what an important person he was to me and how he'll truly be missed as an example of the way people should be.

Hopefully soon I'll have a piece on BoSox Tavern about him as a Red Sox fan.