MA Taxpayers Are Getting What They Asked For

When times are tough, you look for expenses in your household budget that maybe you can do without: “this is nice to have, but we don’t need it right now”; or, “we need this, but maybe we can be paying less for it.” Shouldn’t our State government be doing the same thing??
Instead, what does Beacon [...]

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A Silver Lining

A silver lining on the otherwise gloomy economic cloud – As of December 22, gas prices in Massachusetts (adjusted for inflation) are at their lowest level since April 2002.

Source: Energy Information Administration, weekly retail gasoline prices. Inflation adjustment based on Northeast regional Consumer Price Index time series from BLS.

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Energy Efficiency Myths

There are a lot of myths out there about energy efficiency. For instance, it is a myth that turning your computer off-and-on takes more energy than just leaving it on or in “sleep” mode; and the Patrick administration just announced it is taking advantage of this ridiculously easy way for the state to save some serious cash.
Boston (WBZ) – [...]

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Storms, Scaffolds, and Stuart Street Don’t Mix Well

Last Wednesday, I’m sitting at my desk at work and all of a sudden a massive storm swept through. The rain flew in sideways and the wind was so strong that some of the temporary partition walls at the construction site next door flew into the street. Observing all of the action from my 4th [...]

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Go Patriots…..Place!

The Patriots season officially kicked off yesterday with our first game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Technically, we won, but we lost our quarterback! It has been a dismal 24 hours and we’re all thinking to ourselves “what will this season bring with no Tom Brady?” At least for now, I can overlook this horrible injustice as I revel in the [...]

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End of Summer – It Ain’t So Bad

The unofficial end to summer has come and gone (Labor Day), the official end to summer is fast approaching (Autumnal Equinox)…and I couldn’t be happier. This is the best time of year in New England. Sure I love summer, and yeah, the dwindling daylight is a bummer, but there are just so many things I [...]

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Au Bon Pain in the Ass

Normally I stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for my morning coffee. I can’t remember the last time I bought coffee anywhere else, and today, it showed.
I was in Harvard Square with some time to kill and decided to get my morning brew while I waited. Harvard Square is familiar territory – I was pretty sure that there was no DD [...]

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Wicked Local Real Estate Info

Newton, MA - According to a report released by the Warren Group, an organization that tracks real estate trends, single-family home sales in Massachusetts in the first half of the year “plummeted” 19.1 percent, the lowest level the state has experienced in 15 years. The report also stated that the median price for single-family homes fell [...]

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Life is Better Down Where Its Wetter

Life is better down where its wetter, according to Sebastian the crab from The Little Mermaid, a favorite movie from my childhood (and adulthood, for that matter - I can still recite most of the lines!)
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the ocean and been fascinated by the idea that there is a whole other [...]

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A New Watering Hole for The Lake (aka Nontantum, MA)

The West Street Grille & Tap was a neighborhood staple for over a dozen years in the Newton, MA village of Nonantum. Last fall, the West Street closed for business. With the great food, good prices, and the fact that it was soooo close to our apartment, Dan and I were disappointed (and surprised) when it closed.
But [...]

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Gas Prices Creating Major Changes in Travel Behavior

Today the Federal Highway Administration released their monthly traffic volume trends report for May 2008, and the data show a trend that is significant, although not surprising.

Nationally, travel on all roads declined by 3.7% for May 2008 as compared with May 2007. This marks the 7th consecutive monthly decline in this metric.
On a moving 12-month basis, [...]

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Kayaking the Concord River

It rained pretty much every day this week, so, with the promise of great weather today – finally! - Elicia and I set out for some kayaking in one of my favorite places: a stretch of the Concord River that runs right through the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge from Carlise, MA to the Old North Bridge in [...]

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5 Questions

1. Are Facts Obsolete? Economist Thomas Sowell points out that many of Barack Obama’s positions are seemingly based on the notion that believing is seeing rather than actual information about the successes and failures of different policy concepts.                                 My Take: I share his frustration, particularly when it comes to important economic policy issues. There is an unbelievable amount of rhetoric [...]

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Flip Flops to Flip Over

Along with the hot weather in New England comes a few of my favorite things – ice cream, sun, outdoor activities, BBQs, and flip flops. I’m a casual gal and I’ve always felt that I had “sensitive” feet. Huh? Well, either I have sensitive feet or I just don’t understand the “beauty is pain” concept when it comes [...]

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Celtics Win, Despite Horrendous Officiating

‘Beat L.A., Beat L.A.!’ Celtics vs. Lakers in the NBA finals, it’s the match-up we’ve all been hoping for! These truly are the golden days in our region.
And yet, I still feel compelled to point out what was obvious to anyone who has been watching the NBA recently – the NBA has a major credibility problem with [...]

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Massachusetts Clean Energy – Assorted Links

Here’s a sampling of links about recent happenings with clean energy in Massachusetts – there is a LOT going on. Clicking any link will open a new window so you won’t lose your place.

Fenway Park unveils solar panels on roof - The green at Fenway Park will no longer be limited to the grass, historic rafters, [...]

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Kickin’ It Old School – Buzz Goes ‘Balls Deep’

We joined a kickball league! The “Massachusetts Minutemen” division of the World Adult Kickball Association, to be exact. A couple of our friends recruited us for the team, which happens to go by the name of “Balls Deep” (don’t even ask – I had nothing to do with it!).
We had our first game last week [...]

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Energy Efficiency: Low Hanging Fruit, Ripe for the Picking

…crude oil $125 per barrel, climate change, energy independence, insufficient electricity infrastructure, volatile prices, and the list goes on…
Energy efficiency is probably the most successful but least appreciated strategy for dealing with the significant energy challenges we face in blazing our country’s path to prosperity during the 21st century.
For example, U.S. energy consumption at the end of [...]

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The Making of a Firefighter

Firefighters are a breed unto themselves, doing a job most of us won’t or can’t do, yet we can’t live without.
In Arlington and Winchester, MA, a news photographer got an in-the-helmet view of the rigors of firefighter training. It’s about as close as you can come without having to endure it yourself. Click image to [...]

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Vote Red Sox on the 2008 All-Star Ballot

Voting is under way for MLB’s 2008 All-Star Game. Be sure to vote for all your favorite Sox players. You can vote up to 25 times. Thanks to Boston Dirt Dogs for pointing out that if you want to vote for Jacoby Ellsbury (and why wouldn’t you?), you need to write his name in because he’s [...]

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The News Media Who Cried Wolf (i.e., Recession)

As usual, the mainstream media, frothing at the mouth to bring us each day’s message of doom-and-gloom, has for several months now made it impossible to avoid the constant bombardment of references to THE recession and THIS recession. This must be the most widely predicted/presumed recession in American history. A NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey [...]

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Wild at the Franklin Park Zoo

Last weekend my dad, sisters and I went to the Franklin Park Zoo, which I hadn’t been to in years. Previous visits to zoos have consisted of rather uneventful animal watching. The animals just sort of sit there (and understandably – how happy and active would you be if you were stuck in a pen?). [...]

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‘Revolutionary’ CO2 Maps Zoom In On Greenhouse Gas Sources

Researchers from Purdue University’s Vulcan Project have created the most detailed picture yet of human sources of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. There is an article on this featured in today’s Boston Globe. This video is a really interesting animation presenting the data – you can see the emission levels pulse as emissions increase during the day and [...]

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Eaves Dropping on the Train – Boston Marathon Stories

I very rarely overhear interesting conversations on the MBTA commuter rail. When you are on a commuter’s schedule (i.e. on the train between 6 and 9 in the morning and 4 and 7 in the evening), you will usually hear miscellaneous and very BORING work-related cell phone conversations or the occasional commuter buddy chats to the tune of “how [...]

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April 19, 1775

Let’s not forget that 95 American patriots – the first American patriots – gave their lives on this day in 1775 at Lexington and Concord in the first battles of the American Revolution.
When British General Thomas Gage sent a force out of Boston to confiscate weapons stored in Concord and capture patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John [...]

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Bostonians – Go West for Food

When those of us living in and around Boston get hungry we almost always go east, and with good reason. There are countless great restaurants/food-stands in the city.
But if you go west, you can find some truly unique places where you can get a sort of country-comfort food that you simply won’t find in Boston.
So, for those Bostonians who [...]

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Searching for the Secret of Teleportation

 
For the past six months or so the Framingham / Worcester line of the MBTA commuter rail has been running off schedule. In my experience, at least every other day the train will be between 5 to 20 minutes late. For someone who just worked a full day and is eager to get home, 10 minutes [...]

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Home Sweet Massachusetts

Lucky for Dorothy, she had a cute 3-bedroom 2-bath house with a picket fence on an 8-acre farm  in Kansas to think about when she uttered the famous words “there’s no place like home.” If she were living in an apartment with Auntie Em, Uncle whatever-his-name-was, Toto and the rest of the [...]

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Should We Stay or Should We Go?

FRB, Boston – Between 1995 and 2005, home prices in New England increased by 85 percent, compared to an increase of only 56 percent nationwide. The growth in house prices was far greater than the growth of real incomes, meaning most households in the region have seen the affordability of housing decline in recent years. As a result, there’s been [...]

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