Browsed by
Category: Personal

4 Words Make a Major Difference

4 Words Make a Major Difference

Just a year ago, I proclaimed my freedom from the Tyranny of the Commute in a post on this blog.  The chief culprit in the absurdly long commutes I’d suffered for over a decade was the incredulously Rube Goldberg style design of the the traffic pattern at the on ramp to Rt. 95/128 north coming from the Mass Pike.  Numerous merges and crossover created an automotive version of a battle royale; a free for all in which everyone lost… This…

Read More Read More

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals tear it up at Tanglewood

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals tear it up at Tanglewood

There is hope for music after all, and it comes in the form of a hippy chick from Vermont Rock isn’t dead; in fact it turned up at one of the least likely venues, Tanglewood in Lenox, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra on Monday night and it came on the bus that brought Grace Potter and the Nocturnals to town. From the minute they took the stage, the crowd was on their feet, and they remained that way…

Read More Read More

Migration from Drupal to WordPress

Migration from Drupal to WordPress

I’ve been working on migrating a fairly large site from Drupal to WordPress (actually WP is just a middle ground, it’s moving from there to another platform) and noticed a lack of decent information about Drupal to WP migration.  Since I had to put some time in cleaning up MySQL scripts, and working through the move, I thought it’d be a good idea to document the information for anyone who needs to make the migration in the future. First off,…

Read More Read More

Death of Journalism – In the end, it was us all along

Death of Journalism – In the end, it was us all along

In the end, it wasn’t the Internet, or televsion or even bad management that killed journalism; we did it to ourselves. When I was in college, we held up the Bob Woodwards of the world as our mentors.  The story mattered above all else.  No matter who it was, it was the journalists job to expose corruption.  We were to be that shining light in dark places. This election cycle has shown us the lie in that.  We’ve got supposed…

Read More Read More

An End to the Tyranny of the Commute

An End to the Tyranny of the Commute

My years at Namemedia ended last month and I’m no longer forced to commute to Waltham from Central MA anymore.  While I miss everyone I worked with at Namemedia, I certainly do not miss the commute. Our workdays are long enough.  When you start adding an additional 1.5 hours each way, minimum, to your commute, it gets downright awful.  Then, add on top the fact that at least once a week you can expect a 2 hour or longer commute,…

Read More Read More

The Last of the Old Time Newsmen

The Last of the Old Time Newsmen

We are all a little less today, for the loss of a great newsman, Mike Wallace, formerly of 60 Minutes.  He was a slave to the story; where it lead and who it lead to be damned. But this isn’t a memorial for a man I didn’t know.  It’s a memorial for a profession and ethos that is gone.  I’d honestly love to hear what he’d have to say about today’s world of media bias. There it is, media bias….

Read More Read More

Gone in 60 Seconds – Survival at Sea Edition

Gone in 60 Seconds – Survival at Sea Edition

I saw the video on the news the other night of these guys who’s boat sank and one was able to film the entire episode with his helmet cam.  It was truly scary stuff for any boater, but for me, having been through the same ordeal, it was utterly terrifying. Many of you may have heard the story, perhaps told glibly after a few too many beers.  The truth is, that’s generally the only way I can tell it. On…

Read More Read More

America at a Crossroads – Death of Privacy and the Rise of the Machine

America at a Crossroads – Death of Privacy and the Rise of the Machine

We live at a critical juncture in history. Technology has reached a point where it is not only tool which we use to control the world around us, it is now potentially becoming a way for the world to control us. Yes, I sound like I should be wearing a tinfoil hat as I write this.  But the truth is that right now, in Massachusetts we have the state police actively scanning the cars on our highways for wants, warrants,…

Read More Read More