Originally uploaded by packyourlunch.

If you judge the quality of a party based on the amount of trash it generates, then I’d say Saturday night was a total success.

Munich19

Originally uploaded by packyourlunch.

People live the right way in Munich. Maybe it was the Beerfest. Maybe it was the post card perfect weather in late September.

Everyone was friendly. And if they weren’t friendly to begin with, after a few beers they were. This snap was shot after a night of hard drinking with some just-made friends. I was walking from the Beerhall back to my hotel.

I don’t remember taking this picture — or the walk home for that matter. I do think I remember speaking perfect German to a Bavarian man while he, in turn, spoke perfect English to me.

It looks like the marquee of the theater near my hotel was in the background when I took this picture. It is fitting because no one knew who I was in Munich, except that I was the only American around. Valerie grilled me about George Bush. Freddy asked about traveling from state to state. I was on stage.

But if that isn’t a content look, then I’ve never seen one.

First Fire of the Year
Originally uploaded by packyourlunch.

Sunday I had Mike and Kristen over to the apartment for the first barbeque of the spring. It was nearly 60 degrees in Boston, the sun was out and the steak and chicken tips were perfectly cooked. It’s getting to be the time of the year where I can sit on the porch with a glass of whiskey and not go anywhere all night. The porch is its own event for the evening and the season is almost upon us.

I can’t wait.

Sailors Monument
Originally uploaded by packyourlunch.

Mike and I decided that we were going to do something this weekend. Do anything, really. Both of us had been itching to get out of Boston — even if it was just for a day. We decided that since he had a loaner car and didn’t need to worry about the mileage that got put on it, it was time for a road trip. Even if it was just for an afternoon. We recruited Dave and off we went.

Up route 1A it was, along the shore with the possible destination of Portsmouth, NH with stops in Gloucester and Rockport.

We got purposely lost around Marblehead and ended up driving around the whole town for about an hour. We just leisurely cruised around the one ways and through town center pointing out massive houses as we saw them.

The MH (as I call Marblehead) reminded me a lot of home. Huge houses sitting on or near the beach with a view of the water. I could smell the money oozing out of these places. It was nice to check out, but I wasn’t too sad when we finally found 128 again and headed to Gloucester.

I was really looking forward to seeing the town. Until now, I’ve never spent anytime on the North shore. Or really anywhere outside of the Boston area, so it was nice to go and see something other than T tracks and middle fingers.

Gloucester was great. We spent some time in the visitors center climbing the huge rocks (I was, naturally, the only one to slip and eat rock), Dave and I took some great pictures and we generally just enjoyed being outside and in the sun for a while.

After the visitors center, the three of us strolled over to the promenade along the shore and took a look at the Sailors Memorial. It was pretty awe inspiring. Right on the shore, the green plaques were oxidizing red. It was almost like the memorial itself was reminding you exactly how much blood was shed for tuna, flounder and fluke.

And the names.

There were some years where hundreds of fishermen died because they were pursing their livelihood the only way they knew how. And here I am writing about how cool it was to see that monument for twenty minutes while I was taking a day to blow off steam. It was one of those moments in life were things get put sharply into focus by oxidizing metal on the ocean shore.

That moment lasted about 15 seconds. As I was walking away, a train of three semi-trucks drove by and they all honked their horn at a woman who was walking a dog on the median.

So much for quiet introspection.

After lunch, we headed north to Rockport and did the tourist thing around the old inner harbor. I checked out the lobster boats and the pots that were stacked on the docks before deciding to head off to the nearby rock quarry.

The path from the parking lot to the quarry was mud. The three of us hitched our pants up high and slogged through soup until the quarry. It was impressive. It stretched out about a quarter mile in front of us and the water in it was frozen solid. Oh, and the ocean was the quarry’s backdrop to boot.

Pair that with the monument we’d see a few hours before and I got a pretty intense feel for the power of nature — something I don’t usually find while I’m stuck in the city.

Here’s a cool image of the Helix Nebula. It’s a planetary nebula that is formed when medium size star expands and then collapses to form a white dwarf.

It looks angry, doesn’t it?