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Wednesday randomness
Sep. 19th, 2007 04:20 pmArrr! Avast, me hearty readers, it's Talk Like a Pirate Day!
I finally went to the farmers' market near South Station to get When Pigs Fly bread, including some of the more interesting flavors (and unsliced). Yum! Also, I learned that they may be opening a new storefront in Wellesley sometime this fall, which would be most excellent.
Also, there's some movie filming around downtown Boston.
Welcome to the brand new triplets! *long-distance squeeing*
Query (mostly directed at Jews who attend somewhat orthodox shuls): do you know of any shuls that are replacing their Birnbaums with something else (ie, have spare Birnbaums that might be in decent shape)? If they want to pass them on, I know of a minyan that would be more than happy to use them.
I'm probably the last one on the block to find out about Kiva. It's a very cool model for microlending, letting anyone help towards the small business loans people need. (Talk about Rambam's levels of giving!) Right now, there aren't so many people looking for loans, because they've had lots of publicity recently, which is encouraging.
The city of Cambridge sends out a flier about taxes each year (how much the budget is, where the money comes from and goes, tax rates compared to other local municipalities, stuff about excise taxes, and so on), which I find fascinating reading (along with critiquing their graphs: there's one pair of graphs that could be laid out much better in relation to each other). Included in the random information is a list of the top ten city real estate taxpayers. Top of the list? MIT, which contributes more than 10.5% of the entire tax levy. Harvard (well, the president and fellows of Harvard College, which isn't quite the same thing) is number nine, with just barely over 1% (and the top ten together are almost 28% of all real estate taxes). I know that MIT has a lot of space, but Harvard isn't tiny, even once the acreage in Allston isn't included. So is MIT that much larger, or do they give that much more PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes)? Or is this not a PILOT situation?
(The other eight places listed are all commercial, unsurprisingly.)
Last night I got out on my bike for the first time in mumble months (borrowed bikes on the playa not included). It was a great night for a ride, cool enough that once I took my jacket off, the overheating wasn't bad, and the air was crisp, and it was late enough that I missed most of the rush hour traffic. All good. I wore my headlamp, knowing my headlight didn't have much time left, which was the right choice, and though it was a bit annoying how the headlamp and my helmet interacted, the light was good. (I wish I'd remembered to start recharging the headlight battery, though.) I had the full legal complement of lights, a headlight and a rear light, also reflective things around my ankles, but I started wishing for something on my left arm, to make signaling clearer, such as using EL wire so my arm would be more visible. I could imagine two arrows (different parts of the arm are visible from behind when signaling left and right), plus a red octagon on the inside of my wrist (for slowing/stop), all on some kind of long armband, I suppose. I should get some EL wire to play with!
It wasn't a long ride, less than an hour, not pushing myself for distance. I need to remember that every ride needn't be longer/faster/whateverer; just getting out and moving is what's necessary. Because the walking*, though good, isn't enough, and I'm not managing the occasional weight lifting/yoga/elliptical/etc nearly as frequently as I should.
* To work almost every day, and around greater Camberville unless there's major schleppage involved. I'd hoped to walk 1200 miles this year; I'm almost at 1000 now.
I finally went to the farmers' market near South Station to get When Pigs Fly bread, including some of the more interesting flavors (and unsliced). Yum! Also, I learned that they may be opening a new storefront in Wellesley sometime this fall, which would be most excellent.
Also, there's some movie filming around downtown Boston.
Welcome to the brand new triplets! *long-distance squeeing*
Query (mostly directed at Jews who attend somewhat orthodox shuls): do you know of any shuls that are replacing their Birnbaums with something else (ie, have spare Birnbaums that might be in decent shape)? If they want to pass them on, I know of a minyan that would be more than happy to use them.
I'm probably the last one on the block to find out about Kiva. It's a very cool model for microlending, letting anyone help towards the small business loans people need. (Talk about Rambam's levels of giving!) Right now, there aren't so many people looking for loans, because they've had lots of publicity recently, which is encouraging.
The city of Cambridge sends out a flier about taxes each year (how much the budget is, where the money comes from and goes, tax rates compared to other local municipalities, stuff about excise taxes, and so on), which I find fascinating reading (along with critiquing their graphs: there's one pair of graphs that could be laid out much better in relation to each other). Included in the random information is a list of the top ten city real estate taxpayers. Top of the list? MIT, which contributes more than 10.5% of the entire tax levy. Harvard (well, the president and fellows of Harvard College, which isn't quite the same thing) is number nine, with just barely over 1% (and the top ten together are almost 28% of all real estate taxes). I know that MIT has a lot of space, but Harvard isn't tiny, even once the acreage in Allston isn't included. So is MIT that much larger, or do they give that much more PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes)? Or is this not a PILOT situation?
(The other eight places listed are all commercial, unsurprisingly.)
Last night I got out on my bike for the first time in mumble months (borrowed bikes on the playa not included). It was a great night for a ride, cool enough that once I took my jacket off, the overheating wasn't bad, and the air was crisp, and it was late enough that I missed most of the rush hour traffic. All good. I wore my headlamp, knowing my headlight didn't have much time left, which was the right choice, and though it was a bit annoying how the headlamp and my helmet interacted, the light was good. (I wish I'd remembered to start recharging the headlight battery, though.) I had the full legal complement of lights, a headlight and a rear light, also reflective things around my ankles, but I started wishing for something on my left arm, to make signaling clearer, such as using EL wire so my arm would be more visible. I could imagine two arrows (different parts of the arm are visible from behind when signaling left and right), plus a red octagon on the inside of my wrist (for slowing/stop), all on some kind of long armband, I suppose. I should get some EL wire to play with!
It wasn't a long ride, less than an hour, not pushing myself for distance. I need to remember that every ride needn't be longer/faster/whateverer; just getting out and moving is what's necessary. Because the walking*, though good, isn't enough, and I'm not managing the occasional weight lifting/yoga/elliptical/etc nearly as frequently as I should.
* To work almost every day, and around greater Camberville unless there's major schleppage involved. I'd hoped to walk 1200 miles this year; I'm almost at 1000 now.