I’ve seen this view many times since Jocie was born. The light on the stairs as they ascend into the darkened second floor always struck me, so I decided to capture and share this little slice of my late-night traversing.

Two scenes as viewed from the train this morning. These are best considered while listening to Cicada’s Technology Crisis, which is available for free.

Back in the beginning of the winter of 2007, we had to replace our old furnace. Before the good people at Petro came in and deconstructed it, I took some photos for posterity.

No one knew exactly how old the furnace was, but most people agreed that our estimate of 60 years old (based on its styling, which looked ’40s or so), was accurate, or at least reasonable. Here’s a large version so you can check out the details of that door.

We were told that the big beast was probably operating at 40–50% efficiency. In other words, for every two gallons of oil we paid for, we were warmed by one. Our new furnace is about 1/3 the size, but lacks any charm whatsoever.

We were enamored with the gauges and dials, so we had them save this gauge, as well as a few other bits. We plan on hanging them up, once we prep them a bit.

We took a kind of odd pride in our throwback furnace, a piece of industrial design from an era where styling crept into every crevice of product design because every product was evidence of America’s prosperity. But it was time to let it go. Perhaps we’ll hang the gauge next to our digital thermostat, in memoriam.

This news seller clearly got these letters from other sources for bargain basement prices. It drives me crazy every time I see this sign because I know, I know, I’ve seen these letters in a logotype/logotypes before. Anyone have any guesses where these letters originated from? My brain will thank you.

We got our first real snow of the winter on Friday. We were giddy as we awoke to that wonderful suffusive light reflected by a new snow. This was also Blackbird’s first snow! We couldn’t wait to blow her mind with the view out the window (or I couldn’t, at any rate). Her response was… subtle.

Perhaps unimpressed?

I forgot my camera this morning, so in lieu of the cool shots of the passing scenery from the train that I had planned on taking, I give you me at 8:12 AM (conveniently noted in the corner), as taken by my laptop camera. I’d love to say that my concerned look is a sign of my disappointment with myself, but I apparently have a permanently furrowed brow. I guess I furrow a lot. You can’t un-furrow, so I think I need to start planning my life as either one of those concerned citizens you keep hearing about, or a curmudgeon.

“Diane, I’m standing here at 6pm on the side of Route 11 by a Cracker Barrel billboard, and there’s no question about it: when it is snowing, we have snow.” “What can you tell us about the situation from where you are, Barbara?” “Well, I’m here with the Action News 11 at 6 Team and we’re seeing a bit of accumulation. Not so much on the roadways, as you can see traffic is flowing behind me, but if you can zoom in here you’ll see that I’m able to get a handful of the snow. It’s a little one, but I can definitely classify this as ‘powder’.” “Barb, how are local officials reacting to the weather conditions?” “Well, Diane, local officials seem concerned that any instance of snowing will lead to snow, and this has their eyes on the roadway, which you can see behind me as we report live. Fortunately, as the storm seems to be passing north of us, we’ll not see more than this dusting we’re getting now, so officials are not concerned at this time.” “Thanks, Barb. We’ll keep you updated on the situation on the roads as the weather situation develops into the nighttime into… well, stay tuned for Bob Cazenstakas for the weather later on in our broadcast. What do you have next for us, Frank?” “Diane, viewers should stay tuned, we’ve got an important warning for consumers and parents about the possible health risks associated with allowing your child to stand up, a list of items that could give your child an incurable case of choking to death, as well as footage of a local dog whose hobbies include barking when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is on TV and being adorable.”

Yesterday, my friend Steve mentioned that the signage of Boston’s T, which originally used Helvetica, was slowly being replaced with Arial. It inspired this image.

Considering she grew this far from one cell about 10 months ago, I guess the rest of the trip isn’t such a big deal.