Yep that’s me?at our annual flooding exercise at the Maricopa County Emergency Operations Center (EOC).? Channel 15 came and did a story on our exercise and they interviewed the Director of Emergency Management, one of my bosses.? Click here to view the story, there is a video to the right.? You’ll also notice some of the maps and applications that I developed for the response.
I guess it’s been long enough since I’ve been back that I’d better get posting.
I went to a conference for work a few weeks ago in Boston, MA.? It was pretty cold considering we were in the high 80’s, low 90’s when I left and it was about 40-50 degrees with the wind blowing off the ocean when I arrived in Boston.? The first thing that was an interesting difference was Logan Airport is located across the bay from Downtown and to get there you don’t go on a bridge, you go under the bay.
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In fact the freeway sits mostly underground (in some places 6 stories) around downtown.? Big Dig indeed.? Since I’d never been to Boston before this was a chance to take a few pictures of some historic sites.? Of course I didn’t take that many photos, because I’m a guy and Ginger didn’t go with me to make me take more anyway.?
One such place is Faneuil Hall, or the Cradle of Freedom, where Samuel Adams famously delivered several speeches denouncing the Crown and seeding the sentiments that bore our great country.?? How about Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution.? They don’t have tours on?Monday, oh well.
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If you can read the third one it says in the year 1634, wow that’s old.? Apparently it was a monument not made in 1634, but commemorating the purchase of the land now used as a public park called Boston Common.? Since it was still “winter” the famous duck pond was empty.? Next to that one is a house that is on Beacon Street which runs right in front of Boston Common.? There are some really interesting homes there and you can tell which folks are rich (or trying to be), because they have their windows open at night to show off their home decor.
It wasn’t all history in the country sense either.? I got to see Fenway (the Red Sox were away everyday except when I arrived and left) and I took a picture of Cheers, well at least the sign.? They say if you walk down the stairs to go in, it doesn’t look anything like the set of Cheers, well duh.? I also went into Cambridge and mingled with the folks from Harvard and MIT and found a delightful Brazilian Steakhouse.? Mmm, chicken hearts.
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If I had more time or money I would’ve stayed a couple more days to do more touristy things, but I missed the kids and Ginger kinda missed me.? Since for our ten year anniversary we went to Hawaii we are proposing to go back East to the Historical Sites for our 15 year.? Got to plan now, eh?