My brother-in-law Andy Ramoniac honoured me by inviting me to join his balalaika group in performing a selection of Russian and Jewish numbers at his wedding reception. Between my terrible music reading — one of these days, I’m going to have to get better at it — and having to read tiny chord markings in a dimly-lit dining room, I decided to scribble out some quick chord charts for the performance:
On our vacation, we had the good fortune of catching up with several bloggers from the Cambridge area thanks to the work of Betsy Devine, who organized a lunch at the Chinese restaurant Changsho. Here’s Betsy with a squishy cow I gave her, taking care of the bill:
All Betsy needs is a squishy cow and some cold hard cash.
We were also happy to catch up with Suw Charman, who came over from London to attend the Enterprise 2.0 Conference taking place that week in Boston. Here she is, taking a shot of me:
Suw Charman takes a photo of me.
We were joined by a number of locals…
…some of whom are included in this shot:
From left to right: Marc Abrams, Michael Feldman, Halley Suitt, Betsy Devine.
One minor gripe: while Changsho’s dinner selection is excellent — the Ginger Ninja and I have had many excellent meals there, including our wedding rehearsal dinner — the lunch buffet isn’t up to their evening meal standards. In fact, it’s no better than your typical Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet place. Not there’s anything wrong with those places; it’s just that it’s Changsho’s dinner food sets certain expectations.
However, the point of this get-together was the people. It’s been a good long time since we’ve seen them, so we’re glad that we had the chance to catch up.
On our first day of vacation, the Ginger Ninja and I enjoyed a simple but tasty dessert that her mom makes: Brownie Thing, which is simply ice cream between two sheets of homemade brownies. It’s 81 square inches of dessert heaven:
It was good to see Berkman Center fellow and Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman at the Berkman Center luncheon. I brought presents for him and his wife Rachel (she, along with AKMA, officiated at the Ginger Ninja’s and my wedding) — Tucows squishy cows. He wasted no time in turning them into fashion accessories:
After catching danah boyd’s “My Friends, MySpace” presentation at the Berkman Center at Harvard, the Ginger Ninja and I made our way to an old hangout during her days there: Grendel’s Den, a nice little pub in Harvard Square.
We took a corner table and caught up with all sorts of friends — from Wendy’s high school days, her days at a dot-com and from the Berkman Center. A friend of mine dropped by too — Mike Zole, creator of one of my favourite webcomics, the now-defunct Death to the Extremist.
Among other things, Mike’s a musician, and he brought his accordion with him, which meant only one thing: Jam session!
On the way from Boston to Hartford, the Ginger Ninja and I stopped for lunch in Vernon to enjoy the food of her people at Rein’s Deli…
As with the Clam Box, this is much better road food than your typical fast food place will serve you. I opted for a tongue-and-swiss sandwich on rye with seeds, and shared some potato pancakes, baked beans and a lot of homemade pickles (which they serve free of charge).
While hanging out in the Boston area last week, the Ginger Ninja’s mom took us to The Clam Box in Ipswitch. The building was built to look just like a clam box, so I couldn’t resist taking photos…
The food at the Clam Box is classic New England fried seafood: shrimp, scallops, fish and of course, clams. You can eat in their dining room or on the picnic tables outside. You probably shouldn’t eat this stuff — it’s all deep fried — every day, but as a special treat, it’s far better road food than your typical fast food joint.
Here’s what I had for dinner: the whole fried clams platter, with a clam cake on the side…
If you ever pass through Ipswich, make sure you pass by the Clam Box.