Alicia Sacramone

The past two weeks, most of America has been consumed by the Olympics.  In Winchester, MA, residents have been closely following women's gymnastics, cheering on hometown athlete Alicia Sacramone.  Before the Olympics began a sign was hung in the center of town wishing Alicia good luck.  

Shortly after, hand made and printed signs wishing her luck started to pop up in store windows.   With elections in the near future, it was exciting to see the entire town united on one thing: pride in Alicia.  Alicia came home from the olympics with a silver medal and was welcomed back with a sign on the opposite side of the bridge.

There was also a parade in her honor including police cars/motorcycles, a marching bad, cheerleaders, young gymnasts (ankle braces and all) and more.  I wish I had gotten better pictures, but it was packed!  Everyone came out for the parade and were so enthusiastic and excited to welcome her home.  At the end of the day, not only was I proud of Alicia, I was proud of the way this town was so excited for her and went to such extents to show her (and show her off).  She really helped put us on the map this month!

Thank you Alicia for representing our nation and town! 

Jiffy Lube

(I am not sure how to turn that picture)

Since I have been living in Winchester, MA, I have been going to the Jiffy Lube on Main Street.  While, most people go every 3,000 miles or 3 months, I have been taking full advantage of the free top off policy since my steering fluid line in leaking.  I probably go to Jiffy Lube every 2 weeks or so.  

In the beginning, I LOVED this store.  It is very clean inside (spot less!) and it is in a very convenient location for me.  As I started to go more frequently, I have begun to but heads with one of the men on the staff.  I must say, that I do enjoy most of the other employees (well except for the one who didn't appear to know how to drive standard, but that was a skills problem, rather than personal).  Anyways, this older man who works at Jiffy Lube often tries to joke around with me.  I am good for one or two laughs, but sometimes the things he says are not funny.  My typical reaction to a lame attempt at a joke is to smile and laugh lightly or briefly out of politeness.  This is not good enough for this man.  If I am not laughing hard enough, he will try to make me laugh harder.  Really though, this only annoys me.  He will also say:

"You were right, you were really low on steering fluid" (Thinking: No shit!  That is why I drove in here and specifically asked you to fill up my steering fluid and not bother topping off any other fluids)

"Yes, I know.  That is why I came in."

"Ya know, you are probably leaking it."

"Yes, I know.  The line is rusted out."

"I had my guy look and see if he could see what's wrong, but he doesn't see anything.  You should really get that fixed." (Didn't you just hear me tell you what is wrong with it?!)

At this point I am annoyed because this conversation is tedious as it is, but we also had the same one 10 ten days ago.  This may be a sign of my insecurities in or defensiveness of my dying car, but part of it is also me taking offense to their assumptions of my knowledge on cars, or lack there of.  So I respond:

"Ya, I'm gonna get it fixed.  This is just to tide me over."  And then I thank him to end the conversation and rush out the door.  Thankfully, I have an appointment in a few days to get it fixed so hopefully I can reduce the frequency of my trips to Jiffy Lube and the tension between me and this man!

Joe's Main Street Pizza Shoppe

When I first moved to Winchester, I picked up a takeout menu for Joe's Pizza.  While the place had the look of a great pizza place, I rarely get pizza.  Today though, on my way into town for the parade for Alicia Sacramone, I saw that it was packed with families.  A good sign that the pizza is good.  Then, once in town I saw lots of people wandering around with single slices.  Seeing only an ice cream truck in the vicinity, I knew this pizza must have come from Joe's.  

I must say, that had I not seen people with single slices, I might not have gone to Joe's for a while yet.  But, I stopped in on my way back to my car. Sure enough, they sold pizza by the slice.  This is important because:

1. It is ready faster
2. Portion control!

One large piece (potentially 1/5 of an entire pie) was a little under $3.  They popped it in the oven for a few seconds to get it nice and toasty for me and then put it on a paper plate in a paper bag (I note this, because this avoids styrofoam and reduces the amount of waste created by a pizza box).  The service was not only fast, both men working the counter was very nice.

Back to the pizza - I almost thought I wouldn't last the short drive home.  It smelled so delicious!  I was even more excited when it tasted as good as it smelled.  I must admit I may be overly excited about this because I have not eaten pizza in quite some time, but this was the greasy, floppy kind.  The kinda people crave!  As good as the pizza was, I almost wish I hadn't tried it because this could become a weekly (or dare I say more-than-once-a-week) tradition.  

P.S. - Don't worry, I will talk more about the parade once I finally remember to bring my camera cord home from work. 

Steps 2 Cure NF

I was out for a run around Horn Pond this morning when I saw a sign posted for a 5 mile race.  Always up for an event that involves a little competition and a free t-shirt, road races are even more fun when they are for a good cause.  After noting the web address and finishing my run, I did a little research into this race once I got home.

My first question was: What is NF?  

NF is an abbreviation for Neurofibromatosis.  According to Neurofibromatosis, Inc. "neurofibromatosis is a genetic disorder of the nervous system that causes tumors to form on the nerves anywhere in or on the body at any time.  NF affects all races, all ethnic groups and both sexes equally.  NF affects more people than Cystic Fibrosis and Muscular Dystrophy combined!"

My second question/thought was: Tell me more about this race!

Details:

Sunday, September 21, 2008 @ 10am

Registration: online, mail-in, or on-site (8:45am to 9:45am)

Race: 5 mile run (2 laps) around horn pond or 2.5 mile walk (1 lap) 

Cost: $20 before September 1, $25 after

For more information visit: here

Other Bloggers

On a typical Sunday morning web browsing session, I discovered that I am not the only one who reads the Winchester Police Log.  The blog Plog follows/ed some of the funnier police log entries in Middlesex county.  Unfortunately, this blog was abandoned in 2004.  Just in case, I still added it to my RSS feed.  

How bad do you need eye drops?

Well, you probably would be better off without them if they would prevent you from seeing a random mans genitals. 

Per usual, I was reading the Winchester Police Log.  From August 12 to 18, 2008 there were a variety of things reported such as:

• A stolen potted plant
• A motorcyclist lost his backpack
• Someone tried to illegally transfer money from a Winchester business to a bank account in Moscow
• Stolen bicycle
• Some car accidents
• And a patient harassed his optometrist for a refill on his eye drops.  (He actually showed up at the optometrist's home after he was denied the prescription at the doctors office.)
• A few burglaries
• An asian man flashed a woman out for a jog

Winchester Engineering & Analytical Center

For a while now, I have been describing Winchester as a bedroom community: a place where there are lot of houses, but people do not come to work.  While this is blatantly untrue since there are commercial establishments, I am slowly finding places outside of the retail and service industries where people come to work, further proving myself wrong.  One such place, discovered on my run this evening, is The Winchester Engineering and Analytical Center (WEAC) on Holton St.  This obviously intrigued me since I am an engineer. :)

Upon some further research I discovered that this building is in fact a small campus of one main building and nine smaller buildings and that WEAC is operated by the FDA which is in turn operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human services.  This facility is apparently used "to test the safety and performance of medical devices (x-ray machines and medical test kits), microwaves, radiopharmaceuticals, conduct radionuclide testing with food samples, and ensure seafood freshness through the fish sensory program." (That was a mouthful.)  

Starbucks

In case you have not heard, Starbucks is has been having some financial problems and has decided to close approximately 5%, or nearly 600, stores AND it will stop selling breakfast sandwiches.  

This is good news and bad news.

Bad:

Eat This Not That recommends Starbucks breakfast sandwiches over a bran muffin :(

Good:

Starbucks is not closing its store in Winchester (at least not yet).  This is good because we can continue to get shaken green iced teas (or any other beverage you enjoy) at our favorite store, while enjoying some of the benefits of Starbucks downturn, such as half-priced beverages in the afternoons with proof of purchase from the same morning. 

Since I am talking about starbucks, I must mention Pick of the Week.  Pick of the Week is starbucks program with itunes to offer customers a complimentary download on itunes.  At most stores there is a basket near the cashier with business card size coupons for a selected song or video.  These songs tend to be hit or miss, but hey, beggers can't be choosers. Sometimes I feel like a can man digging through the basket at the counter on an irregular trip to starbucks to try to find Pick of the Week cards from previous weeks.  This past saturday I scored two new songs, although neither are worth mentioning. 

Stop & Shop

On Saturday I went to the Stop & Shop store on Main St. in Winchester for some last minute baking supplies.  (I was making two large loaves of banana bread, yum!)  I decided that since:

1. I had brought my own bag
2. I did have some time to spare
3. I was feeling adventurous &
4. I love all electronic things that make me feel special and nerdy

I would try the new hand held scanners.  This is how it works....  There is a display with the scanners on it when you first enter the store.  The first step is to scan your stop&shop card.  The machine then decides which scanner you should use and notifies you by flashing a light on/or behind the scanner.  Then, you are on your own!  (But first you should grab some bags if you didn't bring any with you.)  You scan items as you grab them and place them in your bags.  When you have completed shopping you report to a self checkout line.  You scan a special barcode on the self-checkout station with your scanner.  You follow this up by scanning your stop&shop card again.  (Don't worry - there are directions at the beginning and end to help you along).  You can then use the payment method of your choice.  Once you are checked out you are done!  I do believe they randomly select some customers to audit though. 

Overall, there were ups and downs with this system.  

Pros:

Fun

Entertaining

Bag yourself (that's a pro for me, but maybe a con for others)

Know how much you have spent

Cons:

Takes more time

Feels like more work than grocery shopping typically is

Bagging while you go is a little bit difficult

Bottom line: this is probably not very efficient when you are doing a large grocery shopping trip but, it was fun and practical for my smaller trip.  I must say that I am very picky about how my groceries are bagged (especially my bananas!), so I was glad to be able to do it myself.  Sometimes when I use traditional means of checking out, I wish the bagger would step aside and let me bag.  I did, after all, work at a Shaws for 2 weeks in High School. :)