Help the Boston Arts Academy!

The Boston Arts Academy needs help! Take 20 seconds and sign this petition that will be brought before Mayor Thomas Menino at the end of the week.

Read the details & SIGN HERE: http://signon.org/sign/guarantee-renovations

Mayor Menino, Superintendent Johnson, and Chief Galvin, Chief of Public Property, must make the renovation of Boston Arts Academy (BAA), 174 Ipswich St facility, Boston’s immediate and number one priority. They must commit the resources to ensure Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) approval of this project and its promised implementation timeline beginning no later than fall of 2014. If Boston truly values its only dual curriculum performing arts high school than it's time to prove it.

Join BAA Family Council in making our voices heard.

Tavi Gevinson is awesome.

Our weekend via Instagram ♥ v.4

The wintery morning from hell...

Have you ever see a postcard of Boston in the winter? It probably looked something like the photo below but I assure you it's nothing like that. It's not pretty and whimsical as the postcard industry would like you to believe guys - It's horrible.

Warning: This will be a ranty / whiny post so proceed with caution.

So I woke up around 6:00AM to help Lauren shovel the car out after last night's storm. Yes ANOTHER storm just like the other two we've had recently. Luckily this wasn't as bad as Nemo or anything but another 8" is enough to ruin your morning. So Lauren heads off to work and texts me when she arrives telling me the roads are horrible and she was skidding all over the place - we have four wheel drive mind you.

I get dressed and then wake Sierra up to get her dressed and it's still coming down pretty hard. At around 7:40 I call for a cab because I don't want to walk half a mile in a snow storm with a three year old. The company (Metro Cab) tells me it's going to be 30-60 minutes. Fine, no big deal, I figured it would be around that anyway. An hour passes and still no cab. I call and am met with a busy signal. I call about 10 times over the next 30 minutes and finally get through and explain. Me: I called at 7:40, it's been an hour and a half, is this guy even coming? And the the dispatch operator says "Did the cab get there and call you to let you know he was outside?"......... Yes sir the cab called, said he was outside, I ignored him and then called you to ask where he was. NO HE NEVER CALLED. "Sorry sir we will send someone right now it's going to be another hour to an hour and a half is that OK?" -- I laugh and say nevermind.

So now I'm in a bad mood. We have to walk anyway and we just sat for 90 minutes when we could have been on our way. We gear up and head out the door and it ended up being a pretty fun walk and a lot cheaper than a cab. The snow was up to Sierra's knees and she had a ball trudging through it and trying to beat me in the race we were apparently having. It's only a half a mile but with 8" of snow that's no easy task when you're 3 and my little one was awesome the whole time. This was the high point of the morning.

I drop Sierra off and start my commute to work. This involves another half a mile walk to my bus stop. This portion of the commute is all up hill and by the time I got to the top I felt like I had just run on the treadmill for 35 minutes. Thanks for the free workout mother nature! To the people who imagine Boston like that photo above think again here is a more realistic portrayal. Sludge, slush, soaked pants and sadness:

Once my bus came it was a 30 minute ride to go 3 miles down the road to Kenmore Station where I boarded the green line (thats the subway for you out-of-towners) where I then got stuck underground not moving for 20 minutes because of a "signal problem" - thanks MBTA! I then had to get off and board another train to go the final few stops where I then walked another half a mile in the snow to work.

I got to work at 11:15 AM which was just under 3 hours door to door. Hey not bad for a snowy day in Boston! So next time you see a cute little photo with snow covered roof tops and consider taking a wintery vacation to Boston- think again!

Is it 5 o' clock yet?

-Craig

Whats New Friday: Here we go again...

A while ago I used to do posts called "Whats New Friday" where I would give an update about what was new with Us (the family), Sierra and the blog. I haven't done one of these post since July of 2011 so I figure I should get back on that...

WHATS NEW WITH US: Jobs jobs jobs! Both Lauren and I got new jobs! Lauren left her job in Brookline and accepted a position as a special education coordinator / teacher for Somerville Public Schools in September. Supper happy for her / proud of her! My new job is a little more recent as in I started on Monday. I left my UI / Visual Designer job at SapientNitro and headed to EF Education First. This was for a variety of reasons the main ones being I am now doing UX work which is something I've been wanting to get into for awhile. The second major reason is working in the educational sector VS. the marketing and advertising one is a lot more my speed. I've only been here a week but I couldn't be more excited and happy with my decision.

WHATS NEW WITH SIERRA: Just about everything. She talks in full paragraphs, she does a lot of solo-imaginiative play with multiple characters / voices, She can draw people, animals, etc. She's quickly become a "kid" and I'm not ready.

WHATS NEW WITH THE BLOG: As you may have noticed we added 2 new dads, Andre and Don,  bringing the grand total of hipness to 4. We got a new look and we're actually trying to blog regularly. We also started a new blog series called: Moms on Dads.

-Craig