My husband is a software engineer and worked fully remote for a small startup/government contractor before the pandemic. In fact, they were in the process of opening their first small office when the pandemic hit.

I’m also a software engineer and would wfh when I had an appointment, at the end of my pregnancy, when my kid was sick or on a random Friday because I felt like it, but I was in the office more often than not and regular WFH weren’t super common.

It was done to limit crowds during Covid and now makes them $$$

I went Friday night and yesterday. With the cold temps after the warm days it was icy yesterday and probably worse today.

I hadn’t skied in 15 years and we got our 4yo on skis this year. We’ve been going to Wachusett because of the distance, but you’re right, it’s pricy. We’ll probably going to get a season pass next year, we’re not likely to make the long drives to NH/VT/ME next year with a 5yo who can only handle a few hours.

And that’s really how they get away with it - proximity to Boston.

You buy tickets for a session - roughly 3-4 hours. If you want to ski longer, you buy multiple sessions. They’re roughly time blocks like 7-11, 11-3, 3-7, 7-10

You used to just buy a ticket for the whole day.

I think 20-30 is a stretch. That would imply we should be in the teens for normal temp and that’s been quite cold here for as long as I can remember.

Interestingly, the “local small mountains” like Nashoba and Bradford are more expensive than many of the Southern NH ones, and even Wachusett, at least on the beginner side of things

We’re looking into getting my 4yo on skis and we took him to Nashoba thinking it would 1) be close and 2) be cheap because of how small it is, but I could save a lot of money by driving the extra 30 minutes to Wachusett or Pats Peak or Macintyre.

(Though I assume you’re including all of those in small and local as compared to, say, Loon or Killington)

I agree with you on everything else though - I need gear since it’s been 10 years since I skied, but I got a cheap pair of snow pants on Amazon and will (hopefully) by some cheap used skis and boots at the end of the season.

Even in the really bad 2015, I believe the snow storms didn’t really start until after MLK weekend. It’s still fairly early.

I worked at shaw’s in high school and when it was slow, they’d make us go block the aisles - what you call straightening. It’s really just supposed to be pulling stuff forward, not mixing things around, but the first thought I had last time I went into an MB was “wow this is some impressive blocking”

Stoughton is way worse now than it was when I grew up there 30-15 years ago it and it wasn’t great then either. Funny enough my parents moved there from an apartment in Randolph.

It’s not free. My mom worked for UMass for 40 years. When I graduated HS, it was the same benefit as the John and Abigail Adam’s scholarship based off the MCAS - free tuition, but when I went to UMass Amherst, tuition was $1700/yr. Academic fees were an additional 15k, plus room and board on top of that. Only the $1700 was covered. My mom didn’t even bother with the paperwork and I just took my MCAS scholarship. She used it for my brother and sister though.

I think they’ve since adjusted how tuition and fees work (I believe tuition used to be frozen, hence the high fees) so maybe it’s a better deal than 15 years ago, but not free.

And if you do frozen, it will take DAYS to defrost. You can’t just pull it out the night before.