It's grass, not concrete.

I love city hall. Took me a while to appreciate the interior, but once it clicked I was in awe of the architects. The whole building is awesome, except for where people have butchered various parts of the interior. Even the plaza, which may not be pretty, has served the city very well for huge gatherings of all sorts.

I love the beaches this time of year. Pretty and deserted. Several ideas besides the north shore:

• Castle island in South Boston. Sullys should be opening this week iirc.
• Drive down to Cohasset and drive the roads closest to the ocean until you get to Plymouth.
• Make a weekend trip to Provincetown. Off season so a lot of stuff is closed but it's still beautiful down there. On a good windy day you can get sandblasted, it's quite an experience
• Head to Newport and do a mansion tour

Other ideas for weekends

• all the various art museums. MFA, ICA, Isabella Stuart Gardner, MassArt museum, Harvard Art, Peabody Essex in Salem, Rose Art at Brandeis, or make the drive to Mass MoCa. Many museums have free days or free/discounted tickets via boston public library
• speaking of which, visit the main branch of BPL
• Boston Athenaeum
• catch a show at symphony hall or Jordan hall at the New England Conservatory
• tour of Fenway Park
• day trip to Providence
• candle pin bowling at Ron's
• whaling museum in New Bedford

Another vote for one medical. $200/year but everything about it is awesome. I have no regrets about the fee I pay them.

Snow sliding off the roof?

Nope, it's just like being in any other grocery store.

I was a licensed boat captain for many years.

We had a small boat in our fleet that needed an outboard engine repair. I was sent to pick it up from the mechanic and bring it back. I went to the office, got the key, went to the boat, it wouldn't start. Tried for a few minutes, called the guy at the office.

He walked down the dock, got on the boat, inserted the kill switch clip that is standard on all outboards (and was attached to the keychain on the boat that I drove daily for a living) into the kill switch holder, turned the key and started the engine, and walked away. Never even said a word to me.

I have never felt so stupid in my entire life.

So their website still says they're "temporarily closed" for COVID but their most recent tweet from literally 1 hour ago (first tweet in 3 years) indicates they might finally be coming back. Fingers crossed.

https://twitter.com/TheRegattabar/status/1620087440877948928

The website says they have a few shows coming up but it doesn't seem like the same quantity they used to have.

Depends on debt and such, but assuming you get to keep everything aside from taxes and retirement savings you'll be able to find something. But you won't be living in luxury towers in downtown Boston on that. You'll be looking for places in Jamaica Plain or Malden on the orange line.

Scullers.

Mad monkfish.

Oak bar on certain nights.

Lilypad.

Darryls corner.

There are others but that will get you started. Unfortunately the pandemic and just changing times have led to the closure of some of the other great spots we used to have.

If you don't want to do the right thing and replace that entire piece of the surround, you could just cut a big rectangle of similar or complementary material and make a patch over the holes, using lots of waterproof caulk around the edge. But it will never look exactly right.

Wait, tasty burger closed? That was my go to late night spot before kids ruined everything.

I live on the first floor of an 1840s house. About 1500sf of living space. Forced hot water radiators and baseboard heated by gas, gas hot water, gas range, electric dryer, electric wall oven, window unit air conditioning in summer.

My total annual gas bill last year was about $2200, with summers under $30 and winter months up to $400. We use balanced billing to even it out.

Electric is about $120 in the fall and spring months. Has gone as high as $500 in winter when we're running space heaters. As high as $350 in the height of summer. We have a second fridge in the basement, a dehumidifier in the basement, and do a lot of laundry and dishes with a family of 4.

We spent thousands of dollars on insulation and more on new windows, energy star everything, there's just no good way to tighten up these old houses.

Most rentals here include water.

When I google just the brand name google says that some star markets and foodies urban market have it

I will say as a dog owner, all it takes is one bad owner coming to the same spot every day to really trash a place in a hurry. It's amazing how much poop a single dog produces in a week.

40 years ago people fought off MBTA extensions because they didn't want poor people to be able to take the train to their neighborhood. I think people just hate transit.

If you are so new to town you can't even spell it properly, you might be part of the problem.

When you're sitting on an airplane and the person next to you asks you casually what you do for work, do you tell them the whole truth?

No, but I did take years of Latin where we studied this stuff, and I also know my way around hiking.

But then again, google can tell me that the Roman imperial soldiers were 3x as fast as you give them credit for.

When I go hiking I am encumbered and definitely not on paved roads. Guilty of modern shoes. Still way over 1 mph on all but the steepest trails.

I walk 2.5 miles per hour and I'm not a Roman imperial soldier.

I want this for my wall

This is an easy google search.

But briefly, a nautical mile is based on the size of the earth. It honestly makes way more sense than a statue mile, which is just some random thing.

A knot log was a method of tying knots evenly spaced into a rope and then tossing the rope over the side with a piece of wood at the end. Wait a minute, stop the rope, see how many knots had gone out when you pulled the rope back up. So speed became abbreviated as knots, which is now nautical miles (vs statue miles, which are shorter) per hour.

A quick trip to Google reminded me that a fathom was just the distance between a sailor's outstretched arms, useful when hauling up an anchor.

We gave up on fathom for the most part, but the others are still useful.

First, knock it off with the heartless shtick.

Second, lead laws don't apply to a kid this age. They're designed to protect crawling kids and toddlers who are sticking things in their mouths all the time.

Third. Slums? What slums?

Fourth, they have jobs and services here already. So they need to stay here.