New Thing #305: Lumosity

One of my favorite podcasts ('Stuff You Should Know') had a new sponsor this week. I don't usually pay attention to the ads on the podcasts for the most part - they mostly become background noise.

But, like when there's silence after a long stretch of noise, or another kind of change in a sound pattern, when there's a change in the ads it catches your attention.

That's how I heard about 'Lumosity'.

The tagline was something like 'Improve your brain performance and live a better life.'

Who can say no to that?

The website, if you sign up for a trial run, gives you a personalized training program.

You answer a number of questions about the type of memory or skills you want to improve - remembering people's names, improving long-term memory, practicing problem-solving skills, improving focus - and then they spit out a few activities that help your brain.

One of the memory activities was like the old Nintendo game 'Duck Hunt'. They flashed a number in the middle of the screen, and then a duck somewhere else. After the number and bird go away you have to click the place where the duck was and then type in the number. As you can probably guess, it gets progressively harder.

The activities are not unlike those brain games you play where you look at a list of colors and you have to tell the color of the words when they spell out a different color. ('Green', written in 'Blue', for example. If you've never done it, it's hard to say the right thing.)

The game pictured above was easy - it just involves quick thinking and arrow-clicking.

But I had trouble with some of the games. There was a pattern game that got very difficult - you were supposed to remember which squares on a grid lit up and re-create the pattern. I did OK on the small grids, but as they got larger it got too hard for me.

I'm always game for activities that make me feel like I'm improving the way I use my brain. That's why I became such a fan of crossword puzzles in recent years.

And there's an iPhone component with Lumosity that I was excited about as well.

But, as I feared, the initial sign-up was just for a trial period. And a subscription is more than I'm willing to pay right now.

So I guess improving my brain with Lumosity is just not in the cards.

New Thing #304: A Jack-O-Lantern Design

For a long time I've thought about doing something on a pumpkin besides the traditional scary or silly-looking jack-o-lantern. But I've always thought it was going to be just too hard.

This year, though, is all about jumping in and trying something that I always thought might be too hard.

So, I carved a pumpkin with a design on it.

Now, rest assured - I am not turning into a Red Sox fan.

I guess I just find the Red Sox and their logo and their ballpark aesthetically pleasing.

And I love my daughters. And they're very excited about Halloween. And carving pumpkins. And they like the idea of the Red Sox in the World Series.

So all of that adds up to a Red Sox pumpkin.

Let me take you through the steps picture by picture.

 I've told you about my trouble settling on big decisions. Figuring out what to carve was one such decision. I toyed with the idea of something Mets-related, but the 'NY' looked too difficult. (Plus, what would I tell the neighbors. It would invite too many questions, not the least of which would be, "With the Red Sox in the World Series you carved a Mets pumpkin why...?") My original idea was the Boston 'B'. I found this stencil on-line at mlb.com and dove right in.

I was not at all pleased with my drawing. (You can see that picture at the top of the post.) I didn't like the proportions. But, as I joked on social media, I was either going to do a great jack-o-lantern or destroy a pumpkin. I figured it was reckoning time. And it looked like we were heading towards the 'destroy' option.

(I should say here that my daughters and my wife cleaned out the pumpkins of the pulp and seeds. I have tactile issues and hate touching the inside of a pumpkin. My wife rather enjoys it.) I was going to have my wife do the carving, but she didn't think she could do the curves, so it was on me. I think I did a pretty good job, except, as you can see, that bottom piece didn't really have the proper support.

So I threw in a toothpick to prop it up. Success. Here's what it looks like all lit up:

New Thing #303: Cabbage Wraps

Every so often when we need an easy dinner for our family of five, my wife will pick up a rotisserie chicken To Go from Sudbury Farms. I don't love this kind of chicken.

It's OK...I've just never been the biggest fan of chicken on the bone.

It's usually too much work for little reward - It's a meal that doesn't always fill me.

And I figure that I don't like all the work, dirtying my fingers, pulling meat off the bone, just to end up still hungry.

(I guess I'd make a pretty terrible bear.)

But earlier this week I really enjoyed this chicken - and who would have guessed I'd have cabbage to thank.

First of all, there wasn't a lot of pulling chicken off the bone. I came home later, and my wife had already put most of the chicken meat on a plate.

There was rice, there were cabbage leaves, and there was the chicken.

I put the chicken in the wrap and added a little bit of salt, and it was extremely delicious.

Now - understand where I'm coming from here - I've been to The Cheesecake Factory with people who order the fish tacos there. And the fish tacos come in some kind of leafy wrap. And I never thought those were legit tacos...because tacos have shells, not leafy wraps.

But then I had this cabbage wrap, and I'm all turned around.

So you're going to have to give me a minute to gather myself.

Everything I know about wraps has been turned on its head.

New Thing #302: Driving Into Somerville With Confidence

This is like Somerville: Redux. (Is that the proper use of redux? I'm not sure.) Back in January I shared with you the fact that I get awfully confused when I drive into Somerville/Cambridge.

I haven't spent much time there since, but on Saturday I took my daughters to a birthday party in Porter Square.

I almost blew it - coming off Route 2 I was in the wrong lane and I missed my turn onto 2A, which would take me right to the place where the party was.

But I popped the map onto my phone and immediately I knew what to do.

You can see 3/16 on the left of that map I've provided. That's where I was. And you can see 2A, where I should have turned. A little farther north I saw Broadway, so I took that turn.

Broadway veered slightly right at Holland Street. (This is the area where I went to Joshua Tree back in January.) Then, a little later, it veered a bit more right on Elm. Off of Elm was White Street, and that's where the shopping center was where the party was being held.

Also in that shopping center - a Shaw's Supermarket. This is the same Shaw's parking lot where I parked (not exactly legally) once in a while to attend graduate classes at Lesley University ten years ago!

Once I realized that connection, a lot of other pieces of the Somerville puzzle started falling into place.

It's only a slightly Newer Thing than the time I wrote about Somerville in January - but it's a pretty New Thing.

I don't think I'm intimidated by driving into Somerville anymore.

But there's a big negative to this:

No longer can I rely on my old crutch for when I'm late to something in Somerville.

Because it's just not true that I have no idea what I'm doing when I drive in Somerville anymore.

New Thing #301: Lightning Bolt

I haven't paid much attention to Pearl Jam in recent years. I remember Eddie Vedder did some solo stuff for some movies (I think the one with that guy who cut off his hand under that rock).

But the last time I had anything to do with Pearl Jam was when I bought Yield when I was in college back in 1998.

I liked that album - and believe it or not, that's the only Pearl Jam album I've ever bought.

But I think I'm buying this new one.

Now, don't get all riled up - of course I'm familiar with Pearl Jam's great early albums. I've listened to Ten with friends (and I'm pretty sure my wife owns it), and I think I've heard most of Vitalogy and Vs. And, you know, they're a band that gets a lot of radio play. So I knew them for my whole teenage-and-up life. I just didn't buy the albums...mostly because that was a time in my life where I didn't buy a lot of albums.

But I got Yield when I was at an age where I started to buy a lot of albums. I remember loving Wishlist the most.

And I knew a new Pearl Jam album was coming out recently...but I was reminded to check it out when FOX used some Pearl Jam music as a bump in from commercial during Game 1 of the World Series. It just brought this wave of nostalgia because I hadn't heard their music in so long.

Then I saw that Jimmy Fallon had 'Pearl Jam Week' on his show, and I watched the performances of Lightning Bolt (the title track from the album) and Sirens from his show. I liked them both.

I tend to think of Pearl Jam as dark. (That's what Jeremy played over and over on MTV will do to you, I guess.) These songs, though, seem light. Or lighter, at least.

And, man, they are a cool band. Aren't they? Here are two links to the songs I saw them do on Fallon - that is just one cool band.

I haven't listened to the album, though I will probably download it. One person who has, though (and one person who I think I gathered from Facebook has already seen them do a couple of live shows promoting the album), is my cousin Joann. I know few people more (or equally) passionate about a band than Joann is about Pearl Jam. (For reference: there's Justin and Bruce Springsteen, me and Billy Joel, my cousin Eddie and Huey Lewis and the News, to name a few.) So I asked for her thoughts. Her response was so well-written I just threw it here as a screen shot. Take it for what it's worth. (My caveat: I once thought Mark Sanchez was going to be a great quarterback. Sometimes love can be blind.)

Oh yeah - Forgot to mention - most of my cousins call me 'Johnny'.

New Thing #300: Doing 300 of Something

300 is a big number. (It's also a round number - I couldn't let it pass by without recognizing such a fun number.)

When I first floated the idea of 365 New Things In 2013, a couple of people cautioned me that 365 is a lot.

And, I'm certainly realizing with a little more than two full months remaining, it sure is.

But the fact that I've kept this up for 300 straight days is a huge deal - and I'm proud of myself for it.

And I might go so far as to say I've never done anything like it before.

In my sports blogging days I always liked to think that I could do a post a day for a year. But then there are off days, or slow days, or slow off-seasons, or especially frustrating days where you just don't want to rehash the misery by writing about it, and you end up missing a day, or two, or three....or a hundred.

The best I ever did was in 2008, when I wrote for 284 days. (You can see the tallies from 2004-2009 at that link. I'm not sure I ever got that close in my few years at Real Clear Sports...those tallies are by month only.)

So the stay-with-it-ness of this project is exactly what I hoped for. I was looking for something new that would propel me through a year without me fading. That's what has happened.

I'm certainly not fading - but we're in the midst of quite possibly one of the busiest months of my life right now. It's all-out until Thanksgiving. If I can make it through that month and still try some New Things, the final month of this little exercise will be a piece of cake.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you keep coming back for these last 65 New Things. I still have a list of New Things I haven't gotten around to, and time is running short. More good stuff is on the way.

New Thing #299: Ivy and Bean

Over the past couple of years, my daughters have been fond of a book series called Ivy and Bean. They've advanced pretty far in the series...they've read at least five, possibly more. There are ten in the series so far.

Usually I'll read something before my daughters do, so I can make sure it's appropriate, but this was a series recommended for my oldest daughter by a teacher friend, so I didn't feel a pressing need to read the books before the girls.

But I was curious what the books were like.

So on Friday night, I read through the first book in the series.

At the risk of continuing my label as a guy who likes everything, I liked Ivy and Bean.

First of all, I love origin stories, whatever the situation. And this book is all about how the two main characters meet.

And how they meet is cute - it's a story of a friendship that blossoms and how first impressions can be misleading, and how you can't judge a book by its cover, and all that good advice.

It's also appropriately silly for 7-year-olds (or 5-year-olds, since my middle daughter is quite the reader)...and quite possibly 35-year-olds as well. I found some of the silliness amusing.

The books are written by Annie Barrows. She has a website all about the books, and apparently there are Ivy and Bean plays and such out there as well. She definitely knows her audience. Like the books, the website caters to a certain age group who enjoys silliness.

I would imagine, despite the two female protagonists, that boys would enjoy the Ivy and Bean series, too. But it's probably hard to get them interested because of the two title character girls.

Either way, if you have a first grader and you're looking for a book series to catch their interest, this is probably a good place to start.

The books are chapter books, too - so with short chapters they make for good bedtime story reading.

Which, if you're a 35-year-old man, is a great way to continue reading the series under the guise of "just reading it to your daughters."

New Thing #298: Doing Two Things In One Night

I'm long past the age (well, maybe not long past, just past) when a Friday night meant staying out late and doing lots of things at lots of places. Partly it's because working five days a week is a lot of effort and I'm tired on Friday nights.

Partly it's because I have three kids and that contributes to being worn down on Friday nights.

And mostly it's because the combination of those two things means bedtime creeps earlier and earlier on Friday nights during the school year.

Except for last week.

I've always kind of been in awe of my brother's social life. He can be in one part of the city at 8 o'clock and then be tweeting or otherwise social media-ing about being in another part an hour later and so on and so forth.

Meanwhile, the first part of his night would have required me to stay up past my bedtime.

What I'm trying to tell you is that it's unusual I'm out doing one thing on a Friday night...and it's even more rare to find me in two different places on any given night.

But the reality is, if I'm willing to stay awake, it's not too hard to be in two places within an hour or two of one another.

That's what happened last Friday. There was a school sporting event in Cambridge that I was thinking about going to, and my parents were also in town. I toyed with the idea of just doing dinner with my parents and then going home, but figured that when dinner was over I'd still be able to head into town and make the second half of the sports gathering.

So that's what I did.

Driving to Cambridge the thought occurred to me that things were moving along so quickly that I could probably hang out a little bit after the sporting event and make it three things in one night.

But I didn't. Come on - I'm not in college anymore.

And don't expect the same thing this week.

I don't know if I've fully recovered from last Friday.

New Thing #297: Preparing Tomorrow's Breakfast Today

When she saw what I was up to, my wife told me this wasn't really a New Thing. But I promise you I've never done this before.

On Sunday morning we went to a favorite breakfast spot and they had a steak and cheese omelet.

I like this breakfast spot, and I've enjoyed many a meal there...but this was by far the best breakfast I've ever had there.

Immediately I started plotting when I could make myself a steak and cheese omelet...but it just seemed too complicated for a weekday breakfast.

This week, though, we had cheeseburgers for dinner.

And that got me thinking about breakfast.

I know I've told you a bunch about my eggs-for-breakfast routine.

Usually the eggs are sunnyside up, but if there's a roll sitting around I'll scramble the eggs and eat them in a sandwich, and sometimes I'll roll up some cheese and ham in an omelet.

But I'm not too creative.

Then I'm sitting there at dinner looking at an extra cheeseburger and some leftover veggies. It was actually the mushrooms that first got me thinking about an omelet.

I ate three-quarters of the burger (I have a lot of trouble passing up a second cheeseburger), and chopped up the other quarter. I put it in a tupperware with the leftover veggies, and just like that I was ready for breakfast the next morning. (I love going to bed looking forward to breakfast.)

Meat. Cheese. Vegetables. Eggs.

It's The Omnivore's Omelet. You're welcome.

(I must say, though, that the morning wasn't all sunshine and roses. First of all, I didn't make the best omelet. The insides were a little too big for the eggs - I had trouble wrapping it all up. Secondly, it was a little too much for a breakfast on a school day. It sat heavy all day. I just couldn't post this without letting you know the full story.)

New Thing #296: Updating My iPhone Operating System

I finally did it. For a month or so (maybe less, I don't know) my iPhone has had that little update reminder that there was an operating system upgrade available.

I just didn't think I could do it - it needed 2.9 GB of memory to do the upgrade, and I had something like 400 MB free.

But Monday night I had some time on my hands, so I took a stab at clearing some memory and doing the upgrade.

Allow me to take you through the process.

Monday, 8:30pm - I sit down to watch Monday Night Football. I have the Vikings +3.5 in my football pool. If they cover, and the total points in the game ends up at 45 or under, I'll win some money. I had planned on going to bed early, but this is very exciting for me.

Monday, 9:30pm - My wife gets back from tutoring. I thought she was coming back at 9pm, so I waited for her for pie. (Pies on the Common!) 9:30's a little late for pie, but in a close, three-point game, I'm in for the long haul with football tonight. So apple pie at 9:30 it is. We also watch How I Met Your Mother at halftime. There were a couple of laughs Monday, but it has not been a strong final season so far for that show.

Monday, 10:15pm - I move up to the bedroom for the second half. "Let's see if I can't clear some of the memory off my phone," I think to myself. I analyze the amount of memory taken up by certain apps. Good-bye Shazam, which I never use. Good-bye AOL Radio and Pandora, also unused. Good-bye Beat the Streak app. (Don't worry - I'll download you again in April.) Good bye, NHL GameCenter. Maybe I'll download you again if the Rangers decide to show up this hockey season.

Monday, 10:20pm - I swear to you, I've tried this before and it's never worked. I knew the key to clearing iPhone memory was to get rid of some of the music on my phone. Then I swiped and the 'delete' button appeared. That's never happened before. I rationalized that I had all of this music on my computer and could always add it later again. I got rid of The Beatles catalog. (I like The Beatles, but I rarely listen to them on the iPhone.) Other albums I've never listened to or that I skip when they come up on random were gone. Now we were cooking. I went over to the videos app and realized there was a lot of memory dedicated to videos. I watched the video for Matchbox Twenty's She's So Mean (I didn't realize I had it - it's a good video...and a great song), and then deleted all of the videos. I watched the available memory increase, all the way up to 2.9 GB.

Monday, 10:30pm - I set the alarm on my phone for 5:15am.

Monday, sometime between 10:30 and 11pm - I began to update the software.

Monday, 11:11pm - The Giants pull away from the Vikings in the most terrible Monday Night Football game ever. I will not win any money. I go to bed, with my phone plugged in and updating.

Then, in a panic, I realize that I don't know if my alarm will go off after the update. I check the phone, it looks like it's still set.

Monday, 11:45pm - I wake up from my half-sleep panicked. I check the phone. Still looks like the alarm is set, but the update is not complete.

Tuesday, 4am - I wake up from my full-sleep in a panic. I check the phone. The alarm is still set. The update is done.

Tuesday, 5:15am - I wake up to my alarm. Throughout the day I find New Things all over the phone. I heard the new system drains the battery, but mine didn't. Which is good, since I can't figure out how to close any apps. I have to adjust to the new look of the texts and the new look of e-mail. And there are new graphics I need to work with.

But - here's the best thing - after the upgrade, I still have 2.9 GB of memory on my phone.

Someone's about to go on a new app-downloading spree.

Or at least I'll put some music back on my phone.

New Thing #295: Pies On The Common

It's events like this one that are the very reason I started doing '365 New Things In 2013'. I know not everything I've written about these past near 300 days qualifies as a legitimate New Thing - the idea was trying new things, not necessarily having new things occur to me.

But then along comes this Saturday event that I've thought about taking the kids to each of the past seven years we've lived in Framingham with children, and I've just never done it.

This year....I did.

'Pies on the Common' is a fundraiser for a local church. The extent of my knowledge about it before this year was the banner that hangs above Edgell Road advertising it, and then the pictures in the local paper the week after it happens.

And I almost missed it this year.

My parents were in town for the weekend, and my mom accompanied me to my daughter's dance class on Saturday morning. After that, we were going to be looking for something to do.

That morning, before we headed to dance class I saw a reminder on Twitter - "Don't forget about 'Pies on the Common!'" It started at 10:30 - just when dance class ended. It was perfect.

There were hot dogs for lunch. There were booths with crafts and books and even one for the Framingham Historical Society. (I kind of regret not buying anything there - there were some old books about Framingham that looked like I might enjoy them.) There were people with dogs - lots of dogs. (This is a problem for my girls, who are nervous around dogs. I'm working with them on it. This event helped us make a little bit of progress.)

For the kids there was a bounce house, an inflatable slide, and some extra large bubbles. There was even a United States Senator - Ed Markey, a longtime Congressman who won John Kerry's Senate seat when Kerry became Secretary of State, came by and bought a pie and shook some hands. (Second regret, slightly behind not buying something at the Framingham Historical Society booth, is not going up to him. Meeting a United States Senator would be a great New Thing!)

We bought a cherry pie and an apple pie, and enjoyed a great fall day on the Framingham Common. I never knew what fun 'Pies on the Common' could be.

It's been going on for 23 years.

I'm kind of looking forward to the next one.

New Thing #294: Bauer

Here's a guaranteed way to get me to listen to your music/write about you as a New Thing on Music Monday: Follow me on Twitter.

It worked for Bauer.

I wrote about Keane a couple of weeks ago and next thing I know I'm being followed by @bauermusic_ (Free Twitter advice to Bauer: I'm not sure you want the underscore at the end of your twitter handle...but what do I know.)

So I gave some of their stuff a listen.

Bauer has an album out that's less than a year old - it's called Sleeping Giant.

I'm not sure if they toured with (opened for) Keane or just sound like Keane - and they certainly do sound like Keane, so that might be the only connection between them following me after I tweeted about Keane. (Kind of like if their slogan was, "If you like Keane, you'll also like us!")

But the band, from England (like Keane!), seems like it could probably stand on its own. I liked the music - it was upbeat. It was my type of music.

I endorse it - you can look into some of Bauer's music for yourself on their website.

It also reminded me that the last time we saw Keane in Boston they had a band called Mystery Jets opening up for them. They were also from England, if I remember correctly, and they weren't bad either.

Not a very diverse choice for this week's Music Monday - it's more of the same, really, as far as my musical tastes - but it's always good to find something new that I like.

New Thing #293: A Bloody Mary

Believe it or not...I don't think I've ever had a Bloody Mary. It's not tops on my list for beverages...ever, really.

But Sunday afternoon (early afternoon) my friend Justin decided to start his day with one...so I decided to follow suit.

I figured, at the very least, it was a New Thing.

I'm not sure why I never usually order one. Probably the name. I'm not sure I'm interested in a 'bloody' anything.

Plus, as my friend Dave mentioned last week, if you're not a fan of tomato juice, it's not really the drink for you.

Tomato juice is probably fourth or fifth on my depth chart of juices (Orange, Apple, Cran-Grape [that's preferable to either cranberry or grape for me], then it's a pretty far drop-off to whatever is next). So if I'm mixing a drink, I'd go to a soda before I even got close to tomato juice.

Regardless, it was something to try. It had some olives stuffed with bleu cheese. It was fine.

But I switched to beer after one.

New Thing #292: Maine Lobster Tracks Ice Cream

My wife brought home some new ice cream this week. At first when I heard what it was called I admit it sounded disgusting.

"Lobster" and "Ice Cream" are not words I usually associate with one another...unless it's summer, and I have both - separately - for dinner and dessert.

But, thanks in no small part to the small print on the carton, I realized "This product contains NO lobster."

And it turned out to be quite tasty.

Here is what's in the ice cream: it's vanilla ice cream with lobster-colored chocolate cups filled with caramel and - this is the best part - a "unique eclair crunch".

I can't tell you how good that eclair crunch is  - I want only eclair crunch ice cream.

It's Gifford's ice cream, which I've never had before - my wife picked it up at Sudbury Farms grocery store.

Here's a look at the ice cream itself - I recommend you try it out if you're in the area:

New Thing #291: Going To The Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge, as a tourist attraction, is one of those things for most people that if you live in New York, you don't really visit it as a tourist. So it may or may not surprise you to know that I've only ever been to the bridge twice in my life.

And I've never walked all the way across it.

Actually, I'm not sure I've even ever driven across it. It's just not a route we took all that much - first as a family, and later as a driver myself.

But the two times I've now been to the bridge have both been in adulthood - first, with my wife (who was then my girlfriend), probably about ten years ago, and the second with my dad just last week, after reading The Great Bridge.

Know this about me and bridges: I'm not a very engineering-minded person.

There are certain structures that are near-impossible for me to figure out.

You want to frustrate me? Give me one of those assignments where you get 20 pieces of paper, a couple of pieces of tape, and tell me to build a self-standing structure. Something like that. I just can't do it. (I remember one day in sixth grade or so where that happened. Not a good day at school.)

So a bridge? To me a bridge is a structural miracle.

I appreciate the beauty of the Brooklyn Bridge. The first time I visited it, with my wife, was about the view of the bridge, the views from the bridge. The second time, with my dad, was about understanding. How exactly does a bridge work?

We didn't make it far out on the bridge. (It turns out, maybe I was wrong before - either more New Yorkers than I thought treat the Brooklyn Bridge as a tourist attraction - ate least on Sundays - or there are a lot of people out for exercise on the bridge on Sundays. Or, at least, on this particular holiday Sunday.) It was crowded, and I was pushing up against the time I was supposed to be watching football, so we cut our bridge visit short.

But I got a good look at the trusses, the cables, and the wires I read about in the book - all important structural elements. I think.

See, I'm still learning. Some day I'll go back and take a closer look at the towers. And maybe I'll walk all the way across the bridge.

I'll never be able to design or build a bridge, whether it's out of steel or stone or popsicle sticks and paper.

But I'm working really hard to understand them.

New Thing #290: The Great Bridge

I've been working on this New Thing for a while. I bought The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, by David McCullough, a couple of years ago. I tried reading it then, but barely 50 pages in I realized I wasn't ready to give it the necessary attention.

This summer - June, probably - I started it again. I had hoped to finish before school started, because I knew once September hit my already slow non-fiction reading pace would slow down even more.

I didn't finish before August was over and sure enough, it took another month-and-a-half before I finished the book.

But I finished it this week, and though it wasn't as interesting to me as McCullough's John Adams biography, it had its moments.

For a while I thought the book wasn't grabbing me because the Brooklyn Bridge just didn't have all that interesting a history. But then there was some corruption in the finances and some danger for the workers and the story appeared juicy enough. It might just be I don't find non-fiction about a bridge as interesting as non-fiction about a person. (Or maybe in the 30 years between writing this book and the John Adams book David McCullough became a much better writer.)

Here's one undercurrent of the book that I found interesting and that I'd like to learn more about: 19th century New York City. I don't have a full understanding of Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed and the goings-on in New York City government at that time, but I know there was a lot of corruption and I feel like it's something I should look into more. The end of the Boss Tweed ring coincided with the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and there was a pretty significant crossover between those two pieces of New York history.

Probably the piece of the bridge building that I found the most interesting was the sinking of the caissons. I still don't know that I completely understand exactly how it all happened, but I had a fortuitous coincidence as I read that section of the book. In August or so and within a week or two of me reading about the caissons, Stuff You Should Know, one of my favorite podcasts, did an episode on diving bells. As an example they talked about how you can trap air in a cup when you turn it upside down and push it to the bottom of a bunch of water, like if you're in the tub. (I know I did that when I was younger.) Anyway, they also mentioned this happened with the building of the bridge. It was a serendipitous moment for me, helping me understand how people went down in these structures to dig into the earth without oxygen tanks or something like that.

The end of the book was the fastest read for me. I liked reading about the celebratory atmosphere in New York leading up to the opening of the bridge - for some reason this part was much more interesting to me than the rest of the book. (I especially liked the description of an image on display in May of 1883, when the Bridge opened, depicting how the bridge looked then and how it might look in 1983 on its 100th anniversary. I'd love to find that in some kind of New York City archival something-or-other.)

So, needless to say at this point, it wasn't my favorite book ever. But it was still a decent read. And it inspired me to take a trip down to the bridge itself.

More on that tomorrow.

New Thing #289: McHale's Bar & Grill

When I planned my Sunday in New York to watch football, there were a couple of parameters we needed to work around: -The place we went to had to be near 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas, which is where the bus drop off and pick up happened

-The Jets game would need to be featured prominently, with the rest of the football games available to watch

-The place needed to be relatively affordable.

I thought we'd be drowning in choices in that section of midtown.

But when I got off the bus, it took longer to find an appropriate place than I expected.

Finally, I found McHale's Bar & Grill.

My brother gave me some good advice - he didn't have a specific place to recommend, but he did say I'd fare better heading down towards 8th or 9th Avenue rather than spots close to Times Square.

So, getting off the bus with as much time to spare as I had on Sunday, I was able to scout the area for a place.

I popped into a couple of places around 10am, as the staff was getting ready for the day. It was one thing, I discovered, for them to offer the Sunday Ticket...and another to see for myself whether or not they had enough TVs to show the games. McHale's came as close as anything to offering what I was expecting in my mind. (And, I realized later, New York City - well, Manhattan at least - is not well suited for a large TV screen layout. Most of these places go up, rather than out, meaning their multiple TVs are spread out among multiple floors.)

McHale's is on 51st Street, right off 8th Avenue. Downstairs there's a bar with a few TVs. Upstairs is another bar with a larger selection of screens, including a big screen they lowered from the ceiling to show the Jets.

Turns out, it's a popular spot for lunch for the matinee-going Broadway crowd. (The Gershwin, where Wicked plays, is right across the street.) But that didn't interfere with our game-watching experience. We had the Jets on the big screen and one of the TVs behind the bar, with the Browns-Lions game on another TV and the Eagles-Buccaneers game on another. (There's also a back room where the Packers and Vikings games were on, but they were out of our sight in the other room.)

It wasn't all of the games simultaneously like I was dreaming of, but like I said yesterday, that probably allowed me to be more social with my friends, which is a good thing. (And a lot of Sunday's games didn't go my way...so it's better I was only seeing the occasional score on the crawl rather than watching them fall apart play by play.)

The food was OK...not great. (The highlight was a brussels sprouts with bacon appetizer.) The beer selection was fine.

But the best thing about our day was the fact that we could stay there for seven hours and not once did I feel guilty about taking up a table or the need to move on. (Part of this was due to a somewhat inattentive waitstaff. But that was OK with me on Sunday.) When I tried to find places in Boston where I could watch the Jets (before football on my phone!) I always worried about taking away a prime viewing spot or a television the bar wanted to use for a different game.

And I know I shouldn't feel that way, but certain places ended up making me feel that way.

To its credit...that never happened on Sunday at McHale's.

New Thing #288: Eleven Hours In New York...To Watch Football

I've done quick trips down to New York City before. Once, in college, a friend of mine convinced me to take a 7am Greyhound, spend a Saturday in the city, and then be on a 7pm bus back to Boston.

Then, in the past few years, I've done round trips in a car (or on a train) to go to a Jets game.

For years, though, I've been trying to figure out a way to get down to New York just to watch football with some friends.

And this year, Columbus Day weekend provided the best opportunity yet for that.

A couple of things came together to allow me to do it:

One is that my wife was able to clear her weekend of tutoring, which is usually a slight impediment to my football watching on Sundays. Another is that for the first time in my life I had a weekend where I could have gone to the Jets game - they were home against the Steelers - but my dad no longer has the season tickets. And the last is that I had friends who were available and willing to sit in a bar for seven hours-plus.

I took the LimoLiner into the city - it's great because it picks up in Framingham, 5 minutes from my house, and I could leave for a bus at 6:30 on Sunday morning without disturbing my family. That got me into the city at a little before 10.

I was able to do a few things in the city before I met up with my friends (more on that later this week), and then we sat and watched football from about 12:30 until the end of the Patriots game, at about 7:30.

I was not the only person who had the Sunday round-trip idea. (And it was successful enough that it won't be the last time I do it.) On the trip back I saw a couple of other familiar faces from the trip down earlier that morning.

But there were also some frustrating co-travelers.

I have to admit - it wasn't the best day of football. While I loved seeing and talking to my friends (and the fact that the football was not great certainly contributed to me being a better social presence because I paid less attention to the games), the Jets lost, I did not have a great day with my picks for my pool, and my fantasy league performance was not good either.

So I guess my patience was thin when it came to some of the other people on the evening bus.

A group of older ladies had the first couple of rows - they were clearly returning from a ladies day out type of thing. When an older gentleman walked on in a Patriots hat, they made a comment about the Pats game. "Good game," or something like that. (It's an interesting sports dynamic on a bus between New York and Boston. I was probably the only one heading to New York that morning exclusively for football reasons, but I never felt like the only Jets fan. Not that it came up. But on the way back, going to Boston, there was more of a "New York sports fan feeling like an outsider" vibe going for me.)

Anyway, the guy kind of rolled his eyes at the ladies and did kind of a guffaw or something. (I now realize maybe he thought they were New Yorkers teasing him.) I realized he didn't believe them. They repeated themselves, and he tried to convince them he saw the game and knew how it ended. "Brady threw an interception," he said, showing that was the last part of the game he saw. So the guy he was traveling with looked at me, and I said, "Brady threw a touchdown pass with 5 seconds left."

In a blatant show of gender bias, the second older guy turned to the hat-wearing guy and said, "No, they won. This guy says they got a touchdown with 5 seconds left." The male knows football.

So we've established these were clearly Boston fans who were not all that diehard. This was further proven when the attendant taking care of us on the bus, approaching the Massachusetts Turnpike, offered to turn the DirecTV on the bus to FOX.

"Don't bother," one of the women with the Patriots hat guy said. "They're getting killed."

I popped on my phone, expecting to see an 11-0 or 11-1 score in favor of the Tigers. It was 5-1.

As you probably know by now, that very inning the Red Sox rallied to tie the game, which they later won.

It was a great day for Boston sports fans...not a great day for this Jets fan.

But I'm proud of this: I didn't give up on the Jets at any point on Sunday. Heck. I haven't given up on them in 35 mostly terrible years.

New Thing #287: An iTunes Playlist

One of the least-utilized tools on my phone is the 'Playlist' feature for my music. I tend to listen to an entire album in one sitting, or, if I'm in the mood to switch between songs, I'm doing it manually.

Problem is, when I'm running, I'm limited to either listening to one album all the way through or an artist on random or something like that because I'm not taking my iPhone out of my pocket to play DJ.

So recently I tried mixing things up a bit.

I added a lot of new songs this year to my iPhone that I really enjoy, but that I haven't been able to listen to while I run because they're the only songs by those artists on my phone.

For example - recently I was going for a run and I was scrolling through my music to figure out what to listen to. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros' Home looked appealing, as did Jim James' A New Life. But I knew I wasn't going to have the time to switch songs while I was running...and an added complication is I run with my Nike Running app so I'm pretty much committed to whatever music I start a run with - it plays whatever album I'm currently playing, and I'd have to pause the app if I wanted to switch music. (I've toyed with the idea of putting one really good 3-minute song on loop and hearing it 10 times during a run...I wonder if that would work.)

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I finally took the time before my run to play around with my music. I found the Playlists button, created one (it was ridiculously easy - I can't believe I hadn't done it before - I'd only created one Playlist before, on my computer, which I then downloaded to my phone), and ran to the 10-song creation. It lasted for about 40 minutes. I suppose if I want to increase my distance I can just add some songs on any given day, but I'm thinking I'm probably going to want to switch up some of the music.

The music I used this time around has a definite '365 New Things In 2013' feel to it. Who knows what other new music the rest of the year will bring - I might have another playlist for another run before the end of the year.

New Thing #286: Downloading My Twitter Archive

Late last year Twitter made it an option for a user to be able to access all of their old tweets in a more organized way. (I suppose the possibility exists to scroll down until you get back to the beginning, but that doesn't seem to be an efficient way to go about seeing what you wrote way back when, thousands of tweets ago.)

It's been in the back of my mind to check out my Twitter archive for...oh, about 10 months now, but it didn't look like something that would be simple and quick so I haven't done it.

But this weekend I looked into it a little bit more.

It took about one or two extra steps than I would have liked, but I've downloaded my Twitter archive.

Of course, if you know anything abut my Twitter life, I've only really downloaded half (or less than half) of my work on Twitter. I have two accounts - one is a sports-heavy one related to my sports blog work, and the other is the one which I've been using for the past year-plus. (That's the one I downloaded.)

I'm a big fan of starting fresh every so often. I don't know why. But I distinctly remember as a kid getting to the final stage of Legend of Zelda, for Super Nintendo I think, and just not being able to beat that last boss. So after a couple of tries I started the game again from the beginning, where you're in that rainy scene discovering the problem that sets you off on the big adventure. I don't think I ever ended up beating the game.

I think about that often, but I don't regret it.

I feel like Twitter is the same way - I worked really hard to build up almost 800 followers on my '200 Miles From The Citi' account, and then I started fresh on my regular John Sucich one. And I kind of feel like my 70 or so followers on that account are more interested in what I have to say than the 800 (probably mostly fraudulent accounts) I had following me on the sports site. (I've tried to get some of them to cross over, but other than a handful that I'm interested in following I haven't been successful.)

As for the archive? Well, it was a full-on download process, and I can only access the tweets by clicking the link they gave me after the download. I wish there was just a shortcut on my Twitter page.

But I'm enjoying the navel gazing as I re-read my old tweets. I would say I haven't quite yet mastered the medium (not like someone like Jimmy Fallon)...but I do OK.

Here's a quick taste from the past couple of years:

If you like what you see, there's more where that came from. Give me a follow, would ya? I'm @jsucich. Thanks!