Urban turkey

I (Matthew) work in Kendall Square, a nexus of MIT people, biopharm companies, and other big calculator types. My morning walk from the subway takes me through Cambridge Center, a set of commercial buildings that run along Broadway and Main St. Everything meets at the Kendall Square fountain, a golden sphere of spigots that's wisely off during the winter.

Kendall Square has one resident turkey, dubbed "Mr. Gobbles." The real thing, strutting and clucking, not a guy who just takes too long at the supermarket checkout or occupies the whole sidewalk. For the second day running, I passed our turkey sunning itself next to the Biogen building next door to EMC. A couple of its features sat askew, possibly from scrapping with other local animals.

I've seen the turkey about a half-dozen times over the last few years and other bloggers saw him back in 2003 and probably earlier. They wonder enough about him to ask questions we'd rather not consider too deeply. He does seem to take care of himself, given the many opportunities around here to get hit by cars or even subway trams. Given the turnover typical of software and scientific businesses, perhaps Mr. Gobbles has even outlasted many companies.

Run to infinity--and beyond

We just returned from a weekend in Miami that included Sunny's first successful marathon and my second successful run at the half-distance, both at the ING Miami Marathon Sunday morning. Woot!

A field of thousands of runners helped the organizers commandeer much of the downtown area. The starting line stood right in front of the American Airlines Arena, where the Miami Heat play basketball. (They just endured a 15-game losing streak, but it's for the love of the game, right?)

Speaking as a companion runner more than a serious runner, the outlandish elements of big events stick out to me. Wake up at 4am to catch the shuttle! Wait in a 10-deep line to use port-a-potties! Dawdle in stockyard "grouped time" pens and wait ten minutes after the gun to cross the starting line! Such are the eccentricities of running folk.

On the plus side, you get to run the bridge from Miami to South Beach, watch the sun come up over the beach, and see a variety of town areas. Finishing the 13.1 miles took right around 2:16, slightly more than the first time (but I also wasn't sick then). Sunny, benefiting from an actual training plan, finished the whole nine yards in 4:45, just what she'd targeted at race sign-up months earlier.

It was great to see the spectator turnout distributed across the city. Anytime I passed musicians, the music blew away thoughts of slowing down or quitting, easy temptations in the normal fugue of lactic acid and brain drain. Some spots had high school drum corps and others were proper guitar, bass, and drum combos. One stage featured three guys playing Rock Band on a Playstation 3. (They were blasting through Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper"--unfortunately, it lacked cowbell.)

Sunny will follow with her own report, a more satisfying blow-by-blow for fans of the racing forum. We were happy to make it through, start to finish! Now back to winter, cold and icy, Boston-style.

Marathon training updates

Sunny just returned from her second 3+ hour training run in two weeks, the last runs over 20 miles before the ING Miami marathon at the end of the month. I'll be running the half-marathon and unfortunately sprained my ankle during soccer on Friday, so limited my weekend workouts. Fortunately, the foot still works OK in straight lines, which means more running later this week.

The cats are very entertained by a new fishing-pole type of toy and even the mom cat almost gets off the ground for the green heart-shaped mouse attached to it. Watching the kitten bound back-and-forth in crazy springing fashion entertains us to no end.

Today also marked the 12th day of Christmas, so the tree looks a little peaked, if still well-coiffed with lights and bangles. We're happy to report the kitties did very little damage to anything connected to the tree.



That is not our kitty.

New Year's Night

We ended 2007 in the company of friends, Vlad and Vanessa, who hosted a small gathering at their place. Having arrived too late for the potluck because of our own little surf-n'-turf meal, we got only nibbles of the "meals that represented my 2007":

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Sharon-iO's, suitable for taking her into the wild on numerous roadtrips

and the Gingerbread House lacking a structural support wall
(like our friend Dave Shi's "This Old House" candidate)

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Having eating just a few nibbles of tasty, tasty cheese and other goodies, we proceed to play an odd little parlor game called "the oracle". Everyone takes paper and pen. The first thing each person writes is a question, starting with "Dear Oracle..." Everyone passes the paper to the right and then writes a response to the he/she received and then folds the paper to cover the original question, leaving only the answer visible. Everyone then receives an answer and must write a question that it could be answering, and folds the original answer. And so the papers get passed and marked up by a different person responding to each question with an answer and each answer with a question. It gets a little goofy and finally when the paper is filled the answers are read.

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Matthew got to read the results of the Dear Oracle series, aka Telephone Pictionary. Hillarity ensued. Sam demonstrated his bag pick-up skills by balancing on one foot, picking it up with his teeth and then getting the bag onto his head.

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Sam the bag man, victorious.

Drinks were re-filled and the New Year 2008 was welcomed warmly.