Number Nine

So it was nine years ago today that I stood at the front of a church in Wenham, Mass., wearing a tuxedo in 80+ degree temps and feeling a single, solitary drop of sweat rolling down my back. Wisely, I ignored the sweat and forged on. Although I said "I do" a bit early, the ceremony went off perfectly and we headed over to the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem for a reception that I must say kicked much arse. Hard to believe that nine years has flown by since then, much of which involved two little girls who brighten our days and occasionally drive us crazy. Life is good.

I was surprised to learn this morning via Twitter that WBCN, the big rock station in Boston for about 40+ years, would soon be no more. A CBS property, BCN was one of the first album-oriented rock stations in the country back in the day. When I was in high school and college, I listened to it pretty regularly, along with WAAF and WFNX. But in the mid-90s, it started changing formats, from classic rock to alternative to half talk to the Patriots flagship. Finally, the bigwigs decided to move mom-rock station Mix 98.5 to BCN's 104.1 frequency and turn 98.5 into a sports talk station that will challenge the power WEEI-AM. I haven't listened to mainstream radio much in the last several years, opting instead to listen to podcasts and music on my iPod. So this won't have a huge effect on my life, but it's interesting nonetheless.

With our vacation coming up next weekend and no special guests lined up for the podcast this week, I decided to try something different and used my Zoom H2 recorder to record some audio on the drive to and from work today. I got the idea from listening to a "Driving With Butler" episode of the Rock and Roll Geek Show, one of my favorite podcasts. He does it every once in a while and it's usually pretty interesting. I just jibba-jabbed about a bunch of stuff including our upcoming trip, the WBCN move and the drive itself. One of my original ideas for the podcast back in '05-'06 was to record in the car, but I ended up going in another direction. I still plan to do shows with guests, but this is a nice way to mix things up and keep doing regular shows.

By the end of last week, I was getting worried about my Achilles tendon in my right foot because it was bothering me. I took a few days off and started doing more stretching and so far this week, it's feeling better. I'd like to pick up some new shoes because my current ones are pretty worn, though. I need to ramp up my mileage a little bit because I have the Newburyport Yankee Homecoming 10-miler in two weeks. Hopefully it won't be 90 degrees, but the way things are going this year, it'll probably be nice and comfortable. Maybe.