Edvard and his take-out [1]

The first thing I noticed was a flickering, blue - a flash - then a steady black and white. The large, brown-rimmed bifocals reflected the television set, his head tilted to look up at the small screen, his lap holding the square styrofoam take-out box. I only get quick glimpses of him as I walk by his I guess I should call it store. Usually, the crusty brown door is closed fast, with a cast-iron gate locked over the top of it - as if the door wasn't enough to keep people from stealing what amounts to a collection of old junk. The faded sign outside the door says "Original Vintage Movie Posters," thus explaing the forest of rolled up posters that surround him as he eats. I've only seen him on the street once; he was parallel parking his curtain-windowed, silver hearse.

Pictures from Boston

So we had a great time in Boston. The conference went well, and the presentation done. I guess I don't have much to say about my paper, but instead, I'll tell you about our trip. We arrived on Wednesday and left on Saturday, so we tried to pack in as much as possible. We took a trolley tour of the city that was interesting. There are a couple of things that you hear over and over on the tour. First, most of Boston used to be swamp or water and that they filled it in by moving various hills into the sea. Also, many of the buildings are either built on pilings (which you can't see) or are built on top of very large pieces of wood stuck vertically into the soft ground. We also went to Fenway on Friday morning, and enjoyed a cold, but informative tour. We were on the first tour of the morning and luckily there were only about five of us there. The next tour had about 30 people; most of them looked like obnoxious high schoolers. Then on Friday we went to Harvard and took the student-led Hahvahd Tour of campus. These guys recently started their own tour service, and we happened to get off the train right when they were starting their tour. They did a good job, and fun tidbits like what dorm Matt Damon or the Unabomber lived in were especially interesting. Anyways, Boston is great. Here's a few pics for you: