For all the time I lived in Boston, there are any number of things I never did or saw that I probably should have. Today, I got to rectify one of them by taking a day trip out to the Boston Harbor islands.

We boarded the first ferry out and were dropped at Georges Island, which is kind of the hub for all of the activity on the islands. The sister-in-law arrived a little later on a ferry from Quincy. At that point we decided to wait for the guided tour of Fort Warren, which is the island's dominant feature.

The only problem is that the scheduled tour never seemed to have happened. There was a ranger at the info booth at the given time, but he disappeared and, as far as we could tell, never inquired as to whether or not anyone was waiting for the tour. The woman at the information booth was pretty clueless about the tours, which suggests that maybe they want to coordinate these things better.

(Perhaps this isn't surprising, as the islands are a national park, but administered by some other body. This just begs for little problems like this.)

In any event, we took the self-guided walking tour. It was OK, though there was little attempt made to guide you from place to place. We were able to muddle through, but I'd have liked clearer directions.

The fort itself has elements going back to the War of 1812 (and there was a previous fort from the Revolution), and it was interesting to get to see it up close and personal. At times it was a little too up close and personal, as there were an abundance of open nooks to explore without much by way of lighting or even ground to walk on. Which is more of a problem now than it was back in the day.

After taking the once-around we decided to take the inter-island ferry to a neighboring island to have lunch. We took the boat over to Lovells Island, or as it will be known from this point on Mosquito Island (or the Island of the Damned, for the campers stuck out there). Within 4 minnutes of disembarking we were swarmed by the winged bloodsuckers, forcing a retreat back to the dock. We spent the rest of the hour there, and then took the inter-island ferry back to Georges (with other visitors who had similar insect experiences).

Once back on Georges we hung out under a tree, had some slush from the snack bar (located in a building that used to test mines), perused a monument erected by the Boston chapter of the Daughters of Confederate Veterans (that there is a Boston chapter was more surprising than the news that Confederate POWs were housed at the fort), and then left. I'd have liked to have seen some of the other islands, but that'll be for a later time.

And for all the city folk who flock to the beaches, the islands are a pretty good alternative. The ferry ride is $10, and while there aren't any sandy beaches, there is plenty of space for sunbathing and the like (I assume you can swim; whether or not you want to is an open question). The snack bar does offer fast foodish options, though it's pretty easy to bring your own (you just have to carry your trash off with you).

I'd happily go back. I just have to remember to pack bug spray with the sunblock.

The oddest encounter of the day, though, happened on the drive home when, traversing the narrow streets of Lynn, we had to get around a guy on a unicycle dribbling a basketball and wearing headphones. Had the camera only been available.

I got an email from NHL.com today asking to fill out a survey regarding the return of the league. At the end of it they had a link to share with friends.

As I consider you all my friends, if you'd like to sound off about the NHL, or just like filling out surveys, click here.

The NHL released the 2005-06 schedule yesterday (or was it Tuesday?). Anyway:

Good: "rivalry" scheduling. While I hope this isn't taken to the extremes of baseball (19 games against a divisional opponent is too many, especially if it's the Devil Rays), it should help to revive interest that was diluted when teams spent more time playing everyone. Speaking of dilution, though:

Bad: there are still 82 games in the regular season. This number needs to go down, though the league's worrisome financial status makes it impractical. Hopefully, they'll get some TV money and be able to pare back to something in the high 60s.

Speaking of TV, I'd read yesterday that OLN might wind up with NHL games, apparently at the behest of the network's owner, Comcast. That would be interesting.

Good: there is a break in February so players can compete in the Olympics. After missing the most recent Worlds, I look forward to this tournament.

Bad: the new NHL logo color scheme. I sincerely doubt that anyone will become more interested in the league now that the NHL shield is black and silver instead of black and orange. But I do think it'll further irritate long-time fans who still pine for the days of the named conferences and divisons. Like me.

So on my post last week about the dentist, I should have said "next week" rather than "next month," as I was back in the chair today to tackle a couple of cavities, the identical cousins to the ones on the other side of my lower jaw.

Thankfully, there's a good chance I won't need a root canal for the tooth with the deeper cavity. Still a possibility, but at least it wasn't like the last time when we jumped right to root canal. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

I did something yesterday that, even up to a couple of months ago, I was very unsure about trying.

I took the two tests I'd need to pass to get a teacher's licence in Massachusetts.

My very long day of standardized testing started with me needing to be at Lynn English High School by 7:45 am. This wasn't so bad, though I was a little irritated to learn that Beverly High School about three minutes from where we live, was also a testing site (on the other hand, someone I know from Manchester-Essex who I ran into at Lynn Enligh has a classmate who lives in Danvers but had to go into Arlington to take her test). As it was I got in, found the room I needed and my numbered seat.

The morning test was on "communications and literacy," basically a reading and writing test to make sure that prospective teachers have a reasonable command of the English language. The reading part wasn't too bad; 30 multiple choice reading comprehension questions and something like 6 to 8 vocab questions where I had to define given words (mine included homogeneous and deviate).

The writing section was much different that I expected from the practice tests I took. There were 44 multiple choice questions, 30 of which were based on five six-sentence paragraphs. For each sentence, I had to tell if it had a spelling error, capitalization error, punctuation error, or no error. A couple were on the subtle side, but others mentioning "breckfast" and Susan B. Anthony going to "cast a Ballot" made up for things. The other 14 were more focused on the grammar and mechanics of a few short readings.

After that, I had to define three grammatical terms and rewrite three sentences to make them more grammatically correct. I thought there would be more of these, but I'm not complaining. I was a little nervous about the grammar definitions, as it's been a good 20 years since my last serious study of grammar. Thankfully, I had to define exclamatory sentence, imperative sentence, and adverb.

After this were two open-response writing questions. One basically asked you to re-write a selection to demonstrate its main points, a practice which kind of confuses me given that the selection was pretty well-organized to begin with. For the persuasive essay, I surprised myself by writing in favor of a nationwide 55 mile per hour speed limit. I think I found it easier to write from that perspective given that I grew up during the days where 55 was pretty much the rule. I certainly don't drive in favor of such a speed limit.

I had about an hour and 15 minutes for lunch. There's a pizza place across from the school, but I feared it would be crowded with test takers. When I was at the car behind the school, I saw a sign for a sub shop beyond the playing fields. So I walked on over. It was closed. I then walked down to a supermarket, thinking they may have prepared sandwiches. They didn't. So I walked back across the playing fields, around the school, to the pizza place I feared would be packed. I was the only person there.

They don't take debit cards.

They did point me towards a convenience store up the street, where I got money. I went back, finally got some food, and ate lunch under a tree (the pizza place not having any tables, oddly). I had about a half-hour left, so I tried to get in a little last-minute studying.

Which seems like a good point to mention that the afternoon test was a subject test for health education. When I decided to take this test, I spent a little time trying to sort out what to take. I figured I had several options from the listed subjects:

* political science, which made sense given that I'd majored in it. However, I've never seen a school here looking for a poli sci teacher.
* history, given the classics degree and general interest in history. There were even test materials that would allow me to coach myself up prior to the test. But I figured that was a reach, so I passed.
* library, given that I'm a dork and like libraries. But I have little experience and no education in library science, so it seemed like a bad idea, career-wise.
* speech, based on my debate career. Then I thought about my success as a debater and speechie. Pass.
* health, based on having a MPH. Seemed like the best option at the time.

The question of how to study was a hard one, given that there aren't any test prep books and the published test objectives are very general. So I wound up borrowing a health textbook from a teacher at Manchester and outlined it.

In any case, the health test was interesting. I'd expected more questions about "factual" information (in fact, I feared questions asking details about what foods contain what vitamins and the like). The questions tended to be more situational, and there was a definite focus on the problem-solving sorts of things that seem to be the new focus of health education (or at least new to me, compared to my last health ed class in 1985). I then had to write a couple of essays, one about things that cause cardiovascular disease and ways to prevent the illness, the other asking me to discuss the information you'd find on nutrition labels on food products, how a consumer can use that information to their advantage, and three special cases or circumstances where reading the labels would help (I went with someone trying to lose weight, people with allergies or sensitivities, and religious/ethical dietary restrictions).

So how'd it go? With the communications and literacy test, I can't help but think about the line FX uses in promos for King of the Hill.

You're failing English? Bobby, you speak English.

I'll be very unhappy if I don't pass.

With health, I think I did pretty well, but it was more of a crap shoot.

I'll know August 26. By which point I could already have a job and this all is more or less moot. We'll see.

So the NHL is now officially back, as the owners and players have all agreed to the new CBA. I got to catch the tail end of the press conference on this, and much of the talk was around rules changes. Many of these will feel familiar to fans of the college game (no red-line offsides and the introduction of no-touch icing), while others are directed at the net (changes in standards for goalie equipment and changing the location of the nets).

One rule change, however, stands out as polarizing: shootouts to determine a winner after OT.

I've mentioned the one glorious year of the Hockey East shootout in the past, and if you didn't catch it then I should point out now that my wistfulness wasn't exactly genuine. Not that the shootout didn't have entertainment value, given its relationship to the most exciting play in sports (the penalty shot), but as a method to determine a game winner it's not optimal. But I do understand that in order to attract more fans it helps to actually have a winner and loser for each game. Because, apparently, the average American can't handle the concept of a tie.

Though if it means an end to four-column standings, I'm back on board.

There was also some talk about the NHL working out their schedule in 2006 and 2010 to allow players to compete in the Olympics. NHL commish Gary Bettman kind of put it in the players' lap when asked about it, saying they had to sign off on some stuff to make it a reality. While hockey is one of the few team sports at the Winter Olympics, I'd hope that what happened to baseball at the last IOC meeting serves as a bit of an object lesson.

After the news conference was a league-wide draft lottery to hand out positions for next week's entry draft, done because (a) there was already an entry draft where teams were ranked according to their 2003-04 finish, and (b) most teams have very few players under contract, so team quality may really change over the next few weeks.

Anywho, the draft lottery show was great TV - if you ever wondered what it would sound like to hear Bettman count backwards from 30 to 3 (and then up from 1 to 2). The actual draw was held in a "secured location" (was Dick Cheney there?), and Bettman read the positions from envelopes. Each team had one, two, or three balls in the drum according to a poorly-explained system involving considerations of recent team history with the playoffs and, well, other stuff. Four teams had the maximum number of balls, and one of them - Pittsburgh - landed the top pick, which they'll use on phenom Sidney Crosby.

Most screwed were the Florida Panthers, the only non-playoff team from 2003-04 to land a pick in the bottom 10. They'll select 29th. Out of 30.

Hope that free agency thing works out for them.

And, like a good fantasy draft, the picks will snake; Tampa Bay has the last pick of round one, and follows it with the first pick of round two. No word yet on whether or not it's a keeper league or if teams will accumulate fractional points.

Anyway, NHL hockey is back October 5th. Please watch. They can use the exposure.

A little life and style asterisk-style for you all:

* After an initial taste-testing, I am undecided as to the potability of the latest flavor (so new that it's not even on the web site) from Polar Beverages, a local producer of sodas, mixers, and such: pomegranate dry. The wife found it too sweet (even for being "dry" and the diet version to boot), while I was finding the intensity of the flavor differing from mouthful to mouthful. All in all I'd try it again, but I wouldn't invest in a 2 liter.

* Both the lo-cal and NBC news had stories tonight on the popularity and new status of flip-flops, given their appearance on the feet of several Northwestern women's lacross players during their recent visit to the White House. What's surprising to me is that this is considered a recent fashion trend given that it's been commmon on campus for years. I suppose working in higher ed gives me an inside perspective on this. I can remember being surprised at the prevalence of flip flops in, say, 2002.

I don't really blame the players, though I'd think even an average level of maturity for a college athlete would suggest that if you're going to see the President of the US, you probably shouldn't wear footwear that also works in the locker room. I do wonder what the coaches were doing when they should have given the players a once-over for appropriate attire, but they could be so used to flip flops that it didn't register.

Even so, if W invites me down for photos and finger sandwiches, I'll be sure to wear shoes. I'll even wear socks with them.

* In the space of a week, the Red Sox seem to have turned over about half of their active roster. I tuned into today just in time to see Tony Graffanino register his first hit and RBI for the team, at which time I registered that Graffanino was actually on the team. I also didn't know that we'd had to trade someone to get Adam Hydzu back. I assumed he was in Pawtucket waiting for Kevin Youkilis to get sent back down. Again. Which he was when Graffanino came on board.

I feel badly for Youkilis, who can't seem to catch on in Boston. Expectations may have been raised by his mention in Moneyball, where his ability to get on base made him a prime target of Billy Beane, who couldn't pry him away from the Sox for love or money. I now wonder if it would have been better for the Greek God of Walks if he went to Oakland.

(I know, this is sports rather than life and style, but work with me.)

* Speaking of life and style, the Boston Globe has now come up with something it calls "Sidekick" (tagged with the line "Your Guide to a Better Day") which combines the comics, crossword, TV listings, horoscopes, and things to do into a small tabloid-format pull-out section. I'd think this was in response to the Metro Boston, a "newspaper" that packages AP wire stories in small bits so that it can give you "24 hours in 20 minutes," except that the Globe now owns 49 percent of that publication.

Meaning that the Globe would be competing against itself.

I am actually fairly sad over the state of Boston newspapers. The Globe hasn't been the same since the New York Times folks bought them out, the Herald is trying to be the local, more sedate cousin to the New York Daily News, and then there's the Metro, which could be subtitled "The Newspaper for Illiterates." I used to read a paper every day. Now, I rarely even bother to check any of them out on-line.

I suppose that saves me money.

Eight months and three days after first being told that it was a likelihood, my root canal experience finally ended today when I got my permanent crown. It was kind of anticlimactic, as I spent all of 35 minutes in the chair while the new crown was adjusted to match my bite.

Not that I don't appreciate the smoothness of things. Early in the visit the dentist noted that in case the crown slipped (it being slick from saliva and such) I should endeavor not to swallow it. That idea hadn't occurred to me prior to that; I couldn't get it out of my head for several minutes afterward.

So while I can look back on this process and relax, there is an ugly reality on the horizon: I may begin the whole process again next month when I go to get a couple of fillings on the other side of my lower jaw. Oddly enough, the likely candidate tooth is the same one (on the other side) as the first. I'd chalk it up to nature's love of symmetry if it weren't for all the sugar and lack of regular check-ups.

Let me take this opportunity to add to Craig and the Bruce's endorsement for The Road From Bristol, a tournament to find the most annoying ESPN personality. Needless to say, there is no shortage of deserving entrants.

In other news, I am currently reading The $1 League, which I imagine is the definitive history of the USFL (as it may be the only one; if there are others, please let me know). I was hoping the book would be like Loose Balls, Terry Pluto's fantastic history of the ABA, but it's not. It mostly follows ownership issues, which isn't surprising as the author was the USFL's director of communications. It's not too bad, but I have to think the best stories were in the locker room rather than the boardroom.

Two other books that I've read and would recommend:

The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubinstein, the story of a minor-league hockey goalie who becomes a folk hero in post-communist Hungary when he takes to robbing banks while drunk.

Ponzi's Scheme by Mitchell Zuckoff. A very well-done account of both the history of the swindle and Ponzi's life. I hadn't realized just how much money he'd made (enough to buy a bank and take a stab at legitimacy), or how he managed to engineer his own downfall.

While I think we've heard this before, the NHL may finally be back. The league and the NHLPA have hammered out an agreement that, if ratified by the players, will put the teams back on the ice.

I should care more about this than I actually do, but college hockey has pretty well eroded my interest in the NHL. Even so, I ranked it fairly high on ESPN.com's poll where you had to rank 16 "sports" (more like a combo of sports and leagues). The NHL was doing pretty well, fourth out of 16, though I'm sure there's some sort of self-selection bias at work.

Unrelated to hockey, I'm a little surprised that after 2 and a half years of retooling, the Space Shuttle folks didn't notice that Discovery's fuel gauge didn't work. If they'd only subcontracted work out to Mr. Goodwrench.

In less serious news, the IOC voted today to drop baseball and softball as sports for the 2012 Games in London. They then managed to not add any sports to replace them; from a list of five possible sports they selected two for a vote (squash and karate), neither of which gained the two-thirds support needed to add a sport. Rugby, golf and "roller sports" (not sure what all was included there) were passed over without a vote.

All the balloting was done in secret (though the AP apparently came up with vote totals for the squash and karate votes), which was pretty controversial. The given rationale was to prevent embarrasment for the international sport federations if their given sport failed to gain many votes. Other people suggested it allowed for a lack of accountability. It seems kind of fishy to me, but there isn't much involving the IOC that doesn't.

The loss of baseball isn't all that surprising. The lack of MLB talent and the spectre of another drug-tainted sport sealed the deal. The softball result was more surprising, though from what US national team players have said it was a combination of anti-Americanism and the personal view of IOC head Jacques Rogge.

As for the proposed new sports, I'm pretty meh about squash, but thought karate had a chance given that martial arts are some of the newer sports (judo was added in 1964, taekwondo in 1988). I was very non-plussed about golf (for the same reason as tennis - it's not that big a deal compared to the major tournaments) and "roller sports", but thought rugby would be a nice addition. Sports Illustrated had an article in the last month or so which pointed out how rugby (seven a side for this purpose) would be easy to run and not add many athletes.

(Personally, I'd like to bring back pankration, but that looks unlikely.)

Which is kind of the root problem here - the Summer Games have gotten too big, and the IOC would like to find a way to hack them down a bit. One thing that would really help (and may be in the offing, I think) is more of an event-by-event approval process rather than by sport. For example, if you wanted to get rid of, I don't know, synchronized swimming, under current rules you'd have to vote out all of swimming. Which, of course, isn't going to happen.

Interestingly, you can apparently add events to existing sports without such drama (which explains how synchro got into the woodpile in the first place). There's already talk about that for 2012, most notably expanding the women's soccer tournament by two teams. Which, as a trade-off for softball, seems like a net loss.

I still think it'd be better if some of the weather-neutral sports were moved to the winter. I know, the Winter Games traditionally only have events that involve ice or snow. But not only would moving some of these sports help with logistics, you could also get more face time for sports lost in the summer shuffle. Not sure which ones I'd move, but my short list includes weightlifting, table tennis, and volleyball (there's a dearth of team sports in the winter).

At least the IOC gave the 2012 games to London. They did one thing I liked this week, which is kind of a miracle.

Thing that I learned yesterday that makes me unsettled: post-9/11, the US has spent $18 billion to secure air travel. On public transportation, we've spent $250 million.

In the course of her daily commute, my wife rides a commuter train twice, a bus, and the subway. I'd like to think that, on some level, there is more than the occasional video camera and a MBTA official handing out leaflets reminding passengers to report things that look funny standing between her and a repeat of Madrid and London.

Public transportation is an incredibly soft target, and doesn't appear to be getting any harder. So much for "never forgetting."

On this day where we say Happy Birthday, America, the wife and I returned home from an event that was a slice of today's America: an Indian wedding in south Jersey.

I won't go too deeply into the details, other than to say it was an incredible time, I got to see the wife in a sari, and I learned that there is a particular spice/herb/flavoring used in some of the food that I just cannot tolerate. I find roughly 98 percent of Indian food delicious; the 2 percent that uses this specific item I can't even swallow.

The day before the wedding we got to go to the Phillies-Braves game at Citizens Bank Park. Good game, nice park, though I think I like PNC better. Sorry, Chris.

We did manage to avoid all of the Live 8-related nonsense. Unlike Cooch, I saw significantly less of the new shows than of the original. I'll leave it to the reader to determine if that's a good thing or not (though I think I know Greg's answer).

The worst part of the trip was, unsurprisingly, the beginning, as traffic from NYC to central Jersey was not good at all. Coming back today was a breeze, a definite argument for getting on the road early. We got back here in plenty of time to rest, watch The Crossing on the History Channel (Jeff Bridges Daniels as Washington? Surprisingly entertaining), and even figure out where to go to see fireworks.

Hope you all had as fun of a Fourth weekend as I did!