Merry New Year! I'd like to say that I've been doing something interesting in the time since I've last posted, but I haven't. In fact, I've mostly been sitting on the couch watching TV, frittering away my winter break. I do not look forward to my return to work on Monday.

We have started to have the house worked on again, as the guy who did our living room is now doing our bedrooms. Not only will we have new walls (and insulation), but we'll actually have overhead lights and wall sockets that are up to code (the old ones were apparently too low). The main problem so far is that they were in doing work today, when the temps barely hit double digits. Not so much a problem with going in and out - there wasn't as much of that today as when the rooms were demoed - as with the door to the attic being open all day. Were I smart I would have gone to the library for the day. I may still do that tomorrow, although temps are supposed to be in the 30s, which is balmy by comparison.

Finally get a chance to surface. It's been busy.

Work - Wentworth has 450 or so new alumni after our graduation ceremony on Saturday. Busy as hell in the couple of weeks leading up to it, as we have more than four times as many students graduate in August than in May (a ratio that will only get worse once the new architecture curriculum is fully in place).

At least next year I'll get an extra day, as both of our ceremonies move back to Sunday. They'd moved to Saturday after a lone complaint about having graduation on Mother's Day. It may just be me, but I think seeing my child graduate from college would make a swell Mother's Day present.

Me - As mentioned before we had birthday fun to deal with, capped by a trip to Maine. Not only did we have the requisite birthday cookout, but we also got to take in the 150th anniversary celebration for Stockton Springs. We caught the parade, and I even have pictures if you're into public safety vehicles or horses.

I did not manage to get a picture of Susan Collins, the junior US Senator from Maine. I'd forgotten she was going to be there (it was mentioned in the paper). This is easily the closest I've been to a sitting Senator, at least since the time I got to ride the shuttle underneath the Capitol. Fair to say I'd not have recognized most of the Senators at that point.

Or now, I suppose.

Other crap - the only thing of note here is that I broke the lawn mower yesterday. Or rather, it broke itself. I was pushing it along, minding my own business, and a wheel just fell off. Thankfully I was close enough to done that I could freehand the rest with the weed whacker.

I spent about 15 minutes trying to put the wheel back on, but didn't succeed. I can see how it needs to go on, and even had a wrench that'd allow me to fasten the wheel securely. I just didn't have the third hand necessary to manage the wheel, the mower, and the wrench at the same time.

That's the sort of thing I didn't miss when I was renting or living on campus.

It should also be noted that while the sweet pea isn't in the same league as kudzu, it is one hearty plant. One of the neighbors has it growing along his bushes and grape arbor, and it's everywhere in my backyard, both growing up the side of the house (the one I yanked down yesterday was a good eight feet up) and in the middle of the yard. I fear that I'm going to have to invest in some sort of lawn care products to give the grass a fighting chance.

So like a true friend, I've been sitting on these interview questions from Paul for a couple of months. Thanks for nothing, right? Anyway, here's the interview, and if you'd like to revive this meme leave a comment and I'll send you five interview questions.

1) Now that you've entered into the homeowners club, what do you miss most about being a renter?

Not having to fix stuff. The combination of not being handy and buying a house in need of TLC is a great thing if you like to spend. I worry about getting to the point where we'll put too much money into the house and not at least break even on the resale. Of course, we could stay there for the duration, but that seems unlikely.

2) In your opinion, who is the best former Terrier hockey player that did NOT make it to the NHL?

This is a tough one, given how many former Icedogs had a cup of coffee (which is more of a baseball term, but I'm at a loss for hockey equivalent; feel free to suggest one) in the NHL. I actually went back and looked at some stuff on the Internet Hockey Database (which is a fantastic resource), and have determined that the best player who I've seen play who didn't make it to the NHL was Mike Pomichter, who had three seasons with great point totals, but who left to go pro the season before we won our last title. He then went on to have a long and not particularly successful minor league career.

I'd also considered Petteri Koskimaki for this, as he had a couple of strong seasons while playing on teams loaded with future NHLers (McEachern, Amonte, Tkachuk, among others). He doesn't appear to have played anywhere after BU, even in Europe. That's surprising, though given his senior year numbers I wonder if he took an injury that put him out of hockey for good. I honestly don't remember; the seasons are starting to run together. Google doesn't even return post-BU stats for him.

Another possible answer: Jack Parker. I've occasionally wondered how things would have gone had he actually taken the Bruins job back in the early '90s. I'd like to think he'd have found success, but given that the average tenure of a Bruins coach seems to be about three years, the idea that he'd have wound up back at BU before too long isn't unlikely.

3) Among all your quiz bowl journeys, away hockey games, etc.., what was your best road trip (elaborate)?

In terms of actually getting to see things, I'd have to go with last year's TRASHionals trip to Austin, as we took a couple of extra days and actually saw things in Austin and San Antonio. Usually on these trips you don't see anything more than the host school and your hotel, but on this trip I actually got to see the Alamo and a bunch of other stuff. It was a nice change.

For weekend quiz bowl trips, there's more trips to the Philadelphia area that had at least one funny story than I can remember. For hockey trips, I do fondly recall our fan van trip to Lowell (well, Chelmsford, actually) where we wandered up the street and found that Chinese place. How we didn't get lost or hit by a truck I don't know.

4) If you could design a flavour of ice cream for Ben & Jerry's what would it be called and what would it include?

I was coming up with one when I saw that Dairy Queen kind of beat me to the punch with their Kit Kat Blizzard. But I'll do them one better with Kat Food: dark, milk, and white chocolate Kit Kat pieces in a combo of vanilla and chocolate ice cream. I was considering cinnamon as a secondary flavoring, which would pretty much make this my standard Angora Cafe frozen yogurt order from about 1993 to 1995.


5) Favorite Seinfeld episode and why?

A tough one given the options. There's "The Strike," which precipitated all the Festivus nonsense late last year. There are also some of the iconic episodes like "The Contest" and "The Chinese Restaurant." And after the two months I've had to come up with something, it turns out I don't have a favorite episode. There are several that I really enjoy, but none quite reigns supreme. Aren't you glad you waited for that answer?