And the Living is Easy (6/29/09 – 7/05/09)
It’s official: three-day weekends are great. Especially sunny three-day weekends. And especially sunny three-day weekends with major holidays in patriotic U.S. cities.
Even if I hadn’t had Friday off to celebrate the Fourth of July, it would have been a pretty straightforward week at work. My supervisor worked from home on Monday and took the better part of Wednesday off, leaving me to some programming we had mapped out. On about Wednesday, we finished the first wave of analyzing data and aggregating results, and Thursday was spent talking about the next step. It’s time for some exploratory data analysis, which should include logistic regressions, more random forests, and some FDR to control for the large sample size. Thankfully, I saw these topics in MA576, MA584, and MA 575, respectively, although this summer is confirming my long-standing belief that learning statistics in a classroom is one thing while applying it in reality is quite another.
On Friday, I made it over to Davis Square for the first time since moving to Somerville (although I went there a few time while at BU). I met up with a friend of mine at Dave’s Fresh Pasta, a great little grocery store / restaurant. We grabbed some delicious sandwiches and sat outside, eating and catching up. Everyone walking by looked to be in their 20s or 30s, which is such a stark contrast to what you’d see sitting outside on Las Olas. One of the many reasons why I really like it here.
Saturday was such a great day! I woke up bright and early and rode over to the Massachusetts State House on an essentially empty road. The view from the top of the bridge was breathtaking; despite the forecasted rain, the weather was perfect and would stay that way for the entire day. I met a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in a while, Tori, in the Boston Commons for the Boston By Foot Freedom Trail Tour. Along with about 20 other people in the group and over the course of 3 hours, we made our way from the Commons all the way over to Bunker Hill and the Naval Yards, seeing all kinds of cool 18th-century America sites along the way. Our tour guide (shown here breaking it down) was very knowledgeable about the many interesting things happening in Boston back in the day, and now I’ve officially walked the Freedom Trail. Awesome!
After the official tour ended, Tori and I headed back to Bunker Hill, where we donned our crampons, strapped on our oxygen tanks, and prepared for the great Monument ascent. It was a struggle, but we made it up all 294 steps and were rewarded with a breathtaking view of the greater Boston area and about 30 out-of-breath, sweating tourists crammed into the top with us. After rappelling back down, we wandered back to the North End where we enjoyed a delicious lunch at Trattoria Il Panino. (The butternut squash ravioli was delicious!) We caught the tail end of a street performers’ show at Faneuil Hall before grabbing some iced tea and relaxing in the shady grass of the Boston Commons. What a great afternoon!
Then I headed over to catch up with a friend of mine from high school, Courtney, who I hadn’t seen in a few years. She’s living in an MIT frat house this summer that happens to have an incredible view of the river, so we watched the sunset and did some serious catching up. It sounds like I’m going to be seeing a fair amount of her this summer, which should be a lot of fun! She bikes, so hopefully we’ll be able to have some good rides on the many bike paths in the greater Boston area. From here, it was a quick ride down to South Campus to relax with some BU friends and eat some yummy barbecue. Then I headed down to the Esplanade, where I managed to hear a broadcast of the Boston Pops concert and watch a spectacular fireworks show. Unfortunately, my camera stopped working about mid-afternoon, so no fireworks pictures. I’ve always loved fireworks, though, and the show they put on this year was great. Truly a memorable evening. Happy 4th of July, everyone!
