The Weekend (Father's Day, 2005)

What a weekend! It was a long one, since I took Friday off. And why did I take Friday off? Why, to take Sebastian to see Thomas the Tank Engine at the Edaville Railroad!

I should explain that my parents took me to Edaville to see the trains back when I was a little boy, and I still have a lot of memories. The old steam trains would ride through cranberry bogs and forests, and hidden cleverly in the forests were magical little scenes of elves and animals - painted wooden ones, that is. At Christmastime the whole place was lit up, and it was simply amazing to me.

But Edaville went bankrupt, and their rolling stock was sold off (some of it to the >Boothbay Railway Village, which we've visited several times with Sebastian). Several new owners tried to resurrect the place over the years, and they all failed. Apparently the latest group has managed to make it work, although there are almost no steam engines left - they use diesels instead - and the place doesn't feel quite the same.

But it was still pretty great for Sebastian.

Time for a cut. There are four medium-sized photos behind it.
( Read more... )

I guess that's it! Funny, I can't remember what we did on Saturday.

Holy crap, I must be getting senile. On Saturday Teri and I went to the Antiques Road Show in Providence. Stood in line for two or three hours with three antiques, only to find out just what I'd expected - they were only worth $350-$47 in aggregate. Although one of them is priceless to me, a backgammon board that my grandfather brought over from Turkey.

I was interested to see how it all worked; they don't film everything, or even much. They pick certain people to be filmed, and those people are brought to a different area where they're made up and filmed getting their stuff evaluated all over again.

After, Teri and I drove back to Woonsocket. We stopped by the house, but my parents (who were watching Sebastian for us that afternoon) weren't there - they'd taken him out for lunch. So we went to Chelo's. I suspected they might have taken him there, but even I was surprised when the people standing in front of us when we walked into Chelo's turned out to be them!

Incidentally, photographs were forbidden at the Antiques Road Show. But just imagine five thousand people standing in endless lines in a huge civic center, and you've pretty much envisioned it. We did see one or two of the people from the show, but I don't know their names. I don't watch the show much, to tell you the truth.

The Weekend (Father's Day, 2005)

What a weekend! It was a long one, since I took Friday off. And why did I take Friday off? Why, to take Sebastian to see Thomas the Tank Engine at the Edaville Railroad!

I should explain that my parents took me to Edaville to see the trains back when I was a little boy, and I still have a lot of memories. The old steam trains would ride through cranberry bogs and forests, and hidden cleverly in the forests were magical little scenes of elves and animals - painted wooden ones, that is. At Christmastime the whole place was lit up, and it was simply amazing to me.

But Edaville went bankrupt, and their rolling stock was sold off (some of it to the >Boothbay Railway Village, which we've visited several times with Sebastian). Several new owners tried to resurrect the place over the years, and they all failed. Apparently the latest group has managed to make it work, although there are almost no steam engines left - they use diesels instead - and the place doesn't feel quite the same.

But it was still pretty great for Sebastian.

Time for a cut. There are four medium-sized photos behind it.
( Read more... )

I guess that's it! Funny, I can't remember what we did on Saturday.

Holy crap, I must be getting senile. On Saturday Teri and I went to the Antiques Road Show in Providence. Stood in line for two or three hours with three antiques, only to find out just what I'd expected - they were only worth $350-$47 in aggregate. Although one of them is priceless to me, a backgammon board that my grandfather brought over from Turkey.

I was interested to see how it all worked; they don't film everything, or even much. They pick certain people to be filmed, and those people are brought to a different area where they're made up and filmed getting their stuff evaluated all over again.

After, Teri and I drove back to Woonsocket. We stopped by the house, but my parents (who were watching Sebastian for us that afternoon) weren't there - they'd taken him out for lunch. So we went to Chelo's. I suspected they might have taken him there, but even I was surprised when the people standing in front of us when we walked into Chelo's turned out to be them!

Incidentally, photographs were forbidden at the Antiques Road Show. But just imagine five thousand people standing in endless lines in a huge civic center, and you've pretty much envisioned it. We did see one or two of the people from the show, but I don't know their names. I don't watch the show much, to tell you the truth.