From the Surfside

My wife, Jennifer, started a new job this week and got lost on her commute to work this morning. She had driven to work every day this week but on Friday, being a cool, sunny morning with hints of a New England fall in the air, she decided to walk.  We live 1.2 miles from her place of employment in a town we’ve lived in for 13 years and she got fucking lost walking to work.  Last year when they opened up a new bike path near our home that leads directly to my office, I decided it might be fun to ride my bike to work some mornings. So you know what I did? A test run. That’s right. One Saturday morning, I hopped on my bike to do a test run on the route that I would be taking to work the days I decided to ride. A test run is a beautiful thing. It allows you to make mistakes along the way like perhaps, make a wrong turn. Maybe discover an unexpected obstacle along the way. And most importantly, once you figure out the proper route, it allows you to time ...

My goal for this weekend is to get in one more epic beach day on Saturday with my family. With Pearl Jam at Fenway on Sunday night, whatever I do Sunday will be cut a little short to get into town for that, so Saturday is the day. While it might be a little soon to start looking at this weekend's weather, I like to get a jump on what I can expect. In fact, during the summer months, the first thing I usually do on Monday morning when faced with the reality of a fresh five day work week is to look at the following weekend's forecast to start mentally making plans. Check the weather. Check the tides. Check the surf report. And today is Tuesday, so it's not that far off and with Friday being a half day at work, which will be slow, and I'm sure many folks will be off, that will probably feel like a nothing day so this week's Thursday will kind of feel like Friday, which practically makes today Wednesday. You get what I'm saying? It's almost the weekend. Satur...

I’ve always felt that changing the oil in my car was something that I should be able to take care of on my own. I know enough people who do it regularly that there can’t be any real “behind the curtain” secrets to it, right? And not only would I save a few bucks, but knowing your car better is an important step in keeping it running longer and staying in tune with how things are functioning. Plus, it just seems like it would be satisfying. So I started watching some youtube videos on how to change the oil on a 2006 highlander. There are youtube videos for just about everything, you know, even for self-destructing washing machines and dryers. When it comes to videos on how to change the oil in your car, some are more helpful and much more to the point than others, and for these, I am grateful. Because while there are many people out there who are confident in their ability to change the oil and filter in a car, when it comes to their “how to” video production skills and step by s...

The Final Day - Well Jenn, happy to say we’ve made it through the final day of being on our own and we’re all very excited for your return! In preparation for that, my first priority today was to clean up the cat puke from a couple days ago. While we’ve learned to skillfully dodge that spot on the rug while walking down the hallway all week, it seemed like it had hardened enough that it would just flick right off the rug. The time was right. Much to my delight, when I went to scoop it off the floor with the pancake spatula from the kitchen, it was gone! Turns out one of the dogs ate the puke and took care it for me. Extra treats for the dogs today! Such good pups! By the way, we’re getting low on Milk Bones. I never realized how many of those the dogs could actually eat. They literally won’t stop eating them until I stop handing them out of the bowl. A couple of the days we didn’t even need to feed them their regular food because they had so many. On a side note, their “poops” have be...

Dearest Jennifer, we’ve made it through yet another day and while we’ve been enjoying the above normal temperatures for early November, we did run into our first “uh-oh” of the week. This morning Rowan discovered he’d run out of clean underpants. Yikes! Didn’t see that coming. There just always seem to be clean underwear appearing in the drawers up until now. I don’t know what happened? BUT, faster than you can say “dirty skid mark” that kid put his brain to use and had the smarts to recycle a pair he’d worn earlier in the week. How clever! I’m totally impressed by his resourcefulness and just know that that kid is destined for some great things when he grows up. We realized today, with Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday’s leftovers, he’s good to go until at least Saturday on underwear. We’re literally saving the planet here. In other big news, as you know, today is Rowan’s birthday! He is turning 12. This morning when I woke up, I looked around on the kitchen counter to see if you had ...

Day #2 - The boys and I have survived another day. In fact, I would say more than surviving, we’re actually thriving! The pillow cases full of candy that the boys managed to collect yesterday have allowed us to really power through a lot. The mantra around the house has become, “This candy isn’t going to eat itself!” I’m really impressed with how the boys have embraced this. Sure, the first crash was a little intense but they’ve learned to anticipate those and have been able to cut them off with another Kit Kat or two. One great discovery of the past two days is that for years we’ve been telling the kids, “You can’t stay up that late.” But it turns out, kids can actually stay up pretty late! Last night’s Game 6 of the World Series was no problem. I was a little nervous at the thought of them staying up past their bedtime but I felt the risk was worth it for America’s past time. They really had no interest in going to bed. You read it here first, kids, uncoaxed, will not fight the op...

Well the Men O’ McCullough have been left to fend for themselves for the next 4 days as Jenn has taken a well-deserved trip to warmer temps. While the thought of mid-70’s sun and care free days at Disney World sound pretty relaxing to most of us, I’m sure she’s feeling a little unsettled wondering if we’ll survive without her. But rest assured, we’re making out just fine. Granted, I did lose track of the kids from the time they left for this school this morning until about 8:30 this evening, but everything is ok. Turns out they were just walking about the streets of Milton, taking candy from strangers. They were a little hungry when they got home seeing that they hadn’t been fed dinner (dad oversight!) but fear not! The strangers in Milton were very generous and they filled up on plenty of candy. Much of which was chocolate and apparently made with milk, score! Other than mysteriously being out of toilet paper and eggs, which I know we had plenty of this morning, we’re doing just ...