Author: Logan Lo

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Boston 2025: The pub crawl

Lobster Roll Quest

The next morning, the Firecracker woke up bright and early to check out the city while I slept in.

After she got back, I got dressed and we headed out to Faneuil Hall Square for our Independence Pub Crawl, something else that was part of the Boston package we booked.

Gotta say, it was far more interesting that I thought it was gonna be and 2.5 hours went by pretty quickly.

The weirdest thing was I ran into my buddy Kar’s husband and three kiddos there.

Me: Frenchie! What are you doing here?!
Him: I was just telling [the kids], “Hey, I think that’s Logan.”

Wild.

Me: Isn’t that nuts?
Firecracker: (shrugging) Not really. You know a lotta people.

We caught up for just a few minutes before we had to return to our tour group.

We ended up hitting up four historical pubs and drinking at each of them…

…even ordering some oysters at one of them.

Another traveler: You two got food?
Firecracker: We figured they didn’t have to cook them and we could just down them.
Him: Smart.

After we left the group, we ended up checking out the Boston Public Market…

…where we had a little snack of Boston clam chowder…

Her: Normally, I’d consider hot clam chowder in the summertime crazy, but we’re in Boston.
Me: Yup, I get it. Let’s do it.

…before heading off to Faneuil Hall.

Her: I really want a lobster roll, now.
Me: I don’t have a problem with that, but I wanna sit.

We had originally planned to get her a lobster roll over at the Boston Sail Loft, but the wait was too long, so we headed off to Joe’s Waterfront instead.

Her: Finally, lobster roll!
Me: I need a salad because I feel like a fatty-fat-fat, what with alla that drinking we’ve been doing.

It was only a mile walk back to our hotel and, despite the heat and humidity, I figured the walk would be good for my back, so off we went.

After alla the sun, food, and booze, we both needed a quickie nap before exploring Chinatown at night.

I’ll tell you about that in the next entry.

Location: my superheated room
Mood: sweaty
Music: Forever and not at all, with a boathouse (Spotify)
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Boston 2025: A Tasting by the Harbor

The Godfrey Hotel and Boston Harbor Distillery

A few months back, the kid’s school had a fundraiser that I wanted to support but there was nuthin that really caught my attention.

Was running outta time, so I just bid on a buncha things to do in Boston in the next year.

Welp, I ended up winning that and, this past weekend, the Firecracker boarded the train at Penn Station to head there.

I had some unexpected things to contend with that morning, so she made us sammies for the trip.

Her: Hungry? We could eat the wraps I made.
Me: Great! Did you put some sriracha on mine?
Her: Yup.
Me: (three minutes later and coughing) How… how..much siracha did you put on?
Her: Too much?
Me: (between coughs) You’re trying to kill me!

She got us business class seats, so it was a pretty nice ride there.

All these years decades, I thought that the trains went north on the west side of Manhattan to get to the Bronx.

But it was only this day that I learned that the trains first go east into Long Island/Queens and then make a sharp left to head north.

The trip was fairly uneventful, and before we knew it, we were in a train station in Boston.

Me: Man, this town is just…empty.
Her: It’s amazing.
Me: Glorious, really.

When we arrived, we checked into our room at the Godfrey Hotel, which she picked out…

Her: This is one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever been to.
Me: Agreed – good choice!

…and, because I was starving, immediately stopped by a sushi joint for some cheap eats.

She ate like six pieces, and I ate the rest.

But we barely had time to finish everything before we had to head to the first of our planned activities – a tasting at the Boston Harbor Distillery.

When we arrived, we were checked in by the tour guide.

Her: There will be a LOT of spirits to sample so if you toss some, I won’t be offended.

She wasn’t kidding.

This was batch 1…

…this was batch 2…

…this was batch 3.

I think we ended up getting a half-a-shot of about 18 different spirits each.

As if that wasn’t enough, we got another drink for ourselves, which was actually mixed for us by the company owner, Rhonda Kallman, who was both a sweetheart and a legend.

The place was gorgeous, so we hung around for a bit…

…then grabbed an Uber back to our hotel where we had some drinks at the bar…

…before we took a little nighttime stroll around the city, where we ran into a party just outside the Boston Commons.

After a spell, we headed back to our room to rest up for the rest of our trip.

I’ll tell you more about it in our next entry.

Location: home
Mood: beat
Music: The last hurrah? Nah! I’d do it again (Spotify)
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The greatest mistake’s to do nothing cause you can’t do much

Resistance

Almost exactly 82 years ago to this day, the US 379th Bomb Group were above the central German town of Kassel – deep in Germany – trying to blow up the Nazi aircraft engine shops located there.

Tondelayo, a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, was flying particularly slow – 150 miles per hour versus its max speed of 287 mph – in order to try and hit its targets, all while being shot up by Nazi heavy guns.

A buncha Nazi exposive shells hit the airplane but didn’t explode.

After the crew made it back, officials inspected the shells that hit the Tondelayo and noted that most were empty.

Inside one of these shells, however, was a note written in Czech:

This is all we can do for you now.

That’s how the Allies discovered that forced laborers in a German munitions factory had sabotaged the ammunition by removing the explosive filler, rendering the shell a dud and saving the lives of everyone on board the Tondelayo.

On this 4th of July, I wanted to relay to you a quote I tell the kid alla time – and truly believe in my soul – from a fella named Syd that goes:

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.

To hold ourselves to our highest ideals of what it meana to be an American, I think, is to do what you can when you can to further the idea of truth and justice.

And it doesn’t take much.

But it does take something.

It’s 4th of July so I thought this was a fitting little story and quote.

Back to nuthin next week.

PS – I may take Monday off. Not sure ATM. I suppose we’ll find out then.

Location: still the UWS, for now
Mood: resolute
Music: Look, Mummy. There’s an airplane up in the sky (Spotify)
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The 8th Category

Poop Cruise!

We did binge Andor – which you should really do as well, honestly excellent writing – but we also saw Poop Cruise.

Now, if you were ever hesitant to go on a cruise, I would strongly recommend that you not watch it.

But it was pretty compelling, and we both found ourselves – probably because we were killing an entire bottle of wine between the two of us – randomly yelling out, Poop Cruise! for no real reason.

Me: Can I pay you a compliment?
Her: Sure!
Me: I always waaay overestimate how much time something will take when you help me out.

One of the reasons we could watch both was that we massively upgraded the home network.

One of the first things that Buckley did when he moved into the pad with me over a quarter-of-a-century ago was hardwire the whole pad for ethernet.

At the time, the fastest speed was gigabit, or 1,000 megabits per second (Mbps), which you could only get with Cat5e, the fastest commercially available ethernet cable at the time.

Regular Cat5 could do something called “Fast Ethernet,” which is about 100 Mbps.

We wired the pad with a combo of the two – with a couplea branches using Cat4 – never dreaming we’d ever need gigabit speeds or greater.

This is roughly what my room looked like 24 years ago – I saw 9/11 unfold sitting on that bed, watching that TV.

Then, during COVID, I decided to rip out all the Cat5 and Cat4 and just do Cat5e everywhere.

Well, we had a lightning strike here about a month ago that dropped us from roughly 500 Mbps to 80 Mbps, which was just awful (it’s less than 1/10th a gigabit)

So, this past weekend, the Firecracker and I both tore out every single centimeter of cable that Buckley and I laid out 25+ years ago and replaced it with 90% Cat8 cable, which has a theoretical maximum speed of 40,000 Mbps (!!!!).

AND because the Firecracker’s just so damn organized and focused, what we thought was gonna take the whole day, we were able to bang out in just four hours.

Afterwards, I tested everything and was pleasantly surprised at the results: While the cabling can handle up to 40,000 Mbps, with our current routers, we topped out at “only” 113 MB/s, which is just under a gigabit at 904 Mbps.

This is compared to the 80 Mbps that we were working with the past month.

Honestly, this was the best possible outcome since we were approaching theoretical limits on the current hardware we had.

This is roughly what it looked like 15 years ago when Alison was here and kept it tidy.

Because we finished so quickly, we also decided to clean out TWO closets, and managed to replace the hoses on the washer/dryer as well (you’re supposed to change your washer hoses every five years, so if you’ve not done that, you should).

In return for her help, I picked up some Xi’an Famous Food, from around the way – it just opened up less than a year ago and I’d been to the more famous one in Flushing and wanted to try it out.

The food was absolutely killer, and it was a great way to close out the day.

Me: Hey, thanks so much for all the help today.
Her: For you? Anytime.

Location: the gym, taking an elbow to my hose
Mood: ache-y
Music: got sunshine even on a cloudy day (Spotify)
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Putting it off

Three sammies and Pyrat rum

Dropped off the kid with my in-laws the other day.

We have all of these traditions now that I love and am so grateful for, like his going to Alison’s family for a few weeks every summer.

But it doesn’t make me miss him any less.

Me: He cooked for the first time the other day.
MIL: What do you mean, the first time? He’s been cooking eggs here for a while now. You said he was cooking them at home!
Me: He was only mixing and seasoning them – I wanted to ease him into it.
Her: (laughing) Oh, he’s been cooking here for a while.

Dammit!

Having said that, I use the time I’ve got to do all the things I need to do but have been putting off because I’m either too busy with the kid or it’s unsafe to do around him.

To this end, I asked the Firecracker to help me out over the weekend and – like the amazing partner she is – she readily agreed.

But, on the day we were supposed to begin, we put it off for another day because the weather was so nice.

See, it’s been ridic hot around here, even before summer officially began.

This is what the heat wave did to my plants.

Was super bummed because they were all (finally) doing so well and then the heat just cooked them.

So, to take my mind offa all that – and to enjoy the much cooler sunny day – we met up with the Firecracker’s sister and BIL at a bar.

We stayed for a spell and then, because we were close to Tiki Chick and I can never resist their chix sammies, I picked up a buncha them for us and then headed back to theirs.

Her: You bought three sandwiches for yourself?
Me: Evidently.

Afterwards, we showed them how to play 鋤大弟/Big Two. and then promptly lost to her BIL.

Dammit!

But it was a fun night.

And they had Pyrat rum on the rocks for me, which is always good.

Him: What are you two gonna do tonight?
Me: Probably binge Andor.
Him: Oh, it is good. We just haven’t gotten around to finishing it.

If you’ve not seen it, it’s excellent.

Rain told me that he felt it was one of the best written shows, period – with or without the Star Wars part.

Worth a watch, but that’s neither here nor there.

Location: my desk, with just under gigabit speeds on my computers
Mood: super bummed
Music: It’s not like everybody knows but you (Spotify)
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The kid cooked for the first time

Challenge accepted

Me: (tapping her shoulder) Hey, if you’re going to the market tomorrow, could you pick up some edamame?
Her: (irritated) Did you just wake me up to tell me to buy edamame?
Me: I thought you were awake!
Her: (goes back to sleep) Your food obsession can be…problematic.

While we were at the Surgeon’s the other night, Steel mentioned that his son – who’s a year younger than my own kid – has been cooking since he was old enough to stand.

He didn’t make these eggs, I did. But I’m starting him easy with scrambled eggs first.

See, Steel may be one of the only people that think about food just as much, if not more (!) than I do, the only other person I can think of being Bryson.

In any case, I’d been having my son beat eggs for the past several months so, the other, I upped the ante and had him make scrambled eggs for himself for the first time.

Him: I don’t think it looks that good.
Me: Are you kidding? For your first attempt, it looks great!
Him Really?! (after trying it) It tastes pretty good.
Me: And, at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing.

Unfortunately, then we had a heat wave come in.

Which meant that it was waaay too hot for him to safely cook.

It’s been disappointing for a number of reasons, not just that.

For example, I had planted some flowers outside my apartment and – after weeks/months of waiting – I had some blooms!

Was super excited.

But then the heat wave killed ALL my plants.

I’ll take some pics next time, I’m too annoyed ATM to do it now.

At least it’s a good excuse to drink ice cold beer.

Location: a train at Newark Penn Station, missing the kid
Mood: yearning
Music: I want it for infinity – let’s go, and never stop (Spotify)
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Four more events

Overscheduled

I may have overscheduled the last weekend of the school year.

For Friday, was supposed to meet up with some of the other fathers for drinks but ended up just having the kid’s good friend and his parents come by for some wine and the card game 鋤大弟 – which is also called Big Two.

The game was a hit with the other parents, and we ended up playing 18 rounds, I think (!!).

Kid: Can [my friend] stay over for a sleepover?
Friend: Please?!
Me: It’s not really up to just me, but sure.

The other parents relented so my kid, the Firecracker’s kid, and the friend had a sleepover, which I think is pretty darn cute.

The next day, my sister stopped by briefly with her two kids – it was nice catching up, however briefly.

Then, later on that night, we went to the Surgeon’s pad along with Steel and his family.

No mezcal – thank goodness – but we had some absolutely killer drinks.

For example, here’s a sour raspberry beer that was pretty great.

I made some dumplings as well, plus the kids had pizza.

The thing about old friends is that there are literally decades worth of stuff to chat about.

Me: What I remember most about your wedding was the table of lobsters.
Him: I remember you and Alison driving by in a pedicab while we were taking pictures.
Me: The thing about Steel is that he knows me so well that he took time outta his own wedding to warn me that the lobsters were just the appetizers. That’s a real friend there.

Then, the very next day, we all went to see my SIL in Hoboken…

…for some swimming.

Afterwards, we’d been eating pretty poorly all week because of alla the school events so I insisted that we all had salads, which went over pretty well.

We also got to play Codenames with the kiddos, which was actually quite fun.

There’s actually a lot more that happened but this entry’s getting long so I’ll just wrap it all up here.

If you’re at all interested in learning how to play 鋤大弟/Big Two, watch this video, above.

Location: my apartment, trying not to melt, on the hottest day in six year
Mood: melting nonetheless
Music: I’m tired from the things I haven’t done, saving up just to retire (Spotify)
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Another school year almost over

Still showing up

Him: Are you sure you’re gonna come?
Me: I haven’t missed one yet, have I?
Him: No…I just wanted to make sure.

It’s been super busy here for a multitude of reasons, least of which is that the kid is winding up his school year.

This means that there’s one event after another, of varying degrees of entertainment.

The first was his end of year recital, where he played a cover of Billie Eilish’s Lovely on the guitar.

I should mention that the Firecracker’s never missed a single one – which is something considering that not all the kids were as talented as mine.

She’s the best, truly.

As for the song he chose, I’d never heard the song before and it was pretty maudlin, which was a bit concerning.

But, he did a great job and was pretty jazzed about it, so I just enjoyed it for what it was worth.

The next was his dance recital, which was absolutely adorbs.

I couldn’t get a good clean shot for video, but another parent was able to get some vids of them dancing.

Another one was the kid’s last publishing party, where the parents come in and check out all the artistic stuff that the kids were working on for the past few months.

I brought a huge jug of Dunkin coffee; several of the other parents brought a ton of delish looking carbs.

I’m proud to say that I didn’t have any but, man, did I want to.

In any case, with the portfolio of work due in just over a week, it’s been stressful around here.

Really didn’t have the 2-3 hours to spare this morning on top of the previous two events I went to.

But I told you once that it’s so important for little kids to have their parents show up to things. And there’s no “parents” here, it’s just me.

So, I showed up.

Gotta say, it was sweet to see him so happy to see me in the classroom.

There were another three or four events that were also end-of-year related but I’ll tell you about those in the next entry.

Location: Hoboken, playing Codenames and dreaming of more food
Mood: hot and bothered
Music: Always in my head space but I know some day I’ll make it out of here (Spotify)
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Rando pictures 1

Clearing out the backlog

That project of mine is just kicking my butt so no real entry except for rando pictures that I’ve been meaning to put up, but I just didn’t have a reason to.

Just as good a reason as any to clear out the backlog, I suppose.

Like, I didn’t know what to do with this picture from the Matchbox 20 concert we went to.

Or this one, which was just outside of the concert venue.

And I cannot tell you how many rando pics of food…

…and drink…

…that I have.

Seriously, so many.

To say nuthin of all the rando videos I have here and there as well.

Seriously, though, I’ll put up a proper post once I’m done with this @!#$%!! project of mine.

Any day now…

Location: my desk, working, with a back brace. Fun times.
Mood: So. Busy.
Music: I took my turn, oh, what a thing to have done (Spotify)
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Drinks at the Hotel Chelsea

Old friends come to visit

Him: Hey Logan! I’m in town for work again. I’m with distillery and distributor partners but if you wanted to join us for a drink, let me know.
Me: Where and when!?

The Firecracker and I have a strange little artifact from when we were younger.

She met one of her oldest friends online via a chatroom while I have a solid amount of friends that I still keep from my Livejournal days – I’ve literally got too many to mention.

That’s the kinda stuff I don’t think is really all that common anymore.

Anywho, one such friend is my buddy Paul N, not to be confused with my old drinking buddy Paul.

The last time I saw him was back in 2018, when I visited my brother and met up with him as well.

When we first “met” online, he was a marketing guy and a wannabe writer whereas I was a lawyer and a wannabe writer.

But since then, he launched the award-winning – seriously award-winning, check out all the awards below – Japanese spirit Nankai Shochu.

So, he’s now the owner of a liquor company with staff and inventory, jetting around the world, hustling to get his premium hooch all over the place.

I’m still just a lawyer and wannabe writer but that’s neither here nor there.

He was in town so the Firecracker and I went down to the Hotel Chelsea – a joint I’ve walked past a million times but never went in – and met up with him and some of his work colleagues.

There was a huge line and waiting list to get into the private sitting area but one of his friends, the lady in orange below, is a bit of celebrity bartender and she managed to float us all in.

Me: Killer! See, this is what you pay for – not having people on top of you.
Firecracker: And quiet, I swear, every bar in the city is a sports bar.

There’s nothing quite like ordering drinks with people that spend their lives thinking about and working with drinks.

I told Paul’s bartender friend to just order me rum drinks she enjoyed, and she did. They were all delish.

Now, his particular brand of shochu is very similar to rum, something I’ve pointed out to him numerous times.

This time, however, he told me that he was launching a rhum agricole, something I’ve never particularly liked.

Him: Just try it. It’s very different from other types of that rum. Our distiller is a mad scientist. (pours me some, surreptitiously)
Me: (trying it) Whoa, that’s the best one I’ve ever had.

That wasn’t a lie.

Normally, you can’t drink rhum agricole neat but this one I could definitely see myself sipping in the future.

Me: On that note, have I ever told you my rum story?
Him: You may have, tell it again and I’ll tell you if I heard it before.
Me: OK, so the story of rum is really the story of us…

It was definitely a fun night…

Him: You know what Korean (Americans) do when they’re drunk?
Me: No…?
Him: They argue about who’s more Korean. So, one night, Jo and Man…

…and, afterward, they went off to another bar.

But the Firecracker and I are on full-time parenting duties as the school year winds down.

So, we made our goodbyes and our way home.

Her: You always have such nice friends.
Me: I know. It’s a wonder why they chose to hang out with a fella like me. (later) It’s always nice when old friends come by for a visit.

Location: in front of my computer, all damn day
Mood: groggy
Music: I don’t want to be the villain all the time (Spotify)
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