After initially buying groceries in downtown Brookline that
first week, I found a more convenient store: a Star Market right down Route 9 a
few miles from my hotel. It is located
in Chestnut Hill in an upscale outdoor mall called The Street. It became my “local” supermarket where I
stocked up on water, Powerade (to replace electrolytes lost during radiation) and,
of course, some food, although I was eating out quite a bit.
By the way, this was where I finally figured out how to get
that gift card I had gotten from Dana Farber work. After a first failed attempt that proved the
geographical location was not the problem, I got it to work by ignoring the
card’s instructions and using it as a debit card (it worked in Florida, as
well). When “testing” the card, I tried
to shop at slow times and use the self-check-out lines to avoid disdain from
cashiers in case the card did not work.
In addition to the Star Market, I found The Street also had
several interesting looking restaurants including Aquitaine, whose Boston
location Pat and I had dined at the day after we arrived. In fact, when I made that reservation, I
thought I was making it for the one at The Street—if I had, maybe our rideshare
would have been a lot cheaper.
In looking over the restaurants at The Street, I was excited
to find there was another Legal Sea Foods there. When I looked online at menus for other
places, I noticed the upscale Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse had an
extensive, good-looking gluten-free menu.
Somewhat awkwardly-timed midday appointments scheduled for
the first three days of week 4 meant no buffet breakfasts, unless I felt like
squirreling them away in the fridge early in the morning, then heating them up
in the afternoon. Instead of that, I
decided to try out a couple of those restaurants at The Street. I was still feeling good, treatments were
occurring without issues, and I knew I’d be pretty hungry by the time I could
eat in the afternoon.
So on Monday, after my 11:50 a.m. treatment, I drove over to
The Street and found the Legal Sea Foods located towards the back of the
complex. Rather than the clams, this
time I got the scallops with gluten-free batter. Not wanting to overdo the fried food, I found
a Pad Thai-type side that met my dietary restrictions. It was a delicious meal, although a lot of
things likely taste great when you’re that hungry.
The next day, my treatment was even later, at 1:50. This time, I went to Davio’s. I was excited to try the gluten-free clam
chowder, since I probably hadn’t had chowder since being diagnosed with Celiac
over 20 years ago. It was so good I
described it as life-changing in that I would be less wanting to settle for
mediocre food now that I knew food I could eat could be so tasty. Their gluten-free gnocchi was also great.
For the duration of the trip I ate at these two places as
often as I could.
Shortly after I informed my relatives that I would be in
Boston for treatment, my (second) cousin Nicole, or “Nikki,” suggested that we
get together sometime during my stay. She
was staying in a seasonal RV park with her dog Charlie up in the beachside
community of Salisbury, where I had swum in the frigid ocean when I was young,
eaten pizza and fried food in “the loop” and, years later, listened to bands
and drank in the clubs there. We
ultimately arranged to meet up for dinner the Wednesday of my fourth week.
It being a Wednesday, I had my usual “homework”
questionnaire about how I was doing, followed by a meeting with the radiation
oncologist on duty. This week it was Dr.
Sayan, the man who designed my radiation treatment and was possibly most influential
in my decision to choose this route.
Again, I had little to complain about. My worst symptoms were still urinary
frequency with weak stream, but no fatigue, pain or really any other bad
stuff. After my treatment was the meeting
with Dr. Sayan. The first thing he asked
me was how my wife was doing, as he remembered my talking about her health
challenges. I was impressed that he was
that thoughtful. He seemed happy at how
well I was doing and didn’t have a lot else to say. He did say he could prescribe medication for
the weak urination, but I said it wasn’t enough of a problem to worry
about. As I left and shook his hand, I
again thanked him for the recommendation of Dolma restaurant.
My treatment had been at 1:40 p.m. and with the appointment
with Dr. Sayan and the walk back to the hotel to get my car, I didn’t get on
the road to head towards Nicole until about quarter to 3.
Google’s estimate of an hour and a half drive with traffic
turned out to be laughably optimistic as I ran into the early afternoon exodus
from the city. One thing I realized on
this day was that I-95 north of Boston has no rest areas. Other times, that wouldn’t matter much to me,
but, in my current state, I really needed to pee a lot—especially after sitting
in traffic so long. Eventually, I saw a
gas station sign at one of the exits and I pulled off, hoping to make some
small purchase and use their rest room.
The station was so far off the highway I was sure I had missed it, but
finally it appeared.
 |
 |
When I walked into the “food mart” and grabbed a water, I
was disheartened to see the tiny place had no bathroom. When I asked about it, the clerk was a
complete dick. I thought about all sorts
of responses, like telling him I had prostate cancer to gain sympathy or maybe
just chucking my water bottle at his head.
Peeing in the parking lot also came to mind but, ultimately, I just put
the water back, left, and quietly flipped him off as I drove away. I did note that the price for gas was
significantly more than I’d seen nearly anywhere else, so I thought about
finding out to whom I could report price gouging. In the end, all did was head back to the
highway and “hold it” a little longer.
After somehow making yet another wrong turn after I got off the interstate, even while following Google’s directions, I thankfully arrived at the park where Nikki was waiting.
Nikki is the youngest daughter of my cousin Ken and was
still pretty much still a little girl at our family gatherings as I was in my
teens. As we got older, we went our
separate ways with she going to Salem State University and me, eventually,
commuting to the University of Lowell, although we still saw each other at
those holiday family get-togethers.
Nikki and I actually worked together for a while during my
college years when Ken got me a part-time job at RGIS (Regional Grocery
Inventory Specialists, I think) where she also worked. Car pooling to those out-of-town jobs to
inventory grocery and retail stores was somewhat of a bonding experience. After I moved to Florida, I still saw Nikki occasionally
at those continuing family holiday and birthday celebrations that I attended
during my visits back up North. The last
time I had seen her was briefly at my godmother Barbara’s funeral in February, so
I was looking forward to having a longer conversation to find out what she had
been up to the last several years.
By he way, that RGIS job followed me after I graduated from
U. Lowell and moved to Florida seeking a job at Kennedy Space Center (which I
never wound up taking, but that’s another story). I was able to go to work for a local RGIS
branch which was staffed by a fun, age-diverse group. As I was relying on the good graces of Walt
and Terry for room and board, that RGIS cash was pretty useful.
This RGIS group included drinkers and smokers, so the ride back from jobs in the company van usually featured stopping for a couple six-packs and cigarette breaks. One time, on the way back from inventorying a grocery store in Kissimmee, we pulled into the parking lot of a “serpentarium” so the smokers could smoke. Someone went in and asked how much admission was and I think the answer was that it was only a dollar instead of the normal two because today’s snake show would not include a milking. Thankfully, we did not go in--I hate snakes. Another interesting road trip took us to inventory a Disney World storage facility, but our most exotic job was a weekend “excursion” to Andros Island to inventory the PX at an Army base. We had a good time enjoying the small beach and drinking cheap beers afterward, but that’s a story for another time.
Nikki recommended we go to Tuna Striker, a casual seafood restaurant
in Seabrook. Upon arrival, my first stop
was the first rest room I had the opportunity to visit since Boston. The place was crowded, but we were able to get
seated at an outside picnic table which might have been temporarily undesirable
because of the hot sun. The table, however,
afforded us a beautiful view of the Seabrook nuclear power plant across what might
be the Blackwater River or Hampton Harbor (I’ve heard it called both).
I ordered, appropriately, a nice piece of tuna which met my
dietary requirements. Over dinner, Nikki
told me about the challenges she had faced, including sustaining serious injuries
after getting sideswiped by an impaired driver.
Despite the fact all the news was not good, it was great to catch each
other up on everything that had happened in our lives over the years—including
all the health issues, of course.
After dinner, Nikki took us for a drive through the “famous”
loop, which is the “hot spot” of Salisbury that abuts the beach. I got to see the renovations made since the
last time I’d been there about 10 years ago—that trip involved a brush with the
law that is yet another story for another time.
A lot of things were still the same, however, like the pizza places and
fried food stands. In an area that had
been made into a little plaza, Nikki
showed me the brick her sister, Kim, had purchased to commemorate the good
times the Kuzmitski family had had at Salisbury Beach.
After the trip through town, we went back to the park. I got to check out Nikki’s RV--and use the
bathroom, of course. I also got to meet her
“roommate” Charlie who wasn’t thrilled to see me at first, but warmed up after
a bit.
 |
 |
Nicole's "roommate" Charlie wasn't happy to see me at first
|
Nikki and Charlie
|
After yet another really great time with a cousin I hadn’t
had a chance to talk with at length in years, I took the now traffic-less, easy
drive back to the city. At least it
would have been easy if not for the heavy rain that suddenly appeared, but I made it
back safe and sound in time to rest for the next day’s 7:30 a.m. treatment.
Once I made the decision to stay in Boston for a month and a
half for treatment, John had suggested he might come up to visit me sometime
and spend the day in Boston. We talked
about maybe walking the Freedom Trail, another one of those quintessential
Boston tourist activities that you tend to never do when you live 30 miles
outside of Boston. Now as a tourist
myself, visiting all the historic sites sounded like fun—plus it would be good
exercise.
John eventually proposed that he and Andrew, my nephew, take
the train up from Providence and meet me at the Boston Common on Thursday, the day
after the visit with Nicole. Since The Common
is the start of the Freedom Trail, it made sense to meet there.
Nearly two-thirds of the way through my treatment, I was
surprised at how good I still felt. I was
a little worried that all that walking might be too much for me, but figured it
would be a good test of how well I was really doing. Plus, I could always stop if I got too tired.
Starting this Thursday, my treatments would all be at 7:20
or 7:30 a.m. That meant I would have to
get up early every day, but then have the rest of the day to do stuff. I could also eat that breakfast buffet food after
the treatment without having to refrigerate and reheat it.
After my treatment and breakfast, I changed into my non-treatment shorts and took the Green Line to The Common. I got there a little early, giving me time to use the tiny, ill-maintained bathroom in the Freedom Trail Visitor Center before I met up with John and Andrew.
We started out walking around the Common a bit and saw the Robert
Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial, a fairly recent
addition honoring African-Americans who fought in the Civil War. Being in the Common reminded me of summer
concerts I had seen there in the 80s that included Heart and Chicago, as well
as others I can’t remember. I don’t
think concerts are held there anymore. On
our way out of the park, we also saw quite a few apparently homeless folks who
made us slightly nervous.
Being in the Common reminded me of summer concerts I had
seen there in the 80s that included Heart and Chicago, as well as others I can’t
remember. I don’t think concerts are
held there anymore. On our way out of
the park, we also saw quite a few apparently homeless folks who made us
slightly nervous.
After leaving the Common, our next stop was the Park Street Church, which was founded
in 1809. We went inside and took a quick
walk around both floors. There were
banners indicating the church was apparently hosting a vacation bible school.
Next door to the church, we visited true heroes at the
Granary Burying Ground. These days, the
term “patriot” is unfortunately often assigned to people who have no idea what
the term actually means (not referring to the New England Patriots, of
course). But walking amongst these
graves reminded me how today we are the beneficiaries of all the danger these
true patriots put themselves in so long ago.
The fact that Paul Revere might not have made that ride the way we
learned about it in school, Ben Franklin did not invent daylight savings time
and Samuel Adams never brewed beer in no way diminishes the greatness of these
Founding Fathers.
 |
 |  |
Paul Revere's original grave
|
Paul Revere monument (added later)
|
John Hancock Monument |
 |
 |  |
Franklin monument (not Ben, his parents
|
John at the Granary Burying Ground |
Samuel Adams grave |
Down the street and around the corner from the cemetery and
the giant Franklin memorial, we found a statue of their son, Ben. It was located in front of the original site
of the Boston Latin School, the first schoolhouse built in the New World, in
1635. Benjamin Franklin, surprisingly,
dropped out and did not graduate from the school.
As we continued, John pointed out what he thought was the Old Corner Bookstore. He was correct, except now the building housed a Chipotle. The building had been constructed in 1718 and, in the 1800s, publisher Ticknor and Fields produced great works such as Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” and Longfellow’s “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” Today, you can pick up a possibly just as great burrito bowl, guac and chips.
Next, we walked by the Boston Massacre site, then proceeded
to the famous Faneuil Hall. We walked
through and found a lot of modern shops in which we had little interest. I remembered in junior high school reading a
case study questioning who fired that first shot that triggered the Massacre
and, ultimately, the American Revolution.
The widely accepted belief is that one of the British officers being harassed
fired the shot, but this story suggested Samuel Adams himself might have deliberately
fired to create a spark for the Revolution.
We’ll never know for sure but, today, 5 men being killed by gunfire
might not even be the lead story on the news.
 |
 |
John and Andrew on the Boston Massacre site
|
Me and Sam Adams in front of Faneuil Hall--did he
|
John was determined to find the statue of legendary Celtics coach Red Auerbach which he was sure was near Faneuil Hall. He asked a couple store employees, but all their directions were incorrect. They likely didn’t know who Red Auerbach was. John eventually trusted his own memory and located the elusive statue. After that effort, and given the Celtics were World Champions again, we had to get a picture.
After the visit to see Red, we came upon a much more somber
site when we saw the New England Holocaust Memorial on Union Street. The Memorial has six glass towers
representing the six major Nazi death camps, the 6 million Jews killed and the
6 years during which most of the genocide took place. The constant steam rising is meant symbolize the
chimneys of the extermination camps.
We continued along The Trail through the Paul Revere Mall and past the Old North Church. A while back, I had seen a History Channel show that attempted to recreate famous historical events, like Revere’s ride. They ultimately concluded it was unlikely that one man and one horse could have completed the ride in the time it reportedly took. I haven’t heard of plans to rewrite the famous poem or any history books based on that analysis.
 |
The Paul Revere Mall
|
We had decided to do pretty much the whole Trail with the
exception of the loop that went by the Bunker Hill Monument. That meant we were next headed towards the
Charlestown Bridge to cross the Charles River on our way to the Charlestown
Naval Yard where the U.S.S. Constitution was docked.
 |
John walking toward the Charlestown Bridge with the more famous Zakim Bridge in the background |
As we walked by some construction on the bridge, I realized
the day had become pretty hot. I started
to feel a little tired and the U.S.S. Constitution looked to be pretty far away,
but we pressed on.
 |
Walking past construction on the Charlestown Bridge as the day got hotter
|
Looking to the left we saw the more famous Leonard P. Zakim Bunker
Hill Memorial Bridge with its supports and wires that have shown up in pictures
of Boston since it was created as part of the “Big Dig” project. The Big Dig stared when I lived up there but,
like most government projects, was way over budget and behind schedule and was
completed in 2007.
Also to our left we could see the TD Garden where, in a
couple months, the Celtics would be hanging their 18th championship
banner. Did I mention the Celtics
recently won a championship?
We finally got to the Charlestown Naval Yard, got past an ornery
security guard and got ready to board “Old Ironsides.” I believe this was the first time I’d visited
the Constitution.
On the top deck, we checked out all the cannons, as well as the masts and the ship’s bell.
 |
 |
One of many cannons on the deck of the U.S.S. Constitution
|
Why have a bell if you can't ring it??
|
 |
 |
View of a modern ship over the bow of the U.S.S. Constitution
|
Andrew checking things out on deck
|
Getting to the lower decks was a little dicey on the rope ladders that you had to go down backwards, but we navigated them without incident. The below decks had low ceilings and doorways not friendly to tall people like John and Andrew. We explored the captain's quarters, the grog barrel, more cannons (of course) and sick bay. I was thinking that, if were sick on a boat, I might not want to be lying in a swaying hammock.
 |
 |  |
John and me and yet another cannon below deck
|
The popular grog barrel
|
John reading about the sick bay |
 |
 |
Me, John and Andrew in one of my crappy selfies |
A much better (because it was taken by someone else) picture of me, John and Andrew on deck
|
After disembarking from the ship, there was more
to explore within the Navy Yard, including the U.S.S. Constitution
Museum, but, now
tired and hungry, we left that for another day.
We meandered back over the bridge looking for a place to eat
lunch. Finding a place that could
accommodate all my dietary restrictions turned out to be a bit of a
challenge. We started out trying to
avoid all the super touristy places but somehow wound up at maybe the most
touristy of all—Ye Old New England Oyster House, the oldest restaurant in the
U.S. They advertised being able to make
most things gluten-free so we tried it out.
I ordered what wound up being a bland piece of broiled scrod with no seasonings
and baby carrots that looked like they were microwaved in the bag in which they
came from the supermarket. After I
doctored it up with some lemon juice, salt and pepper, and butter lunch was
acceptable.
After lunch we parted ways, John and Andrew catching a train
back to Providence out of South Station and me taking the Green Line to
Brookline. As planned, we had walked
nearly all of The Freedom Trail with the exception of the loop that went by
Bunker Hill. A lot of the historic
cemeteries, structures and monuments were familiar from years ago, although I
learned or re-learned a few things. At
the end of the day, my step counter said I had walked 8 and a half miles, so it
had definitely been a good day for getting exercise, reliving history and—most
importantly—spending time with loved ones.
Friday morning, I got up for my 7:20 a.m. treatment and turned the TV to CNBC, as I often do to see how the markets are looking. While getting ready, I saw a story about a massive glitch that was apparently disabling computers in businesses all across the country. The problem was apparently the fault of cybersecurity company Crowdstrike. This was not a great start to the day as this company is among our largest stock holdings and its price was dropping sharply.
I had to leave for my treatment so I didn’t get all the news
about the total impact of the problem.
When I got to the Radiation Oncology Department, I was surprised to see
the computer monitor where I daily scanned in my ID card to check in was
displaying what us engineers call the “Blue Screen Of Death.” This is the somewhat mocking term for the
navy blue screen with white letters that is displayed when a Microsoft computer
has crashed.
When I went to the front desk to ask what happened, the person
there told me they had been “hacked” and that my treatment was postponed until
11. Having seen the news, I knew there
had been no “hack” but rather some tech screw-up by a software vendor. Only after that interaction did I realize I had a voicemail saying that my treatment was delayed.
I never felt my phone vibrate on my walk in. I thought of offering to lend my expertise to
help get their system back up, but decided against it.
As I walked out of the radiation area, I thought about how
this would affect things like my breakfast plans and when I would head to Rhode
Island for my flight to Florida that evening.
The first thing I needed to do was empty that bladder I had filled up in
anticipation of treatment. Before I even
got out of Mass General, the radiation department called and said all
treatments were cancelled for the day. A
make-up treatment would be added the day after my radiation had been scheduled
to end. I later heard that all the
computers at Dana Farber and Mass General were down, so this computer problem
was more pervasive than I would have guessed.
Now with an unexpected “day off,” I had a leisurely
breakfast, hung out in my room a while and packed up my dirty clothes in preparation
for my trip back to Florida. This would
have been the flight where I accompanied Pat back, but, since she never
returned to Boston, it was just another weekend visit to do errands and laundry
and see Pat.
I drove down to Rhode Island in the afternoon and sat
outside with John, Carol and my nephews on a beautiful day. After talking about the nationwide software
problem and other things, we had an early dinner and they brought me to the
airport. I was lucky to be flying on Southwest,
whose computers were not affected by the glitch—unlike other airlines who experienced
massive cancellations and delays. Ironically,
on a day with lots of flight problems across the country, I finally had a
flight to Florida leave on time.
On this trip, I gave Walt a break and asked my friend and
former co-worker Billy to pick me up. We
used the trick of getting picked up on the departure level and this avoided the
late-night chaos of the normal pick-up area.
Billy is one of the smartest, most detail-oriented,
versatile and dedicated engineers with whom I had ever worked. If the FAA Voice Switching and Control System
project that we both worked on had a Mount Rushmore, his face would be on
it. I wanted to get his thoughts about
this Crowdstrike glitch that ground a lot of the nation to a halt.
WARNING: This next paragraph is somewhat technical so feel
free to skip ahead if you hate that stuff.
From what I had learned from the news, the problem started
after Crowdstike blasted out an update to their database of virus definitions
to all their customers. Apparently, the
way their anti-virus software works is by reading this virus database so it
knows what to look for when scanning computers.
The problem was not with the software, but with the virus
definitions. My theory was that they flagged
something as a virus that was not a virus at all, maybe even something that’s
part of Windows itself. If that’s what
the problem was, computers might continuously reboot trying to remove a “virus”
that was both not a virus and not removable.
That’s the end of my descent into extreme geekiness.
Billy and I were both amazed that Crowdstrike would put
something in the field without thoroughly testing it first. Further, we wondered why they sent this
update out to everybody at once, rather than to a smaller subset of customers to
limit the damage in case anything went wrong.
When working for the FAA, we certainly did extensive testing before
sending new software to air traffic sites—of course, some flawed stuff still
got out now and then. Also, we would
deploy new stuff to one site first, before sending it out across the
country. Usually Seattle was our test
site, maybe because the FAA figured it would only screw up a corner of the
country if anything went wrong.
I’d like to say I’d never make a mistake like Crowdstrike
did, but I kind of had. In the late
1990s, I was working on software for the Alaska air traffic control
system. The system included many
unstaffed sites with various equipment strewn throughout the massive
state. Although the system was designed
such that the remote sites would automatically report failed equipment to the network
control center in Anchorage, the FAA was always worried that something
important would fail and not be detected.
They asked me to come up with a way to make sure equipment failures
would always be recognized.
I came up with a design where all those remote sites would
be continuously “polled” by all four of the staffed centers around Alaska. The centers would then send the status
reports to each other to make sure everything matched and nothing had been
missed. I tried it out in our little
system mock-up and it worked great, so I send the software release up to
Anchorage.
Fast forward to a Monday night when some co-workers and I
were enjoying some beers and Monday Night Football at a local bar. My company-issued pager went off specifying
an Alaska area code. I got some quarters,
went to the bar pay phone and called the number (things mentioned in the last
two sentences demonstrate how many years ago this was). My contact in Alaska, where it would have
been mid-afternoon, informed me that they had deployed my software and it had
ground all communications in the network to a halt. With several cocktails in me, the best
suggestion I had was something like: “maybe you should back out my software.”
What had happened was that all that message traffic I had
added was overwhelming the system. In
effect, I had created what today might be called a “Denial of Service” attack,
which is something hackers would use to cripple a computer network. In that respect, maybe I was ahead of my
time?? So, although my software did what
the FAA wanted and worked fine in my tiny simulation, it would, needless to
say, never see a real network ever again.
So maybe I’m not the one who should criticize Crowdstrike
for their gaff. In fact, after its stock
price dropped so much after their goof-up, I bought more of it (and it eventually
went up to new highs).
My stay in Florida was short, but productive. The pool and my clothes were clean, the lawn
was mowed, bills were paid, Pat had groceries and the cats had food and kitty
litter.
Our mango tree was bearing a lot of fruit and I picked as many as I could see. I filled probably about 10 bags of them and offloaded most to neighbors and Pat’s friend Lynn. I even delivered some to a couple older ladies who lived the next street over and, weeks earlier, before they were ripe, had asked if they could pick some of the mangoes.
I scheduled the return trip early enough so I could get back
Sunday afternoon. My original plan had
been to go see the Foo Fighters concert at Fenway Park that night. They’re not my favorite band, but I do like
them and I thought it would be cool to see a concert in Fenway. The problem was
the show had been sold out for a while so I had to look for tickets on the
“secondary” markets (i.e. legal scalpers).
I was about set to pay close to $300 for what appeared to be a decent
seat somewhere behind third base—it’s hard to tell what concert seats are good
in a baseball field. I had assumed the
price was “all in” but when I went to check out, another $150 or so fee was
going to be added. In addition, I
wouldn’t get an actual ticket, per se, I would need to arrange an electronic
transfer with the seller as paper tickets apparently don’t exist anymore. This just became way too much for me and I
abandoned the concert idea.
About a week before the show, out of curiosity, I took a
look to see if ticket prices might have dropped. Surprisingly, I saw one for just over $100,
which didn’t sound bad—even after the 50% fee.
Before pulling the trigger, I did a bit more research and found the seat
was “obstructed view.” I know Fenway has
a lot of big poles so maybe it was behind one of them. Again disheartened, I gave up the ticket
pursuit for good.
 |
 |
In the end I realized I’d rather spend the afternoon with
John and Carol and my nephews rather than pay a ridiculous price to go to a
concert by myself. So, rather than
hurrying back to Boston for a concert, I chilled out and enjoyed some steak John
cooked on his grill. We all had a nice
afternoon together and it was way better than a marginal seat at a silly price
for a rock concert in a baseball park (even if it was the Foo Fighters).
As the afternoon faded away, I hit the road and
drove back
up to Boston to begin the “home stretch” of my radiation treatment.
When leaving Cranston, I took the "backtrack" route rather than risk
seeing more closed I-95 entrances.
| Home |
Previous |
Next |