A New Addition to the MacKenzie Clan!

Introducing Louis MacKenzie!
Date of Adoption: January 28, 2008
Weight at Adoption: 10.5 lbs
Length at Adoption: 12.5 inches
Parentage: questionable at best, we're told Lab/Poodle mix.

In the times of our peers percolating their second children (or even third in some cases), we finally feel old enough to get a puppy!

Louis is pronounced the French way, as in Louis XIV. He is 1/2 French, you know.

We adopted Louis from a rescue, his whole litter was dropped off at a rescue in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Apparently, spaying & neutering has really caught on in New England, so there are no unwanted puppies. The organization we adopted him from transports a whole load of puppies up to New England every few weeks.

We've had him 4 weeks now. He's managed piss all over our house, wake us up at all hours, mess up our social life...who needs a baby when you can just have a puppy? Nevertheless, we have absolutely fallen in love with him. Which is good because in 4 weeks, he's gained 13 pounds and grown 6 inches longer. All of a sudden, we're having person after person ask us if he's a Newfoundland. Yes, the enormous dog known for vicious seasonal shedding and flinging slobber 20 feet. We'll have to wait and see but we are praying he does not end up weighing 150 pounds!

Here are a few pictures:

Adoption Day:


Favorite Toy:


First Bath:


Eating Laying down (our own roman emperor!):


Contortionist:


Sleeping:


On his Big Boy Bed:


Playing in the Snow:


Playing in the Snow again (it snows A LOT in Boston):


With his big friend Mason (a Shar Pei mix):


With his little Puppy Kindergarten friend Luda (a Yorkie puppy):


With his Daddy:


With his Mommy:


His favorite spot:


Other than Louis, our life is pretty boring! We do intend to keep the blog updated on a more regular basis now though. Stay tuned!

All moved in

A quick update - we moved in last Friday 10/12. It was a frantic day unpacking and directing movers. The movers unpacked us, but that meant putting everything on the floor or nearest flat surface, so you can imagine the chaos. With Kate working and Don busy at school its going to be awhile before we get everything organized! Once we've spent some time working on the place we'll post more photos.

We are getting used to dealing with handyman type things too. In the past we just picked up the phone to call the landlord! Don will be getting a tool belt for Christmas.

We had new living room furniture delivered today. It's the first time either of us has had new couches and not hand-me-downs. We feel so grown up!

So now that we are moved in we've opened up our calendar for visitors...Any takers?

A Home!

We're happy to say that we've had an offer accepted for the purchase of a condo in Somerville, which is a small city wedged in between Boston's Charlestown neighbourhood to the east and Cambridge to the west. The condo is a 3-bedroom, 2-bath unit occupying the top two floors of a 3-story building. The house was built in 1890 and the ground floor contains one other unit. It's a 5-minute walk to the Orange line of the subway, which in about 12 minutes will drop Kate off very close to her office downtown. It's less than 3 miles from MIT, so Don should have about a 15 minute bike ride to campus. Last weekend we went for an inspection of the property, which turned up a few minor issues, but nothing of too much concern. So, here are some pictures of our new home (well, it'll be ours after Oct 10).

Front door:



Living Room:





Kitchen:





Master Bedroom:


(the original staircase of the house has been covered over with hardwood - that's the rectangle you see on the ground)



Master Bathroom:



Deck:


(we expect to spend many a fine night barbequing on the deck!)

There are two other bedrooms & another bath so everyone is expected to come and visit! We look forward to finally having our own place and being out of the tiny apartment we are in right now.

Back to School

First day of classes yesterday:



It wasn't really that bad. But it's amazing how you can be so busy with only 3 hours of class time. Throw in a workshop and a couple of meetings and all of a sudden the day's pretty full.

The report so far:
Intro to technology & policy = ok
Economics = uh oh

Quintessential Bostonian Weekend… Already

On Saturday we took care of some business, getting ourselves library cards for the Boston Public Library, etc. But it was that evening that we really became citizens, when we attended our first Red Sox game at Fenway Park. Making the evening more exciting still, Sox rookie Clay Buchholz threw a no-hitter against the O’s. The place went NUTS!

The final strike of the game:



On Sunday we got up extra early and stumbled over to Cambridge for sailing lessons at the MIT sailing pavilion. The Institute has about 50 boats available FREE to students and their guests, including 35 “Tech Dinghies” for novices. They gave us a few basic pointers, a couple of long-winded demonstrations of how to rig and unrig the boats, and turned us loose on the Charles River.







We can’t wait to get back out there some more!

Sunday night we met a couple of Kate's friends from Georgetown, Emily and Tommy. We went for dinner in the North End, Boston's historically Italian district. The food was great!

Monday we went to Revere Beach, which is just northeast of the city, past Logan airport. It was no Thailand, but a nice way to spend Labour Day all the same. The sand was fine and reasonably clean, and the water was, shall we say, “refreshing.” So refreshing, in fact, that we only needed about one minute to feel completely refreshed and ready to get out. The best part was that it was only half an hour away, and accessible by the T (subway).

Boston Update

Kate’s been settling into her new job well enough. She's having fun meeting coworkers and making big, important MBA decisions. She has also learned Rule No. 1 of meeting with their ad agency: No Starbucks Allowed. The reason? The agency also has Dunkin Donuts as a major client. Apparently some yahoos from, well, Yahoo came in for a meeting, Starbucks in hand, unaware of Rule No. 1. They were quickly ushered into a back room and out of sight of prying eyes.

Don’s classmates are all a good lot, though many of them are very young. We’d post the pictures to prove it, but there are laws against that. Ok, they’re not THAT young, but they’re a bit younger than we expected. Class registration was today and classes officially start tomorrow. Don has been meeting with potential thesis advisors, and has been making good progress. He'll be attending one research group's meeting tomorrow to see how they all work together.

We’ve also been looking at condos, a task which has enabled us to meet all manner of interesting characters, like Martin here:



Love the hair, Martin!

We're also happy to report that today we had an offer accepted on a condo in Somerville, which is next to Cambridge. It's about 2.5 miles to school for Don, and a 5 minute walk to the train for Kate, making for very manageable commutes. We're hoping to close on October 12.

Boston can wait no more.

We arrived in Boston last Friday after connecting in Seattle and Chicago. After a minor issue locating our bags, we took a taxi to our temporary apartment in Boston's South End neighbourhood. Before leaving, the taxi driver managed to slam the rear door of the van on Don's head. Nice guy.

We knew our apartment would be small, but we weren't expecting this:





Yep, that's the whole place, and yep, that's a murphy bed. But we don't fold the bed up because we have all our stuff stored under it.

On Saturday we worked on getting settled and on Sunday we met with our realtor and began checking out some more permanent places to live.

On Monday, Kate had her first day of work:



As you can see, there were a lot of tears, but I managed to convince her that she'd be fine, it would be fun, and that she'd make lots of new friends.

I also had my first economics "review" session on Monday, although there was not much reviewing since I've never done much in the way of economics before. More of a crash course. I also got to meet many of my classmates, and boy do I feel like an old man. Most of them seem to have one year or less of work experience. What a fresh-faced bunch they are!

Last night we met up with my old roommate, Moz, from UBC. He finished his PhD at MIT last year and is now doing a post-doc there. It was good to catch up, and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of him.

My orientation kicks off next week, and classes begin the week after. We hope to have a place to live soon, though it probably won't happen overnight. Wish us luck!

-Don