A six pack of Boston Beer Works' Fenway Ale

On one of my first trips up to Boston to visit my wife four years ago, I was introduced to Boston Beer Works, a microbrew pub with two locations in Boston. They are also home of the best chicken tenders in the city as well. Couple that with my love for craft beers and you have a very happy Jeff.

One of the things that always struck me about Beer Works was that their advertising was always bleh at best, but the locations always had people in them. Their Facebook group was also created by customers not the staff. Seasonally they have the Red Sox (across the street from Fenway Park), Bruins and Celtics (Canal Street location) to thank for putting fannies in the seats, while word of mouth and the previously mentioned lackluster ads take care of the rest of the year.

Being a fan of the restaurant, I was ecstatic for them when it was announced that they were expanding with two locations in Logan Airport. All signs pointed to business being good and that my belly would continue to be filled with chicken tenders. On Saturday afternoon, I made a purchase that made my weekend – a six-pack of their beer from the local liquor store. Granted you could have purchased the beer in Growlers or in a sixer at one of the pubs, but this meant that I could now pick it up on my time and without having to head into the restaurant. It goes to show you that reputation goes a long way. In the case of BBW it overcomes any marketing shortcomings.

So at that I will end my rant on how excited I am for the Boston Beer Works company and that I can get their beers without having to jump on a T. Cheers!

All of the weather people said that we were going to get crushed with snow and blizzard conditions. Well, they were wrong as only 10 inches or so – still some snow but nowhere close to the 15″ that were projected. Here’s a video of the alley behind our building as we headed out for shoveling and lunch during the afternoon.

Over the weekend, my fiance had one of her bridesmaids in town for her wedding shower, and with two days to kill, she wanted to do something purely New England. Granted she is originally from up here, but there was one thing that she had never done, neither had we, a whale watch. As anyone from the area can tell you, fall has come in quite cold and it probably was not the best idea to head into the ocean.

Cold aside, the day was beautiful, seas calm – until we were half way through Boston harbor. That was when we experienced five to 10 foot seas, needless to say half of the boat was not feeling to well. I had the benefit of a jug of Cape Codders to keep me sane. When we entered the ocean, the seas were calm and we saw a whole bunch of whales. Below is the video that I grabbed of the whales coming close to the boat to say hi.

After slimming down my cable bill, I have had limited choices to view outside of network television, I have been missing out on Little People Big World, Plant Earth, Lockup: Raw, Survivorman, any History Channel show and the occasional Boo-Ya from Stu Scott (not that much). Its also during this time that I began reading heavily, reminding me much like college, minus the papers.

After ripping through all of the books I had in the house, I heard author, Michael Connelly on the morning

Image courtest Motorbooks.com

show on WEEI talking about his new book Rebound! Basketball, Busing, Bird and the rebirth of Boston. At first it sounded like just another sports book, but then the author went into details about how the book not only chronicled the Celtics glory days and the rise of Bird’s team, but also the tumultuous time in the city of Boston during the busing fiasco.

Figuring it sounded like an appealing read I picked up the book and started away and quickly couldn’t put it down.

Not only was the jumping between stories seamless, but the racial unrest in Boston actually seemed to parallel the falling from grace of the NBA’s most storied franchise.

Originally coming from Jersey, I had heard stories of how the city was racist and how there was a scandal around busing, but never really understood it.

Chapter after chapter, I was shocked that some of the happenings of the book were something happening in one of the country’s oldest most revered cities and not in the pages of Mississippi Burning.

With the emphasis put on the history of the city, I almost think that it should be added to the curriculum of the Boston Public School System in an effort to educate less history repeat itself.

Connelly’s most powerful image in the book is the culmination celebration in Government Center of the Celts championship, almost washing away the racial unrest that consumed the city less than three years earlier.