MATTHEW LARSEN

Sometimes I think it’d be fun to try and plan a tour around where all of the affiliate offices for Advance Internet are, so I would be able to work in the offices during the day, then play shows within a reasonable drive of whatever office in the evening, and not have to take too much time off from work. I wonder if it’s doable. Maybe Ethan would do a tour with me. That’d be fun.

Of course, I’d still have to pay for gas… and lodging. That would suck. And I’d miss Kristen and the cats like crazy. Still, I think it’d be an enjoyable experience.

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If I’m in the mood for a tasty, quick, and reasonably priced burrito, Bueno Y Sano is an obvious choice. I absolutely love the burritos at El Guanaco in South Hadley Falls, but that place is not always a convenient place to get to.

Similarly, though there’s nothing quite like a roast beef sandwich from places on the north shore of Massachusetts like Nick’s Roast Beef, Kelly’s Roast Beef, etc. I never get there since it’s a few hours away. I’m happy to say that locally, Rolando’s Roast Beef and Falafel in Amherst pays quite a tribute to the “North Shore Roast Beef Sandwich”… the tangy barbecue sauce, the nice round roll, the onions and cheese– all delicious. I had a taste of Kristen’s falafel also and that was great. The fries and onion rings were good too. I just enjoyed that they use fresh stuff to make everything there. I think I spent about $6-7 for a sandwich, basket of fries, and a drink. I think that’s pretty reasonable considering the amount of food I ordered. I still have never solved the mystery of why Arby’s is so expensive. What’s the deal with that?

Anyway, one more thing about Bueno Y Sano. Did you know they did catering?! I didn’t.

My Aunt Pat retired a number of years ago, and her and my uncle built this place in Negril, Jamaica. I think it was always their dream to live there, and I’ll be damned if they didn’t actually make it happen. They sold their house on Long Island and now live at Valentine Villas, a four unit private villa on a sandy beach. It sounds quite lovely. My mom went there for a mini-vacation. I think my cousin is going down there too this week.

Meanwhile, we’re supposed to get snow up here in not-Jamaica. Luckily I finally got the tire off the snowblower and it should fixed, inflated and ready in the nick of time. I’m sure the barbershop will be open, no matter what the storm brings. It’s like the USPS that way.

Being a landlord is really something. I’m learning that it’s not necessarily a ‘big’ responsibility… it’s more like a ton of tiny responsibilities. Team Larseam is up to the challenge though. Our place IS pretty awesome, after all. We continue to hang up pictures and things like that and it feels like home more every day. Our friend Brittnie and her husband Kurt got us this wonderful framed scene that we hung above the piano. It’s actually made out of papyrus and was brought back from Brittnie’s recent trip to Egypt. It really blew my mind that she did this for us, not to mention the unbelievable party she coordinated (and cooked for) in our honor.

Both Kristen and I are really lucky to have wonderful people in our lives. It really amazes me every time I stop and think about it.

Kristen and I went to Cafe Lebanon today for lunch. It was delicious as it always is. She posted some pictures, in fact. Working in downtown Springfield is often a drag, but there are some pretty good places to eat. We don’t go out to eat for lunch THAT often, but yesterday and today we did. Actually, yesterday she took some pictures of our trip to Rein’s Deli. Those pickles are garlicky. And delicious.

It’s always great when someone takes a classic idea and puts a new twist on it. Not in a lame way, but in a creative and intelligent way. Ursa Minor Vehicles sells a kit to convert a Honda Element into a VW Westfalia-type weekender camper for about $4,300.00. The Element is a pretty versatile, ugly-but-charming kind of thing, but this takes it to a whole other level.

I’ve always wanted a VW camper van ever since I was a little kid and my neighbors had an orange one with a white top and brown plaid seat cushions. Between noticing that friends who owned VWs were spending a lot of time and money repairing their VWs and getting older and camping less– I kind of became a Honda fanatic. I’ve had 2 Accords with over 200,000 miles on them and Kristen’s Fit is a pretty good camping car if we do decide to go for a weekend here and there. But the idea that I can revisit my little kid dream and mix it up with my love of Honda’s practicality is pretty intriguing.

Some would argue that they couldn’t imagine an uglier car than an Element. Those people might say that an Element with the camper top tops an Element without.

This past Wednesday, Kristen and I stayed at the Sheraton in Boston’s Back Bay. My mother was nice enough to let us use her reward points, so we wound up staying in a pretty awesome suite on the 24th floor. For dinner, we went to Brasserie Jo. I had the steak frites. Kristen had the Chicken Coq Au Vin. Absolutely delicious. Seriously. Though I knew I would enjoy it when they brought each of us a baguette. I cannot express how much I love bread. It was nice to be able to chill out in Boston the night before my appointment on Thursday at Dana Farber.

It was a regular checkup of all my Hodgkin’s related stuff. I wasn’t looking forward to it, especially since my recent PET scan showed a slight enlargement of a lymph node in my neck. For weeks before my appointment I was pretty worried that a recurrence may have been on the horizon. Luckily, after they examined the scans at length, they determined that it wasn’t much of a cause for concern. They’re repeating scans in April just to be on the safe side. I could have just had a sore throat that day or something like that when I had my first PET scan. I can’t tell you how relieved I was.

In general, these regular checkups and doctor’s appointments are strangely more difficult for me now since they’re less frequent. I guess it’s the whole ‘out of site– out of mind’ mentality. When I go to these things, I’m reminded of all the difficult things I’ve been through. Now that I am so happy and in such a good place in my life, it’s easy to put those things out of my mind mostly. Anyhow, it was Kristen’s first visit to Dana Farber, so I’m sure it was weird for her but also good to get a new perspective on my health-life.

I’m just glad we got to offset the not-so-fun stuff with the hotel and the fancypants dinner the night before.

Oh, and on our way home, we stopped at the ‘rich people mall’, the Atrium in Chestnut Hill. We strolled around places like Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, J. Crew, Anthroplogie, and other such stores. And of course, there was a Cheesecake Factory, so we wound up eating there for dinner. It was surprisingly delicious.

Oh, and Kristen picked up a TheKnot magazine, which had 800 wedding dress ideas. But what will I wear?!

This week I headed down to the Advance Internet offices, which are in Journal Square in Jersey City, NJ. It was quite nice to meet people who I generally only talk to over IM or on the phone, since I’m sort of a satellite employee working from the MassLive office in Springfield. Jersey City is interesting, because it’s just across the river from NYC. It has its nice areas and its not so nice areas. Journal Square seems like it’s right in the middle of the two. My hotel wasn’t in an awesome area, but I eventually found it on Tuesday after driving around forever.

There were limited food options, but I wound up going to GoldenKrust, which is a very small chain of “Caribbean Bakery and Grill”s. Most of them are in NYC, Queens, Long Island, etc. It’s like a take-out joint. I had the jerk chicken. It was surprisingly delicious.

We wound up going Wednesday night into the city. It’s a pretty quick ride on the PATH train from Journal Square. Times Square is always nuts, and as a NYC tourist I’ve been there plenty of times, but it always seems to have its charm like anything else. We wound up going to Heartland Brewery. It was nice to share a meal with co-workers and get to know them more.

I was homesick of course, missing Kristen like nuts.

Every time I travel it’s bittersweet. I love exploring and seeing a whole different set of people and how they live. I love eating at different places and getting lost and stuff like that. But after about the second day from home I really yearn to be back in familiar surroundings. I never used to feel this way, but maybe it’s a reflection of realizing that I’m getting older. I may not be a spring chicken anymore, but I always strive to live in the moment and seize opportunities as they arise. I also realize that I can’t do everything, and it’s okay to just chill out once in awhile.

That said, I plan to relax a bit this weekend, and go see The Low Anthem and Steve Biegner at PACE on Saturday night probably.

Thanks Heather. That was awfully nice of you.

Kristen and I (and Heather) went to Thornes in Northampton after an unsuccessful attempt at going to the Smith College student center. It’s hard to find good lighting in the evening. Here’s one of my favorites:

I think Heather’s direction was the most impressive. A lot of “Okay, kids. Look alive.”s and “Smile like you mean it”s.

We celebrated striking multiple poses by eating pizza. I love Luna.

Kristen and I went to Moshi Moshi last night. Among other things, I had the caterpillar roll. It was delicious. I’m kind of a sushi novice, but I want to eat it all now.

I was looking at my site one day and began to realize how seemingly quickly things become out of date and never get updated. It happens to everyone, and I suppose I could tell you that it won’t happen here since I have a fancy new blog setup so it makes it easier for me to post things. I suppose I could pledge to keep this updated as frequently as possible, not acknowledging the inevitable slackage that will creep up from time to time.

Instead I’ll just post about how I’m kind of excited about the whole blog setup. Ever since I started working at MassLive, and since meeting my lovely fiancee Kristen, I’ve been keen to the idea of starting one, but just didn’t have the time to explore it. Finally, I did.

So here we are. As I get into the swing of things, I hope some of these posts aren’t total snoozers.