Tag: Cambridge

Workout Wednesday

Workout Wednesday – February 2014

Geoff W

I’m finally ready for winter to be over. I’ll be incredibly sad to see the snow go and that there won’t be the beauty of the silent snow falling or even the cold (I do love it). The problem is I’ve definitely hit a low point. The short days and even the coldness in the morning are seriously starting to affect my ability to get out of bed, not to mention get out of bed and drag myself the half mile to CrossFit and back before 7AM! I mean the past two weeks I dropped down to one day a week, but somehow kept up at least two days a week running at the gym.

I’ve tried counteracting it by getting new SERIOUSLY BRIGHT work out gear (I needed it anyway), but that’s only given me temporary reprieves and I’m just ready to be outside again. What I really need to do is get a new pair of shoes as mine are almost stripped, it might be time to invest in a full price pair. I’m not sure how I feel about the new FitBit band, I love the brightness, but I definitely feel like it’s getting dirty very quickly.

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Books, Quotes

Book 256: Inferno (Robert Langdon #4) – Dan Brown

Geoff W

This is the fourth book in the Robert Langdon series and Brown’s sixth novel. As with the others, this is exactly what it sets out to be: a page turning action and adventure novel that although not a literary wonder Inferno does make you wonder about major societal and environmental issues. The entire story takes place in less than 24 hours with flashbacks to two days before.

The only other Robert Langdon novel I’ve read since starting this blog is the third installment The Lost Symbol. I’ve read all of Brown’s books and enjoy them for what they are and don’t judge them harshly like it seems most people do. I remember reading The Da Vinci Code the summer between high school and college and immediately going out to find copies of Angels and Demons, Digital Fortress and Deception Point. (Call it my hipster moment, but I read it BEFORE it took off.)

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Books

Culture Corner – October 2013

Geoff W

2013 10-14 Tickets PleaseThis was a very cultural month or perhaps I made an effort more than I have the past few months. I’ve noticed a lot more public artwork around the city and haven’t taken a single photo of it, maybe I’ll try to get some for next month’s Culture Corner. Instead you get to relieve two amazing events and my virtual rock-starness.

 

Above you can see my tickets for the Harvard Bookstore Margaret Atwood reading and the Boston Lyric Opera’s performance of The Magic Flute.

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Culture Corner

Culture Corner – July 2013

Geoff W

I knew I did a lot of ‘cultural’ things prior to starting this monthly blog post series, but I didn’t realize quite how many I did on a regular basis. As I sat down to write this post I realized I’d done so much that I could easily have posted a weekly Culture Corner since the last one. Instead you’re going to get a LOT of pictures (three distinct sets) with brief explanations of each.

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Books

Book 205: Harvard’s Secret Court – William Wright

Geoff W

I’ve wanted to read this since a book group I was in when I first moved to Boston read it. They read it before I joined and I thought it sounded interesting. So keeping with my theme of expanding my reading (and apparently reading a lot more nonfiction) I requested it from the local library.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t impressed. This book felt more like a really well written undergraduate research paper than a book than a published book (and they were typos too). Part of this I believe comes from the structure and subtitle of the book and the other part I think comes from the super-focused subject matter. I discuss both below, but before I get to that I do want to say that it was an interesting read and I found many of the stories compelling and the appalling way in which Harvard dealt with these students should be a black mark on their history and reputation regardless of the time period. Not only did the Secret Court expel a number of individuals they were so adamant in their beliefs that they expunged the records of some of the individuals completely removing them from Harvard University records and if any of those expelled attempted to get into another school or a job using their Harvard connection/credentials, Harvard had a policy of exposing explicitly why they were expelled and this continued into at least the 1970s.

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