Difference: WhatsNew (1 vs. 113)

2012-12-20 - Tory was also accepted at Lake Forest College! Looks like a trip to Chicago is in our future.

2012-12-10 - Tory was accepted early at Ohio Wesleyan University! She and I had visited OWU last summer on the Ohio Six Tour and were very impressed.

2012-11-06 - Vic's pathology report came back and everything looks great! Time to heal...

2012-06-28 - a frisky black bear was spotted roaming around our neighborhood the other day. It spent some time paying respects in the cemetery at the end of our street: http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/12007828220535/black-bear-sighted-in-dedham/

2012-06-21 - my project was announced today on the White House web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/news-releases-remarks/new-health-IT-effort-reducing-rx-drug-abuse

2012-03-18 - ATTENTION Massachusetts drivers! Be extra careful on the road as Tory Cabot has been unleashed upon the public with a driver's license.

2012-03-06 - Cleaning out Mom's house and I found my old class pictures from elementary school: ParkClassPix

2012-01-28 - I upgraded the operating system that this website runs on. Please let me know if anything's broken.

2012-01-19 - Vic's in la-la land raising money for WGU. When I'm on business trips I usually end up with a crappy small rental car. Not Vic.

2012-01 - I can't say I'm sad to see the end of 2011. Here's to an uneventful 2012!

2011-10 - Mom died in late October after an 8-year battle with ovarian cancer. It's been a rough couple of years here at the Caboteria.

2011-08-30 - First day of school! Woo hoo!

2011-08-28 - We made it through tropical storm Irene with no damage, although both my Mom and Vicky's Mom lost power for a while.

2011-07-24 - Katharine's at Camp Birch Hill for the next two weeks. It's an old-fashioned overnight camp on a lake in NH. Tory's too old to be a camper, and she's too busy scooping at Ron's.

2011-07-19 - I've been empaneled on a jury for a civil trial in Norfolk County Superior Court. I've been called for jury duty twice before but never chosen. It will be interesting to see how it works out. Update: the trial took 6 days and, quite frankly, everybody lost (except for the lawyers).

2011-07-10 - Tory tells me that I should update this log more often, so let's see if I do.

2011-06 - Tory has a Summer job contributing to the American obesity epidemic at Ron's Ice Cream in Dedham Square. Just kidding, Ron's is actually the 3rd best ice cream in the entire world. Tory is looking forward to having one powerful scooping arm and one shriveled little dinosaur arm by the end of the summer.

2011-02 - My Dad, TonyCabot, passed away in early February. I've added a few links to online remembrances of him on his page.

2010-10-21 - got my first two patches accepted into Ruby On Rails: it's a small bug fix but it's nice to see that random small contributions in old maintenance branches are still being looked after.

2010-10-19 - I hear through the grapevine that Reva Systems is shutting down. That's very disappointing; I really thought that company had everything going for it: good idea, good timing, good funding, great people. I guess the whole RFID thing just wasn't as good an idea as the 2004 hype would have led you to believe.

2010-06-29 - It's been tough sledding in 2010 so far but things are definitely looking up! I started work at The MITRE Corporation yesterday working on open-source healthcare applications. Great tech and scary-smart folks, I like it already.

2009-12-14 - I upgraded the software that I use to run the site - please let me know if anything's amiss.

2009-12-08 - Cut loose from Sermo, looking for a new job.

2009-11-14 - The empty space in the garage didn't last long: it's been filled by an old BMW: FallDayNewBike. It's a very different bike than the Duc and it proves that you don't have to make a lot of noise to have a lot of fun!

2009-11-04 - Just sold the Interceptor. It was a sad sight seeing it drive away in the back of a pickup but the guy who bought it plans to give it some love over the winter for his daughter to ride next spring. Cool Dad!

2009-11-01 - I've decided to sell my first motorcycle: InterceptorForSale

2009-10-30 - found out that one of the patents for stuff I worked on at Reva was awarded: http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT7567179

2009-09-30 - Last track day, with http://bostonmoto.com/. A good day, about 100 miles on the track, but a lot of crashes (not me!), especially in the morning. Cold track + cold tires = chaos.

2009-04-28 - First track day of the summer, with the Fishtail Riding School. Had a great time and improved on turns 3, 11, and 11a, but now I'll be sore for the next two days...

2009-04-06 - I had fun assembling a few blinky GameOfLife kits from the cool folks at http://adafruit.com/, and the bezel I made was featured on their blog today: http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2009/04/06/acrylic-bezel-for-game-of-life-kit/

2008-05-12 - Toby went to work for http://www.sermo.com/ ! It's in Kendall Square which is a nice change from the greater Lowell metropolitan area, and it's a dog-friendly office so Jet will be able to come in to work with me. Vic is still having a great time at Harvard.

2008-03-13 - Many new pix in the PhotoAlbum.

2008-03-08 - upgraded this wiki to the latest and greatest version. If you're reading this then it's evidently not working too badly.

2008-02-12 - Home sick, and so is Katharine.
I just renewed my FSF membership; If you use computers then you should seriously consider becoming a member. Joining is easy, just click on the button!

2008-02-04 - 19 and d'oh!
Oh well, thanks Pats for a fun, if disappointing season. Pitchers and catchers report in a couple of weeks...

2008-01-15 Long time, no update. Let's see...
Katharine's doing well, at her last appointment her antigen level was within the normal range! Tory's grades are much improved over last year, so she earned herself a case of her favorite "vitamin water". Vic is busy lightening the wallets of the members of the 5 Harvard classes that she's responsible for, and I'm still gainfully employed at Reva. Oh yeah, Jet's still got a serious attitude but we love him none the less.

2007-05-23 Keep Milton Academy's lower and middle schools! http://www.miltonk-12.org/

2007-02-12 It's a big day in the Caboteria as Vic heads back to work for the first time since we moved back to MA. She's working as a fundraiser for WGU so if you went there you'd better watch your wallet! The only bummer is that Jet will have to get used to spending the day alone

WhatsNew2006, WhatsNew2005, WhatsNew2004, WhatsNew2003, WhatsNew2002, WhatsNew2001, WhatsOld

2006-11-14 Nana is famous! http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1102/p13s01-lign.html

2006-09-28 Wow, more than a year since the previous update. All's well: both girls are settling into school nicely. Vic's getting some traction on her job search, but nothing definite yet. Katharine's feeling better and better as we eliminate the gluten from her diet. Jet is an 83# pain in the ass but we love him dearly.

2005-10-25 The company I work for, Reva Systems, announced its product last week. We've been working on it for a while, so it feels good to be able to tell people about it: http://www.revasystems.com/

2005-08-08 I list a good friend today. A co-worker and riding buddy of mine, Adam Bell, was killed by an old lady. The accident happened on Saturday and Adam passed away from injuries on Monday. http://www.rgalea.com/adam/

2005-07-02 Welcome Jet! We picked up Jet, our new puppy today. He's a good dog and already seems to be settling in. Pictures soon...

2005-06-24 Tory's softball team, the "Green Monsters", finished second in the season-ending tournament. They played well all season and peaked in the post-season. Good job!

2005-05-08 Happy Mother's day! We found out today that our new puppy was born a couple of days ago. We'll probably meet him around Memorial day and bring him home in June. We're still open to ideas for names.

2005-02-22 Last night I took the girls to their first rock concert; we all went to see Marilyn Manson. Just kidding, we actually saw They Might Be Giants at a local mega-chain bookstore. We all had a great time and you've got to hand it to TMBG for entertaining a crowd that ran the gamut from toddlers to their parents to teens with fuscia hair.

2004-10-14 Turbo left us around 03:30 this morning. He ate something poisonous yesterday afternoon and didn't make it through the night. He was a gentle dog, we'll miss him dearly.

2004-10-05 You forgot Poland.

2004-09-04 Both girls are now in school. Katharine had her first ride on the yellow school bus the other day, and she had a great first day in kindergarten.

2004-06-29 Updated TobyRants.

2004-06-12 RIP Bubbles the fish, 2001-2004. We had a small burial service in the backyard, with the kind help of Rev. Heidi Fieldston.

2004-05-29 I recently celebrated my 40th birthday with a bunch of my high school buddies who are also turning 40. It was nice to face the big four-oh with friends. We're gearing up for summer, Vic's got all sorts of activities planned.

2004-04-23 My new company has changed its name to Reva Systems, and we'll be moving to Chelmsford soon.
Tory will be playing town softball this spring, she has a nice coach and is looking forward to her first game.

2004-04-10 On Monday I'll start my most recent new job, with a company called (for the time being) Epiic. It's a small startup building products to help companies manage big networks of RFID readers. Bright guys, interesting ideas. Wish me luck!

2004-03-11 Oh my, such a long time since the last update. The Mazda is back on the road (it took almost 'til Christmas!). Everyone's healthy, just the usual wintertime colds and coughs. Vic's turn on the St. Pauls' Vestry ended recently, but she's still keeping busy with lots of volunteer activities.

WhatsNew2003, WhatsNew2002, WhatsNew2001, WhatsOld

2003-09-08 Saturday night I'd like to raise a little harm, I'll sleep when I'm dead! Sleep well, Warren Zevon, you've earned it.

2003-09-07 I moved the caboteria to an old dual-processor Compaq server I had lying around. It's substantially more powerful than the previous single-cpu box but it's loud! If you notice anything that doesn't work please let me know.

In other news, both kids are back at school so Vicky has a little time to herself.

2003-09-02 The caboteria is now running on an RCN "megamodem" cable modem, which claims to have higher upstream bandwidth, i.e. better throughput from me to you. It was a pretty easy conversion overall, so let's cross our fingers that the service is reliable.

2003-08-07 The noisy red car has gone to its reward. I just traded it in on a new car. It was a wonderful car; I beat on it for 13 years and it rewarded me with outstanding economy and reliability. If VW made something close to it I would have bought another one but they've gone upscale and every car has power everything and costs an arm and a leg. The Protege is a basic sedan with good handling. I hope it's almost as reliable as the Golf.

2003-07-08 Tory's got a new bike! I don't remember what kind it is but the important thing is that it's purple. It's also substantially bigger than her old bike so I might have waited a little too long to get the new one. We also got a helmet for Katharine in case she wants to play around on the old bike. At 4 years old her head was too big for the kiddie helmets so we had to get her small adult one.

2003-06-01 I've got a new job as a software consultant with Riverton Corporation We do design, architecture, and development work, mostly in Java using J2EE. It's a small company with a team of really bright people who are also fun to work with!

2003-04-20 I upgraded the software (http://TWiki.org/) that drives most of the Caboteria. Please let me know if there are any hiccups.

2003-04-18 AOL sucks! AOL has decided to reject mail from any server running on a cable modem (like this one). I think I've set up my mailer to route AOL mail through comcast's server but it's really annoying when they do something like this.

2003-04-06 Our old landlord pointed us to a picture of our house as it looked in the mid-1800's. In the following picture our house is the one on the right:

2003-04-02 I've been helping teach a course in GNU/Linux at TecsChange in Roxbury, which is a great organization. They help teach people how to use computers, and they also recycle old computers for use in social change. http://www.tecschange.org/ You can see our course notes at GnuLinuxIntro.

2003-01-26 I stumbled across the Style project which is just a couple of CSS stylesheets that are roughly the equivalent of a GUI widget set. A really cool idea. Anyway, I modified the Caboteria home page and Wiki to use the sheets with a simple 3-pane layout (props to Kurt Stam at One Heartbreak for the layout concept).

WhatsNew2003, WhatsNew2002, WhatsNew2001, WhatsOld

2002-08-28 Vicky's step-father Vincent O'Gorman passed away recently. We'll miss him.

2002-08-04 Back from vacation, and surprisingly little has changed. Where are the home improvement elves that we keep hearing about?

2002-07-11 Katharine is sleeping in a big-girl bed! Vicky and I swapped her crib for a bed yesterday (a process which involved a lot more work than you might imagine, long story). Kath spent her first night in it last night and everything went reasonably well, although it's going to take a while to get her to stay in the bed for any length of time.

2002-07-08 Today is the first day of camp for both Tory and Katharine. It was nice to spend some time with both of them, but it will also be nice to have them at camp for a few hours.

2002-06-27 Yesterday was Tory's birthday, we had a fun half-sleepover with some of her neighborhood friends. Also the first anniversary of the purchase of our house!

2002-05-12 The past weekend was my 20th from high school. Pretty darn wierd, if you ask me. But it was interesting catching up with people that I hadn't seen in a long, long, time. The worst part of the weekend was when someone pointed out that the seniors weren't born when we graduated.

2002-04-02 Today the official Black Ink Systems web site went live, along with the press release introducing the company and our products. Very exciting times!

2002-03-17 Tory has been making fantastic progress at learning to ride a bike. See TorysBike.

2002-02-14 Want an idea for a really hot Valentine's present? How about a new dryer! Who says the romance is gone?

Kath is getting over pneumonia and an ear infection. It's been a tough winter for that kid.

2002-01-27 There's been a whole lotta barfin' goin' on around here lately. Kath, Tory, and Vicky have all been sick in the last few days. Not much fun, I tell you.

2002-01-17 My father, TonyCabot, a/k/a Poohpa, now has his own page on this site, and he's been busy uploading pictures of this and that. Between his new camera and mine, it looks as if I'll have to upgrade our disk capacity before too long.

2002-01-14 Hope you had a happy holiday! I noticed that I didn't mention that I've started a new job, at Black Ink Systems. Very interesting company.

The grey station wagon is not long for this earth. It's been a fun, but fussy, car.

2001-12-14 Katharine's getting over a sinus infection (thanks, Moxie!) and yesterday the jail wall opposite our house was torn down. It's pretty nice for the time being, but my understanding is that they're planning on building a garage there before too long.

2001-11-30 I saw the news today, oh boy. Rest in peace, George.

2001-10-31 Hope you had a good Thanksgiving. A new family member joined us over the weekend - bubbles the goldfish has taken up residence at the Caboteria. Mr. Fish was a very good fish, I hope Bubbles has a long and healthy future.

WhatsNew2001, WhatsOld

2001-10-09 Back from a great long weekend at the Cape with some friends from Dedham (who it turns out also spend a lot of time in Wellfleet). I've got jury duty tomorrow - it should be interesting since it's a first for me.

Vicky painted the kitchen floor. I was pretty concerned - paint over linoleum, WTF? It turned out well, though. I re-hung a door that the previous owners had hung using plastic toggle bolts and toothpicks shoved in the holes. The first time I've ever seen toothpicks used in construction, but I doubt that it will be the last. I'm amazed that it held up for even the few months that it did.

2001-09-25 The pool is now gone and we have a 15' round sandbox for the kids. Both kids are enjoying school, and Vicky likes to have two free mornings each week. Also gone are the nasty aluminum gutters that ringed the garage and workshop.

2001-08-31 Spent a fun week on the Cape, other than that we're continuing to work on the house (which is starting to look good) and looking forward to both children going to school this fall. BTW, if you're interested in a 15' above-ground pool then stop by sometime and take ours!

2001-07-30 It wasn't fun (but could have been a lot worse) but we're all moved in. That's not to say that we're all settled in - there are still lots of things to unpack and set up. Everyone's happy except the dog, who's very confused and is expressing it in some rather unpleasant ways.

2001-07-25 The new/old house is now asbestos free, but took a bit more of a beating in the process than it should have. Oh well, we move on Friday!

2001-07-09 Scrape, mask, prime, spackle, sand, paint. Scrape, mask, prime, spackle, sand, paint. Scrape, mask, prime, spackle, sand, paint. Scrape, mask, prime, spackle, sand, paint. Scrape, mask, prime, spackle, sand, paint. Scrape, mask, prime, spackle, sand, paint. Scrape, mask, prime, spackle, sand, paint. Scrape, mask, prime, spackle, sand, paint.

2001-06-26 Big day today - we closed on our new house, and Tory was 6!

2001-06-09 A couple of birthdays to report. Katharine was two years old a week or so ago, we had a fun party with a few of her contemporaries and their parents.

Last weekend we visited the cousins in Bronxville to celebrate (somewhat belatedly) Vicky's brother Richard's 50th birthday. The theme was the Red Sox and a great time was had by all. Happy 50th, Uncle "V.B."!

2001-04-25 It's been a busy couple of days here at the Caboteria. On Weds we signed a purchase and sale agreement for the house next door to us - we'll probably close at the end of June and move at the end of July. Not sure if we'll get much vacation this year.

Yesterday I had three wisdom teeth removed, #1, #16, and #32 (I think). All in all it was pretty unpleasant but quick and not very painful. I feel a lot better now, just 24 hours after the procedure. Vicodan is your friend, but ice packs are your special friends.

2001-05-02 A scary day here at the Caboteria. Vicky was warming up the BBQ and got quite a nasty suprise when she opened it to put the food on - it flared up and gave her a few pretty nasty 2dn-degree burns on her face and right arm. Update She's pretty much fully recovered but it will take a while for her widow's peak to grow back. Speaking as her husband, I think that's probably OK.

2001-04-16 Tory is a snaggletooth! She lost her first tooth yesterday just after Easter dinner. It's a lower front tooth, and its companion is also pretty wobbly. The tooth fairy should be stopping by any day now.

2001-03-20 Happy Spring to all of you pagans (and others)! Also, there's a new look for the Caboteria. In case you were wondering, I still like the old look but thought things needed a change, and I wanted to fool around with style sheets. Look ma, no tables!

2001-02-21 SaltFire has moved into an office outside of Harvard Square so I'm re-joining the population of people who haul their sorry asses back and forth to work five days per week. Actually, working at home has its advantages but for now I'm glad to be back in an office! Now that I'm closer to the rest of the people who work for a living if you want to get together for lunch or a beer after work please give me a call.

2000-12-26 Happy Boxing Day! Hope you had a joyful holiday!

2000-12-18 The Caboteria had a 4-for-1 special on influenza over the weekend. First Katharine, then Tory, then Vicky and last Toby were all knocked over. It's the first time that the whole family has been sick at the same time, and it's not much fun. Turbo doesn't mind us barfing, though, since he can get a little snack if he moves quickly.

2000-12-03 Alert the media, my 2000 Christmas List is now online!

2000-11-25 Happy Thanksgiving, and happy birthday to Vicky! Turbo and Katharine are both over their ear infections and Tory has a loose tooth.

2000-10-08 Yes, that was me (Toby) in the Boston Globe today. My Mom found it, and I'll give you $20 if you can find it. No, I didn't streak the vice presidential debate. The CTO of the company that I'm contracting for (Gold Wire Technology) is giving his Porsche away as a recruiting gimmick so we all posed out in the parking lot around the car. Around the shhhweeet car. Anyway, I'm but a contractor so I'm not eligible, but I don't care since it's not a station wagon. Really.

2000-10-01 It's been a bumpy couple of weeks for the littlest Cabot. Katharine was fussier than usual a couple of weeks ago - it turned out that she had an intususception of the bowel so she had to go to Children's for a couple of days. Two weeks later we went to Maine for the weekend and she fell flat on her face and managed to give herself two fat lips and a lump on her nose. Good thing she's a tough little kid.

WhatsOld