Where in Franklin? Answer #24

Where in Franklin? Answer #24, originally uploaded by shersteve.

Susan provided the answer to picture #24. Apparently she did not need to use the second clue to determine that the picture showed the main entrance driveway to the Horace Mann Plaza.

Thanks for playing "Where in Franklin?"

Stay tuned for picture #25.

Franklin Train Crossing

Before the snow came, I was out running and got stopped by the train crossing at Union St. Camera handy, I caught this video segment.



Enjoy!

Marry Christmas

1 - This Christmas enjoy the holiday trains from South Station:



2 - follow this link to a great Christmas story (be patient for the first commercial, the story is worth waiting for)

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4003490&affil=wpvi

3 - and to recognize our countrymen and women serving in the military:



Merry Christmas to one and all!


PS - thanks to Joan at Songs of Experience for the link to ABC News

Attention Franklin Commuters

The MBTA/MBCR introduced the T-alert service recently. You can have an alert sent to your email so you can find out when your line is experiencing a delay for your normal commute period. This sounds good and should work. In the first couple of weeks since I enabled it, it has been fairly accurate. "Fairly" meaning the timing of some of the alerts could be better. Recall this is the same organization that manages the electronic sign boards at each station. Those are incorrect and or late most of the time, how are they going to be more accurate with another method?

It would be better if someone would set up a Twitter account so those on the line could provide updates. We, the commuters, would be able to share what we see happening. It makes sense to know that the train is running late. It doesn't always help to know why. The "why" almost doesn't matter, unless it has something to do with when it will arrive. And even then, in many cases, it takes too long to find out the why.

The Boston Globe writes today of a commuter service started in the NY/NJ area that is now expanding to Boston (amongst other areas). It is a moderated service that depends upon the commuters for updates. Moderated being the operative word here. Moderated means that spammers and nonsense messages will be filtered from the stream.

I just signed up. I can't wait to see how this will work out. The goodness of the more real time updates from fellow commuters will be a great benefit. The peer pressure of fellow commuters to silence the spammers and nonsensical messages will be helped with the moderation.

The Globe article is here.

MBTA T-Alert service can be found here.

Clever Commute can be found here.

Santa Foundation - based in Franklin

On the night before Christmas, Santa has already paid a personal visit to more than 700 families in the Milford area and MetroWest thanks to husband and wife team Bob and Elaine Sullivan who head the Santa Foundation.

In its 21st year, the charitable organization spreads holiday cheer by delivering gifts to families in need.

"We have always felt that at least on Christmas Day these families should be like every other family," said Sullivan.

Read the remainder of this good news story by Michelle Laczkoski's in today's Milford Daily News.

RSS in Plain English - Common Craft

I encourage you to view the brief video explaining "RSS in Plain English" by the wonderful folks at Common Craft. Click on the link here.

The video was created in April 2007 and is still very much accurate. I had used Bloglines as my reader of choice. I had started playing with the Google reader but never really got it set up. As I have little time to play, I haven't messed too much with this. Bloglines works very nicely. I did play with Google Reader and it gradually took over as it added more features so that I could send an item to a blog, to someone else via email, or to Twitter.

You can subscribe to this site via RSS. The orange button is on the right column below my Town Common Gazebo photo.

You can also subscribe to this site to receive updates via email. There are options to set to receive an email each time something is posted or to receive an email once a day. You can choose the frequency for what works for you.

Enjoy!

Updated 10/20/10

Snow Bound Walkway -

Dolores and I took our usual Sunday walk around town. Our route took us up to the Dunkin Donuts in the plaza off King St/Upper Union. We usually use the sidewalk entrance to cross the drive-thru line and enter Dunkin. This was not to be today. The walkway which also serves as a handicap access is still snow bound.


We walked into the driveway that serves Joe's American Grill as well as access to the Dunkin Donuts. There we found a beaten path, tricky to walk but a short cut to Dunkin.

Updated: The location is formally called "Silver Maple Commons".