All fished out

No more seafood for a while, please. I mean, I love it, but.. during one 36 hour stretch in New England this week, I had:

- lobster roll
- lobster chowder
- sea scallops with shrimp risotto
- perfect clam chowder (NE style, natch.)
- calamari with arugula and a peppercorn aioli
- lobster bisque (the best ever, too. marvelous.)

Oof. Good thing there was a couple ham & cheese omelettes, a bagel with cream cheese, and a stop at Dunkin' Donuts to round it off. The grilled steak upon arrival at home was quite welcome, along with fresh rhubarb crisp from the garden. :) Good, solid Midwestern food.

The place where I interviewed was just about the coolest office I've ever been in. This particular town has a river splitting east and west sides of the city and it is lined for blocks with old textile mills, not used for that since before the Great Depression. This company took over a couple of floors of one, sandblasted down the old brick and iron, laid in new hardwood floors, put in loads of glass, wood, and turn-of-the-last-century green-shaded streetlights for accents, and... wow. A marvelous modern loft feel with a solid link to the past.

Beautiful. Wish I had taken pictures of the inside for you, but that'll have to wait until I'm actually hired. Might have looked a tad funny to snap pics with my cell phone while walking with the CEO to the next interviewer's office. ;)



The rest of the city was classic New England. Loads of colonials and capes. They were a bit ahead of us in terms of Spring, too, as all the flowering trees were in full bloom.



I was on my own for dinner both nights, and for one of them I decided to go slumming, and go off the beaten path a bit. In a little strip mall on the back way out of town, next to a Papa Gino's pizza, was this little seafood joint. Short on atmosphere, but long on value, and peppered with salty NE accents amongst the patrons. :)



But (besides the interviews, of course) the highlight was the hotel. One wall of it served as left center field for the local AA franchise, and I got a room on the ballpark side. The view from my window:



Home runs would wind up on the patio below my window, apparently. Except there was no one there to speak of, given that it was 40-some degrees and rainy.



So the game wore on, I got sleepy, and the grounds crew eventually put the stadium to bed. C'mon, guys, turn the lights off, I'm tired!



But just as I was nodding off, I heard gunshots, and... they surprised me with a fireworks show. Cool!



Thanks for the nice welcome! Does that mean I get the job?