Cup of Chowda!

I was in the Boston area last weekend for Memorial Day, a family gathering, and my grandfather's memorial service. I posted the photos to my picasa album, so take a look! I'm back on my laptop and using Adobe's Lightroom to make my photos even cooler now (though I am slightly color blind, so please excuse any color abnormalities).

While on the East Coast, I got to see Lexington, Concord, Boston, Harvard, Cambridge, and of course, my mom's home town... Berlin, Massachusetts!

There's not much history of meditation or Buddhism in those parts, but I did pass very near to Walden Pond. H.D. Thoreau is a big inspiration for my recent decisions on where I would live and work for the next few months. While I was there, my mom picked up a book of Thoreau quotes and flipped to the following quote. It's from Walden, which has always been a favorite book of mine, and this particular passage really captured my sentiments well:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I'm not going full wilderness comando style, but I do intend to live simply.

I really enjoyed seeing my family again. Most of them I hadn't seen in more than 15 years. And you know what... I really like them.

My uncle David said I'm "all religious." That gave me a good laugh.

As we were leaving, a man at the airport reminded us not to mistake the Bostonian "chaa-da" for "chow-da." The first referring to a charter flight (Chaa-da), and the second referring to a good cup of clam chowder (chow-da). Remember that.