Full Width 
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List More from I am BARRY HESS
Parking a vehicle for a concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, is quite a challenge. Before heading to the BTS concerts this past week I did some research, even asking Chat GPT about how to handle parking. To its credit, with my hints about what I wanted, it ended up putting us at a pretty good spot in someone’s yard. The spot was a 25-minute walk from the stadium. We were staying at a hotel about four miles south of the stadium. Our tickets provided us free parking in the general parking lot across US-1, but I was skeptical. A bit of reading said you could end up waiting in that lot for quite a while after a concert. After day one, we talked to some folks who parked there and discovered they had literally not moved their car in the lot for about two hours. Not waiting in line, but literally just sitting in their car unable to move into a line. US-1 does not allow any left turns heading north toward the stadium starting anywhere from 2-4pm, and I assume something similar happens north side of the stadium. Earlier in that time slot you can sometimes sneak a left turn into a gas station when heading north, but as the day goes on you will probably get a ticket (or in an accident) if you try to do that. If you also need to head south after a show, parking where we did is a pretty good option. You can text the number on that page to reserve a spot. In our case, reserving was $40, but if you drove up to the lot it would have been $60. I’m sure prices vary per event. If you don’t park there, finding one of the few side streets to park on like this one on Pine Street is a good bet since you have easy right-turn access onto US-1. (I think that Lafayette House was also doing parking on Pine.) There are many businesses directly on US-1 south of the stadium that offer parking, but most don’t offer traffic control to get you out of the lot past the walking concert leavers and into the bumper-to-bumper traffic on US-1. If you’re heading north, I’ve read good things about parking at South Walpole UMC. I assume you could take some side streets from there to a less congested version of the busy road that you need to get to. Parking on Pine Street might even work for heading north if you can head west from your spot to 115 and on to 1A. The city does block off some residential roads in the area to protect neighborhoods from all the traffic, so your mileage may vary (heh). I did see some people leave lots on Pine and head west, though. If you need to take ride share, good luck! I read of people waiting at the ride share lot on site until 2 or 3 in the morning. At a certain point I think that drivers just stop being willing to drive there. I believe your best bet would be to start walking toward a side street like Pine and scheduling a car for a time about 30 minutes after you start walking. (Of course, cars cannot turn right from US-1 to Pine and I don’t think they’re allowed to enter Pine from the west, so YMMV on this as well. Probably you can’t do what I’m recommending!) If you need to take the event train back toward the city, good luck! For these concert there was only a single train and tickets sold out in five minutes. I assume there’s always only a single train. Some booked the commuter train that was scheduled between 10:30 and 11 pm. You will need to leave the show early to make that train. There are two hotels on site. If you want to book them for a show, you’ll need to book them well before the show tickets actually go on sale, so good luck! For these shows I checked every week to see if some rooms were cancelled and later became available. About a month before the show a few rooms became available, probably because they released accessible rooms that they have to hold back. Those rooms were…over $1,000 a night. I’m not sure if that’s the original price if you booked pre-sellout or if that’s just the “we’re sold out” price. A final option is to check if some of the restaurants to the west of the stadium are open for a couple of hours after the event. In that case, I may suggest parking in the general lot and hanging out for a meal after the game. Reply by email
We have collectively been recovering from a physically and emotionally draining two weeks of marching band. We all were caught napping at some point throughout the early days of this week! It’s been nice to have activities wind down this week, and we’ll have a bit of relaxation for a few weeks going forward. It’s been raining a lot around here. No flooding in our area, but I think there’s been some within an hour or two of us. We’re hoping our annual July 4th festivities are not washed out this year. My brother and his family are visiting today. We only get to see them once or twice a year, so we’re excited to hang for, well, 24 hours or so. 🙂 Time to get cooking in preparation for all of this. Cole slaw, cucumber salad, some desserts, and more. Let’s go! I saw this screenshot and a lot of memories came flooding back. I had totally forgotten about this game! For whatever reason it immediately made me think of these two games: This is nothing new, but the Social Security Administration sending out Trump bootlicking emails to the whole country has been one of my least favorite things of the past couple years. I’m not going to screenshot the whole thing, but rest assured it includes lots of “Thanks to President Trump” statements. What a sadly unique time in history. It’s interesting to see someone go the way of rebuilding a socials recommendation algorithm for themselves. What a fun visual comparison! (h/t Amit) Reply by email
Spent this morning at Minnebar. This year was the 20th anniversary. I’ve had several posts about Minnebar on this blog through the years. I’ve only been able to go a couple times over the past ten years and it was good to see many familiar faces. (Even some Minnesota expats. 👋, Luke!) I called TRUNCATE on a Postgres database table in production for the first time. That was nerve wracking! I did some wood work for the first time in a while. I’m working on a loft for Emma. I don’t know whether it’s time away from woodworking or just the type of project, but this felt a lot more like work and a lot less like hobby. Part of it might also be because it’s such a physically big project and that is a lot for my older body. You can never have too many clamps I’m way behind, but I just learned that Songkick was purchased by Suno. Did I know what Suno was before I learned that? No, but it sounds pretty ick. From their own home page: Make any song you can imagine Start with a simple prompt or dive into our pro editing tools, your next track is just a step away. Yeah, ick. Time to migrate to Bandsintown? Something else? Give up? I just finished the excellent Fela Kuti: Fear No Man podcast by Jad Abumrad and team. Highly recommended. I think I might become an Onion paper subscriber. Anyone else going back to paper? Discovered NOT A HOTEL. A man can dream. Reply by email
Short, and late, rendition of Friday this week as I’m traveling. We took a spring break to Phoenix and were able to fit in a Project Hail Mary IMAX screening. It was excellent! Two of us have read the book, and we enjoyed both versions of the story on their own terms. We got in to Phoenix late on a Friday, stayed at a hotel, and kicked around the city proper on Saturday before checking into our VRBO. Out of nowhere I found an afternoon performance of Come From Away at The Phoenix Theatre. It was our first time seeing the musical, and it was fantastic. Lots of memories flooded back for those of us who lived through 9/11. Other than the two events above, this trip was pure relaxation for us. A few meals out, a lot of ice cream, and otherwise lounging around the pool at the VRBO. We all are coming home with some new tans (and a few burns). We wrapped the last meal of our trip at Fabio on Fire in Peoria. Excellent pizza, excellent pasta. Ravioli Al Brasato Fritti Reply by email
More in travel
As the sun sets in Tokyo, its alleyways become illuminated by the lights of “sunakku” snack bars. But OrySnack is illuminated by something entirely different: the gentle, glowing eyes of six small humanoid robots that are pouring drinks and interacting with customers. But you would be mistaken to assume that the robots have replaced human […] Related posts: Pop-Up Café In Tokyo Will Allow Severely Disabled to Work Using Robotic Avatars Braille Nueu Typeface Communicates Visually and Physically in English and Japanese Takafumi Tsuruta’s Fashion Label HaHa Makes Clothes For All Walks of Life
Every couple of days, I’ll drink a hojicha latte at a coffee shop I like. It’s delicious and gives me a perfect energy lift. I intentionally make sure it doesn’t happen every day, because I don’t want to rely on caffeine to get work done. I drink one beer very occasionally, perhaps once a season. […] The post Space easy rewards out appeared first on Herbert Lui.
And why it has a basement like a yellow submarine.
20 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in September 2026 1) Since Superloop routes were introduced, the most used is the SL8 (22.7m passengers) followed by the SL9 (12.7m) and SL7 (10.5m). Already twice as many people have ridden the SL11 (2.2m, introduced January 2026) than have ridden the SL6 (1.1m, introduced July 2023). 2) The estimated final cost for Ickenham's new disabled car park is £1.88m. This is 25% higher than the estimate given in an FoI response a year ago. It equates to £625,000 per parking space. 3) The total cost of withdrawing bus route 347 was £13,325 (consultation £8400, removing seven bus stops £1225, removing timetables £700, changing e-tiles at bus stops £3000). 4) The most common bus-train interchange at Putney Bridge is from the last stop on route 265 to the station. The least common interchange is from bus route 424 at bus stop FH to the station. 5) There are no plans to use double deckers on route 108 due to the height restrictions in the Blackwall Tunnel, obviously. 6) 46% of roads on the TfL Road Network have a 20mph speed limit, up from 14% in 2021. 7) The new Piccadilly line trains are expected to use a synthetic (text-to-speech) voice for on-board announcements. There are no current plans to use this voice on any other train stocks. 8) 36 people work in the TfL pensions fund department, of whom 10 have line management responsibility. 9) Central, Jubilee, Northern, Victoria and all sub-surface lines are fitted with LCF (Low Coefficient of Friction) stick lubrication applied to the wheel flange root of selected wheelsets on every train. All lines use the same lubricant, "KELSAN LCF" manufactured by L.B. Foster. 10) The calming pod being trialled at Ealing Broadway station is not bomb-proof. 11) Once the scrappage of old DLR trains recommences in early 2027, TfL expect to be removing between two and four vehicles every 5 weeks. 12) The cycle hire docking station that's most usually full is Chadwell Street, Angel (18 spaces). The docking station that's most usually empty is Queen Street, Bank (36 spaces). 13) Of TfL's portfolio of 900 railway arches across London, 102 have been empty for over a year. 14) The total operating cost for the Woolwich Ferry in 2025/26 was £11.3m. 15) TfL have stopped sharing audio announcements via FoI requests because "basically people are using the voice on AI tools to get the voice artist to say anything they want which very obviously impacts on the voice artists' commercial interests in a variety of ways." 16) Last year there were 1,984,485 hires of Santander bikes in Westminster, 21% of which were e-bikes. The borough with the second highest total was Tower Hamlets with 1,213,015 hires, 16% of which were e-bikes. 17) The TfL mode with the highest CO₂ per passenger kilometre, by far, is Buses with 65.8gCO₂e/pkm. All other modes have emissions between 22 and 31, the lowest being the Tube with 22.8gCO₂e/pkm. 18) Expected completion dates for future railway projects (subject to planning, funding etc) are as follows: West London Orbital (2035), Old Oak Common Elizabeth line (2036-2039), DLR Thamesmead extension ("in the 2030s"), Bakerloo line extension (2040), Crossrail 2 (early 2050s). 19) The DfT are part-funding a two-year upgrade programme to build barcode readers directly into some TfL ticket gates. In the meantime handheld scanners are in use at the six stations experiencing the highest volume of barcoded tickets, namely Farringdon, Finsbury Park, Kentish Town, Moorgate, Old Street and Stratford. 20) TfL are not able to tell you "how many completed fares Uber has completed in the West Lancashire area since they have been operating in that region" and suggest you contact West Lancashire council instead. This month's most obsessive request: a 1673-word submission about repairs to Barons Court station which ends thus: "The correct response was not “TfL is not aware.” The correct response was: we will inspect the station, investigate the defects, and challenge those who inspected or signed this work off. That is your duty. It is not my duty to assemble a case file for you. I have already told you what is on site: flaking and chipped paint, rust coming through, overcoating without proper preparation, furniture paint failing, and a colour scheme that has not been justified. In your own letter you accepted that chipped paint on newly painted platform furniture requires remedial action. You cannot accept that and then declare yourselves unaware of the rest. I am not required to keep sending photographs and videos in order to make TfL look at its own station. Your attachment limits are your problem. If you need to see the defects, send someone to the platform. I expect named responsibility, documents and inspection. I do not expect another letter that protects the organisation and writes as if I had not seen the station."
