Little Red Wagon Campfire Song

Last week the campers showed visitors to the YMCA camp in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, how to properly sing the 'Little Red Wagon' song.

This is a Repeat After Me song...
You can???t ride in my little red wagon
Front seats broken
And the axle's dragging
CHUG!...CHUG!???CHUG!

SECOND VERSE, SAME AS THE FIRST
A WHOLE LOT LOUDER AND A WHOLE LOT WORSE!

Framingham MBTA Commuter Rail Parking

It???s been a while since I updated on what???s going on for Commuter???s at the Framingham MBTA station:

Framingham commuter rail stop ranks as the 10th most-used station in the entire rail system with 1,400 riders visiting each day.

According to statistics by the MBTA, the Framingham station had the second most typical Boston bound weekday boardings on the Framingham/Worcester line (April 2013 latest data available!)

Commuter Rail Riders

Waverly Street Commuter Lot - 65 Spaces

This is a very popular parking lot across the street from the MBTA station. Spaces are sold by permit only - costing $90 a month. New: All spot are full! Currently, there is a waiting list to get a parking spot.

Pearl Street Garage - 289 Spaces

Monthly permit parking, $65 for Framingham residences and $80 for non-residents. New: Monthly renewals are due no later than the Friday, a week prior to the first of each month. Example: renewal for September 2016 will need to be received no later that Friday, August 19, 2016.

Main MBTA Parking lot (Banana Lot) - 118 Spaces

MetroWest Regional Transit Authority(MWRTA) has signed a deal with the MBTA to take over the commuter rail parking lot. Terms of the deal have yet to be finalized but once completed they will take over full ownership of the parking lot. You???ll see new MWRTA bus shelters and expansion increasing the parking are to 200 spaces. Parking in this lot cost $4 a day.

Saint Bridget Church Flags

In the entrance room at the Saint Bridget Church in Framingham are three flags in a special built in corner display:

Click on image for a larger version.

This is the message in the window of the display:

The flag on the right was made by the Sisters of Charity, Burlington, Vermont, 1917. It was presented to Chaplain M.J. O'Connor, 101st U.S. Infantry, and carried through World War I by that regiment. President Wilson lunched with officers of 26th Division at French Hospital in Montigny, Christmas 1918. This flag was draped on the back wall back of the President.

The flag on the left was the camp flag at Framingham when the 26th Division served there before going overseas.

New MBTA Framingham/Worcester Schedule

Monday is the start of the new MBTA schedule on the Worcester/Framingham line. The biggest change is the new "Heart to Hub" non-stop express from Worcester to Boston. The have been running promotions all over the Boston about how this will be the first time that people will be able to go from Worcester to Boston in about an hour.

The "Heart to Hub" starts at 8:05 each morning and arrives in Yawkey at 8:57. Which is great except that if you caught the 7:30 train from Worcester you would have arrived at Yawkey about 15 mins earlier. I am not sure how many people are going to want to catch the later train just to avoid the extra stops.

The other change is that p508 train (7am Worcester Departure) no longer stops at downtown Natick. The train now goes express from West Natick to Boston. This might be an issue because West Natick doesn't have a lot of available parking spaces. Many local businesses have made limited spots available for commuters. Many of the good locations are on waiting lists.

I updated the MBTA planner on this site. You can now easily tell when the next train is due to leave Framingham. In addition, the quick reference charts have been updated to when the trains depart Framingham station during peak hours.

Red Sox fans will want to catch the 5:40 (p590) or 6:01 (p524) train from Framingham to make it to the game!

Jordan’s Furniture Couches

A few weekends ago we said goodbye to a couple of our living room Couches. We have decided to replace some old Couches that we got from Bob's Discount Furniture to some nice ones from Jordan's Furniture. We bought the love seat rocker couch in 2003, and the bigger couch in 2005.

Old Couches

Both of the Couches were in fairly good condition. One problem was that the Sofa couch foot rest handle broke. As a result, this means that we were unable to use the footrest in one of the seats. In the love seat rocker, the plastic between the two seats had small cracks in them. We have two cats, and they didn't do any damage to the Couches. Instead of the donating the Couches, we gave them to a co-worker who was looking for Couches for their basement.

New Couches

The new Couches from Jordan's are very comfortable. They have power footrests, which will make it easy to put up the footrest whenever we need to. In addition, we won't encounter the same issue as the last Couch, the handle probably broke because of the constant use.

The only thing that the new Couch doesn't have is the pull-down table in the center of the sofa. We used this feature a lot to store TV remotes, drinks and assorted books and things. When we were looking at Couches, it seems that the center table isn't a choice anymore. All the manufacturers have removed it, or replaced it with a smaller table that doesn't function well enough to consider.

At some point, we will search for a sofa table as a replacement. This might be challenging because underneath the couch is a metal bar, and it will be difficult to side a table bottom underneath.

Shopping Experience

We had a good shopping experience at Jordan's in Natick. The process was very simple, and they answered all the questions that we had about the new couch. We are disappointed that they are changing out the Mardi Gras theme in the main entrance way. It was a fun area where kids can watch the show and look forward to visiting the store.

One of the things that we should have done is measure the existing Couches before going out shopping. That way we would have known if the new Couches were bigger or smaller than the existing ones.

We ended up getting a Love Seat and a Sofa. We felt got a great deal on them. Later we discovered that they were cheaper than anything similar that Bobs had to offer.

Saint Bridget School Auction

The Annual Saint Bridget School Auction is underway and this year there are 90 items are up for Bid!

• 8th Grade Graduation Front Row Seats
• Red Sox Pavilion Club Seats
• Duck Boat Tours
• A Summer Vacation Week on Cape Cod! Walk to the beach!
• Two Weeks at Camp Cody in New Hampshire

You may bid on as many items as you want. Bidding ends at 5pm on Friday, May 13, 2016. Once bidding closes, those bidders with the highest bid will be automatically notified via email. You will then be prompted to pay for your item via PayPal. If you would prefer to pay by cash or check please email Jenn Ryan to make arrangements for payment.

All paid items can be picked up at the school during the Murder Mystery Dinner and Auction on May 14th. If you've paid for your item and would prefer for us to send it home in your child's backpack, simply email Jenn Ryan to coordinate. If you are not a Saint Bridget School Family and have won an item, please send Jenn an email and we will make arrangements with you to have your item shipped or picked up.

Check out the Bidding Page!

Trash Day

This is a big spring cleaning weekend. With some coordination with our neighbors, we got a dumpster for the next couple of weeks. We got our 10 yard dumpster from Need One Dumpster Service. It's going to cost us about $100 each, we may have to pay more if we exceed the base weight.

We are going to use this opportunity to clean out some moldy furniture in the basement and some other things around the house.

There are some limits to what we can throw out, based on the prohibited Items list:

• Hazardous
• Toxic
• Biohazard/medical waste
• Asbestos
• Solvents
• Liquids
• Liquid Paints
• Chemicals

Some things that we learned:

They charged $35 for a Mattress, but we learned that the Framingham Recycle center will accept an infant mattress for no charge. So if you looking to dispose of an infant mattress, check your local dump to see you can throw it away for no cost.

They don't accept yard waste, which is too bad since we had some yard brush that we wanted to get rid of. You can get a separate dumpster that would accept yard waste, but we wouldn't have enough to justify getting a separate dumpster.

One of the walls of the 10 Yard Dumpster at Need One Dumpster Service opens, which allows you to walk into the dumpster. This makes loading a lot easier.

So Far, So Good

I would highly recommend teaming up with a neighbor or two and renting out a dumpster for a week. It might cost a bit of money in the short run, but a nice clean house helps everyone. Just make sure to know how much stuff you need to get rid of.

Remember, a lot of things can be donated for a tax write-off.

No More Plastic Bags - Coming to Framingham?

Framingham may soon be joining Newton, Brookline, and Cambridge in banning the use of plastic bags in all retail stores. Framingham resident Ken Weiss has filed a petition to have the town vote on that matter at the 2016 Town Meeting. The Town Meeting starts on April 26.

There are 49 warrents on the 2016 Annual Town Meeting, 8 of which are citizen petitions. Some other notable petitions:

• Repeal Sex Offender ByLaw
• Amend Handicapped Parking Rules
• Reducing the number of "job searches" that a veteran receiving ch. 115 assistance must conduct in a week from 10 to 3.
• Authorizing a research committee to review plans to establish a Women Veterans' Memorial.

Water Bottle Ban in 2014

In 2014, at a Framingham Special Town Meeting, residents were asked to vote on ban the sale of non-sparkling, single-use bottles of water made with the chemical PET. This petition was submitted by Framingham High School senior Matt D'Amico.

The Water Bottle ban petition lost with 40 in favor, and 60 opposed.

Town Meeting Proceedures

Any Framingham resident can sponsor an article for the yearly Town Meeting, they simply need the signature of 10 other residences. In a special Town Meeting, 100 signatures are required.

At the Town Meeting, the sponsor makes a presentation of up to 10 minutes, describing the purpose of the motion. After the presentation, the Moderator will ask for reports from the committees. Then the Moderator lets the public speak on the motion.

It can get a bit tricky because a Town Meeting Member may move that the article is referred back to a committee for more study or make a motion to "move the question." A "move the question" motion is voted upon immediately, and, if passed, the discussion terminates.

There are 68,300 residents that live in Framingham, the largest town population in Massachusetts.

Sungevity Leasing

There has been some investigative reports by the WHDH investigating team on the hidden cost of leasing solar panels. You can watch Hank Phillippi Ryan report on their website.

When we first saw this we were a bit scared since we recently signed a lease agreement with Sungevity. We wondered if we going to encounter some obstacles when we try to get a home equity loan to do some future house work?

The first thing we did was checked our leasing agreement. We found the followings statement that addressed the issue in the WHDH investigative report in Section 2, part B, part 3:

The Solar Facility will not be subject to any lien, security interest, claim, mortgage or deed of trust that may be imposed on or assessed against your interest in the Property, or any other property belonging to you. You will have no right to sell, give away, transfer, pledge, remove, relocate, alter or tamper with the Solar Facility at any time. As such, Sunrun will not apply a lien to your title for the Property.

Looks like we won't run into any issues when we get the home equity loan. As for the the part about them approving the new owners, I am sure that the bank standards would be higher than Sungevity.

If you have solar panels leased from Sungevity or Sunrun you may want to login to your portal and verify that your contact reads the same.

Massachusetts Facebook Challenge

There is a survey on Facebook right now asking people to "Name a Massachusetts town/city that does not have the letter 'o' in it. I bet you can't."

There are 352 city and towns in Massachusetts. 186 of them have an 'o', while 166 do not.

Here's the full list of Massachusetts city/towns without the letter 'o':

Acushnet, Adams, Agawam, Amesbury, Amherst, Aquinnah, Ashburnham, Ashby, Ashfield, Ashland, Auburn, Ayer, Barnstable, Barre, Becket, Bellingham, Berkley, Berlin, Beverly, Billerica, Braintree, Brewster, Bridgewater, Brimfield, Buckland, Cambridge, Carlisle, Carver, Chatham, Chelsea, Cheshire, Chester, Chesterfield, Chilmark, Clarksburg, Danvers, Dedham , Deerfield, Dennis, Dracut, Dudley, Dunstable, Duxbury, East Bridgewater, Eastham, Erving, Essex, Everett, Fairhaven, Fall River, Fitchburg, Framingham, Franklin, Gardner, Gay Head, Gill, Granby, Granville, Greenfield, Hadley, Halifax, Hampden, Hardwick, Harvard, Harwich, Hatfield, Haverhill, Hawley, Heath, Hingham, Hinsdale, Hull, Ipswich, Lakeville, Lancaster, Lawrence, Lee, Leicester, Leverett, Leyden, Lunenburg, Lynn, Lynnfield, Malden, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mansfield, Marblehead, Marshfield, Mashpee, Maynard, Medfield, Medway, Merrimac, Methuen, Middlefield, Millbury, Millis, Millville, Nahant, Nantucket, Natick, Needham, New Braintree, New Salem, Newbury, Palmer, Pelham, Pepperell, Peru, Petersham, Pittsfield, Plainfield, Plainville, Quincy, Raynham, Reading, Revere, Russell, Rutland, Salem, Salisbury, Sandisfield, Sandwich, Saugus, Scituate, Sheffield, Shelburne, Shirley, Shrewsbury, Shutesbury, Spencer, Springfield, Sterling, Sturbridge, Sudbury, Sunderland, Swansea, Tewksbury, Tisbury, Tyringham, Uxbridge, Wakefield, Wales, Waltham, Ware, Wareham, Warren, Warwick, Wayland, Webster, Wellesley, Wellfleet, Wendell, Wenham, West Bridgewater, West Newbury, West Springfield, West Tisbury, Westfield, Westminster, Whately, Whitman, Wilbraham, Williamsburg, Winchester, Wrentham