The Sub-Way & Pizza

If you want really good Gluten-free pizza, then head to Sub-way & Pizza in Framingham. No it isn't that Subway place your thinking of, this is a local pizza shop that really delivers when looking for good Gluten-free pizza. (Yes there regular pizza is awesome!)

If you have Celiac Disease, just let them know and they will go the extra mile to make sure their is no cross contamination. Your pizza is cooked on a special foil to make sure that there's no cross contamination in the oven.

Framingham Subway & Pizza makes great pizza and it's nice to see that they bring their cooking specialty to customers who have to eat Gluten-free. Try the Pepperoni pizza - it's really good.

When you go, park in the back of the building. It can be tricky to pull out of the front parking spaces because of the proximity to the street.

The The Sub-Way & Pizza is located on  510 Union Ave, Framingham, MA 01702. Place your order by calling them at (508) 879-8818(508) 879-8818.

Pedestrian Walking here

It appears to me that Framingham DPW is sending out a hidden message. Late last year the DPW put in a new access road from the MBTA parking lot to Pearl Street. This made it easier for train commuters to avoid the downtown traffic.

On the new walkway from the MBTA Parking lot to the Pearl Street exit is a painted line to separate the one way exit and where pedestrians should walk. What's really strange is the walking symbol that is painted on the pavement. It appears that the person is a little chubby.

There are 3 painted walking symbols on the pavements and they all have the same look. Could this be a new nationwide symbol or the Framingham DPW playing a trick on those that walking the path?

Take a look at the picture with today's Blog post. What do you think? Does the person look a bit chubby in the midsection? Think this picture is Photoshop? Go to the Framingham MBTA parking lot and check yourself!

Click on the image for the full size picture.

Randy Giveans Pano

[ Click for a larger version ]

Google+ Photo's "Auto Awesome" feature did a phenomenal job stitching some photos that I took of Randy Giveans as he was running the 2015 Boston Marathon. This was taken near the 5 mile mark in Framingham near the La Cantina resturant.

Be sure to check out all the cool things you can do with Google Photos.

Winter Storm 2015

[ Click for a larger version ]

In February when I was busy cleaning snow off the roof, I took my camera and took some pictures of the backyard. Thanks to the "Auto Awesome" feature of Google+, it automatically joined several pictures to create a panoramic view.

Google+ Photo feature is very cool, check it out! I would highly recommend to use it to backup all the images on your computer. Every once in a while a picture or pictures will be selected and given some cool "Auto Awesome" effect. Some effects that you may encounter: Motion, Mix, Panoramic photo, Snow, Eraser, HDR, and Smile.

Google has a "Google+ Auto Backup" software that you can download that will upload all your images into Google Photos. Good news for Macintosh users, that the software will backup your photos in iPhoto! You can select what folders to backup. If you don't want to use up any of your Google Drive Storage make sure to select the Standard size. The standard size converts all large images to 2048px, which still is a good size for most anything your doing online. Besides, having a 2048px backup version of an image is better than not having a backup.

Just a quick word of warning, it may take some time if you have a lot of photos:

Framingham Train Yard

[ Click for a larger version ]

There is something going on in the train yard near the Framingham MBTA station. For some reason, CSX needed to have some of the area plowed in February. There has been mobile units on the site since the September.

Here's one possible motive to what's going on. (From the MBTA FAQ page)

Recently, the MBTA awarded an ?Early Action? rail de-stressing contract for 7.5 miles on the Worcester/Framingham line, and work is scheduled to start at the end of July 2014. However, the heat restrictions will likely stay in place during warm temperatures. The MBTA is also in process of procuring 80,000 linear feet of rail and will begin work to replace the rest of the old on the Worcester/Framingham line starting next April 2015. De-stressing section of the line will then continue through the 2016 construction season. When that work is complete, Worcester/Framingham passengers will hopefully be freed from heat-related delays.

Early Extra Train

This morning I had the opportunity to catch the early 7:19 train and it certainly seems a much better option than the 8:45 train. The train was waiting at the station and left exactly at 7:19.

The 7:19 is a extra train out of Framingham to handle the large number of early morning commuters that take the 506 train which leaves Worcester at 6:35.

The conductor announced that they left Framingham a bit early because the train behind it ( 506 from Worcester) was already full. He also advised passengers to not put any personal items on the seats because they expect the train to be packed. When we pulled into Back Bay, I did see some double seats that only had one passenger.

The train pulled into Back Bay around 8:26, leaving the ride to be more than an hour long to get into Boston. The train was late by about 10 minutes due to heavy ridership.

After I arrived at Back bay, I got a text message that my regular train, the 514 @ 8:45 was delayed due to "train traffic ahead." Basically the heavy rider ship slow down causes the delay for the later trains.

Keolis needs to fix the Worcester/Framingham schedule. Even if they don't add additional trains, they could at least put in more realistic times due to the large number of commuters. One solution would be making the 'extra' train a 7am train to minimize the train traffic delays.

Worcester/Framingham users will have to wait till next Monday to see any improvements to the schedule since the MBTA changed the schedule for "Service Recovery" on February 18th.

Still no good

For some odd reason the 508/514 train is cursed. It has not managed to arrive on time once in the past two weeks. To me this is a clear sign that the MBTA is still a long way from making the 100% schedule.

Today the p514 was 15 minutes late. The MBTA had posted that the train was running about 30 mins late. I have heard that earlier trains are getting better.

Later today we'll find out the schedule changes for next week, but I am not hopeful that there will be much improvement from this week.

Progress is Near

Yet another bad day commuting on the MBTA commuter rail, but there are some signs that progress is being made. Today's morning commute was only 15 minutes late and so far the evening commute has been on time.

Key issue with the evening commute is the large number of commuters trying to get home. Every night it's jam pack and takes a lot longer to get home. (One eerie aspect is how quiet the car is with so many people there)

Boston Twitter users are still complaining about various delays on other lines, in particular trains that arrive at stations full and unable to pickup passengers. Framingham isn't out of the woods yet, but it does seem to fair better than other lines.

The next couple of days I'll be working from home so I'll miss all the MBTA drama. I am hoping for better service on Friday.

Frozen Commute

It was super cold this morning.  I ended up going to Tedeschi  Food Shopsand getting a 24oz coffee. It's the $1.85 that I'll probably spend today.  Really wasn't all that bad and more importantly it kept me warm. I certainly would go here again because of the location, since if by chance the train was to come early I could hear it. I needed it since it was -10 this morning and the train was running a bit late.

The P515 train left Framingham at 9:18am about a 1/2 hour late. There were a lot more people at the station than in the past few days. Surprisingly not many bailed out once the announcement that the train was running late.

One of the things that made this morning's commute a bit better was the extra train that ran during the 7 o'clock hour.  I don't know where Keolis found the extra train but it would be great if the can use it for this evening's commute.

There's some talk in the media about some type of refund for February's monthly pass holders. Clearly some message got across to the train conductors because this morning they didn't even check for tickets when they had plenty of time to do so.

Slow Monday Morning Commute

This morning's commute wasn't great for the Worcester/Framingham line. The 6:35 train was running 45 mins late and the 7:00 train never really made it out of Worcester to be rush hour train. Thus leaving only two trains for today's rush hour. Not good at all.

While waiting for the 8:45 (P514) train out of Framingham, several people told me how they had to work from home this pass week because of the serious train delays. The MBTA was going to use the same schedule this week.

It took 45 minutes to get from Framingham to Back bay this morning. The biggest surprise of the morning was that there weren't as many commuters in the Wellesley stops. I was surprised because the earlier train couldn't pick up any passengers and yet we only picked up 20 passengers in Wellesley Hills. Where did the commuters go?

Evening Commute

This evening commute wasn't any better. I arrived at the train station hoping to catch the late 5pm (P527) train. I missed the train because they couldn't get any more passengers in the train.

The next train arrived about 10 minutes later and I was fortunate to get a seat. It wasn't as crowded as the 5pm train, but there were about 20 people standing in the car I was in. The train moved slower than normal because of the earlier train.

The combination delays resulted in me getting home an hour later than usual. It's a really good thing that I don't have daycare pickup duties, because I would never make it to the center on time.