i really had no vested interest in going to the greek independence parade in boston, other than the fact that it was a sunny day outside and it'd give me a chance for photography practice. i went before back in 2007. it took me a while to get there though, across the longfellow bridge and through beacon hill to the back bay area. it took 30 minutes to find a place to park, and with streets closed for the parade through, traffic was diverted and congestion was heavy everywhere. i ended up on huntington avenue then down belivedere [sic] street, going in the completely opposite direction of where i should be. i took a detour down mass ave to columbus avenue, towards copley square, with back bay of my left and the south end on my right. i ended up finding a visitor's parking spot on west canton street, and then walked down to the intersection of bolyston and dartmouth.

mayor menino was there as one of the grand marshals (sometimes i think that's all he does, just goes to parades) with local fox network news anchorwoman maria stefanos being the other one. it was crazy hot and i kept to the shade as much as possible (even if it's just a sliver of a shadow of a street sign). fortunately i brought a bottle of ice cold water which probably kept me from dehydrating.

while i was there, i might've witnessed a drug transaction. there was a guy standing near me with a duffle bag. a while later another man came by, dropped something into the duffle (rolled up in a brown paper bag), and the two of them then walked away in separate directions. are parades with all the police presence normally a good place to make a buy?

another photographer stood by where i was towards the end of the parade. normally i find it annoying (don't crowd my shot!) but i was intrigued by his white canon lens, so i asked him what kind it was. "70-200mm F2.8 IS," he said (street value $1700). he told me because he figured there'd be a lot of action, he wanted a fast lens with a large aperture. he said he shoots at ISO 800 in F2.8. i did the math in my head. "so the shutter speed is a few hundredth of a second?" i thought outloud. "6000th," he told me. who shoots like that? why would you ever need a shutter speed that high? so despite the fact i was eyeballing his pricey lens, i got the feeling he didn't know what he was doing.

i went to belmont for some dinner, then came back to cambridge. what must've been nearly 90 degrees in the afternoon suddenly dropped to the 60's by the early evening. the clouds were doing all sorts of weirdness, which hinted at the dramatic temperature shift. along the way, a motorcycle pulled up out of a parking lot which caused me to suddenly brake. that sort of startled the other rider, who didn't see me (it was getting dark). he stopped to let me go first, but then suddenly lost his balance and toppled his yellow sports bike. he quickly got up and signaled that he was okay. it looked like a young guy too, maybe just starting to ride. he probably suffered more damage to his pride than his motorcycle.

so let me go through my sunday checklist: go to a parade. check. witness a drug transaction. check. cause a motorcycle crash. check. watch the red sox sweep the yankees. CHECK! i figured the yankees would win one tonight, since i can't remember the last time the red sox swept them. best play of the game: jacoby ellsbury stealing home on an andy pettitte pitch. the last time i saw that was when the yankees chuck knoblauch did it to the red sox many years ago. it made me so mad, to this day i still remember that infamous play and i think of it often when i need an example of malevolent trickery. maybe this will haunt the psyche of yankees fan like it did for me.

oh yeah, there was also a celtics playoff game, but the result wasn't as satisfying, with boston losing to chicago in double overtime. i caught the end of the game, which was probably the most exciting part. celtics had a chance to win it in the first overtime but didn't capitalize. the bulls seemed to be reinvigorated in the second overtime and finally won it by blocking a paul pierce 3-point attempt to tie the game (and sending the game into a triple overtime). i still think the celtics will win the series despite their depleted lineup (no garnett, no powe), but this chicago bulls team has really proven itself going toe-to-toe with the NBA champions. they definitely put their mark down as a future team to watch.