Last month, our office moved from Southborough to Framingham. There are actually several reasons I'm a happy worker: For one thing, the new office is 10 or 15 minutes closer to home (yay for me, kinda sucks for co-workers living along 495). The building (that weird one at Old Connecticut Path and Speen Street that looks like the architects took a black-glass building up in a helicopter and then dropped it on top of a brick building) is much nicer. And I no longer have to worry about skidding into the reservoir along Rte. 9 down by the Edgewater apartments.

Spotted the other day on Rte. 9 at Oak Street; looks like Sealy hasn't repainted some of its trucks in awhile.

Saw my first Massachusetts Smart Car today - with an appropriate license plate - getting onto Rte. 9 in Chestnut Hill (also included my speedometer in the photo just to prove I'm not one of those insane people snapping photos while moving). He broke 60 on the hill down to Rte. 128, then zipped on up to 128 north (and not even pedaling very hard, that I could tell). As you can see, from the back, it basically just looks like a Mini or Matrix beaten with an ugly stick; it's only when you pull up next to it that you realize how different the thing is (says the guy driving around in a giant red space egg).

Large hunk, weighing several hundred pounds, fell on Rte. 9 from Parker Street in Newton Tuesday night. No one hurt.

Oh, hey! Looks like the bridge was already in bad shape last fall, when Google took this photo:

Brookline selectmen vote to pursue plan to wall off Heath Street in the face of plans for another mall/condo project on Rte. 9 in Newton. No word if Newton Mayor David Cohen plans to stand in front of wall and exclaim "Mr. Selectmen Chairman: Tear down this wall!" In any event, Brookline can't become the Hermit Kingdom of the West and wall itself off from the outside world just yet - its plan needs state approval.

Sharon Gartenberg picked up some software at Office Depot at Shoppers World today, then wanted to get to Circuit City across Rte. 9. She hoofed it:

... Turns out there's actually a halfway decent pedestrian crossing on Rte. 9 at the Framingham-Natick line. What's crazy is that you'd never know it when you're in Shoppers World. There's nothing that leads you from the parking lot to the sidewalk to the crosswalk. There's no visual cue when you're in the parking lot, that you can do anything else on foot except get back in your car and drive. Likewise, once you reach the sidewalk, it's clear you're not actually meant to walk on foot from the sidewalk into Shoppers World. The mall and the sidewalk are side by side, but totally disconnected. Everything about the streetscape says these are two separate worlds, and you're not meant to get from one to the other if you're a pedestrian. It's insane. ...

With little else to do during a monumental turnpike backup last week, Liz composed a prayer that begins:

Oh merciful heavens, hear my cry! Your child mourns in the dark valley of the Turnpike, and wails upon the stones of 128, and gnashes her teeth and heaps ashes upon her head when she hath the folly to attempt Route 9 as an alternate route. Oh, maketh my lane to clear, oh Lord! ...

Neal Simpson has the details on an accident yesterday afternoon that sent two to the hospital.

At least seven cars hit by softball-sized rocks thrown from the Connector Road overpass in Westborough - two motorists injured.

Just ask the parents of the baby born at a Newton Getty station this morning (it's on Rte. 9 eastbound, just past Eliot Street). The owner helped, and boy is he pumped: