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I’ve been in Boston since yesterday, as I’m attending the 2010 MIT Information Quality Industry Symposium later this week, and I thought I’d use the opportunity to spent some time visiting Kelly. We’ve had a good time hanging out—we had dinner and drinks at John Harvard’s Brew House last night, and visited the New England Aquarium this afternoon.

My travels to Boston were not uneventful. After flying from Moline to Chicago yesterday morning, I arrived in O’Hare to discover that my connection to Boston was delayed by half an hour. Undaunted, I had breakfast at Wolfgang Puck, who prepared for me a lovely (by airport standards, anyway) little breakfast pizza. I bought an Economist and some crummy earbud headphones, since I left my iPod headphones at home. (I also spent some time in an O’Hare bathroom, which I’ve long thought are awful. Whoever thought that rotating plastic covers on toilet seats were a good idea was an idiot. The only reasonable bathroom I’ve found at O’Hare is in the Customs and Immigration area.) 

Once on board the plane, the chief flight attendant kept nagging us over the intercom to hurry up and get to our seats to ensure an on-time departure. Apparently she either didn’t realize we were already half an hour delayed, or she had a unique definition of “on time.” Regardless, we eventually did take off. I noticed the man sitting in the middle seat next to me was reading Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and that the woman next to him was reading the Bible and audibly praying to herself. I couldn’t help but giggle at the scene.

Other than my envy at the many iPads and Kindles I saw around me, the flight was straightforward until we reached the Boston area. Unfortunately, just before we were slotted to land, air traffic control imposed a ground stop at Logan due to impending thunderstorms. (Had we left Chicago on time, none of this would have happened, but I suppose it’s possible our plane’s previous flight was delayed getting to Chicago due to similar issues.) Since American Airlines didn’t anticipate this possibility, we did not have sufficient fuel to continue circling Boston until the storms passed and were redirected to Hartford, Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport. Those of us on board were given the option to deplane and try to drive to our destinations, but most stuck it out. The lines for the bathroom were pretty long throughout the hour or so we were on the ground in Connecticut, but otherwise it was just annoying. To American’s credit, they left the AC on the whole time. (While on the plane, I was actively updating my Twitter account, and NBC Connecticut at least noticed.)

Logan was not running smoothly yesterday, as there were about seven different flights queued up at the baggage claim to which my flight was assigned. I overheard one couple from one of those other flights say they had been waiting over 45 minutes for their bags, but luckily my flight was the first to come up, about fifteen minutes after I arrived. Even better, my bag was one of the first handful of bags on the carousel, and I was off.

Since Kelly was at work all afternoon, I had planned to have my laptop checked out at the Apple store in Cambridge. (The battery has been acting up.) Due to the issues we experienced, I had changed my appointment with their Genius Bar several times before finally settling on a 5 p.m. time. Unfortunately, my phone decided to reset itself back to Central time upon landing in Boston, so I thought it was an hour earlier than it actually was. I was finally able to have them look at it, though, and they told me that I needed to buy a new battery. ($129, or $99 if I gave them the old one for recycling. I figure for $30 it was worth holding on to the old one.) They did replace my power adaptor for free, as a loose connector was said to be a safety issue.

By this time, Kelly was home from work, so I made my way up to Harvard to meet her. I saw her summer accommodations in the PRISE dorm (which aren’t awful, except for the lack of AC…), and then we decided to go to John Harvard’s Brew House for dinner. Having arrived at John Harvard’s sometime around 7, we left when they kicked us out at 12:30. I had the pesto salmon special, which was quite good.

During our time there, we discussed many issues, from world peace to Kelly’s research to the cultural differences between the Ivy League and the Big Ten. It was great.

This morning, having slept in a wee bit later than I had originally planned, Kelly and I met for lunch. I had to change hotels, moving from a Hampton Inn on Monsignor O’Brien Highway to a Residence Inn at MIT, so I had Kelly meet me at the new hotel, which is conveniently located by the MIT T stop. We decided to eat at Legal Sea Foods, where I had sea scallops and mashed potatoes, along with a starter of their excellent clam chowder. Kelly had a garlic shimp pasta concoction that looked delicious. 

During lunch, we planned our afternoon. We decided to visit the New England Aquarium, whose whale-watching cruises I have enjoyed in the past, and then take a Charles River sunset cruise. 

The Aquarium was great. Their two main exhibits are the eighty or so penguins, whose habitat surrounds the Aquarium’s giant (200,000 gallon) ocean tank. We arrived just as the penguins were being fed, so we watched as the staff carefully fed each penguin, noting the number of fish fed to each bird. While the penguins were smaller than I expected, watching them swim and frolic on the rocks was quite enjoyable.

We then walked around taking in the numerous smaller exhibits, where we saw some of the most unique and fascinating species. Everything from anaconda snakes to leafy sea dragons to northern fur seals were well represented. As you walk through the exhibits, you finally end up at the top of the 23′ deep giant ocean tank, where we found the staff feeding the 600 or so individuals in the tank. (They keep them very well fed to prevent the predators from preying on the valuable specimens.) The sharks, eels, sea turtles, and stingrays were all beautiful.

As we were preparing to leave, we realized we had missed the jellies exhibit near the entrance. These are some of the most eerie creatures in the sea, and it was strangely beautiful seeing them floating peacefully in their tanks. Unfortunately, I left my Nikon at the hotel, and my iPhone battery died shortly after arriving at the Aquarium, so I don’t have any pictures from today. 

The river cruises depart from Cambridge, and I wanted to get my Nikon for the cruise, so we jumped back on the T and made our way back to the hotel. After charging my phone, I checked the weather and found that rain was promised for the evening, so we decided to postpone taking the cruise and went back to Harvard for dinner. We ordered pizza at Uno’s and had a lovely discussion despite a moronic waitress. After dinner, I headed back to my hotel and Kelly went home, both of us needing to prepare for tomorrow.