Sometime visit the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline and take a ride On Fiedler Engine #1. That was the fire truck he donated to them. They don't run it all the time but on select occasions.

Arthur could be a salty ol' bird at times. He was an amateur fire historian and often showed up with his driver at large fires to take pictures and talk with the first responders on the ground. We'd greet him, "Hi Mr. Fiedler," and he would reply, "How's it goin' tonight boys." He would then (and often) critique the fire fighting operations and point out what we were doing wrong. He was a hoot.

I say "salty" since his vernacular was... shall we say... "colorful" at times.

Not too many people know, or may remember unless you have some gray hair, that Arthur paid to have the fire department telegraphs from multiple cities such as Boston, Brookline, Cambridge and some others, wired into his home. And he could read them.

The telegraphs were the original centralized fire dispatch system, and Boston was the first to centralize such. In the past neighborhood fire boxes went only to the local station. After the Great Boston Fire, Boston centralized the boxes and then dispatched from there. Arthur would know where all of the big fires were.

The telegraphs or "tapper system" are still in use as a back up to radio transmissions these days. Some departments have abandoned these but Boston keeps them as a failsafe system. Boston's fire department's tappers are also on their own power supply so if overall power goes out, fire boxes still work. You can see the tappers at all of Boston's Fire stations and also at the Boston Fire Museum intown Boston on Congress Street.

MBTA cannot do it because the current rolling stock varies. On the Red line they have 2 different types with varying measurements and the CRRC will make it 3. Orange has 2, Green has 3, and eventually 4. Until all of the rolling stock has the same measurements they cannot even consider platform gates.

Boston has free WiFi called "Wicked Free WiFi" that can usually be found near some city buildings. Not the best but functional.

You might try Jacobsen's Floral on Albany Street near Boston Medical Center. They are a floral supply house but they do sell retail as well.

The image is cut off but does it have a City of Boston seal on it? All official communications from city hall will have the city seal on it.

If not this is likely a fake. Also the published 635 number would connect with a city department but it is not publicly listed making it an inside number, possibly as a way to horas someone.

Parking permits usually have assigned serial numbers and that should be also listed on this letter.

Call the main number of the Boston Transportation Department (it's at the city web site) or just call 311 to get connected. Describe the letter and offer the number published.

My initial take is this is a scam.

There was a set in the Blue Hills. After it was decommissioned people used to meet there with CB and Ham radios to swap equipment. That was before the MIT Flea.

After hours permits are not handed out lightly. Also for an emergency utility need such as loss of electric power or gas leak things are different. They can skip the permit process.

The solution is in missing details.

It had to get in there somehow.

Have you removed the doors then taken measurements. All refrigerator door usually come off with a screwdriver or small wrench. Once off you can again measure width and it will easily pass through a standard apartment door and should get down stairs. Again... it got in there in the first place.

Most refrigerators come with the doors off when new and are assembled by the delivery crew as part of set up.

If this is being discarded, local law REQUIRES the doors removed as a safety issue to prevent small people from accidentally being trapped inside and suffocating. If the doors are not removed the doors need to be substantially secured shut and sealed, however that can still sometimes get a safety violation. Always take the doors off.

Don Saklad would have been proud (RIP)

Multiple reasons. First the "Buy America Act" requires that a percentage of assembly be done in the USA to preserve jobs here. Massachusetts added to that making it a part of the contract that the assembly needed to be done in this state. This meant that the rail company needed to build a manufacturing facility for rail cars, which would be rather large, within the state.

The second reason is that the state, by law, is required to accept the lowest bid for any contractor that checks all of the boxes in the contract proposal. In this case, CRRC came in well-below any other rail manufacturer and also promised to build a facility here to get a foothold on rail manufacturing in the USA.

Some of these laws are there to protect the state's funding and assure it is spent well, and also to preserve jobs. On paper this looks great but has not always worked.

For example the current "new" fleet of MBTA locomotives was bid by a well-established European company as well as Motive Power in the mid-west. The MBTA preferred the European company but it was a little more than what MP bid. MP sued under the "Buy America Act" and as the low bidder so the MBTA was forced to buy from them. Those new locomotives are now being cycled out of service for work at a regular rate to fix something broken or worn. As a result of that the MBTA had to pull a handful of older locomotives that had been mothballed, get them rebuilt, and pressed into service.

So it is not always the MBTA's choice. The various labor laws and laws that control cost and bidding often tie their hands.

Generally the ER. Tooth pain is almost always due to an infection (I am not a doctor, etc, etc). The ER will provide an antibiotic that will, in many instances, reduce the pain.

For over the counter visit a pharmacy and get Anbesol, which is a brand name fo ra lidocaine product that is a topical anesthetic that will usually also kill the pain but it can and will wear off after a while. There are generics as well but given the current situation with OTC meds, you may have to go to more than one pharmacy to locate this. I had a family member in such a situation and 2 of us were driving to multiple pharmacies to locate this topics med. We did finally find some.

If you cannot get in to a dentist, consider the dental schools at Boston Medical and at Tufts Medical. You will be seeing a senior student but the teacher will be right there observing and coaching.

The city of Boston has several that are open in various corners of the city. Well maintained. You have to create a user account at the city web site however then register on line for a swim slot.

This poor guy is a piece of work and needs serious help. He's even worse than Donnie the Red.

Hopefully some judge somewhere will entertain one of his legal cases (all of which have been dismissed) and send this fellow for a serious work up.

If he has domestic raps as well then he is a ticking time bomb that needs to be interdicted. He is no longer entertaining.

Frank did not quit to be a voice over artist. After a long and successful career at the T he retired. They have brought him back a few times to make updates and add some new material. However, Frank will not be around forever, hence the switch to digital speech recognition.

It has some bugs. That is because the people entering the text don't understand how speech recognition from printed text works. Some words have to be written as they sound... not spelled. You do this phonetically. This is especially true with some spellings.

Gloucester would speak "glaw-ces-ter." You need to write it out "gloss-ter" to allow the pattern recognition engine do it right. With some luck you can sometimes add pauses and some local inflections but not always.

I worked for a company in the Boston area that pioneered test-to-speech pattern recognition.

Chez Vous in Mattapan is about the only place for this in the area (Boston). Many of the former rinks closed over time.

Roller World in Saugus right on RT 1 (southbound) is another good place. The building sets back from the highway so use Google Maps if not familiar with the area. One half of the building used to be a health club but I don't know if that is still in operation. That was some years back BTW when I was there.

I always roll that out as "War-ik."

No help here but maybe some faith? We have a Leicester (Les-Ter), not far from Worcester. :-)

Lots of transplants tend to mispronounce local street names or town names.

In Roslindale there is an Albano Street. It is "al-BAY-no" but those not born there say "al-BAN-no." As I tell them, it is not named after a former wrestling star (Lou Albano).

Some years ago my neighbor was stopped by a lost motorist and asked for directions to "muh-TAP-un." No one seemed to know where that was. After a little thought process he told the driver that he can't get there, because it is pronounced "MAT-uh-PAN" (Mattapan).

Directions were issued to the poor lost soul.

Boston and vicinity has a decent mix of English and Wampanoag (Native American) names.

The thing that can be frosting is when said people refuse to accept correction by the Native Bostonians on pronunciation.

We will not speak of Worcester, Gloucester, or Scituate. :-)

Too complicated to get into here and off topic but those extensions were attempted back in the 80s and will not happen. Don't believe any city plan that suggests that. It's lip service. Great idea, wish it would, but will not happen.

And the #37 bus is being terminated (Baker & Vermont). They are moving the #52 from Baker St to capture the B&V streets. So no more 1-seat ride to Forest hills for those people.

Insurance is compartmentalized. While the structure owner may have some insurance on the structure, those leasing space likely did not. They may have some general liability coverage for their business and possibly some fire insurance. In general as lease holders they might only have the equivalent of renter's insurance like some apartment dwellers may contract. They likely may also have coverage under their liability policy for loss of income but that can be limited to certain specific conditions to be met.

Insurance companies rarely do not pay out full amounts of coverage and claims can take as much as a year or more to be processed. Like the rest of the world, their companies are also backlogged and short handed.

A friend of mine lost their business due to building damages to years ago and they had to vacate. They only received a fraction of what their loss was for damaged and no longer usable furniture and supplies. Similarly loss of income which was also in the policy only paid out a meager sum, and it took over a year for the claim to be processed. I'd also note that this was also a situation of no challenge to the insurance company's pay out. Had that happened the claim would have been recycled back to square one and a new and full recalculation would take place. The claim could have carried on for years.

Near me a home owner had a fire and his coverage was less than what current damages are rated at. When most of these policies were written it was before current inflation and replacement or repair costs. The building remains vacant and the fire happened over 6 months ago. The claim is still being processed. Sad to say, this is now the norm. We expect the boarded up structure to be in that condition for at least 6 more months if not more while the haggling continues.

My own property insurance was increased by over $350 for the coming year whereas in the past we only saw a few dollars per year increase over a 5 year period. That is quite a jump and other property owners are seeing as much if not more with their annual premiums. If you do maintain renter's insurance expect a big increase when you renew.

So the GoFundMe is seeking to span the gap and the time lag. At this point, no one is making any money to exist. Hopefully some will have savings or other fallback position.

And the host of the GoFundMe is a well-established attorney in that community.

LOL! Oh, you will get some interesting results with that one.

Try Dick's Sporting Goods. They have shops around the region.

If you are on a sugar-restricted diet you need to understand that all alcoholic beverages are complex hydrocarbons akin to table sugar and the body will break these down to some extent to usable sucrose and glucose and similar complex compounds used by the body. So they will raise one's glucose levels and the associated A1C levels just as much as a couple of dishes of ice cream.