Behold, a milestone this morning:

Damn right, I signed my name on that girder. It’ll be covered up one of these days, but here’s where it lives now:

For more news, visit where else? TheDailyGrafton.com. Here’s the direct link to the story.

And, yes, there’s video. It’s funny how we’ve gone from “wow, that camera shoots video? Really?” to “you’re taking video of this, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

Let’s just hope the snowbanks are gone on April 1 — they’re going to make the inevitable lines even more awkward than normal!

Jeff Barnard, best known as “Wormtown Taxi,” has lost his battle with melanoma. I’ll be posting his obituary as soon as it’s available on TheDailyGrafton.com because, as we all know, Jeff was a former Grafton resident. Meanwhile, I’ve put up a placeholder.

In Grafton, we’re getting tough on evil!

After all, we all know he maintains a vacation home here.

We were rather surprised this week to receive letters requesting that two of our children apply to be student ambassadors for People to People. Granted, at the age of 13, my son is probably catnip for organizations that strive to set students apart on college applications — think of the admission essay he could write on “my summer in Australia representing America” — but, really, my concern is with the nomination letter for my “other” child.

I regret to say that Riker Paluzzi will not be traveling to Australia. You see, he’s dead. Actually, he’s not just dead, he’s ashes. He’s buried under a tree in our front yard, underneath a memorial stone created by my daughter in 2005.

Oh, and he’s not only dead and cremated, he is a dog. Was a dog, I guess I should say.

Granted, Riker was a lovely dog. He was our test child, a yellow Lab who we adopted just months after we married. Riker believed the world was best experienced if it could fit into his mouth, so I can only imagine how he would have loved to travel to Australia to doubtless terrorize wallabys, koalas and kangaroos.

But honestly, while I’d hate to speak ill of the dead, I didn’t trust Riker enough to take him into Pet Smart on a leash — I just can’t see how he’d be an appropriate student ambassador. We’re not talking about one of those Labs who can be trained to lead the blind and tackle drug dealers — this is a dog who flunked out of obedience school, took us for walks rather than the other way around and, I can’t say it enough, he’s very very dead. Trust me. I was there, patting his head, the day he went to sleep for the final time after a battle with lymphoma.

If you could pass the word around, I’d appreciate it. Surely one of the honorary chairman of People to People — either of the George Bushes or Bill Clinton, say — has the pull to get my dead dog off the mailing lists for “parents of potentially college-bound kids who might spend money to set their little darling apart on college application forms.”

Oh, and by the way — my human son won’t be applying.  I’m sure you understand.

Writes Andrea:  “I snapped this picture while driving through Grafton center this afternoon. I was actually following this pool all the way from Route 20 in Shrewsbury. It came VERY close to hitting some big trucks going the other way. How many people can say they were late because they were stuck behind a swimming pool?”

I’ve been stuck behind a house before — a modular home, not an old one being moved across town, which would have been cooler — but I will say I’ve NEVER been stuck behind a pool!

Thanks for the photo, Andrea!

Then I noticed something kind of cool and went to get the camera.

Raindrops!

On my lupines!

Looking all beady and cool! Let’s see how close the zoom can get!

I love my camera zoom. That is all.

I’m sure it could have been done. But then I laughed at myself, remembered I was writing a story about car break-ins and just settled for a straight shoot of the freaking broken car glass. Sometimes, the most straightforward shot is best. And it was too darned hot to be worrying about making vandalism look pretty.

Anyway, you’ll find the story here — yes, both Grafton and MBTA police are in the loop, they’re stepping up visibility, and hopefully n other commuters will come home to a nasty surprise at the end of the day. Can you imagine? An hour on the commuter rail in this heat (is the AC working? My summers in Boston were always filled with trains steamed up from the sweat of people crammed into un-air conditioned cars) and surprise! Smashed window!

It’s just… well, it leaves me speechless, given my bout of unemployment.

Read it here.

For one thing, they’re REALLY close to shopping.

And if you’ve ever dealt with a newborn, you know it’s always good to have a pharmacy close to home.

And hey, when the kids are out of the shell, they’ll have friends just their age to fly with! Or, you know, watch as they plummet to the pavement below, helplessly flapping their wings in despair. Mother Nature is a fickle one.

Of course, some of the neighbors are a bit messy, and maybe their houses aren’t quite up to code. What can you do? It’s not like the building department can inspect all the nests in town — there are STILL people in who are fixing their roofs from last year’s hail storm!

But bonus: you never have to worry about leaving on a nightlight.

Thanks for pointing out the nests, Carmela!