Belmont

Join Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders at our annual Summer Party held outside in the heart of Provincetown, MA on Saturday, July 27 from 4:00-7:00PM. Enjoy the view of the harbor, mingle with other GLAD supporters and learn more about our ground-breaking cases.

Tickets are $75 online | $85 on site | $30 student
Purchase at www.glad.org/events.

Don't miss our amazing auction and celebrity auctioneer Kate Clinton. You don't have to be present to win. Travel packages, restaurants, massages, and much more - something for everyone!

Children are welcome to attend (at no charge) and will enjoy a range of fun activities.

Delicious summer fare and refreshing cocktails provided.

More information, tickets and sponsorships are available at www.glad.org/events.

Riders on the 5:40 train to Fitchburg tweeted their train came to a sudden stop in Cambridge after hitting a car at a crossing there. AsianKerr reported the conductor came on the PA not long after:

Sorry folks, we have struck a vehicle.

After getting the remains of the car out of the way and after the train engineer was interviewed by police, the train started back up around 6:24 p.m.

WBZ reports the town plans to train a group of residents to respond to complaints about coyotes by showing up and yelling and screaming at the animal until it either flees in terror or becomes incapacitated from laughing so hard.

Romney/Ryan: Reducing the deficit, one 65 year old at a time. #p2 @maddow @mittromney

— Joseph J. Santorsa (@Marnus3) August 15, 2012

MBTA Transit Police report an outbound train derailed a bit in Belmont Center. MBTA and Belmont Police helped passengers off the train and back to the station to await buses to take them the rest of the way. "NO INJURIES," Transit Police tweeted.

Channel 25 reports T officials called the wheel slipping off the track "a relatively minor incident."

read more at bluemassgroup

Call it Mini-Aquapocalypse: Many Belmont residents were without water today due to multiple water-main breaks across town.

Belmont resident Rob Sama reports on a conversation with a guy working on the main down the street from his house this afternoon:

Apparently the MWRA has a water pressure spike of 20%!!! This spike has caused blow outs all over the place. He thought there were like three or four on my street alone. I asked him how many people were without water, and he said he worked for a private contractor and wasn’t sure. But he had no idea as to when they’d be done with repairs. He said they were literally fabricating parts for the water mains as they went, because these pipes were so old nobody made parts for them any more. Sounded like a real cluster fuck.

Common Cause Massachusetts is hosting a Redistricting Olympics this summer. We will be taking citizen drawn Congressional, State House, and State Senate maps all summer, evaluating them, declaring a winner, giving out prizes and submitting the winning maps to the MA Legislative Redistricting Committee for consideration.

The purpose of the redistricting Olympics is threefold: to educate the public about the steps in the redistricting process, to initiate public participation in the political arena, and to pressure the legislature to draw the districts so that the citizens are appropriately represented.

Help show the legislature that redistricting is about our interests, not theirs. By participating in our redistricting Olympics and learning how to draw your own fair districts, you can acquire the tools you need to expose attempts by public officials to politicize the state’s new legislative maps.

For more information check out and/or email us at .

Participate in our democracy!

To preview your primary ballot for tomorrow, click on the link from the Secretary of State's website:

then enter your address and select a political party. It will show you what choices you'll have on tomorrow's primary ballot.

Remember the Boston Herald's MBTA Dirty Dozen? Yeah, me neither, but we still went ahead and compiled the list of MBTA wanted posters in a fun, embeddable format for you. You can also check out the MBTA's own site for semi-regularly updated wanted posters.

Foodie Mommy recommends Beaver Brook Reservation on Trapelo Road in Belmont (just over the line from Waltham) for the splashy toddler set: It has this large field of sprinklerized boulders that are just right for cooling off in on a hot day.

Cara provides the proof with this photo of a fence at the Belmont commuter-rail stop.

Copyright Cara. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Today's Globe gives us in-depth coverage of Navestock, England, which admits to specifically not filling in potholes as a method of controlling driving speeds. You can't drive around it, and that's the hole, er, whole story.

Mitt Romney had a few things to say at CPAC about the performance of the stock market under Barack Obama, implying that the market loses since his inauguration are due to his policy proposals as opposed to the financial crisis George Bush and Congress left him with.

I've noticed this week that Belmont already has their holiday decorations up across the street downtown.

Anyone up for creating a spreadsheet of the 351 municipalities of our Commonwealth with the dates that the towns first put up winter holiday decorations?

Shane reports that a Belmont gas station selling regular for $2.97 this morning was selling it for $2.89 a gallon by lunchtime.

Wicked Local Belmont reports Belmont officials are getting just a little tired of paying to light up their side of Belmont Street when Watertown has no light poles on its side of the street:

... "Should Watertown pay for some of that?" he said. "Sure they should. They get some of the light."

Boston Chomps explains why that's Shangri La in Belmont.

Somerville woman wants to raise chickens. Worst case, she could move to Belmont.

Today's existential question.

Bill Ives posts a list of good lunch places in Belmont and Somerville.

Paul Tamburello really likes Vicki Lee's Cafe, which serves light breakfasts and lunches:

A visit to Vicki Lee's Cafe in Belmont transforms eating into a religious experience. There are no candles, religious icons, or stained glass windows in sight but plenty of hosannas can be heard coming from the lips of the diners. ...

Eeka ambles around north of the river and takes some photos, including one of a road that goes east, west and south all at once and the closed doors at the Open Door Baptist Church.