Nothing but skates again after an afternoon of fishing in Gloucester. Stage Fort Park might be a pretty place to take the kids and barbeque some dogs, but after three times out, I think my brother-in-law and I are going to have to find ourselves a new spot. Although skate wings are supposed to be quite tasty, there's just something dispiriting about catching skate after skate in the harbor of one of America's premier fishing towns. For those of you not in the know, a skate is a bottom-feeding species of fish that is related to the shark phylogenetically. They're ugly as sin, and they're somewhat difficult to get off the hook, once you've caught one (that and they tend to gasp disturbingly like human beings when taken out of the water!). Last time out we caught six skates from the fort; this time we only hooked two, although I'm sure we could have reeled in a dozen, had we stayed the whole afternoon.

But I couldn't stay - my brother was in town for the weekend, up visiting a friend, so after spending the first half of the day with my brother-in-law, I spent the other with my bro and his friends up in Lowell, Massachusetts, home of the Lowell Spinners. The Spinners are a Single-A minor league baseball team that's part of the Boston Red Sox organization with a swanky little riverfront stadium and a fan following that would be the envy of many a major league franchise! Though last night's game against the Vermont Expos was sold out when we finally made our way to Lowell, we were still able to score some standing room only tickets, which served us just fine considering the intimacy of the minor league park. Hot dogs and beer were reasonably priced, the weather held for the whole nine inning game, and the Spinners managed to hit a few home runs as they went on to crush the Expos, 10-0. So it was a good time.

Downtown Lowell was a revelation, I must say. A few years back my wife and I were looking for a cheap place to live, and checked out Lowell, which sits along the Merrimac River just a stone's throw away from the New Hampshire border. Although the town had some nice old architecture, I remember not being all that impressed with the city overall. This time, however, my impressions were the exact opposite. Maybe we had just missed a lot when we'd taken a previous peek, or maybe Lowell had done a lot of urban renewal since then; either way, even my brother and his friends were commenting on how nice the downtown was. Jack Kerouac might actually be proud of his hometown these days...

Speaking of Jack, the Lowell Spinners website is hawking - get this - a Jack Kerouac bobblehead doll. You can't make stuff like this up.