West Chester Old Fashioned Christmas

Editor's note-This is not a scene from the 1983 movie "A Christmas Story", this "moment" actually happened tonight!

When I first moved to West Chester, I remember sitting in my apartment at night and my TV being drowned out by the surprising sounds of Marching Bands under my window. I've gotten much better at the whole advanced noticed thing, so this year, my 3rd year here, I was much better prepared to watch and of course now, blog about this year's Christmas festivities.

The thing about this place, (and I've mentioned it before) is the diversity, right? In addition to the previously aforementioned marching bands, there were the school dance ensembles, cub scouts, classic car clubs, classic FARM TRACTOR clubs, and what I thought was really cool, a group of Chinese traditional dressed drummers from Falun Dong, (I'm pretty sure it was Dong, not Gong, the spiritual practitioners that for some reason the Chinese Communist Government beats up on a lot, but also the Russian Club from West Chester University featuring Ded Moroz (Russian Santa Claus) and his Grand daughter Snegurochka,

and finally the Bolivian Folkloric Dance group Caporales San Simon
Then as if all the holiday good feelings from the parade weren't enough, I went to the Chester County Historical Society's Auditorium to listen to the Pennsylvania Academy of Performing Arts Chamber Choir sing some traditional Christmas Carols in English, German, Latin and Russian. I remember as a kid, my mom got the entire family tickets to see Handel's Messiah at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center in Orlando. We didn't last 20 minutes. God bless my Mom for trying to class up a pack of wild boys, but when you are 11 or 12 years old, you can't possibly appreciate let alone hold still for anything artsy fartsy. I tell you what a difference 30 years makes. This group of talented singers really could fill the room with that classic angelic sound, and if I wasn't so macho a guy, that and I'm emotionally damaged, I would have wept.

The best thing about the parade is the feelings of nostalgia it evokes, and the funny thing is, it's not like I ever experienced anything like it before. Unless you count watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Christmas Story on TV, suburban Central Florida doesn't lend itself towards making any great memories about Christmas time. No parades that I could walk to at night in 30 degree weather, no hot apple cider, no trees who only weeks before had been multi colored hues of red, orange, yellow and brown.

If I ever leave West Chester, I got a feeling I'll have some pretty good memories of my time here.

PS, if anyone was going to see Santa arrive by Helicopter at the American Helicopter Museum, let me know if it happens, according to the email I got from the FAA, a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) is in effect for 30 miles around Philadelphia, seems President Bush is in town for the Army-Navy game, so General Aviation is pretty much grounded. And on that note, GO ARMY, BEAT NAVY! (If I cared about a bunch of future officers hitting each other)

West Chester Winter Wonderland

Waking up to 3 inches of snow in mid November, knowing you don't have to work that day? Man life is good!

West Chester Veterans Day Parade

You've heard it before right? On the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, the guns fell silent, thus ending World War I, the war to end all wars.

Well, that didn't exactly happen, (end war I mean) but we've celebrated Armistice day, now Veterans Day, ever since.

So once again, I have personal proof as to one of the myriad of reasons why living in West Chester is so dang cool. Sunday West Chester celebrated Veterans Day by having veterans, their supporters, loved ones, some restored military vehicles, and marching bands march down Gay Street to the Borough hall and the Garden of Honor for speeches and to lay a wreath to honor all those that served.


Note: Sarcastic statement follows....

"What's wrong people, couldn't make it downtown to show your appreciation? You could pour on to the streets for the Phillies win, you could stand in line for hours to vote, which I appreciate believe me, but couldn't come out and wave and smile and say thank you to someone who served you? No? Really? Not even 15 minutes? Too busy? Oh ok, that's cool, whatever...."

Note: Sarcastic statement ends.....

SOME people made it out, and that was pretty cool. Our recently victorious and deservedly so representative from the 156th district Barbara McIlvaine-Smith led the way, and I don't know, I just kind of get goosebumps and my eyes well up when I see people making an effort to thank the troops.

Actually, it's historically been a low key event, and in the interest of full disclosure I only stumbled across it last year, but I'm hoping that in coming years more and more people know about it, more military vehicles will come, maybe more military units can make it, heck dream big, how about a fly by of some WWII warbirds or helicopters or the Blue Angels or something?

I barely consider myself a Veteran, maybe because I've never been shot at, (well, actually I was shot at, but that was essentially a friendly fire incident, and a whole other story) and unless being in Hokkaido, Japan for an exercise for 2 weeks in January 1989, and spending the night at Guantanamo Bay counts, or flying in circles below the 24th parallel, I really am in awe of those who served in harms way.

This is why again, I must reiterate, how much I like living in West Chester, because of the diversity of the community, because of the deep respect for the past, while at the same time an eye on the future, this place really can't be beat.

Let's show the love next year though ok? Sad thing is that some Veterans of WWII are dying at a rate of 1000 a day, and we're still creating Veterans every day, so let's not forget them eh?

Philly's win World Series, West Chester erupts into chaos, (sort of)

It started slowly at first, and built up and up, and now it's a big crowd at the corner of High and Gay Streets, loud cheering and car horns honking.



Thank God I don't work tomorrow, what with the noise and all, although I do have a root canal scheduled, hopefully that will seem more pleasurable in comparison to the craziness at the moment...

Did I mention I'm a curmudgeon?

Blues Traveler in West Chester

I'd write a much longer post, but I wanted to do this while the memories were still fresh, and besides I'm sure the ringing in my ears won't go away for a while.

I'm a big fan of Blues Traveler, not an obsessive fan to the degree I am with Barenaked Ladies or Ben Folds, but I do enjoy their music, and own several albums, so even though it's a school night, and I went by myself, I still wanted to check them out at West Chester's newest venue, "The Note"


I'll give you the briefest of reviews, since it's going to biased because I'm a fan and all, but man were they good! Set started at exactly 9:30, so that meant only standing around for about 20 minutes, and I was right up front! I'd figure there was about 200 people there, very intimate setting for a jam band. They played songs from the new album "North Hollywood Shootout" and they were catchy songs for having never heard them before. They reached into their complete catalogue, and had the obligatory extended improvisation jams. They played until Midnight, so for 25 Bucks for 2.5 hours of music, it was well worth it!

You know I love it when a band plays their hits of course, but I really love it when a band that's well known and yet feels comfortable in their own skin by playing cover songs. The Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels Band, Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes, and I Want You to Want Me, by Cheap Trick. Hearing them played live, sung by John Popper, man it was cool! (Especially since all these songs are already on my iPod) As if some of Blues Traveler's hits like Hook and Runaround aren't sing along enough, those covers were great additions to an evening of loud rocking blues rock music!

Bam Margera was there, and he looked like a very proud papa watching them play at his place, and I don't want to spoil the surprise for my brother Joe who met John Popper when he was assigned to Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar in 2006, but to drop a hint, Oscar says hi, and one of us, (either Joe or I) "rocks", if John Popper is to be believed.

Update: Red Baron Costume Photos Found!

Real quick, my brother Joe who walked off with the family photo albums when he left home at least scanned everything and sent me the only two photos of me in existence looking like a complete dork. (Ok, truth be told, there are tons of photos of me looking like a dork out there, who am I kidding?)

I don't remember being disappointed that I couldn't have a store bought costume, but I did want a more authentic flying helmet than a paper bag over my head and my dad's work goggles, but I have to admit, it worked!

I think in later years my mom would say that when she worked on it, my Dad thought it was a dumb idea, but when I was so happy with it, and that it won the most original prize, he shut up about it.

It's really no wonder I got all into Airplanes, why I got to fly as an Aircrewman in the Army, why I'm perennially getting my pilot's license. I didn't stand a chance...

West Chester Halloween Parade

Clearly, the Angel on this guy's shoulder is nowhere to be found.

Man did I luck out yesterday. I had to help staff a booth at a Job Fair at 30th Street Station yesterday, so I got to go straight home rather than stop by the office at the end of the day. That put me in West Chester long before the street closures associated with the big West Chester Halloween Parade last night. In years past I've been stuck in the office, and then when after a long day, when all I want to do is go home, I'd be flummoxed by detours and the almost impossible traffic and the lack of parking spaces left in the Mosteller Garage, "MY garage!"


The sudden influx of parents escorting their costumed kids, pushing strollers, giant SUV's in the parking garage used to tork me off, but no longer. I signed up for the "Connect CTY" service, a system where the borough can send you a recorded message to your phone, an email, and a Text Message to let you know of events in town and the street closures that go with it. Before I signed up for this, I would have to rely on me noticing those little white signs tied to the lamp posts around town saying that this was going to be a no parking zone on a certain date. Now, I can be completely oblivious to the world around me until I get a message from the Borough Manager himself, Ernie McNeely!


So, with plenty of time to get out of the my costume (a suit), I got to walk around the staging areas for the parade. I got to tell you, in a nutshell, the homemade costumes, will always be cooler than the store bought ones. Admittedly, there have been great advancements in store bought costumes since the ones that were available when I was a kid in the 1970's, you remember, a Batman costume would have a PICTURE of Batman on the front, and a plastic mask with the slits cut out for the eyes and mouth which if you'll ask Hank Venture, you couldn't stop yourself from sticking your tongue out of it, only to cut it, which of course was maddening.....

Something else that hasn't changed, little girls are usually very cute as princesses and fairies, while little boys continue to choose gore and violence as themes for costumes. Pirates, Cowboys, Horror characters, anything with blood, a gun, sword, or light saber. I was the Red Baron once, if I can find a photo of it I'll have to scan it and post it somewhere, my mom built an entire Fokker Dr.1 Triplane out of Chicken wire that I could actually put on to make it look like actually in the cockpit of the airplane while I walked around. I think I won a prize as "Most Original" at a Halloween parade in Canoga Park, California circa 1973. (Thanks Mom!)


All in all, it was a great evening, kids, families, the weather cooperated by not being too cold or any rain, just another reason why living in West Chester is so great. Next up, John Young's final Guerrilla Drive In for the season, Blues Traveler playing at Bam Margera's "The Note", the Veteran's Day Parade, and then the Christmas Parade.


Did I mention I like living here!

You see, this is why we can't have nice things

Dead Tree Down
Originally uploaded by arod138

You know, the tree was already dead, I'm pretty sure it died shortly after being planted when they replaced the sidewalk with the ubiquitous and quaint red bricks we have around town, but still....come on, someone's got to come along and prove their manhood by splitting the tree in half?

Sheesh....I remember my first beer.....

RotorFest!

Did you here the distinctive "Whop Whop Whop" of those Huey's big ,thick rotor blades slapping their way through the air over West Chester this weekend?


I love the smell of fried dough and Turkey legs in the afternoon....

No, it was not Lt. Colonel Kilgore with the Ride of the Valkyries blaring out of speakers coming to take over downtown because let's face it, "Charlie don't surf", (Or in the case of West Chester, skateboard.) It was the sounds of RotorFest! The annual October celebration of everything whirlybird at our hometown airport, Brandywine Airport OQN.

I went last year with my brother Joe, in fact right after getting to ride in a Hughes 500 a la T.C. from Magnum P.I., I took him to the Philly Airport so he could get to Europe on his way to Afghanistan for 6 months via Norway and Oberamergau, Germany to get up to speed on how NATO troops make their coffee or some such training...

This year was just as nice as last year, perfect blue skies, absolutely still air, sunny and neither hot nor cold, just absolutely perfect. It seems like I just went last year RotorFest as if it was yesterday, I tell you I'm not happy with the rate of speed life is moving these days. I think someone needs to check the planet's Tachometer, I'm sure we're doing more RPM's lately then we were back in the 70's and 80's. To hell with Global Warming, I say Global Speeding is more of a threat! At least to me anyway.

I took a lot of photos on my little Nikon Coolpix, you know I'm pretty happy with it, and it seems to be robust enough with features that I will be able to do some cool things with it, if I can have the attention span longer than that of a gnat to read the instruction manual. I'll put a lot of the stuff either on my Flickr account or on my You Tube account.

Which brings me to the nerd factor at airshows. You know there are comic book nerds, sci fi nerds, Renaissance fair nerds, D and D nerds, (if you don't know what that is, you're not a nerd), but I think one of the more obscure kind of nerds is the war nerds, and their various subsets. The Civil War reinactor carries a great deal of respect among the mainstream population, but less so the others that obsess over the minutia of military details. Again it's absolutely true that there are a lot of non nerds out there that know the difference between a P-51 Mustang and a B-17, and I attribute that to the fact that there are a lot of people who's grandpa flew them during the war, but fewer people who know the difference between a B-17F and a B-17G (answer: Chin Turret) DOH!

The key here is, at least for me, is to avoid the temptation to put on a T-shirt with some airplane on it and perhaps worse, in addition to maybe having a telephoto zoom lens camera dangling around my neck, a handheld aviation band scanner sticking out of the pocket of a pair of size 46 cargo shorts. (Don't be that guy, Don't be that guy, I mutter to myself)

When I was in the Army Reserves, I got to fly only one time with our aircraft to an airshow in Fort Meyers. We didn't normally do the airshow circuit because of the clandestine nature of our work, so we did our missions in obscurity. This time though, it was right after Desert Storm, so I had a lot of people thanking me for my service. It was sort of awkward because I sat out the war at the Presidio of Monterey, California. (If you are going to miss a war, that's the place to do it) Still it was cool, because I had been that nerdy kid who knew what every airplane on the ramp was, and then later as a Teenager, the pimply faced kid in a Civil Air Patrol uniform standing some sort of guard duty next to some warbird while the millionaire pilot/owner hung out eating hot dogs in the VIP tent hobnobbing with the Blue Angels.

I finally got to see an airshow from the other side of the rope, and I didn't feel like a tool wannabe walking around in a flight suit. I also got to see the kind of kids I was, not the ADD kid spinning himself around and babbling incoherently running up and down the length of the airplane shouting "eheheheheheh, take that mom, ehehehehehe, take that dad, send me to a psychiatrist will you? Take that Doctor Sally Wexler!!" (Get the reference?)

No I was the kid that silently observed everything in quiet awe. I would wait my turn to talk to the pilot to ask some clever question, mainly so I could get the compliment of being such a smart kid.

God I was and still am a nerd.....

WC Chili Cook Off vs Philly Sports teams

Maybe I got there late, but it seemed like a light turn out for West Chester's 6th Annual Chili Cook off. Don't get me wrong, the air was filled with spices and aromas, plenty of people about, and my salivary glands were working overtime as I walked down the street, but I began to think about it and wondered if West Chester was suffering from some kind of Street Festival Burnout Syndrome? (Hereby to be known from now on as SFBS, terminology copyright 2008 Arod138 Heavy Industries, all rights reserved)

In the last month we've had a Swinging Thursday street festival and the West Chester Restaurant Festival, so did the Chili Cook off suffer because we've kind of been overdoing the whole festival thing lately, or what? You can only do a few of these things before people start to take them for granted, right?

Then I thought about what might have been a factor, which was while all this ground beef, beans, onions, tomatoes were simmering along, there was an Eagles-Redskins game going on, and the 4th game of the National League Championship Series being played, the Phillies vs the Brewers.

Having moved here to S.E. Pennsylvania from parts unnamed with a, let's just say, a less ingrained sports culture, it didn't take me long to figure out that people here like their local sports teams. That, and the fact that people here, especially in West Chester, and especially after the bars close at 2 in the morning, that people here have absolutely no problem spelling the word "Eagles"....at the top of their lungs, while drunk...jerks....

Again, I'm absolutely supportive of any event the town throws that allows me the gluttonous opportunity to stand in line eating a funnel cake while waiting in line to order a hot dog, but come on what is the answer to this dilemma?

Because in the fall, between High School Football on Friday nights, Penn State Football on Saturday afternoons, (I actually had someone at work tell me that they could never work Saturdays like I have to sometimes because of College Football, and from the looks of the kid, it's not like he was a key player or anything, but I digest, er, digress) NFL football on Sunday afternoons, who the heck is going to show up to these things? Do we need to cram more of these festivals in during the summer?

At least it didn't rain today, it was a really nice day to intake far more calories in a few hours than I will have burned....in a week. Oh, and Phillies won, Eagles lost.

A blast from the past...and the future....of ROCK!

I had promised myself that I would try to keep this blog to the doings and transpirings going on here in beautiful West Chester, but I really wanted to share this little bit of Pop gold, so I thought about it for a while and came up with a tenuous but otherwise legitimate link between this and West Chester, so follow me on this one ok?

I was driving back to West Chester (that's my link) from a weekend in New York City, when I stumbled across a pretty cool radio station, WRXP 101.9 that had a pretty good mix of music.

Now look, just like in Logan's Run, I think I got to a certain point in life where I've kind of gotten myself killed off when it comes to knowing what's cool in music anymore. I'm only tangentially aware of a plethora of shaggy haired and skinny Salvation Army clothing wearing hipsters that are passing for what is Rock and Roll these days, and my assumption is that what Athens, Georgia was to Rock in the 80's and Seattle was to Rock in the 90's, it seems Brooklyn, New York is where this current crop of Rock saviors are coming from.

I had kind of tuned out the DJ and what he saying as he went into his spiel about this next band, but when they started playing, I was shocked! The sound sounds like a mix of Tom Petty, Husker Du, Buffalo Tom and Bruce Springsteen. "This was new Rock music?" I asked myself. "If it is, this was pretty good stuff with great lyrics and hooks."

The song was Sequestered in Memphis, the band was The Hold Steady.

I vowed that when I got back to West Chester I'd check them out. I had assumed that they would look like any of the other legions of Emo shoe gazers I seem to see playing on Saturday Night Live, but they were a bit different, they looked kind of like, I don't know, me! (Here we go again with the projection, read my post about BNL)

I definitely bought a couple of their songs right away from iTunes, and was searching for some videos of them on You Tube when I stumbled across this absolute gem.


Honestly, I'm not sure it gets any better that. I'm a cynical 41 year old curmudgeon these days, and don't impress easily but I have to make a concerted effort to not spill over in hyperbole how great I think this synergy is. The Hold Steady playing their new song, but synced up to the house band of the Muppet Show, Electric Mayhem in the video. And all this was created by some random internet guy with 8 hours on his hands not even like, you know, professional!

Anyway, that's all I wanted to share, I just thought it was pretty cool!

Oh by the way, on a completely unrelated note, if anybody still doesn't think that Oprah is a kingmaker, have her put on Suze Orman and watch our call volume at work go through the roof!

The Evil Midnight Bomber what bombs at Midnight

"So he says to me, you gotta do something smart, baby, something big! He says you want to be a supervillain, right, and I go yeah baby, yeah yeah! What do I gotta do? He says you got bombs, blow up the Comet Club, it's packed with superheroes…you'll go down in supervillain history and I go Yeah baby 'cause I'm the Evil Midnight Bomber what Bombs at Midnight!!! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!"

Let me start off by saying....I really don't need this. Honestly, lately, my life has been hard enough. The stock market sucks, work is stressing me the hell out, my love life has taken one bizarre turn after the other, a part of one of my back molars broke off, and my back, I don't know what I did to my back, but I must have pulled something or pinched something but I was finding it damn hard to move for about 3 days. I've also done a crappy job staying in touch with friends and family since I've been so bummed lately.

Now this.

Bomb found at parking garage

I'm going to work this morning, and as you know my commute starts off by taking the old school elevator down to the first floor of my building, turning the corner to walk the 20 steps down Prescott Alley, into the parking garage, and then either into my car or on the scooter and off to work. What was I met with when I approached the garage? A cop, and yellow crime scene tape.

My first thought was, "Jumper". I know things are bad, but when I was kid, I passed a similar scene in Winter Park, at the old Langford Hotel, where somebody did a swan dive from the 6th floor. When I asked the cop if I could get my car, he asked me where it was, (in the corner of the second deck) and he said, "Yea you better get it, because that's right above where the suspicious package is, but keep that under your hat."

Oh God.

You know, with Lehman Brothers going belly up, Mother Merrill getting bought by BoA, (as a side note, I got more than a little Schadenfraud going on as a former laid off Merrill Lynch employee) I was more concerned about getting to work knowing it was going to be a rough day, so I was really thinking that was more important to get to work than worry about some stupid hoax. It never occurred to me for a second that it was real.

Turns out, this area has been plagued for a few years by "The Suburban Bomber" who the FBI at one time thought might have been Nick Berg, I mean who knew?

At this point, I can only laugh. Turns out it was the real deal, and we're lucky it was diffused, and who knows what could have happened to my scooter, my car or, um, oh yea, me!

That's why the only way I can deal with it, since I've had a pretty lousy track record of coping lately is make fun of it, and what better way than by associate it with the ridiculously insane, Dennis Hopper-ish sounding mad man than The Evil Midnight Bomber what bombs at Midnight?

Life is ludicrous as it is, so best to take care of yourself, not take life to seriously, and as bad as it is sometimes, it could always be worse. God it could be infinitely better, but best to take what you got and not raise a fuss.

A friend of the devil.....

Just a quick post, I was down in the basement on the treadmill, and of course I got the whole iPod/Nike thing going, you know, the wireless transmitter I put in my Brookes running shoe (I took an Exacto knife to cut the rubber foam to drop it in there as opposed to buying a special Nike shoe with the indentation already built in) that sends a signal to a receiver hooked up to the iPod that tells me my pace and distance covered. I did 2 miles, (I'm not going to say I ran or walked, I'm too embarrassed. Oh damn, I guess that kind of gives it away huh?) and the last song that came up was "Friend of the Devil" by the Grateful Dead. (Q. What did the one Deadhead say to the other Deadhead when they ran out of pot? A. "This music sucks!")

I do like them though, when I was studying at DLI at the Presidio of Monterey, in the beautiful barracks, (I almost hate to call them barracks, they were more like 2 man suites with a great sunset view over Monterey and Pacific Grove) there was only one radio station I could pick up on my clock radio, and that was KPIG 107.5 FM, Freedom California. They played a pretty eclectic mix that included Hank Williams Sr. AND The Grateful Dead among others, so that's what turned me on to them. KPIG streams from the web, you should check it out, the playlist is amazing!

Anyway, sorry for getting off track, but as I'm coming up on the elevator after my work out, the sounds of the Dead are ringing in my ears. Thing of it was though, I had my ear buds out, so was the song literally stuck in my head? Before my workout, I went out onto Gay Street again, and it was another "Swinging Thursday", with the vendors, and the Politicos, and the bands. (Read about it in one of my older posts.) Last month was disco, this month the bands were an Irish Folk Rock band (Think U2 and Dave Matthews) and a Classic Rock outfit. As I walked into my apartment, I turned down the TV, opened a window, and sure enough, the band playing on the street was playing "Friend of the Devil"!

Ok so maybe it wasn't that much of a fluke, after all, on my iPod there are at least 5 Grateful Dead songs, and that band outside of merry old hippies probably have more than a few Grateful Dead and Van Morrison songs in their repertoire, so it was a coincidence that in fact was pretty likely. But, considering there are almost 400 songs on my iPod and I happened to be within earshot of the band playing the song at that moment, it was a kind of a cool thing that happened, no?

Look, I made you a car!

Have you ever been to Rockefeller Center in New York City? It's a must see place, especially around Christmas time, if for nothing else but to see the Christmas Tree. (Or Holiday tree, or whatever the PC name for it is) I really dig the art and style inside the building. Now I'm not an art critic, nor an art major, but I assume it's of the Art Deco movement of the 1930's. Lots of streamlining, and a lot of industrial imagery. Shirtless muscle bound men with hammers banging on steel to make buildings and Zeppelins and Trains, strong jawed women with sheaths of wheat bundled in their arms. I assume the motif is aimed more at the Ayn Rand, glory of capitalism aesthetic since the patrons of all this art were the Rockefeller family versus the same kind of art work done by the Soviets called Socialist Realism. (Not to be confused with the style exampled by Diego Rivera's "Social Realism" in case you were wondering.) Having been in both Rockefeller Center and the Metro stations of Moscow I can tell you both styles are a lot alike. Either way, it's amazing that we managed to be so optimistic during the depression, but maybe it was more of a unique opportunity in the history of the world where the rich could afford the labor and talents of thousands of gifted but out of work artists and to paraphrase Max Bialystok , "since they had it, they flaunted it."


So once again, I'm on the Scooter in West Chester, and there was this place on Gay Street that sold Futons to the off campus college types and the 41 year old studio apartment dweller losers like myself. Anyway, they moved, and I guess the building is being remodeled and in the course of this remodeling was revealed this very nice retro looking hint as to what used to be in the building, Turner Motors Mercedes-Benz of West Chester. Now for the local townies, maybe they remember when it used to be a car dealership, but I don't, being a newbie and all. The best part of this revelation is this relief that is exactly of the same kind of thing you see in New York City. I'm sure a smarter person than I can tell me what the significance of the two people are, (oh that's Detroiticus, Greek God of automobile manufacturing, and that's Smartshoppera, Goddess of wise automobile buyers.) but regardless, I'm hoping somebody saves it and puts up somewhere where all of us in town can enjoy it.

All this got me thinking about the latest architectural marvel in town. When I look at the new Chester County Courthouse, I think to myself, "God bless 'em, they tried", but it really doesn't have much of a personality. Sure they went with some Roman Columns at the entrance, but you know, it's the little things, those details and flourishes, that usually have nothing to do with the engineering of a building that are often what really makes a building something special.



Maybe since the days of cheap immigrant labor are long over, ( I mean cheap, artisan labor, mustachioed Italian men with chisels) it's not in any body's budget to have these little do-dads on buildings anymore. Well, if we don't care how future generations will look on us, let us at least have the sense to preserve what generations past managed to crank out even during our darkest days.

Riding Around West Chester

Today's weather in West Chester was awesome. I know the word awesome is used way too much these days, it almost cheapens the word somehow when it's used for every slightly better than good thing, but really, mid August, 85 degrees, blue skies, low humidity? If I closed my eyes and imagine that the Pacific Ocean is just down the hill, it's like it's Carmel, California or something. Sure there are a lot of other sensory inputs missing, like the barking of the sea lions, and that musky salt air smell, but driving through tree lined streets of nice homes, quaint shops, hipsters and wealthy folks, it's like you'd expect to see Clint Eastwood walking his dog while he contemplates going to get an ice cream. (Yea, kind of weird imagery there, but he's not always shooting punks you know.)

When the weather is this nice, I think of flying. I really need to get on my horse and finish this pilot's license thing. Joe is about a 2 hour flight away by Cessna 172 in Norfolk, and I've always wanted to fly out to Rick Kohberger's compound near Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania. (That's not a typo, there is a town off of I-80 in central PA called Jersey Shore.) So to torture myself, I went out to Brandywine airport, (you know the one that had a little excitement a couple of weeks ago) and watch planes in the pattern do touch and goes. I got a few good photos, like the one of this absolutely beautiful T-28 Trojan,

some planes taking off and landing,


and of course the Helicopters in front of the American Helicopter Museum.


After about an hour of this, I hopped back on the scooter, but before I left the airport I managed to take one more photo, I couldn't resist.


Back in West Chester proper, I'm fooling around with my new Nikon Coolpix S550, and decided to take a few small movies so I can upload my first official videos on You Tube. I just held the camera close to my chest with my left hand, my right hand on the throttle. Probably not the safest thing in the world to do, but until I can build a mount for my helmet for the camera, it was an interesting experiment.



Before I went home though, I wanted to check out this new business on High Street. Imagine you're in that classic scenario, you need to get your hands on some high end Olive Oil, but it needs to be within walking distance. Well, West Chester now has A Taste of Olive, where you can get extra virgin Olive Oils from around the world.....On Tap! You go in, and you can taste them BEFORE you buy. I couldn't walk out without buying a bottle of some Olive Oil from Italy, now if I could only figure out what to cook.


All in all, a pretty good day in West Chester.

Another Swinging Thursday

Well, it's the first Thursday of a Summer month, so that means that 1/2 of Gay Street gets closed down to traffic to set up tents along the street for local merchants to sell their wares or tout their agendas. The air is filled with the lingering aroma of fried dough and BBQ Turkey legs, yet the Renaissance Faire is a couple of months away still. The sounds of R&B and Disco have the older and younger generations swaying to the beats of the live band. Young couples insist on negotiating the throngs of people with their seemingly self propelled, All Terrain, 4 Wheel drive strollers with the independent suspension, air bags, (and if I had my way, ejector seats. I mean really how cool would it be, prior to an impending collision, the sun shade blows off the top of the stroller, a rocket fires, and little Josh gets propelled 50 feet in the air, to be brought down gently by parachute? Am I the only one who thinks about that kind of thing? OK fine, whatever.)

I gather that the point of even having these things the first part of every month during the summer is to attract people, or in the case of the people who work in the town, keep people in the downtown area which helps the local businesses by extending the hours they can make money. Nothing wrong with that. The interesting part of these events is that they have brought out people with nothing to sell but ideas. The Chester County Young Democrats are out there, and so are the Young Republicans. In previous First Thursdays the Freethought Society of Philadelphia(a pro Atheist group) had a booth, and Amnesty International was there today.

Now I normally don't mind the fact that I have to kind of go out of my way in a crowd of people to avoid the "Free Spinal Alignment Check Booth" to keep from having someone put a sales brochure in my hand, but I guess I kind of skived out about having to avoid eye contact with someone who is earnestly and eagerly awaiting an opportunity to tell me why I should vote for somebody, or not vote for somebody, or why God doesn't exist, or how waterbording is terrible, or whatever it is. I don't think for a minute that they don't have a right to be there, au contraire, that's what I love about this town, the free exchange of thoughts and ideas in the public square, does it get any more American than that? Heck we even have protesters and counter-protesters dutifully show up like clock work, rain or shine, on the corner of High and Market at 11:00 am on Saturdays to hold up signs for an hour.

I guess I don't have an answer really, I mean I want all the little businesses to do well in this town, because that's what makes the quality of life living here so awesome. I also want people to be able to spout off whatever it is they believe in public, because I believe its a lot harder to spew venom and be so vitriolic like people will be on a blog then when you see these people in person and realize they are just that, people, kind, smiling, enthusiastic people who believe in a cause, against the war or for the troops, for tax cuts or for helping the less fortunate.

At the end of the day though, I'd like to just get my Funnel Cake and Turkey Leg in peace.

Aircraft Accident Update

Turns out Carb heat is probably not the problem! This aircraft is a brand new Eclipse 500 , a "VLJ" (Very Light Jet), a 6 seater, and an airplane that could be the future of air travel, under the concept of "Air Taxi", where for the price of the equivalent of a 1st Class commercial airline ticket, you could fly from your local airport to anywhere you want to go.

Now not to scare anybody, but the FAA recently grounded all Eclipse 500's until an Airworthiness Directive was complied with, as this was issued related to a throttle control problem incident upon landing at Chicago's Midway airport.

I'm not going to contemplate further what could have happened, I'm not with the FAA or the NTSB, I'm only a 100 hour student pilot and a former 1000 hour US Army Aircrewman, but suffice to say, the aircraft seems intact, the pilot walked away, and all is good.

Photo courtesy of Chopper 10, NBC 10 WCAU Philadelphia.

Aircraft Accident at Brandywine Airport

Whenever you see a local news helicopter hovering perfectly 800 feet over one spot, it's usually not a good sign, especially if it's over a highway, but really super especially bad if it's over an airport.

I don't have much info, my scooter commute takes me past the Brandywine Airport every day now, and they closed the road so I couldn't see, but there were a lot of cops and firemen, but no real sense of urgency that I could tell. Much more likely than a crash on final would be that this was another case of an aborted take off that went wrong, with a pilot going for the option of putting on the breaks and rolling off the end of Runway 27, rather than struggle to get airborne and having a problem getting over 202.

I'll go past it tomorrow, this is the 2nd time this is happened this year, but with this being a 3,347 foot long runway, and with the heat in July, pilots have to remember to take into consideration air density. The heat means wings have a harder time creating lift. Then with the humidity, there is a lot of moisture in the air, so one needs to be aware of Carburetor ice, so pilots have to have the carb heat on, (but this robs power) and you've got to make sure the mixture of air and fuel is not as rich you normally would have it.

With the price of fuel being pretty high, people are not getting the stick time they should to be in proficient in these conditions. Add the fact that most people don't fly during the winter, there are a lot of rusty pilots out there. If you haven't flown in a while go up with an instructor to knock the rust off, and then be safe and enjoy flying!

The Countdown begins....Goodbye Mosteller Garage, Hello ???

I participated in my first civic anything, which was a public discussion of the plans for the demolition of the old Mosteller Garage, to be replaced by what I assume will be called, the New Mosteller Garage. There were some cool pictures of Parking Garages built already around the country to serve as an example of what we as a town could have built, including the "award winning" Bicentennial Garage on South High Street. (Can you imagine what the award ceremony is like for the organization that recognizes great parking garages? I wonder if there is a red carpet and after parties)

Anyway, it was pretty cool, there seemed to be some confusion about the potential demand for spaces in the new garage, what with Jurors coming to serve in the courthouse going to the new Justice Center parking garage, and with the YMCA moving to Airport Road, no more people in Spandex. Seriously though, it seems like the only time I have a hard time finding a parking space is when I'm coming home from work, and there are many ghosts and pirates and princesses and their parents pushing strollers on their way to the Halloween and Christmas parades. That said, since it is my home garage, I'd like to park my car and scooter there on a Friday night, and come back to them without having the bow ties on my Chevy ripped off, or my scooter lying on it's side. (The first thing happened, the second thing hasn't happened yet, knock on wood)

It was also pretty cool to see the movers and shakers of West Chester, Jim Jones was there, of WCJim.com, as he is the Ward 6 councilperson. He introduced me to Cassandra Jones, my Ward 2 councilperson. I was very warmly greeted and asked to come back to more meetings, which I will for sure, because the longer I live in the Dub-C, the more I like it. Years ago I had always wanted to live in a hipster town ever since I visited my friends in Seattle and Portland. I kind of almost did when I lived in Salt Lake City, I took a step back to Suburbia when I lived in Denver, and Bensalem and Croyden, but I really feel like a combination of luck and more luck finds me here, and I'm not going anywhere, even if it means that we are looking at 14 months starting in April of 2009 of me being without my easy parking deal.

Update on the Great West Chester Blackout

The power came back on at 2:45 AM, so as I slept comfortably at the Microtel Inn, my Air Conditioning, lights, and TV came back on and ran all day until I got home at 7:30 PM that night. So much for saving a couple of bucks, but at least I slept well!

Where were you during the great West Chester Blackout of 2008?

Ok, it started off like any other morning, the desire to get rid of the Diet Pepsi I drank right before I fell asleep the night before is essentially my internal alarm clock, so like every morning, I answered nature's call, came back to the futon, and turned on the TV to flip back and forth between the local channels and CNBC, to see how the market futures were looking to gauge what kind of day I could potentially have. Well, at around 6:00 AM or so, I got my answer, but not from TV. I'm sitting there, when suddenly, a deliberate sounding "Boof" (not boom) reverberated through the apartment, the TV went dark, my 100 Mbps Internet stopped, and the air conditioner, the lovely, lovely air conditioner spooled down like a Pratt and Whitney turbofan and made it's customary death gurgle as the condensed water settled into it's reservoir.

I know I paid my power bill, I'm sure I did!

I peaked my head out of my apartment, and the hallway was brightly lit. Hmmmm, a diesel motor grinding along was the only sound I heard. I went back to my dimly lit apartment as the morning sunlight filtered in giving me enough to work with in order to shower, and when I finished, dressed, and stepped out of my apartment again about 1/2 hour later, I walked around the corner of the hallway where I could peak out onto the crossroads of Gay and High Street. Sure enough, the stoplights were out, and there was already a portable stop sign on the street and people were self managing the intersection as best they could.

Oh well, not much I could do, I'll go to work, I'm sure the power will be back on when I get home from work 11 hours later, right? HA!

I got home, parked the scooter, and with it still being daylight, it was hard to determine if the power was on, but I heard that distinctive growl of that diesel generator, so that didn't bode well. As I turned the corner, through Prescott Alley onto High Street was a fleet of Peco Energy trucks, and a bunch of big men in orange hardhats looking down a hole in the sidewalk.

Damn, power's out, but at least I know I paid my bill...but this looks like it could take a while.

Then there is a note on the door to the entrance of my building. According to the note, the property manager said it's a "Very serious problem....and we just have to make the best of it."

Word on the street from my fellow Greentree denizens was that we were looking at sometime between 2 and 4 AM.

Well, screw that, I'm going to a hotel.

The idea of sitting in a dark apartment, from 8:00 PM until 7:00 AM tomorrow, with no TV, Internet and lovely, lovely air conditioning gave me a sense of absolute dread. So, as we speak, I'm sitting in an Ice Cold room at the Microtel suites on 202 and Matlack Street. I've got cable TV, (Basic cable, but still) and I've got Internet so I can post this blog!

Now I could probably go into a lengthy dissertation about crumbling infrastructure, American demand for more and more power, given that when the power cables were laid around the Greentree Building in 1929 there was no such thing as Air Conditioning, Computers, High Def TV's and etcetera etcetera, but I'll spare everyone my comments on what's obvious. Still, it's 2008, is the price of having the quality of life I have living in a cool downtown area where I can walk to the Dry Cleaner, the drug store, the Post Office, the Barber, the coffee shop and the brewpub, the occasional 24 hour power outage every couple of years?

Yea, I'll pay it...and my power bill......

I'm so sorry Steve...get well soon!

The last thing I'd thought I'd do when I first started this Blog is that I'd comment on celebrities, but today's news really floored me. Steven Page, lead singer for the Barenaked Ladies, busted for Cocaine possession???

Let me take you back to 1992.

Ralph, in his typical fashion, had managed somehow score tickets to see John Wesley Harding at the Junkyard Blues Club in the strip mall near the house in Casselberry. He asked me if I wanted to come with him, and I passed on it since honestly I never really heard of him, and having been fired from Comair, having missed the first Gulf War, and dealing with a lot of emotions around a certain Redheaded girl that I was madly in love with but had no hope of being with, I really didn't have the desire to go. So he comes back a couple hours later, babbling excitedly as he is often inclined to do, about how great the opening act was. The image he described, 5 young guys, crammed on that tiny stage, singing funny songs, telling jokes, dancing boy band like choreographed dance moves, it was a blur. I guess I kind of regretted not going, to hear him tell me how funny they were, but I thought about it at the time that it probably wouldn't have pulled me out of my blue funk.

Within a couple of weeks though, I was flipping through the channels, (this is pre-cable days for us if you can believe it) and depending on the atmospherics and time of day, my TV would pick up this low wattage independent affiliate TV station somewhere in Central Florida that would broadcast a Headline News like channel that I think was out of Chicago. At a certain point in the news hour, they went to an entertainment reporter who conducted an interview in the studio, like actually in the control room, of this band, these 5 guys from Canada. Man where they funny! Witty repartee, self effacing humor, slightly chubby, glasses, and incredibly talented! I confirmed with Ralph that this was the band that he saw that night, and my heart sank as I realized that I really missed out on having seen these guys live. As soon as the interview was over, the search was on for their first album, GORDON.

After searching through several record stores, (nobody had ever heard of them, even after they got over the shock of me asking them, "Excuse me, but do you have Barenaked Ladies?") I found the album at Peaches. (Remember Peaches?) I rushed home, and wanted to jump right to the song I had seen the video they showed on that interview program, ENID, because usually albums by musicians where I only know one song usually suck, so why not jump to the one song I already knew? For some reason though I decided to give the album a listen from the beginning. I'm so glad I did! Imagine the first song opening with HELLO CITY, a soft, jazzy opening that was somehow familiar. The singer goes on to sing about the lameness of touring towns with people who, for a lack of a better phrase, are assholes. And what's this?, grown men harmonizing? In age of Grunge? And wait, how is this song ending, with a line from the HOUSEMARTIN'S song, Happy HOUR? Oh man was I hooked! The next song, Enid, the song from the video I saw starts off with a static-y, haunting, Depeche Mode-ish voice singing, "The silence, the terror, the pain, the horror as your mom comes downstairs.." and then abruptly breaks into this completely upbeat, jazzy, poppy number that was the antithesis of anything on the radio at the time. Then the song GRADE 9 comes on, humorously talking about being the geek who gives a passing thought to joining the High School football team but knows in his heart he'd rather be watching Star Trek the Wrath of Khan and listening to Duran Duran. And as if that wasn't enough, the song no kidding goes into riffs from Tom Sawyer and The Spirt of Radio by RUSH and a quick homage to Vince Guaraldi's Linus and Lucy! I didn't stand a chance.

For the first time in my odd little life, I was actually ahead of the curve on something! I got into Elvis Costello, The Clash, and The Police long after their zeniths, but Barenaked Ladies, I latched on to them and refused to let go. I started to project on them my own values, my own point of views, telling myself that these guys were like me, or I was like them. (If only I had any discernible talent) They were nerds, they had bad haircuts, they were funny, they managed to put into words everything I ever felt about anything when it came to life or love.

As time went on, they put out more albums, and I made it a point to show up at Peaches on the given Tuesday that the new album came out. Imagine the challenge in getting details about these guys, remember this is in an era of the early days of the internet when putting in the words "Barenaked+Ladies" into Alta Vista gave you a bunch of returns for porno sites. The album liner notes had an actual physical address for joining the fan club! No www, can you imagine?

Then in 1996, it finally happened. I got to see them live. My life at the point had improved to the point that I could actually afford a plane ticket to Portland Oregon to see the Redheaded girl (pointless effort in reality) and see my good buddy from DLI, Chris Carson. And the reason for it all? Barenaked Ladies was hitting this venue called "La Luna", and I was taking my friends with me to see a band they had never heard of. 3 hours later, Kate and Chris and I cannot wipe the smiles off our collective faces after having seen the one of kind show that is BNL live. That year, I came as close to a Deadhead as I'll ever get because I saw them again in Atlanta, and finally in August of '96, the House of Blues in New Orleans with Ralph, the night after the drunken sioree that was Cheryl's and Paul's wedding. We fly a new Airline at Orlando International Airport, Southwest, that for some reason has really cheap flights. The only flight was in the morning, so we got in and because of our budget, WALKED from the New Orleans Airport until we found a major road that we could catch a bus into the French Quarter. The street cleaners hadn't quite gotten around to cleaning up the quarter from the night before so we walked in what seemed like ankle deep plastic cups and plastic beads until we could find our first destination on our list, Cafe du Monde, where we enjoyed some coffee and beignets. As we sat in the crowded dining area, (why is it this crowded, this early in the morning?) Ralph and I imagined that this was surely the kind of place that the guys from the band would hang out in if they were in town to play a show. "Wouldn't it be cool to run into them here?" we asked each other, smiling at each other as powdered sugar fell like snowflakes on the front of our t-shirts. Upon finishing what is the equivalent of French crack, (so addicting) we then set out to find the House of Blues, to get our tickets at the will call window. Our plan was to literally stay awake for 24 hours, and we had 10 hours to kill before the show even started. As we wondered in what we thought was the general direction of the House of Blues, we were beginning to think we were lost, and that asking directions might not be a bad idea. Across the street from us, at what looked like an used musical instrument store, stood a guy alone, smoking a cigarette, who looked kind of familiar. Could it be? By himself? Here? "Ralph, I think that's Steven Page over there!" Ralph, in his inevitable style, shouts out across the street, "Hey Steve!" I cringe in a bit of embarrassment. But damn it if the guy doesn't turn around, and it's STEVEN PAGE! Now in about a second I go from being a bit mortified to being a bit terrified. I'm absolutely star struck. I don't know what to say, I really don't have anything in common with him, or at least I don't think I do, I'm not a musician, so I can't talk technical talk with the guy, and of course as a man I can't talk to this stranger about how his music makes me feel, how it speaks to my heart, that his music pulled me out of depression and self loathing, that's just something we men don't talk about right? Fortunately, the crutch we talk about is computers. Barenaked Ladies' live album ROCK SPECTACLE was cutting edge for the time by being an "Enhanced CD" with all sorts of goodies like Quicktime videos, a surfable GUI interface to play little games and the like. I don't know how many CD-ROM Drives Ralph and I went through trying to upgrade our computer enough to make the stupid thing play all the content on that CD. He could not have been more pleasant, given we really had him cornered, and can you believe we asked him where the House of Blues was, since we were there after all to see him play, and he all too calmly points back across the street to where we were standing, 10 feet away from the entrance to the House of Blues. (God, we're dorks) Before we knew it, a giant maroon striped tour bus pulled up in front of the place, and Steve, (to this day I have no idea what he was doing loitering in front of the House of Blues, at least 30 minutes before the rest of the band showed up) had to go on the bus to get some rest before the show, still, a good 8 hours from that point. Here we were, Ralph and I with Steven Page, our musical idol and self imposed sensitive nerd fellow traveler, without a pen for autographs, without a camera to take photos. Steve, of all people, actually recommended that there was a corner shop just down the block that might sell that stuff. (I guess he must have investigated that in his wait for the tour bus, before Ralph and I clobbered him with our adulation.) We said we'd go check it out, and be right back, and he said "ok" and as we walked briskly down the street, I kept thinking to myself, "If I was him, I'd jump on that tour bus so fast and lock the door as quick as I could." Unbelievably, less than 5 minutes later, he's actually waiting for us at the door of the bus, for him to autograph the back of our tickets, and to pose for photos. We thanked him again, and he actually said to us, since we had told him we were exhausted and thinking about getting a hotel room to take a nap since our "stay awake 24 hours plan" was seeming like a bad idea with every passing minute, he actually said to us, "Don't oversleep and miss the show, I hope you come back and check us out..." or it was something like that, I was in shock. Was this guy so nice, so normal, so unassuming that he actually was selling the band like a kid reminding his friends to check out his garage bands first gig playing the Sadie Hawkins dance? Dude, we bought tickets, we flew here at 6 in the morning, we were tired and a bit hungover, we were going to the show, don't worry!

What a great meeting, my brush with greatness, it's a memory I carry with me to this day. Me and BNL had a temporary falling out with 2003's Everything for Everyone. You could really tell the album had been crafted during the run up to the invasion of Iraq, and it had that anti-war, anti-unilateralism vibe to it, which at that point I finally realized that these guys aren't like me, they don't think like me. Honestly I'd have been more shocked if they had put out a pro-war album, that would have been ludicrous, but still it dawned on me that I cannot project myself on somebody else, even if I happen to interpret lyrics and melodies as those of someone who would otherwise be my emotional doppelganger. So I forgave them, not that they needed my absolution, as if I could even grant it, as if they were even in need of forgiveness for God forbid having their own point of view, and I moved on with them. I showed up on the first Tuesday for Barenaked for the Holidays, and for 2007's Barenaked Ladies are Me. The last time I saw them was last year in Orlando with Mike, Mike, Mike's cool coworker chick, and of course Ralph.

So today's news, about an arrest, about drugs, it just blew my mind. One of the things I projected on these guys was the no drugs thing. As a nerdy kid growing up, I wasn't even cool enough to be offered pot. In an era of Shawn Cassidy feathered mullets, with my military style haircut that my father dutifully drug me to the barbershop every month, I was perceived as a straight arrow right out of Joe Friday's Dragnet. With lyrics from the song GRADE 9 about being called names by the kids in school, I had assumed that we had the same high school experience. Of course by the time I was 17 I had enlisted, gotten a Top Secret clearance and had sworn an oath to support and defend the constitution, and that included not doing drugs. I took that seriously. Heck we even flew counter narcotic missions there for a while. Yea, I know, I've always felt like I'm a Don Quixote like character, tilting at windmills, be they Russian commies, Colombian drug lords, whatever. By the time I was 30, and had left the military, I felt it awfully stupid to go ahead and try it now, since everyone else I knew that actually had a normal upbringing had already tried it and looked back on the experience with varying degrees of regret, except the ones that were still doing drug of course. They seemed to not have that regret and in fact seemed pretty happy all the time....wait, that explains it now!

Steven Page, where ever you are, get better. Innocent or not, please take care of yourself, you've spent the last 18 years writing the lyrics to the soundtrack of my life, and I don't know about you, but I've got a lot more life ahead of me, and I need some music to laugh with, to think with, to love with, ok?

Thanks for reading this extraordinarily long post, a lot came pouring out, but that's what happens when you give some time and thought to a subject that means so much to me. Next time I'll share a much shorter story about my other star struck moment, talking to Ben Folds mom. :)

My new two wheeled fish carrying conveyence

Ok, before you ask, "Why?" Let me tell you the answer, "Why not?" No, I cannot claim that some sort of ecological altruism was at work when I thought seriously about buying a scooter that gets 117 mpg, (that's not a typo folks, ONE HUNDRED and SEVENTEEN MILES TO THE FREAKING GALLON!) nor was it an issue of being economically squeezed to the point of desperation, since my 1998 Chevy Lumina gets absolutely acceptable gas mileage since a) my commute is all of 10 miles each way (thank you Kerry for dumping me!) and b) I'm a hermit perched over the intersection of Gay and High Street in beautiful downtown West Chester and rarely go anywhere other than work or the airport to fly home. I just figured, where can I "refocus" some of my cash flow? Perhaps towards an actual savings account? So since I refuse to give up a couple of things like air conditioning and digital cable with High Speed Internet, Gasoline had to go!

Now, a few issues of economics are at work since I laid out about 2 Grand for the thing, and since I'm a bit paranoid about somebody just picking up and walking a way with it I got insurance that covers theft for about 400 bucks a year, but if gas prices stay where they are or go higher, (what are the odds of that happening?) the difference of dropping 120 bucks a month on fill ups for the Lumina versus 16 bucks a month, I'll make my money back in less than 2 years! (Take that all you smug Prius drivers!)

So, there you go, I've made the commute back and forth a few times already, along beautiful back roads that only add about 5 more minutes to my normal trip. This is at a balls to the wall eye watering speed of 35 mph. My biggest fear is that I'm holding up a line of fellow commuters along Paoli Pike, and that I'm likely to just be run over by someone who is more preoccupied with trying to drink his or her Latte while adjusting his or her Bluetooth.

What kind of scooter is it exactly that I'm now buzzing around the Dub-C? It's a Yamaha C3 , or in Europe the Yamaha Giggle, or in Japan, the Yamaha VOX. I so wish the US version was the VOX, because under the brand decal for the VOX it has this: ..._/_ _ _/_.._ which of course as an old U.S. Army 05-Hog, I find irresistible. Other than the mpg and the mph, (it pegs out at 40, and it will do it too....downhill.....with a tailwind....) it's a pretty straight forward, 49cc scooter with the volume capacity under the seat for a 12 pack of your favorite beverages. NOTE: arod138, his affiliates, sponsors, and drinking buddies in no way endorse or encourage drinking and driving. Just thought I'd throw that out there. The ride is comfortable, quick, (except up hill) but all in all a pleasure. Why didn't I get a bigger engined Scooter? Anything bigger than 49cc's requires a motorcycle license, and even though I have an endorsement from the state of Delaware after having (barely) successfully completing the Motorcycle Safety Class taken through Mike's Famous Harley Davidson, I haven't gotten around to getting it transferred to my driver's license. I know, I'm a loser...plus I'm really attached to my driver's license photo from 8 years ago, I didn't look like a chipmunk who was having an allergic reaction to bee stings like I look now days.

So, if you see a big guy riding around on an Igloo cooler with wheels around West Chester, wave hello and try not to laugh at such a ridiculous sight. Hey, I'm saving the planet, what did you do today for our beloved Mother Earth? :)

Ole, Ole, Ole, O-le, O-le

I did something Sunday afternoon I wouldn't normally do, and that is sit through an entire soccer match. Not just any game of course, but the UEFA Euro 2008 championship. Spain vs. Germany. Spain won, 1-0. Look at that score, 1 point to no points. I suppose if we look at it from the American point of view, the Spanish barely beat Germany by 1 point, whereas I imagine a European sees it as the Spanish being 100% better then the Germans. Now, for reasons that are obvious to people who know me, I've recently had to start paying attention to things that most Americans don't give a crap about. Soccer, among many other things, is one of those things. A couple of years ago I was in Barcelona with Yulia for about 5 days. Imagine, an American, admittedly of Cuban Heritage, with a Russian, walking the streets of Catalonia Barcelona, Spain. At resort towns like Lloret de Mar, the seaside pubs that cater to holiday makers from the UK, the flat screen TV's had huge groups of people surrounding them, beers in hand, cigarettes in fingers, cheering their respective countries on with all the color and pagentry that one might expect at any college football game on a crisp Autumn day in the USA.

The question I ask myself, is why do Europeans love "football" so much? I know I'm not the first red blooded American to express a sense of perplexity about the appeal of Soccer, after all, after 90 minutes, or more, or less, or however the extra time thingy works, after 90 minutes of these guys are running around, kicking, passing, kicking, passing, shooting, almost, so close, so close, running, kicking, GOOOOOOAL! After all that effort, scores like 1-0 are the norm. The answer I arrive at is not why do Europeans like Soccer, but just that they do, and that's all that matters. In Europe, from the Irish Sea to the Bosporus straits, and from the Canary Islands to (and the Russians hate to admit that they might be European) the Volga River, these people are mad about the sport.

In a place where cultural identity for more than a millennium could be completely different over the next hill, or on the other side of a river, these people now find themselves sharing the same currency and crossing former border checkpoints as easily as we go from Pennsylvania to Delaware to Maryland to Virginia. Globalization and Global Corporations tend to blur the lines even further. Now I understand that these people have loved the sport since long before the EU and the Euro came about, but now days, if it weren't for one's own home country's "football team", what makes a Spaniard any different than a Dutchman? They all seem to be universally on board with the whole Green Conservation thing, driving smaller cars, and hating George Bush, so is Soccer the one thing left that they can hold on to that carries on their cultural identity? Do rabid Philadelphia Eagles fans prove they can spell "E-A-G-L-E-S" at the top of their lungs because in an age of Telecommuting and business relocations to cities like Phoenix, Charlotte, and Jacksonville it is an obnoxious and annoying expression of a desire to hold on to their waning cultural identity? I'm famous for missing the point, but I kind of think it's something along those lines that explain the sheer joy the Spaniards are experiencing right about now.

My first Blog entry

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I'm not sure why I was compelled to create a blog, but my guess would be that when I first moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, I relied heavily on Google searches for anything to do with West Chester, to find out what was going on in town. The issues I was having was that I'd come home from work to closed streets, because it would turn out that there was a parade, or a street festival, or a bike race going on, and I was clueless. Or, there would be street work which included chopping down trees, and putting in brick sidewalks. Other times one minute there would be a pizza joint on a corner, and the next minute it was torn down to put up an office building. Then, there are the occasional Hollywood movies being shot downtown, so in a nutshell, I kind of wanted to get a heads up on what's going down downtown, since after all, I live on the corner of Gay and High Streets, the main cross roads of West Chester. I hope maybe this blog forces me to become more involved in the community so that maybe people will reference my blog and maybe I'll "scoop" some of the other blogs in the area that I've so heavily relied on to keep me informed of the doings and transpirings afoot here in the "Dub-C". Stay tuned!