Another good weekend, jealous?

Summer 2009 might go down in the history books as one of the most comfortable summers I've ever experienced. Who ever heard of July weather in the 80's? Especially under the shade of the giant trees that are in Everhart Park? (Man I wish I knew trees better, like the names of them, at this point I don't know if they are Oak, Sycamore, Maples, or what. I'm familiar with the song, "The Trees" from Rush, but despite its nerdy reference, it's never helped me understanding one from another) Well, let me just cover the highlights of the weekend.

I drove by on the scooter past a bunch of bikers who had rolled into town to support the troops as is our West Chester protest/counter protestor Saturday Morning and I video taped them as I went by. I'm thinking one of those helmet mounted cams might not be a bad way to go, seeing as how I had visions of losing control and careening into the parked bikes and knocking them over like dominoes. "I say we kill him!", "I say we let him go!" "NO!!!"



Then I did a run out to Downingtown just so I could work my way back into town via Valley Stream Road (think behind the Wegmans). Man that's such a nice little ride.



Then, I studied for my FAA Written Exam at the Starbucks, man if I don't get this ball rolling and finish the pilot's license, I'll never live it down.

It's just a jump, to the left....

THEN, as if Saturday wasn't fulfilling enough, I checked out the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Phoenixville. That was fun, last time I saw RHPS it was at the Dream Theater in Monterey California. Both the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville as well as the Dream Theater, what great old restored venues. Man, West Chester needs a theater. Couldn't we convince the guy who's supposed to build a hotel on the site of West Chester's old Warner theater to rebuild or at least have some of it restored as a boutique venue for cool foreign films with subtitles and crazy animation festivals?

Sunday, was much more relaxed, but again it was as simple as sitting under the shade trees and listening to the music and hanging out with John Young of Guerrilla Drive In fame and watching people drop 5 bucks a pop on air brush tattoos of his own designs.

I mean on the one hand, for all intents and purpose the Turk's Head Music Festival is simply another First Thursday or Super Sunday event in town, you know, funnel cake and tie dye skirts for sale along with spinal cord alignment and Bath Fitters set ups under portable tents, only with you know, more music. On the other hand, it's a great way to just enjoy some great music, from local acts, and it's not like they were doing cover band work either, but a lot of original music, and you've got to respect a band that can be able to great total strangers out there to dance to a song they've never heard of before....

I'm pretty tired though, I didn't take my normal 3 or 4 naps throughout the day, so I'm feeling good and tired now, but hey, I earned it, how many people did as much as I did in the last 48 hours? Oh yea, a lot of people did, man I'm out of shape.... :)

I'm in the middle of a big bike race!

One of my favorite sketches from the seminal Canadian comedy Troupe Kids in the Hall is the one with Bruce McColluch, playing a young boy character named Gavin. I could tell you the gist of the story, but why do that when I can show you


Ok, so now we're on the same page, and you get my humor right? Ok, so here in town, another summer weekend, another something or other going on in town. This Saturday, Iron Hill Twilight Criterion. A bunch of 1% bodyfat people in spandex speeding around on bicycles more expensive than my car as fast as they possibly can around the streets of West Chester.

Sounds fun, right? Short answer, yes, yes it is. Fun to watch anyway, fun to people watch, simply just another example of the extremly high quality of life we routinely experience here in West Chester. (You'd think I was on the payroll of the Business Improvement District, but I'm not.)

It's simple enough, the day starts with them having to clear the streets around 1:00 PM, as demonstrated here.

It boggles the mind that this person didn't know what was going on in town, what with the electronic signs, the text messages from the borough sent straight to your cell phone, and you know, the old fashioned paper signs taped to the lightpoles and meters, but hey, I'm not driving around in a super nice car, so what do I know...

The race breaks things up between the women's races and the men's races with a kid's race, you know the kind of race were everyone's a winner!!! (Shesh, but still kinda cute)

But that wasn't the only game in town. Market Street was closed down for a street chalk art contest, some food, and a band of nice old gentlemen playing...."Classic RAWWWK".

And over on Church street, just north of Gay, during the summer months is a big "troubled teen" hangout in West Chester. The term is mine of course, I'm sure the kids are alright, (Who?)it's just that I'm old and they scare me. Why is it that at least twice now in my life I'm scared of teenagers? Heck come to think of it, at every stage of my life I've been afraid of teenagers, even when I was a teenager. But I digress, these kids, during the middle of the race had there own thing going, having set up an obstacle jumping contest right in the middle of the street. Say what you will about whiny Emo kids, they know how to have a good time.

It took a lot of photos, and I have to tell you it's about speed, and my little Nikon Coolpix camera doesn't quite cut it for capturing all the extreme sports action especially at dusk and at night, so thank goodness for the video feature to get the sense of speed and motion. Note the hair on the one girl, these guys are reallymoving and you could feel it all the way up on the 4th floor balcony of my apartment.



Acording to the people running the event, 20,000 people crowded into West Chester to enjoy the festivities. It seemed like it. It amazes me to because people have so many choices as to how to spend the weekend what with Blobfest in Phoenixville, another bike race in Philly, and the draw of the Jersey shore always present during the summer, it's nice to see so many people chose to hang out with me in my little town.

What the 4th is about Part 2 of 2

Quick turnaround eh?

Ok, so, I'm on the R1, pulling into Terminal 2 when my phone rang. Now I don't get a whole lot of phone calls these days, unless it's phone spam....(wait, was there a name for when people called us at dinner with unsolicited sales pitches, what was that called when they did it, we all had to sign up on some federal list....TELE-MARKETING! That's it, although why I wrote and had you follow my thought process in trying to remember that, well, that's part of the fun right?) but for some reason I picked it up and what do you know, it was actually US Airways calling to tell me that my flight was delayed. Just a real person courtesy call, and that they had already took steps to book me on the next flight just in case I missed my connection in Charlotte (CLT).

Well, not much I can do about it, and hanging out in PHL is not exactly fun, but I manage to entertain myself with the already obsolete iPhone. Apparently the weather in Boston has delayed my Embraer Emb-190. This will be a first for me, to fly in Brazil's first official "full size" jetliner, and when I finally enter the cabin when it arrives an hour late, impressed is what I am. This is no stretched out ERJ-145, (what's that, right? It's Embraer's first commuter jet, let's just say they've come a long way baby since the EMB-110 Banderante! a 13 passenger twin turbo prop commuter airplane that I used to throw luggage onto back in the late 80's.)

Would I rather be flying in a Boeing 737 or 717? Sure, I'd like to say, "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going!" but airlines got to make money somehow, and these foreign government subsidized airliners like Bombardier, Embraer and Airbus make it all but impossible for Boeing to compete except in the higher profit margin aircraft like the 747, 777 and the 787. Although to be honest, I would so like to fly in the Boeing design assisted Sukhoi 100 "Super Jet", a 75-95 seat commuter jet. How often do you get to say you flew in a Russian built aircraft?

Gosh all this writing and I've not even gotten to the point of the second part of my 4th of July blog.

So, I'm flying down to Fayetteville to be with Lana, for the 4th of July and the 5th of July, a soon to be known and widely celebrated holiday known as "Svetlana's Birthday", day. I was packing a Garmin GPS as a gift, knowing that as the good boyfriend I couldn't show up empty handed. Turns out she loves the GPS, it has it's quirks, but to expect it to be 100% accurate in a backwater burg like Pinehurst/Southern Pines would be asking a lot, but it does the job.

No, not the French Riviera, but uh, Norfolk, Virginia? Really?

We had a wonderful time, but we never really nailed down where we were going to celebrate the 4th of July until the last minute. The thought occurred to me, "you know, Joe is only a few hundred miles away, in Norfolk, Virginia, and he's being visited by his girlfriend Sheyla, so why not call and see if he's cool to have some visitors for the fireworks? At first he seemed nonplussed to the idea, taking several minutes between text messages, and an allusion to having a very uncomfortable couch fold away bed, as soon as I mentioned that I could bring some "Fat Tire Ale" to the party, (a Colorado Microbrew that has only now made it east of the Mississippi, and is for all intents and purpose, the best beer I've ever had,) I felt like we had the greenlight to go!

Long story short, (that's another cliche I hate, because it never is either one, you know?) Lana and I make the GPS drive up to Norfolk, meet up with the bro and the French Canadian GF, (it was fun by the way to hear all the accents being spoken) got a tour of Langley AFB and got lucky to watch a flight of five F-22's take off in succession. Of course we got downtown to eat some Cuban "fusion" food, and a pretty high quality 4th of July celebration and fireworks show right on the water on the harbor. The events even attracted some tall ships from the navies of Brasil and Uruguay. Remember the Bicentennial? All those tall ships in New York Harbor? It seems no 4th of July is complete without those magnificent ships as guests to our ports now, right?

Next morning is July 5th, Lana's birthday, and after spending the night at one of the more sketchy Ramada's I've ever stayed at, which was not far from the Hampton Coliseum, (See "Hampton Comes Alive", a very good live PHISH album, by the way) we went back over to Joseph's places for Scrambled Eggs, Fresh Fruit, Crepes and Chocolate Nutella.

Yum.

Like all good times, they must come to an end, and the time to come home came way to quickly. Not that the last day went exactly smoothly, but hey, no matter what, the weekend can definitely be categorized as a huge success, and let's leave it at that.

Now in case you forgot, I promise you I didn't which is to tie it all in as to what the 4th is all about, and it is this, which is how I just loved how a Russian, a Canadian, and two nerdy dudes that could have very easily been born in Cuba if Fidel had only been a better baseball player, ended up celebrating the birth of the United States of America together.

When they say things like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", I don't know how better to demonstrate it than to be with the people you love, eating, drinking, watching things getting blowed up, and doing things that you love to do. Whether that's paying homage to brave Helicopter Pilots, contemplating the future of global aircraft manufacturing, standing by a fence and watching F-22's take off for who knows where, enjoying the services of the 24 GPS satellites in orbit above us, or having crepes with Nutella, I can only hope that everyone had as nice a 4th of July holiday as I did, and that you took a moment to remember what it's all about!

What the 4th is about Part 1 of 2

Hey everybody,

This is not going to be some long drawn out dissertation on patriotism on the nations birthday and that's why it needs to be a two parter, but simply I wanted to get something out since it had been a while since my last post, and I'm waiting for the photos from the entire weekend that are on another SD card.

So, my weekend starts with a ride to the the train station in Media, with a buddy of mine I used to work with. It's amazing how quite it is around West Chester at a few minutes after 6 in the morning, it's an hour I don't want to get used to seeing routinely anytime soon, but who knows maybe I should. We get into the city, my intent ultimately to catch the R1 Train to get to the airport to catch my flight to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Now part of the appeal of going as early as I did was of course the free ride to and from the Airport, (Thanks Jeff! I'll get you back!) but the chance to grab a real breakfast at the great Reading Terminal Market. Sure enough, I arrived just as they opened and I saddled up for some blueberry pancakes at the Amish diner they've got there.

Here's the cool part of the whole thing, not long after sitting down, a distinguished looking man, (as distinguished as one gets in a T-shirt, shorts, tennis shoes and a black stetson hat with the crossed swords symbol of the Cavalry) his wife and daughter sat down next down me. Now of course immediately, we all know who comes to mind when one sees someone wearing a black stetson, Colonel Kilgore, right? Well, although the character is a long way off from the reality of your typical Battalion Commander of an Air Cav unit, there certainly were no shortage of characters that make up the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association, of which this man was a member, and here in Philadelphia attending the 26th anniversary reunion.

We talked Army aviation, helicopters, and Vietnam, while I filled him in as much as I could on what I know about the Amish, and life here in Philadelphia. All in all it was a great way to kick off my trip, with one of America's heroes. We talked about Chickenhawk, a book by Robert Mason, if you want to really understand the humor and the horror that was the helicopter pilot's experience in Vietnam, you needn't start anywhere else. Even his college age daughter had read it, I'm sure in an effort to know her father better, and she had mentioned that it's now required reading at Fort Rucker, America's training post for all future Army aviators.

My blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs were ice cold by the time we parted company, but it was an honor to meet him. I mean I'm no stranger to Vietnam era Army Aviators, what with me having spent my 20's being chauffeured around by them in the back of an RU-21A, but still I just enjoyed the chance meeting. Welcome home Kevin.

He had mentioned that there was tractor trailer parked out in front of the Marriott I should check out, which I promptly did when I settled my bill.

I don't know what else to say upon beholding this seemingly innocuous trailer, except for....cooooool.....a bar on wheels! A sanctuary where a Helicopter pilot can tell lies to his friends without contradiction, a place where one can toast those who came before and didn't come back.

The logic is pretty simple in justifying having a mobile tractor trailer bar on wheels, hey, beers at the bars at the hotels these days are pushing 5 bucks a bottle, and you can't smoke indoors anymore, so what the heck? The inside walls are covered with memorabilia from the glory days, pieces of helicopters hang from the ceiling, it is the perfect refuge. Sure it reeks of spilled beer and cigarettes, but it sure beats setting up a GP-Large every time happy hour rolls around.

Before long it was back to Suburban Station, to catch the R1 to the airport, and begin a pretty fun weekend, of which I'll share with you soon!