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!

Another weekend, Another adventure

I have yet to ride my scooter to work, mainly because I've used the excuse of rain and springtime pollen and it's associated allergies to keep driving the car, but that may come to an end soon. I took the C-3 out as far as I've ever taken it before, about 15 miles, from downtown West Chester to the New Garden Airport, just west of Kennett Square. Speaking of Kennett Square, it was nice, a wanna be West Chester, but with more Mexicans. Must be all the Mushroom harvesting houses, I guess they are they absolute opposite of a green houses huh?, and the area smells like, well, how else do you think they raise mushrooms?











What was my inspiration to make it out to New Garden Airport? Yes, another airshow, of course. This one is a small airport, so it's a small airshow, but I've noticed more people at this airshow than at the helicopter airshow we have at Brandywine Airport here in West Chester. I wonder if that might change, as I heard that there might be a wings and wheels airshow in September, which might bring out the people, so vamos a ver.


You know this being an airshow like the last airshow I attended, what stands out in my mind was the non airshow related stuff, like how nice the ride out was. More farmland, more shady lanes, more twisty roads, I took Google's "walking" advice as opposed to driving advice to come up with a map there, so I would end up on these back roads on purpose so I didn't feel like I was backing up any traffic. I passed this really cool set of ruins on the way there, and then when I arrived there, I got to park among the motorcycles and antique cars that were on display there. I felt like a VIP and I got some looks.

The other cool thing was stumbling upon someone's "hanger". I guess he opened it up for the airshow, and with the exception of a beat up glider hanging from the ceiling, this was really one man's collection of antique motorcycles. Nortons, BSA's, Vincents, Triumphs, and old Indians and Harley Davidsons. There's no law that says you have to keep airplanes in an airplane hanger, heck late in Steve McQueen's life he practically lived in his hanger with his airplane and motorcycles.

Now that sounds like the good life to me...

Update, Google Me, seriously

Ever so randomly, if you Google "Andy Rodriguez" and "Motorcycle" you get this web page...

http://news.motorbiker.org/blogs.nsf/dx/movies-on-motorcycles.htm

In fact, there are probably a lot of words you can Google in combination with my name, but I'm not sure I want to guess where they end up.

However....

I am now forever linked to Guerrilla Drive In, the John Young created happening here in West Chester. Giving credit where credit is do, he does all the hard work, he spends all the money, it's just that when I go to watch the movies like any other member of the secret society of GDI'ers, I give John a hand, since I was A/V qualified at South Lake Elementary School in Titusville Florida, circa 1974 to 1978.

The last time I was in the paper was when a reporter came to the above mentioned school to get our take on the 1976 election between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. I think I indicated my preferences for dictatorships, since when asked "how long should the president's term be?" I answered something along the lines of "he should be president as long as he's doing a good job."

Yikes!

Anyway, shout out to John Young, congratulations for getting the recognition you so richly deserve for all the hard work you put in to entertain your friends both old and new!

Busy Summer Weekends

Things really pick up in the summertime around here, so much so that often we are faced with choices as to which event we'll check out, so it's always fortuitous when you can do everything you want over the course of the weekend, and yet still, chances are, you missed something.

So how lucky was I when I got to go into the way back machine and meet General Douglas MacArthur? Now last time I saw him, he was lying in his crypt next to his wife in Norfolk, Virginia. (I bet you didn't know he was buried in Norfolk, am I right? I mean, General of the Army buried in the middle of a Navy town? Thank his southern belle Mother for that, and now you know)

Obviously I'm talking about having gone to the Mid Atlantic Air Museum's World War II weekend in Reading, Pennsylvania where military reenactors, restored to duty aircraft and military vehicles converge for living history presentations. I don't know, but for a guy like me, is there anything better than walking a few steps and visit a German encampment, and another few steps to an American camp, to an Canadian camp, to a Soviet camp?

I know that having been in the Army, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of voluntarily and without getting paid setting up GP Medium tents and concertina wire and wearing wool uniforms in the summertime, not to mention paying lots of money via buying uniforms, gear and the like for the honor of doing so, but I'm glad these people have this passion, because what better way to connect to our passed than try to live it?

Also, what I'm kind of digging these days is that more women are doing the whole reenactment thing, and not just as WAC's, but just as civilian women on the home front, because I imagine unlike a Civil War era woman with all her petty coats, there is something pretty cool (and comfortable) about the sexy look of 1940's women. Bright red lip sticks, tight skirts, hair done up and cute hats, it's a great look!

So that was Saturday, SUNDAY was Super Sunday in West Chester, and it was great weather for it. They close down Gay and High Streets, put some bandstands on either end, a bunch of vendors in between, and the opportunity to buy that ubiquitous turkey leg or funnel cake, and it's a simple formula for a good time. A good time as obviously had by this guy here, who just can't stop dancing to the cool jazz of a lazy, sunny Sunday in West Chester.

Shoulda been last weekend's blogpost.

If you use blogger.com for your blogging platform, you know that there is a dashboard where you can Six Sigma to death your blog, from a metrics perspective, to see where traffic is coming from, and a bunch of other measurements I have no idea what to do with. Anyway, the one that I do understand, Top Search Queries, shows you what words or strings of words people put into Google.com in search of something where your blog might have come up in the search results, and then those that actually went on to land on your site. All of it is pretty cool, you can figure out of someone is stalking you if they use your name and West Chester and other overly specific keywords, or you can find out who's looking for some pretty freaky times in West Chester, it all depends.

One of the things that someone evidently searched for that really intrigued me was "B-25 Crash West Chester" or something to that affect. Now it was logical that my blog might have come up, seeing as how one of my very first blogs was about how an Eclipse 500 went skidding off the end of the runway at West Chester's Brandywine airport, but this was way too specific. I clicked on the link to see the returns that my mysterious fellow googler would have seen, and I saw links referencing a monument to the men who died in a B-25 plane crash near West Chester. The monument, and from what I can gather, the plane crash site itself is located at The Oaklands Cemetery, just outside the borough.

So, as you can imagine, I took the scooter out again, and gave myself a tour of the place. Now I'm not a morbid guy, or gothy in the least bit. I will admit to listening to the Cure and to a lesser extent Morrissey and The Smiths, but I'm no Azreal Abyss, Prince of Sorrow, Chris Kattan's character from the Goth Talk sketch on SNL in the late '90s.



Yet I really like cemetery's from a historical perspective, no really! I even took a girlfriend to the cemetery (during the day, during the day) in Key West, Florida because many of the sailors that had died when the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor were buried there and there was a cool monument built for them. (How's that for nerdy eh?)

So driving around this place, and let me tell you, the hills, the trees, it's Monterey, California Deja-vu again for me or something, because it is very serene and yet also endlessly fascinating. Some of the monuments have names that are very familiar as I make my way around town, Sharpless, Matlack, Barnard, Darlington, Everhart, Route 3, (just kidding!) so it's pretty interesting all in all. One of the many "famous" people buried there is two time Medal of Honor winner Major General Smedly Darlington Butler. He was quite a character in his time, I'll let you, the faithful reader Wiki him or Google him and have you draw your own conclusions about his place in history. My two cents, he died before he could see our efforts against fascism and totalitarianism, and if he had lived perhaps his cynicism might have dimmed somewhat, but we'll never know for sure.

Well, anyway, not far into the grounds, you can't miss it, on the left hand side of the road, is this polished granite memorial for the crew of the B-25 that crashed near by in May of 1944. I think it speaks volumes about the kind of people that live in West Chester, that the members of the community would take time and money to erect a monument to people who were not even the "local boys" who went off to war, but complete strangers, who had "slipped the surly bonds of earth..." during war time, a long time ago. (Note, I hate that it bothers me, but can anyone else see something wrong with the B-25 etched in stone that depicts what the crew that was flying that fateful night?)

I suppose it would have been more poignant to have gone last Monday on Memorial Day to pay respects, but I'm glad I went today, for I had the whole place to myself, for quiet reflection, to say a prayer of thanks, and to marvel at the fact that I live here. Such a great place I swear if you locals ever take it for granted that you live here, I'll remind you from time to time how good you've got it, ok?

Memorial Day Ride

Hey all,

Just a quick note, it was supposed to be a 3 day weekend, but I had to work somewhere in between the days off, so I tried to cram in as much as I could within the time that I did have off. One of the cool things that happened was running into fellow West Chester Blogger Dr. Zibbs from That Blue Yak at Chipolte. I think we were both craving a burrito at the same time.

So, on my agenda was to check out another airport, this time it was Pottstown Limerick Airport, not nearly as mom and pop as the Pottstown Municipal Airport, but an interesting place, especially given it's proximity to the Limerick Nuclear power plant. I don't know if there are guys standing around with Stingers defending the reactors, but I think you might want to avoid any overflight of the place.

That's a King Air F-90 heading west, the cooling towers are further away than it seems...

By the way, the drive from Pottstown, through Limerick, to Phoenixville is a nice drive.

On Monday, I got on the scooter to tool around first by kicking off the day with breakfast at Market Street Grill. In so many words, not to shabby a place for food anytime, like a diner, but just infinately better.

Now early on in my scooter ownership, I figured taking it out on the twisty, winding, and hilly roads just to the west of West Chester would be out of the question what with the 49cc engine struggling underneath a fat guy that tends to make it pretty anemic going up hill. But you know I said what the heck, let's go check out the Northbrook Canoe Company, the place John Young is always talking about, because that's only 6 miles from town, and riding to work is at least 2x as far, so hard could it be?
Well it turns out that it worked out great, precisely because of the twisty, winding, hilly roads, nobody is going terribly fast, so I didn't feel like I was holding up traffic, and so I made it down to the Canoe company, walked around, and took some photos and then found my way to the Northbrook Marketplace, another John Young recommendation, before turning my way towards home, but not before taking another video of the kinds of roads we have around here, which are pretty sweet, if you ask me.

Location, Location, Location

One of the best things about living in West Chester, and I may have mentioned this before, is the ability to get out of town easily, and that in a relatively short amount of time you can be somewhere else that's pretty cool too. Whether it's someplace obvious like Philadelphia, (although I don't know why people venture into Philadelphia, since we have everything you could want right here in the Dub-C.) or more interestingly Washington DC or New York City.

I've made a couple of trips down to D.C. in the last couple of weekends, and I've had a lot of fun.

First off, since the new Administration took over, DC doesn't feel any different, it's still the center of power of the free world, and that's reassuring. Second, there's always something going on an any random weekend there, so you really can't go wrong when you show up, unless it's in the absolutely oppressive heat and humidity of August.

So on the one weekend I went down to DC with Lana, we stumbled upon the preparations for Earth Day celebrations on the National Mall. There were tents set up everywhere showing off all this Green technology stuff, at least highlighting what the feds are proud of as progress along those lines. There were some electric vehicles, including an Electric Scooter. And not the Hover-round scooter either, but an actual like motorcycle like Scooter. But can something be called "Zero Emission" though any more? Yes there is no pollution coming out of the tailpipe, but electricity comes from somewhere, and somewhere there is a smoke stack converting something that was something else into electricity, right?

The most recent trip to DC involved meeting my brother Joe who came up from Langley AFB for the long anticipated visit with the newest member of the family, little Judah. Now of course it turns out there was an open house airshow at Andrews AFB, so Joe and I couldn't miss that. How many times have we seen the same types of airplanes over and over again over our lifetimes? Too many times to tell, but that's hardly the point is it? There is no unique fact about any of these machines that we can impart on the other brother without them already knowing that fact, yet we go anyway just for the shear joy of being in our comfort zone. This particular trip was unique though, in so much as Joe actually was in Air Force ROTC with one of the 6 pilots from the USAF Thunderbirds Aerial Demonstration Team. Major Sean Gustafson, a super good looking, er, I mean "good" guy. (whoa where did that come from?) Seriously, those Thunderbird pilots look sharp, both in their Flight Suits and in formation.

Now back to the reason of our trip to DC, first some familial background.

In the Rodriguez-Carbonell family bloodline that arrived here from Cuba, there were 4 individuals that ended up comprising "The First Generation" of kids being born in the USA. I was the first in 1967, followed by Ralph and Joe, and our cousin Lauren was the last, arriving in 1977. Now despite our obvious manliness, my brothers and I have yet to procreate, (that we know of) so it ended up that Lauren taking on the burden of bringing in the first of the "second wave" of our family to be born here.

So looking and holding little Judah, you realize you're not looking at another baby for the umpteenth time, the babies of your friends, neighbors and coworkers, but you're holding a relative. Now I'm no judge of baby character, but knowing his parents as well as I do, I think the "second wave" is off to a great start. In fact, he's going to be a hard act to follow. God I hope there will be more to follow, the world deserves more little Andys, (and Ralphies and Jo-Jo's too), they may be the planet's only hope! :)

I hope this kid will like going to Airshows......like he'll have a choice.... :)

I got my scooter back, scooter back, scooter back, ribs...(sorry)

So yesterday I got my scooter back from the shop where it had a recall notice taken care of an it's 700 mile checkup done. Of course I drove it all over town, you know, to break it in, and check out what's new in town.

Obviously this sweet photo is from the roof of the Mosteller Garage, soon to be demolished, in what, maybe June, July? I'm not going to worry about it until I need to worry about it. Did you notice the decal on the front above the headlight? That's the US Army Senior Aircrew Wings the kind I earned in the Army. It should make the scooter go that much faster, that's how it works right?

One of the things I did was stop by the West Chester Farmer's Market, where a man stopped me to ask about the scooter. He was a man in his late 50's early 60's perhaps, and mentioned that he hadn't ridden a scooter since his youth in England. So that put him riding around about the same time as the whole "Mod" scene back in the early to mid 60's. I told him I was going to put a whole bunch of rear view mirrors, an RAF rondel, and wear Italian suits while riding around town, and he laughed.

That's Sting, from the movie Quadrophenia, you know?

If the weather holds up, I'll start riding it to work this week. Sure the summer of nearly 5 dollar gasoline seems to have passed, so any sort of calculations I've done on the scooter paying for itself have gone out the window, but still, it's fun to ride, so what other excuse do I need?

Living the Dream in West Chester...

If Twitter is supposed to be the answer to the question (that honestly, nobody asked), "What are you doing now?" Then a blog can be more about what did you do tonight, today, this month, on your summer vacation, this year, and use as many words as you like. So here's what I did today.

I have had another interesting week transitioning into my new gig at work. Well honestly it wasn't that bad, but I'm the kind of guy who likes to jump in and figure out how to swim along the way, as opposed to over study something and then somehow be an expert swimmer the moment my toes hit the water. Learn by doing, on the job training, that's the kind of retention skills I have, as opposed to theoretical, abstract learning. I guess that's why Geometry and Statistics were such fun classes for me than the other types of mathematics classes I took in school, they seemed instantly applicable to real world scenarios. But I digress, I can assure you I did no math today. I mention all of this because after a week like this, plus with the GF visiting again, and a day that was forecast to have no sunshine in it, I was looking forward to about 24 hours of sleep, but alas, none was to be had because much had to be done.
What I did do, is rent a U-Haul van, so that I might transport my little Yamaha C3 Scooter to Martin Motorsports for it's 700 mile tune up and get a part recall taken care of, just in time for the spring riding season. I'm obviously going to jump into riding it early now and ride later into the year as to recoup any advantage that comes from the 117 MILES PER GALLON (that's right, 117 MPG) that the scooter gets, before it becomes too cold and therefore too impractical to ride a scooter 11 miles through the back roads of West Chester, East and West Goshen, Malvern and Paoli to get to work. Not to mention the idea of riding around in the darkness a scooter that can barely keep up with 35 mph traffic.

I got my scooter from the garage of a friend of mine who was so gracious as to store it there for the winter with the only requirement that he get to ride it around every once in a while, and then I made the trek up to Boyertown, Pennsylvania where I bought the scooter originally from Martin Motorsports. It's a great place, as they sell Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, and Triumph. Oh man, and check this out, you know me I'm all about an aesthetic, about a vibe, over any sort of practicality, although often times the two overlap. When I went the showroom to look around at the new motorcycles that I can't afford and probably from a skill perspective have no business trying to ride, (even though I did pass the Harley Davidson Learn to Ride Course....barely), I saw this little beauty, the 2009 Suzuki TU-250X. (I'm pretty sure the TU is not from the Tupolev Design Bureau that designs such fine aircraft as the TU-95 NATO Code Name "Bear" and the TU-144 "Concordski".

Seriously though, isn't this bike cool? With it's 1970's retro look, yet 21st century reliability? I hope they keep this in production long enough for me to put some scratch together, I think it might be the way to go as badly as I would love to get my hands on Royal Enfield Military, I'm afraid I'm not quite the mechanic it would take to own an R.E., but hey one of the things I get to look forward to as I get older is becoming more reclusive and crotchety as I spend hours away from family and friends in a garage, (or maybe please God a hanger) working on inanimate objects in my own greasy jumpsuit like some sort of fat and dirty Doctor Thaddeus Venture. That would be the life.

So after the bike thing, I drove my empty van back towards the U-Haul place but not before consulting with my new iPhone to see how far out of my way would it be to check out Pottstown Municipal Airport. As it turned out of course, not far!

I love small town airports, as every time you walk into the shack where the staff works it's like walking into someones living room who's obsessed (like I am) about airplanes. Model Airplanes hang from the ceiling, pictures of airplanes line the walls, old men with baseball caps that have airplanes on them argue with each other over various aspects of aviation regulations and flying techniques, younger to middle age guys living the dream of flight show up to meet their often much younger flight instructor for their 1 hour session of turning 100 dollar bills into smoke.

Good times, good times.

The best part of a hometown airport, is the security system. In this post 9/11 world, with the monster of a bureaucracy that the Transportation Security Administration is becoming, the TSA should back off worrying about these small town airports as a potential threat to national security, especially if they all employ the guard cats that they do at Pottstown Municipal. Because as we all know, the thing that terrorists fear above anything else, is a little pussy.

The fine folks at TNT Air at Pottstown Municipal asked me to pass along to anyone who might be interested, they want the world to know they have two prides of joy there, (and who knows how many cats, that might be an operational security secret, ok TSA?) one of them is N22904, a Cessna 172 SP with the Garmin G1000 "Glass Cockpit" and almost all LCD display cockpit with GPS navigation and engine management hardware built right into the displays. The word "cool", doesn't begin to cover it's innate coolness.

The other thing that they are proud of is their Full Motion Simulator, which can be programmed to be almost any type of aircraft, flying from anywhere in the world, under any weather conditions! Suffice to say, it's pretty neat-o. Tie a few of those things in on a network and make them Mustangs and Messerschmitts, (a whole mess of Messerschmits! as Buggs Bunny would say on mthose now banned to due to politically incorrect WWII stereotypes) and I might be there every weekend.

Of course a consequence of such a pursued lifestyle as mentioned above would be that I would soon forget the touch of a woman, and having had gaps in my life where that happened, I don't think I'm going to risk it, so like with everything else moderation is the key word here, but generally speaking I'm thinking my 40's will be a pretty fun decade to live through.

An evening with Dr. Zibbs and the Swedish Chef

What can I say? I suppose I'm making lot of people around the world extremely jealous simply due to my fortuitous choosing of West Chester as a domicile, because of its relative proximity to one "Doctor Zibbs" of "That Blue Yak" fame. There are a lot of people who would pay any price, bear any burden, to make the pilgrimage and worship at the feat of the great Doctor, so it got me to thinking about starting a business, some sort of tour guide to West Chester, pointing out sites where Dr. Zibbs has been seen, pointing out actual bar stools where he has sat upon, or perhaps spiritual guide to West Chester, to help pilgrims cleanse themselves emotionally and physically in preparation to actually meeting him.

Let me tell you about how I met Dr. Zibbs.

The Doctor's hands are the key to life

Saigon, shit.....I lay in my hotel run, looking at my orders in disbelief. I couldn't believe they wanted him dead, West Point, Airborne, Special Forces. "Terminate with extreme prejudice" they said. I had to meet the crew of a Patrol Boat-River (PBR) at the mouth of the Brandywine river for the trip upstream so I got a ride on a Huey gunship with a troop from the 1st Cav, and lunatic surfer and battalion commander known as Lt. Col. Kilgore.

The crew of my PBR were a strange lot, the M-60 gunner looked like a very young Cowboy Curtis from the Pee Wee Herman show or maybe Morpheus from The Matrix.

After a surreal journey filled with pointless allegories and allusions, incoherent scenes with no point to the plot, (although the Playboy bunnies having to flee on the skids of a helicopter, that was a nice touch) I arrived at his den. The natives all seemed to look the same, holding glasses of thick black liquid, just staring at me otherwise silent. Then I met the Swedish Chef. He babbled excitedly, "he, he, he's a good man, a great man, he's changed my life, I'd follow him anywhere..." he went on and on, several different cameras dangling from around his neck. He seemed to go off on tangents, he was clearly insane, one minute he was talking about putting a bomb on a bus that would explode if it went less than 55 miles an hour, the next minute he was talking about the road to retirement, and having a plan, and about Ameriprise Financial. (By the way, who picks a stockbroker on the advice of Dennis Hopper?)

Then there he was, the Doctor himself. An ethereal glow seemed to emanate around his aura, the wicker chair providing the perfect framing backdrop, his white suite gleaming to the point of me having to shield my eyes. He wielded his spade shaped hand fan like a magician, effortlessly cooling himself, his bottle of 7-Up dripping sweat in his other hand. His first words to me were not exactly clear, something about being caffeine free, never had it, never will.

Ok enough, I think my memory of the evening was blurred by about 4 Guinness's, and the free swag we got from them, (T-Shirts and key chains) so I think I'm confusing my stories between Apocalypse Now, Hearts of Darkness, and a 7-Up commercial. Suffice to say, I met the man himself, and it was good. Everyone should meet Dr. Zibbs at least once in their lives, at least that's what it says in the Koran anyway. As for the Swedish Chef, as it turns out, we've probably met each other before at of all places, at John Young's Guerrilla Drive in! (It's a small world, and a really cool town West Chester is) He even grew up with and knows Nikki from Van Ryn's barbershop, she's the one that cuts my hair, of which Lana approves of. :)

I'm telling you, living in West Chester is great, spring is here, summer is coming, you got to get here!

Jealous?

Album drops April 28th, but who's got a copy now thanks to my friends at the Mad Platter CD's? Yup, THIS guy!

Wait until I tell you about my evening with Dr. Zibbs!

More from West Chester University...Khristos Voskrese, Voistinu Voskrese

This will be a short blog, in contrast to the fact that the weekend was crammed with so much stuff, Friday night was a nice long walk in the borough, Saturday was a day (and a lot of the night) trip to Washington DC, and Sunday was Russian Orthodox Easter, and thus a pretty long day, having managed to cram in a trip out to Net Cost, the Russian Grocery Store on Bustleton Pike north of Philly, then down to St Andrew's Russian Orthodox Church, for the blessing of the Easter Baskets, and then back to West Chester University for a presentation by the Russian Language and Drama Club of some classic Russian Fairy Tales, including Teremok, and The Turnip.



Thanks to Dr. Jim Jones of WCJIM fame for referencing the play at WCU on his website, and thanks to Dr. Alice Speh for keeping me informed about the play, it definately capped a fun weekend! Oh, and thanks mostly to Lana, you know, for just everything...OH, and I just noticed, look for how long (minutes and seconds) the video runs.....I'm just saying...

It's official! Congratulations to West Chester University Gracenotes!

Hi all, I get to write this blog at the intersection of where two of my interests meet, in this case, West Chester, and Ben Folds. It seems that about a year ago Ben Folds had stumbled upon some videos on You Tube of various University Acapella groups doing versions of some of his songs. This inspired him to reach out to the interweb and solicit more groups to doing his songs, the best of which he would record and put out in album which, as it happens, "drops" April 28th, "Ben Folds presents, University Acapella"

And who made the cut? Among some very amazing talents, from some very amazing Universities, was West Chester's own all girls Acapella group, the West Chester University Gracenotes.



Now in the interest of full disclosure, I've never seen them preform before, I don't know any of them personally, unless I helped them during the mock interviews the women's business club put on campus last year or they work part time as waitresses at any of the restaurants up and down Gay Street I've probably never met them before, but I can't otherwise feel happy and proud that their version of "Fred Jones Part 2" made the album. This is especially impressive for me because I never really liked the song when it came out because it is about a man getting laid off, and it came out about the time I got laid off that one time, hence the depressing nature of it all, but yet hearing them sing it is somehow more soothing, more palatable, almost made me look forward to getting laid off again. (God Forbid) Besides, they're College Girls, and who doesn't like College Girls?

So Congratulations to the Gracenotes on a job well done.

And since I'm plugging the album, (why, I have no financial stake in Ben Fold's success, other than the more popular he gets, the cooler I become) check out this group that has also made the album, the Sacramento State University Jazz Ensemble.

In order to realize how good the improvisational, scatting version the students do I've included the original song from 1997 when Ben Folds Five performed on Sessions at West 54th Street, a great little show on PBS for some great music. Watch and listen to Ben's version, and then watch the kid's version, it's like, scary good.

It's safe bet that on New Music Tuesday April 28th, I'll be at the Mad Platter in West Chester after work picking up my copy, maybe I'll see you there?

Fashion Advice from my Cousin

No comment from me, except to say that this is my cousin Lauren, and she managed to get a plug in for her new kid, which is either my nephew, or 2nd cousin, depending on how it works out and she knows all about this fashion stuff, and she can work miracles because she can make even me look good. (It usually involves me wearing all black, pinstripes and platform shoes for some reason...)

Orlando versus West Chester

I wasn't sure how I wanted to express my thoughts about my trip to Orlando, other than start off by giving a high level overview of what I managed to accomplish while down there, and then go on to discuss the specifics of what I observed, as if my two cents offers a fresh alternative look as to what's happening down there. So, since I can't think of a better way to express what I'm thinking, let's just begin exactly as I outlined, why not right?

Ok so in a nutshell, in the course of 9 days in Florida, I managed to:

• Have Dinner with my brothers Ralph and Joe and his Canadian girlfriend Sheyla and family.


• Have Lunch with my brothers and my mom.
  


• Have a few drinks with a couple of my Army buddies.
  


• Watch Ben Folds at the Hard Rock Live Venue at Universal Studios with Ralph and my Godson Brian.


• Spend time with my girlfriend.
  


• Spend time with my Ralph.
  


• Spend time with my Dad on his birthday.

So, I got a lot done. As infrequently as I get a chance to spend time with family, I have to take these opportunities when I can. For those friends of mine whom I missed, forgive me, we'll hook up next time in town, promise!

The other thing is that I get a chance to compare and contrast where I've come from, to where I live now, and see how much has changed since I left in 1999. Every time I go back to Orlando, I look around as I'm being driven to my Dad's house where I usually set up camp for my stays, and I'm overwhelmed by 3 feelings, awe, jealousy, and relief. Awe, in that I'm amazed at the shear amount of growth Orlando has had in the years since I've been gone. True, much of the growth is phony, like a giant Potemkin's Village has sprouted up over night, (think the fake Rock Ridge, next to the real Rock Ridge from Blazing Saddles) Jealousy, in so much that I'd love to be living among friends and family in a place that has grown so much. Finally Relief, in that I'm so glad I don't live there now, because in some respects I doubt I could have grown as much as I have personally, if I had stayed. In the years since I've left, I've lived in Salt Lake City, Denver, and in the Philly Burbs, and had more than my share of interesting experiences along the way.

Of all the things that changed that impressed me the most, about Orlando, was the arrival of the classic "Hipster" (Nihilistus Artsyfartsycus) (That's the Latin name for the genome and species) :)
I'm serious, I couldn't believe it. Skinny jeans, ironic t-shirts, pork pie hats, single speed bicycles, in ORLANDO, the City where cool trends go to die. The thing of it is, one of two things is about to happen, the hipster, as we know it, is about to become extinct because it has arrived in Orlando, or, the Orlando that I knew, the Puerto Rican/Redneck-Rebel Flag/Evangelical Christian/Boy Band producing town is becoming extinct.

How did the Hipster manage to make it down to Orlando, I wonder. Are they leftover implants by the Democratic party to relocate Obama voters to the south to turn Florida into a Blue State? Are they economic refugees in so much as it's just gotten to be to expensive, even in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York for them to afford to live there?

Seriously though, I imagine that the University of Central Florida, through it's Bachelors Degree in Visual Language from its Digital Media department, as well as its Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy. Valencia Community College has some graphic arts programs as well as the "DAVE" School (Digital Animation and Video Education) at Universal Studios, and of course the Grand-daddy of them all, Full Sail "University" has attracted many of them down there.

Part of my loathing for them is my jealousy of them, first in that they are skinny, but also in that they get to pursue something they love, while living the bohemian lifestyle, while not exactly eschewing the need for technology, as on the one hand maybe they don't have a nice car, but they have iBook and an iPhone in their messenger bag while tooling around on a Vespa motor scooter or that ubiquitous 1 speed bike. Plus, all the coffee you can drink while writing that screenplay? Sign me up!

So in the 10 years that I left, Orlando got Hipsters, non Starbucks coffee shops, hell, Orlando actually GOT Starbucks coffee shops, independent record stores, motor scooter culture, pretty much all the cool, hip things I pursued these last 10 years between my visits to Seattle and Portland, and my stays in Salt Lake, Denver and now here in West Chester. So, should I move back to Orlando now that I have a place to hang out that wasn't there before?

There was and still is the Enzian Theater, an independent movie place (that served beer) that showed foreign films with subtitles and those Spike and Mike sick and twisted animation festivals, (are you listening West Chester? We need a cool theater!) but Orlando was about as shallow and superficial as it got. (lots of orange tanned, fake boobed bimbos, rhoid raging, spiky haired douches) Not a whole lot of places for a guy like me to gather with friends and discuss the nature of travel beyond light speed, and Roman Legion Order of Battle.

I guess the answer is no, I wouldn't move back, because with my luck, if I'm right, the trend would be over by the time I got there. Seriously, it's a matter of practicality at this point, I've got the good job happening here, this place has everything I need, PLUS, here, in West Chester, there's actually no need to run the air conditioner...in MARCH, like it is down there. Trust me I'm no big fan of the winters here, but come on, 90 degrees, in March? I grew up with that for 30 plus years, I'm kind of digging where I am, thank you very much...

Area Blogger Returns Home to West Chester, celebrates with Prime Rib at Iron Hill

I just got back from a week in Florida, more blogging to come regarding my trip, (who knew Brooklyn style hipsters and scooter culture have made it to Orlando of all places) I can tell you I'm enjoying a 14 oz Prime Rib at Iron Hill at the moment, and it's really good. Don't believe me? Here's what it looked like, along with 1/2 of an Iron Bound Ale before I tore into it.

I had a pretty good time, from spending some time with my brother Joe and his non imaginary Canadian Girlfriend before he gets sent to the desert on another Middle East Deployment, to spending time with my Godson Brian and my other brother Ralph by taking them to see Ben Folds at the Hard Rock Live venue at Universal Studios, to finally showing off my girlfriend Lana to my family and friends down there. (Initial grade for her, A+)

Anyway, more later, I'm still loading photos to Flickr from the trip, as well as getting ready for the reality of going back to work. :)

I don't speak "Man"

First of all, let me begin with what is probably a glaring, obvious and redundant statement, which is to say, I am.....a man. Not just any kind of man, but an extremely macho, manly man. I'm so manly, I am confident I don't have to belabor the point of how manly I am, because to do so would only indicate a sense of unsureness or insecurity in my manhood, of which I have none. Besides, my mommy says I'm a big man now, so I don't know what more proof you could want.

I would go on and on and list how many things that I have had punched on my man card, but again, as a man, there is no need. (and frankly, as a man, the list is so long, we haven't the time to list them all)

Yet, every year, the Ides of March come, which in Roman times was a pretty manly holiday, what with celebrations dedicated to Mars the God of War and all, not to mention to the manliest of assassinations in the murder of Julius Cesar, but it's about this time every year that I start to feel, you know, not so manly? Especially here in West Chester, the Philly 'Burbs, the whole Northeastern, Mid Atlantic States part of the USA.

But Andy, how can that be? I know I know, as strange as it seems, it is sadly the truth. About this time of year every year is the annual event known as "March Madness". It is the time where tall young men, supposed scholar athletes, gather together in squeaky sneakers, wife beaters and baggy shorts and bounce a basketball around until through the process of elimination, one team will emerge victorious as the NCAA champions of Basketball. At least that's my understanding of it.

Where I lose my manhood street cred, is in that, well, here it goes, I don't fucking care about College Basketball! I don't know the teams, I don't know the players, I don't know the coaches, I don't know who won last night, who's playing today, who's playing tomorrow, and I just, don't, care.

The thing of it is, my fellow men, seemingly most of them, obsess over March Madness. I mean they know everything about it, from the big, strategic aspects of things like picking who will go into what bracket and why, down to the tiniest of minutiae. And there in lies the problem. Men communicate in a certain language that's not meant to be easily interpreted by other people. The other people being women of course. Women, and maybe nerds and theater majors perhaps. Now I will readily admit that I fall into the nerd category in some respect, but I will say that I'm mostly in the manly world than in the nerdy world.

Speaking of nerds, it always struck me as funny the disdain that some of these sports obsessed guys have for the nerd obsessed guys, be they the sci-fi fantasy types and the society for creative anachronism types, when in fact that same childlike obsession skill set is present in both types of guys. For a funny read on this, check out this article written in The Onion.

So when it happens that for whatever reason that two men who are strangers to each other have to communicate, they usually speak in the language of March Madness. As if this was some sort of universal language where no matter what our differences in age, culture, income and socio-economic standing, we will have this common ground of analysing why one group of college age kids will do better than another group of college age kids in placing a ball in a basket.

When this happens to me it makes me feel like a freaking immigrant, like someone has come up to me and started babbling something completely incomprehensible, and I have to sheepishly answer "eh, sorry, no speeky di engleesh"

The question before me is, should I make an effort to speak the language? Should I force myself to be in a self imposed exile from the manly community, or should I start paying attention to the sports pages and CNN/SI and ESPN.com and should I create a fantasy league and on and on and on with all the things that men seem to do? Look, I want to get promoted at work, I need to schmooze with my bosses, I want to have a social life that involves men standing around in the opposite corner from our women on a backyard deck over a smoking outdoor grill full of bloody red meats drinking ice cold beers while we discuss the finer points of the"violence as comedy" in the Three Stooges shorts, but it seems part of that is going to have to include getting brushed up on all this March Madness crap.

Anybody else feel this way, or is it just me? Oh and "Go Villanova Wildcats!" or something....

Sorry it's been so long!

Hi all,

I really want to blog about something, but I didn't want to jump back into blogging without saying something about the absence which I feared might take away from what I want to blog about, so I felt it important to have its own entry.

Sorry it's been so long! I have a laptop that has for all intents and purposes given up the ghost, and I've sunk too much into it in repairs to make it worth while to continue with it, so I'm working on getting a new lap top. In the mean time, I'm blogging to you from the basement of arod138 World Headquarters in the Greentree building of West Chester, Pennsylvania. We have here kind of a rec room/office center/gym, (we also seem to have a Spanish Evangelical Christian Church in our basement for some reason) and so obviously we have a computer that has internet access on a first come first served basis.

So with all this going on, plus working like crazy (thank God, knock on wood and all that I even have a job) what with tax season and a self clearing conversion, I haven't had time to get down to the basement and convert my thoughts to electrons.

I'll get that laptop pretty soon, and I'll start to blog more frequently, you have my word!