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......