It's been way too long since I've written anything for this blog, but I've been busy (and fairly productive), plus, as Acacia complains, twittering takes away from your blogging. I'm the East Penn Open Sectional Coordinator for the College Championship Ultimate series run by the UPA. I'm also an Alumni Admissions Interviewer for Vassar. Both of those things have been taking up my time in varying amounts – I recently lost the site that I thought (through no fault of my own) had been guaranteed for sectionals and I was assigned two more Vassar applicants to interview. But most of my time and energy has been devoted to applying for new jobs. I'm looking for paralegal jobs at relatively small firms in Philly and D.C., so if you know of any openings (all four of you who read this blog) let me know!
Now that I'm fully ingrained in the glory that is Google Reader I've subscribed to Freakonomics, which I suppose is the inspiration for the following in some roundabout way. Last night my house, and others in the neighborhood, lost power. It turns out that a transformer blew up a few streets over, but that's not the point of the story. Right after the power went out, I called PECO (the electric company for those of you not from Philadelphia) to report the outage. I finally got through to an actual human being who told me that PECO knew about the problem, claimed it would be solved quickly, and offered this piece of information to me, seemingly to comfort me: the outage affects about 800 people. I couldn't figure out if that information was comforting to me. I suppose I was relieved to hear that it wasn't a blackout of all of Philadelphia, or the entire east coast, but I could have known that simply by looking across the street (in one direction they still had power). I wonder what PECO's motivation for telling customers the approximate number of people suffering from the power outage is. If it's a large number, would I have been more concerned that it was going to take a lot of time before my power came back. Might PECO be motivated to tell the customer that a smaller number of houses are affected by the outage than is true in an attempt to increase customer satisfaction? I simply don't see the purpose of PECO quoting me the number of customers affected by the outage at all. If I found out PECO was lying to me, would I take it out on them by refusing to pay my bill on time? (A plan that would surely backfire and only cost PECO a couple hundred dollars at most before they simply shut off my power.) If ignorance is bliss (which is generally is not) wouldn't I rather not know the number of people affected by the outage? On the other hand, perhaps I would be mad at PECO if they knew the approximate number of people affected by the outage, but refused, for some policy reason or another, not to tell me. I can't come up with a convincing argument for why PECO bothers to tell customers the number of people affected by the power outage, or what PECO's motivation for accurately conveying that number to its customers. But nevertheless, the power came back on about an hour after it went out.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
My Car is Alive for at Least Another Year ... Well, Almost Alive
Every year since my freshman year in college, when I first had my car full time, I’ve been worried that it wouldn’t pass inspection. The car is now 16-years old and had spent a good portion of it’s first 12 years sitting in a driveway under a tree on Staten Island. It was exposed to the elements (weather, salt air, leaves, and sticky balls that I think I’m still pulling out of the doors) and probably wasn’t frequently taken to the shop for repairs or an oil change. This year, however, I was seriously concerned for about six months that the cost of getting my car to pass inspection would outweigh the car’s value. Essentially I was worried that fixing the car would become more expensive than buying a new (used) car. If there ever was a year to take my car to a service center at a Mitsubishi dealer this was it. Luckily there’s one in Havertown - about a ten minute drive from my apartment.
I took my car in on Thursday (the registration ends in February, so if it was going to cost more to fix it than I thought the car was worth, I still had at least six weeks to buy a new car) and sure enough it did need some work to pass inspection. I had told myself before I dropped my car off that if the repairs were going to cost more than $1000 I would have to make a decision about whether or not it was worth it to keep the car. The guy at the service center called and said I need new tie-rods in the front of the car and that I had a brake fluid leak. All told about $700 in repairs. So, as you might have been able to guess from the title of this post, I went with the repairs, got my car to pass inspection, and it lives to see another year with me.
As you also might have been able to tell from the title of this post, it turned out that not all was perfect with the repairs on my car. When the tie rods, part of the connection between the steering column and the wheels (my car knowledge is terrible), were connected, the steering wheel must not have been pointing straight ahead. What this means is that when driving the car straight, instead of having the steering wheel pointing at 12 on a clock, it’s pointing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10:30. It’s possible (and really not all that hard) to drive safely with the steering aligned as it is now, but it’s certainly distracting, especially when backing up.
Obviously I noticed this problem as soon as I hit the road on Thursday on my way back from the service place, but since the service desk was already closed for the evening there was nothing I could do about it then. I called the dealer on Friday and they told me it would take about 45 minutes to fix the problem so I brought the car over in the afternoon only to be told that, upon looking at the problem, they had to send the car out to their alignment specialist for a two hour job. More importantly, it was already almost 3 PM and the alignment guys close at 4 so I’d have to bring the car back next week for them to fix - again. Luckily for me the service manager offered to drive me from the dealer to my job, and then pick me up when the car was finished. I guess we’ll have to see how all of this turns out on Monday, but they better not try to charge me for the work made necessary by their own screw up.
I took my car in on Thursday (the registration ends in February, so if it was going to cost more to fix it than I thought the car was worth, I still had at least six weeks to buy a new car) and sure enough it did need some work to pass inspection. I had told myself before I dropped my car off that if the repairs were going to cost more than $1000 I would have to make a decision about whether or not it was worth it to keep the car. The guy at the service center called and said I need new tie-rods in the front of the car and that I had a brake fluid leak. All told about $700 in repairs. So, as you might have been able to guess from the title of this post, I went with the repairs, got my car to pass inspection, and it lives to see another year with me.
As you also might have been able to tell from the title of this post, it turned out that not all was perfect with the repairs on my car. When the tie rods, part of the connection between the steering column and the wheels (my car knowledge is terrible), were connected, the steering wheel must not have been pointing straight ahead. What this means is that when driving the car straight, instead of having the steering wheel pointing at 12 on a clock, it’s pointing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10:30. It’s possible (and really not all that hard) to drive safely with the steering aligned as it is now, but it’s certainly distracting, especially when backing up.
Obviously I noticed this problem as soon as I hit the road on Thursday on my way back from the service place, but since the service desk was already closed for the evening there was nothing I could do about it then. I called the dealer on Friday and they told me it would take about 45 minutes to fix the problem so I brought the car over in the afternoon only to be told that, upon looking at the problem, they had to send the car out to their alignment specialist for a two hour job. More importantly, it was already almost 3 PM and the alignment guys close at 4 so I’d have to bring the car back next week for them to fix - again. Luckily for me the service manager offered to drive me from the dealer to my job, and then pick me up when the car was finished. I guess we’ll have to see how all of this turns out on Monday, but they better not try to charge me for the work made necessary by their own screw up.
Monday, January 5, 2009
New Year, New Uncomfortable Situations and Scary Thoughts
So for the first time in my memory I didn’t have to struggle to create a New Year’s option that consisted of more than just passing the new year with my parents. Not to say that I’ve done that in the past four years, it’s just been that I’ve had to search to find something, or push my friends to host something. This year, however, was radically different. I ended up spending a relatively quiet, and very fun New Year’s Eve in Washington, DC with Sam, Alex, Acacia, Steph and Sam’s former DCCC co-worker Trevor. It was really great to see all of them, and sometimes it really is nice to have a small and relaxed New Year’s. No trying to make lots of people feel comfortable with people they don’t know. No trying to get to know other people ... Anyway, I was also invited to New Year’s at Andrew’s in Brooklyn, Dov’s in Philly, Emily’s in Philly, and my housemates had a party in our apartment as well. I was sure each was going to be a great time and it was a really difficult choice - I actually called people to see what they thought I should do! The toughest question I faced, however, in the lead up to New Year’s came from Andrew. It seems he had ordered a case of champagne to be delivered to his apartment in Brooklyn. The champagne came from a liquor store that does delivery and happens, according to Andrew, to be owned by the mob. The tough question was how much Andrew should tip the guy who delivered the case of champagne. It was something like an eleven block trip and less than $100 worth of champagne. I had absolutely no clue. Andrew was looking up how much grocery store delivery people should be tipped and I was thinking that it might be a good idea to generously tip the mob. You know, just in case. After all, one can never be to careful. Andrew ended up tipping less than I suggested, but last I checked he was still alive and well and the liquor store hadn’t randomly charged his credit card the amount they thought perhaps he should have tipped.
Earlier today, well yesterday now I guess, I went home to do laundry and watch the Eagles playoff game. (Sidenote: Brian Dawkins is a freak of nature and I mean that in the best possible way.) My parents managed to trick their way into Comcast digital cable a while back and with that now (since New Year’s Day) comes MLB Network. Today the MLB Network was conveniently showing games 3-5 of this year’s World Series. Of course they were showing with the Fox announcers calling the game, with Joe Buck doing play-by-play. While we were watching the Eagles game on TV with the sound muted we were listening to the Eagles announcers on WYSP who are far better than any national announcers. Especially since the Eagles game was on Fox - meaning Joe Buck doing the play-by-play. So, for the record, the New Year brought Joe Buck coming at me on two separate channels disrupting two delightful Philadelphia sporting events. That’s a scary thought.
This (yesterday) morning when I woke up and sleepily found my way to the bathroom I noticed a scarf lying on the floor of the bathroom. Still mostly asleep, I actually looked up at the ceiling as if the scarf had somehow fallen from there. Seeing no evidence of its origin I simply ignored it. Later, in the day when I was out food shopping my cell phone rang. It was my boss. Calling on a Sunday I was a little bit worried. It turned out there was no need to worry. My housemate and my boss’ daughter, friends for years, were flying to Israel in the morning for a Birthright trip. My boss gave them a ride to Newark, the airport they were flying out of, and picked up my housemate from our house. Apparently he used the bathroom while he was here to pick up my housemate. Meaning that my boss was in my apartment while I was asleep on a Sunday morning. Probably a really good thing that I hadn’t had a crazy Saturday night and wasn’t in a drunken stupor, was fully clothed, and didn’t have any guests in a similar state either. Now that could have been a seriously uncomfortable situation ...
Happy New Year!
Earlier today, well yesterday now I guess, I went home to do laundry and watch the Eagles playoff game. (Sidenote: Brian Dawkins is a freak of nature and I mean that in the best possible way.) My parents managed to trick their way into Comcast digital cable a while back and with that now (since New Year’s Day) comes MLB Network. Today the MLB Network was conveniently showing games 3-5 of this year’s World Series. Of course they were showing with the Fox announcers calling the game, with Joe Buck doing play-by-play. While we were watching the Eagles game on TV with the sound muted we were listening to the Eagles announcers on WYSP who are far better than any national announcers. Especially since the Eagles game was on Fox - meaning Joe Buck doing the play-by-play. So, for the record, the New Year brought Joe Buck coming at me on two separate channels disrupting two delightful Philadelphia sporting events. That’s a scary thought.
This (yesterday) morning when I woke up and sleepily found my way to the bathroom I noticed a scarf lying on the floor of the bathroom. Still mostly asleep, I actually looked up at the ceiling as if the scarf had somehow fallen from there. Seeing no evidence of its origin I simply ignored it. Later, in the day when I was out food shopping my cell phone rang. It was my boss. Calling on a Sunday I was a little bit worried. It turned out there was no need to worry. My housemate and my boss’ daughter, friends for years, were flying to Israel in the morning for a Birthright trip. My boss gave them a ride to Newark, the airport they were flying out of, and picked up my housemate from our house. Apparently he used the bathroom while he was here to pick up my housemate. Meaning that my boss was in my apartment while I was asleep on a Sunday morning. Probably a really good thing that I hadn’t had a crazy Saturday night and wasn’t in a drunken stupor, was fully clothed, and didn’t have any guests in a similar state either. Now that could have been a seriously uncomfortable situation ...
Happy New Year!
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Onions Cost 10¢
Since I’ve had a chance to write an entry, my family celebrated Hanukkah (twice, with two different sets of cousins) and Christmas. All three were a lot of fun. Most of the gifts I got are Phillies related. The regular season Phillies yearbok DVD The Perfect Season, the official MLB postseason DVD and the collectors’ edition World Series DVDs which is an eight DVD set that has seven complete games (Games 4 and 5 from the NLCS and all five World Series games) plus a bonus feature DVD among others. Needless to say I’ve been contently watching Phillies highlights for several days now!
Last night my apartment threw a “White Elephant” party. I’d never heard of a party of that type before, but both Liz and Paul had. It works something like this: everyone brings a wrapped gift (not more than $15 in value) and gets assigned a number. When your number is drawn you get to choose a present to open. If you don't like the present you picked you can trade with someone else who has already gotten a gift (they must accept the trade). The person who was just traded with can then trade with someone else - and that process continues for one minute. Basically it's present opening and minute long frantic gift stealing. It's a lot of fun. I ended up with some irish cream whiskey and two glasses. There was a lot of booze, cheeky toys, and weird DVDs including the 1971 cult classic Vampyros Lesbos. The party was a blast and my friend Bethany from college was there (back in town from Costa Rica for the holidays). She stayed over, ostensibly so we could have more time to hang out, but also so that we could go to Dalessandro’s Steaks for cheesesteaks for lunch today. We both ordered delicious cheesesteaks. Bethany’s with mushrooms cost $7. Mine, with mushrooms and onions cost $7.10. At Dalessandro’s, onions cost 10¢.
Last night my apartment threw a “White Elephant” party. I’d never heard of a party of that type before, but both Liz and Paul had. It works something like this: everyone brings a wrapped gift (not more than $15 in value) and gets assigned a number. When your number is drawn you get to choose a present to open. If you don't like the present you picked you can trade with someone else who has already gotten a gift (they must accept the trade). The person who was just traded with can then trade with someone else - and that process continues for one minute. Basically it's present opening and minute long frantic gift stealing. It's a lot of fun. I ended up with some irish cream whiskey and two glasses. There was a lot of booze, cheeky toys, and weird DVDs including the 1971 cult classic Vampyros Lesbos. The party was a blast and my friend Bethany from college was there (back in town from Costa Rica for the holidays). She stayed over, ostensibly so we could have more time to hang out, but also so that we could go to Dalessandro’s Steaks for cheesesteaks for lunch today. We both ordered delicious cheesesteaks. Bethany’s with mushrooms cost $7. Mine, with mushrooms and onions cost $7.10. At Dalessandro’s, onions cost 10¢.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Holiday Card
Every year for as long as I can remember, my parents have sent out a holiday card around this time of year with a picture of me and my sister, if not the four of us. This is the first year that my parents aren’t sending out a card with a picture of me or my sister. For a number of years, dating back to when I was in high school I suppose, I had suggested to my parents that the time had come to send holiday cards that did not include photos of their children, but they demurred. Last year we sent out a card with a picture of the four of us at parque güell in Barcelona that was actually taken in December 2006. Of course, this year coincides with my living on my own and believe it or not there were a few moments of me contemplating sending out a holiday card of my own. Alas, that idea was quickly shot down (very quickly regarding the use of regular mail, and a little slower about a holiday email) and I’m left with this blog post. (On a related note, I did get a holiday card from my friend Rachel, so it wouldn’t have been totally crazy for me to send out holiday cards.)
So, although anyone who reads this blog will know, here’s my year! I graduated from Vassar in May after four wonderful years. Senior year was highlighted by living in a townhouse with four wonderful housemates and writing a thesis I was quite proud of. Since graduation I have been working at a small law firm in Ardmore and since July 1 I have been living in Bala Cynwyd in a lovely apartment. And yeah, in a nut shell that’s been my year. Happy Holidays everybody!
Monday, December 8, 2008
My Philadelphia Renaissance
If memory serves, there’s an episode fairly early on in the first season of Sports Night, in which one of the co-anchors, Dan Rydell, won’t stop talking about the New York renaissance he’s having. He goes on and on about how he’s lived in New York City his whole life, but he’s recently rediscovered the city in all it’s glory - mostly by having simple experiences, riding the subway, taking the Staten Island Ferry, going for a drink at a swanky hotel bar and the like. Obviously I don’t live in New York City, although recently I have been feeling like I’m having a renaissance of the city I’ve lived in my whole life - mostly through relatively simple experiences. In the Sports Night episode (a series I should probably watch again and might after I finish my current endeavor - going through the West Wing again), Dan’s incessant rambling about his New York renaissance is the butt of several jokes and very annoying to the other characters, I can only hope my Philadelphia renaissance post won’t be those things!
Last Tuesday morning I got an email from my Mom that there was a raffle at her office for tickets to that night’s Penn-Villanova men’s basketball game at the Palestra. My Dad and I said she should put in name in (there had been other raffles in the past at her office for sports tickets that we hadn’t won) and she won. Not only was it a college basketball game (a sport I love), not only was it a game at the Palestra (a place a I love), not only was it Penn-Villanova (two team’s I’ve followed for years), it was a Big 5 game! For those who don’t know, the Big 5 is a Philadelphia tradition that began a little over 50 years ago in which the five Philadelphia-area (Villanova is the only one that sits outside the city limits) play a round-robin each year. The five teams are La Salle, Penn, St. Joe’s, Temple, and Villanova (Drexel wasn’t big enough when the Big 5 started, and therefore isn’t included, but is actually a sixth Philadelphia Division 1 basketball team). Big 5 games are always special and the Palestra has a long and storied history in Philadelphia basketball. I had forgotten how much I love the scene at the Palestra for Big 5 games and how unbelievably cool it is to watch Division 1 basketball in person. It didn’t hurt that the tickets we won belonged to my Mom’s boss, a Penn grad, and they were COURTSIDE. That’s right, I saw a ranked men’s Division 1 college basketball team four-feet from the court! Oh, and in the stands watching the game (all further from the action than I was!) were in no particular order, Gov. Ed Rendell (D, Pa), Phillies President Dave Montgomery and ESPN.com baseball writer Jayson Stark. Apparently, the Palestra is the place to be on a Big 5 game night!
On Saturday, I decided that despite the cold (it may have been 34 degrees) I was going to bike from my apartment to the Art Museum and back (a modest 15-mile ride as I later discovered using Google Maps). On the way, I was reminded how much I used to love that ride when I was in Middle School and High School when I did it fairly frequently. It’s a beautiful ride along the Schuykill, past boat house row and around the Art Museum. (There are always bus loads of foreign tourists who come to the Art Museum to take pictures and run up the steps á la Rocky Balboa. I wonder how many of those tourists even realize it’s a fantastic Art Museum. Maybe the Museum should charge for tourists to do that. They’d make a killing.) As if the wonderful ride wasn’t enough, on the way back I was reminded that I recently had played disc golf a stone’s (or frisbee’s, if you will) throw away from where I was biking. Sedgley Woods, the first disc golf course on this side of the Mississippi is in Fairmount Park and they have a quasi-secret extra nine holes that takes you very close to Kelly Drive - my path on the way back from the Art Museum. Sedgley Woods is an awesome place, and I love the people that are always hanging around there - great mixture of stoners, hippies, washed up Ultimate players, and those who are all three. For now, that is my Philadelphia renaissance, the Palestra, the Big 5, and several parts of Fairmount Park. This is a wonderful city with an infinite number of things to love, so I’m sure I’ll find more to bore you all with soon!
Last Tuesday morning I got an email from my Mom that there was a raffle at her office for tickets to that night’s Penn-Villanova men’s basketball game at the Palestra. My Dad and I said she should put in name in (there had been other raffles in the past at her office for sports tickets that we hadn’t won) and she won. Not only was it a college basketball game (a sport I love), not only was it a game at the Palestra (a place a I love), not only was it Penn-Villanova (two team’s I’ve followed for years), it was a Big 5 game! For those who don’t know, the Big 5 is a Philadelphia tradition that began a little over 50 years ago in which the five Philadelphia-area (Villanova is the only one that sits outside the city limits) play a round-robin each year. The five teams are La Salle, Penn, St. Joe’s, Temple, and Villanova (Drexel wasn’t big enough when the Big 5 started, and therefore isn’t included, but is actually a sixth Philadelphia Division 1 basketball team). Big 5 games are always special and the Palestra has a long and storied history in Philadelphia basketball. I had forgotten how much I love the scene at the Palestra for Big 5 games and how unbelievably cool it is to watch Division 1 basketball in person. It didn’t hurt that the tickets we won belonged to my Mom’s boss, a Penn grad, and they were COURTSIDE. That’s right, I saw a ranked men’s Division 1 college basketball team four-feet from the court! Oh, and in the stands watching the game (all further from the action than I was!) were in no particular order, Gov. Ed Rendell (D, Pa), Phillies President Dave Montgomery and ESPN.com baseball writer Jayson Stark. Apparently, the Palestra is the place to be on a Big 5 game night!
On Saturday, I decided that despite the cold (it may have been 34 degrees) I was going to bike from my apartment to the Art Museum and back (a modest 15-mile ride as I later discovered using Google Maps). On the way, I was reminded how much I used to love that ride when I was in Middle School and High School when I did it fairly frequently. It’s a beautiful ride along the Schuykill, past boat house row and around the Art Museum. (There are always bus loads of foreign tourists who come to the Art Museum to take pictures and run up the steps á la Rocky Balboa. I wonder how many of those tourists even realize it’s a fantastic Art Museum. Maybe the Museum should charge for tourists to do that. They’d make a killing.) As if the wonderful ride wasn’t enough, on the way back I was reminded that I recently had played disc golf a stone’s (or frisbee’s, if you will) throw away from where I was biking. Sedgley Woods, the first disc golf course on this side of the Mississippi is in Fairmount Park and they have a quasi-secret extra nine holes that takes you very close to Kelly Drive - my path on the way back from the Art Museum. Sedgley Woods is an awesome place, and I love the people that are always hanging around there - great mixture of stoners, hippies, washed up Ultimate players, and those who are all three. For now, that is my Philadelphia renaissance, the Palestra, the Big 5, and several parts of Fairmount Park. This is a wonderful city with an infinite number of things to love, so I’m sure I’ll find more to bore you all with soon!
Saturday, December 6, 2008
High School Reunion
This past Saturday, two days after Thanksgiving, was one of the busiest and most enjoyable days I could ever imagine having - from a PADA hat tournament, to meals with friends, to a “5 year” high school reunion I was running around all day. The whole time I was with people I really enjoy spending time with, some of whom I haven't seen or spent lots of time with in a very long time.
Every year PADA has a hat tournament on Thanksgiving weekend, this year was no exception. My friend Judy (we went to GFS and Vassar together) was in town - she moved to San Francisco in the spring - and she brought her little brother to the tournament. Judy is probably the best female Ultimate player I have ever had the privilege of playing with and it was a blast playing with her on Saturday - just as it is every time I get the chance to do play with her. At the hat tournament, we dominated our first two games and got beat pretty soundly in the last game to a team Jake, the Vassar men’s captain from my junior year of college, was on. It was really nice to see Jake as well. We were beaten so soundly in the last game because we got a little tired in the last game - and I’m sure it didn't help that they tapped the kegs as the game got underway. Anyway, it was wonderful to see Judy and Jake and play Ultimate with them. After the last game I went out to a late lunch with two of my summer league teammates from 2007 and several other fun PADA people.
GFS sent out invitations to the reunion in the mail about six weeks before the event and for at least a month in advance there was a facebook event advertising it as well. About a week before the reunion, Marisa sent out an email to about a dozen of our good friends from high school saying that she and Emilia thought it would be good idea if we all went out to dinner before hand. Of course it was a good idea, and of course it was Marisa and Emilia who had come up with the idea and done all of the planning. I guess some high school dynamics never change.
Back to the day as it unfolded: After I got home from my late lunch and took a shower it was already 4:15 and I was hoping to catch a 5:03 train out of Merion Station. On top of that, I had to get to a State Store so I could buy some wine for the BYOB dinner which wasn’t supposed to start until 6:30. I needed to be downtown so early because my father had noticed an add in the paper (in the Sports Section, of course) that Mitchell & Ness was having a 50% sale on everything in their store. I had missed getting him a birthday present because he got a Phillies World Series Champions shirt from someone else (and a refrigerator magnet too!) and needed to get him Hanukah and Christmas presents as well. For those of you who don’t know, Mitchell & Ness is a company that manufactures retro jerseys in authentic materials paying incredibly close attention to detail. They are widely known as the best in their business, and their only retail store is in Philadelphia. Walking through Mitchell & Ness’ store is an incredible experience, especially when everything is almost affordable and I have a reason to buy something. Initially I thought it would be cool to get him a Richie Ashburn jersey, but the only ones they had left were gigantic, so I kept looking. My next bet was going to be a nice Yankess jersey (as close as I could ever come to committing a such sacrilege, but he did grow up a Yankees fan). I would have preferred a Mantle or Berra jersey but I only saw DiMaggio and Gherig ones, and decided on a beautiful 1939 Joe DiMaggio jersey.
I still had time to waste after my purchase I wandered into a Modell’s where they happened to have the Phillies 2008 DVD playing. I stood transfixed for an unknown period of time before heading off toward the restaurant where I was intercepted on the way by Ben. Being the slightly awkward GFS kids that we still are, we decided not to go in and take the table for 13 with just the two of us. We waited about 10 minutes until Maya and Jen came and then we felt sufficiently able to take our huge table and damn near half the restaurant. The food was good (it was an Italian place) and in large quantities, but the company was fantastic. It was really great to see all the people who were there (even if I mostly only got to talk to the people who were down at my end of the table). Of the people at dinner, Me, Ben, Jen, Maya, Amy, Jeremy, Emilia, Sarah, Marisa, Darrell (Marisa’s boyfriend), Emily, Audrey, and Eric - only the last two didn’t continue on to the bar for the actual reunion. Oh, and a funny story, after we paid for our food, the restaurant wouldn’t let us stay. They kicked us out because we were making too much noise!
The "5 Year Reunion" was scheduled to start at 8:00 at the Black Sheep Pub on 17th and Latimer (for those of you paying attention, that is the same bar as Vassar's Philadelphia area 100 nights party). If I had taken any Psych classes in college I might be able to tell you why two reunion event would be held at the same bar, but I studied History and Economics so I can only tell you about the historical development and economic incentives tied to the two events. No worries, I won't even begin to bore you with either one! Walking down the street from the restaurant to the bar we were all a little bit anxious about what was going to be in store at the reunion. How many people would be there? What would people be like? Was it going to be strange at all? As it turned out we had absolutely nothing to worry about.
Oh, and "5 Year Reunion" is in quotation marks because no matter how you bother to add it up, it's really only been 4.5 years since I graduated from high school, but this is how GFS does their fifth year reunions. There was a time in my life when I would have been pissed that they were having a reunion early so they could try even harder to get me into the habit of donating money. It's probably a combination of my maturation and the fact that I've already begun to get into the habit of donating money that makes the early reunion's financial purpose not bother me at all - that and the fact that it was a BLAST!
It was so nice and fun to talk to and catch up with people I hadn’t spent much time with since high school. I don’t think it hurt that we were all drinking fairly liberally, but the conversations didn’t slow down all night. We technically only had the room until 10 PM, but the bar let us stay until about 10:30 when they decided they needed to kick us out because they had another party coming in at 11. Being the tight class that we are (who would have thought that?!) we all decided to hit the streets together and go find another bar to go to together. We ended up at some club-like place that I really didn’t like all that much. After about half an hour, Claire and I left to go to Tria (conveniently located right across the street!) where we had been before some months ago and where she in particular really liked (I like it a lot too, she just goes there far more than I do). We had about 15 minutes of a nice little debriefing before we were (re)joined by Amy, Jen, Emilia and Sarah. It was awesome spending more time with them and we left at about 1:30, just in time for me to catch the last R5 back to Merion Station. What a night. And the best part of it may have been that the general consensus was that we should do something like that every six months or so! That won’t happen, but it sure is a nice thought - at least it’s not too long until the Burns’ Christmas party when I’ll get to see a bunch of these people again!
Every year PADA has a hat tournament on Thanksgiving weekend, this year was no exception. My friend Judy (we went to GFS and Vassar together) was in town - she moved to San Francisco in the spring - and she brought her little brother to the tournament. Judy is probably the best female Ultimate player I have ever had the privilege of playing with and it was a blast playing with her on Saturday - just as it is every time I get the chance to do play with her. At the hat tournament, we dominated our first two games and got beat pretty soundly in the last game to a team Jake, the Vassar men’s captain from my junior year of college, was on. It was really nice to see Jake as well. We were beaten so soundly in the last game because we got a little tired in the last game - and I’m sure it didn't help that they tapped the kegs as the game got underway. Anyway, it was wonderful to see Judy and Jake and play Ultimate with them. After the last game I went out to a late lunch with two of my summer league teammates from 2007 and several other fun PADA people.
GFS sent out invitations to the reunion in the mail about six weeks before the event and for at least a month in advance there was a facebook event advertising it as well. About a week before the reunion, Marisa sent out an email to about a dozen of our good friends from high school saying that she and Emilia thought it would be good idea if we all went out to dinner before hand. Of course it was a good idea, and of course it was Marisa and Emilia who had come up with the idea and done all of the planning. I guess some high school dynamics never change.
Back to the day as it unfolded: After I got home from my late lunch and took a shower it was already 4:15 and I was hoping to catch a 5:03 train out of Merion Station. On top of that, I had to get to a State Store so I could buy some wine for the BYOB dinner which wasn’t supposed to start until 6:30. I needed to be downtown so early because my father had noticed an add in the paper (in the Sports Section, of course) that Mitchell & Ness was having a 50% sale on everything in their store. I had missed getting him a birthday present because he got a Phillies World Series Champions shirt from someone else (and a refrigerator magnet too!) and needed to get him Hanukah and Christmas presents as well. For those of you who don’t know, Mitchell & Ness is a company that manufactures retro jerseys in authentic materials paying incredibly close attention to detail. They are widely known as the best in their business, and their only retail store is in Philadelphia. Walking through Mitchell & Ness’ store is an incredible experience, especially when everything is almost affordable and I have a reason to buy something. Initially I thought it would be cool to get him a Richie Ashburn jersey, but the only ones they had left were gigantic, so I kept looking. My next bet was going to be a nice Yankess jersey (as close as I could ever come to committing a such sacrilege, but he did grow up a Yankees fan). I would have preferred a Mantle or Berra jersey but I only saw DiMaggio and Gherig ones, and decided on a beautiful 1939 Joe DiMaggio jersey.
I still had time to waste after my purchase I wandered into a Modell’s where they happened to have the Phillies 2008 DVD playing. I stood transfixed for an unknown period of time before heading off toward the restaurant where I was intercepted on the way by Ben. Being the slightly awkward GFS kids that we still are, we decided not to go in and take the table for 13 with just the two of us. We waited about 10 minutes until Maya and Jen came and then we felt sufficiently able to take our huge table and damn near half the restaurant. The food was good (it was an Italian place) and in large quantities, but the company was fantastic. It was really great to see all the people who were there (even if I mostly only got to talk to the people who were down at my end of the table). Of the people at dinner, Me, Ben, Jen, Maya, Amy, Jeremy, Emilia, Sarah, Marisa, Darrell (Marisa’s boyfriend), Emily, Audrey, and Eric - only the last two didn’t continue on to the bar for the actual reunion. Oh, and a funny story, after we paid for our food, the restaurant wouldn’t let us stay. They kicked us out because we were making too much noise!
The "5 Year Reunion" was scheduled to start at 8:00 at the Black Sheep Pub on 17th and Latimer (for those of you paying attention, that is the same bar as Vassar's Philadelphia area 100 nights party). If I had taken any Psych classes in college I might be able to tell you why two reunion event would be held at the same bar, but I studied History and Economics so I can only tell you about the historical development and economic incentives tied to the two events. No worries, I won't even begin to bore you with either one! Walking down the street from the restaurant to the bar we were all a little bit anxious about what was going to be in store at the reunion. How many people would be there? What would people be like? Was it going to be strange at all? As it turned out we had absolutely nothing to worry about.
Oh, and "5 Year Reunion" is in quotation marks because no matter how you bother to add it up, it's really only been 4.5 years since I graduated from high school, but this is how GFS does their fifth year reunions. There was a time in my life when I would have been pissed that they were having a reunion early so they could try even harder to get me into the habit of donating money. It's probably a combination of my maturation and the fact that I've already begun to get into the habit of donating money that makes the early reunion's financial purpose not bother me at all - that and the fact that it was a BLAST!
It was so nice and fun to talk to and catch up with people I hadn’t spent much time with since high school. I don’t think it hurt that we were all drinking fairly liberally, but the conversations didn’t slow down all night. We technically only had the room until 10 PM, but the bar let us stay until about 10:30 when they decided they needed to kick us out because they had another party coming in at 11. Being the tight class that we are (who would have thought that?!) we all decided to hit the streets together and go find another bar to go to together. We ended up at some club-like place that I really didn’t like all that much. After about half an hour, Claire and I left to go to Tria (conveniently located right across the street!) where we had been before some months ago and where she in particular really liked (I like it a lot too, she just goes there far more than I do). We had about 15 minutes of a nice little debriefing before we were (re)joined by Amy, Jen, Emilia and Sarah. It was awesome spending more time with them and we left at about 1:30, just in time for me to catch the last R5 back to Merion Station. What a night. And the best part of it may have been that the general consensus was that we should do something like that every six months or so! That won’t happen, but it sure is a nice thought - at least it’s not too long until the Burns’ Christmas party when I’ll get to see a bunch of these people again!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Friends from DC, Friends in NYC
Two weeks ago, Sam, Alex, and Acacia came up from DC for a weekend visit. Sam and Acacia had seen my apartment in August, but Alex and Aapta (who came down from NYC to visit) had not and they were pretty much blown away by the size apartment you can get for the rent I pay if you're willing to live in Bala Cynwyd. Due to a mixup, a late start, and some getting lost, the three from DC didn't arrive until 11 PM on Friday and arrived quite stressed to say the least. We took care of that stress fairly quickly with a very "collegiate" stress relief method. Consequently we didn't really wake up until noon the next day - and didn't make it to Hymie's for lunch until 2 PM. And it took us until about 5:30 before we finally left for Caitlin's parent's house in Cherry Hill, NJ - she was having a whole host of people over for dinner, which was the origin of the idea of the visit from the DC friends. I was only really able to hang around for dinner though - others stayed after to play games and things, because my aunt and uncle were in town and I owed them a visit at my parents house. The weekend was capped off with Fall League finals on Sunday - Sam and Acacia got to watch my team lose (not surprising) in the first game and be eliminated.
Last weekend, I went to New York city to visit friends (and family, actually) because I had been promising to visit a bunch of different people and simply hadn't had the opportunity to go for about six months. I left work about an hour early on Friday and took the R5 from Ardmore to 30th Street, then the R7 to Trenton, and NJ Transit to Penn Station. I met Reed and Rachel for dinner at a Tapas bar in Chelsea. It was great to see Reed - I hadn't seen her since graduation. After dinner I went to Emily's apartment in the East Village where I saw a whole host of other people as well. On Saturday afternoon after lunch I headed out to Brooklyn to visit Andrew and saw his housemate (and fellow Vassar history major, Jennette). Andrew and I got drunk, got stuffed, played video games and watched college football, it was simply a blast. After dinner I went to the Upper West Side and Rachel's apartment. We stayed up talking and catching up until at least 2 AM. On Sunday morning I went to visit my second cousins who recently moved from LA to NYC due to a job change. They live in one of the most impressive apartments I've ever seen, many many floors above the street looking directly out over the Hudson. All things considered it was a wonderful weekend in New York City visiting people I hadn't seen in a long time on the heels of a visit from other friends I hadn't seen for a while (alright so it had been two weeks since I'd seen Sam, Alex and Acacia, but who cares!).
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Election Day Recap ...
I was one of the unknown number of volunteers for Obama and the Democratic party on election day. (At least that number is unknown to me, and I wondered just how many of us there were as I worked on election day.) Just like the other times I worked on election day (democratic primary and general election when Ed Rendell ran successfully for the Governor of Pennsylvania) I worked because my GFS friend Emily bugged me about it. This year (and for the past 2+ years, Emily has been working for Patrick Murphy the congressman from my Grandmother's congressional district in Bucks County, PA. Murphy is just finishing up his first term in Congress, so when Emily first started working for him he was not yet a congressman.
On election day I woke up at 6:30 AM and soon thereafter dragged myself down the street to my polling place. I probably got there just before 7 and was out by 7:20 - not a bad wait all things considered. After voting, I walked home and hopped in my car to get out to Levittown to one of the Murphy offices. Once there, Emily sent me to Trevose to an Obama/Murphy canvassing/phone bank center. I was quickly trained as a canvasser and soon thereafter got to work. I did three canvassing shifts with a guy from Manhattan who was, at one point, deputy mayor of San Francisco. We worked a three neighborhoods in the Northampton/Southampton/Trevose area - I was only yelled at and treated nastily once, so wasn't too bad at all. After my three canvassing trips, I returned to Levittown where Emily reassigned me to something called "comfort duty." I was sent to a polling place in a heavily democratic ward to stand in line with voters and keep them from becoming discouraged and leaving the line. I was sent out with food and ponchos and things, but the polling place I was sent to was in no need of me. There was no line and it wasn't raining, so I didn't have anything to do.
After the polls closed I returned to the headquarters and collected directions to the official Murphy election returns party at some hotel in Oxford Valley. It was the exact scene I'd seen on local news for years. A big ball room filled with rowdy people watching big TVs and cheering and booing as the results came in. The party was fun, and I enjoyed it, but it was a long way from home and I wanted to be enjoying the night (having a few drinks) so I left the Murphy party and went to one in South Philly with a bunch of Frisbee friends and acquaintances. It took almost an hour to drive from the one party to the other, and lest you think I was missing out on election results, I discovered that NPR has excellent election coverage. I got to South Philly before 10 PM and watched the rest of the results from there. What a day - what a night. It was truly memorable.
As for all of this sinking in, I think it might finally be starting as I'm writing this post. I'm highly considering going to the Inauguration if I can get off work for it and it seems like a feasible thing to do. I'll bet if it's not fully sunken in by then, it will be after I watch him get sworn in!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Halloween in DC!
So, now that it's been a little more than two weeks since I went to Washington DC to go to my college friends' Halloween party, I've finally found the time to write about it. Of course, I realize that to tell the story I have to back track even further - once again, I realize just how busy real like is.
So, the last weekend in October (the 25th and 26th) I picked up with the Vassar College Men's A team at Haverford's annual Halloween tournament (the aptly named, Haverween). I had been planning for several weeks to go to DC for Sam, Alex, and Acacia's Halloween party and had no clue about a good costume. From experience, however, I knew that Haverween would be a great chance to steal some far more creative person's costume idea. I didn't even have to look far for the costume idea, a Vassar sophomore was dressed as Sgt. Pepper (of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) - and I immediately knew I was soon to be on the lookout for a similar costume. Eventually (with some driving to Springfield, Delco) I found a cheaper - and not quite as nice, but still quite functional - Sgt. Pepper costume.
So, the last weekend in October (the 25th and 26th) I picked up with the Vassar College Men's A team at Haverford's annual Halloween tournament (the aptly named, Haverween). I had been planning for several weeks to go to DC for Sam, Alex, and Acacia's Halloween party and had no clue about a good costume. From experience, however, I knew that Haverween would be a great chance to steal some far more creative person's costume idea. I didn't even have to look far for the costume idea, a Vassar sophomore was dressed as Sgt. Pepper (of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) - and I immediately knew I was soon to be on the lookout for a similar costume. Eventually (with some driving to Springfield, Delco) I found a cheaper - and not quite as nice, but still quite functional - Sgt. Pepper costume.
The Halloween party in DC was a bunch of fun and I got to see all sorts of people I hadn't seen in quite a while. Thanks to the end of daylight savings, the party went quite late into the night. There's photographic evidence of the costume as Sam and I tried to create the positioning of last year's Halloween pictures. That didn't really work so well, but at least there's photographic evidence of me in a quasi-real Halloween costume for the first time in ages ...
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