Doing

I Biked the Strike

I biked the SEPTA strike last week. It was­n’t the romance Philly Bicy­cle Coali­tion might have you believe. In fact, it was down­right dan­ger­ous for any­one who tried to nav­i­gate the traf­fic-choked streets.

How about a recap? There is no safe, reli­able route from any­where north of Spring Gar­den to Cen­ter City. The exist­ing bike lanes are insuf­fi­cient dur­ing nor­mal traf­fic and were com­plete­ly over­whelmed by the strike. The num­ber of cars and cyclists was staggering!

My tra­di­tion­al route to work became a war­zone. I usu­al­ly find my way down 17th from Spring Gar­den. This was nuts. 17th was a park­ing lot filled with uncer­tain angry dri­vers, but I had no choice. Philadel­phia needs ded­i­cat­ed bike lanes that pro­tect rid­ers des­tined for Cen­ter City. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Thanks Phillies!



Helen and Char­lie NLCS Game 5, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ram­say.

I’d like to say a belat­ed thank you to the Phillies for mak­ing my son’s first sea­son as a Phillies fan an amaz­ing one. Here he is with his mom and my beau­ti­ful wife Helen at Game 5 of our tri­umphant series against the L.A. Dodgers.

It’s sad that they could­n’t go all the way and ensure that they’d be named among the best teams in base­ball his­to­ry, but the 2009 cam­paign gave us some great moments that we won’t forget.

I can’t wait for April 5th to get here. Bring on woe­ful Washington!

My Thermals Session

The Ther­mals were kind enough to stop by the Com­cast Cen­ter when they were in town to play a few songs and talk to me about their new album, Now We Can See. The Ther­mals are the sort of band who do every­thing right, but I’m not sure they’ll ever get the main­stream recog­ni­tion they deserve.

I have to say I’m extreme­ly proud of every­one who par­tic­i­pat­ed in mak­ing this look so great. I wish it were pos­si­ble to do more, but we sim­ply could­n’t get enough trac­tion to sup­port it. Tell me how you think it came out!

We Went to Cooperstown

Helen, Char­lie, and I just got back from a love­ly week­end in Coop­er­stown, NY. We went up to see the Nation­al Base­ball Hall of Fame, yet we saw a giant pump­kin regat­ta and came home with a mixed case of Ommegang bot­tles. Some week­end, huh?

It was a great time. The weath­er was per­fect­ly autum­nal. As we drove up, I watched the tem­per­a­ture out­side the car drop to a crisp 41 degrees. I start­ed think­ing about pump­kins and cin­na­mon and cider. I was excit­ed to see the Base­ball Hall of Fame for the first time and to check out a fan­tas­tic domes­tic brewery.