The University of Tennessee

For the Mississippi State game, Jeff Cathey and Dave Pavlonis booked a house in Gatlinburg for a guys reunion. Although Keith Carver stood us up to allegedly work on his PhD, the rest of us had a really great time shooting pool, talking smack and catching up with each others lives. Will Carver, JJ Brown, Howie Avery, Bert Sams, Mark Clark, Jerry Adams, Patrick Wade and Brian Light were all in attendance (in addition to Jeff, Dave and myself) for various parts of The Guys Weekend. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the actual participants, but I did get some nice pictures of campus.

We actually won the game!!!




















REFLECTIONS - Congratulations Phillies!!!

In case you did not know... and judging by the Fox TV ratings, many of you may not... the Philadelphia Phillies are the 2008 World Series Champions!!!

That's right. Once again, the Kennedy's have brought a world championship in baseball to their new city. When we moved to Chicago (south side) in 2004, the White Sox ended their 80+ year World Series drought. So, when the Kennedy's moved to Philadelphia in 2007, it was a foregone conclusion that the Phillies would reign victorious this year.

On Friday, the Phillies and 1-2 MM of their screaming fans descended on Center City for the Championship Parade. I thought it appropriate to share my observations from this parade.

5) Honking horns - OK, anyone who has ever visited Philadelphia, or any other east coast city for that matter, knows that a true Philadelphian does not really need a reason to honk their car horn. However, for the parade day, EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, was honking their horn for the Phillies. (For those of you reading this that may be natives of east coast American cities, take note. You are the only people in the U.S. who use a car horn so much, and you absolutely mortify all southerners. In the south, a car horn is never used to express anger, rage or frustration at someone. A southern car horn is only used to acknowledge a buddy, who is out on his front porch enjoying some sweet tea, as you drive by, or to say "Hello" to the neighbor, who is driving his tractor down the middle of your two lane road.)

4) Allegiance - Philadelphia fans are loyal!!! I have not seen so many people descend on one place. There were hundreds of thousands of fans that came out in force. Parents held their kids out of school, people skipped work, working people left work to attend the parade. The side effect of this was that the public transportation, designed to accommodate 50,000 people, became extremely bogged down. I was not able to catch a train out of the city Friday evening until after 7 PM. The crowd began dispersing at 1:45 PM.

3) Spirit - fans were adorned in their finest Phillies wear. Hats, T-shirts, jackets, jerseys, you name it. I saw a pimp on a street corner in a bright red suit with red shoes, red socks and matching red hat. The only thing not red was his cane, which had a large "P" ornament on its top.

This raises a question for me... The Philadelphia Phillies that I grew up watching wore maroon uniforms. At what point did they switch to a candy apple red color?

2) Dedication - The fans who descended on the city for the parade showed great commitment. My best illustration of this is the gentleman that rode in front of me on the train, as I went to work Friday morning. I caught the 6:40 AM train. This guy was decked out in his Philly jersey with matching cap. He carried with him, one lawn chair, one 30 pack of Budweiser and a cell phone, which he used to announce to his buddy that he was laying out of work and would meet him at 30th Street Station to start drinking in 35 minutes. I guess 7:15 AM in Philadelphia is 12:00 somewhere.

1) Priorities - Although I, nor anyone else, could move anywhere downtown on Friday, Philadelphia transit worked when it had to. It just so happened that I attended a corporate function in our lobby at 11 AM. Outside, I watched a police escorted 3-truck Budweiser convoy come screaming down Market Street, going towards the parade. It was a model of efficiency.