Independence Day - Guys Weekend

I apologize for my long absence from the Blogging World. I don't really have a good excuse. Life has just been busy for the last bit. Lots of good things to blog about, but not much time to actually write it down. When you wait so long to put it down on paper, you forget a lot of the funny things that actually happen.

Each year on the Fourth of July Weekend, a group of my college friends gets together to create new life stories and pester each other endlessly. This year, Mark Clark, Bill Langston and Reed Stephenson visited Philadelphia, the Cradle of Liberty and The City of Brotherly Love, for Independence Day.

Mark Clark arrived on Wednesday afternoon. After picking him up at the airport, we joined some of my Dow Chemical (heritage Rohm and Haas) buddies at La Scala's downtown for "Center City Sips". Pictured here (L-R) are Jeff Roberts, SMW (who actually reads this blog occasionally), Evan McCaskey and Lucas Kammerzell.

Thursday, I worked while Clark toured the city. Bill arrived Thursday afternoon. We picked him up from the airport and headed downtown for a while. We went to Eulogy, an old pub with a plethora of Belgian beers on tap. We then headed back to La Scala (outdoor seating and nice weather) to meet another group of heritage Rohm and Haas friends.

With time to kill, we stopped at a Bar-b-que restaurant slash Tequila bar on our way back to the car. Of course, Mark Clark, gourmet food expert, could not resist buying a bar-b-que sandwich, despite my protests (there is a reason that Philadelphia is known for its cheese steaks and not its bar-b-que). Mark choked down his sandwich and side items, and then we headed to the airport to pick up Reed.

For anyone who does not know Reed, I really don't have enough space to try to analyze him. All I can say is... he is an absolute riot to be around. You never know what is going to happen. A simple task, such as an airport pick-up, can take on exponential levels of complexity and hilarity when Reed is involved. The story begins with Reed calling us from Atlanta earlier in the afternoon to tell us that his flight is on time. He also informs us that there is a "hot blond chick" on his flight, and he has already introduced himself to her. She is flying to Philly to visit a friend, who works for Dow/Rohm and Haas.

Fast forward - Reed's plane lands in Philadelphia. By this time, he has applied the full court press on his new lady friend. Our group is now committed to attend the Independence Day Parade downtown because she is riding on one of the floats. Reed is convinced that with his new connection, he can get us onto that float. We have also been volunteered to provide taxi service for the young lady from the airport to downtown - No problem; we are all anxious to meet her. We inform Reed that we will pick him up outside in front of baggage claim in 10 minutes. Fast forward 20 minutes. We are now on our 3rd trip around the baggage claim area of the Philadelphia International Airport. No Reed. Bill pulls out his "Sweet Ass I-Phone" and places a call to find out where Reed is. Reed has no memory of the previous conversation where we told him we would pick him up outside of Baggage Claim. Trip 4, we finally pick up Reed at the predetermined location. As Reed enters our car, he informs us that our frequent phone calls ruined his chances with the blond girl. Apparently, we threw off his mo-jo.

Luckily, Mark Clark captured footage of this event on his VLOG. The link for this video is:


When we do manage to pick up Reed, he, of course, is waiting on the other side of the road for pick-up. It didn't occur to him that he should wait where the other 300 people are waiting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFFb32-mHjY&feature=related

From the airport, we headed to The Lucky Dog, where Clark ate his second full dinner of the evening.

Friday morning, we headed to Pottsville, PA, about an hour and 15 minutes from our house, to the Yuengling Brewery - the oldest brewery in America. Yuengling was founded in 1829 and is still run by the Yuengling family. Interestingly, each generation must purchase the company from the previous generation. The family's strong German roots insist that you will take better care of something if you pay for it. The four daughters of the current owner all work for the brewery and are making plans to purchase it from their father in several years.

One of the traditions of Guys Weekend is that we find a local brewery to tour. The first tour was packed, so we headed to a local pub for lunch. Here, we learned about the Pottsville Maroons, a professional football team, that should have won the 1925 NFL Championship. Originally from the independent "Anthracite League", the Maroons joined the NFL in the early 1920's. They had the best record in the NFL in 1925, but were not awarded the championship because they were suspended for playing an unsanctioned game against a Notre Dame All-Star Team, which included the Four Horsemen. Pottsville won that game, too, but the championship went to the Chicago Cardinals.


After lunch, we walked back up the hill to the brewery for our tour. Our tour guide was a young lady, who was obviously ready to go home for the day. She knew all of her facts, which she was able to recite in a monotone, but she was less than enthusiastic in her presentation. She finally warmed up to us about half way through the tour, after Reed threw on the charm.






This is a good shot of Clark and Reed in the bottling operation. This is by far the most complex part of making and packaging beer. Lots of moving parts, so many points where something can go wrong.

Today, Yuengling also brews in Tampa Bay, FL, in addition to Pottsville. It is distributed in over 30 states.

We drove back from Pottsville to Valley Forge, PA and toured the old encampment that afternoon. This is where Washington quartered the Continental Army in the winter of 1777-1778. The site has the original houses, where the officers were quartered, as well as recreations of the barracks where the enlisted troops slept. Some of the barracks are pictured behind Bill. Each would house about 6 soldiers.

Here, Reed is posing in front of Washington's headquarters. Much of the house is still original, and they have it set up as it was during the Revolutionary War. Martha actually came up from Virginia to stay with George in these quarters during the winter of 1777. Although the house looks large, apparently there was not much room, as about 15-20 advisers, staffers and servants also stayed in the house.

After touring Valley Forge, we cleaned up and headed to dinner in Manyunk. We ate at the brewery, which is situated along the river. The weather was great, so we were able to sit outside and enjoy the evening.


Clark at the Brewery.






Reed chilling at the brewery.








After dinner, we walked around Manyunk, which is the Philadelphia equivalent of Chicago's Wrigleyville. It is a trendy part of town where recent college graduates live. It is surrounded by stores, bars and restaurants. Pretty cool little place. The video below is of Reed trying out a new toy at one of the antique stores in the area.



It is a brave new world, as the guys turned over a new leaf this year for Guys Weekend. Rachel and Mark Clark signed us up to run a mountainous 5K on Saturday morning. Part of the Pickle Series that Rachel has done for the past several months, the race was for those who enjoy a little humor in addition to running. Each of us won an award in the race. Our trophies are shown here.

We cleaned up after the race and headed into Philadelphia to observe some of the Fourth of July celebrations. We went to the Constitution Center and saw the presentation there. It was fantastic, as usual. There were a lot of outdoor exhibits, too, to celebrate our nation's birthday. It was a lot of fun.

We cooked out at the house for the evening (title picture shows us all out on the back deck at the house enjoying burgers, corn and lots of other great food). It was a great way to cap off another successful Guys's Weekend.

REFLECTIONS - Kenny Chesney Concert



Rachel and I went to see the Kenny Chesney Concert in Philadelphia on June 27 (thanks Mom). In my opinion, Kenny puts on the best concerts out there. If you go, I promise you that you will have a good time.

One of the best things about the Kenny Chesney Concert Series is that he always has great acts opening for him. This year was no different. Lady Antebellum was the first act. They are one of my favorite new, young groups. Miranda Lambert (pictured here) played second. While I am not normally a big fan of her music, she was very good live.

Next up was Montgomery Gentry. Eddie Montgomery (shown here) is a big-time entertainer on stage. He can spin a mic stand like a UT majorette spinning a baton. Montgomery Gentry is a great opening act because they have some fun songs that really get the crowd going.

My favorite band in country music is Sugarland. They played directly before Kenny took the stage. Christian Bush, brother of the lead singer of the rock band Bush, is the mandolin playing member of the duet. I also posted a video of Bush playing below.

Jennifer Nettles is the lead singer for Sugarland. She is AWESOME!!! I absolutely love her voice (video of her singing is also posted below). The crowd was really into Sugarland during the concert. You could hear the fans singing along with almost all of their songs. Having a band of Sugarland's caliber opening, speaks to how popular Kenny Chesney is.






Near the end of their concert set, Bush and Nettles were zipped into large plastic bubbles. They then rolled out over the crowd. Below is a video of Jennifer Nettles as she rolled over us.



Kenny was the final act. He never disappoints. Rachel and I are always amazed at how hard he performs. Any other concert that you go to, the artist will stop, introduce his/her band, walk around stage between songs, or do many other things to stall and catch his/her breath. Kenny Chesney rocks it out the entire time he is on stage. I have never seen a performer work that hard for 2 1/2 hours straight.

Father's Day in Knoxville

Father's Day weekend, I flew to Knoxville for some meetings at the University of Tennessee. It was nice because I got to be with my Dad on Father's Day.


Saturday night, I got to hang out with Laddy (my cousin), Amy and Ellie. Ellie was born when we were home for Christmas, so this is the second time I have seen her. Ellie is a riot. She is a good baby; she was not fussy at all at dinner. When we got to Laddy's and Amy's, we played for a while, gave her a bath, and put her to bed. Didn't hear her cry once.


Sunday, I had lunch at Beaverbrook Country Club with my parents, Uncle Stan and Aunt Lou, and my cousin Reid, his wife Renee, and their kids Kara and Ryan. It is always good to get to see family when I go home.

The lunch was very good, and it was nice because I bumped into some other old friends at the club. It was a beautiful day. Beaverbrook is really beautiful in the spring and early summer.






(Picture below of my Mom and Uncle Stan) REFLECTIONS - Bean and the Taxi Crab

A couple of weeks ago, Brian Bean, one of my roommates from college came to Philadelphia with his son Wesley and our friend Shane Pledge and his son Matthew to see the St. Louis Cardinals play the Philadelphia Phillies.

Bean grew up near St. Louis and moved to Winchester, VA in high school. He and Kevin Tharp were my roommates my sophmore and junior year. Brian's dad lives in Wilmington, DE, about 45 minutes south of Philly. Brian has always been a HUGE Cardinals fan, so he and Shane decided to do a road trip with their sons.

They drove to Washington DC to watch the Cardinals play the Nationals and then came up to Bean's dad's for the Phillies game on Saturday. We met them several hours before the game at Chickie and Pete's, a Philadelphia food landmark (if you ever come to Philly, you have to try Chickie and Pete's crab fries).




It was awesome catching up with them. We hung out for about 3 hours and then put them on the "Taxi Crab" to the stadium (about 1 mile away).



I was able to get some great video inside the Taxi Crab.



To conclude, I have a video of the Taxi Crab leaving. Be sure you have your volume turned up so you can hear the music playing.

The Clampitts Take New York

For Christmas this year, Rachel and I gave my parents a guided (by us) trip to New York City, including a show on Broadway.

(Dad, Rachel and Mom at Rockefeller Plaza)

One of the great things about living in Philadelphia is that we are only a couple of hours from NYC. We drove to Hamilton, NJ, about 45 minutes from our house and took the train 1 hour and 15 minutes into Penn Station in Manhattan. It is the only way to go because you don't have to fight traffic or worry about parking in The City.

(Mom and Dad in NYC)

We went up on Thursday in order to make it a little easier to get Broadway tickets. Unfortunately, the weather was not great. Luckily, it wasn't hot. However, it rained quite a bit on Thursday, which hampered some of our activities.

(Mom and Dad on a double-decker bus)

We tried to take a bus tour of Uptown Manhattan. Unfortunately, the rain started as we prepared to reboard after making our first stop. For the roughly 1/2 mile we rode on the tour, we had possibly the worst tour guide I have ever heard (this says a lot, as our guide the last time we were in NYC with Sarah and Greg Cornell was terrible). She had lousy jokes, and she was very difficult to understand.

(Dad and Mom in Central Park)

We got off the bus tour at Central Park and walked around for a little while. It always amazes me that architects planned for the MASSIVE space that is now Central Park so long ago. It is really impressive how big it is. When you are inside it, it is pretty neat to see the skyscrapers sticking up over the tree line. It is also nice because you are insulated from much of the noise normally associated with New York City.

(Rachel, Dad and Mom in Central Park)


The hotels surrounding Central Park

(Mom, Dad and Rachel in front of the Waldorf Astoria) As part of the treat, we stayed at the famous Waldorf Astoria (thank you for being a Hilton property, so points could make this possible). It is a very cool historic hotel. I would recommend staying there if you ever have the chance.

The lobby at the Waldorf is very ornate. If you click to enlarge this picture, you can see the replica clock that stands in the center of the lobby. It was beautiful. The hotel has kept to its formal roots (which is totally not me). They ask that guests wear collared shirts when in the lobby area. Luckily, I read this before I went to stay there, or I am sure that I would have offended them.

After checking into our room and cleaning up, we went to an early dinner in Little Italy before the show. Little Italy is in Downtown Manhattan and has many wonderful Italian restaurants.

We picked Cafe Lunesta based on Heather's (Rachel's sister) recommendation. She did not lead us astray. The food was excellent and prices were reasonable, especially for New York. I saw some mixed reviews on the web with regard to their service, but they treated us very well. This is a photo of Dad and Mom in the restaurant.

After dinner, we hopped on the subway and headed up to Broadway. We decided to see Jersey Boys over the Lion King (Rachel's parents had seen it and liked it). It won a Tony Award a few years ago. It is the story of Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons and their rise to fame. The music and acting are FANTASTIC!!! I would go see it again in a heartbeat. It has some rough language in parts to be true to its Jersey roots, but you can easily overlook that given the quality of the music and acting.



After the play, we walked back towards our hotel. We wanted to take Mom and Dad through Time Square at night. It is amazing how much light the advertising signs put off. It is like Las Vegas on steroids with respect to light. We also walked Mom and Dad by Radio Center Music Hall - home of The Rockettes.






The picture of all four of us in front of Radio City Music Hall above is a funny story. I asked a young lady to take a picture of all 4 of us. I then realized that she was drunk (it would have been helpful to know this before I asked her to take our picture). If you enlarge the picture, you can actually see the raindrops that accumulated on the lens as she tried to figure out how to snap the picture. This would not seem so strange if every camera around the world didn't have the "snap" button in exactly the same place as every other camera in the world. Mankind may have not been able to standardize on a system of measurement (Imperial vs. metric), but we have definitely standardized on where to place the "Shoot Photo" button on cameras. This fact did not help this poor girl. She was entertaining though.

The next morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel, left our bags with the bellhop and caught a taxi to Battery Park to catch our boat to the Statue of Liberty. The taxi ride was not adventurous by New York standards. Luckily, this cabbie knew the traffic patterns well, so he kept us from missing our boat, despite the fact that it was morning rush hour.

Unfortunately, the weather Friday morning was also crappy. It was really foggy, as you can see by the pictures. Still, the Statue of Liberty is a site that is worth seeing in any weather. You can really get emotional putting yourselves in the shoes of people, who left all that they knew for a chance for a better life in the new world. They often had no possessions, other than the clothes on their backs and the entry fee required to be processed into the United States. After spending months on the boat, the first site they would see as a sign that they were arriving was the Statue of Liberty - the symbol of freedom.

The Statue of Liberty




After taking the self-guided audio tour at the Statue of Liberty, we got back onto the ferry and visited Ellis Island. This is where the immigrants were given physicals, tested for mental illness and processed before being allowed to enter New York City. Some could be stuck here for days if they encountered problems during the entry process.


Dad and Rachel in the great hall at Ellis Island - This is the hall where immigrants waited to be called to pass through to the next phase of their processing - they physical. It was amazing to learn about how the officials would observe the immigrants throughout the process trying to spot anyone with a highly contageous or other dangerous disease or with mental illness.

Dad and I in the great hall of Ellis Island




After touring Ellis Island, we got back onto the Ferry and headed back to Manhattan. Here is a picture of the city from Ellis Island.

After eating lunch, we walked to Ground Zero and toured the church where some of the volunteers stayed during the clean-up effort. It is a beautiful little chapel. You can't see much at Ground Zero now because they have it fenced in. Still, you can see how big of an area still has nothing standing on it. It is really hard to take in still.

We then caught the subway up to Park Avenue, retrieved our bags from the hotel and went back to Penn Station to catch the New Jersey Railway to Hamilton.

Saturday, we relaxed around the house. It was Dad's birthday, so we took him to dinner at Fogo de Chao in Center City Philadelphia. Fogo de Chao is a Brazilian Steakhouse. Ladies - you can stop reading and skip down to the next picture/paragraph. Gentleman - Fogo de Chao is the mecca for carnivorous eaters world-wide. Meat-eaters world-wide should make a once a year pilgrimmage to FdC. When you enter, you are issued a circle, which my dad is holding here. As long as it is turned to "red", you are safe. Once you turn the cirlce to "green" however, hold onto your hat. 16 different cuts of meat (steak, pork, chicken, lamb) are brought by your table and served to you, until you turn the circle back to "red". Once you work your plate back down to a workable level, flip it to "green", and more meat arrives at your table. Unlimited sides of mashed potatoes, carmelized bananas, warm cheese bread and palenta accompany the meal.

Ladies, Fogo de Chao has an awesome salad bar, so you should take your husband there for a healthy meal.

I love this picture. Notice that my dad can barely sit up after consuming 14 lbs of meat. The funniest part of the evening was when he commented on just how enjoyable that meal could have been if it had just been me and him; he felt that the consistent reprimands from Mom and Rachel regarding how much and how fast Dad and I were eating, were a bit distracting from the meal.

Sunday, we relaxed some more at the house. Sunday evening, we grilled at the house. We grilled burgers, asparagus and corn on the cob. We also had Rachel's bean salad (awesome dish) and roasted potatoes.

Rachel enjoying corn on the cob.

For desert, we had one of our favorite Bobby Flay deserts - grilled pineapple on top of grilled pound cake, covered with a caramel rum sauce and ice cream.









REFLECTIONS - Rachel's First Phillies Game



This past Tuesday, Tim and Nicole Callahan (along with Tim's dad, Big Tim, and sister, Aileen) went to see the Phillies play the Cubs. Nicole and Tim are pictured here flanking Rachel. I went to a game in September 2007 before Rachel moved to Philadelphia, but this was Rachel's first game at Citizen's Bank Park.

During the game, Tim asked me what I thought was the nicest ballpark in baseball. After thinking for a while, I came to the conclusion that I probably haven't been in any parks nicer than Citizen's Bank Park. It compares favorably to Citi Field (Mets), The Ted in Atlanta, the new Comiskey in Chicago, PNC Park (Pittsburgh) and Comerica Park (Detroit). While I have not been to Camden Yards, I can say that I have not been in a nicer baseball stadium than the Phillies park.

The Phillies won the game in the bottom of the 13th inning on a 3 run walk-off home run by Jayson Werth. Unfortunately, we all had to work on Wednesday, so we headed for the cars in the top of the 13th and missed it.

The park has excellent seating, great food and lots of attractions. It also has a couple of peculiar items, which I thought were worthy of a Reflection. First, ushers do not allow anyone to walk down the aisles to the outfield seats from the concourse during an at-bat as "a courtesy". They make you wait until an out is made or until the half inning is completed before taking your seat. If this arrangement occurred in a southern city or in a city where the fans are known for their sportsmanship, this nuance would not have caught me by surprise. However, I have never seen this in any other, and the whole idea seems out of place in the city where the sports fans are most famous for "Booing" Santa Claus. The City of Brotherly Love is not exactly world renown for its hospitality to opposing fans and teams, so this "courtesy" caught me fully by surprise.

The other activity that was deemed Reflection-worthy was the Philly Phanatic (mascot), using the well-known T-shirt cannon to launch hot dogs to fans between innings. This was no ordinary T-shirt cannon, however, as it must have been using an extra high pressure cylinder pump, as the Phanatic was able to practically put these hot dogs into orbit (they were frequently reaching the 3rd deck). As I gazed upon this spectacle, I could not help but wonder, "What does a hot dog that has just been exposed to several hundred pounds per square inch of compressed gas look like when it is opened?" I have to imagine that it is likely about 1/3 of its original size due to the compression, and I can't imagine that it would be very palatable.