Apr 5, 2014

I went up to Legacy in the morning for a day full of graduation re-training with the group. We sat through a lot of slides reiterating what settings the camera should be on and what every little dial should read. I would expect this much teaching if we had to learn how to compensate, but we are really just learning to set our cameras and leave them there. After a long day of sitting and then practice shooting, I headed down the street to pick up the Schuykill River Trail in Conshohocken. 

I biked down the beautiful trail into Manayunk and stopped in at the brewery for a quick beer. I talked to an old guy that I couldn't tell if he was drunk or not. I had my one English beer and then headed back out to the bike. The weather was pretty nice, but the wind kept picking up on the way back and slowing me down. That always seems to be the way it is. I was happy to get back to the car at that point.

I found a parking spot off of Market Street and walked down to the Tin Angel, where I got a bourbon and ginger and sat down to watch Sarah Ault play her set. Joanna showed up during her set to join me. I grabbed a Malibu Bay Breeze during intermission and then sat back down to watch Mary Scholz play an amazingly beautiful set of songs from her new album. I had to say hi and then run to get back to my car before the meter ran out. Joanna and I found a campground at Lums Pond and parked there to camp for the night.

Apr 4, 2014

I worked as a floater at Vineland Memorial during the day, covering random classes all morning and managing to get out early. I went home and got some food before picking up Chuck to head to Atlantic City for the beer fest. Mike hooked us up with some tickets, but they weren't at the will call window when we got there. We went over to Tun Tavern and had a beer while we waited. The Berliner Weiss was fantastic and really funky. We went back over to the convention center and, after quite a bit of waiting and running around, we got our tickets and hopped in line.

The waiting didn't really slow us down as we got right in and started tasting. We went in order, which didn't really make sense because we weren't going to be able to make it the whole way around. A couple of my favorite that I tried were the Fort Collins Ashes, a smoky and balanced beer, and the Evil Genius Purple Monkey Peanut Butter Porter, which speaks for itself. There were a bunch of good beers of course, but the highlight for us was meeting Brian O'Halloran of Clerks fame at the NJCB booth! He was just there! We talked to him for a few minutes and got a photo before he disappeared into the crowd.

Fresh off being starstruck I went to see Saves the Day on the main stage while Chuck continued drinking. They opened with "All-Star Me" which I haven't heard them play in years. An awesome opener to a somewhat disappointing set. Only because they played a lot of newer songs that I'm not really into. And only disappointing because every time I've seen them it's been like a greatest hits of my personal favorite songs of theirs. To be fair, they did play 30 songs, including "A Drag in D Flat," "Sell My Old Clothes..," "Jessie..," "Can't Stay the Same," and "Firefly." So honestly, a pretty amazing set with some downtime songs. After they finished I found Chuck and wandered back to the car to head home.

Apr 3, 2014

After covering meetings at Lakeside for the day, I was more than ready to get outside. I went over to the park and practiced putting a little before dropping my discs and going for a walk around the longest path to kill time before Ryan got there to play a round. I went home for a while before heading up to Philly for the show.

I got to the Troc shortly before Four Year Strong hit the stage. They had some technical problems getting started as they always seem to in Philly, but once it was resolved they kicked off a great set playing mostly older songs. Their set was fast and full of energy, which is what it was lacking last time I saw them. I was happy to see them back at what they do best, and the crowd was into it too.

Speaking of the crowd, this was the tamest crowd I've seen at a Bayside show as long as I can remember. Their set was fantastic, with four songs from the new album and all of them songs I wanted to hear. I'm sure it gets harder to decide which newer vs. older songs to play as their list of songs grows longer, but I really love seeing them play the new stuff. It's just so good.

Apr 2, 2014

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I worked at Memorial in a social studies class during the day watching a video about Shays' Rebellion. It was a good video, but I wanted to be outside. I got done a little early and decided to go for a bike ride.

I pedaled out toward Fortescue and turned around at the big oak tree where the road splits. It was nice, though a little windy at times.

I pedaled back up Buckshutem Road and around the race track to the airport road. Overall I was happy with my route choice as far as traffic was concerned. That's my least favorite part about riding around here. I was getting a little sluggish at the end of 16 miles. I need to get back into it.

Chuck and I had our weekly Quizzo alone time, where we thought we had a good chance of winning when really we were still really far behind the first place team. The last round was a sports question and we actually didn't do too badly by naming random baseball teams.

Apr 1, 2014

I had meeting at Landis School today, and it turned out to be a very open schedule. I got there at 8:30 and didn't have any meetings until 11:30. I decided to use this time to my advantage and went out for breakfast and then to get a haircut. The woman who cut my hair was very awkward and told me she only had certain razor guards for her clippers so I couldn't get the length I asked for. I suggested she ask to use the other stylist's and, after exhaling, she did it.

After that fun I took some photos of the Vineland Electric factory and then returned to cover meetings for the rest of the day. I ended up getting out a little early as well. I went to the park where I ended up playing 9 holes with a guy that I've seen there before. He's a regular apparently. We had a good game, and then Ryan showed up for our run. Time to start some training for the Tough Mudder as it's coming up really soon.

Brenda suggested getting Moe's so we went there and ate our bowls before heading up to the rock gym. We met Meg and her friend there and had a good time climbing, switching off partners. I didn't climb quite as well as last week, but I did manage to do the yellow that has been tormenting me for weeks! It seemed like we tired out a little earlier this time, so we called it a night early.