Heat

Having lived 4 of the last 5 years in San Francisco I got used to the relative boringness of Bay Area weather which consists mostly of non-seasonal coolish weather year round, with a mix of fog and sun wherever you go. The difference between day and night is 10-15 degrees and so is the difference between summer and winter.

Philadelphia has been a wildly different story so far. Last summer was like the European Mini Ice Age with highs cracking 90 only one week in August that I can remember and a pretty consistent track of cool temperatures and steady doses of record-setting rainfall. This continued in the winter with the all-time record setting 10 feet of snow that we got in Center City. And why stop there, thought Mother Nature, before besieging the city with it's hottest summer in a decade and the 8th hottest since regular temperature recording began as a second act.

Critics of global-warming would point to the 10 feet of snow and say, look, proof that the temperature isn't rising. Hah Al Gore!

But all that is anecdotal evidence and at that it may even be evidential support of the data. All we know is that we're putting more energy into the system and what that brings in the local experience of global warming is unpredictable, but more frequent and violent extremes, mood swings if you will, is a likely outcome.

ICED!

One of many highlights from Memorial Day on Nantucket was this early adoption of the 'Icing' viral Internet meme as popularized by the (now defunct?*) site BrosIcingBros.com. The seeds of this moment were laid in advance by a series of covert emails on the concept, a victim was selected and the Ice was presented.

Luckily, I was there to capture the moment and have to say that I think the composition of this icing is excellent. Let's break it down. First, there's the look of pure anguish on the victim's face as he kneels defeated to take the ice. Then there's the triumphant gat hand gestures of the perp gunning down his enemy cholo style with a couple imaginary 9s. Brilliant!

And yet, not funny enough for BrosIcingBros.com. Like any good meme, it relies heavily on UGC. Realizing what comedic gold we had on our hands here, I submitted the photo for inclusion and got this response from the big shots at BIB:

They even  said "awesome ice bro...." Seemed like a done deal right? So I scoured the site for days later and have yet to see our submission get published. So I have to criticize their vision, having witnessed a lot of janky icings getting pub. What gives? What's the matter with our ice?

*Why do I think Smirnoff lawyers have to be somehow involved in this?

Air Force One

When I observed this curious trio of aircraft flying just outside of New York City on Friday, May 28 at 5:43PM, comprised of 1 CH-47 Chinook and 2 AH-64 Apache Longbows painted in stark white, my first impulse was, holy shit, that must be Air Force One, because 'Air Force One' isn't technically the 747 the President flies around on (though it often is) but rather whatever airborne vehicle the President happens to be flying in at that particular moment.

Since it's not practical to fly a 747 into Manhattan, I thought we had a chance here of an incidental Presidential path-crossing, figuring somebody important must be in the Chinook to require a dual-Apache escort out to Newark.

Unfortunately, the President's daily schedule is remarkably easy to come by with some light Googling and multiple sources (including this one) agree that he was probably in Chicago at the time, thus debunking my theory. But still, this was an impressive display of air superiority to witness on a fairly routine commute and thus merits inclusion in my continuous documentation of life's little oddities.

So with that, if anyone has any ideas who this may have been please speak up. My next best guess is Mikhail Prokhorov, aka that wild Russian billionaire who recently bought the New Jersey Nets.

Tiny on the Drums

Tryon Street, Charlotte, North Carolina, June 22, 2010 9:16 PM

Mile High Weekend

I'm going to start with some not excellent cellphone photography of a most excellent bull moose that we caught out in the open this past Friday in the Indian Mountains Wilderness above Tabernash, Colorado. So there you go. I only risked life and limb to creep up on this mighty bastard as he munched his riparian seaweed lunch so I could get within 75 yards or so and still just barely within the functional range of my Blackberry Tour 9630. Check out the resolution of 3.2 megapixels at 800% magnification. Impressive no? No.

But the moose, now that was really something. Too bad I couldn't capture it with the available state-of-the-art technology, but he seemed very at home there in central Colorado. Which is odd because he doesn't belong, not really. Moose in Colorado, like the mountain goat, is a man-made artifact. Someone in the late '70s, probably at the compelling behest of John Denver, who seemed authoritative, felt the place would be better off with some appealingly rustic immigrants and before you know it the wilds were populated with strange new beasts. This about a century after grizzly bears and wolves were extirpated from the area.

This wasn't the only human-affected oddity we observed in Colorado over the weekend. May I present the second (glimpses of which are also visible to the careful observer in my moose shot):

Here we have lodgepole pines, the ubiquitous conifer of the American Rockies, dying en masse thanks to pandemic mountain pine beetle infestation. Scientists concerned with the problem, which has killed vast swathes of Colorado forest (among other western states' groves) aren't entirely sure but believe the balance slipped out of control as a result of global warming, which shortened winter and expanded the window of time during which beetles may feed on the trees without die-off due to cold weather.

It was awesomely sad to see mile after mile of Colorado forest where I'd guess 85% of the trees were dead, withered and orange. Devastating forest fires are the inevitable next step and we may be witnessing the extinction of the lodgepole pine, which couldn't adapt too man-made global warming. The thriving moose, on the opposite tack, is a hopeful reminder that nature will survive it's encounter with humanity and its impact on evolution.

Keep Your Receipts

Regular check indeed. What the hell was I doing on Thursday, October 1st of last year that I needed three $0.49 turkey sausages, one 'dessert' and a cup of coffee at 9:41am? I should have been at work where these things are not available. So, I'm not sure, I don't exactly recall ordering this, nor having visited the Corner Bistro, but this receipt was there in the thick stack of confetti gathering in my Costanza-esque wallet. So it's clearly the truth.

I've always wondered why I keep receipts, I'm not particularly vigilant against credit-card fraud and I'm not enough of a tactician to want to parse my own paper trail at the end of the tax year for nickel and dime business expenses to write off. But now I understand.

I do it because it reminds me what I've been up to. Much of my own life remains a mystery to me, particularly that which disappears faster and faster with each year into the thickening fog of my past. So like the credit bureaus, or a noble archaeologist digging through the midden of a lost Indian village, I can mine the history of my purchases to uncover clues about my life and hopefully add to the non-ending quest for self-knowledge.

It's almost like looking at old pictures, only far more mundane, filling in the bulk of life between the victories, and thus probably more accurate as to the true nature of things, in that moment some months ago where the need for turkey sausage, some kind of sweet, and a cup of coffee was the imperative of the day.

Some Thoughts

-Day one of the World Cup: I was thinking, after a pair of annoying, low-scoring ties, so far, so boring. 200 years ago, the United States didn't settle for ties with England. Why are we so high on this one? The Founding Fathers would not have been stoked, maybe even badly disappointed, particularly given that goal was complete garbage.

-Day two, I'm really feeling Die Mannschaft after the show they put on drubbing the 'Socceroos.' Having encountered a few genuine Australians in the world, with their 'no worries mate' attitude, acid-washed jeans and near unanimous sun-kissed good looks, it was oddly fun to see their party ended by efficient German workmanship.

-It bears noting that my wife made the most outrageous meal order of her adult life the other day at Beau Monde for breakfast, I guess you'd call it: a mimosa to kick things off then a froment crepe with apples, toasted almonds, brown sugar, caramel and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. This was the breakfast of champions that kicked off a day of beer-drinking and hotdog eating at the Phillies' game.

-Speaking of whom, it's been painful watching them slide from 1st to 3rd in the National League East, particularly heading into this month's American League tour de force, already off to a banging start losing 2/3 to the Red Sox before hitting up the Yankees, Twins, Indians and Blue Jays before the month is out. It's hard to image the Phillies coming out of this stretch unscathed, so I've already begun the word-smithing of a cleverly-titled post to the effect of 'The Philadelphia Phaillies' or something like that. I'd be happily proven wrong.

-I reached out to volunteer some time and energy to the Philadelphia Tax Reform movement as avowed at PhiladelphiaForward.org and was met with a disappointing reply of weary capitulation. I hope somebody's still beating some drums on this topic.

-I've been following the story on Sabina Rose O'Donnell's murder since it first broke. I saw her photo on Philly.com and got a chill because back in January she had been our waitress on our lone visit to PYT. It's a terrible shame what happened to her at the hands of a coward and I hope they catch whomever is responsible for this terrible deed.