Are IPods really the way to go? I was in Best Buy last weekend looking for a set of replacement headphones for Brandon’s IPod Shuffle. The only ones (that were Apple certified and that matched the original ones) were sold with a useless remote control and were priced at $45. I was highly annoyed that I couldn’t find the replacement headphones sold by themselves. It was at this moment when I realized that I had become a victim of marketing. It never even occured to me that there may be other options out there for MP3 players. So, I began to look around. I noticed several on the market and all at significantly lower prices than IPod. So what’s so special about these fruity little devices anyway? Why should I give them my money?
Why No PSU Update?
What’s up? What is Larry doing? Everybody is wondering…. “Where’s Larry?”
Yes, only one thing could explain this dereliction of duty. Larry’s in the hospital.
His initial diagnosis is pancreatitis caused by gallstones.
He went in Saturday afternoon, hopes to be out Tuesday.
Right now it seems that he may have surgery to remove the stones sometime in the next couple weeks. First they have to get the inflammation and/or infection reduced.
Don’t feel too bad. Larry always has a way to make the best of any situation. He tells me the hospital is staffed with babes.
Just got a text message from Larry. His gallbladder was removed today and he expects to be home tomorrow.
Thanksgiving NY Style
Santa always finishes the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade!
After the parade we left the building we were in (Ed Sullivan Theatre, aka Letterman Show) to head to our cars. We had a group photo taken by a passerby. Wanted a second but couldn’t get the kids’ attention as they were fascinated by the street-sweepers.
We were accompanied by an old friend and co-worker of Lis’, Doug Reuter, his wife, Susan and 2 kids. His first was born 3 mos before Charlotte. His 2nd the same day as Lex. We’ve known Doug for more than 20 yrs.
We went to the Upper West Side and Nancy’s apartment (Nana to the kids.) A little play in the local park playground and dinner.
All in all a fine day.
Birthdays
At the beginning of the month Ronnie made a comment on his birthday posting that he couldn’t remember the year of everyone’s birth. I think that’s a great challenge to post on our blog (we need to start getting some family history here). I’ll give it a shot (correct me if I’m wrong). I then challenge everyone to post their immediate family’s birth dates. Here goes:
Dad (Edwin) – 01/01/21, deceased 01/24/86
Mom (Eileen) – 12/16/24, deceased 12/09/84
Larry – 03/02/45
Marilyn – 02/23/49
Steve – 05/16/51
Kenny – 07/17/54
Gary – 10/04/57
Ronnie – 10/28/58
For history, we should add Susan: 12/24/45 (deceased shortly after birth). Am I correct? OK, let’s get our families on here! Then we can start going backwards and getting other relatives!
Family Dream
I had one of my family dreams last night. I was “home” (not sure if home was Philly or Chicago) and Mom, Steve, Ken and I were in the dream. Steve and I were current but Ken was still in college. Steve was just leaving to go to work when Mom said “you never know how things are going to turn out, that one, meaning Steve, has got his life in order, while this one, looking at Ken, is on track to be a kitchen bum.”
That caused me to lecture her on how everyone was not cut out to go to college to be an engineer. I somehow had gotten a look at Ken’s class schedule where “cash register management” had stood out and then added “if I had it to do all over again, I would major in hotel and restaurant management” (there’s some truth to that). Mom then made some sarcastic remark about being able to pay the bills on the 1st of the month.
I then turned to Ken and said “I gather you’ve changed your major to restaurant management”. Ken answered yes and then asked me “what clothes did you where to work when you graduated?” He then laughed at me when I said “three piece suits”. I then went on to explain that “everyone wore suits back then”.
Dream ended about then.
SC in SC
Santa Crawl in State College, that is…
The “A-Z Bar Tour” that I founded in Philadelphia in 1981 grew to be a huge success and I’m trying to recreate that experience here with a variation called the Santa Crawl. As you might imagine, a Santa Crawl is simply a bar tour where everyone dresses in Santa costumes. It isn’t something I invented, but I am trying to bring the experience to State College (Santa crawling is a worldwide phenomena with one of the biggest actually happening in New York).
We kicked off our version of the Santa Crawl here in State College last year. Here’s my favorite photo from the event which is also hanging prominently in Hooters.
Check this out for more photos from last year.
When someone asks why we do this, I simply give an answer from this list (responses substantially borrowed from the Baltimore Santa Crawl.
- meet people
- meet women
- confuse the crap outta kids
- get hugs from the girls from Hooters
- fill everyone you meet with joy
- become instant celebrities and rock stars
- get an invite to the Hooters Xmas party (the last few photos taken last year were from there)
This year’s event will take place on Saturday, Dec 10th and we expect to at least triple the size of last year’s group. It’s a pretty safe bet that I’ll be posting photos on the 11th. The wonderful thing about digital cameras is that you can’t open them up and expose all your film to the light and thus ruin all your photos (know what I mean Gary 🙂 ) so I’m sure to have some pictures no matter how hard we party that night.
Thanksgiving Day Parade
A quick look at the start of our day.
Boo!! Hiss!! Boring!!
Some of you may remember my campaign last spring to name the new State College minor league baseball team the Sliders. My nominee had been one of seven (the others were Black Bears, Copperheads, Miners, Mountain Bats, Ridge Riders, and Stags) selected to be semifinalists. I put some serious effort into promoting my choice (I even handed out business cards promoting the name)
Let’s just say that my suggestion didn’t meet with universal acclaim (Click here to read a local writer’s opinion),
Evidently, team managemant felt the same as the above writer because they wound up throwing out all seven of the semifinalists and starting over with a new list of finalist. They were Anglers, Coalys, Furnace, Haymakers, and Spikes.
The grand announcement of the winner was today. And the winner is, drumroll please:
All I can say is “boring”.
In case you didn’t see this before
About 10 days ago, in my “Ken – remember this?” post, I said:
Just like this year, PSU was hot in the middle of the football national championship picture
Gary came back with:
BTW, Is PSU really “hot in the middle of the football national championship picture “?
And I responded:
Most definitely we are. We are fifth in the BCS. That means we need three teams in front of us to lose to get into the BCS championship game.The four teams ahead of us and their remaining games are:
Miami: @Wake Forest (4-6), Geo Tech (6-2), Virginia (5-3), then Fla State (7-2) in the conference championship game – none of those games are easy and it will be tough for them to win all four games (Fla St has already beaten them once).
Alabama: LSU (7-1), @Auburn (7-2), and a conference championship game against either Georgia (7-1) or Florida (7-2). Alabama’s offense is atrocious – they haven’t scored a TD in 13 quarters and it would be a big surprise for them to record three wins against the teams they have yet to play.
Texas: Kansas (5-4), @Tex A&M (5-4), and a conference championship game against Colorado (7-2). Anytime you have to defeat three teams with winning records there is a decent chance you could lose. The favorite has a history of losing the conference championship in the B12 so it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see the Longhorns go down.
USC: @California (6-3), Fresno State (7-1), and UCLA (8-1). While Southern Cal looks to be the strongest contender for the national championship they do have challenges ahead of them. None of those teams are pushovers and UCLA would just love to knock their cross town rivals out of the BCS picture.
Penn State on the other hand has two weeks to get ready for their sole remaining game with Michigan State (5-4). MSU is in their usual late season collapse having lost 4 of their last 5 games. We should be able to handle them easily and just sit back and watch the others fall by the wayside.
The good news is that only three of the four teams in front of us need to lose. There is a very good chance that could happen.
Here’s an update of what has happened since:
Just as I suggested, we were able to beat Michigan State and capture the B10 title and secure a berth in a BCS Bowl. Which bowl is still up in the air.
Last week, Alabama lost to LSU in overtime and dropped out of the national championship picture.
Yesterday, Miami lost to Georgia Tech and their national championship hopes have been dashed.
So two of the three things that needed to happen have. We just need one more and we almost got that late last night (people were glued to TV’s in the bars here in State College last night as the USC/Fresno State game didn’t end until 2:15AM).
Southern Cal staged a furious comeback and managed to overcome Fresno State 50-42 in a game that saw them trailing 42-41 in the fourth quarter (Fresno State had also led at halftime 21-13). USC looks beatable and they have crosstown rivals UCLA in two weeks.
Texas was off this week but they have always dangerous Texas A&M and their famed 12th man next week, then a conference championship matchup with Colorado in two weeks.
That means there are three chances for an upset to happen – I’d say odds are about 50-50 that one of the upsets will occur – and Penn State can claim a spot in the national championship game in the Rose Bowl (there is also an outside chance that LSU could sneak by us with a win in their conference championship game).
Realistically, there are now only five schools with a shot at the title. USC and Texas still have their destiny in their own hands. Win out and they are in. Penn State’s season is over and we sit just on the outside waiting for one of the two to fail. LSU not only needs one of the top two to falter but they also need to win out and start getting some love from the BCS computers. Virginia Tech remains a very big long shot to somehow sneak into the game – they probably need both teams on the top to lose and have LSU also lose while they win out and meet Penn State for the title.
So that’s a long winded way of saying “Yes, Gary we very much are in the middle of the national championship picture.
Do you dream?
I woke up this morning after one of my typical nights of dreaming. The “star” of this dream was Gary. He had just gotten a review at work and wasn’t too happy about it. So he came to the family for advice. We were living in Chalfont. Mommy, Kenny and Ronnie were in the dream. Mommy and I intervened…kind of like attending a “parent-teacher” conference with Gary’s boss. Kenny & Ronnie were “background” constants; Kenny complaining that he was having similar problems at work and Ronnie just standing there laughing (we were all current age except Ronnie who was a teenager)!
Weird. Do any of you dream? Steve says he doesn’t, or at least never remembers them. I dream nightly. Maybe it’s just a female thing??????