Almost Right Back...

Apologies to both of my readers, I'll be back again regularly soon.

Just give me a few more days...

The Wooder's Fine...

The Parkway fountains are back on, and winter has finally left us for the year.

A beautiful day, even the Comcast Center doesn't look as boring as usual from certain angles...

These are the good times.

Take a look, it's in a book.  Yeah, I don't know how that show's song just got stuck in my head, but I hope it's stuck in yours now, too...

Now where's that bus home?

Eagles draft Lane Johnson.

I'll pretend I know who he is.

(well okay, I 'know' who he is, but I don't know anything either way as to whether this is a good pick or not...)

Ultimately, my thing is that I trust Chip Kelly.  And I'm glad to have that man in my life again.  Like me, he's an East Coaster who moved out to Oregon, did some work (he was more successful than I was on that count, let's just say), then came back home.

An athletic OT who used to be a quarterback seems like something right up Coach Kelly's alley, so I will call this a good pick.

"His 40-yard dash time was faster than Anquan Boldin," [NFL Network's Mike] Mayock said. "His vertical at 34 inches was the same as A.J. Green - think about this, this is an offensive tackle at 300-plus pounds. He ran faster than Anquan Boldin, he jumped the same as A.J. Green and his broad jump at nine feet, 10 inches was the same as Steven Ridley. Think about those three things for a 300-pound offensive tackle and put that in perspective of what he can be."

Mayock says Johnson has more upside than both Eric Fisher and Luke Joeckel, who went #1 and #2 respectively.

The Eagles have 8 more picks remaining over the last 6 rounds.

Yes, I'm clearly allowing myself to be talked into this.

Especially since the Phillies' season was over right around the time it started (I stick by my 64-98 prediction), and the Flyers and Sixers both vastly underachieved.

We need at least one good professional sports team, no?

I think our Eagles are gonna surprise a lot of people this season.  More to come after the draft ends.

(And go Temple!!!)

Orlando Officer Runs Over Pedestrian, Lectures Him, Flees Scene...

Florida's streets have a... bit of a reputation.  Let's say.  Note that in this report, Orlando-Kissimmee is ranked the #1 most dangerous metropolitan area in the United States for pedestrians.  In fact, the 'top' (bottom?) 4 metros according to this report are all in Florida.

Which probably contributed to this shocking incident, from January, in Orlando.

Here is another outrageous story from Florida of a police officer acting with complete disregard of the law:

WFTV obtained more video Friday that shows an Orlando police officer hitting a pedestrian with his squad car. Police will only say he’s under criminal investigation, but Officer Michael Fiorentino-Tyburski is still allowed to patrol the streets.

It’s been almost three months since the pedestrian was hit at Hughey Avenue in downtown Orlando.

An investigator concluded in January that the officer was at fault for leaving the scene. The video shows the victim, Tetris Nunn, rolling over Orlando patrol car No. 8128 with Fiorentino-Tyburski behind the wheel.

On Friday, Channel 9 obtained the 911 calls and radio transmissions in the case. On the radio transmission, Fiorentino-Tyburski can be heard dodging questions his own department was asking him.

Video at the link.  Investigators also now claim the victim was (allegedly) 'jaywalking.'

So of course, I guess that makes it okay for a public safety official to drive his patrol vehicle into him, get out to lecture the victim a bit for his carelessness, and then drive off as if he hadn't just plowed into a pedestrian with a two-ton motor vehicle.

(And not to mention trying to lie his way out of it once caught.)

A perfect demonstration of the psychology of motor vehicle violence being considered an acceptable part of everyday life, is what we clearly have here.

Don't you just love it?

I'm sure the officer justified his actions in his own mind as not even being an incident, since he surely felt he was 'right.'  Mr. Fiorentino-Tyburski may have even considered it a favor not to have arrested Mr. Nunn for 'getting in his way.'

There, they're even.

I think not, however.

Due to his unconscionable callousness and complete disregard for human life (especially considering his position as a police officer), Mr. Fiorentino-Tyburski should have his privilege to operate heavy machinery in public revoked for life.  And if that costs him his job, well then tough noogies.  It's nobody's fault but his own.  Personal responsibility ain't just a dangerous, anti-pedestrian, high-speed one-way street.

Perhaps Mr. Fiorentino-Tyburski should ask his fellow officer Michael Brady what he thinks about hit and run drivers...

Sunday Signs: Norristown Edition

Had to head out to Norristown, PA for a few hours yesterday, so of course I used the opportunity to ride out on SEPTA's somewhat unique Norristown High Speed Line (p.k.a. Route 100).

The seat of Montgomery County, Norristown is a municipality of about 35,000 people, 6 miles northwest of Philadelphia, connected by the High Speed, the Manayunk-Norristown SEPTA regional rail line (which runs through Center City to Marcus Hook, PA and Wilmington / Newark, DE) and a handful of buses.

A large and mostly intact downtown (except for a few clear recent missteps like a half-dead, low-rent strip mall facing the wrong way, anchored by a fried chicken fast food chain featuring garish, plastic cartoon architecture and a three-sizes too big, mostly-empty surface parking crater in the heart of downtown; as well as a tragically failed courthouse plaza and a block-long, blank-walled generically offensive mid-20th-century government building in the Soviet Brutalist style) and plenty of well-maintained rowhouse blocks show good bones.  The Lawyers' Row off the courthouse is beautiful.  A few old mills stand and look well, though industry (and retail) seems to be gone.  Its section of the Schuylkill River Trail runs along the waterfront, is completed, and was being well-used yesterday.

Physically, Norristown is (aside from the few flaws noted above) my ideal of what every small town in this corner of the United States should look like.

Wandering around town was a rather disconcerting experience, however, as on a beautiful (if somewhat chilly and breezy) sunny Saturday afternoon, there was nobody on the streets and nothing much open for business, either.

A security guard slowly cranked and clanged while adjusting a flag at the rear of the (breathtaking) courthouse, three teenagers sat on benches in its aforementioned plaza looking half-bored and three-fourths shady, a well-worn older gentleman in heavy winter clothing asked me for a cigarette or a dollar... I nearly tripped on a cracked sidewalk while admiring a cornice on a nicely kept commercial building and I'm pretty sure a lone crow cackled at me due to this.  I demanded of the crow, "what are you laughing at?" while the winter wear guy mumbled to himself about what a nut this sidewalk-tripping, roof-admiring, non-smoking, no-dollar-having, bird-talking motherfucker is.

C'est la vie.  He's not far off.

Anyway.  Signs of the week.

Main Street family pharmacies in any town are always a solid source for excellent signage.  Norristown does not disappoint.

Stepping back a bit, this is a great block except for the Verizon building at center.  Seriously, why do all Verizon buildings look like this?  Do they spend so much on bricks that they don't have anything left over for windows?  They have littered way too many of our cities with such atrocities.  The municipal parking garage down the block has better architecture than that... thing.

One other misstep is the bench at lower right.  Turn it around and face the sidewalk!  Who wants to sit facing speeding traffic on a too-wide, one-way street from three inches away?

A cool, though unfortunately empty, storefront, featuring four distorted Jays (that's my band name if I ever start one!  Four Distorted Jays).

Nice art deco entrance to this place.

Can't leave without taking a (bad) shot of the Montgomery County Courthouse.  Excuse me, I only had my cellphone on me yesterday.  The clock in the dome is worth a post of its own, but I just couldn't zoom in well enough.

At the end of any day out of town, though, this is the sign I always like to see best!

Ladino Track of the Week...

Let's introduce another weekly feature.

One of my favorite groups ever, led by my favorite female vocalist ever (Jennifer Charles), is La Mar Enfortuna.

This side project of Elysian Fields provides modern interpretations of Sephardic Jewish songs from the middle ages.

Here's their version of one particular Judeo-Spanish tune, which rocks all kinds of body parts...

Sunday Signs

One of my fascinations is interesting urban commercial signage.  Specifically, still extant retro-signage from the middle of the 20th century, but also ghost signs (the older the better), as well, of course...

Since Philadelphia is extremely wealthy in both of these currencies, I figured I'll make this a regular weekly feature.  My favorite such sign of the week.

Ideally, in the future, I'll have more background to fill in on these.  I'll be able to note their exact vintage, perhaps have something to say on their fonts, a few words with their owners, etc etc.  But for now, excuse my amateur-ish-ness.

I'll enter the first in this series, which just so happens to be a few blocks from my apartment, at Cumberland & Sepviva.  Philadelphia, PA 19125.

A classic corner store in the first floor of a rowhouse, set amidst a perfect example of a mixed-use residential block from which our society never should have turned away.  My belief is that we'll all (city, town and whatever can be salvaged of the suburbs) be moving back to such models sooner than we think.

The mid-70s Pepsi logo stands out (if even though I'd never touch their product, myself), as does its frame and the wonderfully low-key and respectful, black & white lettering of the shop's name below.

No garish cartoon architecture or ridiculous flourishes here, just a solid throwback to a time of solid neighborhoods.  Of which Kensington still has the bones of being one, despite all of our industry having vanished over the past few decades.

We've still got a ways to go to get fully back on our feet again, but we've at least got solid ground...

....and infrastructure to start rebuilding from.