philly

I headed over to Studio 34 Yoga with Andi and Kevin [and Audrey for a few minutes] to check out a talk and book signing by Philly's own Zoe Strauss. Zoe was talking about the images, the process and all things Zoe related to her book: America, published by ammo books.

The shot above is of Zoe talking to Kevin after signing his copy of America. I already got my book signed at the book release party in South Philly in November so I was just there to listen in and see Zoe's mom Ilene who is always a blast to hang out with.

Forgot to add this last night: BUY THE BOOK!

As if I didn't have enough stuff going on in my life, I've decided, with the help of a comment from P.Frankie, to start SEPTAfail blog.

It'll document the good, the bad and the fugly that is SEPTA and its riders. But it won't be a success without the input of Philadelphians who ride SEPTA on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and let's not forget the out of towners who are stunned senseless as to why they can't buy a single token.

So if you witness a FAIL, please let me know. Hopefully, your account will have a photo, audio or video to go along with it. If you have a classic encounter from the past, please share that too. I've also started a SEPTAfail flickr group, a SEPTAfail twitter and a gMap to document it all as thoroughly as possible.

There will be lots of poking fun at SEPTA. I hope that there will be updates to FAILS I post as SEPTA takes care of some bidniss. Philly will only improve as SEPTA improves.

The new blog is dedicated to the good people at FAIL Blog and the hardworking people at SEPTA.

Help me help SEPTA help you.

Just let me take a second to shout out a very cool newish magazine to hit Philly: grid: Towards a Sustainable Philadelphia. It's a 3 issue old magazine written, edited, layed out and I'm assuming printed locally. It's got articles about urban sustainability ranging from n00b to way over my head on every topic under the sustainable (for the next few billion years) sun.

You can download this month's issue here [6MB .pdf] or read it in flash here. If you'd like a printed on 100% recycled (80% post consumer waste) paper, you can find it all around the Philly area here (just type in a zip code). I picked my copy up at Whole Foods on South St by the exit (pictured above) a little while ago. Even their display stands are recycled materials!

And for a future plug, my photos will be in a beautifully layed out story in next month's issue. More details to come…

I was in Market East station the other day and I took the above shot. I thought it was nice. But then I got closer to the counter and I noticed an empty phone jack to the left of the 4 walk up windows. I walked over to it.

An empty jack with 2 signs. One indicating it's the direct line to telephone information and the other marking the wall (?) as a SEPTA rail station. Granted, there is an info desk which is usually staffed about 20' from the empty jack and there's the 4 walk up windows which are open until 7p (which I think is absolutely ri-fucking-diculous for the 5th 6th largest city in the US), but what about when there's nobody there? I didn't walk around the rest of the large station to see if there was a similar, but occupied, info phone jack.

Ah SEPTA. I can't fucking stand ya, but I can't live without ya.

I heard these tandem cyclists come up behind me on 12th St north of Market St. I saw them and two friends on regular bikes stop at 12/Market and I quickly caught up to them and snapped off a few frames. I crossed the street and they followed behind me and passed me once again. I snapped a few frames from the hip and got this winner.

I witnessed this scene a few days ago while walking up 12th St just north of Walnut St: a blind man leading another blind man down the street. There, I've seen it, the blind leading the blind; literally.

This got me to thinking about many other things, the metaphorical versions of the literal scene I had seen once in my 29 years. Posting this just a day after Philly's Vince Fumo was indicted on 137 counts in federal court, it made me think back to a time when I could've been implicated in all this mess. I was offered, and subsequently turned down, a job to work for Fumo about 2.5 years ago. I won't get into the particulars of it all, but I was very close to taking that job, but I didn't.

At that point, I had started to develop quite the jaded view on politics after diving in headfirst into the brackish political cesspool that is PA/Philadelphia. I opted to not delve any deeper.

If I had to choose one store to not do without in Philly, it would probably be Foster's Urban Homeware. I loved their two individual stores, one in Reading Terminal Market and one in Old City, from a few years ago. I love their superstore at 399 Market St.

I love to just walk through the store and go through everything. From the books to the shower stuff, to the colorful towel shelves, to the bowls/pans, to the kitchen utensils, to the stemware. I love it all.

One new thing I noticed on my trip to Foster's last week was a rack of Tiffin spices. Oh yes, you can now buy Tiffin's glorious spice mixes in Center City and not have to trek up to 710 W. Girard Ave for your fix. I was told by the lady up front that they had only just received the shipment just a few days prior to my visit (March 2nd) and that they were the exclusive retailer for Tiffin's goods outside of the Tiffin Store.

One final awesome thing about Foster's is their list of classes and free cooking demonstrations. My friends Scott and Marisa make up the fabulous duo behind Fork You!, a food video blog. They host live tapings the first Saturday of every month unless otherwise noted.

I've added some more photos to my Foster's Urban Homeware flickr set with shots from my most recent trip. A visit to Foster's is sure to get one's creative juices flowing whether they be in the kitchen or elsewhere.

Thank you Foster's for being a kick ass store.

After having my Blackberry Curve 8330 for Verizon Wireless for a few months, I've come to like it quite a bit. I posted some initial thoughts after a few weeks with the device and here go some more thoughts after several months worth of use…

While this badboy is far from perfect, it's boosted my productivity a ton. This phone makes me money. How so? I'm in contact far more easily than I was previously. I'm reading emails from all my inboxes in a nice global inbox on my phone now – email integration on the Motorola Q (my previous phone) was a pain and I never used it as a result. I'm getting emails about photo gigs while on one job and can reply with a quick yes or no to the client and not leave them hanging for half a day or more. I know for a fact that my clients appreciate this and that makes for happy clients who are even more willing to pass my name along to their network of friends and associates. The keyboard is still a dream to use. I don't know how people use touchscreen keyboards – they annoy the shit out of me. While I've had my share of battery pulls (a hard reset), they don't happen very often. Usually, a quick power off then on will solve some small hangup which happens every few weeks. On to the apps…

First some thoughts on apps I mentioned in my previous post which I no longer use or use less often: Opera Mini – it just doesn't cut it for me anymore. All the sites I frequent render quite well in the BB Browser and haven't had a need for the Opera browser for several months. The flickr app is so iffy it drives me nuts. It'll tell me I'm not logged in when I've just logged in. It'll cut off transmitting photos. It'll tell me photos haven't transmitted when they actually have. I've resorted to using email to post to flickr on the road which is a bit of a pain since it won't automatically send photos to my mobile set and I have to remember which field corresponds to title, tag, description. I haven't used Tellme as it's much easier to type in what I'm looking for. I don't drive much so I have no need for a handsfree thing to look things up. I just don't get around to using my Viigo nowadays. It works well, but I prefer reading through my RSS feeds on a computer.

It seems that qik has finally solved their BB 8330 issues and uploading videos is no longer an issue. I've only used this function a couple of times, but it's pretty damn cool. It'll be cool to use this function in an on-the-scene manner at some point.

Whrrl is a clunky tell your friends where you're drinking/eating + review app all in one. It's pretty slow to load pages and reviews and that's kept me away from it. Also, I don't go out to drink too much and I don't know anyone else who is using the service which doesn't help things.
UPDATE 3.18.09
Whrrl has relaunched to 2.0 as some kind of SMS enabled storytelling service, tied in with facebook (my enemy) and twitter, which I think is weird and ungainly without giving it a try. It is not supported by the VZW network as of right now.

Poynt does what Windows Live Search does, but in a more sleek GUI. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well. Or it just plain doesn't work. Oh well.

Xpenser isn't a BB-specific application, nor is it technically an application, but I use it all the time. It's a service you can use via email or txt to keep track of the things you spend money on. If you use it via txt, it'll ping back to you confirming receipt of your latest expense. If yo use it via email (how I use it), you'll have the message in your sent messages folder in case it doesn't show up online for some reason and you can always resend it. What you do is enter 3 'fields' in an email subject line. The first field will be the category, the second the amount and the third notes. So, if you've just spent $5 at NYPD Pizza for lunch, you could write: "Food 5 NYPD Pizza". This helps me immensely. What this really is though, is for people to keep track of more business-like expenses. You can generate expense reports straight from the site online. You can delve further into geeky reporting by assigning keywords to different things like keeping track of mileage for trip expenses, expenses for different clients or keeping track of different sources of money (VISA, MC, Cash…)

So my last day at the 2009 Philadelphia Flower Show was Friday. I had a blast for the 3 days I worked the floor and the full day I spent painting the prize-winning booth. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise, it was definitely the World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies' hometown this little event was taking place. Somebody put a hat on this statue front and center – it's the first booth you encounter if you go through the main entrance.

Going through all the exhibits for a second time, the American Institute of Floral Designers display was still the one that caught my eye and stuck with me. I noticed this time around that it won the PNC People's Choice Award.

I took a stroll through the retail section this time around and saw so much stuff. It was crammed everywhere. Gloves, rakes, sponges, pots, pots, pots… People were definitely there to shop too. After forking over the $22 fee, people brought wheeled carts to haul off their purchases.

And thanks to Taylor's heads up, I got me a delicious piece of free tiramisu from Sweet Street Desserts. If you're headed to the show, print out a coupon and tell them Taylor from Mac and Cheese sent ya (it's also on the coupon). I briefly spoke with the Northeast regional rep (I forget her name) and she told me that they're planning on more local distribution routes, but for now, the only physical storefront is out in Reading. If you're in the area, it's worth looking up to stop in and take a taste of their delectable desserts.

Now for some better shots of the lovely booth I worked at for several days.

There's the company's founder, Casey at left, with her mom. They ship off for another show in NY before headed back to NoCal on Sunday.

And here's a better shot of some of their stuff. Even the wall vase is made from recycled materials: Coke and 7-Up bottles! It was such a pleasure to learn about their product and share their story with the thousands of people I talked to for several days. I was glad to hear people interested in the Fair Trade aspect of the artwork.

But like all good things, it came to an end. I've added some more photos to my 2009 Flower Show set on Flickr.

For the last few days, I've been at The 2009 Philadelphia Flower Show which I only recently found out is the largest one in the nation (and maybe the world?). It's my first time at the show and it's been a crazy experience. The scenery there, as you can imagine, is pretty wild.

I've been helping out at booth 315 – Beyond Borders. They sell fair trade artwork from Haiti. The Haitians recycle old 55 gallon steel oil drums and create these amazing pieces of art with them. All by hand. Using only a hammer and a chisel, they make intricate works of art. Prices are quite reasonable with 12" pieces around $30. They get larger (about 3' wide $250) and smaller (2" Milagros for $4.50) with everything in between. Folk art depicting mermaids, angels, hearts, crosses, birds, trees and musicians young and mythical. For some stupid reason, the only photo of their wonderful pieces is the crappy cellphone pic at the top of the post which is of a sleeping crescent moon and smiling sun. That 12" piece is $24.

I don't get away from the booth much during my time there, but with my badge, I can come and go as I please. I walked around for a bit on Wednesday after my shift. Above is part of PECO's exhibit. From the website:

Growing Green with PECO
An icon of the Philadelphia skyline – the PECO building and its familiar Crown Lights – will be recreated in a scale model with a 14-foot-high tower. The company’s walk-through exhibit will illuminate its new green initiative, topped off with the largest green roof in the state of Pennsylvania on an existing building. A slice of the green roof will show how it was constructed and how PECO is working to improve the urban environment.

I think the most eye catching display at the show is American Institute of Floral Designers (AIFD)'s fashion display.

Alta Moda Floreale (Couture Floral, or Latest Style)
Floral design becomes fashion in this bold showcase. The set is based on line drawings, with 12-foot columns and 6-foot-wide chandeliers hanging above, to give the appearance of a high-end shop in Milan. The exhibit will evoke the Italian way of life with handbags, shoes, dresses, hats, perfume, jewelry and art interpreted in floral designs.

They placed large arrangements next to complementary mannequins.

The theme of this year's show is Bella Italia and above, you can see two attendees standing in front of a large map/graph planning out their visit.

I couldn't get a good look at a lot of things as the show as quite crowded, I was quite tired and I wanted to get home and eat my dinner – I was rushing a bit. But people seemed quite enamored with the show. Here you can see two women discussing the intricate piece displayed in a tiny little 6" x 6" box.

The show is on the second floor of the convention center taking up all of the floorspace. It's divided into retail and display space with retail taking up approximately 1/3 of the space of the west end of the building and the big displays taking up the rest of the space. I'm not much of a flower person; yes, they're nice to look at, but I don't need a bajillion acres of flowers to look at while wading through thousands of tourists. Note: my definition of a "tourist" is anybody who cannot, for whatever reason, walk in a crowd. With my definition, anybody can be a tourist anywhere no matter where you're from. It's those people who find it okay to just stop short in the middle of a walkway instead of cautiously stepping aside for those behind them. Those people who think it's okay to walk 5 across when a walkway is 6 wide. Those people who don't understand that their 8' tall fucking stupid pussy willows stick people in their eyes all the fucking time (I hate you).

But if you find yourself at the Flower Show on Friday between 11a – 7p, stop by booth 315, it's the one with the prize winning First Place blue ribbon for best in show for 'Home Accessories – Large Booth' – I helped paint that booth on Friday.

My friend Taylor has a free coupon for a free dessert over on her site. It's a new giveaway and it's only for the first 100 people to come by their booth.

Some more photos from the show in this Flickr set.

The show runs though Sunday. Tickets are $22 for adults. For more information, head here.