Philly Day 3

Monday brings Tut!!! The weather is horrible this morning. Here we are 700 miles from Maine and it is snowing. And Jess is sick to boot. So, the idea of riding the train in goes right out the window. So Dad decides we'll drive in. Oh the fun abounds.

The good news is, the drive in was relatively painless. We made a couple of errors in our map reading, but we got to the Franklin Institute ten minutes before we needed to and Dad got a parking spot real close.


The Tut exhibit was everything I hoped for and more. It was just amazing to see all these artifacts that I've been seeing in books for years right there before me in all their antiquated glory. The artifacts date from roughly 1350 B.C., and they were in amazing shape. Of course, I couldn't take pictures in the Tut exhibit, but I'll include some photos of what we saw.

This is a huge statue of Ankenaten, notably the pharaoh that outlawed polytheism in ancient Egypt and instituted monotheism. This was amazing to see. But, understandably, when I got a little too close, there was a security guard who cozied up to me. You can never be to careful...

After being blown away by the Tut exhibit, we checked out the rest of the Franklin Institute. We toured the Giant Heart and the Franklin Air Show.

When we were done at the Franklin, we headed back to our suite for a little rest. After a nap and a great dinner cooked by Mom, I went to a four hour graduate class with Kevin. And I actually learned some stuff. Amazing.

And to prove what a small world it is, when I went on a coffee run to the "Eagle's Nest" for some coffee, I ran into one of the kids from our church who is going to PBU. I had to do the old double take to make sure it was here before I made a real idiot out of myself.

Monday in a nutshell....

Philly Day 2

Sunday brought torrential rains and hazardous conditions. I've never been scared driving in heavy rain before, but I was nervous Sunday morning (and it wasn't your driving, Kev). Unlike Maine roads, which are beveled (hope that is the right word) to allow water and snow to run off, Pennsylvania roads are like bowls, and all the water collects in the middle. The hydroplaning was scary. Especially when you look at the other side of the highway and there are cars off the road, upside down on their roofs and there was even one that shot up the bank on the side of the road. Scary stuff.


But God is good and we got to our destination. We went to the Bacton Hill Bible Church with the Bookers, Grammy Quint, my in-laws and my lovely wife. Of course, I am supposed to be having some time off from leading worship, which I got, but when Kevin asked if I wanted to play with their worship group, I certainly couldn't pass up the opportunity to play.

After church, since the weather was so nasty, we went to the King of Prussia Mall, which was rather lackluster except for that an Apple Store, my Mecca, was held within the KoPM. And let there be no mistake, the Apple Store was amazing! Worth the trip to the stupid mall. Well, I guess I should include the girl's trip to Tiffany's. Thankfully, we made it out with out a little blue box :o)

And another thing, here I was in this colossal shopping mall, and there really wasn't anything different from the Portland, Maine mall or the mall in our quaint metropolis either. I was hoping for a really different experience, with exotic stores with cool stuff, and there were none. The comic store I went to was a sham compared to Top Shelf Comics right down town on Central Street in Bangor. All the names were the same. Gap, Ambercrombie, JC Penny, Macy's, it's all right here in Bangor. Okay, enough ranting about the mall...

Sunday night consisted of having dinner at the house of a childhood friend of Jess'. What a great time. The whole clan got to catch up. We had a great meal and I got to extol the greatness of Apple computers (there were three there to play on) and laud Acadia National Park, so it was all good.

There is Sunday in a nutshell. Great day but very long and tiring.

To Philly and back: Vacation Day 1

Hello all!!! We just got back a couple of days ago from our fabulous trip to Philadelphia, PA to see out friends, the Bookers. Kev, Ame and big K, thanks for everything. We had such a great time and we miss you guys already.

So, it was a great time, with horrible weather. But the company more than made up for the nasty conditions. Here we were going to Philly thinking we were going to have sun and 70's. We were wrong...

But I have tons to write about and not a lot of time tonight to get it all down, so I am going to break things up.

We left Saturday morning, bright and early with almost no incidents. I fell down the stairs the night before, so I was a little sore. I rarely fall down, unlike my wife, but for some crazy reason I took a tumble the night before we left. Nothing major though.

We spent Saturday in the car, with only a couple of stops on the way down. We made our destination in just over nine hours and got to see some really beautiful houses in a town called Buckingham.

After we got settled in, we had a bbq with the Bookers and some of the families that they live with. What a great time with good friends and good food!!! And I couldn't believe it, but we had a fire out in the backyard. No permit necessary! I can't even do that here in my beloved Bangor!

More to come later...

The Case of the Bulging Battery

So, we went to Philly last week, and once we were settled in I got out my MacBook Pro to check my mail and so forth. Well, the trackpad was acting really funning. So I started inspecting my machine, and low and behold, the battery looked like this:



What? How could this be? What caused this? Did I do something wrong?

Come to find out, no I didn't. But, I thought I was going to be stuck buying a brand new $116 battery. But after some digging, I found the Apple Battery Exchange Program, and guess what, my battery was on the "not up to Apple's high quality" list.

Of course, it was buried and not easy to find, but it is there and still working, so I have a new battery coming in 3-5 business days.

Just when I thought I might have an actual reason to diss the Mac, Apple still comes through with the goods, continuing to prove why they are the best computers on the planet (no bias here).

I bet he is a good listener...

The highlight of our ever-so-"Weekly" publication: Tastes Like Chicken.

Great cartoon this week, Josh! Keep up the good work!

Revenge of Old Man Winter

So, last week we were enjoying 50º temps with tons of sun. Today: 10" inches of snow in our area and up to 24" in the mountains. And the skiers rejoiced. Yea.

The Guvnah (governor for those of you out of the state of Maine) even declared a state of emergency so power crews from other states could come in a restore power to up to 275,000 currently without electricity.

But, there is a silver lining, sort of. A couple of weeks ago, I was at our local LL Bean outlet and found the ultimate bargain: a pair of $130 snow pants with all the bells and whistles for $25. What a deal!

I didn't think I was going to be able to try them out until next Winter. Guess I was wrong...

Whining ensues...

I'm gonna get whiny. I've had a cold for two weeks, going on three. I feel like crap. And now this:

4"-10" of snow on the way.

I love spring in Maine...

Ghost Rider

I went to the cheap seats last night and saw Ghost Rider. Now, let me start by saying, most critics panned this movie. Nicolas Cage did a horrible job acting. The story was fluff and not deep enough. The critiques just keep on coming. Well, I disagree with them completely.

Of course, everyone has an opinion, and apparently some get paid for their opinion, so here is mine.

Back in the day, my family took a trip to Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, we had an unplanned stay over. But because of this, I bought my first comic, which was The Hulk. When I got back home, I bought my second comic, which was Ghost Rider.

I really dislike Nicolas Cage. He plays the same character in every movie he is in. But I liked him in GR. He fit the part perfectly. Plus it helped his head was on fire.

The story had its own charm, giving a great background on how Johnny Blaze signs over his soul to Mephistopheles and becomes the "Spirit of Vengeance". The effects were amazing. The first ride by GR was awesome as he melted the asphalt on the street and lit everything in sight on fire. The scene where GR comes riding down the building and creates a crater when he lands was totally awesome. Another favorite scene is when Carter Slade, aka The Caretaker, takes his final ride as a Ghost Rider and both he and Blaze are riding side by side, JB on his bike and CS on his horse. Amazing. Sam Elliot was perfectly cast as Slade.

This was well worth seeing on the big screen, and I'll definitely add this DVD to the collection when it is released.

Added bonus: GR art by Marc Silvestri!