JediWright.com

While escaping the midday heat in a movie at the Grove at 3rd and Fairfax today, a major rumbling and grinding-like sound rolled through the theater, wiping out all sight and sound momentarily (I assume because of a fleeting black-out but haven’t heard of any yet). At first everyone in the theater just rolled with it but with the second wave some of us decided it wasn’t worth second-guessing and exited the theater to a hallway quickly filling up with other theater-goers and employees to, in a word: chaos.

Everyone thought it was an earthquake still and even the staff were uncertain as to where to begin with the situation. Some were directing us to the emergency exit in the back and others to the front, though the rear exit quickly revealed itself a no-go when the door was opened to a wall of toxic-smelling smoke wafting up the back sidewalk towards us. Those of us looking for a quick exit joined the masses shuffling haphazardly towards the front.

As we emerged to the main lobby, the mass confusion amped up a few notches while employees continued to get a handle on the situation and sort out their next steps. Here’s a quick pic I snapped off while waiting to see how’d it unfold from that point:

As the lobby began to fill with a foreign and highly unpleasant electrical stench, the theater employees began to call for ticket-holders to proceed to two sets of doors with their tickets in hand in exchange for re-admission tickets. Without much more direction than that (and that much was hard to make out on its own), the small, summer throng – surprisingly patient – slowly but steadily exited the building. While most gossiped about what might have happened, I headed straight around back to try and catch a glimpse of any damage, thinking maybe someone had run off the road perhaps and hit the side of the building. I snapped off these two shots and got the scoop from a fireman on what had occurred, generator failure, which in hindsight, certainly matched up with what it felt and sounded like.

And that was that. By the time I’d exited the Grove parking deck, a quick scan down the intersecting road between the Grove and Farmers Market revealed the firetrucks had already moved on and traffic there had resumed as usual.

Sometime last week I started resurrecting the old outdoor adventure company, well at least its services anyway.

I started working at what had been called Schuylkill River Canoe & Tube, then Valley Forge Outdoors, then Hidden River Adventures, and what was to become Rivertribe, at the age of 16, in the summer of 1995. I progressed from in my 6+ years there from the new guy handling equipment at the beach/dock, to serving as one of its general managers. After the company closed its doors in the fall of 2001, I headed west to California, where I spent close to 7-years.

Now back in PA where it all began nearly 15-years later, I’ve found my long-lived hope of returning to the river business as a way of life reemerging stronger and clearer than ever before. I’d been hedging around my interest in doing this with the previous company owner and was getting a lukewarm response. So I decided to step things up a bit and started throwing a website together at my previously registered domain, Rivertribe.org.

I simultaneously emailed a bunch of former employees from the old river days and some new potential teammates while building out the site and renewing my discussions with the old boss. So far feedback has been good and the owner is more cooperative than before.

I’ve also partnered up with an old friend Cory, who has really taken to the Rivertribe concept and so we’ve been hammering away at all the details over the last week. It’s starting to get pretty intense, what with my other efforts at starting up the SolarHoster and maintaining my work with the fabric company, not to mention the still new tasks the baby has brought with his birthing.

Needless to say my time has been nearly completely devoured these last few weeks and I’ve been posting here less frequently than my previous goal, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.

Be sure to check Rivertribe.org and as always, can be found streaming bits away on Twitter.

All this probing into Obama’s administration and the issues being uncovered are really starting to piss me off. Why were these not discovered and addressed before he was sworn into office? What exactly was he and his team doing those 90 days prior to his swearing in that they could have missed this? Unless of course they thought they could hide it or explain it away with apologies and make everything okay. That doesn’t fly with your average taxpayer…you either pay or your salary is seized by the IRS.

So after hearing about the third such instance of this tax evasion with Obama’s cabinet members, I decided to email Obama and team through the new Whitehouse.gov site. Here’s what I had to say with the limited 400 characters they give you:

“Your cabinet pics are becoming highly questionable, what else has been hidden & overlooked by your team? Why were these tax issues overlooked? Why, as commander-in-chief did you not perform background, credit, & all the other checks that the rest of us American’s must face now when applying for a new job? And why have you not publicly addressed this yet with the nation? Every other occurrence like this is whittling away at an already precarious trust and faith in government. Please take action!”

I hope this is the end of it. But if Obama’s administration heads any further south our countries issues have only just begun smoldering. I’m doubtful this will be the last we hear though and I wouldn’t be surprised if the accusations lead straight to Obama himself at some point.

p.s. For the record, I voted for Ron Paul in the primaries.
–
Update 7:45pm EST: I’m happy to see Obama’s stepped forward to address these mistakes today.

Today was inauguration day for the 44th president of the US. Obviously.

It was interesting to watch through a wide range of channels: TV and Twitter mostly, RSS feeds, Google News, CurrentTV, etc. And for the first time that I recall seeing, satellite imagery’s been taken; an impressive view from space:

It was definitely an inspiring event, even if for nothing other than the scale of its production. From the crowd control and transpo logistics, to porta-potties and parking, it must have been a nightmare of an operation, no matter how well rehearsed.

One thing I didn’t hear mentioned about the inauguration ceremony was its environmental footprint and what steps, if any, the inauguration committee had or would take to mitigate this. Probably nothing. Not a great way to begin a presidency pushing for cleaner and green days, but then maybe it was beyond Obama’s control.

Still it would have been nice to hear of some initiative to address this too.

Tristan and I were hoping the delivery would be today as the contractions started coming on around 3 and have been holding steady on and off since then. But so far no dice. Just a lot of time watching the inaugural coverage, the clock and Twitter.

Anyway, many wishes for safe travels to everyone who’s made the trek to DC!