This Week In Philly

Well, I can't believe another week has passed. Time sure has been going by very fast. Easter Sunday was already a week ago! My Easter Sunday wasn't too exciting. I caught the subway early in the morning, and when I got home, I had 2 big packages from home waiting for me. Thanks to my mom, I didn't get to miss out on all the Easter candy that I was craving for. Later that morning I went to church for the first time since I've been here. The last time i was at church was at Christmas, so I think I am now officially a Christmas-Easter person. After church I went over to Greenbergs house to watch the Flyers-Devils game. I think Philly must have used al ltheir energy the day before, because they looked TERRIBLE! Well, combone a terrible Flyers team with a red hot Devils team and...the outcome wasn't pretty at all. Sunday night was a quiet night for me. I think I just stayed in and watched tv.

Monday was just a regular day at the office, but at night our hockey team had another game. We definately looked like the Flyers did, because when the 3rd period rolled around, we were down 5-1. I don't know what happened to me out there, but in the middle of the 2nd period I just hit a wall (metaphorically of course, I do know how to stop myself from hittig the boards) But right in the middle of a shift I lost all my energy. My quads were locking up and when my shift was done, I could barely get myself over the boards and onto the bench. The good news about the game was I finally got onto the score sheet! Well, it's not really good news, because I got a 2 minute "roughing" penalty...seriously, I just bumped a guy with my shoulder as he was skaing into the zone and they called me for a bodycheck. Nevermind that later in the game I slashed a guy in the back of the legs and got away with it (I guess I made it look innocent enough....as innocent as you can make a slash to somebody's legs look). The game continued to get ugly, they made it 6-1 after taking advantage of the fact that nobody on our team had any energy left whatsoever. We were short 4 players to begin with, then one of our players got ejected for fighting, so we were down 5 players by the end of the game. The final score was 6-3, but that's because the other team let up a bit. Our record right now is 1-2-1, so we have a practice tonight to get back into shpae.

Tuesday was a fun night as well. It was a typical day at the office, but I had to stay and run the inflatable at the 76ers Block Party. It was their final home game of the year, and I really didn't know why we had to stay out and celebrate for a team that was not going to the playoffs....but the game was almost sold out because it was potentially Allen Iverson's final home game. Following the Block Party, I went over to the Lucky Dog in Lafayette Hill to meet up with my boss for the traditional Tuesday night "Random Trivia Night". What they do for that is each table makes a little team for themselves, and there's 6 rounds of trivia. The winning team at the end gets a prize. It was a very happy place, because the Flyers were beating the Islanders, the Senators were beating the Rangers and the Canadiens were beating the Devils. So, being with a family of Flyers fans (I was at the table with my boss, his mom and his wife) We call team the "Atlantic Division Champions" Well, now that we gave ourselves that premature nickname, the only natural thing would be for the Devils to come back against Montreal....which they did, scoring 3 3rd period goals. So the Devils won the Division, but even better....we won the trivia contest that night! We allw on crappy hats...you know the ones with the massive brims, kinda like the hat that the kid wore in the Sandlot. Oh well, it was free, I wasn't gonna complain.

Thursday was a really fun day. It was 84 degrees and during the lunch hour, my boss and another coworker went into Center City to scout out the area for the Playoff pep Rally that we were hosting. The party was scheduled for Friday afternoon, but we needed to look at the area and get some ideas of how we could set up for the event. The event was at The Shops of Liberty Place, and if you've ever seen pictures of Philly, Liberty towers are the two (almost) twin towers that stand out atop the skyline. In between the buildings, they have a nice rotunda with shops and a big food court. This was my first time in Center City on the west side of Broad Street. I love Center City...unlike Detroit, there's lots to do downtown, it's safe, people were all out enjoying themselves. Being that it was such a nice day, the streets were packed, you could smell food from the outdoor cafes and courtyards. It's a really neat place to be. Funny thing happened while we were eating...I actually ran into somebody I knew in a crowded shopping center! Pretty odd that out of the tens of thousands of people out and about in Center City, I run into Dan Greenberg and one of his friends. We talked for a bit, but then we had to get back to the Wachovia Center.

Friday was a really fun day. We got to Liberty Place at 11 and started to set up for the big rally. I was really surprised at how well it turned out to be. I would say that at any given time, there were 400 people there. Former players Bernie Parent (Hall of Fame goaltender) and Bob kelly were there, and there were lots of giveaways. Everyone in attendance had a great time, and I really enjoyed it too...the Flyers really know how to get people excited for the playoffs. Following the pep rally, we went back to work and Katey and I had to run the inflatable at the Philadelhia Soul game (the Soul is the Arena Football League team....I really don't know why they had a Block Party....Arena Football gets like what, 300 fans at a game?). I was really tired when I got home, so I decided to have a quiet night here.

Saturday was a miserable day....it just poured rain all day. I didn't have any plans whatsoever, but I ended up getting a call from the Greenbergs. They were having a dinner party tonight with some of their friends and they invited me over. I guess I was taking Dan's place because he was up at State College visiting friends at Penn State. The dinner was great, and we all hung around after to watch the Flyers game. It was really a great game, a double-OT thriller, but the Flyers came up short. Either way, I still had fun...had a great meal and watched a good hockey game. As for today....nothing on the schedule except hockey practice tonight. As always, I'll keep you updated at a later date!