The Bronx Zoo - The Bronx

I wrote this during the dark days of the All Star Break....
Let's Go Phillies! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap
Let's Go Phillies! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap
Let's Go Phillies! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap
Let's Go Phillies! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap
Let's Go Phillies! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap
Let's Go Phillies! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap 

I am seriously lost without the Phillies on tonight.
Cliff Lee scored more runs than the rest of the Phillies on Saturday .

The Fightin's laid two touchdowns on the Braves on Sunday.
Somehow Ryan Howard did not make the home run derby on Monday night.  
Seriosuly, Prince? 
Rickie Weeks?

 Seriously?

At least you may have clinched home field advantage for the Phils in the World Series.
Who's excited?

Everybody was excited even this guy in the Bronx Zoo.

It might be for Jeter's 3,000th hit today., I guess.  Remember, Cliff Lee hit just as many home runs as Derek Jeter the same day and Cliff also struck out 9 Braves.  How many people did Derek Jeter strike out?
Any guesses?

 Just going to sleep there?  Typical Yankees fans, ignorant to the other 29 baseball teams.  
Surprised they even know the other 29 teams exist.
You can probably guess it was tough living here in November of 2009 when the stupid asshole Yankees beat my beloved Fightin's in the World Series.
Let's just say Jeter has fewer career wins than the Phillies' back-up shortstop and I like it that way.
I have been to Yankee Stadium before, but this Mother's Day I took the Official Mom of PoMiFoS to somewhere else nearby, the Bronx Zoo.  She wanted to see the baby animals and since I have not provided her with any baby humans to fawn over yet, she had to settle for some other young mammals.

Look at that little orange fella.  Ain't he cute?

Speaking of babies, how the Hell is Juan Perez 32? 

He looks like he's 15.  I wander if he is the anti-Tejada and lied the wrong way on his birth certificate.  Regardless, he keeps pitching like he has the games before the All-Star Break, I do not care how old he is.

Back to the baby animals.

He's a cute little...deer...thing...ain't he?

 And so are these guys.

And I'm sure if that little guy is still alive he is darling as well.

I'm pretty sure he moved while we were passing by.

Surprisingly, that was really the extent of the baby animals running or laying around on Mother's Day.  Mom still had a great time and I was pleasantly surprised by the zoo.  Given that it was in the Bronx, I was concerned it would be rather ghetto.  Honestly, old Yankee Stadium was a rundown dump.  Take away the 26 World Championships and the place was a rundown old stadium.  If that was the highlight of the Bronx before the new stadium was built, then I imagine the lesser lights could be nothing but disappointing.  Little did I know the same organization that runs the Bronx Zoo runs all of the zoos in New York City including the Central Park Zoo, you know the one with the bad-ass penguins in the movie Madagascar.  With that said, they had plenty of non-baby animals.

There were lions

and tigers

and turtles

Oh my.
Let's not forget the Official Favorite Animal of PoMiFoS, the Polar Bear.

I love polar bears.  Maybe not as much as the Phillies, but if the Phillie Phanatic was in a fight to the death with a polar bear, I'm not sure who I would be cheering for.  Paint some red pinstripes on the big white guy above and suddenly he's a pholar bear.  Sounds like an interesting idea to me.  Fortunately, this is a dilemma that will probably never come up.  Since it was Mother's Day, it was for the best because she's a big phan of the Phanatic. So it was a great day to spend with the Official Mom and Step Dad of PoMiFoS.  We saw lots of animals and had a lovely time at the Bronx Zoo.  Everyone should go.

Reading Phillies - First Energy Stadium - Reading, PA

If you're read just about any post in the history of Pics of Me in Front of Stuff outside aside from the first one way back in September 2008, you probably know I have a healthy fanhood (obsession?) for the Philadelphia Phillies. Use the search field on my blog and see how many blogs pop up from the word 'Phillies'.  Is Phillies a word?  They have been known to affect my attire as well as my facial hair so is it any surprise they have dominated my blog?  People thought I was going to die at Photo Day from a combination of the heat and mononucleosis.  I'm listening to Scott Franzke and Larry Anderson call the Phillies-Marlins game as I type this.  It's safe to say I am a Phan.
And also that Vance Worley is a good pitcher.  Ask Dustin Pedroia.
Before all of that came into fruition, when the Phillies were awful during most of childhood, I was a frequent visitor to their AA affiliate in Reading, the cleverly named Reading Phillies.  I spent a large portion of my childhood living down the street, like 10 blocks from the epicenter of Baseballtown.  I'm not really sure how Reading captured that moniker.  The local high school is best known for it's basketball team.  Lenny Moore (Former NFL All-Pro), Donyell Marshall (former NBA player and  All-American at UConn and he lived across the street from me) and Stu Jackson former (former coach of the Knicks and current NBA executive) are the most notable athletic alumni.  In the Rabbit series, John Updike gave an unflattering description of the people he grew up around in nearby Shillington.  But he was a Red Soz fan so he can go fuck himself.  Taylor Swift was born in Wyomissing, the Snob Hill of Berks County, and she sang the National Anthem before Game 3 of the 2008 World Series.

In case you missed it, the Phillies won that one.
Before she was a household name she sang the Star Spangled Banner before a Reading Phillies game.  Sadly, that's the best native I can come up with as a link to the Baseballtown moniker.
Here's where she sang:

 First Energy Stadium

  Here I am in First Energy Stadium

Ryan Howard just struck out again.
Here's some of the Official Family of PoMiFoS who were lucky enough to watch the game with me.

There was an actual baseball game that night as well.  The R-Phils bear the Richmond Flying Squirrels (not the River Rats like some people told me) 7-4.  J.C. Ramirez (not J.C. Romero who used to be a left-handed reliever for the Phils) started for the Phils and stuck out 9 over 6 innings while allowing 4 runs via 2 honers to Richmond 1B Wes Hodges, who actually has a Wikipedia entry. Here's the young J.C. (not Romero and not The JC...ya know, that Messiah guy) warming up.    

Thank goodness Michael Martinez just hit an RBI single.
Honestly, I love going to baseball games regardless of who's playing anymore.  The weather and the beer and the food and the friends almost always add up to a great time.  The weather was nice, the beer was cold, and I was with family I love, see above.  The food was a little disappointing though cheaper than the usual Major League fair.  Sadly, the Rita's Water Ice line stretched throughout the grandstand.  A nice woman in front of us informed us the line was about '2 to 3 innings long'.  The food was not Major League quality, but Minor League teams really try to entertain their fans.  For the R-Phils, this includes but is not limited to:

A mascot band

Reading has 5 mascots, from (L-R): Bucky, Screwball, Quack, Change Up, and Blooper.  Screwball has been there since my childhood, the other 4 are more recent additions.  To watch them play classic rock was a little bizarre.  To watch them play classic rock poorly and hear Quack, the lead singer, say he's proof you don't need to have talent to have fun playing rock n' roll was hilarious.  Along with the 5 mascots, the Reading features another character called Crazy Hotdog Vendor.

The picture does not do him justice.  Check out his Facebook page at the link above.

They also feature a dance squad.

That's right, a dance squads aka cheerleaders.  

There's no dance squads in baseball.  No crying either.

If Antonio Bastardo blows the save for the game I'm listening to, I may cry.
But really, minor league teams know how to entertain their fans.  The AA Phils ended their night with a fundraiser involving throwing tennis ball on the field.  The proceeds of which went towards the widow of Kyle Pagerly, a local policeman killed in the line of duty.  All those tennis balls helped raise over $1300 for his family.

Bastardo just shut the door on the Fish, but thinking about what all those tennis balls were for makes you realize baseball is not worth crying over.  But enough of being a downer, the night ended on a fantastic fireworks display just beyond the scoreboard.  I read a snarky twitter post regarding poorly taken photos of fireworks so I stowed my camera and just watched.  I've subjected you to enough poorly taken photos for one sitting.  I'll be back with some poorly taken photos later this week.

Indianapolis Motorspeedway - Indianapolis, IN - State No 40

How is the quest for all 50 states going, Kyle?

I just want to give it my best shot, and the good Lord willing, things will work out.

 So what does one do in Indiana?  It's not one of the sexy, exciting states that gets numerous blog posts like Hawaii.  There's no Major League Baseball team to wait for the Phillies to visit either.  There is the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in downtown Indianapolis.

During PoMiFoS's visit, there was also a FFA convention or The FFA Convention or some big deal for the FFA that weekend.   For those of you who don't know, FFA stands for Future Farmer's of America.  Apparently it's a big deal in rural high schools.  The Official High School of PoMiFoS was rural and there was an active FFA chapter there, but being neither a current farmer nor a future farmer at the time, I did not participate.  I stuck with the football team.  I am no longer a football player and I am still not a farmer though some of the locals in New Jersey may link me to them.  Country music is great, but I am among the least country of my friends.  Regardless of my participation in agriculture or lack thereof, I saw about 10000 adolescents and teens wearing their navy flue FFA jackets proclaiming their home state.  Here is one from Colorado. 

Many of them wandered around Indianapolis on their first trip to the big city.  There were giggles galore and when I was among large groups of them, the hormones were palpable.  Farmers are awkward when they're teenagers, too.  When Little Farmer Johnnie fantasizes about taking Little Farmer Janie to the barn dance and holds out for a roll in the hay, there really is hay involved.  And they know the difference between hay (dried grass) and straw (dried stalks of grain).  

Hay

Straw

And everyone knows, all good boys and girls from the country love watching cars go round in circles.  So does PoMiFoS and where better to do that than the location of the The Great American Race, the Indy 500.  Not surprisingly he majority of the FFA Conventioneers were at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway the same time as PoMiFoS or at least it felt that way.  They filled the lobby and museum of the Motor Speedway and also took up most of the space on my tour bus.  If I were a better storyteller/photographer you'd see some photos of the multitude of navy blue jackets filing past racecars and kissing the bricks at the start-finish line.  Hell, you'd see the bricks at the start-finish line.  Instead you get a photo of the gate and a poorly taken one at that.

There ya go.  Enjoy!

Fortunately, the tour did more than just go to the gate.  I went to the gate myself.  I would have been pissed if I paid $20 (or however much I spent) for just that.  No, the tour was via bus and it took us for a lap, a slow lap, around the track.  You can both the banking in the turns and our tour guide in the picture below.  Doesn't he just scream tour guide at a race track?

At the very least, that face says NASCAR fan.  Of course, I used to be a semi-regular visitor of NASCAR races myself.  At Martinsville, VA we watched Rusty Wallace's last victory, sat in a truck, drank a lot of beer, and played cornhole.. 

Despite the redneck background, cornhole does not involve squealing like a pig.

Back to the more recent past, the tour took us around the track past landmarks recognizable to those familiar with the race track or the Indy 500 or the Brickyard 500.

The Pagoda and the Yard of Bricks at the Start-Finish Line.

The largest media center in the world!  

No, really, largest in the world.

And the Victory Podium. 

Sadly, I did not have any milk to chug upon completion of the tour.

Be sure to take some milk if you go, unless it's really hot.  If you're a racing fan or a sports fan in general, you really should.