2009 in Review

It has been fun 2009, I hate to see you go.
In fact, I am not really sure where you went.
Maybe it was the booze.
Maybe I was busy.
Maybe it was a combination of both. Now that it is almost the end of 2009 and many best of the decade specials are appearing it's time to review the best, the worst, and the unrecorded of 2009. I would like to note that the first decade of the 21st century started in 2001 and lasts until 2010. I am not sure what decade is ending with 2009 since 2000 was actually part of both the 20th Century and the 1990s. Aside from that, couldn't we celebrate the best of the decade every year since there were 9 previous years? I guess it could be said for every arbitrary 365 days and thereby my 2009 year in review would quickly become pointless. So forget most of what I just said and read what accompanies the pictures below.

I am sitting in the parlor of Pics of Me in Front of Stuff Manor watching the Temple Owls play in their first bowl game in 30 years, listening to the wind howl outside, and marveling at how Al Golden, Temple's football coach is dressed in a shirt and tie with no coat. My 2010 New Year's resolutions should include being as Bad-Ass as Al Golden. Being more bad-ass, in a good way, should be in everyone's New Year's Resolutions.

Just like the end and like most of the years I have existed, my 2009 started off with a lot of football.

I watched it in Baltimore with This Guy and Mets Fan.

Remember when 2008 was the Summer of the Bearfight?

I watched the Eagles lose another NFC Championship game first hand with the Official Father of Pics of Me In Front of Stuff in Arizona.

CP and I watched the Super Bowl in 3D two weeks later.

It was an exciting year to watch me some football. Every time Hank Williams ask me if I am ready for some football my answer is usually yes.

Football more or less exited the discussion on Pics of Me In Front of Stuff after that game. This is probably due to the season being over. Most of the rest of the first quarter of the year was locked in PA/NY/NJ including a trip to where the 3 borders of those states intersected. Without football, the highlight of the winter of 2009 was probably a trip to the top of the Empire State Building for a wedding on Valentine's Day. Throw in a wedding with a Bear Fight, a Polar Bear Plunge, and a random Belly Dancer and the winter gave way to spring.

I am glad she was not hairy like a bear because there seemed to be a theme developing... Also I was eating and she was dancing close to my food.

The end of winter brought the beginning of baseball season. It does this every year. Unfortunately, the Phillies title defense started with the loss of their longtime play-by-play announcer Harry Kalas. The Phils now play High Hopes after every game in his honor. I hope that is the beginning of a tradition. The world is a little sadder with his loss. The baseball season went on without HK and I was present for Brad Lidge ending his save streak, the Phillies first trip to New Yankee Stadium, idiot Phillies fans shining laser pointers at Albert Pujols, and rode the 7 Train with Jeff Franceour's wife. I also learned that you can visit the home plate that was found in Veteran's Stadium before the dump was torn down and replaced by the current stadiums in Philadelphia.

It is in the middle of a parking lot. This should not be a surprise since the turf was considered as hard as concrete when the Vet still stood.

The Phillies won just as many World Series there as they have in Citizens Bank Ballpark. Thank God they moved. Aside from visiting the Phillies this summer, Pics of Me in Front of Stuff also took a trip to Hawaii. Maybe you saw the 9 posts regarding Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historic Park, Kilaueua Lava Flow, Mauna Kea, Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, the southernmost bar in the US, liquid aloha, South Point, and the Kona Half-Marathon. Fortunately for all of my readers, I seem to have lost the shirtless pictures of me from our day at the beach in Hawaii. I will be sure to save some of those for next year in Pics of Me in Front of Stuff Gone Wild.

Finally, there is the overriding goal of Pics of Me in Front of Stuff - visiting all 50 states. The journey started off a bit slow this year, not reaching Maine until after Memorial Day. Hawaii was already cleared off the list when I visited over the summer. Fortunately, CP and I took a road trip through the Southeast US at the beginning of December. The event is still undocumented on Pics of Me in Front of Stuff, but if you think Hawaii was thoroughly described wait until you start hearing about exciting places like Birmingham, Alabama and Hamburg, Arkansas!

Here's a preview of the whirlwind roadtrip I drug CP on to start off December. This trip helped me reach states 28 through 32. That leaves 18 to go with just under 2 years to accomplish it. You can imagine what next year's road trip looks like.

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With that said, the year is coming to an end and we at Pics of Me in Front of Stuff would like to wish all of you a Happy New Year. Look for bigger and better things in 2010!

Angelo Bertelli

'Pennsylvania takes its football seriously.'
So says the link on ESPN to a story on the Manheim Central football team. One player from Manheim Central's 2003 state championship team told me that a teacher told him winning the state championship will go down as the greatest thing he ever did!

As a swing state in November, PA has gotten plenty of attention from the political parties but we Pennsylvanians do not get the constant prep football props that California, Texas, and Florida do. However, you need look no further than the Professional Football Hall of Fame to see that the gridiron glory is a Pennsylvania tradition. The Keystone State has 26 inductees, second to only Texas with 27. Moreover, PA just defeated Ohio in the first round of ESPN's competition for who has the best high school football to make it the final four with the 3 overpublicized heavyweights mentioned above. PA and OH were unfortunate to face one another in the first round because I feel both states may not have the vaunted speed of the above 3, but playing in the heat and humidity of preseason camp as well as the blustery cold of the late season games allows PA and OH to produce tougher players than the other 3 possibly could. Heat wears players out, but cold makes even the stoutest player shiver. Everything hurts more in the cold.

Right now, I bet you are asking, 'What does PA football have to do with http://www.picsofmeinfrontofstuff.blogspot.com/?' I write it, I am from PA, I am obsessed with football and recently I have taken to seeing the final resting spots of my football forefathers. So I have mentioned one so far, but now you can increase that count by one as I have gone to visit the grave of the 1943 Heisman Trophy Winner, Angelo Bertelli. That is a 100% increase all for the sake of my faithful blog readers!


Legerdemain is not a word I use in my everyday vocabulary or ever really, but it was the first word in the first draft of this blog. That's right, I actually proof read this!!!! I will assume most of the people reading this do not know what legerdemain means, in fact if not for the downright necessity for literacy when using the internet I would assume most of the people looking at this can not even read. That is if I had friends, they would look at this blog, but if there were people dumb enough to want to hang out with me I would assume they could not read as well. Of course, if you look at the previous post you would note that there is clearly a picture of me with other people who appear to be having a wonderful time.

It is amazing what a few beers will do.

Getting back to the SAT word mentioned earlier in this posting, legerdemain, according to dictionary.com, is sleight of hand and/or someone who performs of sleight of hand.

Example: The accountants at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were excellent at accounting legerdemain.

Legerdemain is also the word used to describe the exploits of 1943 Heisman Trophy Winner Angelo Bertelli in the Notre Dame Football team's backfield.[1] Obviously, Bertelli was a damned good football player and since 1) I am obsessed with football 2) Bertelli's final resting place is in north Jersey[2] and 3) I am clearly weird enough to take pictures of me in front of graves wearing my college football jersey I decided to visit Mr. Bertelli's grave.

Unfortunately, saying a small prayer at the grave of Coach Lombardi did not guarantee gridiron victory for my favorite football teams, (PSU won, while both sets of Eagles – Philadelphia and Juniata – lost) it did give me something to do on a lovely Wednesday evening. With that in mind, a few weeks later I found myself following directions, despite the incredible cost of gasoline, to another Italian-American gridiron hero who had passed on. Once there I paid my respects to Mr. Bertelli, took the picture below, and returned home.

If you read all that you will see that after ~650 words I actually I described the trip in approximately 15. Who knew the trip would be so brief?

[1] Angelo Bertelli. Heisman.com
[2] Angelo Bertelli. Findagrave.com