Trump Plaza - Atlantic City, NJ

The Donald's voice saying 'Welcome to the Trump Plaza Casino, the best casino along the best boardwalk in the world' should be played via recording upon entering said casino. Not because it's true, but because that's how the Donald rolls.

Regardless of its standing amongst casinos, I ended up visiting the Trump Plaza Casino Friday night with several of my fellow Merck employees and Melissa on a booze bus trip. The running joke throughout the week was that I was riding the bus with a bunch of blue-haired old ladies going to play the penny slots and drink free versions of whatever it is blue-haired old ladies drink - whiskey sours and white wine spritzers is what I imagine. While everyone but Melissa was older than me, I would not categorize any of them as old. There were even some other dudes.

Aside from being dudes, everyone drank and gambled way too much for me to imagine them as old ladies.

I joined in on the festivities with them, I was not about to let them show me up. I am no Olga, the Travelling Bra, but I try. Aside from a creepy bald dude hitting on every single one of the older women who rode the bus with me, as well as my lack of luck at the tables the night ended without mishap.

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

St. Lunacy in June....-acy

Phils battling the Braves; Phils in first place. Reminds me of when the Fightin's should have been in first place to stay. It was June and I was in St. Louis knocking Missouri off the list. Matt and Ben and I were in town to enjoy beer, baseball, and the Arch - the Holy Trinity of St. Louis.

Justin was with us as well, to serve as fodder for our incessant Mets jokes.

This was a surprisingly easy picture to take on the Friday night we spent in St. Louis. Bearfights will do that to a man.

Bearfight = jaeger-bomb followed by car bomb followed by inebriation.

Not surprising, our load was basically shot following those poor decisions. I did manage to see the Arch, but the combination of the heat and the hangover killed any ambitions we may have had for drunken debauchery. Some of us were more affected than others.

Luckily, I accomplished my twin goals of enjoying a baseball game and seeing the Arch in St. Louis!

Go Phils!