Well, it's here. I'm about to leave my condo to head to my sister's apartment so she can drive me to the airport tomorrow morning super early. Then it's on to Tokyo with a one day stop in San Francisco for some orientation meetings and dinner at the Consul General's residence.
The rest of my thoughts on the trip will be posted in my trip blog at:
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Back to Drum Corps
The Spirit of Newark New Jersey are pleased to announce Izzy Delgado as their Visual Designer and Matt Mingle as the Caption Head for their Visual Program.
Izzy Delgado has been involved as a visual designer, instructor, and adjudicator for several years. He spent his marching days in the horn lines of both the Raiders Drum and Bugle Corps and the Bushwackers Drum and Bugle Corps. Upon aging out from the Raiders in 2000, he joined their visual staff in 2001 and went on to become the visual caption head in 2003 and 2004. Currently Izzy is the program coordinator and visual designer for both the Sayreville HS Marching Band and Winter Guard, who have each won a circuit championship during his tenure. He has served as drill designer and visual caption head for the NY Skyliners Drum and Bugle Corps, and was the drill designer for the Vision Elite Drum and Bugle Corps. Izzy has also designed drill for several high school marching bands in New Jersey.Izzy is currently on the design staff for the Fusion Color Guard. He also serves on the Mid Atlantic Indoor Network Task Force and is a Visual Adjudicator for the US Scholastic Band Association.
Matt Mingle is a graduate of the University of Delaware where he earned his B.A. in History Education. He currently teaches Social Studies at Ridge High School in Basking Ridge, NJ while pursuing a Master’s degree in Educational Administration from the University of Scranton. Matt has taught and designed for a number of bands (most recently Park Ridge, Ridge and Bridgewater-Raritan High Schools) and drum corps (Jersey Surf, Phoenix) in the central and northern New Jersey areas and has served as a visual adjudicator for the United States Scholastic Band Association since 2004. He resides in Hillsborough, New Jersey.
We are very excited to have Izzy and Matt on staff and we look forward to a successful collaboration with them here at the Spirit of Newark/New Jersey.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Streets of Philadelphia
Last Saturday (10/28), Ali and I drove into Philly. We had a pretty full day considering we didn't really make the plans until the day before.
We left Princeton at about 9:15 and were into Center City just a couple minutes after 10. By the time we left, the rain had cleared and, while there was heavy wind, it wasn't too cold. We parked in the Kimmel Center garage, picked up our Philadelphia Orchestra tickets and wandered the streets looking for a non-Starbucks coffee shop. That didn't work out so we wound up sitting in Starbucks for a bit. It was fun watching a father with his young daughter there. She was all dressed up for her trip to see the Orchestra.
I bought the tickets on Friday night after seeing info about the Shostakovich Birthday Party on gophilly.com. They had $5 tickets (plus $5.50 transaction fee) available so we sat in the upper tier, but center stage. We could see everything and sound was good from where we were. It was a special family series performance that included a spoken play between the movements of Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony. The Kimmel Center was really nice and I hope to get back there for a full performance sometime.
Then, we wandered the streets again, this time looking for a place to eat lunch. We ended up at the Letto (Lettuce Tomato) Diner. While I enjoyed my cheesteak wrap, a group of trick-or-treaters came in for their own lunches. It seems Saturday was some sort of Halloween celebration in Philly as we say a number of people in costume.
After lunch, we got in the car and headed to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Mutter Museum. We were a bit limited in our browsing time due to the meter we parked at unfortunately. There were some pretty interesting exhibits in the museum on the human body including lots on conjoined twins, deformities and other unusual medical oddities. Clearly Philadelphia is obssessed with Benjamin Franklin as we couldn't escape him anywhere we went.
Then we made our way to the Eastern State Penitentiary since we had about 90 minutes before it closed. We had plenty of time to do the self-guided audio tour of the prison complex. It was pretty interesting to see what this maximum-security prison was like. As the first of its kind, it has been emulated throughout the world. As much of the complex has not been restored (it was abandoned between 1971 and the mid 1990s so many areas are in disrepair), we got looks into some interested areas that were crumbling. The most famous resident was Al Capone whom enjoyed quite a luxurious cell during his stay. There is a nightly Halloween tour available that we didn't stay for. Given the dark, foreboding nature of this fortress-like facility, I imagine that would be quite an experience to say the least.
We were on the road back to NJ by 5pm, home by 6 after a full day. While I tend to think of NY as "the city" because of its geographic location, it's much easier and more convenient to get into Philadelphia so maybe I'll make that more of a habit.
We left Princeton at about 9:15 and were into Center City just a couple minutes after 10. By the time we left, the rain had cleared and, while there was heavy wind, it wasn't too cold. We parked in the Kimmel Center garage, picked up our Philadelphia Orchestra tickets and wandered the streets looking for a non-Starbucks coffee shop. That didn't work out so we wound up sitting in Starbucks for a bit. It was fun watching a father with his young daughter there. She was all dressed up for her trip to see the Orchestra.
I bought the tickets on Friday night after seeing info about the Shostakovich Birthday Party on gophilly.com. They had $5 tickets (plus $5.50 transaction fee) available so we sat in the upper tier, but center stage. We could see everything and sound was good from where we were. It was a special family series performance that included a spoken play between the movements of Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony. The Kimmel Center was really nice and I hope to get back there for a full performance sometime.
Then, we wandered the streets again, this time looking for a place to eat lunch. We ended up at the Letto (Lettuce Tomato) Diner. While I enjoyed my cheesteak wrap, a group of trick-or-treaters came in for their own lunches. It seems Saturday was some sort of Halloween celebration in Philly as we say a number of people in costume.
After lunch, we got in the car and headed to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Mutter Museum. We were a bit limited in our browsing time due to the meter we parked at unfortunately. There were some pretty interesting exhibits in the museum on the human body including lots on conjoined twins, deformities and other unusual medical oddities. Clearly Philadelphia is obssessed with Benjamin Franklin as we couldn't escape him anywhere we went.
Then we made our way to the Eastern State Penitentiary since we had about 90 minutes before it closed. We had plenty of time to do the self-guided audio tour of the prison complex. It was pretty interesting to see what this maximum-security prison was like. As the first of its kind, it has been emulated throughout the world. As much of the complex has not been restored (it was abandoned between 1971 and the mid 1990s so many areas are in disrepair), we got looks into some interested areas that were crumbling. The most famous resident was Al Capone whom enjoyed quite a luxurious cell during his stay. There is a nightly Halloween tour available that we didn't stay for. Given the dark, foreboding nature of this fortress-like facility, I imagine that would be quite an experience to say the least.
We were on the road back to NJ by 5pm, home by 6 after a full day. While I tend to think of NY as "the city" because of its geographic location, it's much easier and more convenient to get into Philadelphia so maybe I'll make that more of a habit.
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