Lessons Learned in Philadelphia

1)  Patience is a virtue - If you wait around long enough, you'll finally get what you want.  I finally got a job!  (more on that to come)

2)  Life without an oven is difficult and often calls for desperate measures and creative cooking techniques.  (see #3)

3)  Frying cookies is a difficult endeavor (see pictures below)

4)  Talking with people can often lead to social situations outside of our apartment, which might possibly even lead to friendships.  

5)  Eagles Rule!! (not really, but we have to say it legally since we live here).  Also, giant inflatable eagle's players in your front yard makes a statement.  

6)  Green TV's lead one to miss the other primary and secondary colors, even if they are better for the environment.  

7)  Alcohol makes a 17% grade hill much easier to hike up, contrary to what one might believe.  

8)  Soapbox derbies are a dangerous and deadly endeavor, especially in the rain.

9)  Menonites can use electricity - hence the shocks given by touching their fences.  

10)  Giant burgers stuffed with peppers and onions, while delicious are too 

11)  "House husbands are the best!!  I haven't done laundry in two weeks!" - Libby

12)  "I'm bored" - Gregg "house husband" Williams

13)  Life is so much better with dishwashers.  Not having one is slowly driving us crazy.

We have been in Philadelphia almost 6 weeks, and the unthinkable has happened - I've gotten a job offer that I'm going to accept.  I will be working at a company which provides thermal oxidizer systems.  So if you're in need, let me know and I'll see about getting you a good price.  My official title will be an application engineer, but because the company is kind of small, I will at times play the role of a project manager, structural engineer, estimator, designer, or any other duty that needs to be filled at the time.  Needless to say I'm excited.  I'm ready to get out of the house every day and make a positive impact on society.  

Libby is doing well at school.  For only 3 weeks of classes, she has produced a staggering amount of work.  She has also found a direction that she might want to go towards with her artwork.  She's enjoying getting the chance to take the train downtown every morning, even if currently she does it while I'm sound asleep in bed. I can let her tell it to you better than I can.

Ahem... lets see, I'm loving having my own studio, an art space that I don't have to clean each time I finish working and worry about getting in someone else's way.  I've been working on a variety of things so far and am enjoying my classes, seminars and getting to know the other students in the program.  Here are some pictures I took of my studio on Satuday:   

What in the hill is going on?

We have been in Philadelphia for almost on a month and I'm finally getting used to walking down and up our 11% grade hill to the train station each day (that's actually a lie but it's what I tell myself). I'm getting used to opening a cookbook and trying to extend my repertoire of entrees past chicken-alfredo pasta, plain chicken with ketchup(or BBQ sauce) and frozen pizzas. I'm getting used to walking past a long line of "customers" checking in for their parole at the court house and then patients loitering in front of a mental retardation clinic on my way to school each day. I'm getting used to going to my studio every day hoping to generate and idea out of nothing and create enough artwork to impress my professors at weekly critiques. I am not however, getting used to life WITHOUT A DISHWASHER! Seriously. Sometimes I think our sink grows dishes when we aren't looking. They never go away. But I guess in the scheme of things its really not that bad and I shouldn't complain.

So. Red Bull Soap Box Derby went out with a bang this weekend, literally, Tropical Storm Hanna showed up for the event. Fortunately for Gregg and I the event took place in our front yard and we could watch from the window as 35+ different teams threw themselves down the steepest hill in Philadelphia, aka the same 11% grade hill that I walk up and down each day. To "protect" the teams' riders Red Bull put hay bails up and down both sides of the street to "cushion" and impact should a team lose control and slide to their doom. I think by some miracle most of the teams made it down relatively unharmed. I say most because at one point in the race a team member was carried up the hill bleeding on a stretcher. It was disturbing to say the least. By 4 o'clock the event was over and 1,000 sopping wet die hard soap box derby fans headed home. That was the Red Bull soap box derby. I will be holding my breath until the next one. We may post some pictures that we took from our windows.
The pictures were taken from our apt window.

Art school is going really well so far. I am quickly getting used to having my own studio and loving it at the same time. This semester I am enrolled in an MFA Drawing and Painting class, a figure modeling class, a seminar with the 16 other students in my program and have weekly individual critiques with professors. I spend most of last week being intimidated but I am off to a great start this week and am really excited for this year. It's funny going to a school where the "campus" is an 11-story building with four elevators and everyone I see is an art student. I'll try to post pictures of some of my artwork as it gets created, I'm always up to input, ideas or title suggestions. Hope everyone is doing well.

Libby

Allow me to get on my soapbox for a minute

So Libby and I have discovered that this weekend, right in front of our house, there will be a Red Bull Soapbox derby. It's apparently a big deal as there are signs for it all over the city. Libby and I live on the top of a hill that is called "the wall in Manayunk". Needless to say it's a steep hill. Well this weekend, people are going to fling themselves down it in their man-made vehicles, and Libby and I are in a prime spot to watch. Should be a good time. I keep hearing from people how it's nothing but a huge party. We'll see if we're able to get any sleep that night. It should be fun though - hopefully we'll have pictures to follow.

Washington, Washington, 6' Tall, Made of Radiation

Libby and I just got back from a 3 day adventure in Washington DC. We visited our friends Dave and Mallory, who recently went through the same adventure that Libby and I went through (marriage, honeymooning, moving). Needless to say, DC kicked our butt. After a night of seeing the Univ. of Maryland campus - where Dave and Mallory both are going to grad school - we walked around the National Zoo, the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, and Arlington National Cemetery. We followed this up with a day of extreme hiking (more details to follow) and tennis. If I don't walk again for a while, I'll be happy.

Libby and I both agree that the coolest thing we saw in DC (other than our friends of course) were the dinosaur skeletons at the Natural History Museum. We had both come to the museum before, but we both had dinosaur-bone-amnesia (a very common disease that affects 1 in 6 humans). We couldn't remember seeing the bones, but were blown away by the shear awesomeness of the life-size recreation of dinosaurs. Then we made our way to the hope diamond, which was a lot smaller than I remember it being.

So about the hiking... we made it out to this very beautiful national park to get out of the city and do a little hiking. For a while we kept mostly to the paved trail but then one of us, I can't remember who, veered off course and started following a "rockier" trail. One hour later, after edging around the sides of cliffs, balancing across jagged rocks and scaling 30 feet cliffs we found a sign for the trail's emergency exit and bailed. Driving home we read a description of the portion of the trail we'd discovered, "Billy Goat's Trail." I can't remember exactly what it said but phrases such as: "tretcherous", "extremely difficult terrain" and "should be attempted only by well prepared and experienced hikers" are what comes to mind...

If Libby and I learned one thing this weekend, it's that we cannot be stopped while playing spades. With the exception of one mishap during a shoe-kicking game, Libby had the world's greatest and farthest reaching winning streak going on for herself. And when her powers were combined with mine in the game of spades - well, the results were disastrous for Dave and Mallory.

Now that we're back from our mini-vacation, the next thing to do is plan for our next vacation! For Libby's birthday, we're going to spend 2 days in NYC, something we're both really excited about. We've never been, but we're both ready to be surrounded by urban building stretching as far as the eye can see. We're staying in a cheap (relative to New York) hotel in Manhattan, and are going to do our best to see as much as we can in 2 days.

On the home front, Libby started school on Thursday, and will have her first full week this upcoming week. She's excited and ready to go into serious artist mode. I'm still looking for an engineering position. I got an offer on Friday, but due to some issues, I am turning down the offer and will continue my search.

That's all for now. We miss everyone a lot, and would love to hear from everyone as to how everyone is doing. I hope everyone is doing well!

Gregg

Stay tuned for a soapbox derby themed blog to come in the near future!