In case you were wondering...

My softball team still sucks.

The Man at ASU

Well, Ken spent 7 hours at Sun Devil Stadium yesterday waiting for and listening to Obama. He was not disappointed. I'm sure you can here his speech on many websites. It was a very good one - especially since the main point of it revolved around the honorary degree controversy. I hope you get a chance to listen to it. Ken was extremely moved, as was I just listening to it on the TV.

Here is a picture of BO with the six Obama scholars that were selected to sit on the stage and then meet him. I think ASU came through with flying (although hot) colors yesterday.

Obama at ASU (the Daily Show)

Hey, everyone!
Tonight's the big night, but did you see the Daily Show with John Stewart last night? Aw, it makes our students look sooooo bright!

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=227327&title=arizona-state-snubs-obama

Closet Renovation

Before

After

Well I got in a little over my head with this project but in the end it turned out great and I learned how to drywall, run electrical line, and install cedar and closet systems. I have a lot more photos on my cell phone and a video I took with my new flip camera but the FLICKR PHOTOS set pretty shows you everything.

Two Write-ups

Both of them pretty much suck but everyone keeps telling me that all press is good press. After months of trying to get someone to write about us, my wish came true.
Philadelphia Weekly
Philadelphia Metro Paper

Happy Administrative Assistant Day! I Love You

After my rude awakening of being fined for being a considerate recycler I was greeted at work with a warm breakfast, a card and a gift certificate to the bookstore for being the awesomest Administrative Assistant ever. It made my day and made me appreciate how lucky I am to like where I work because I find what I do important and other people appreciate me.

Happy Earth Day Philadelphia! I Hate You!

For the past few years I've tried my hardest to do my part in becoming more Green. It's influenced my decisions at work, as a homeowner and as a human. I have joined every email list, signed every petition, voted, pleaded, begged, and cursed to get Philadelphia to practice better recycling methods.
Today (Earth Day) the City of Philadelphia has shat upon those efforts with a turd of irony by invoking a $25 fine on me, Martin Brown, for failing to separate my trash from recycling, when in fact I put out my trash last night and my recycling out this morning (because there was a thunderstorm last night and I thought it inconsiderate to put out a tub of newspaper and cardboard only to get sopping wet).
Way to institute something that's broken to try and fix something that's already broken.
F you Philadelphia and Happy Earth Day!

New News

I don't have anything very exciting to show visually so I'm just attaching the last random picture I took with my cell phone. Pretty soon I will have pics from my first major home renovation: the demolition of my faux fireplace. This is a direct result of needing more closet space; a direct result of Sarah moving in with me this summer (she has a lot of shoes). There will be 3 people in the house, a little tight, but I don't think anyone will be complaining about the lower costs which will certainly be welcome right now.

The band played last night after a 6 week hiatus due to Sam's wife having a baby. The crowd could have been better but it felt great to make music again.

I'm pretty much living for my summer vacation right now. This will be the first time I will have taken off work for more than 2 consecutive days since I joined the work force in September 2005. I rented a house in Cape Cod for one week w/ Sarah. Hopefully mom and El will be able to join us for part of that week. Sarah's Dad even wants to come check it out and he never leaves PA.

Not much else new. Hope the rest of you are starting to see signs of spring as well.

Winter paintings

I'm getting tired of gray skies and rain, even if it is good for the garden, so I started some paintings based on sketches I did last summer when the days were long and sunny. I'm trying to get enough painting done to be in open studios at the end of April, but life seems to be getting in the way all too often...

LADD at the HRC

Tonight I was invited to participate with LADD at the Human Rights Campaigns annual gala. We were on the bill along with Wanda Sykes, Mayor Antonio Villarigosa, T.R. Knight and Senator Dianne Feinstein. I will have more pictures when they get published, but we were on the news! Follow the link below for video - you can see me and the girls on stage with Wanda. I managed to spend all night on stage on skates and NOT fall off - quite the achievement....

http://www.cbs2.com/video/?id=96493@kcbs.dayport.com