Sunday Funday Philly Style

Actually...we're being good this morning because we have to drive home and go to Bob's 40th Birthday party this afternoon. We've left messages for both of our friends who are supposed to join us for brunch before we leave. We had an awesome time yesterday, visiting several key tourist neighborhoods. We drove through some with explanations about their significance with Merritt, parked in others and did some exploring.

Our first tourist adventure was a drive up Benjamin Franklin Parkway through the Fairmont Area. The street is lined with museums and provides a good glimpse of some cultural opportunities to explore in the city on a longer trip. I would have loved to visit the Rodin Museum. I captured a snapshot of the famous "Rocky" stairs at the art museum. The facade is under construction, but the stairs are certainly recognizable.

We Walked through Old City and did a tour of Betsy Ross' house. I mailed some postcards to Whitney and Cole. While we wanted to go through Constitution Hall, our tickets were for 4 hours later and we decided not to wait. We did a walk by of all the key historic places, but didn't go in most of them.

Merritt use to live in Society Hill so we spent alot of time walking the neighborhood and listening to stories about it. My favorite was the alley by the Countess' house where Merritt was rolled for his groceries.

We drove the full length of South Street and captured some excellent pictures. It reminds me of what the Short North in Columbus used to be. While there are still an abundant number of unique stores and destinations, the likes of Gap, Starbucks, and other mundane chains have moved in to parts of it. The conformity of America. Hate it.

As can be seen from yesterday's post, we had an authentic Cheese Steak in the Southside and also drove through Bella Vista and the Italian Market. It seems more Asian than Italian these days, but you can still feel the history of the neighborhood. One small street still had holiday lights strung across from house to house. Lots of aluminium awnings.

Fag world is along 12th Street in the Washington Square West neighborhood. Our favorite pictures came from a stroll down Quince St. I can't imagine how they drive down the narrow cobblestone Streets in this city. They seem like alleys to me, but Merritt says we can't ever call them that for fear of offending the residents. We returned to this neighborhood and did all the bars in the evening.

Merritt lives in Rittenhouse Square. It is a lovely are filled with exquisite shops and magnificent Brownstones. We also saw some amazing old churches. One was quite gothic, which I love! We also found a little nasty bar called, "The Post," in an alley. Frightening!

Time to get ready for brunch at 11 with one of Timmy's old work customers and our friend Merritt.

The Continental

Dinner in Philly

fun in Philly

doing the sites with Merritt and have to dodo S Philly for a cheesesteak!

Hounddog's

fun times in cmh

what a beautiful day

for a cocktail or two!

Success!

It was a little frustrating to take the new MacBook and Airport back to the Mac store. They both worked perfectly fine. I have no idea what the issue was, but it may have had as much to do with the internet connection as it did with the system. I moved the modem into the living room so it is in the middle of the house. Perhaps there was too much interference in the bedroom with all of our gadgetry plugged into both sides of that wall.

Regardless, it seems to be working now and I have 12 more days to return it if I hate it. Time for bed - exhausted.

Excited about MacBook

So it doesn't work and I was on the phone with AppleCare for over an hour. I went to Solly's to have a cocktail to soften my frustration and ran into acquaintances who own them and swear by them. If the appointment tomorrow at the Apple store resolves these issues I think I'm gonna love it.

MacBook

I rewarded myself with a new MacBook today. It took me all evening to get the Airport Extreme router to work properly, but I finally have a fast connection! After many years of PCs, I'm going to Mac for home use. Hopefully I'll be able to integrate all my movies and pictures into some fun DVDs!

Time for bed as I'm exhausted from staying up late with taxes the last two nights.

Taxes are done!

Here they are! Ready for the post office. I worked 12 hours straight on Sunday and 7 hours straight last night to finish them. Not bad for 2005 and 2006. That's what I get for being a procrastinator. Fortunately I will be getting money back for both years. I may have to pay some penalties for late filing of the LLC, but I will accept that for my stupidity in delaying. Overall I am pleased with the return and proud of being able to accomplish filing in 3 states and 1 city for both personal and corporate returns. I knew I could do it, I was just dreading the process. Thank god for TurboTax! After manually completing the 05 corp returns, I used TurboTax for 05 personal and 06 Corp/Personal.

Tonight I will celebrate - (yes I know it is a school night.)

Poste Moderne Brasserie Review

Editors Note: When I left the Poste Restaurant, there were no managers in sight to discuss my experience. I was told by the hotel front desk that no comment cards were available and that I needed to go online if I wanted to comment. I got the names and email addresses of two restaurant managers, Thomas Hanson & William Silcot, from the website. This email was sent to both of them and I received no reply so I was compelled to post it here (backdated to the date of the original email.)

Poste Managers,

I feel obliged to tell you about our experience at the Poste on Saturday for lunch. While the food was fantastic, obtaining it (especially what we ordered) was a terrible experience. The waitress took the order and then came back to the table because she forgot the requested temperature for the steak. We saw the food being prepared and two men started to carry it in our direction. They stopped and took it back to the counter. I thought perhaps something was missing or wrong, but I had a clear view of the counter and about five minutes later, the same food was delivered to the table.

My friend ordered Truffle Frites with her steak, but obtained Pomme Frites. They promptly corrected this issue, but neither the waitress nor the people assisting her noticed that I had not received my food. Oddly enough, at a table of only four people, they apparently thought I wasn't interested in eating. After I brought it to the attention of the hostess (who brought the corrected frites) the kitchen scrambled to get my order. From the looks of the staff and the review of the order on the terminal, it was fairly clear that the waitress had not entered the order in the first place. When my Grilled Chicken Cobb salad was delivered, I was shocked to find it did not include any chicken. I was not going to wait for this to be corrected and ate it without. The salad was delicious; it wasn't what I ordered. I asked the waitress to only charge me for a side salad since that is what it appeared I had received.

Other than water, our waitress didn't ask for another drink order until all four of us had bone dry glasses. With no offer of coffee or dessert after dining, the check was quickly placed on our table. I guess she thought we were done so we went up the street for coffee.

The waitress made half hearted apologies with every error along the way, but made excuses and blamed everything on the kitchen. I would have respected her more if she admitted her part in the errors. We are all human and humans make mistakes. I was also surprised there was no apology by a manager with such a large number of issues in a single dining experience. This is not the type of service I would expect at what I perceived was a higher level of dining establishment.

Your advertising talks about your competent and capable chef. Unless you also hire competent and capable staff to support him, your restaurant will not be ready for prime time. I'm disappointed we selected the Poste restaurant to entertain out of town guests.

Poste Moderne Brasserie - Hotel Monaco

**Copy of letter to the managers at the Poste Moderne Brasserie - I clearly do not recommend it**

Managers,

I feel obliged to tell you about our experience at the Poste on Saturday for lunch. While the food was fantastic, obtaining it (especially what we ordered) was a terrible experience. The waitress took the order and then came back to the table because she forgot the requested temperature for the steak. We saw the food being prepared and two men started to carry it in our direction. They stopped and took it back to the counter. I thought perhaps something was missing or wrong, but I had a clear view of the counter and about five minutes later, the same food was delivered to the table.

My friend ordered Truffle Frites with her steak, but obtained Pomme Frites. They promptly corrected this issue, but neither the waitress nor the people assisting her noticed that I had not received my food. Oddly enough, at a table of only four people, they apparently thought I wasn't interested in eating. After I brought it to the attention of the hostess (who brought the corrected frites) the kitchen scrambled to get my order. From the looks of the staff and the review of the ordering terminal, it was fairly clear that the waitress had not entered the order in the first place. When my Grilled Chicken Cobb salad was delivered, I was shocked to find it did not include any chicken. I was not going to wait for this to be corrected and ate it without. The salad was delicious; it wasn't what I ordered. I asked the waitress to only charge me for a side salad since that is what it appeared I had received.

Other than water, our waitress didn't ask for another drink order until all four of us had bone dry glasses. With no offer of coffee or dessert after dining, the check was quickly placed on our table. I guess she thought we were done so we went up the street for coffee.

The waitress made half hearted apologies with every error along the way, but also made excuses and blamed everything on the kitchen. I would have respected her more if she took ownership of the situation and turned a negative into a positive. We are all human and humans make mistakes. I was also surprised there was no apology by a manager with such a large number of issues in a single dining experience. This is not the type of service I would expect at what I perceived was a higher level of dining establishment.

Your advertising talks about your competent and capable chef. Unless you also hire competent and capable staff to support him, your restaurant will not be ready for prime time. I'm disappointed we selected the Poste restaurant to entertain out of town guests.

interesting

A blue line train to Franconia picked us up at the U St. metro and this was on it. Didn't know lacey hoop skirts were in this season?

Drunk Kids Bowl

I actually only had 2 beers all night, but Tiff gave it a fun theme name. My scores were 70, 111, 129, and 88. I suck! We bowled too late and now I'm sleepy and have to drive home from Bethesda.

In Jail

That's the text I sent to Timmy last night! I drove to Pittsburgh yesterday to see Bill's new house and pick up the disk of pics from out canopy tour. Ridiculous. I then came to my parent's farm and went to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse in Wooster. We finished the night with a few drinks at the Old Jaol. Fun times.

Getting ready to get my baby girl at 10! Mom's going with me and I'm not sure what the day will bring.

Show me your treasures..

This really needs no commentary, but was seen in Millersburg, OH, on my way home for Easter.

Happy Birthday Michael

We celebrated Michael's birthday with a bunch of friends (~18) at Pollys. He got a carton of cigs and a fridge barrel of Heineken! Had only 2 because I want to go to the gym tomorrow. Doubt it will happen! Ben's chili bowl for din din!