Carlos’s Photo Blog

As we were driving home from the Farewell luncheon for Msgr Conway we saw some black smoke in the distance. I thought the fire was in King of Prussia. It turns out the fire was in Bridgeport. Right on the Schuykill River.

Isnt that a bit ironic that your business burns and you are just a few feet away from a river. I could not get a good view from the river side so I am not sure if they had a fireboat out there or not. I drove around a bit trying to get a good vantage point, but with all the trees, I could not really find a spot.

Here is a shot from my car as I drove by on 23, but they had closed the road and I had to turn back towards KOP. http://twitpic.com/24gouz

My first stop was in the neighborhood in upper Bridgeport. The area that is high in relation to the rest of Bridgeport which is at a lower elevation.

My second stop was on the bridge over the Schuykill on 202. I could not really see that fire, just the smoke and the water canons on top of the ladders. Parking is tough to find in Bridgeport…!

You know the bridge they named Bridgeport after...

This is the bridge where I was in the previous shot…

I jumped back in my car and drive over the other bridge into Norristown. I went to the top of the Septa parking garage. I still could not see much as you can tell from the pic.

I did get to see Herbie! When did you volunteer for the fire company! hehe! I thought that was cool.

When I got close to the fire they already had it pretty much under control. Even the news channels were there already. I saw a few people interview folks.

Carlos

Link to Story on 6ABC Website

I took the day off for my Birthday and I ended up getting some tickets to the AT&T National Golf Tournament. I must be honest, I had not kept up with the news and I was not sure that “he” would be there. I hope that if I blog about Tiger Woods, then my blog does not get all spammed by Russian porn spammers! I think it already does, but I only have to delete a few spam post every once in a while.

Back to the tourney. You can find more info about it at their main website.

I think golf tournaments are great and I enjoy going to them and I used to volunteer at the Texas Open before I moved to PA. The AT&T National in particular has some good charities it supports. Plus it add the additional element of supporting our troops. Of course, the AT&T National marks the return of professional golf back to the Philadelphia area… That is one of the tag lines of the tournament’s PR.

At the entrance to the tournament they have this large area where you can hang out and eat. Of course they have merchandise tent where you can buy anything Tiger! We did not explore too much of the course. It does have some elevation changes. If I ever played there, I would not walk the course.

Jeannette wishes this was her car. I am not sure if I had the money, if I would buy this car. I would definitely buy a convertible sports car, but a Mercedes? It is a beautiful car, but is it worth it?

This is along the side of the 18th hole. I do not even know what Tiger shot, but the last few holes he did pretty good. There was a large number of people following him. Why not?

So here is one of shots of Tiger. He was waiting for the rest of the foursome to tee off. The other guys did not do so bad. I do not think I saw anyone go in the water. I am sure I would have dropped one in the water hazard. If I did, I would have pulled a Tin Cup and hit all my balls in the water!

I am not sure if they did this at all the holes, but on 17 the caddys or whomever was wearing the brown smocks got to pose with him. Remember there are several other professional golfers playing in this Pro-Am. Today’s afternoon news was all about Tiger. Well, he did sink a 50ft putt!

We saw a few other golfers while we were there. Y. E. Yang hit a nice tee shot on 17th.

We also saw Dustin Johnson at 17th before we saw “El Tigre” All in all, it was a fun time. I wish we could have stayed all day, but we went to go see the A-Team afterwards. The panoramic I did was of the 18th fairway. You can see the tee box to the right and the green is to the left. It did not come out as good as I wanted, but I am just using Microsoft’s ICE.

Let’s see how Tiger does. According to the news he did not do so well today, but the tournament has just started.

Carlos

I was drinking this beer and decided to take some pics with the new iPhone. I started write a post up with some other pics I took, but somehow it got deleted! I thought I posted it, but it is not on my blog. Oh well, this pic looks awesome. I love how close you can get with the new iPhone. I like how the light falls on the can and you can even see the condensation on the can. Let me know what you think. Oh yeah and the beer was yummy. I do not normally drink bud light, but this is my favorite lime beer!

Carlos

I took this with the new iPhone from the upper deck…I used an app called pano to stitch it together. I was going to post this from the park but all I had was edge service! Darn AT$T! Yes I meant to use a $ instead of a &! I have not looked at the image full size. I am not sure how the edges got blended.

I will post more iPhone photos later…

I think some of these are my pics, but not 100% sure. There are a few people who take pics at this event. If you get a chance check out the site. It is a worthwhile cause and everyone seems to enjoy the race.

This is the third year it has been put on. You can check out my pics at:

http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/medinapps/10miler

Of course yet again I am doing things last minute. The race is tomorrow, but if anyone wants to run there is still time to sign up. I think they are doing registrations today. Check out the site for more info… www.kingofprussia10miler.com

Carlos Medina

I saw this on the NPR – Science Friday website. It was cool that we went there last summer.

Here is the link to the page…http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10299

Got to plan a trip for this summer…

Carlos

I started this post this morning when I took this pic, but after I tried to save it, it just vanished!

Second try. I was trying to just take a pic of the rainy street below my office building. My iPhone focused on the window and some sparse rain drops. This pic actually captures the mood I was going for better than my original idea.

I guess it is better to be lucky than good!

While I was looking for this draft, I found some old post that were stuck in the draft version. I just published them anyway, but they seem like incomplete thoughts.

Carlos

Here are just a couple of shots from Pauline’s t-ball game. It is not her first game, but it is the first game I took my camera to. I will post more later…

Pauline at Bat

Follow Thru

Carlos

I was trying to find a picture to go with this article/letter. A friend of mine, actually a Brother of mine sent this out via email and I thought it was a great idea to share. I took this picture a few years ago when I was in Santa Clara. It is actually a picture of a church. They had these fountains. I was staying at a hotel right across the street. I stopped by the gardens a few times just to reflect and pray. Isn’t it great how thing work out.

So yes I am proud to be a Catholic. Not only that I am proud to be a member of the Knight’s of Columbus.

Maybe we all need a little more pride in the positive, rather than the embarrassment of the negative……

Excerpts of an article written by non-Catholic Sam Miller – a prominent Cleveland Jewish businessman:

“Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the Catholic Church?

Do you know – the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to that Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. The graduates go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%.

The Church has 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. with an enrollment of 700,000 students.

The Catholic Church has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals, which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people – not just Catholics – in the United States today.

But the press is vindictive and trying to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country. They have blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage.

Let me give you some figures that Catholics should know and remember. For example, 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38% acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact in a study by the United Methodist Church, 41.8% of clergy women reported unwanted sexual behavior; 17% of laywomen have been sexually harassed.
Meanwhile, 1.7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty of pedophilia. 10% of the Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia. This is not a Catholic Problem.

A study of American priests showed that most are happy in the priesthood and find it even better than they had expected, and that most, if given the choice, would choose to be priests again in face of all this obnoxious PR the church has been receiving.

The Catholic Church is bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. The agony that Catholics have felt and suffered is not
necessarily the fault of the Church. You have been hurt by a small number of wayward priests that have probably been totally weeded out by now.

Walk with your shoulders high and you head higher. Be a proud member of the most
important non-governmental agency in the United States . Then remember what Jeremiah said: ‘Stand by the roads, and look and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is and walk in it, and find rest for your souls’. Be proud to speak up for your faith with pride and reverence and learn what your Church does for all other religions.

Be proud that you’re a Catholic.”

Thanks,
Carlos Medina

What was there? Some crudy old building. Actually it would made a cool hideout for me when I became a superhero. It had big overhead doors and some lofts. A bunch of stuff on the roof wth wires and pipes. It was also right next to the river so I could have hid my ELFATKAR and snuck out on the ELFATBOAT up the Skulykil river.

Better for now!

It is a shame thought, becasue the new found void will soon be filled with several floors or parking garage and cubicle dwellers! Oh well. At least we can enjoy the view of the river for now.

Oh yeah I took this with my iphone and stitched it together with MS ICE. I tried downloading it today but I could not. I had it on my laptop. Great free, easy program from Microsoft.

Carlos