My Way News - Couple Protests FAA With Rooftop Sign

This is one way to get some attention for altered flight patterns.

My Way News - Couple Protests FAA With Rooftop Sign

Rain - The Beatles Experience

As if the time in Maryland with Danny and Yael's wedding didn't make for an exciting weekend, Kate treated me to see Rain - The Beatles Experience at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.

What impressed me the most about Rain was their ability to truly sound like the Beatles -- but in a live environment. From the early Ed Sullivan era songs like "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Twist and Shout" to the Sgt. Pepper's songs like "When I'm Sixty-Four" the five (four on-stage performers and one off-stage performer) were excellent. The Rain Web site aptly points out that some of the songs performed live on state by Rain were never performed live by the Beatles. With the magic of synthesizers, it's possible to bring those songs to life outside of the studio.

Since the Beatles officially broke up two years before I was born (and had stopped touring four years previous), this was the next best thing to seeing the real group live. Of course as an undergrad at Ursinus the other Beatles tribute band, 1964, came to campus. I can't remember much about their performance, but they are still around. They'll be at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, PA. We may have to go if we can get discount tickets. It would be worth it to compare and contrast the stage presence of Rain to 1964.

Danny and Yael's Wedding

Over the weekend Kate and I attended the wedding of her brother, Danny Newman, to Yael Kolett. The two were married in a ceremony at the Antrim 1844 Country House Hotel in Teneytown, Maryland. It was a beautiful and historic venue. No snow fell that weekend, but it was unseasonably cold in northern Maryland. Here is a picture of the happy newlyweds enjoying their first dance at the reception.

VistaPrint pricing model

As a VistaPrint customer, I'm very pleased with the quality of their work and turnaround time. Over the last year I've ordered postcards, greeting cards, and calendars. This is one company where the pricing is subject to change on a daily or even minute-to-minute basis.

Enclosed with my recent order was a brochure with VistaPrint's winter sales. Here is one page from that document:

What confuses me is their pricing model. For most other companies, the price per item gets cheaper as you buy more. Not with VistaPrint.

5 pens for $10 = $2.00 per pen
10 pens for $25 = $2.50 per pen
50 pens for $132.50 = $2.65 per pen

Can anybody explain this?

Another bone I have to pick with VistaPrint is their inability to handle "strange" quantities. For example, I needed to order 20 calendars. Their ordering system would let me select 10 or 25 from a drop-down list. There was no way to order 20. When I called customer service, the nice Indian gentleman helped me make a copy of my calendar project and place an order for 10 of the original project and 10 of the copied project. That was a nice workaround, but it also meant that I was charged twice for any "project upgrades." For example, even though my files were uploaded just once to their system, I was charged $2.49 twice (once for each project) for the privilege of designing and uploading my own pictures. I see VistaPrint making lots of money from these system shortcomings.

Philadelphia Woman Dies During Botched EMS Call — (EMSResponder.com)

This is scary stuff, and I'm certainly happy to not be affiliated with Philadelphia's EMS system.
Philadelphia Woman Dies During Botched EMS Call — (EMSResponder.com)

To understand how far away the BLS unit (not even a medic unit) that responded to the call had to come, consider that Google Maps shows the travel distance from their station as 14.3 miles. At normal driving speed that would be a 24-minute response. Even if they were speeding recklessly all the way to the scene, it would have been perhaps 17 minutes. Not to mention that the crew probably wasn't familiar with the Northeast section of Philadelphia if they are normally based in South Philly.

In my mind as an EMS provider, this is a case of the City of Philadelphia not cooperating with neighboring jurisdictions to provide the most appropriate medical care for its residents. My first-due response area in Montgomery County includes property up to the Philadelphia line, but not on the other side of it. My squad has never been called for mutual aid over the Philadelphia border. In my experience, it appears that Philadelphia would prefer to have someone die in the street than to pick up the phone and call a neighboring county to request mutual aid.

What squads outside of Philadelphia were theoretically closer than BLS unit "Medic 43-B?" From my calculations, Bensalem, Cheltenham, Bryn Athyn, and Second Alarmers' in Abington were closer than the responding Philadelphia unit's home station.

In defense of the Medic 43-B crew, I don't know where they were located when they were dispatched. It's possible that they were roving, or at a hospital dropping off another patient. I also give credit to the two fire crews who were first responders on the scene. Is the solution to the problem to have transport-capable medic engines?