What a great turnout for the Philly for Change picnic on Sunday afternoon. It also took me on my very first subway ride in Philly; a straight shot from Walnut St to Pattison Ave, not bad.
I brought a pasta salad I made that morning while watching Rumsfeld on Meet the Press. It had some bow-tie pasta, sun-dried tomatoes soaked over night in olive oil, cracked pepper and salt, chunks of fresh mozzarella from Claudio's and a spritz of lemon. It turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. About half of it got eaten by the time I had to cut out early. Leftovers for lunch!
I got to meet and talk to some great people that I haven't had a chance to previously. I met Sam from Brownian Movement and we spoke for a bit. She actually recognized me from a photo on this site which makes two sightings in the real world. It was kinda startling at first, she came right up to me and asked "Are you Albert?" to which I answered yes and then she introduced herself as Sam from Brownian Movement and that she recognized me from the photo I posted awhiles back.
I also finally got a chance to meet Susie of Suburban Guerrilla and Chris from MyDD. I have been wanting to go to Susie's get togethers for the past few months, but something had always gotten in the way, but Chris from Rowhouse Logic was kind enough to introduce me. And I recognized Chris from a previous Philly for Change Meetup and went up and introduced myself and we had a little chat.
I also got to meet Rep. Mark Cohen, who has been commenting here lately, as well. It was interesting to hear his blogging path and really cool to learn that he's been reading what we're saying. He's got his ear to the ground and eyes on the screen. I'm gonna learn more about him in the near future — I don't know enough about the state-level political scene. Perhaps a future interview? He actually may have noticed me from my photo as well. Right as I was heading over his way to introduce myself, he stuck out his hand and said "Albert?" to which I startlingly said yes. Either that or he just figured I was the only Asian guy there and took a stab at it.
Chuck Pennacchio was also there for a bit. He had to take off for a house party in Delaware County. He rememberd my name which was nice. I did talk his ear off at the last Drinking Liberally just a few days ago so...
It was nice to speak to some of the people there who I normally don't get a chance to lazily converse with outside of the Meetups and other organizational meetings. This was not meant to be overtly political, but hey, we all knew why we were all there. We talked beer, baseball, photography, food, telescopes, construction, blogging... it was great.
It was just tons of fun and a nice change of gears. And it also got me on my first subway ride. An uneventful subway ride with lots of people headed to the Phils v. BoSox game.
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