georgefattell

Podcast Listening : The Grantland NFL Podcast

Posted on October 2, 2014October 10, 2014 by georgefattell

This is Part 4 in my Podcast Listening series of blog posts, in which I identify podcasts that I listen to regularly and recommend.

The Grantland NFL Podcast is hosted by Grantland NFL experts Bill Barnwell and Roberts Mays. During the season Barnwell and Mays produce three podcasts per week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Each episode is about an hour long.

I’m a pretty big fan of the NFL, as those who regularly read this may know, so I really appreciate this podcast because the hosts provide very insightful analysis of the the games that have been played during the past week and those that are coming up during the week immediately in advance. Barnwell and Mays really know their stuff and the serious fans of the game will appreciate the depth of the their knowledge. They also engage in quite a bit of debate about the performance of teams and individual players, frequently disagreeing, but usually both make good arguments and that is what makes this podcast entertaining, as well as informative.

Rated PG: Pretty clean podcast, these guys don’t use any profanity, although they do crack some corny jokes from time to time.

HDR photos of New York and Philadelphia

Posted on September 20, 2014September 22, 2014 by georgefattell

I have had the opportunity to make recent visits to New York City and Philadelphia and I’m always taking pictures when I make these trips. I selected a few of my favorite pictures from these two great cities and modified them with the Google Snapseed app on my iPad to create HDR (High-dynamic-range imaging) photos using the HDR scape filter. Here they are…

New York

Lower Manhattan and 1 World Trade Center (HDR)

Philadelphia

I was wrong about the Apple Watch

Posted on September 19, 2014September 20, 2014 by georgefattell

Very interesting assessment of the Apple Watch by Jean-Louis Gassee. Those of you who have followed Apple since the early days will know that Gassee was a high ranking former executive at Apple Computer (1981 to 1990). After leaving Apple, Gassee went on to found Be, Inc., which created the Be OS. Gassee is now a General Partner of Allegis Capital.

The more I learn about the Apple Watch the more impressed I am by it. (BTW, the title of this post is from the original blog post on the Quartz blog) I wasn’t wrong, Gassee was. Once again, Apple has created a device that is much better and more innovative, by a wide margin, than everything else in the same product class.

Visit to Philadelphia

Posted on September 15, 2014September 15, 2014 by georgefattell

I made a day trip to the City of Brotherly Love last Friday. It was my first time in Philly in over 15 years. I had lunch with a friend who works in the Center City area and after lunch I took a walk around a few of the neighborhoods near the iconic City Hall. I was very impressed by how clean the city was and found the contrasting architectural styles very interesting. The city has a mix of well preserved very old buildings and gleaming new skyscrapers that work well together. The Center City area is also very walkable and in general I found the atmosphere very friendly. I hope to return to Philly fairly soon. There is a lot more I want to see there.

Philadelphia City Hall - Sep 2014 — Philadelphia City Hall – Sep 2014

I took the Bieber Tourways Bus down to Philadelphia from Bethlehem. The bus drops you off right on the Market St. Bridge, right near the 30th St. Station, which is where Amtrak and a variety of commuter trains stop. From this location it is any easy 10 to 15 minute walk right down Market into Center City.

30th St. Station from the Market St. Bridge

Now here is something I came to miss while I was living out in SoCal, the classic Newsstand. You simply don’t see these types of Newsstands in downtown San Diego and Los Angeles. In major NE cities such as Philadelphia and New York they are ubiquitous.

A walk along the Delaware

Posted on September 11, 2014September 11, 2014 by georgefattell

I currently reside in downtown Easton, PA, which is located right on the western side of Delaware river, across from Phillipsburg, NJ. I frequently take walks along the river, sometimes just because it is scenic and I enjoy taking in the view and other times simply because it is easiest way for me to get from point A to point B. Today was a little bit of both. The view along the Delaware today was more captivating than it is most days because of how reflective the water was on this beautiful, sunny day. I’m glad I had my trusty Canon S90 with me today.

The Delaware River. View is South from Easton, PA.

My new profile picture

Posted on September 9, 2014September 24, 2014 by georgefattell

I updated my profile picture on this blog yesterday. The head shot of me which is displayed in the upper right corner of the blog home page is indeed new, although it is similar to the picture it replaced. The old picture was taken a few years ago in Balboa Park in San Diego and the new picture was taken a couple of weeks ago during my visit to Spring Lake, NJ. The original pictures in both cases were much larger, I just cropped them for the purpose of producing a head shot to serve as a profile picture. In the new picture I’m sitting on a bench on the Spring Lake boardwalk.

Why the change? I just like to keep things such as profile pictures fairly recent. I liked the picture in Spring Lake and I thought it would be good to use for a profile shot. So, yup, that’s me. That is what I look like right now.

UPDATE: I just changed my profile picture again. I found a small flaw in the Spring Lake picture and decided to replace it with an even more recent picture I took of myself in Easton, PA, with the Delaware River in the background.

NFL Predictions for 2014

Posted on September 4, 2014September 11, 2014 by georgefattell

It has been a long, slow summer and I’m really looking forward to the return of NFL FOOTBALL!!!…..

Frankly, with the possible exception of a big UFC fight, I pretty much don’t pay attention to what is going on in sports between the end of NBA season and the beginning of the NFL season. Yes, I know other things are going on in July and August, such as baseball, tennis, golf, soccer, etc., but I normally I care too much about any of that stuff.

Since I’m back in the Northeast I am once again focused on the NFC East and the AFC East.

The NY Giants are my favorite NFC team. Why? I grew up in NJ. The Giants were my home team and still are, although I’m now in Pennsylvania. This part of eastern PA seems to be pretty evenly split between Giants fans and Eagles fans, but I am maintaining my loyalty to NY.

As for the AFC, the San Diego Chargers are my team now. I became a pretty ardent Bolts fan during my 10 years in San Diego and they will remain my adopted AFC team. I have high hopes for the Chargers this season.

Here are my picks for each Division:

AFC East: New England. Gee, big surprise here, right? I can’t remember the last time I picked a team other than the Patriots to win the AFC East, but it had to be more than 10 years ago. The offense will be very good, as usual, especially with TE Rob Gronkowski back. Hopefully Gronk will stay in one piece this season. The defense should be much improved with addition of All World CB Revis and the return of Wilfork and Mayo.

AFC North: Cincinnati. This division is really a toss up to me. I could see Cincy, Pittsburgh or Baltimore winning this division. I don’t think Cleveland has any shot of winning the division, although the Browns will be a lot of fun to watch once Johnny Manziel becomes the starting QB. I’m going to have to give the Bengals a slight edge.

AFC South: Indianapolis. I knew the Colts were an up and coming team last season, but I thought they were a year or two away. I picked Houston to win the division and that obviously did not work out very well. The Texans should bounce back this year, but not enough to overtake the Andrew Luck led Colts.

AFC West: Denver. GM John Elway and his staff a lot credit for focusing on team weaknesses after being routed by the Seahawks in the SB. certainly shored up Denver’s defense. Peyton Manning and the Bronco offense should once again tear up the league I like the San Diego Chargers too (The Bolts became my adopted AFC when I moved to San Diego back in 2003)

NFC East: Philadelphia. Welcome to the Chip Kelly era. The Eagles may have the most prolific offense in the league this season. I think the Eagles will rule the NFC East for at least the next 2 to 3 years and will probably make it to a Superbowl within that time frame.

NFC North: Green Bay. I picked the Packers last year and I’m picking them again this year.

NFC South: New Orleans. The Saints are a legitimate Super Bowl contender.V The Tampa Bay Buc’s should be improved under HC Lovie Smith and the Atlanta Falcons should be much better than 4 and 12, but I can’t either one those teams or the Panthers winning this division.

NFC West: Seatlle. The new league Champions look every bit as good as last season, if not even a little better. The 49ers should once again provide stiff competition, but there has clearly been a changing of the guard in the NFC West.

AFC Conference Champion: New England. It will probably again come down to Denver vs New England in AFC Conference championship game. However, one of these seasons we are going to see a changing of the guard in the AFC. Both Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are still top tier QB’s, but they are also in the end stage of their respective careers, which both ultimately end in the NFL Hall of Fame. At some point, another contending team or teams will knock the Broncos or the Patriots or both off.

NFC Conference Champion: Seattle. A few other teams could challenge the Seahawks. GB, NO and division rival SF could derail a 2nd title run, but I have to defer to the defending champions. If the Seahawks secure home field advantage in the playoffs, as they did last season, it be extremely difficult for any NFC team to knock them off.

Superbowl Champion: New England. I think the Patriots may be the only team in the NFL that can beat both Denver and Seattle. I think a strong case can be made for the Seahawks too. I think the Seahawks are definitely capable of repeating as Champ’s. I also think Denver is very capable of returning to the Superbowl. To be perfectly honest my I’m picking the Patriots based on a scenario in which everything goes right for them by the time the playoffs roll around. I don’t think there are too many coaches in the NFL right now that can figure out a way to beat both Denver and Seattle, but Bill Belichick is one of them. Maybe Jim Harbaugh too.

Visit to the Jersey Shore

Posted on August 20, 2014August 28, 2014 by georgefattell

I had an opportunity to make a day trip down to the Jersey Shore last week and I throughly enjoyed seeing an area of the shore where I spent many summers in my younger days. I visited Pt. Pleasant, Spring Lake and Sea Girt. It had been quite a long time since I had last visited “the Shore”. In fact, I don’t remember exactly when I was there last, but I do know it had to be at least 5 years since I was there and certainly long before Super Storm Sandy inflicted so much damage on coastal New Jersey. I had read that most communities on the shore had since recovered from the monster storm, but I was eager to see it for myself. I was very pleased to see that the three towns I visited had indeed completely recovered. Other than the rebuilt boardwalks and the slightly bolstered dunes on some parts of the beach in Spring Lake and Sea Girt you could not tell that Sandy had visited just a couple of years ago.

Here is a picture a picture I took on the Point Pleasant boardwalk. I spent many summers at “The Point” as a youth because my grandparents owned a summer home only about 25 yards off the boardwalk on the northern end of town, near the inlet.

The beach at the northern end of Point Pleasant is one of widest beaches on the Jersey Shore. When I was a kid I loved going down to beach late in the afternoon, after most of the crowds had left, to do some kite flying

Here is the view north from Pt. Pleasant across the inlet to Manasquan…

Manasquan

Took a walk over to the docks to see the fishing boats over at Ken’s Landing.

Norma K III

Later in the day drove a few miles north to Spring Lake and neighboring Sea Girt. I’ve always enjoyed visiting these two towns.
Both towns have many elegant homes, great beaches and wonderful boardwalks. At 2 miles in length the Spring Lake boardwalk is the longest non commercial boardwalk on the Jersey Shore. I discovered this boardwalk in my late teens and became enamored of it almost immediately because it is such a terrific place to run and I was a fairly serious runner back in those days. In the 1990’s I briefly lived in Spring Lake and commuted to NYC via the New Jersey Transit commuter train. That is a long haul every day and I ended up moving north, a bit closer to the city after a few months, but I enjoyed living there in the off season for a little while and I loved taking runs up and down the nearly empty boardwalk.

Also paid a visit to The Parker House in Sea Girt, one of my favorite restaurant/bar’s in that area. The Parker House was built in 1878 and it retains the charm of a building from that era. I first remember going there back in the late early 1980’s with my Dad. The place certainly has not changed too much in the last few decades. Great place to go for lunch or dinner, especially if you dine out on the porch during a warm summer day.

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Bethlehem, PA

Posted on July 27, 2014July 27, 2014 by georgefattell

I took this picture a few days ago from the plaza next to the Bethlehem Library, which is located in Bethlehem’s Historic District. This is the view south, looking out over the Fahy Bridge, which spans the Lehigh River. South Bethlehem is on the other side of the river and Lehigh University occupies much of the mountainside visible from this location.

Chicagoland from Above

Posted on July 16, 2014July 16, 2014 by georgefattell

Took a few pictures during my Southwest flight from San Diego to Newark, Nj last week. We made stops in Vegas and Chicago on the way to Jersey. My favorite shot was this one of Chicago as we approached from the West.