Category: State College

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Ice Ice Baby

Just a follow up to my post yesterday on the First Night Festivities in State College. I went back down last night and took some more photos of the ice sculptures. Ice is a difficult subject to photograph. I tried three different approaches each of which has a unique perspective.

The daylight shots show the detail in the ice better than any of the others but just don’t capture the wet glistening look. The figures could be made out of plastic for all you can tell from the photos.

For the night shots, I tried taking photos both with the flash on and with it off. With the night shots, the ice takes on the transparent look that is missing from the daylight shots. The flash also gives you a nice glistening look that is missing from the other too approaches. Unfortunately, you lose some of the detail that you can see in the daylight shots. Also the flash overpowers much of the front lighting that the scene has and the result isn’t the same as it appears to the naked eye.

That leaves night shots without a flash. Of course that approach presents some exposure, focus, and camera shake challenges but they are overcomeable. Without the flash, you are able to see both the front and back light that is illuminating the scene. Unfortunately, I think the long exposures over accentuate the available light to the detriment of the subject itself. I think you lose too much detail in the subject (of course, it could just be that I wasn’t able to find the correct combination of lighting and exposure).

Here are some shots from yesterday that demonstrate what I am talking about.

First for completeness sake, yesterday I showed the preliminary ice sketch of the continental soldier, and I wanted to show you the finished product. Here’s yesterday’s daylight shot along with two photos from last night – first with, then without flash.

Here are some shots that really highlight the differences from the three approaches.
This sculpture is of Admiral Peary who is generally considered to be the first person to reach the North Pole (how appropriate for an ice sculpture).

This is probably my favorite shot from last night. It was taken with flash, and is just part of the Jeremy Rose/Afleet Alex sculpture.

I’ve update the online album by adding last nights photos. You can view both yesterday afternoon’s and last night’s photos by clicking here.

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Resuming Normal Activities

Following my doctor’s advice to resume normal activities, I went forward with the 2nd Annual State College Santa Crawl on Saturday night. In the initial event last December we had five participants, this year we tripled that number. I do believe that the event now has enough inertia that it will probably double in size next year. That should allow it to take on a life of its own similar to the way the A-Z bar tour that I created in Philadelphia went on for at over 10 years after I left town (for all I know the A-Z tour is still going on).

For more photos of our event, click here.

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SC in SC

Santa Crawl in State College, that is…

The “A-Z Bar Tour” that I founded in Philadelphia in 1981 grew to be a huge success and I’m trying to recreate that experience here with a variation called the Santa Crawl. As you might imagine, a Santa Crawl is simply a bar tour where everyone dresses in Santa costumes. It isn’t something I invented, but I am trying to bring the experience to State College (Santa crawling is a worldwide phenomena with one of the biggest actually happening in New York).

We kicked off our version of the Santa Crawl here in State College last year. Here’s my favorite photo from the event which is also hanging prominently in Hooters.

Check this out for more photos from last year.

When someone asks why we do this, I simply give an answer from this list (responses substantially borrowed from the Baltimore Santa Crawl.

  • meet people
  • meet women
  • confuse the crap outta kids
  • get hugs from the girls from Hooters
  • fill everyone you meet with joy
  • become instant celebrities and rock stars
  • get an invite to the Hooters Xmas party (the last few photos taken last year were from there)

This year’s event will take place on Saturday, Dec 10th and we expect to at least triple the size of last year’s group. It’s a pretty safe bet that I’ll be posting photos on the 11th. The wonderful thing about digital cameras is that you can’t open them up and expose all your film to the light and thus ruin all your photos (know what I mean Gary 🙂 ) so I’m sure to have some pictures no matter how hard we party that night.

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Boo!! Hiss!! Boring!!

Some of you may remember my campaign last spring to name the new State College minor league baseball team the Sliders. My nominee had been one of seven (the others were Black Bears, Copperheads, Miners, Mountain Bats, Ridge Riders, and Stags) selected to be semifinalists. I put some serious effort into promoting my choice (I even handed out business cards promoting the name)

Let’s just say that my suggestion didn’t meet with universal acclaim (Click here to read a local writer’s opinion),

Evidently, team managemant felt the same as the above writer because they wound up throwing out all seven of the semifinalists and starting over with a new list of finalist. They were Anglers, Coalys, Furnace, Haymakers, and Spikes.

The grand announcement of the winner was today. And the winner is, drumroll please:

All I can say is “boring”.

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Bride of Chucky II

Chucky was out prowling Monday night looking for a new bride.

Some of the contenders were:

Chiquita Banana Aunt Jemima
Catwoman Pocahontas

Chucky even had to fight off the Burger King for this one:

For more photos of Chucky’s exploits, go here.

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It’s a winter wonderland…

but I’m too damn lazy to go out and take photos. Woke up today with about an inch of snow on the ground and more falling. Fortunately, the ground temp is above freezing so most of it is melting but it is sticking to vegetation.

By now the temperature have risen enough (my outdoor thermometer says 34) that it’s turned to rain but the higher elevations are getting hit with snow – the forecast for the area says the precip will shift back and forth from rain and snow all afternoon with accumulations up to 6-9 inches in the surrounding mountains.

Many of the trees in the area still have a substantial number of leaves still on them so I expect numerous power outages from falling limbs as the snow accumulates on the tree branches.

This is the earliest significant snowfall that I can remember for a while.

ED Note: I knew if I waited long enough I could find shots on the web. Here’s one from on campus – to see more go here.

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One for the Thumb


No – I’m not referring to another female, I’m talking about winning my fifth Mondo Martini contest at Tony’s Big Easy Bar and Bistro here in State College. My trophy is being held by UncleLar “niece” Ashley Schlosser on my right, “neice” Susan Kim is on my left – I don’t know the other two but how could I say no when they wanted to get in the photo too.

Tony has held this martini making contest for the past nine years and I’ve won it five of the last six (I sat out one year when I had tickets to a concert the same night but like Michael Jordan I came out of my semiretirement to capture another trophy).

My winning entry this year was called “The Rose Bowl” (I was kind of counting on the football team beating Michigan last weekend and keeping the Rose Bowl front and foremost in people’s minds but I was still able to sell the concept anyway). Here’s the recipe for those who are interested:

Mix the ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker (stir do not shake – shaking will create a froth while stirring will maintain a creamy appearance). Pour the ingredients into a brandy snifter that has been rinsed with Rosewater. Add a rose petal as a garnish.

Unfortunately, I was so dazzled by the crowd at the contest that I forgot to actually get a photo of the winning drink.

Tony really does a wonderful job of hosting the contest. Numerous liquor companies come in and provide samples of their wares to the crowd. Each companies display is created around an ice sculpture which makes for a quite beautiful arrangement. Some of the ice displays are actually functional in that you pour the liquor through a channel that has been drilled into the ice and it drains into the patrons glass quite chilled.

Here are some of the sculptures:

From left to right:

  • a complete bar made out of ice
  • an interactive ice display with a drink being pour down a channel
  • an ice man chilling some shrimp

My previous winning concoctions were

  • The Midas Touch (2000) – a drink that actually changed colors from greenish yellow to gold with the addition of the final ingredient, a splash of cranberry juice.
  • Rally Round the Flag (2001) – a blatant appeal to patriotism when I created a white creamy drink sprinkled with red and blue sugar crystals and topped by clipping a star shaped figure holding a flag onto the glass edge.
  • The Nittini Lion (2002) – a blue colored (what else?) cocktail loosely based on a cosmopolitan. The drink is made with an apple flavored liquor using Blue Curacao and apple juice in place of a typical cosmo’s triple sec and cranberry.
  • (2003) – didn’t enter, went to see Matchbox 20 concert.
  • The Krispy Kreme (2004) – a golden colored vanila martini that tastes like a donut (now I don’t know who would like to drink a donut but once I planted the seed in the judges minds that the drink was supposed to taste like a donut and it actually did, I had the contest locked up. Tony markets the drink as a donut without the carbs (see the menu below).

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Franco Harris and Mondo Martinis

I was downtown last night at Tony’s Big Easy Bar & Bistro preparing for the ninth Annual Mondo Martini Contest (yours truly, UncleLar is a four time undefeated champions of the event – FYI, it’s a martini making not martini drinking contest – more on Mondo Martini tomorrow after I win my fifth title tonight) when in walked Franco Harris along with Gary Gray, whom I have mentioned on this blog before. Gary and Franco were teammates on Penn State’s teams from 69-71.

Gary and Franco joined me and helped taste some of my creative work. Franco won four Super Bowls while with the Steelers and ever since then the Steelers have used the rallying cry “One for the Thumb” during their annual chase for another ring. I jokingly told Franco I was planning on getting my own “one for the thumb” tonight.

After perfecting my cocktail, Gary, Franco and I went over to the Gingerbread Man (or G-Man as it’s affectionately called here). It’s amazing to watch how much recognition Franco gets. He hasn’t played ball in twenty years yet he is still adored by many fans. There were bunches of college kids coming up to us using their cell phones to get their picture taken (admittedly they just shoved me out of the way but still I was still part of scene).

I have had some minor celebrity incidents here in State College (I’ll explain some time) but I can’t imagine what it must be like to go through that everyday like Franco. I even asked him if it bothered him and he very graciously said no, that the fans had always been good to him and he was glad that he could make them happy by obliging them with a photo. I thought that was a huge contrast to what we see in many athletes today.

Have to leave now but more tomorrow on my Mondo Martini (hopefully) winning entry.