It was Ammonia

Early this morning, just after Stef left for work, ambulances, police cars and fire trucks raced down my street on their way to a hazardous materials incident at JBS Packerland, a meat packing plant in Franconia.

According to early reports from 6 ABC and The Intellegencer it seems there was an ammonia leak in the plant. An evacuation was put into effect as a precaution, and four were sent to the hospital.

Read more...

Univest Grand Prix 2009

One of the things I like about Souderton is the annual bike race, the Univest Grand Prix. This year the event has snuck up on me and I have not really given it much thought until a couple days ago when a pack of cyclists were clogging the road on my way home. I imagine they were training for the upcoming race to be held on September 12, 2009.

Little did I know that I could have been following the event on Twitter as the race prepares to take center stage on downtown Main Street in Souderton.

If you are interested in the course, check out the widget below for the course layout.



I said it last year, but I am no exactly what you call a cycling enthusiast. I know the name of just one guy who rides on a competitive level, Lance Armstrong. He won't be in Souderton though.

Read more...

Have you seen this bus?

This bus was seen last night in the parking lot in the shopping center on Forty Foot Road and Allentown Road. More details at Nittany White Out.

I need to find the owner of this mode of transportation!

Read more...

My Voting Experience

I waited to vote until Stef came home from work. Because I was home for the large majority of the day I decided to soak in as much election day coverage I could on all the available outlets. When finished taking care of some errands and waiting for some responses from certain people I was watching CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News on TV and refreshing the websites for those networks as well as Politico and ABC News and random newspapers. I will give more specific thoughts and my grades for the election coverage from the media outlets I paid the most attention to later on, possibly this afternoon or tomorrow, but for now let me tell you about my voting experience.

Living in Souderton is vastly different than living in Philadelphia or even West Chester. I heard about long voting lines all day and about problems with voting machines all across the country all day long. Naturally I was curious if my line was going to be much longer than usual.

This is the line I waited in to vote.

It wasn't. I waited for approximately five minutes from the time I entered the line for my voting ticket to the moment I entered a voting machine. Heck, I waited in line longer just last Thursday at Modell's for a Phillies World Championship shirt (about an hour)!

This is the line I waited in at Modell's for a Phillies t-shirt last Thursday. It wrapped along the walls of the store.

In fact, the election line may have been the third longest line I waited in in the past week! Don't forget about the day America was given a free taco...

The line at Taco Bell, for a free taco, was longer than my election line.

When all was said and done I spent about thirty seconds behind my machine's curtain so I could overlook all of the candidates. My voting machine was easy to read and use, so I had no complaints there either.

When the night was over, Montgomery County went to Barack Obama with 60% of the vote. My hometown of West Chester and Chester County went to Obama as well with 54% of the vote. Philadelphia sent 83% of their vote to Obama and Centre County (Penn State) went to Obama with 55%. Allegheny County went to Obama with 57%.

Read more...

Univest Grand Prix 2008: Recap

While I did not make it into town this year to see any of the race, I was held up at a traffic light to let the racers bike by me. A pair of traffic cops held me at a stop sign moments after the race started and after sitting through three green lights the helicopter starting coming my way providing aerial coverage, the police escort drove by, followed by the team cars with extra bikes and parts ready to go, and then the horde of bikers turned the corner in the early stages of the race.

It was pretty cool. Unfortunately the weather didn't exactly help me out with killing time before the Penn State game. Instead of going out to watch the race conclude, I stayed inside to watch college football.

Lucas Euser (USA) of the Garmin-Chipotle team finished in first. Teammate Pat McCarty finished in third and Frederick Ericsson from Sweden came in second.

Read more...

Univest Grand Prix 2008 Notes

The big bike race is scheduled to take place in Souderton on Saturday and I admit I am excited for it. Two years ago I watched the Univest Grand Prix in person and it was fun! Stef and I walked around the part of the course where the loops are done at the end of the race and it is a fair like atmosphere surrounding the course.

It was different and it was exciting. The race is 100 miles and features 125 bike riders from 27 teams from the USA, Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Germany and more. I don't know much about bike racing (or anything really) but watching the riders climb up the hill to get to the finish line is interesting.

I didn't get to check it out last year because Penn State was playing some no-name cupcake school from Indiana and we had tickets. Needless to say the game took preference over the bike race. Penn State won as well.

But I have been looking forward to the race on Saturday (and Penn State doesn't play until 3:30pm so there is plenty of time to head into town and check out the race - weather pending).



I'll give you an idea of how it was later.

[Tour de France Contender Garmin Chipotle Leads Top International Field in Univest Grand Prix 2008] - press release
[2008 Univest Grand Prix Teams List] - press release
[Course Map] - press release

[Road Closure Notices] - Souderton Independent

Read more...