A Milestone Post, A Worthy Cause, An Important Day

Yesterday I noticed on my Blogger dashboard that my next post on this blog would be post number 500. I thought that such a milestone ought to be about something really important instead of the mostly trivial stuff I normally write about. I asked for suggestions on a Twitter/Facebook update. I got none. Fortunately, (insert name/title of your preferred deity or deities, or chalk it up to fate) provided inspiration today.

I had just gotten on the bus that runs along Frankford Avenue near my house. There was a bit of a commotion. The driver commented to another passenger about being stuck in the outer lane. There were a few cars and vans driving along the other lane, moving more slowly than the rest of the traffic. As the bus driver finally managed to pass the clog, I noticed two vehicles in particular -- with a red, white and blue motif and a lot of text, with one word in the largest font standing out: GUMPATHON. In between them was a man in what seemed to be a wheelchair/bicycle hybrid. His legs were still -- it was his arms "pedaling" the handlebars that powered his ride. Curious, I jumped out of the bus a minute later, ahead of the caravan, and captured some video. (You don't hear sound because of the YouTube sound issue I previously ranted about, so you can't hear the man give me a shout in response to my thumbs-up gesture as he passed.)



So, what is the Gumpathon?

Our National Anthem (And Why YouTube Blows)

Back on the 4th of this month my friend Kurt sang "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch at the Camden Riversharks game. Today, before the game, he sang our national anthem. Both times I used the camcorder on my phone to record his performance. Both times I uploaded it to YouTube, seemingly successfully -- except that the video has no sound when played in YouTube. The sound exists, and you can hear it, but for some reason when it's on YouTube it doesn't work. This was not a problem with the previous videos I posted on YouTube -- the ones from the Riversharks' Gay Community Night and my report on the feeding habits of local ants. Suddenly the videos I upload to YouTube don't include the sound, I have no idea why -- and there seems to be no way to contact any kind of tech support at YouTube.

This is truly pathetic. If you have a website, you should have a way for people to submit reports of problems. I've searched and searched and can't find anything. YouTube has support staff of some kind -- they're certainly quick to pull videos because of copyright issues. I want to be able to upload videos to YouTube with audio included!

So here's the video, uploaded to Facebook -- with audio...