#pipe fitting classes in Philadelphia

[pttedu]

Philadelphia Pipe Insulation: Expert Tips to Prevent Frozen Pipes This Winter

Protect your home this winter with pipe insulation Philadelphia homeowners trust to prevent frozen or burst pipes. Learn effective insulation methods, cost-saving tips, and the best materials to keep your plumbing safe during harsh Philadelphia winters. Whether you’re a DIY enthusiast or considering professional help, these strategies will help you maintain your home’s plumbing system efficiently. Explore why skilled trades experts recommend proper insulation and how learning trades at vocational colleges can help you master such essential home maintenance techniques. Secure your pipes now to avoid costly repairs later!

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[pttiedu]

Our pipefitting program lays the groundwork for a promising future in the industry. Through hands-on training, students learn to construct and maintain complex piping systems with precision and skill. With a solid foundation in pipefitting, they are poised for successful and fulfilling careers, contributing to vital infrastructure projects worldwide.

[marksrvrentals]

RV Rentals Philadelphia for First-Timers: Tips & Tricks

Planning your first RV trip can be both exciting and a little overwhelming. With so many options, routes, and details to consider, it’s easy to feel lost—especially if you’re a first-time renter. Luckily, RV Rentals Philadelphia offers the perfect starting point for those new to RV travel. Whether you're heading to the scenic Pocono Mountains, exploring the Jersey Shore, or just enjoying a staycation around Philly, an RV gives you the freedom to travel your way.

At Mark’s RV Rentals, we understand the needs of first-timers. That’s why we’ve created this helpful guide to give you the tips and tricks you need for a smooth, enjoyable adventure.

1. Know What Type of RV Fits Your Needs

Before diving into RV Rentals Philadelphia, it’s important to know what type of RV suits your lifestyle and travel plans. There are various classes and sizes to choose from:

Class A: Large and luxurious, ideal for extended trips or families.

Class B: Camper vans, great for solo travelers or couples.

Class C: A balanced option with decent space and easy handling.

Towable RVs: Travel trailers or fifth wheels that require a towing vehicle.

As a first-time renter, Class C RVs are often a safe bet. They offer a good mix of space and ease of driving. Talk to an expert at Mark’s RV Rentals to find the perfect model for your experience level and trip goals.

2. Practice Before You Hit the Road

If you’ve never driven an RV before, don’t worry—it’s easier than it looks. That said, getting comfortable with your RV before the journey is essential. When you pick up your vehicle through RV Rentals Philadelphia, take the time to:

Practice turning and reversing in a large, empty parking lot.

Learn how to adjust your mirrors and understand your blind spots.

Test the brakes and get a feel for the vehicle’s length and height.

Review any onboard systems like the generator, plumbing, and leveling jacks.

This hands-on prep will make your trip far more enjoyable and reduce stress once you're on the road.

3. Plan Your Route and Campsites in Advance

One of the best parts of RV travel is flexibility, but it’s still wise to plan ahead—especially during busy seasons. When using RV Rentals Philadelphia, research RV-friendly campgrounds, parks, or resorts along your route. Be sure to:

Check whether the site has full hookups (water, electricity, sewer).

Know the check-in times and reservation policies.

Make sure your RV size is compatible with the campsite.

Consider proximity to attractions, fuel, and grocery stores.

Apps like Campendium or websites like Recreation.gov are great for finding campsites with reviews and availability info.

4. Pack Smart and Light

It’s tempting to bring everything with you, but RVs have space limitations. When using RV Rentals in Philadelphia, focus on essentials like:

Bedding, pillows, and towels

Cooking gear and utensils

Toiletries and personal care items

Food and bottled water

Lightweight clothes suited for the weather

Entertainment (games, books, outdoor gear)

Make use of built-in storage, and avoid overloading the vehicle. The more organized you are, the more enjoyable your living space will be during your travels.

5. Know Your Hookups and Utilities

Hooking up your RV to power, water, and sewer lines can seem intimidating at first. Most vehicles offered by RV Rentals Philadelphia come with clear instructions—and our team at Mark’s RV Rentals will show you exactly how everything works.

Here are some key tips:

Always hook up electricity before turning on any major appliances.

Use a pressure regulator for water hookups to avoid pipe damage.

Dump black water (toilet) before gray water (shower/sink) to help flush the hose.

Sanitize your fresh water tank and drinking hoses regularly.

Being familiar with these processes keeps your RV clean, functional, and hassle-free.

6. Follow Safety and Driving Etiquette

When renting through RV Rentals in Philadelphia, always prioritize safety. Keep a safe distance on the road, watch for low-clearance signs, and follow the speed limit. Avoid sudden braking and sharp turns, especially on highways or narrow roads.

Other safety tips:

Use wheel chocks when parked.

Turn off propane before fueling.

Secure all loose items inside before driving.

Never leave the awning out during windy weather.

First-timers who stay alert and cautious tend to have smoother, safer journeys.

7. Embrace the RV Lifestyle

RV travel is all about flexibility, comfort, and the freedom to explore at your own pace. Whether you’re enjoying a campfire under the stars, making breakfast with a view, or taking a mid-day nap in your own bed-on-wheels, the experience is like no other.

With RV Rentals Philadelphia, first-timers often discover a whole new way to vacation—one where the journey itself becomes the destination. Be open to detours, connect with other travelers, and take the time to enjoy the little moments.

8. Choose a Rental Company That Supports You

Not all rental services are created equal. One of the biggest advantages of choosing RV Rentals Philadelphia through Mark’s RV Rentals is our commitment to first-time renters. We offer detailed walkthroughs, helpful checklists, and 24/7 support while you're on the road.

Whether it’s your first RV weekend or you’re planning a longer road trip, our goal is to make the experience easy, enjoyable, and memorable.

Final Thoughts

Stepping into the world of RV travel opens the door to adventure, comfort, and unforgettable memories. With the right guidance and a little preparation, first-time travelers can hit the road with confidence.

RV Rentals Philadelphia is your gateway to a flexible, fun, and rewarding journey—and Mark’s RV Rentals is here to make that journey stress-free from start to finish. So pack your bags, pick your route, and get ready to explore Pennsylvania and beyond like never before.

Contact Us:

Visit Us: rvrental.pro

Mark’s RV Rentals

Add: Trevose, PA, 19053

Call Us: +1 (215) 607–4047

Mail To: divin2345@gmail.com

[phykios]

honesty and promise me, part 5 [co-written with @darkmagyk] [read on ao3]

 Annabeth is making her periodic pilgrimage to the gynecologist when she gets Leo's call. It's very fitting--two uncomfortable and invasive things for the price of one. She answers her phone, ignoring the doctor's chastising frown. Surely she can place her new IUD while Annabeth deals with whatever Leo wants.

 "What are you doing on the 18th?" he asks, about the only type of hello she ever gets from Leo.

 The two of them never really grew out of pretending not to like each other, after they had gotten over their initial dislike. When he and Piper first got to Miss Minerva's, more or less straight out of juvie after Piper's dad made a lot of calls and called in a lot of favors, she and Leo had really hated each other. They used to fight over everything, from Piper's attention to the position of captain of the Mathletes team. And also, over Leo hating a rich white girl on principle, which, in retrospect, is totally fair. But then, by a weird twist of fate, they wound up in Boston together.

 If Annabeth had to choose between hanging out with her creepy, Norse mythology-obsessed uncle and hanging out with Leo, she'd pick Leo every time. They had gone through a lot together, things both big and small.

 "Of August?" she asks.

 "Please be still, Ms. Chase," says her doctor. Annabeth rolls her eyes.

 "Duh."

 Wracking her thoughts she can't think of any prior commitments she might have had. Maybe there's a concert that day, but if she can't remember, it probably wasn't that important anyway. "Not much."

 "Good, because we have plans."

 She frowns. "Piper didn't mention any--"

 "No, you and I have plans. I'll see you in Philly, yeah?"

 Philadelphia? Ew. "Why Philly?"

 "Our Smarter House thing won an award."

 "No shit?"

 "Eta Industries Award. The gala is on the 18th. You're my plus one."

 She sucks in air through her teeth, readjusting her hips as unobtrusively as possible. Eta Industries was… a very big deal. "Isn't that, like, an engineering specific award? Maybe you should accept it by yourself." She'd be better off staying out of the limelight for this one, she thinks, even as some part of her longs once again for recognition.

 Something electric whirs in the background, tinny and buzzing. "I'll see you on the 18th, then," says Leo, not having heard a word she said. "Also, you've been summoned to the castle."

 "Leo--" she jumps as the gyno touches something she really shouldn't have.

 "No arguments, she's expecting you today at two. Adios!" He clicks off.

 "Okay, Ms. Chase," says the doctor, a little too chipper for Annabeth's taste. "You should be all set."

 Annabeth leaves the doctor's office with her brand new IUD, a handful of medical literature which immediately gets tossed in the trash, and a sinking feeling in her gut as she gets on a train to Brooklyn, headed to Piper's place for another annoying and unnecessary fashion show. It's not that she doesn't enjoy being Piper's model--it's a position she's held since their time at Miss Minerva's, and it's never really a hardship to be told how gorgeous she is--but Piper has a way of just... getting information out of her that she doesn’t always want to share.

 Stopping off early, Annabeth gives herself a moment to walk down the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, to settle her nerves and indulge herself a bit. That skyline gets her every time.

 Turning down Pierrepont Street, she is once again struck by just how quiet the city can be. Manhattan is loud, rude, in-your-face, almost an entirely different world from the stately, deafeningly silent Brooklyn. For Annabeth, who is incapable of falling asleep without city horns blaring, it wigs her out a little.

 She barely has time to ring the doorbell on Piper's dad's place before the girl herself wrenches it open, grabbing Annabeth's hand and yanking her inside. "You're late!" she trills, suffering what Annabeth can only assume is the onset of a caffeine overdose.

 "I thought I had until two."

 "That was before I had the best idea."

 The brownstone is a mess, as per usual, reams of fabric tossed over every available surface, enough dressforms strewn about to make it look like Piper is hosting a party exclusively populated by headless zombies, adorned with a warehouse's worth of half-finished dresses and jackets. Based on the loud fabrics and structured angles, it looks like Piper is in the middle of a Klimt-ian phase of inspiration. Annabeth eyes a bright gold gown with a huge, extended collar, embroidered with silver eyes, the raw edges trailing the floor. "Please tell me this isn't your idea."

 "First of all," Piper releases her arm as they enter her kitchen-turned-photo studio, gingerly stepping over a box of assorted beads, "even though it would look amazing on you, that dress is for an actual paying client. Second of all--" she snatches up a dressform from its position behind the camera, setting it down in front of her with a flourish. "This is my idea."

 Annabeth was right--Piper is definitely on a Klimt-ian kick.

 Pulled straight from her art history classes, the dress looks like a two dimensional painting come to life, a stunning skirt like a column of liquid silver descending onto the black mat, pleats like fluted columns precisely draped over the dressform's hips… and not much else. Annabeth points. “Is that it?”

 Piper makes a face. "I have a bodice, promise. Now go take that shit off."

 Annabeth looks down at her repurposed The Police shirt, fished out of a thrift store bin some months ago, shirt collar cut and sides resewn to bring the waistline in. "I like this shirt."

 "Oh, I like the shirt plenty," she agrees. "But you could stand to wear a nicer pair of jeans."

 She does have a point there--her jeans are clinging to life at this point, the knees and hems all but obliterated, strings of fabric valiantly attempting to hold their original shape. "Fine. Be right back."

 When she emerges from the bathroom a minute later in just her bra and panties, Piper has laid out another bolt of fabric in that same color, silver with a blue shift beneath the studio lights. Piper, bent over with a strip of measuring tape, looks up at her, then squints. "So who is he?"

 Annabeth starts. "Excuse me?"

 "The guy you've been seeing."

 How... the fuck does Piper always know these things? "I don't know what you're talking about."

 She flicks her eyes down to Annabeth's thigh, Annabeth following her gaze to the remnants of the bruise that Percy had left there with his mouth two days ago. Dammit.

 Piper tsks, a smile distorting the sound. "Naughty, naughty, Annabeth."

 "How do you know it wasn't from a girl?" she asks, petulant.

 "Because if it had been a girl, you wouldn't be nearly so defensive."

 Shit. "We've been friends way too long," Annabeth grumbles.

 "That we have," says Piper. "And out of respect for our friendship, I will refrain from grilling you about him until you are more comfortable sharing."

 "So, for a few hours?"

 She shrugs. "More or less."

 "I suppose you want me to thank you for holding back."

 "Don't thank me yet," she grins, wide and toothy. "I've been cooped up here working on my collection for three days, and I am dying to talk to someone."

 Annabeth sighs, but obediently raises her arms, making room as Piper crouches down to pin the skirt on her. "Okay, you got me. I'm seeing this guy."

 "Seeing or seeing-seeing?"

 "Just seeing," she clarifies. "It's pretty casual."

 "Can't be that casual if you're telling me about it," Piper points out.

 Fuck. This is why she never tells Piper about her hookups. "You're the one who asked."

 "Another business bro, I assume?"

 "He's--" Piper swats at her as she automatically sucks her stomach in, their long held code for "stay put." "He's a dancer."

 She hums, arranging pleats over Annabeth's knees. "Like on Broadway?"

 "Ballet."

 Piper glances up at her, eyes sparkling. “Un danseur! Ooh la la,” she trills. “What’s his name?”

 “I can just leave,” Annabeth says, distinctly not thinking about how Percy will occasionally slip into French whenever he stubs his toe.

 “Okay, okay, no more boy talk.” Piper moves in front of her, adjusting the fabric about her waist. “Tell me about the thing you just won with Leo.”

 “I had honestly forgotten about it,” she says, lying a little, pulling her arms forward. “You remember his master’s thesis?”

 “The shmart kishen thing, right?” Piper asks around the tape measure in her mouth.

 Leo, the prodigal boy that he is, had spent his last year of school dedicated to a singular problem faced by people around the world: the sudden, out of control kitchen fire. Using very complicated electronics and engineering that Annabeth does not understand, he devised a handful of mechanisms to sense, contain, and ultimately douse random fires as soon as they popped up. Annabeth came on as his design partner after he had graduated and had gotten some funding to conceptualize an entire safe house.

 “Well, it just won an Eta Industries award.”

 Her head snaps up, hands freezing in their tracks. “Holy shit.”

 “Yeah.”

 “Congrats.”

 “Thanks,” she shrugs as Piper gets up to grab some more fabric. “I mean, it was mostly Leo’s doing. I just made sure he didn’t leave any stray pipes around.”

 Holding out her arms again, Piper slides them through the sleeves of a heavy, corset-like piece, structured and straight and very forgiving on Annabeth’s lack of curves. “You shouldn’t sell yourself short,” she says. “I’m sure your skills as a guinea pig were very valuable.”

 “Are you ever going to let that go?” Annabeth asks, she who has literally burnt pasta while it was submerged in water.

 “You’re just lucky my dad was out of town that weekend. Have you decided what you’re going to wear to the awards ceremony?”

 She shoots her friend a strange look. “I thought I was wearing this?” she gestures to the unfinished silver gown currently making her feel like an absolute goddess.

 Piper makes a face. “What do I look like, the fucking Flash? This isn’t going to be ready for another thirty hours, at least. I’ve got decals to add, Swarovskis to bead, not to mention all the hand-stitching on the neckline because for whatever reason my machine has decided to hate me this week.”

 “Okay, well,” says Annabeth, appropriately cowed, “then I guess I’ll wear the black one you gave me.”

 “2019 fall/winter?”

 Annabeth nods.

 “Styling?”

 “Luke gave me this really nice scarf for my birthday.”

 Throwing her head back, she groans.

 “What? What’s wrong?”

 “You’re so boring,” she moans, pulling Annabeth’s hair out of the way. “Let me guess, you’re going to pair it with the black shrug and opaque nude tights.”

 “Well… yeah, I was.”

 “Exactly! Boring.” Coming back around, she pushes Annabeth lightly into the light, before taking her place behind the camera. “You could do so much with that dress and you choose to make it boring. Why not some fishnets? Or a big statement necklace?”

 Annabeth waits after a few shutter clicks to answer. “Because I doubt that the people at Eta Industries are going to be big fans of my tattoos.”

 “That is a bald-faced lie and you know it,” Piper says. “Your tattoos and piercings are gorgeous and you would look absolutely rocking with them. Knock all the old farts right off their feet. Turn.”

 Obediently, Annabeth rotates, letting Piper snap off as many pictures as she likes. “This isn’t a Vogue event, Pipes,” she says, rolling her eyes where her friend can’t see them. “Punk isn’t exactly accepted practice yet.”

 “Punk was the Met Gala theme almost a decade ago, babe. It has filtered down from Vogue. It's practically cerulean now. Side.”

 Annabeth turns again, keeping her eyes straight. Side-eye would ruin the shot, no matter how much she wants to give it.

 “I will never understand why you both refuse to wear halfway decent jeans and then refuse to go guns out in my dresses that demand it. I can almost guarantee you that Leo will show up in those stupid suspenders with grease on his face. And you’ll have to get him to leave his tool belt in the car.”

 “Then it’s probably for the best that I have a modicum of professionalism, huh?”

 Piper leans out from behind the camera, glaring. “At the very least,” she hedges, “will you let me set you up with some shoes?”

 “I don’t know…”

 “You are not allowed to wear those horrid Manolo pumps you wear everywhere. And your nude Louboutins won’t look right with the black.”

 “What did you have in mind?”

 Piper’s grin is evil, and the way she scampers out of the room means she’s got something she’d been trying to force on Annabeth for a long time.

 Five minutes later, Annabeth is presented with a set of black strappy sandals, its edges detailed in a gold zipper, with safety pin pull to match. She frowns. “Are you sure? They look kind of… hardcore for something like this.”

 “They’re Versace,” Piper says. “I was not lying about punk’s democratization.”

 Well. They are pretty cool.

 “It’s either this or the McQueen boots. They have studs.”

 Annabeth sighs, holding out her hand. Piper squeals, bouncing a little, wrapping her in a brief, but exuberant hug, kissing her cheek with a loud, wet, smack. “You’re the best!”

 “I haven’t even done anything.”

 “I am saving up favors to cash in. Now,” she releases Annabeth, retreating behind the camera. “If you’ve got some time, can I borrow your head? I’m working on a helmet and all my mannequins are busy.”

 ***

 “Hey,” Percy begins. It is so late at night, the dawn is on the edge of breaking, and they are both exhausted from some particularly good sex. Which is saying something, because all their sex is particularly good. “You doing anything on the 18th?”

 “Yeah,” She says, distractedly, snuggling down into his bed. The fact that she’s also snuggling into him is just a coincidence.

 “Oh.”

 “Why?”

 “Nothing. Was going to invite you to a thing if you weren’t.” She nods her head against his shoulder and falls asleep in his arms, thinking absolutely nothing about it.

 She continues to think nothing of it on the train to Philadelphia on the 18th, half-asleep and listening to Paramore to pass the time, blasting Misery Business on repeat as she changes in her hotel room.

 The Eta Industries event is pretty much exactly what she expected: a lot of old rich white people milling about, sipping champagne and verbally circle jerking each other, the insipid strains of classical music spilling out of the ballroom as Annabeth steps up to claim her name tag. “Name?” asks the young, college-aged girl, skimming her printed guest list over the rim of her glasses.

 “Annabeth Chase.”

 She runs a long fingernail over the assorted collection of name tags, before settling on the correct one, handing it to Annabeth, her star tattoo on the inside of her wrist free and open to anyone who would care to look. “Here you are, Ms. Chase,” she says, smiling. “Have a wonderful night!”

 Automatically, Annabeth goes to pin it on Luke’s scarf, before she remembers that something is already occupying that place--Percy’s Acropolis pin. She had taken to keeping it in her pocket these days, something of a good luck charm, and thought that it might… she doesn’t know, maybe send a subconscious signal to Percy that she’s thinking of him. Even though there is, quite literally, no way he could know, she hopes that maybe he can sense it, and that maybe he’s thinking about her, too.

 Ugh. She snatches up a flute of champagne from a wandering waiter, eager to get that thought out of her head, making a beeline straight for the refreshments table. It’s there that Leo finds her, not five minutes later, munching on some chocolate covered strawberries.

 “And here I thought you might ditch me entirely,” he says, even as he bumps her shoulder. True to form, he is absolutely, 100% dressed in those stupid suspenders, a smudge of grease behind his ear.

 “You’ve got a…” Annabeth trails off, motioning behind her own ear.

 “Huh? Oh!” He snatches up a napkin, rubbing discreetly. “Thanks.”

 She squints. Something about him is distinctly different. “Are you taller?”

 Kicking out a foot, he wiggles it, triumphant. “Platform shoes.”

 “Seriously?”

 “Hey, if they're good enough for Robert Downey Jr., then they’re good enough for me. After all, I am Ir--”

 She groans, good-natured, taking another gulp of champagne. “If you quote Marvel in your speech, I’m leaving.”

 “Fine by me, Your Highness, they’ll give me the award either way.”

 “Excuse me, Mr. Valdez?” The same college girl from before sidles up to them, clipboard clutched in her hand. “They’re about to start.”

 He claps his hands, rubbing them together. “Excellent. You coming?”

 “I…” She casts her gaze to the makeshift stage they’ve constructed, eyeing the bright “Eta Industries” placard, the sharp angles shiny and alluring, the siren-song of recognition.

 This is a big deal. There are photographers in the audience. In the write-ups and reviews, she would be listed as a co-winner of the award, a co-designer of the world’s safest house, a thought so happy she practically starts flying.

 “I think I should stay out of the limelight for this one, Leo,” she says, politely. “This is your moment. I don’t want to ruin it.”

 He frowns. “You sure?”

 Were it not for the fact that people were watching, Annabeth would have leapt up onto that stage without a second thought, snatching up the trophy like she had just won the Oscar, holding it up like the goddamn Olympic torch. “What, you want a white woman stealing your glory?” she says instead, arching a brow.

 “You get a pass this one time,” he quips, holding out his hand. “Don’t make me regret it.”

 Whatever social grace she has left crumbles. She’s denied it enough--she wants to be up there. “Oh, fine. Since you insist,” she says, following clipboard-girl to the stage.

 There’s a quick burst of feedback, then an elderly gentleman at the podium begins speaking into the mic. “Excuse me--sorry about that. Yes, yes, thank you all for coming tonight to the annual Eta Industries awards presentation ceremony. It is always such a pleasure to come together with our hard-working and generous board members and shareholders to honor the best and brightest upcoming talent in engineering.”

 Internally, she rolls her eyes. Rich people.

 “It is my pleasure, however, to introduce the young man who is the recipient of this year’s Millennium Prize for innovation and safety. One of MIT’s youngest and most decorated graduates, he was a recipient of the Mead Prize for Students, the Friedman Young Engineer Award, and the Collingwood Prize, among several others. His master’s thesis, ‘Towards the Design and Implementation of Autonomous Safety Measures in Commercial Kitchens,’ formed the basis of the project which we recognize tonight, the so-called ‘SmartSafe House,’ reflects the pioneering spirit and outstanding creative vision of not only Eta Industries, but also the field of engineering as a whole. Please join me in congratulating this year’s Millennium Prize recipient, Leo Valdez.”

 From the sidelines, she claps enthusiastically with the rest of the crowd as her friend takes the stage, shakes hands with the Vice President of Eta Industries, and accepts the award, a blue, blocky triangle which almost seems to glow in the light of the ballroom. “Thank you, Mr. Helms. This is--this is a really big honor.”

 She can see him shaking a bit, taking a quick drink from his water glass. Public speaking was never really his strong suit.

 “As--as a lot of you probably know, this project is very near and dear to my heart. Growing up in Houston with my mother, a car mechanic, I was eight years old when her beloved shop went up in flames, like that.” He snaps his fingers, his other hand pressed to the podium where no one can see, joints white with pressure. Annabeth is proud of him--he hasn’t been able to speak this candidly about it in years. She knows firsthand how much his mother’s near-death haunts him still. “Thankfully, we were able to rebuild, and my mother went on to bigger and better things--including a shop with cleaner vents. But I can definitely pinpoint that moment as the day I knew I wanted to make the world a safer place, for my mom, if not for everyone else.”

 She remembers, so clearly, that snowy night in the dorms at Miss Minerva’s. The power had gone out, and Leo had made them an illicit campfire out of their trash bin and Annabeth’s failed English exam. Cold and miserable and with dying phones, they passed the time instead telling scary stories and funny memories, until the conversation had gotten suddenly, intensely real.

 “But I would be remiss,” he goes on, cheerful, “if I didn’t acknowledge my friend and collaborator, without whose work I wouldn’t be here today: Annabeth Chase,” he waves to his side, indicating her. The whole crowd, as one, turns their gazes on her. She straightens up, imperceptibly, hoping she doesn’t look too haughty or anything. “I’ve never been very good with people. My mama says I’m just like my dad that way. Give me a car, or a computer, or pages of multiplication tables, and I’m golden. But people?” He blows out a breath, and the crowd chuckles, naturally. “Now, if it had been left up to me, the SmartSafe House would have been a top of the line, cutting-edge metal box, efficient to a fault, but completely unlivable. Thank God I had Annabeth on my team to remind me what the project was really about: a home that families could feel safe in, so that what happened to me and my mom might never happen to anyone else.” He hoists his award above his head, leaning into the mic. “Ma, este es para ti. Thank you all.”

 Stepping down from the stage, they reenter the crowd, ready to receive adoration. In another life, she might have been embarrassed by such praise. Here and now, however, she takes each handshake and word of congratulations like a starving man in a desert who just came across an oasis, hungry and greedy.

 Hey, it’s her night, too.

 After what feels like a whole-ass sixty minutes of shaking old people's hands and polite nodding, though, she is in desperate need of a break. Escaping the throng of mingling bodies, she darts into a dark corner of the ballroom, leaning against the back of a rounded stone column, just barely out of sight of the party.

 Rubbing her hands over her face, she sighs, just short of a scream. Blowing out all her air, she lets the faint music and fake laughs melt into each other, becoming white noise, a blank canvas, empty of concrete thoughts and feelings.

 Then, her ear picks up a strand of conversation.

 “...announcing tomorrow that the CEO of Pallas Inc. is choosing a successor,” a woman says, the sneer in her voice almost visible. “About time.”

 “I thought she already picked a successor,” says the woman’s conversation partner, a man with the kind of cookie-cutter cadence that she heard every time she took a business major to bed. “Pallas is a family business, isn’t it?”

 “You haven’t heard?” Annabeth can almost picture it, the furtive glance around the room, the woman placing her hand on her partner’s arm, leaning in to share a juicy secret. “Supposedly she was grooming her daughter for the role, before she went in for rehab.”

 “Rehab? Really?”

 “What else could it be?” says the woman. “She’s disappeared off the face of the earth, and her mother refuses to talk about her. Let’s be honest, if she were dead, she would have raised a bigger stink about it.”

 Annabeth closes her eyes, sucking air in through her teeth. That… wasn’t totally untrue.

 But the woman doesn’t stop. “It’s always the same story,” she scoffs. “You throw countless hours of schooling and millions of dollars into girls like her, and what do they do? Turn around and blow it all on drugs and partying. Honestly, she should be grateful her mother is even bothering with her rehab at all. Hasn’t she wasted enough of the family’s money already?”

 Blood roars in her ears, drowning out the fancy party. Sharp points dig into her palm, pinpricks of pain, before she realizes that they’re her own fingernails.

 The lady has got it all wrong. Her mom couldn’t even be bothered with that.

 Luke’s scarf, the shrug, it’s choking her, suffocating and constricting. Percy’s pin feels heavy on her chest.

 Blinders on, she would have sprinted for the exit were it not for the Piper’s stupid Versace heels, reduced instead to a teetering, tottering wreck, like a baby colt running from a predator. The night is hot and humid, heavy with the threat of rain, and Annabeth can barely breathe, dark spots in her eyes, until she ducks into a nearby Target, the frigid blast of air a welcome distraction.

 Almost in a daze, she watches herself pick up a few things--clippers, an electric razor, beef jerky, a blue Gatorade she considers for a moment before putting it back, choosing a lemonade instead--practically throwing them at the poor cashier who begins checking her out, mechanically. He doesn’t spare her a single glance for her odd assortment of items. He doesn’t even look at her at all.

 The walk to her hotel room disappears in the blink of an eye. Blink--she breezes past the check-in counter, slipping into the empty elevator. Blink--she kicks off her heels in her room, nearly hitting the wall mirror, leaving a scuff mark on the white plaster. Blink--she’s down to her underwear and tights in the bathroom, shaving the right side of her curls clean off. She’d gotten them professionally done for the night, perfect spirals held together by expensive products. And now she wants them gone.

 She pauses and breathes too hard, looking at herself in the mirror. Her mother didn’t like that she was blonde. Maybe because of dumb blonde stereotypes, maybe just because it reminded Athena too much of her failed romance with Annabeth’s dad. And that thought stays her hand from getting rid of the rest of them.

 That, and maybe the idea of Percy, of some broke dancer, tangling his fingers in it as they lie together.

 Fuck her mother, and the fucking stories she tells.

 She likes it. She likes her blonde hair and her fresh undercut.

 She can get Thalia to touch this up later, maybe. Now, though, she needs this.

 It doesn’t look perfect. The left side of hair is too long, her gold laurel earrings too fancy for a homegrown haircut like this, her makeup too pristine. Shoving her hand under the running water, she rubs at her eyes, mascara and eyeliner smearing until they’ve reached something much more respectable for the failure that she really is.

 She misses her industrial. And her eyebrow rings. And the tongue piercing. But this will have to do for now.

 Breathing heavily, eyes hot, she doesn’t register her phone blinking, signaling an unread text message.

 It’s from Thalia. surprised you weren’t at kelp heads bday party, it reads. was pretty boring. Kno he missed you  

[reidio-silence]

New York’s attractiveness as a marketplace was further enhanced by the adoption of gas lighting in the mid-twenties. Nobody liked the smoky oil lamps—few in number and not much brighter than lightning bugs—that had provided unreliable illumination on Manhattan thoroughfares since the 1760s. When Baltimore became the first American city to install gas lights, following the example of London, the Common Council decided to try an experiment. In 1816 a crude gasworks was set up near City Hall and tin pipes run down to several street lamps and store windows on Broadway. Merchants loved the new system, but opposition from tallow interests and a dispute over the merits of public versus private development delayed further action. Finally, in 1823, the city awarded a franchise to the New York Gas-Light Company, a private firm organized by banker Samuel Leggett and others. By early 1825 the company had a gasworks up and running at Hester and Rhynder—one of the largest edifices in the city—and over the next couple of years it ran cast-iron lines into the principal commercial streets. First to be lit was Broadway from the Battery up to Grand Street, soon followed by Wall, Pearl, Broad, William, Nassau, and Maiden Lane. The city paid for installing the street lamps, for “fitting” them up to the mains, and for gas consumed. Office buildings, fine stores, and plush hotels arranged their own connections, and printed warnings—“Don’t Blow Out the Gas!”—began appearing on the bedroom walls of up-to-date hostelries.

By the early 1830s, as Frances Trollope noted, many of the city’s retail shops, now brilliantly illuminated, stayed open as late as those of London and Paris, giving New York a lively nighttime appearance in marked contrast to Philadelphia’s. The contrast with other parts of New York City was equally striking. The gas company did lay mains under residential streets, but only fashionable (hence profitable) ones, leaving most neighborhoods, especially the working-class wards on the east side, blanketed in a darkness punctured only feebly by oil lamps.

— Mike Wallace and Edwin G. Burrows, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (1998)

[athingthatwantsvirginia]

A Patti Smith Envelope

PART THIRTY-FOUR OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: anxiety about future, plentiful pop culture references

Word Count: 4.1K

Summary: Ella and Jess move into their new apartment.

A newspaper ad circled in red ink had led them to the cozy one-bedroom four blocks over from Truncheon and six blocks from campus. It was only late April, earlier than Ella was expecting for them to find something. But she had finished finals, had booked gigs working at the art camps at the college over the summer. She had a few weeks off to make art, and hopefully help out in Truncheon. After touring the place, it felt right. An excited tightness in her stomach. Jess, too, had squeezed her hand in elation as soon as they walked through the door. The place had built-in bookshelves on the far wall, the bedroom on the other side. Ella didn’t believe in signs, but even she could agree it was as close to perfect as they were going to get.

Luke had offered to help without even being asked. Chris, Matthew, Leo, and Mabel were all participants to different degrees of willingness, and they hardly needed any more bodies. But Luke insisted the minute Jess had told him the moving date over the phone. It was likely he needed some sort of distraction since April had moved to New Mexico anyway. She wasn’t going to be back until the summer. And it seemed neither Luke nor Lorelai had come to their senses about each other yet.

He rolled up to Philadelphia in his truck two hours before they expected him. He claimed moving wasn’t moving if there wasn’t a truck to help out. Packing up all the stuff in the apartment was easier than Ella expected, just as it had been when she moved out of her childhood home. Jess could be cluttered sometimes, but nowhere near the level of Chris, and most of Jess’s belongings consisted of old band t-shirts and marked up books anyway. Ella, likewise, had most of her records stuffed in the back of her car. The dresser fit in Chris’s SUV after a fair amount of squeezing stuff in. The bed was the real challenge. It turned out Luke’s truck wasn’t such a frivolous vehicle, after all.

A drizzle was just beginning to fall from the gray, cloudy sky as they finished moving all the boxes inside. The apartment, on the second floor of some ancient building, was not exactly up to twenty-first century standards. The pipes were old and cobwebs gathered in the corners. A splinter or two jutted out from the worn down wood floors, golden brown under the dim lights. But the bohemian rug and many lamps they’d scouted out from the thrift shop a week earlier were already proving helpful. Boxes, labeled with mostly Jess’s scrawled, cramped handwriting, were stacked high in the corner of the living room, others gathered on the cracked tile of the kitchen counter.

Ella blew the stray hairs away from her eyes, otherwise pulled back in her black bandana. Her bangs were growing longer, and she was just becoming able to fully tuck them behind her ears. Roses of flushed color bloomed on her cheeks, her skin hot and sticky. Chris had already sprawled out on the dark gray couch, Leo on the arm. The couch, too, was secondhand, bought for ten bucks at the ReStore off the interstate.

“You really should be paying us,” Chris huffed, throwing his arm across his eyes.

Ella scoffed from where she was helping Matthew and Mabel unpack the kitchen. There was actually not much to be done, as Jess and Ella were planning on getting most of their supplies in the following days. There were a few mugs, bowls, spoons. “Consider it payback for the amount of times I’ve made you pie.”

“I was under the impression those were ‘no strings attached’ pies,” Matthew chimed in.

“Or, at most, ‘friends with benefits’ pies,” Mabel added.

Ella rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’m taking advantage of all of you. I’m eternally in your debt. But I think we got everything, if you guys wanna get outta here.”

The four of them exchanged glances, eventually coming to a consensus they were exhausted enough to leave and retire to the cold pizza in the fridge at Truncheon. Ella suspected they were excited to have their own rooms for the first night in forever, as Chris had already made work of moving his stuff into Jess and Ella’s old room, before they had even finished moving out. She gave them sweaty hugs and salutes goodbye, finishing with unloading the meager contents of the new fridge.

“Hey, Jess, we’re outta here!” Leo called.

Jess’s head appeared from the doorway to the bedroom. “Good. Better to save yourselves now before World War III breaks out in here.”

From beyond the bedroom door, Luke could be heard grumbling obscenities and fighting with the new bed frame he was struggling to put together.

“See you on the other side, then,” Matthew said, smiling. “Also known as Monday.”

“We’ll see if I make it until then,” Jess shrugged, offering them a small wave. “Thanks, guys.”

“You are not welcome,” Chris grunted, trudging out the door.

Mabel gave Ella one last hug before exiting the apartment, shutting the door softly behind her. A grin broke out on Ella’s face. She and Mabel had gone on more than one lunch together, had even gone shopping once. It was new and Ella was still a bit worried the timid woman would be scared away from a friendship with her, but they were slowly getting to know each other.

As Jess continued grappling with Luke, who went on grappling with the bed frame, Ella finished with their groceries. The kitchenware was more or less unpacked to a decent level. The books were next on her list, followed by the records. Rounding the corner of the counter into the living room, she stopped short of the book boxes.

She put her hands to the hips of her jeans. There were a few water spots on the popcorn ceiling, reminding her of Truncheon. The air smelled cozy, but more of lemon Pledge than anything else. Someone had dusted the built-in bookshelves in the initial flurry of unpacking. During the walk-through of the place, Jess had pointed out the corner next to the couch as the perfect spot for an easel. Looking over it, with familiar furniture moved in, the place seemed more real. Less like a dream for the two of them. The terrace past the small sliding glass door was empty, but she thought maybe they could fit a few chairs. It wasn’t as though the view was spectacular, just a vision of the city street below and the other apartment building opposite. But it was more than enough for two people who had both lived out of their cars for extended periods of time.

An odd sense came over her, one of total novelty. Never before had she had a real say in her home. Her parents lived in the blue house in Stars Hollow before she was born, Lane had moved into her house with Zach and Bryan long before Ella started sleeping on the couch, the apartment above Truncheon had been a simple convenience to everyone involved. But she and Jess had chosen the apartment together. They had admired the cheap price, the proximity to work, the odd seashell tiles in the bathroom. The place seemed to have been built before the contemporary requirements of architectural uniformity. It had a mind of its own inside: a leaky sink and a brick exterior and shag carpet in the bedroom. Not altogether a surprise, considering it was in the artsy housing district near the campus.

“Dammit!” she heard once more from the bedroom.

Heaving a tired but cheerful sigh, she crossed her arms over her Clash t-shirt (borrowed from Jess) and entered the bedroom, to the left of the living room and kitchen, opposite from the tiny bathroom. Luke and Jess were both hunched over the metal frame, trying to hold both the headboard and the footboard up and attach the middle section. Their faces were angry and red, frustration radiating off of them.

“Hey, so, it’s past seven,” she announced, eyebrows raised at their trouble.

Jess jumped slightly, his back to her, at the sound of his voice. The footboard slipped out of his grip.

“Oh, for the love of-” Luke began.

“It’s fine,” Ella interjected calmly, going over and placing a hand on Jess’s upper back. He panted but said nothing as his uncle continued fussing.

“Where did you even get this? There’s no damn instructions!” Luke said, readjusting the hat on his head.

“The discount store,” Jess answered, glaring down at the frame and over at the mattress, which stood leaning against the wall near the dresser. “Not all of us have diner money to fall back on.”

“Anyway,” Ella continued, “I bet we could all use some food. Jess, maybe you could drive Luke down to that place on Birch and get some sandwiches? I can finish with the bed.”

Luke shook his head. “Ella, I don’t think-”

“She probably can,” Jess interrupted dejectedly. “I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s those sculpture classes. But she can fix anything. Not just showerheads and cash registers.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Luke said, raising his hands in surrender and leaving the room. He went to grab his coat from the messy pile by the front door.

Ella stifled a laugh. “My god, he’ll never change.”

“Why is he coming with me to get the food?” Jess asked under his breath.

“Because I think he’ll have a stroke if he doesn’t stop with this bed. And he doesn’t know where the place on Birch is. You do,” she explained, giving him a peck on the cheek before going to try her hand at the bed.

Shoulders sagging with fatigue, Jess gave a begrudging nod, then glanced back over his shoulder. “Fine. Hopefully he’ll be less Vesuvius and more Mauna Loa by the time we get back.”

“Not everyday you hear a good volcano metaphor,” she quipped, assessing the middle section of the bedframe and deciding to take it apart altogether.

“I know. Imagine how dull your life would be without me,” Jess shot back, a small smirk tugging at his lips despite his frazzled state. “Turkey?”

She nodded. “You know me too well, James Dean.”

“Agreed,” he said with a teasing laugh.

“Fuck off,” she replied through a chuckle.

Jess’s smirk grew as he turned on his heel to leave. “Love you back, Stevens.”

.   .   .

The windshield wipers of Jess’s rust bucket screeched against the glass as he rolled down Birch Street, away from the sandwich shop. A white paper bag full of subs sat in the passenger seat atop Luke’s lap. In one hand, Luke held a bouquet of deep red tulips. Jess hadn’t remembered the florist shop where Ella had worked the previous summer was right down the road from the sandwich place. He’d stopped in for the bunch of blooms as they waited for their order to be filled. The plastic wrapper around the bouquet crinkled in Luke’s fist as he braced himself, Jess rounding a damp corner.

“I told you we should’ve taken my truck,” Luke grumbled.

Sighing, Jess fought to keep his jaw untensed. “My car’s fine. It’s driven us across the country more than once.”

“Before or after it broke down on the highway and Coop had to have it towed back to Stars Hollow?” Luke asked, his voice tired and strained.

“Not sure. I know for a fact it was after you stole my car, though,” Jess retorted, eyes on the slick roads. He wished the radio was on, but the memories of Luke whining about his album choices were still too recent in his mind.

Heaving a large sigh, Luke gave a shake of his head. “Fine. I give up.”

“Thank you,” Jess muttered.

“You’re welcome,” Luke shot back irritably.

But then he looked over at Jess. His hair was no longer greased, his clothes fit better, his eyes were clearer. Most of the time, his brow was no longer drawn in anger or his face a scowl. Even his posture was different; straighter, brighter, more self-assured. And then he thought of Ella. She looked much the same as she had during her last few weeks at work, with her wide smile and loud laugh. The smiles were more frequent, though, and she seemed so relaxed around her friends. Even around Rory she had sometimes seemed a bit nervous to Luke, as though she were worried over a misstep.

Luke couldn’t contain the small grin on his grizzled face. “I’m really proud of you, Jess.”

Snorting a laugh, Jess spared Luke a quick glance before turning back to the road. They were only a few minutes away from the new home, but Philly traffic was never reliable, even on a Saturday. “Let’s put away the pom-poms for now.”

“I’m just sayin,’” Luke began with a shrug, “got your own company, your own apartment with Ella. You really seem to be doin’ great.”

Jess gave a short, humble nod, but took a long pause before he spoke another word. “Lorelai proposed to you, right?”

Luke’s brow crinkled. “Yeah?”

“But you proposed to Nicole?”

“Yeah.”

Humming under his breath, Jess gave another nod. Red brake lights glowed in the rainy evening darkness. “When did you know...how you wanted to propose?”

“Jess, are you gonna propose to Ella?” Luke asked, eyes going wide and smile growing.

“Never said that,” Jess answered nonchalantly, shaking his head. “Just never really delved into that part of your personal history. Figured I’d ask. Maybe I wanna get to know you better, uncle dearest.”

Rolling his eyes at Jess’s old patterns of behavior, Luke didn’t let his smile waver. He looked down at the bouquet in his hand. “Well, considering it was an impulse cruise ship marriage, not a lot of thought went into it. It just sort of happened. If you’re asking me how to propose to Ella-”

“Which I’m not.”

“-then I’d say she loves you and she’ll say ‘yes’ no matter what. And I’d say that you know her better than anyone in the world, and you shouldn’t...second-guess yourself. Do what feels right.”

“And did an Elvis impersonator marry you two on that cruise?” Jess continued.

Luke bit back another sigh. “No, wiseass. It was a regular minister.”

“Huh,” Jess chirped wryly. “You learn something new everyday.”

.   .   .

Patti Smith spun on the record player as the rain grew stronger outside. Though it was a pain in the ass to unpack the record player, Ella decided it just wouldn’t truly be home without the grace of music on the first night. Luke had left about an hour earlier, though they insisted he could stay over. He said he was nervous enough leaving Lane and Caesar in charge of the diner for one day, and he didn’t want to be late for the morning shift the next day. It made Ella roll her eyes, but eventually she gave up trying to convince him. It wasn’t as though she expected Luke to change his ways. The tulips sat in a mug of water on the kitchen counter, to be placed in something fancier and on something fancier once they actually had a makeshift dining area. For the moment, only the big pieces from the old place and the bed were filling up the small apartment. Ella had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at Luke’s face when he saw she had put the bed together all by herself, finished before they got back with the sandwiches. An expression of extreme frustration had slowly melted into pride. Both were memorable.

Between Jess and Ella, who sat cross-legged on the floor on either side of the coffee table in the living room, was a half-eaten pie. One of the few leftovers from Truncheon they had lugged over to put in the fridge before an actual grocery run. The apple crust was a bit soggy, but the filling was surprisingly good cold. She found herself so wholly content as they sat together: eating pie, listening to records, in the dim lamplight of the first place which was solely theirs. It all struck her with a force she wasn’t expecting. She chuckled to herself as she grabbed another forkful, eating away at the half they had not even bothered to cut but just dug into instead.

“What?” Jess asked through a sweet mouthful, furrowing his brows at her.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Doesn’t this all seem a little...surreal to you?”

“Does what seem surreal?”

“Just...we have an apartment together. And you own a business. And I only have a year left of grad school. I just...sometimes I can’t believe it’s happening. I can’t believe it turned out the way it did. You don’t feel that?” she asked, lowering her eyes sheepishly.

He cracked a small, crooked smirk. “I don’t know. I always just sort of thought I’d end up where I’d end up. And here I am. With you. Not a bad place to be.”

She rolled her eyes, a blush coloring her cheeks. “I know about your Kerouac philosophy. But just...when you first met me, did you ever think in a million years this is where we’d be now?”

“I didn’t know exactly where we’d be. But, I knew I’d land somewhere. I didn’t know if I’d land with you, but I wanted to. Maybe it’s a little surreal, but it doesn’t surprise me,” he explained, leaning his elbows onto the scratched wooden surface of the table with arms crossed.

Snorting a laugh at his insouciance, Ella finally locked eyes with him again. “It just feels a little too good to be true, I guess. I mean, you go to school your whole life, you work towards something your whole life. Once it happens, once you’re near the end...I just never thought it would actually happen. I don’t know what’s next.”

She tugged at her earring with her right hand. Jess noticed the chipped blue polish on her nails, though they weren’t bitten down. He couldn’t quite decipher her mood. Not that she seemed sad or distant, but he could tell she was having a hard time articulating herself. And he could tell she was letting an old worry creep up on her; she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He allowed his smirk to grow into a full smile and dropped his fork into the pie tin. “C’mon, you’re gonna figure it out. You know you are. I’m the directionless one. You’ve always been able to do anything. You’re plan girl.”

Ella gave a mirthful scoff. “You’re not directionless, Jess. And I’m not plan girl. Rory was always plan girl. I was try-to-make-it-to-the-finish-line-without-tripping girl.”

Jess hummed thoughtfully, about to reply. But she spoke again before he had a chance to.

“I thought you had a thing for her, y’know,” she said, taking another bite of pie.

“Who?”

“Rory.”

“Really?” Jess asked, and he couldn’t hide the bewildered amusement in his tone. “When was this?”

She shrugged and narrowed her eyes for a moment in memory. “Just when you first got to Stars Hollow. I mean, you hated Dean, and you like a lot of the same things, and you seemed to get along with her.”

“No. It was pretty much always just you,” Jess said, shaking his head slightly. “Maybe we liked a lot of the same stuff, but...I didn’t ever feel like she...got me like you do.”

“Oh, she didn’t, Kurt Cobain?” she teased, raising her eyebrows. She put her fork down in the tin next to his, her stomach full. Her eyes were beginning to get tired, her body starting to ache from the day of moving. She was glad the bed was put together.

He raised his hands in joking defense. “Hey, I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Remember that night she was tutoring me?”

“The night you crashed her car? Yeah, it rings a bell,” she replied.

“Yes, that one,” Jess continued, smiling sardonically at her. “We were talking about the future. And she kept getting on me about how I had to do better and I had to go to college, just like she did, or else I would have no life.”

The smile which tugged at Ella’s lips was slightly bitter but mostly fond. “Sounds like Rory.”

“Everyone in Stars Hollow thought I was the antichrist. Maybe Rory didn’t, and maybe we were friends, but she definitely wasn’t okay with who I was then. Maybe she thought, with enough Schoolhouse Rock videos, she could get me to shape up,” Jess continued, taking small glances out the sliding glass door as he spoke. He could see a sliver of the city lights past another building on the right side. It was better than the bland brick wall and the dumpster which served as his view from the room in Truncheon.

“Hey, she is an amazing tutor. If there was anyone who could’ve converted you to the Ivy League conveyor belt, it was her,” Ella said.

“Yeah, but you and I both know school was never the way I was supposed to go. It was the way you were supposed to go, but you didn’t try to get me to be anything other than what I was,” he told her, voice light but eyes sincere.

Ella felt her heart skip a beat, but shrugged again. “I don’t know. I definitely tried to get you to ditch those CDs.”

“The exception that proves the rule,” he replied.

“Speaking of, I figured out how I’m gonna organize the books,” she said, tossing a look past his shoulder at the empty shelves.

“How is that a ‘speaking of’?” he asked, a confused smirk coming over his face.

“I’m doing genre, then alphabetical order by author. The way you used to do your CDs when we were in high school,” she explained.

“Oh.” Jess had his eyes trained on her, watching as she undid her bandana and ran her fingers through her mess of blonde hair. He chewed on his bottom lip. Then, after a pause filled only with Patti Smith’s poetry, he blurted out: “Y’know, you were the first person I ever said ‘I love you’ to. The only person.”

Her gaze softened and she nodded. “Me too.”

“No, Stevens, I mean anyone. Not just Nora Ephron kind of love. Not family either,” he said, most insistent, though he did his best to keep his tone nonchalant. As though it were just a run-of-the-mill fact about his past.

She stopped for a moment, brow crinkling. “Your mom never said it to you? Not even hippie dippie Liz?”

“No. We weren’t that kind of family. She wasn’t that kind of mom.”

A crease of concern deepened between her brows. Every time it had come up before, she assumed both of them meant romantic love. Familial was a different beast. But she had to remind herself never to assume with Liz, no matter how she seemed. Jess had arrived when Liz was a binge-drinking nineteen-year-old.

Before her brief interlude in the ‘love doesn’t exist’ frame of mind, before her mother’s death, Ella’s world had been filled with ‘I love you’s. Mostly from her mother, in her soft voice, with her delicate perfume. Some from her grandmother, and even from her father. And after, Lorelai had sometimes said them in passing. Rory, too. The three words, no matter how commonplace they could sound, were important, she knew. Especially when they weren’t uttered, or stopped being uttered.

She opened her mouth to say something, then bit the inside of her cheek and hesitated. Rising from her place, she rounded the corner of the coffee table and went over to him. Jess tilted his head at her in askance, but she only answered him by sitting down in his lap, straddling him as their noses drew only inches apart. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and simply hugged him. For a moment, he sat motionless, his muscles tense. It wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting, if he’d been expecting one at all. But then, he circled his own arms around her waist. They sat there, breathing slow and clinging to each other, for a long time. Patti Smith droned on around them, enveloping them.

Eventually, she pulled away and ran her fingers affectionately through his hair. He looked up at her, unsure of what to say. Fortunately, she took the lead, gaze unwavering as she spoke in her quiet, husky voice.

“Jess, you’re the fucking best. You’re my favorite person. And you’re gonna be hearing ‘I love you’ every day for the rest of our life,” she assured him, matter-of-fact. “So, I suggest you get used to it.”

“Right back at ya,” he replied after an awestruck pause, just before their lips met.

In spite of the fuss over the bed frame, Jess and Ella ended up spending the night on the worn rug in the living room, nearly naked underneath the first throw blanket they could find in the boxes around them.

[theliterateape]

The American Mystery | Part One

By J. L. Thurston

PART ONE: A POET MISSING

I AM INSPECTOR JOHANN P. HEINRICH, ORIGINALLY OF GERMANY, but of late I reside in a flat just above a quaint café in central London. I have had published works in The Times on a good handful of occasion. I tell you this, dear reader, so that you do not doubt the sincerity and professionalism I bring to light today. I am not an arrogant man, nor am I exceedingly humble. I state facts in an interesting manner, nothing more or less.

The events I record now are hardly my own, but rather a tale of an extraordinary detective and his ever-faithful friend. I regret to announce they both wish to remain anonymous. Let us alter their identity by calling them Hamish and William Scott.

When I express to you that Scott is an intelligent man, do not mistake me by categorizing him with the likes of Aristotle or Socrates. Our friend has little knowledge of the workings of the universe, and has no patience for philosophy. He is, in fact, more of a Da Vinci, a meticulous observer who can classify different types of ash and deduces the secrets of total strangers simply by standing in their presence. I dare to give away his identity if I say much more.

Scott and I were both becoming renowned for our detective skills. We were simultaneously summoned to America to assist in an ordeal most urgent. It would seem the famous writer, Edgar Allen Poe, had missed his liaison in Philadelphia and was now nowhere to be found. Several wealthy benefactors of the writer’s acquaintance were offering large sums for his safe return.

Immediately, I purchased a ticket on the newly minted steamship SS Great Britain, and though she was as true a vessel as any, I found myself out of sorts for the greater portion of my journey. Fortune favored me, as I had chosen the very same liner Scott and Hamish had boarded. Thus, we three practically flew to New York City in fourteen days together.

Scott, Hamish, and I remained in close contact during our travel over the sea. Whenever we deliberated the facts of the case, I felt akin to a pupil, ready to take notes whenever Scott chose to speak. Amazed, was I, to witness how much he could glean from very little face-value facts. Judging by the choice of words used in the telegram and his prior knowledge of Poe, Scott felt quite certain that this case had nothing to do with the writer’s drug or alcohol addictions.

I had my doubts, but was anxious to witness Scott’s work to prove his theory correct.

In the moment our feet landed on solid ground, we were given a most insistent telegram. It seemed Poe had been discovered in Baltimore. We three were to rush to his side.

“Why ever for?” I grumbled, hardly recovered in the least from the bucking of the sea.

Scott’s eagle-eyes turned on me, like magnifying glasses over his hooked nose. “It is obvious he’s been found in a poor state, and very likely declining. Surely, the writer cannot speak for himself and it is up to us to ascertain what had become of him before he meets his maker.”

We were given first class seating on a train that would take us to Baltimore. It was early October, and the countryside was breathtaking. The air was quite comfortable for any European abroad. I was keen to enjoy myself before alighting upon a scene that would prove most grim, but Scott was a distraction. He was brooding, aloof, and often mumbled to himself as he puffed on his pipe. If I hadn’t known better I’d say he was a man scorned, but Hamish assured me it was a normal disposition for the dear detective.

I was far from surprised, but no less displeased when we arrived in Baltimore to learn that Poe was indeed on his deathbed. From the train station, we were ferreted away by a lavish landaulet drawn by a swift gelding of the finest sort. All efforts had been made to retrieve us as hastily as could be.

When we arrived at the house where Poe was being made comfortable, we were brought into the tea room by a stone-faced doorman and made to wait. Scott became as unhinged and nervous as a man awaiting a firstborn. He paced and mumbled, he wrung his hat and puffed his pipe so exorbitantly the room was cloudy with smoke.

A man arrived, stocky with a thin black beard, and was announced to us as Constable Jacobs. Hamish and I greeted him politely, but Scott was far too worked up for pleasantries.

“Did you receive my telegram?” Scott asked immediately.

Jacobs nodded and with a wave of his arm let in a troupe of thirteen people. “I did, indeed, Detective Scott. Here they are. Every man and woman who has been in contact with Mr. Poe since his discovery.”

Scott tucked away his pipe and rubbed his chin. “Good work, Constable. Everyone, thank you for coming.”

Then he spoke to them, one by one. At times he would be cordial and strike up conversation, and other times he would be curt and hardly ask a thing. There were many bewildered faces in the room as he interrogated in his own manner, but his face was as sharp and focused as surly as the Creator’s had been when he made man.

Scott wrote nothing down, but I do not doubt he could recite their accounts without omitting a word.

So intently listening was I that when the nurse entered and announced Poe was as fit as any to be seen, I nearly leapt out of my skin.

We were brought down a corridor to a guest bedroom. The room smelled of lavender soap and freshly washed linens. Inwardly I was cursing the nurse who had taken care to freshen up the bed and victim, as surely all evidence of Poe’s plight had been washed away, too.

Scott said nothing to the famous writer as the man lay in the throes of a dying fit. Drenched in a diaphoretic sweat, shaking, pale, and thin, Poe neither heard nor saw us as we approached him. Scott took his hand, and for an instant I wondered if the detective had found some compassion for the ailing soul, but I was reminded of his nearly mechanic mind when he began to examine beneath Poe’s fingernails.

We spent merely a half hour with Poe, and he spoke only one word in our presence, “Reynolds.”

Poe expired within an hour of our examination. Eyes open, mad, sweating and plagued with despair and darkness, he left this world.

I said a prayer. Hamish re-interviewed Poe’s attending physician. We all did what we thought made sense at the time. We tried to make ourselves feel useful, to feel as though we hadn’t travelled from so far only to fail so completely.

Scott was hardly moved by our failure. He was a hound on the hunt.

[pttedu]

The Importance Of Pressure Testing In Pipe Fitter Certificate Programs

Learn why pressure testing is vital for a pipe fitter certificate. Read more to enhance your skills, ensure safety, and advance your trade career.

[pttiedu]

Sprinkler Fitting Vocational Programs: Unveil Your Skills

A skilled sprinkler fitter installs, inspects, and repairs sprinkler systems. The vocational programs generally include installing plumbing fixtures, fixing defective sprinklers, and soldering and welding tubes, pipes, and fittings scheduled for sprinklers.

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[savesgu]

Top shirt on tentenshirtstore.gearbubble on 26/10/2019

Top shirt on tentenshirtstore.gearbubble on 26/10/2019

Why choose a major when you have no idea? Just go to learn something you are interested in! Then go from there! Knowledge expands your Captain Philadelphia Alejandro Bedoya shirt  I started by wanting to fix a car. It needed welding. I had no idea where it could possibly lead me. Next thing I knew I was taking multiple classes in welding then into pipe fittings then into all sorts of aspects of…

[nox-lathiaen]

Pharma Sterilization Systems Commissioning Engineer - Philadelphia, PA

Global Design and Build Firm seeks project leadership experience in a degreed controls engineer to oversee commissioning processes including project deliverables and interfacing with staff, management and clients. Areas of Responsibility: Development of commissioning specifications and testing requirements; Site inspections and equipment installation conformance oversight; Operation and maintenance documentation and project deliverables; Client technical support and training; and System software configuration, setup and demonstration. Typical Technologies In Use: Clean Room, isolating and sterilizing systems for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries including: Contamination Control Isolators; Biohazard Containment Solutions; Particulate Filtering Systems; Unidirectional Airflow Systems; Dry Heat, Biocide Vapor & Steam Sterilizers; Real Time Integrated Sterilization and Aseptic Cell Systems. System Subcomponents involve: Pumps, Compressors, Valves, Boilers, Pressure Vessels, Piping, Instrumentation, Programmable Controllers, Digital Readouts, Human Machine Interfaces. Work with top engineer minds and enjoy a Fortune 500 benefits package, executive perquisites, expense account and world class compensation package. A highly independent and visible position with global ENR company. For complete details contact Christopher Moreno at: (609) 584-9000 ext 264 Or submit resume online at: dmc9.com/cam/app.asp Or email to: 1000038918_10007349 AT jobbank303.com Please reference #38766171 when responding. Education Requirements: Bachelor Degree Minimum Experience Requirements: 2-5 years Job City Location: Philadelphia Job State Location: PA Job Country Location: USA Salary Range: $80,000to $120,000 Diedre Moire Corporation, Inc. Diedremoire_dot_com WE ARE AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER and our employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, handicap, disability or marital status. We reasonably accommodate individuals with handicaps, disabilities and bona fide religious beliefs. Jobs Career Position Hiring. CONSIDERED EXPERIENCE INCLUDES: Field Engineer Field Installation Engineer Commissioning Engineer Contamination Control Isolators Biohazard Containment Solutions Particulate Filtering Systems Unidirectional Airflow Systems Dry Heat, Biocide Vapor & Steam Sterilizers Real Time Integrated Sterilization and Aseptic Cell Systems #DiedreMoire #CleanRooms #SterilizationEquipment #JobSearch #JobHunt #JobOpening #Hiring #Job #Jobs #Careers #Employment #jobposting DISCLAIMER: We will make every effort to consider applications for all available positions and shall use one or more of the contact methods and addresses indicated in resume or online application. Indicated location may be proximate or may be desirable point of embarkation for paid or unpaid relocation to another venue. Job descriptions may fit single or multiple presently available or anticipated positions and are NOT an offer of employment or contract implied or otherwise. Described compensation is not definite nor precise and may be estimated and approximate and is negotiable depending on market conditions and candidate availability and other factors and is solely at the discretion of employers. Linguistics used herein may use First Person Singular and First Person Plural grammatical person construction for and with the meaning of Third Person Singular and Third Person Plural references. We reserves the right to amend and change responsibilities to meet business and organizational needs as necessary. Response to a specific posting or advertisement may result in consideration for other opportunities and not necessarily the incentive or basis of the response. Nothing herein is or may be considered a promise, guarantee, offer, pledge, agreement, contract, or oath. If you submit an application or resume which contains your email address, we will use that email address to communicate with you about this and other positions. We use an email quality control service to maintain security and a remove and dead address filter. To cancel receiving email communications, simply send an email from your address with the word "remove" in the subject line to pleaseremove_AT_candseek4.com Or, visit the website at jobbankremove_dot_com. If you have further concern regarding email received from us, call (609) 584-5499. Reference : Pharma Sterilization Systems Commissioning Engineer - Philadelphia, PA jobs Source: http://jobrealtime.com/jobs/technology/pharma-sterilization-systems-commissioning-engineer-philadelphia-pa_i5429

[flauntpage]

There's More to Mikal Bridges Than Meets the Eye

LAS VEGAS — Mikal Bridges is the most crystallized lottery pick in his draft class, which is one reason why his entrance into the NBA was more unsettling than expected. “My agent said anything can happen,” Bridges tells me. “That was true.”

Nothing is certain in professional sports, but whichever team picked Bridges just about knew what it would get: a wing who’ll be 22 years old on opening night, who won two national championships at Villanova with a skill-set that’s immediately suitable for the NBA's modern backdrop.

Bridges didn’t know the Philadelphia 76ers—a team in search of swift production at his own position and owned by a company that also employs his mother, Tyneeha Rivers, as Vice President of Human Resources—planned to take him with the tenth pick until they were on the clock. The moment Commissioner Adam Silver read his name from the Barclays Center podium, Rivers, who was seated to her son's left, jumped from her seat, screamed, and shook a pair of jubilant fists over her head. Minutes later, she was interviewed on live television. This was a literal dream come true on multiple levels for everyone involved; from on-court fit to off-court familiarity, it was perfect.

“It’s amazing. It’s an experience I’ll never forget, and I’m so excited he’s coming home to be a part of our Sixers family. It’s amazing,” she sang through jittery exhilaration. “Go Sixers!” Not even 20 minutes later, the overwhelming joy was partially replaced by confusion. Bridges—who didn’t have his cell phone with him—fielded questions at a press conference after the trade that sent him to the Phoenix Suns popped up on Twitter.

“I didn’t understand,” Bridges says. “I heard ‘trade’ when I was walking and they were mumbling and I asked what they were talking about and they told me later. But I was just more wanting to see how my mom was because she was so excited for me to be back home. [I’m a] big mama’s boy.”

It took a few minutes to process the news. Unlike Philadelphia, Charlotte, New York, or Cleveland, Phoenix was never on Bridges’s radar. He didn’t interview with their front office or workout for their coaches. But according to Bridges, the Suns spoke to Villanova head coach Jay Wright hours before the trade, and were confident enough with the information they gathered from him and other sources to surrender their own 16th pick and an unprotected first-round pick owned by the Miami Heat in 2021.

The initial daydream that was filled with no-look passes from Ben Simmons and a chance to defend in front of a brick wall like Joel Embiid quickly shifted to all the possibilities provided by Phoenix’s unmarked canvas and lesser expectations. “A lot of people think I was gonna be upset because I’m not home. But they don’t get the point that I was drafted that night. So it’s what people think, but I was really excited. As soon as I got traded I thought about the pieces they have and how bad they wanted me.”

Bridges had already formed a close relationship with Phoenix’s first overall pick Deandre Ayton after the two spent time together in Los Angeles at the College Basketball Awards back in April, and he remembers competing against Devin Booker at various camps during high school. Right now, the Suns depth chart is filled with positional overlap, between Bridges, Josh Jackson, T.J. Warren, and incoming $15 million man Trevor Ariza. But compared to the Sixers, where action is almost always initiated by Simmons or Embiid, the opportunity for Bridges to cultivate more areas of his expanding game may prove useful in Phoenix.

For now, he’s most appealing when there’s nothing to think about. Whenever a pass glides towards his chest and smacks into his hands, he stares at the rim, bends his knees, and uncoils a picturesque jump shot that begins just southwest of his belly button and ends a couple feet above his forehead. Topped off by a brisk release that’s unbothered by just about every defender who’s asked to stop it, his form was molded by thousands of attempts at Villanova, where the coaching staff encouraged him to center a shot pocket that originally began way out on the left side of his body.

Today’s culmination is graceful, effortless, consistent, and the primary reason he’s a lanky, cherished jewel in the minds of executives throughout the NBA. Whether he’s sprinting off a down screen or standing still on the perimeter, Bridges has already mastered a skill that will raise his floor and insure his place on an NBA roster for at least a decade.

“I feel like I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself, and I feel like every time I catch and shoot, it’s going in,” he tells me. “No matter if there’s a person in front of me.” Bridges finished college as a 40 percent shooter from deep, but got better every season. Last year, on his way to winning the Julius Erving Award, he launched six threes per game and made 43.5 percent of them. I ask if he thinks he can be one of the ten best shooters in the world. “There’s a lot of great shooters in the NBA. You can say top ten, but I just know I have confidence in myself where every time I catch it, I’m gonna make it.”

Here’s a designed play from his Summer League debut, a set that takes advantage of everything Bridges can already do at the NBA level. He slips a ball screen and then comes off Ayton’s pick for an open three. Everything is tight and the timing is perfect. It’s the type of sequence that we’ll see throughout his career, twitchy misdirection that burns a defense already worried about his teammates.

Bridges, whose pre-draft allure rested on his ability to seamlessly slide in as a 3-and-D contributor, knows what he is and why he was drafted, even though untapped potential may bubble just below the surface. “If I work on live ball screen stuff but they just want me to catch and shoot and be a defender I’m gonna do that,” he says. “I’m gonna still be working on my game, but whatever they want me to do I’ll do.”

There lies the challenge for a rebuilding team that needs to figure out if he’s more useful maxed out in a specific role, or operating with some slack, able to develop different segments of his game that would otherwise lay dormant. There’s plenty of time to find an answer, but figuring out how he can have the most impact will be worth debating right away.

“I don’t think it’d be intelligent to talk about being anything more than who you are at the highest level you can be. And I think that’ll be his mindset,” says La Salle head coach Ashley Howard, who recruited Bridges to Villanova and then coached him for four seasons. “He’ll continue to add things to his game, but I don’t think that’s smart until he’s proven that he can be that reliable guy day in and day out."

Howard was an assistant coach at Xavier when he first saw Bridges play. Then a slender standout at Great Valley High School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Bridges’s cousin sent Howard a highlight tape. “He was the tallest guy on his high school team so he was forced to do everything. He was the best player,” Howard says. “He would handle the ball, he rebounded, blocked shots. He was really good at moving without the ball, cutting to the basket, and had a really good knack for making a lot of—just like the way he is now—easy, simple, fundamental basketball plays.”

At his first recruitment meeting after Villanova hired him, Howard told the coaching staff his thoughts on Bridges’s upside, and how he was someone the program needed to have on its radar. They watched him flash even more potential in AAU that spring and offered him a scholarship soon after.

"I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself, and I feel like every time I catch and shoot, it’s going in.”

Instead of thriving as a one-and-done prospect, Bridges red-shirted his freshman year and spent countless hours in practice and before games working out with Howard. The NBA, let alone being a top-ten pick, was still a pipe dream, but Howard did everything he could to build Bridges up into what he is today. “I would talk trash to him,” he says. “I would create drills that I knew were next to impossible and just challenge him. He would never quit, but it would just drive him to the point where he knew what I was doing and it was a grind for him. He kept battling to the point where he’d win the drills, and then I’d have to try and create new drills to force him to have greater challenges.”

The journey from those workouts—that often ended with Bridges still angry at Howard until the next one began—to Phoenix is compelling and delightful. But where he goes from here is a bit of a paradox. Bridges’s age makes his evolution feel closer to completion than it probably is—he’s two months older than Booker, who’s already spent three seasons in the NBA and just signed a five-year, $158 million contract—which makes him less shiny than the nine teenagers selected before him. But the way he improved throughout college, going from a skinny redshirt freshman to the Big East’s leader in PER and True Shooting percentage, hints at a career that could surprise a lot of people.

Three years ago, he didn't start once and averaged 6.4 points per game. Only 29.9 percent of his threes went in and his 14.5 usage rate was fourth-lowest on Villanova. Last year, he started every game, upped his scoring to 17.7 points per game and only trailed (Wooden Award winner) Jalen Brunson in usage rate.

In a day and age when having a fluid wing who can protect the rim, deflect a ton of passes, and credibly space the floor is at a premium, every NBA team wants Bridges's attributes. Sitting in the stands at Las Vegas Summer League, one writer likened him to J.J. Redick...if J.J. Redick could guard three positions. Another wondered if he could be Corey Brewer with an outside shot. At worst, he may be a more consistent Robert Covington. “Uncompromising Otto Porter/Khris Middleton” is not impossible. Neither is him getting buried in Wesley Johnson Cemetery.

Most likely, though, a shot so accurate even when under duress—"He’s a really good shooter," Howard says—mixed with the physical dimensions of a vicious help and individual defender (he's 6’7” with Draymond Green’s wingspan) epitomizes what’s most valuable in a league that requires versatility from virtually anyone who wants to play more than 32 minutes a night. Less than a quarter of all players who saw the floor that often stood 6’10” or taller last season. (Two years ago, nobody in the country defended Josh Hart—arguably college basketball’s best player at the time—better than Bridges could during practice. That’s when some of his coaches realized they might have a first-round pick on their hands.)

If he's a complementary piece then he'll have to excel with duties that are both expected and nothing to be ashamed of, in a job that blends nicely with his subdued disposition. “I think Mikal’s development was shocking because he doesn’t have the personality of a guy that’s outwardly the most confident or swagged out, right? He just shows up and goes to work everyday. Works, puts his time in. Works, puts his time in,” Howard says. “Once Josh Hart left, Mikal just kind of said ‘OK, my turn’ and then took his game up another level.”

But the blueprint for something more is there. “I don’t know what ball player doesn’t want to have more responsibilities,” Bridges tells me. “As I get older and just keep working on my game, I’m just trying to be like Kawhi and Paul George. You know, they started off more catch-and-shoot, and then when they got bigger roles they’d start playmaking.”

That’s an exciting thought. Bridges snugly fits into the NBA’s present and future. He also may top out as a role player, which makes Phoenix's decision to give up all they did for that type of service a bit divisive. But what's done is done, and if they just added a decade of Wesley Matthews-esque service to their organization then that's indisputably a very good thing. If they somehow landed a budding All-Star, all the better.

Either way, Bridges should check off multiple boxes. Whether he ends up being more than what's currently advertised or exactly what most expect, the Suns may suddenly have the NBA’s premier young core because Bridges is the type of player who elevates teammates on both sides of the ball.

"You’ve just got to keep getting better and be that player they want you to be. Embrace that role," Bridges says. "I’m just trying to be the best basketball player I can be."

There's More to Mikal Bridges Than Meets the Eye published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

There’s More to Mikal Bridges Than Meets the Eye

LAS VEGAS — Mikal Bridges is the most crystallized lottery pick in his draft class, which is one reason why his entrance into the NBA was more unsettling than expected. “My agent said anything can happen,” Bridges tells me. “That was true.”

Nothing is certain in professional sports, but whichever team picked Bridges just about knew what it would get: a wing who’ll be 22 years old on opening night, who won two national championships at Villanova with a skill-set that’s immediately suitable for the NBA’s modern backdrop.

Bridges didn’t know the Philadelphia 76ers—a team in search of swift production at his own position and owned by a company that also employs his mother, Tyneeha Rivers, as Vice President of Human Resources—planned to take him with the tenth pick until they were on the clock. The moment Commissioner Adam Silver read his name from the Barclays Center podium, Rivers, who was seated to her son’s left, jumped from her seat, screamed, and shook a pair of jubilant fists over her head. Minutes later, she was interviewed on live television. This was a literal dream come true on multiple levels for everyone involved; from on-court fit to off-court familiarity, it was perfect.

“It’s amazing. It’s an experience I’ll never forget, and I’m so excited he’s coming home to be a part of our Sixers family. It’s amazing,” she sang through jittery exhilaration. “Go Sixers!” Not even 20 minutes later, the overwhelming joy was partially replaced by confusion. Bridges—who didn’t have his cell phone with him—fielded questions at a press conference after the trade that sent him to the Phoenix Suns popped up on Twitter.

“I didn’t understand,” Bridges says. “I heard ‘trade’ when I was walking and they were mumbling and I asked what they were talking about and they told me later. But I was just more wanting to see how my mom was because she was so excited for me to be back home. [I’m a] big mama’s boy.”

It took a few minutes to process the news. Unlike Philadelphia, Charlotte, New York, or Cleveland, Phoenix was never on Bridges’s radar. He didn’t interview with their front office or workout for their coaches. But according to Bridges, the Suns spoke to Villanova head coach Jay Wright hours before the trade, and were confident enough with the information they gathered from him and other sources to surrender their own 16th pick and an unprotected first-round pick owned by the Miami Heat in 2021.

The initial daydream that was filled with no-look passes from Ben Simmons and a chance to defend in front of a brick wall like Joel Embiid quickly shifted to all the possibilities provided by Phoenix’s unmarked canvas and lesser expectations. “A lot of people think I was gonna be upset because I’m not home. But they don’t get the point that I was drafted that night. So it’s what people think, but I was really excited. As soon as I got traded I thought about the pieces they have and how bad they wanted me.”

Bridges had already formed a close relationship with Phoenix’s first overall pick Deandre Ayton after the two spent time together in Los Angeles at the College Basketball Awards back in April, and he remembers competing against Devin Booker at various camps during high school. Right now, the Suns depth chart is filled with positional overlap, between Bridges, Josh Jackson, T.J. Warren, and incoming $15 million man Trevor Ariza. But compared to the Sixers, where action is almost always initiated by Simmons or Embiid, the opportunity for Bridges to cultivate more areas of his expanding game may prove useful in Phoenix.

For now, he’s most appealing when there’s nothing to think about. Whenever a pass glides towards his chest and smacks into his hands, he stares at the rim, bends his knees, and uncoils a picturesque jump shot that begins just southwest of his belly button and ends a couple feet above his forehead. Topped off by a brisk release that’s unbothered by just about every defender who’s asked to stop it, his form was molded by thousands of attempts at Villanova, where the coaching staff encouraged him to center a shot pocket that originally began way out on the left side of his body.

Today’s culmination is graceful, effortless, consistent, and the primary reason he’s a lanky, cherished jewel in the minds of executives throughout the NBA. Whether he’s sprinting off a down screen or standing still on the perimeter, Bridges has already mastered a skill that will raise his floor and insure his place on an NBA roster for at least a decade.

“I feel like I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself, and I feel like every time I catch and shoot, it’s going in,” he tells me. “No matter if there’s a person in front of me.” Bridges finished college as a 40 percent shooter from deep, but got better every season. Last year, on his way to winning the Julius Erving Award, he launched six threes per game and made 43.5 percent of them. I ask if he thinks he can be one of the ten best shooters in the world. “There’s a lot of great shooters in the NBA. You can say top ten, but I just know I have confidence in myself where every time I catch it, I’m gonna make it.”

Here’s a designed play from his Summer League debut, a set that takes advantage of everything Bridges can already do at the NBA level. He slips a ball screen and then comes off Ayton’s pick for an open three. Everything is tight and the timing is perfect. It’s the type of sequence that we’ll see throughout his career, twitchy misdirection that burns a defense already worried about his teammates.

Bridges, whose pre-draft allure rested on his ability to seamlessly slide in as a 3-and-D contributor, knows what he is and why he was drafted, even though untapped potential may bubble just below the surface. “If I work on live ball screen stuff but they just want me to catch and shoot and be a defender I’m gonna do that,” he says. “I’m gonna still be working on my game, but whatever they want me to do I’ll do.”

There lies the challenge for a rebuilding team that needs to figure out if he’s more useful maxed out in a specific role, or operating with some slack, able to develop different segments of his game that would otherwise lay dormant. There’s plenty of time to find an answer, but figuring out how he can have the most impact will be worth debating right away.

“I don’t think it’d be intelligent to talk about being anything more than who you are at the highest level you can be. And I think that’ll be his mindset,” says La Salle head coach Ashley Howard, who recruited Bridges to Villanova and then coached him for four seasons. “He’ll continue to add things to his game, but I don’t think that’s smart until he’s proven that he can be that reliable guy day in and day out.”

Howard was an assistant coach at Xavier when he first saw Bridges play. Then a slender standout at Great Valley High School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Bridges’s cousin sent Howard a highlight tape. “He was the tallest guy on his high school team so he was forced to do everything. He was the best player,” Howard says. “He would handle the ball, he rebounded, blocked shots. He was really good at moving without the ball, cutting to the basket, and had a really good knack for making a lot of—just like the way he is now—easy, simple, fundamental basketball plays.”

At his first recruitment meeting after Villanova hired him, Howard told the coaching staff his thoughts on Bridges’s upside, and how he was someone the program needed to have on its radar. They watched him flash even more potential in AAU that spring and offered him a scholarship soon after.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself, and I feel like every time I catch and shoot, it’s going in.”

Instead of thriving as a one-and-done prospect, Bridges red-shirted his freshman year and spent countless hours in practice and before games working out with Howard. The NBA, let alone being a top-ten pick, was still a pipe dream, but Howard did everything he could to build Bridges up into what he is today. “I would talk trash to him,” he says. “I would create drills that I knew were next to impossible and just challenge him. He would never quit, but it would just drive him to the point where he knew what I was doing and it was a grind for him. He kept battling to the point where he’d win the drills, and then I’d have to try and create new drills to force him to have greater challenges.”

The journey from those workouts—that often ended with Bridges still angry at Howard until the next one began—to Phoenix is compelling and delightful. But where he goes from here is a bit of a paradox. Bridges’s age makes his evolution feel closer to completion than it probably is—he’s two months older than Booker, who’s already spent three seasons in the NBA and just signed a five-year, $158 million contract—which makes him less shiny than the nine teenagers selected before him. But the way he improved throughout college, going from a skinny redshirt freshman to the Big East’s leader in PER and True Shooting percentage, hints at a career that could surprise a lot of people.

Three years ago, he didn’t start once and averaged 6.4 points per game. Only 29.9 percent of his threes went in and his 14.5 usage rate was fourth-lowest on Villanova. Last year, he started every game, upped his scoring to 17.7 points per game and only trailed (Wooden Award winner) Jalen Brunson in usage rate.

In a day and age when having a fluid wing who can protect the rim, deflect a ton of passes, and credibly space the floor is at a premium, every NBA team wants Bridges’s attributes. Sitting in the stands at Las Vegas Summer League, one writer likened him to J.J. Redick…if J.J. Redick could guard three positions. Another wondered if he could be Corey Brewer with an outside shot. At worst, he may be a more consistent Robert Covington. “Uncompromising Otto Porter/Khris Middleton” is not impossible. Neither is him getting buried in Wesley Johnson Cemetery.

Most likely, though, a shot so accurate even when under duress—”He’s a really good shooter,” Howard says—mixed with the physical dimensions of a vicious help and individual defender (he’s 6’7” with Draymond Green’s wingspan) epitomizes what’s most valuable in a league that requires versatility from virtually anyone who wants to play more than 32 minutes a night. Less than a quarter of all players who saw the floor that often stood 6’10” or taller last season. (Two years ago, nobody in the country defended Josh Hart—arguably college basketball’s best player at the time—better than Bridges could during practice. That’s when some of his coaches realized they might have a first-round pick on their hands.)

If he’s a complementary piece then he’ll have to excel with duties that are both expected and nothing to be ashamed of, in a job that blends nicely with his subdued disposition. “I think Mikal’s development was shocking because he doesn’t have the personality of a guy that’s outwardly the most confident or swagged out, right? He just shows up and goes to work everyday. Works, puts his time in. Works, puts his time in,” Howard says. “Once Josh Hart left, Mikal just kind of said ‘OK, my turn’ and then took his game up another level.”

But the blueprint for something more is there. “I don’t know what ball player doesn’t want to have more responsibilities,” Bridges tells me. “As I get older and just keep working on my game, I’m just trying to be like Kawhi and Paul George. You know, they started off more catch-and-shoot, and then when they got bigger roles they’d start playmaking.”

That’s an exciting thought. Bridges snugly fits into the NBA’s present and future. He also may top out as a role player, which makes Phoenix’s decision to give up all they did for that type of service a bit divisive. But what’s done is done, and if they just added a decade of Wesley Matthews-esque service to their organization then that’s indisputably a very good thing. If they somehow landed a budding All-Star, all the better.

Either way, Bridges should check off multiple boxes. Whether he ends up being more than what’s currently advertised or exactly what most expect, the Suns may suddenly have the NBA’s premier young core because Bridges is the type of player who elevates teammates on both sides of the ball.

“You’ve just got to keep getting better and be that player they want you to be. Embrace that role,” Bridges says. “I’m just trying to be the best basketball player I can be.”

There’s More to Mikal Bridges Than Meets the Eye syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com

[pttedu]

How To Install And Maintain Fire Sprinkler Systems: A Sprinkler Fitting Training Guide

Learn fire sprinkler installation and maintenance with expert sprinkler fitting training. For career growth, get certified at a top sprinkler fitting training center.

[pttiedu]

Secrets Of Pipe Fitting: Insider Tips From Pipe Fitting Classes

Want to ace your career as a pipefitter? Join the pipefitting classes and learn professional tips to push your career forward in the pipefitting industry.

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Coree Marx A week in Miami had been a hard one to pull off, but the two had managed to get that time away from the real world where they could enjoy one another and get back to just what the core of it all was outside of career aspirations where it was just a boy and a girl who were just as in love with one another as they had been as crazy teenagers.  Coming back to reality had been difficult for Coree, furthered when the two jetted off for another three days away in Philadelphia for Brick Fest.  Meanwhile, there were more engagements listed on the calendar than Coree was comfortable with as she found the pink ink against the white paper to flood nearly every day between the present date and June 30, rivaled only by the blue ink that signified that which was his schedule.  Every day seemed to have an array of blue and pink and left very little white which would indicate time they could truly just spend together.  At one time, that had been Sundays, but now even those held flecks of pink and blue.

With the bags from Philadelphia unpacked and put away once again, the first day back was to rehearsals for her and to school for him.  A kiss goodbye in the morning entirely too early for either of them, and they were back to the real world once more.  The fantasy version of life had seemed so much better to her where their time was unlimited and nothing else pulled on them, and yet they both had a drive that could not be argued.  That day had resulted in Coree walking out of rehearsals not even an hour in and wandering the streets of New York endlessly without her phone or any personal items.  Everything had been abandoned at the studio rehearsal space and left for later, though she couldn’t be sure when she’d return to get them.  

The hours passed slowly as she walked, finding herself further and further away from the studio before she’d finally felt as though she’d calmed herself and could attempt to return.  A stranger on the street would give her the time when she asked, sending her into an entirely different fit of panic; she was late.  She was supposed to be home thirty minutes prior to start getting ready for one of those few markings on the calendar that begun in blue and ended in pink, signifying they were to both be there.  By the time she’d made her way back, she was a good hour and a half behind schedule in a time frame she’d allotted herself two hours to get ready.  She’d need a shower, to get changed, to fix her hair, make up.  It was never going to happen.  

As she entered the building, the doorman was there with the same smile he greeted each tenant with daily, only this time he’d take a step back, telling her that someone had dropped something off for her earlier.  This was the first sign to her that Barron wasn’t home yet or he would have been given those items.  Coree took her bag from the man and made her way upstairs to their floor, entering the apartment to find everything as it had been when she’d left the apartment that morning.  Gremlin fussed in his kennel realizing she was there.  “Alright, I’m coming,” she assured, her voice not nearly as warm as it normally was towards the pup, but to say she was in a hurry was an understatement.  It was her own fault, as was the sea of red alerts on her cell phone that she still had yet to check.  Getting him from the kennel, he was running for the bathroom where his potty pad sat on the floor.  He was on his own and the clock ticked against her, knowing Barron could be home at any given moment.  

She gave herself a new time table, one that would be near impossible to keep up with, but it might actually work.  Eight minutes in the shower, not washing her hair, and getting dressed.  Make up would be minimal and the hair would just have to work itself out.  Gremlin had left the bathroom in search of food, but he wouldn’t find it as she hadn’t gotten that far, only thinking that she did not want to let Barron down.  With all that he had been attending for her, she couldn’t let him down for this one.  Although she knew he had told her a million times that she didn’t have to come if it wouldn’t work out in her schedule, it changed nothing for her as she wanted to be there to support him just as much as he was there to constantly support her.  As she got out of the shower, she came into the bedroom, dropping the damp towel to the floor which Gremlin quickly assisted with, dragging it off to the living room to his bed where he frequently took stray items that he thought should now belong to him.  

A white pants suit had been laid out that morning with a pale toned shirt to wear beneath.  She hadn’t known what she should wear, but the business professional look would be the route she took as it could be taken as more casual or dressy without too much fuss in either direction.  As she pulled on the last of her clothes, she sat down to pull on the shoes that would accompany the ensemble, though her hair left a lot to be desired.  It was what it was.  Hearing her phone vibrating in her bag against the bed, she ignored it as she didn’t have time for anything but getting ready as she was nearing the close of the time frame she’d allowed herself.  Barron still wasn’t home which was boding well for her, but she knew that could change at any moment.  

The sound of a cry from Gremlin would indicate the elevator stopping at their floor.  With only a few apartments on the floor, there was a good chance that meant Barron was there.  She flipped her head upside down, running her fingers through with product that would allow for a slightly messy texture to her hair that would look entirely intentional.  The sound of keys in the door had the pup’s nails scratching at the door, trying to get to the other side where he knew what Coree had thought to be true.  A tube of lipstick was there on the counter and in a moment’s time, it was done as well.  Reaching for the earrings on the counter top, she’d put one in as she walked to the living room where she was putting the other in just as the door swung open.  “With two minutes to spare,” she stated in a calmer tone than she’d had all day, reaching out to hold the door open for him so that he could come in and do what he needed to do to get ready, though the bedroom floor would show just how rushed she had been as the neat freak in her had been put on hold as time didn’t allow for it and there was proof nearly everywhere that she’d not taken the full time she normally would to get ready and keep things tidy at the same time.

Barron Presley The city had a heartbeat. Palpable and warm under his fingertips. He’d lap it up each night and day. Injecting the very life force into hungry and dry veins to sustain himself for yet another day before the sun would peal its own rind and rise over the skyline. Breaking through man-made monuments to greed and luxury and dimming the neon lights of a nocturnal city. Silas Barron Presley had not always loved the city as he did now. Once, he had found it quite taxing. A virtual vampire with its fangs in his neck draining him of life force with the fast pace motion. He had once been much better set for the lazier pace of Southern cities. Memphis was where his blood puddled thickest though he had known a wide variety of homes. From California to London. A constant shuffle between his mother and grandmother as his mother’s stability was deemed rocky at best. With every break down, every trip to rehab, it was off to grandmah’s wherever she would find herself though she was no typical grandmother. Priscilla Presley had been reaching for the stars since her first marriage and had no intentions to slow down even for her grandchildren. Her only grandson applauded her for this but he’d be damned if it wasn’t tiring when the entire world couldn’t be bothered with pausing for him. It was him constantly forced to hold his breath and endure. To be dunked into cold water until his body acclimated and he could deem it “not so bad.” Still, in those days he had always dreamed of a stable home only to find that he didn’t know what that looked like. It was a pipe dream and the result of an idle mind who was too predestined to live as he always had; running. Running from himself and those around him and a million other things yet always running.

After serving months in New York’s most notorious prison in crimes he was later acquitted of, he had sworn he’d never see these God forsaken boroughs again. Yet, he had found relief within the suffering. Like putting one’s hand in the flame and finding the orange to singe your flesh while the inside of the projection was cool and safe. It took burning to enter and it would take burning to leave but he had found some peace. The space was small yet inhabitable for the moment and he was taking the moment to catch his breath. Finding the city now as erratic as his own mind and equally as distracting. Keeping him from his own thoughts and that busy brain of his yet sometimes even that wasn’t enough. His brain would plague him deepest in idle sweeps of time that he mostly attempted to devour. Driving for example was solved easily with a stick shift to keep him on his toes. His time at the gym had an audiobook or two in his ears and every other time was dominated with just the same. Legos had been a love of his from early on. Before he realized the need to keep his mind constantly stimulated and the demons away. But on the subway back from class, even that couldn’t help him. He had left his truck at home that day in the parking garage. Venturing into the weather that had finally broken from the seasonal bouts of rain. Enjoying the time until he wasn’t anymore.

The newest Metallica album pumping plentifully into his ear drums plugged with earbuds. Enough to vibrate the hair of the person beside him as he stood and found himself a place. Hands clutching railings as light eyes under a brimmed hat would idly wander. Checking his watch where he knew time would be running short, an exhaled low breath as the memories came haunting back like a fine mist. Entering his ears, wrapping wispy tendrils around his brain stem and squeezing utterly.

Stiffened rigor mortis. Discoloring and bluish flesh as all circulation ceased and the blood pools to the lowest point of the body. Face pressed into the carpet where the surge of white and red foam leaked from the mouth and nostrils. Eyes rolled back and swimming in white.

He’d close his eyes. Pressing his eyes closed hard enough until his vision was filled with shades of clouted red from the inner lids. Not opening them again until the subway stopped and the location was called where he was eagerly shuffling out of the space. The open air after a flight of steps would greet him with the opportunity for a cigarette on the quick walk back to the apartment. Checking his smartwatch where he knew he was working on little time to get undressed, grab a quick shower and redressed in semi-formal clothing yet he just looked like just another New Yorker with a place to be. Enjoying his cigarette, he was tossing out the filter before entering the space. Up the elevator and into the apartment himself where both woman and furry child awaited him.

“Two minutes to wash my ass more like it.” He’d tell her in return, stealing a kiss of her cheek where his attire for the night was already ironed and placed in a clothes hanger in the bedroom as he had dropped his book bag in the other room. Undressing as he began running the water. There had been few constants in this life. He had only had two in truth. One of them shared that space with him. The other? The other had been his best friend. The same one whose voice he had forgotten. Whose face he could no longer remember while alive. Instead, he haunted Barron’s mind unlike any body he had ever worked on before could. He slept fine at night even with his occupational choice yet every time he looked around, the image of his dead bandmate there on a grimy hotel floor after an overdose hours before with a gaping stab wound in his gut returned.

Coree Marx Beneath a thin layer of make up, there was signs of the day.  The woman was tired, but she was putting her best foot forward for Barron just as she always would.  She wouldn’t start in about her day or her failed rehearsals.  She wouldn’t go on and on about how she’d walked the city in the rain that morning into the late afternoon.  She wouldn’t say a word about how she’d rushed home, barely getting herself together before he’d arrived.  Instead, she’d get him a towel and bring it into the bathroom as he started his shower, knowing that his time was tighter than her own had been.  She set it on the counter top for him where she opened the medicine cabinet, taking out the items he’d be reaching for afterwards, lining them out for him one at a time to make things a bit easier on the man if she possibly could.  His showers were far faster than her own, though he would have been impressed by hers just a short time before, but it would be enough time that she could lay out his things for him.

Leaving him there in the bathroom, she went about to cleaning up the mess she had left.  Her own clothes held the stench of dried rain, a different scent altogether than the one she normally held, these smelling something closer to something that would be found in Gremlin’s bed than against the flesh of his girlfriend.  She tossed them into the hamper, noting that it was growing heavy and would need to be tended to the next day.  Her shoes were put away and his backpack taken to the corner of the room.  Her own bag from the studio was tossed into the closet for another day, or perhaps no day at all after the shit she’d pulled that morning.  She knew there would be a conversation that would need to happen in regard to her own melt down that morning, yet it wasn’t much new for the woman to face professional challenges in this arena, leaving her to second guess literally everything she’d spent the last few years working for.

Before he would emerge from the shower, the room looked much more like their room normally did, tidy and neat without her droppings everywhere.  This wasn’t who she was.  She wasn’t the girl that would leave her clothes randomly against the floor.  She didn’t leave beds unmade and she certainly did not leave her shoes strewn about.  The day had been chaotic as she was sure he would have a list of the same types of elements in his own, but once they were together, she could nearly let it all melt away, even if it had been thoughts of him, thoughts of them, that had sent her running from a rehearsal space in search of answers.  She should have known better, but she hadn’t had time to think, and all it had earned her at the end of the day was the promise of conversations with people above her pay grade that would have her throat for wasting money, thousands and thousands of dollars between choreographers, musicians, and space alone.

In the silence while he showered, the thoughts grew louder and louder, needing a release point, yet there was no time for such a thing.  Now would be the time that she’d be hitting his top drawer, knowing what he had in there for her should she ever want it, but tonight was too important for all of that.  She’d have to suck it in and find that smile that he was relying on tonight as she pushed it all away.  Two paws found the leg of her white pants suit, prompting her to bend down to his level, both hands taking to either side of his face.  “I know and we’re sorry,” she assured as he had not had the time or attention he normally had, but she was working on something for him that would help with that a bit.  “I promise when we get home tonight, you’ll get a very long w-a-l-k,” she assured, not daring to say that word out loud, spelling it instead as it would easily incite too much energy from the pup to hear the word spoken as it was meant to be.  Just when she had needed a distraction, it had come in the form of a puppy that was meant for Barron, but had turned out to be just as therapeutic for her.

She knew better than to sit on the floor dressed as she was, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t tempted to do just that if only to snuggle the dog completely, yet if she had to change clothes, it would only assure that they were late and she refused to be the reason they didn’t get out of the door on time.  Instead, she’d remain squatted before him, her hands rubbing against his fur as she gave up all of the attention that she possibly could while Barron did what needed to be done to get himself ready.  She wanted to talk to him.  She wanted to ask him how his day was.  She wanted to tell him how shitty her own was.  But instead, she’d wait, giving him the room to get ready in peace as she had the same opportunity not so long ago, which was probably the only reason she was ready in this moment.  Rising to her feet a minute later, she’d take a seat on the end of the bed, knowing it would at least keep her clothes clean, leaning back against the bed and staring at the ceiling in the meantime.  Coming down from a day like that had taken some time and she wouldn’t pretend that she was down from it entirely, but just knowing she was there and he was there and the two of them were facing things for the rest of the day together was almost enough to keep her putting one foot in front of the other, leaving the rest in the past.

-April 24, 2017