Just a short, sweet little reminder that Daylight Savings time begins tonight/tomorrow (depending on how you look at it) at 2 am, which means that it’s time to set all your clocks back an hour. And enjoy that extra hour, whether you use it for sleep (that’s my plan) or other activities.

Here is another photo taken while walking around the city with my husband’s parents this past weekend. This little English Village is on 22nd Street, between Locust and Walnut. We were just reading the No Trespassing signs posted at the entrance and debating whether anyone would really mind if we stepped inside, when the man in this photo walked past us and into the courtyard. So I just snapped this picture from the entrance and we continued on our way.

Please add your Philadelphia photos to the Metroblogging Philadelphia Flickr group. Readers’ photos will be featured here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

(Sherri for a quick intro: handing the keyboard over once again to my Matt. He’s been out of town for two days, and he’s still being more active a Metroblogger than I am. Tells you something about how pathetically insane MY week has been, eh?)

Calling all pirates! Pat Croce will be signing his new book, Pirate Soul: A Swashbuckling Voyage Through the Golden Age of Pirates! at the Rittenhouse Square Barnes and Noble on October 29th, starting at 2 p.m.. My brother was once treated for a back injury at one of Pat’s sports medicine centers, so I’m a bit of fan.

On an unrelated note, I want to thank the cab driver who saw me huffing my way up Walnut with a laptop bag and suitcase yesterday. I was late for a train and two other cabs had already blown me off. The one that picked me up didn’t even wait for me to raise my hand. It isn’t every day you get that kind of initiative from a cab driver (or that kind of desperation in a commuter). Anyway, I made the train, and the driver got paid $5 for six blocks of driving.

It’s a regatta, not a Philadelphia-based zombie movie. The latter would be fun, too, though. I digress. This Saturday the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta starts very early at 7:00 AM and continues though to dinner time with the last race at 5:15. Competitors range in age from high school through to masters in their 50’s and boats range from singles to those huge 8 person deals. My rowing jargon is not very good, so I’ll defer to the official web site to offer you more information: http://www.hosr.org/.

I find some people have the misconception of a regatta as a snooty event populated by Bree Vandekamp types wearing cashmere twinsets and sun hats. Not at all. There are all kinds of people there from every age group. It’s a fun family event, and the fall foliage on the river should be just about at peak.

Yesterday afternoon I was walking east on Walnut Street when I spotted a #12 bus heading west. The screen on the front of the bus said all the normal things, identifying which bus line it was and where it was going. But then it flashed to another message. It said, “Don’t Forget to Vote.” With less than two weeks until election day, that driver was providing an excellent public service. I would have given anything to have had a camera handy in that moment to capture that reminder. If anyone spots that bus, let us know!

Here is another great shot from Ted Adams taken at the Philly Latvian Happy Hour. (There’s more here.)

If you like his style of captured moments, also check out his Flickr “Love” set.

Please add your Philadelphia photos to the Metroblogging Philadelphia Flickr group. Readers’ photos will be featured here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to write a post like this, I’m all aquiver with excitement. The guys down in Metroblogging HQ have been hard at work to bring another metroblogging site into being and today Graz, Austria was born. They’d love it if you went over and welcomed them to the family.

Photo credit: jimforest

I have to apologize for disappearing for the past week. I fully intended to post over the past few days, but suddenly I found myself with very little time to even sit down at my computer. I was working in Baltimore and then my husband’s parents came to town for a visit, and before I knew it a whole week had gone by!

But I now have a lot of photos from the weekend of walking around the city with my husband’s family, so I’ll be posting some of these over the next few days.

I thought I’d start chronologically with this wall of morning glories that we walked by not far from our apartment. I really don’t know much about flowers, but morning glories seem to be fall flowers because everywhere I look they are climbing up walls and fences and there are a LOT of them. This wall is especially amazing. Has anyone else seen walked by it?

It started as a short term art project and it became an international movement. I’m talking about Postsecret, the ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. Frank Warren started the project in November 2004, asking people to send him their secrets. He has now gotten over 20,000 postcards from all over the world.

Frank is going to be at the Rittenhouse Barnes and Noble on Thursday, October 26th at 7:30 pm, reading from the newest PostSecret book, “My Secret.“

I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it. Twice. I had gone past Silk City this summer and noticed the lights dimmed, but it didn’t compute. No, it can’t be. Silk City? It can’t be closed. This is a Philadelphia institution. The fabulous banana walnut pancakes at the diner. The cool-yet-unpretentious vibe of the lounge. Sure, there were articles bidding adieu to this long-time staple of Philadelphia nightlife. Yet somehow it went quietly.

The owner of N. 3rd has purchased the former Silk City. I have nothing against N. 3rd. I actually quite like it. But he certainly has big shoes to fill.