| Fall? |
[Nov. 6th, 2009|08:57 am] |
First real solid frost this morning. Temperature below freezing on awakening, put on sweats and a fleece vest to take the Moj out for a run. "Watch out for ice, T!" a woman says to her child as she walks him to school.
Quick shower, stopping a half a block down the street to clear a patch of the mild ice on the windshield as I listen to reports of black ice, accidents and patchy fog on the radio.
Driving down the hill in Whitehall, I see steam rising off the roof of each house in the morning sun. |
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| Shared Adversity |
[Dec. 23rd, 2008|12:01 am] |
I've been remiss in not posting sooner, but if you're up for a challenge, Frostburn is around the corner (Jan 16-19).
What's Frostburn? It's the Western PA regional burning man event.
Yes, that's right. We camp in the woods in the middle of winter.
It's actually fun. And community building and all hippy and shit.
So come on down...$35 is a cheap price to pay, it means that you can spend lots of money on winter camping gear instead!
Woot! |
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| Neighborhood History |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|09:11 pm] |
I'm setting a History Mystery Run this Thursday as part of Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary celebrations.
In doing the research on the run, I determined that the dairy about 4 blocks away from me is the last dairy operating within city limits, and, it owns a local chain of gas stations/convenience stores (CoGo's) where it also sells its dairy products.
Guess I know where I'm buying milk (and probably gas) from now on... |
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| *sigh* |
[Mar. 13th, 2008|10:36 am] |
Went to the Harp and Fiddle1 last night for the first time and...
...I can chug a pint of Guinness in 4.27 seconds. Pretty slow considering that Suipe (sp?) from NZ pulled off 2 liters in ... 7 seconds? Or was it 12 seconds. Something obscene.
Maybe it's time to start training...
1 Nice place, but freakin' expensive. I won't be going back there anytime soon. |
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| F*ck it. |
[Oct. 25th, 2007|11:10 am] |
It's 52degF outside with a predicted high of 58. It's still 62 in the dining room, but that predicted high means it ain't getting any warmer in here.
So f*ck it: Sweater or no sweater, I'm turning on the heat.
Hey Autumn: "Welcome Home"1
1Said with tongue firmly planted in cheek, Burning Man style. |
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| Summertime... |
[Jun. 20th, 2007|10:36 pm] |
Summer is here and I'm lovin' it. Things with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) morleyroarly have ramped up and we're floating...very nice, very nice. She went to a regional burn, Scorched Nuts, this weekend with a whole bunch of the Pittsburgh crew and had a great time, but despite desperately wanting to go for a "first time" event (to help set the tone, of course), I managed to beg off and stayed home to work on house and bus stuff. It was one of those "I've been wanting to work on all these projects all winter, and if I don't do it now, it's not going to get done" moments.
( weekend notes )
Anyway, the other stuff that's been going on is...drumroll please...Morley's parents are coming in this weekend (so we're running around like madfolks trying to clean), I'm crazy at work, we visited my parents two weekends ago for Dad's 60th birthday (go dad!) which was a blast and really great because I got to spend lots of quality time with Dad, and with the whole family AND Morley, which is always nice. Interesting conversations all over the place, lots of skeet shot, things fixed, people who went to high school with my parents convinced that they need to go to Burning Man, possum caught, rabid Raccoons, and singing energizer bunnies. ...followed by dinners with Stargazers in Breweries which are notably fresh during drives home...
Otherwise, I've discovered about 3 brick walkways and a patio in the backyard under about 1.5-2" of grass and mostly in perfect condition (there's a little settling in two places, but nothing major) -- it's a bit like digging for buried treasure in the backyard, except I keep actually finding stuff. Very fun. The only challenge is to not get caught up in digging holes all over my back yard all the time (lots of other stuff to do!). And.......that's all I can think of. Gotta clean more of the house and perhaps actually get some sleep tonight. Woot!
Afterthought...
I've been meaning to post all kinds of meta-thoughts which have been floating around in my head lately, mostly based around sharing information ("we're a village, we need to share more information about our lives and experiences with each other") and how our relationships with others grow and change over time, even though sometimes it's our initial impression that still sticks with us and influences how we interact with them. Very odd. But...some of those will have to wait for later.
Post-Post-script: Yesterday was our first major summer thunderstorm with beautiful rain and lightning all day long. ROUTE 51 was flooded out, the sky was black, the wind was gusting and the rain kept falling on and off all day long. I love summertime. |
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| Stewart in Pittsburgh |
[Apr. 5th, 2007|12:52 pm] |
Hey all,
If you're around Pittsburgh on Saturday night, you should check out my sister's Punk band, Stewart. They're playing at the Smiling Moose in the Southside!
( flyer below the cut ) |
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| Cold *SNAP* |
[Feb. 5th, 2007|10:32 am] |
-3 F with wind chill bringing it down to -19F when we woke up.
It's up to 1 F now (-17 w/ wind chill) and school is cancelled or delayed in lots of places. Radio says frostbite is possible with 30 minutes of exposure.
In all honesty though, it's cold, but it doesn't feel much colder than 5-15F - it just takes longer for your car to heat up and you'll just feel your feet start to numb a little quicker.
Lots of other stuff to report, but too busy. Finished a big paper, currently integrating comments from reviewers. Went to visit some of Morley's family friends in Maryland on their farm, went on the Frederick Gallery Walk to see their daughter Kesra's killer paitings, and generally had a nice time chatting, meeting folks, and exploring. Caught up with my boss on his farm nearby as well, which was nice, if brief.
That's about it. Running 2-3x a week to tai chi and back (hitting about 10-15 miles/wk), busy with house stuff, enjoying life, etc.
OH, and Friday night we finally made it out to Ibiza in Southside for Tappas and Sangria. The white sangria was nice (and better than I expected). After dinner we dropped by Z-lounge: their martinis are HUGE. Yum. |
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| Yinz gan out tonight? |
[Feb. 2nd, 2007|09:33 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | pittsburgh | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | work | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Club on TripleJ (www.triplej.net.au) | ] |
Anyone going out and about tonight in Pittsburgh?
Looking for amusement, and/or considering pub crawling...
Interested/ideas? |
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| Garden is In |
[Jun. 14th, 2006|11:48 pm] |
4 Big Boy Tomato plants went in on Sunday (along with 500lbs of topsoil...Thanks Mom&Dad!) - 6/11/2006
2 Squash plants went in today (6/14/2006) - not nearly enough topsoil, but I hope to add some over the weekend.
I'm trying to figure out what else I can plant this late in the season. I'm definitely going to plant some herbs and I might go for some hot peppers, green peppers, and spinach, but I'm not sure how the peppers will do this late. Also have to figure out what sort of soil the spinach likes (slightly sandy, IIRC?).
In other news I was super impressed by the thowmp and je2i garden, especially the upside down tomato plants. Crazy stuff.
Mad props go to Dad for coming out this weekend and helping work on building the garden as well as bringing lumber with him. This thing wouldn't have gotten built without him - and certainly not as well . I would have created a LOT more work for myself than necessary.
As I was getting the squash in and futzying with my drainage system, the sunset was amazing. I'm really looking forward to sitting in the backyard with morleyroarly and just watching the sky... |
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| Weekend Summary |
[Apr. 25th, 2006|02:26 am] |
( my weekend )
Anway: shit weekend. At least I got the dishes done tonight. Now I'm off to bed. |
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| Passport in Hand! |
[Mar. 14th, 2006|12:46 pm] |
My passport has arrived back from being sent to the Indian Consulate in NYC. I have a visa!
Woot!
Work is insane, haven't been exercising much or doing Tai Chi (other than class), volkswagen has been progressing but waiting for another endplay shim, lots of fun over the weekend with Terri and at heyjude's party, good productive phone conversations with bonehead and morleyroarly, cooking dinner for Kip+Renee+fuzzycoffeebean+denovich and missing phone calls from fu_urns as a result, showing up at Dee's in a suit, being served a $50 glass of port after dinner because they were out of the $25 variety, having fun at work, re-learning Thermo and evaporative cooling tower design, etc.
Gotta jet, more work to be done. Life is insane, busy, haven't been sleeping, manic, love! |
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| oh my... |
[Jan. 24th, 2006|08:04 pm] |
So, here I was, laying low, establishing an outpost in Pittsburgh, slowing building up to some serious Freak!ness, but taking my time, figuring that there's no rush, let's just build the base up, start getting established, hanging the Tibetan prayer flags, all the while keeping my eyes open at the possibilities, when...BLAMMO! I receive a message from Kip and Renee, two Burners I know from the San Diego LustMonkey/Xara/<insert-random-descriptor-here> posse: "We're here. Let's make it happen."
Wow.
I think this means we almost have a quorum and that things are about to get crazy.
Freak Base Pittsbugh in full effect.
Watch out! |
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| Hmm... |
[Dec. 8th, 2005|02:54 pm] |
We're supposed to get 4-7 inches of snow tonight. Perhaps it's time to invest in a snow shovel.
In other news, life is good but really frickin' hectic. Lots of work deadlines, lots of minor house-stuff (just laundry, etc.) and what not. Been fairly antisocial since Monday and kinda enjoying it.
Had a nice weekend with purple_medusa who came out from Jersey. Lots of just romping around, talking, etc. The two major non-food related excursions were to the Carnegie Museum of Art and Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water.
We randomly ran into thwomp and Derrick Brashear (who I've had email exchanges with but never actually met in person) at the Carnegie and they directed us to the Luke Swank photography exhibit. Quite honestly, Swank and his photos rocked, especially some of his portraits. Thanks for the tip thwomp!
That's all for now. Busy busy busy busy... |
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| Party Announcement: November 12th, 2005 |
[Oct. 31st, 2005|09:34 am] |
On Saturday, November 12th, I am having a housewarming party of sorts. The party starts at 5 pm and goes as long as it goes. If you are planning on showing up LATER (say, after 11 pm), give me a buzz to make sure we're still there, in case we've run out of beer and headed to the bars or something.
I will also be setting the run for the Pittsburgh Hash House Harriers earlier that day (2 pm), which should be fun.
Ping me for directions and/or more details. There are also group activities planned for Friday and Sunday, so it should be a fun weekend. Lots of crash space is available for out of town visitors or otherwise. |
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| Whee! |
[Oct. 25th, 2005|09:12 am] |
wint'ry mix greets me
on a late october morn
welcome to pittsburgh
that said, I think it's just straight up snow at this point.
whee! |
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tired