#71 - Sticking around

Christmas means seeing three grandparents (thankful theyre still around), both my parents, 8 aunts and uncles (blood and through marriage), and three cousins who all live within an hour drive.


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#70 - Rick Sebak

Seeing Rick Sebak in person makes me really, really happy. Like, little kid happy.


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#69 - pollution

cuz sometimes it makes the sky pretty.*



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*don't get your knickers in a twist. I am not 'pro-pollution.' or anti-environment. I recycle. And use those totes when I go shopping. And buy energy efficient lightbulbs and appliances. I kinda drive like a d!ck, though, so it negates some of mthe aforementioned.

#68 - leaving options

Spoke with my wife's former colleague the other night at a local dive favorite.

He's in retail/fashion buying. Young and and talented. Has had opportunities to move on and up, has moved up within his company, but declined to leave Pittsburgh. Cheap drinks were cited as the main motivation; I knew I could have dug a little deeper and he could find 10,000 of his own reasons he loves Pittsburgh. (Shameless plug!)

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#67 - dipping / part tabby cat

The guy in traffic behind me this morning was steady dipping his shoulders back in forth in perfect sync with his windshield wipers - he was either listening to a song whose rhythm matches that of his wipers or is part tabby cat.

#66 - Yinzer Rocky

I was riding past Heinz Field today, and watched this yinzer decked out head to toe in black and gold crest the trail, and as soon as the stadium came into view he stuck his finger in the air and started jumping up and down, like a yinzer rocky.

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Late addition: He was wearing sweatpants.

#65 - Costco

Ok, so if Idiocracy comes true, Costco will be like an uber-SuperWalmart in the future; but I was pretty impressed with the friendliness of customers and the staff tonight.

Sometimes, it's the little things - a guy offered me his cart while I was walking in (the cynic could say he was lazy, but he was actually pushing it back toward the inside to make the buggy return guys' job easier) - then as I was leaving, I heard another customer offer his cart to someone headed into the store.



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#64 - bridges

old bridges re-purposed

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#63 - squirrels

Our squirrels will kick your squirrels' asses.

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#62 - police

I was riding the bike lane downtown (double yellow line) between idling buses and crawling cabs, going a little faster than I should have with the occasional shoulder dip to miss a side view infringing on my not-so personal space, when a cop directing (slow moving) traffic said as I rode past 'make sure they can see you, and be careful' in the sort of way you'd tell a friend not a stranger. I saw three blocks of snow covered Gotham that ride but came home and appreciated not getting run over. And the cop.

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#61 - alternatives to drinking

There are a myriad of things to do in Pittsburgh besides drink.... or at least things to do before you go drinking. In this instance, Kayaking on the Allegheny with my cousins.

#60 - Parking Chairs

#59 - sea-town

Having a dude from Detroit compare Pittsburgh's revival to Seattle's... in a positive manner.
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#58 - advice for transplants

I'm actually old enough I can give advise transplants on the benefits of raising children in the Pittsburgh area (from the perspective of growing up here, not as a baby daddy). Namely that they will grow up kind, courteous, respectful, and yinzer.

#57 - charitable donations

Pittsburghers will seriously give charitable donations. Not even hesitate, go out of there way, and bug you to give you charitable donations.

#56 - random Larkins Way yinzer kids

"Take my picture and put it on the internet. I want to be famous."



"I found my skateboard in the garbage. It has ASS written on it."

#55 - memorial day fashion

I'm not sure which was classier - the guy drinking outside Belvedere's at 2pm with a tightly permed mullet and a sleeveless belly shirt, or the guy walking through highland park with a bag of charcoal and a parrot on his shoulder.

#54 - stranger

Having a complete stranger tell you about how he and his wife take their four kids camping in their '71 VW camper van at presque isle every summer while stitching up your grandma in the ER.

(she's doing fine, 13 stitches and on her way home)

#53 - beauty and destruction

there is beauty and destruction almost everywhere you look

#52 - shortcut

having a shortcut from my favorite pub across a baseball field underneath a bridge two blocks over straight to my house.

#51 - Momentum

I love how Steelers / Ravens games have wild momentum shifts, the kind fueled almost entirely by emotion, that you often see in college football games but so rarely see in the NFL. Truly awesome football, especially when the Steelers come out on top.

#50 - Heinz Ketchup

A few weeks ago, after a late night at Dee's, my wife and I picked up some late night Gyro's.. with fries of course. Got home and the Ketchup included with the fries WAS NOT HEINZ. Cmon, what a place to cut cost! (I'm protecting the identity of the Gyro shop so some drunk angry yinzer doesn't burn it down... although that may be fitting.)

Fast forward to last week. Went to England with my wife to visit family and friends. Everywhere we went, Heinz ketchup, Heinz Mayonnaise, Heinz Mustard... I was so stoked I wanted to tell everyone Heinz was from Pittsburgh!


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#49 - Sunshine

Pittsburgh may be cold, dark, and grey for quite a few days out of the year - however when we need it most, the sun screams out.