Let's play a matching game. Match your cutesy-prefix to land-based-suffix to create the names of Pittsburgh neighborhoods!
| Prefix | Suffix |
Oak Squirrel Shady Friendship Edge Swiss Bloom Green Spring Summer Home Cultural Hazel South North East West High Stanton Fairy Strip (ok, not so cutesy...) | hill side field land stead wood vale park heights helm view garden shore district |
There's a new ramp for getting into 376 from Fifth avenue. This is a good idea since that entrance is frequently blocked up.
Unfortunately, it was designed by Pittsburgh engineers. Saul and I got lost the first time we tried to use it and ended up somewhere in Uptown rather than on 376.
Luckily, they have created a video to show us how to use the new entrance! Isn't that helpful?! Yeaaay!
http://www.otma-pgh.org/project_sr885/default.aspx
My favorite part is they are calling this a "slip ramp". Makes it sound super easy to use. You just slip right on the freeway! Watch how many wrong turns you can make in the video. There's four; see if you can find them all. For reference, at the end of the video, you are not yet on the freeway. There's still one more ramp.
Note to future civil engineers: if your citizens must make a video to show how to get on the freeway, you should have been fired.
I was expecting a one hour commute to work today. Apparently the city of Pittsburgh found their plow, so we got in in 10 minutes. Or at least, they found a pile of salt and a truck. It's not clear whether they plowed before salting, as there was no pile of snow on the sides of the road.
I think I'll take the cats out in the snow later this week. It's funny to watch them walk in it. :) Plus, they'll stop begging to go outside.
So, I have tickets for Sweeney Todd. Kevin, Maja, Saul and I were all going to go. However, I apparently didn't realize that Saul doesn't want to see Sweeney Todd. So...
One ticket up for grabs on opening night, January 29. $60, but for an amazing seat. We're in the Grand Tier (mezzanine) of the Heinz, 4th row back, right of center. This is the same level the boxes are on.
Anyway, email me if you want to see some horror theatre. :)
BTW, I did get to see Avenue Q. I sent a complaint to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. They called me and said they had two tickets, reasonable seats, for the matinée. So I bought them. They were very nice and apologetic. He explained that the state has recently removed the cap on scalped tickets, and they're still trying to figure out how to handle the problem.
Lesson learned: Complain loud enough, and eventually you get what you want. :)
The show was very good. Some of the audience didn't appreciate it though. Read the review folks. The MUPPETS have LOUD SEX on stage. The show clearly states this, along with the fact that it is "adult" and "not for children". Why were you surprised? Did you think this was a Republican convention?
Also, Sweeny Todd is coming to town! Tickets go on sale on Monday!
We have no water in Doherty Hall, or apparently anywhere on campus.
The water main broke. Again. I've lost track of how many water main breaks there have been this semester, but this is at least number 3 or 4. At least this one was on CMU property. The last ones were mains for the city that took out water from a reasonable sized portion of the area.
We're basically waiting for them to either return water supply, or evacuate the building due to the inability to turn on the fire sprinklers in case of fire. We know the second is a possibility because they have evacuated us before.
Sometimes one of my Indian friends describes India to me. Sounds a lot like Pittsburgh.
Normally, it takes about 15 minutes; most of the drive is on Braddock and Forbes.
Today it snowed.
My street, in Edgewood, was plowed by 8:30. The main streets of Pittsburgh? Not so much. Apparently it's easier to just let all the cars crush and melt the snow with the friction from their tires.
Today's commute took 45 minutes, and it would have been longer if Saul hadn't taken the side streets through Squirrel Hill. The weird thing was we left at 9:15, which is way past the rush hour time, but the streets were all packed. Didn't seen an accident though.
