The promised blog

Well, I am all nestled in here, I have my tuna casserole crap I love to make, a 2 liter Pepsi by my side, and football on the TV.  No, I am not going to glog the game, though it is an important game for my fantasy team, as my opponent and I have the two quarterbacks that are playing tonight.  Instead, the football game will jsut be background noise.

Truth be told, given the number of sports stories and the fantasy suckiness of my hockey team, I could easily do a blog on nothing but sports, but I will pass on that, at least for the time being. 

I believe that piccies won on the poll, so it is piccies ye shall have.  Maybe with some commentary to boot.

We start with this, and you may wonder just what the hell this is.  Why it is a picture of the TV at work of course.  Isn't that how all good photo blogs begin,with a picture of a TV set?  No, well why the hell did I take the picture then.....

 

 

 

 

Because I happened to have my camera in my bag the other mornign, just as the price of oil fell below $50 dollars a barrel.  When you work at a business talk radio station and the economy sucks as bad as it does, it is the little things that spur excitement.  Okay, enough of the silliness, let's venture forth, shall we.

 

 

Our journey begins here, inside the bowels of the 67H Squirrel Hill bus.  There are many buses that I could have taken that would have gotten me downtown for Light Up Night, but this one is the closest to my apartment, and also it is the one that is almost never crowded.  I didn't want to venture into the heart of Oakland and try to catch something off of Fifth Avenue, because they were expecting anywhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people downtown for the festivities (though I should note, I didn't see nearly that many people), this way rather than be packed into a crowded bus, I am able to more than sprawl out, I could have had the entire back of the bus to myself to built a fort made out of blankets, but that would have required me to bring blankets, and I didn't do that.

Our first stop is the courtyard of the Allegheny County Courthouse.  Technically, I don't know if I am allowed in here, I am not an employee and I did sneak in through the auto entrance.  There was even a sherriff's car in the driveway, which I scooted around.  I assume he was there waiting for a guilty verdict or two to cart someone off to the pokey.  On the bright side,  I saw no stockings of coal under the tree for those who have been bad, so maybe, like my Karaoke Friday, they were opting to have Acquittal Friday.

Another tree, and this one is lit up, which I guess is a plus.  This one is in front of the City-County Building.  Anyone looking to get anything done from a government perspective visits here.  Then they proceed to stand around alot as the gears of government grind ever so slowly.

 

 

 

 

A quick shot of Mount Washington, to show that yes, there was some snow on the ground.  Not alot, just a little over a dusting, but here it is, a full month and change before winter begins and we have snow.  Also, it was quite chilly.  Not bone numbing cold, but the temps were down to the middle 20s as I was meandering about town.  That thing going up Mount Washington is the Monongahela Incline, one of two such inclines over there.  Futher down the river is the Duquense Incline, which I have snapped pictures from in the past, so I felt no need to repeat myself this evening.  Actually, there used to be a number of inclines in Pittsburgh, some were for people to get workers from their homes down to the mills on the river, others moved freight over the hills.  The Mon and Duquense Inclines are the only two that remain however.

This would be the tree at PPG place, the HQ of where all of the big stuff is going to happen.  The Christmas season is officially underway here when they flip the switch on this tree, but I arrived prior to that happening, so I got to snap a pic of the unlit tree to start things off.  When they flip the switch, the ice rink around the tree also opens for the winter season.  Usually the courtyard at PPG Place houses a fountain in summer, and when winter comes they switch it over to the Christmas tree and ice rink.

One of the displays at PPG Place was this, which actually was three display windows long and was all gingerbread houses.  I could have taken pictures of all three windows, but hey, it's not exactly warm out here and we have places to go and piccies to snap.

 

 

 

 

This is one of the many stages set up around town featuring Christmas carolers.  This one is in Market Square, there is also one back at PPG Place from whence we just came, there is also a stage over in front of Fifth Avenue Place, and a stage in front of Macy's, where the Salvation Army Band was playing.  Everytime I see the Salvation Army, my thoughts return to Christmas Eve a few years ago when my cousin Nathan received some army toys for Christmas, the typical stuff with the toy gun and grenades and what not.  He proceeded to start playing with his toys and when we asked him what he was doing, he said he was in the Salvation Army.  That still cracks me up, I don't know why.

Speaking of things that crack me up, this is entirely unrelated to anything I am doing here, biut I have often written about the stupidity of the local television news, in part because we simulcast one of the newcasts on the radio station weekdays from 5am-7am.  It is a most boring part of the day, and one can only hope for something stupid to happen in order to break up the monotany.  This past week was one such occasion.  A news story was being aired about a man who was going to commit suicide, so he disconnected the gas line to his home.  Apparently some friends decided to come over and check on him and when they arrived the house blew up, either injuring or killing them, I am not sure.  The odd thing was, the man who was trying to commit suicide apparently wasn't in the home at the time, or he was very lucky as he remained unscathed by the explosion.  What was the kicker though was when the local news anchor, Kelly Frey, was relaying the story and she opened it this way "A suicide attempt went horribly wrong when the man lived".  I shit you not, when I heard it I fell out of my chair laughing, as did Bill, who works overnights and heard it as well.  We were laughing for a good half hour afterward.

Okay, I better get back to work here.

Nothing screams Christmas like a fun house.  I think it was at this point all hopes of me getting in the holiday spirit were lost.  I could live with the booths of overpriced hot chocolate and coffee, hell I could even live with the snack booths that were offering pierogis, because they at least are a staple of a good Pittsburghers diet, but once I came upon the fun house, all hopes of Christmas spirit for this outing were pretty much dashed.

 

I tried to get my spirit back by visiting the carolers on the PPG stage, and while they were easy on the eyes in their skimpish Santa outfits, they were also way to young for yours truly, who still has a standard or two left, though not many.  That being said, my Christmas spirit was still pretty dulled, because for every scantily clad Christmas chick one could find, one could also find this.......

 

The portable Christmas mini gold course.  Nothing quite says Season's Greetings as trying to get the ball through the windmill.  This has about as much to do with Christmas as me telling you that I just checked my fantasy hockey team, and it looks like I went 3-5-2 this week.  The suckiness continues on that front.  Plus my quarterback just threw an interception.  All I need now if for one of my exes to call me just so we can break up all over again and the cosmic black hole of suck will firmly reside within the walls of my apartment. 

Okay, back to the blog.  This is part of the light display above the Port Authority's downtown offices.  Not the lavish corporate offices, but rather the place where you can go to buy bus passes, tcickets, get schedules and the like.  Of course you can also get that stuff in a number of different places around town, so I almost never visit there myself, I can get my bus pass much closer to my apartment.  But still, this display was along the way to my next destination, one of the very few places that are on my must see list during the holiday season.

The window at SW Randall Toys and Gifts.  Sure, there are bigger displays downtown, just down the street they are getting ready to unveil the holiday windows at Macy's (which I will pass on, because they are no longer Kaufmann's, Kaufmann's put a huge effort into their holiday windows, Macy's, not so much).  That being said, it is always the window here, with the music box music piped out through the speakers, and the appreciation of good toys inside, such as real train sets and actual collectors item stuffed animals, it is just a fun place to go and get lost for a while.

Look, they finally lit up the tree at PPG Place, I guess it is officially the holiday season now.  I don't know, it is still too early for me I guess.  I haven't bought anything, and I still have to escape the drudgery that is Thanksgiving first.  Thanksgiving is the holiday that I least look forward to, just because it used to be the extended family under one roof breaking bread, telling stories and just really enjoying each others company, but as the years pass that has changed, everyone has their own thing to do, whether that is with their more immediate family, or me, who will most likely spend the day working.  Whatever the reason, I still miss those old Thanksgivings and not having them is kind of depressing, Maybe my holiday funk will pass once we get passed Thursday, or maybe I should have shot a few holes of mini golf, who knows.

Look, a photo blog, and unlike the last one, I didn't ramble on for eons, just ages this time.  See, my brevity leaves you more time to ponder much greater things, as for me, I will just get ready for bed.