G-20 - Early Morning Joggers and Some Flicks from "Fortress Pittsburgh"

I'd volunteered a few months ago to help out at the G-20, during a time when I was mostly unemployed. I'd hoped to work in the press center during the week, but I didn't get one of those jobs. I was beginning to think I wouldn't get any job with the G-20, then I got an E-mail to work the 6am-10am shift on 9/25 at the information table at one of the west suburban hotels. At about the same time, I got a really neat part-time contract job, doing various Web work for Chip Walter. So doing a day's volunteering for the G-20 turned out to work well.

I got up very early this morning, and was at the hotel just before 6am. The lobby was still fairly dark, but there a few state troopers and suited men walking around. I quickly found the info table, replenished the freebies from Visit Pittsburgh (mostly maps and local visits guides). There was a binder of various information, including which groups were blocked in each hotel. While I assumed a distant hotel would have the journalists from Wyoming staying at it, this hotel had the delegation from South Africa.

As you might expect, it was pretty dead in the lobby for the first hour. Mostly just security and hotel personnel of various stripes. The first person I greeted turned out to be plain-clothes security and not a South African attache. The next person I tried to talk to spoke to me in Spanish. Luckily, I could say, "Yo hablo muy pecano Espanol" (probably sic - "I speak very little Spanish"), and he laughed and said he didn't speak much English either.

But that meant we probably didn't just have the South African delegation in the hotel. So I went through the binder again, and found we also had the Spanish delegation. I'd had about three years of Spanish in high school, but that was a very long time ago now.

After about an hour, the lobby got very busy very suddenly. About eight Spanish men in jogging clothes and another few in suites came through the lobby and went out the side door. I wasn't sure who was jogging, but I knew typical joggers don't have plainsclothes security.

Some of the South African delegation came into the lobby. I mostly directed people over to the hotel restaurant.

At about 8pm, a woman with a VisitPittsburgh button came over to the desk. Her name was Mina, and she was a Spanish teacher, who'd been providing translation work for the Mexican delegation on Wednesday. I was relieved she was going to be around the rest of the morning. She knew all about Spanish culture and politics. I described what I'd seen earlier, and she said, "Oh that's because President Zapatero is staying here."

A few minutes later, the joggers returned. Mina smiled and said, "Yes, that's the president."

Not long after Mina arrived, another info booth worker, Subash, joined us. Subash worked for the Allegheny Conference, the group that did most of the local coordination for the G-20. We chatted and Subash was sure we'd met before. We concluded that since we live a few miles apart, we've probably seen each other in the local groceries stores.

Very suddenly, the South African delegation was through the lobby so quickly they were practically outside before we saw them, followed by the state troopers. The Spanish delegation came through a few minutes later, and we had enough time to say "Buenos dias," to which the president of Spain said "Gracias." The first ladies of each country left separately a little later with much smaller entourages.

Once it got to be closer to 10, I said goodbye, ran an errand, then went to Ikea to wait for the bus to Pittsburgh. I was curious to see what downtown Pittsburgh was like today. It was a unique experience.

A storefront in downtown opened up a "grafitti zone." After walking all through downtown, I left the "Welcome to Fortress Pittsburgh" note.

A view of Mellon Park through the 8' tall crowd fence.

AlphaGraphics welcomes the world...even though it's closed and boarded up. There were very few businesses in downtown that boarded-up. Maybe only 50 windows were broken, mostly in Bloomfield, Oakland and Shadyside. I don't think there was any damage in downtown itself.

A view of the David Lawrence Convention Center from the Sixth Street Bridge. Many news outlets reported from the balcony.

Another irony alert - Travelers Aid also closed down during the G-20

It was pretty quiet in most of downtown between 11:30 and 1:30. Lots of cops and blocked streets. While I certainly understand why we needed the security, it was a pretty massive show of force (in fact, as I type at 11:05 on Friday night, there's a minor demonstration going on in the college area (Oakland) of Pittsburgh surrounded by about 200 cops).

About the only attaches I saw "outside the secure zone" were some of the Chinese delegates, who had some shopping bags with them as they walked back to their hotel.

I'll probably put up more photos tomorrow or Sunday.

Take a Deep Breath, Pittsburgh...

So the G-20 starts tomorrow and some of the folks in Pittsburgh are already getting hot and bothered. I mean both some of the anti-G20 protesters and some of the law enforcement agencies. If half of what the City Paper reported on yesterday, about the police harassing protesters who were just buying lunch(!), it bodes badly for the next few days.

Law enforcement certainly has the right to keep the delegates to the G-20 reasonably safe. Blocking off the area around the Convention Center makes sense, and, we know, we're going to have rolling roadblocks in from the airport area. Just stay off the Parkway West and avoid driving into town over the next couple of days.

Protesters have the right for peaceable assembly. So far, word is there's no real problem. Most protesters have quickly made their points and gotten out of the way.

I was in Oakland yesterday, and saw many more police than usual. Now, part of that might have had more to do with Bill Gates making an address up at CMU than "showing presence." But there were all kinds of peaceful protests going on in Oakland, mostly small, but still visible. For the most part, law enforcement just let people be.

I've been to about a dozen protests in Washington over the years and a few here in Pittsburgh. I was also at the Inauguration in January, and saw an amazing show of law enforcement. Well over 1,000,000 people came into Washington, and the vast majority were there to celebrate Obama's inauguration. The 300-500 counter-demonstrators were certainly there, they tried to be loud, and they had their little corner to protest in. Law enforcement pretty much left them alone, so long as they stayed in their designated area. Only a couple of people were arrested that day, of over 1,000,000 people who went to Washington. Damage to the city was minor, and mostly to the grass on the Mall.

It is usually a good thing for people in positions of power to get together to talk directly. Yes, I hope they do talk about the Darfur and poverty and climate change and environmental issues and establishing stronger laws over the banking and investment industries. Just let them talk.

Everyone - residents, protesters, law enforcement, just need to take a deep breath before doing anything over-the-top per the next few days. The eyes of the world are watching. We can try to be reasonable adults or reactionary children. If we are truly trying to reinvent Pittsburgh for a new generation, then showing a rational approach to the G-20 is the best thing to do.

There Is Also Something So Unamerican...

...about calling your president "a liar" from the floor the the Congress.

Democrats had MANY more reasons to do that during the Bush administration, and refrained from doing so.

As the latest viral Obama poster says, "Sush.../let the grown-ups talk!"

There Is Something So UnAmerican...

...about refusing to let your child hear the President speak.

We are being taken over by the Marching Morons. It's completely disgusting.

I think Reagan spoke on closed circuit TV at least once when Leslie was in grade school. While he was far from my favorite president, no one complained about that he spoke to the kids. He was the elected president, after all.

Dead People Server Turns Fifteen

Dead People Server was invented at some point in the late summer of 1994 by Richard Holmes. I'm not 100% sure of the date, as I didn't become the curator until March 1997. So this is, roughly, the 15th anniversary of Dead People Server. That makes DPS something of a senior citizen among Web sites, but what-the-hell; neither retired nor expired!

Laurie Mann, curator

Battling Polluting Waste Coal Plants In Western Pennsylvania

Politicians at the state and local level in Pennsylvania believe the residents should roll over and play dead when companies push for waste coal power plants. Some politicians take it for granted that we already have. However, waste coal power plants increase the amount of fly ash and other particulates in the air and the amount of mercury and arsenic the water. We, the people, must care about what happens to the environment, to the air we breathe and the water we drink. People living in Pennsylvania need to paraphrase John Paul Jones and need to constantly remind our elected and appointed officials...

We Have Not Begun to Fight:

Battling Polluting Waste Coal Plants In Western Pennsylvania

Many years of mining in Pennsylvania created large areas of waste coal, called gob piles. This is the Beech Hollow gob pile, just outside of McDonald, as seen from the western side (photo taken winter 2008):



Here's what the Beech Hollow gob pile looks like from space, courtesy of Google Earth (photo taken late summer 2005):



The large glob of gray to the west of 980 (Robinson Highway) is the largest gob pile east of the Mississippi. It's in our backyard. Granted, it's an ugly mess, but in its current state, it isn't adding to the particulate problem in Southwestern Pennsylvania. However, if you live in places like North Fayette Towship, Oakdale, Carnegie, and Mount Lebanon, you live downwind of a proposed coal waste power plant for Beech Hollow, that will make electricity from the waste coal in this gob pile while spewing fly ash into the air.

For many years, Pittsburgh has been at or near the top of cities with the most particulate-polluted air. Yet our local politicians are giving permission for a waste coal power plant to be built just west of the area? This type of plant will only make a bad air quality situation worse, as anyone with asthma or other lung problems in our region already knows.

If you live in the Pittsburgh area, especially in the western and southern suburbs, you should be mad as hell and let your local officials know that you aren't going to take it.

To learn more about this proposed waste coal power plant, attend a public meeting in Mount Lebanon on Thursday, August 27, 7:30pm at the Mt. Lebanon Public Library.

NetRoots Nation Saturday

I left NetRoots Nation Thursday (even missing Bill Clinton's speech, which I would have loved to have heard) completely exhausted. After working my three hour airport shift, I went home and collapsed and missed Friday's events (including my cousin Alice's good friend Howard Dean).

So I returned to NetRoots today, and worked three hours at Registration, went to the Keynote Lunch, spent the afternoon videotaping a couple of panels, and am now at the evening Keynote.

The lunchtime keynote was OK, but not quite as forward-looking as I'd hoped. Most of the discussion was "it's better in Europe" and "we need more unionization." While these things are certainly true, they aren't making any new suggestions about how to handle the situation. Where are Paul Krugman and Charlie Stross, who spoke very interestingly on this very topic at Worldcon, when we need them?

After lunch, I was the videographer for a fascinating panel on DOJ extremes during the Bush years (that the Obama folks haven't fixed yet...*sigh*) and a very interesting panel on getting parents more involved in political organizing. I kept having to ask for help, but, luckily, my room was next door to the video office, so it was pretty easy to run next door and ask another stupid question.

At the evening keynote, State Senator Jim Ferlo gave a good speech, reminding us that peacefui assembly during the upcoming G20 meeting in Pittsburgh is Constitutionally protected - "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin. The city is way overreacting, saying that protests A MILE AWAY from the Convention Center during the G20 are forbidden. Much as I do believe that the G209 should continue unimpeded by disruptions, peaceful assembly is not disruptive. I'm very much opposed to muzzling peaceful protest.

Thursday, August 13 - Live from NetRoots Nation in the 'Burgh!

After spending some time helping run my Dad's 80th birthday, vacationing in Canada, then helping run the World Science Fiction Convention in Montreal, I'm back in Pittsburgh. My next "I'm underemployed and I'm bored!" project is working as a local volunteer for NetRoots Nation, which is here in Pittsburgh through Saturday. I've already linked up with "Drinking Liberally" and told them where they should go to drink.

I worked with another woman delivering today's tent cards to various panel rooms this morning, then helped out with Registration for a few hours. I'm now on a break, testing out the Acer WebBook in the exshibit hall.

While I have been fairly inactive on this blog for the last few weeks, due to doing work for Worldcon, I'm a proud liberal blogger and was delighted to hear that NetRoots was coming to Pittsburgh. I hope to make some contacts (beyond the "Drinking Liberally" folks!)

Visitors to dpsinfo.com, June 2009

My Web domain, dpsinfo.com, has been around for years. While the site that gets the most traffic is Dead People Server, I have about a dozen other sites.

The traffic pattern this month was interesting:



It's kind of ironic now that, just over a week ago on alt.obituaries, a number of us were complaining about how quiet "the world of celebrity death" had been. As I said at the time, "Good for celebrities, bad for people tracking deaths."

June 25 was a very busy day in celebrity death, with the long expected death of Farrah Fawcett, and the sudden (but not completely unexpected) death of Michael Jackson, which was a rumor for about two hours before it was confirmed at about 6:15pm that day. dpsinfo.com got nearly 3X as many visitors on that day as it had on its quietest day (on June 13).

That wasn't dpsinfo.com's busiest day ever though.

The busiest day ever was the day in September 2006 when Steve Irwin (aka the Crocodile Hunter) was killed by a stingray. Nearly twice as many people visited that day as visited on June 25.

Remembering Local Boy Billy Mays

At first, I thought the announcement of his death was another hoax. I first saw it on Wikipedia's death page, where hoax deaths can still creep through. It sounded like the recent fake death announcements of Jeff Goldblum (fell off a cliff!) or the one of pitchman John Basedow (Killed in the tsunami!).

Alas, I'm wrong on this one.

Billy was kind of annoying, but kind of enjoyable. I couldn't hate Billy Mays. Pitchmen normally make my skin crawl. His whole undertone always seemed to be "I'm having a good time with this, and I'm making a pile of money." And, heck, that's American. You can't hate making a pile of money. Well, OK, most of us can't.

Billy Mays was from the same very small, very poor town that my husband called his hometown (and boxer Paul Spadafora, former "hair colorist to the stars" Bradley Johns, politician John Kasich, and footballer Chuck Fusina) - McKees Rocks, PA. Billy was two years older than one brother-in-law, and lived near my other brother-in-law (well, where "near" was "the same part of Florida").

Billy Mays was like Farrah Fawcett in that he made the best with what he had, which probably added up to millions of dollars before he died.

In many ways, his death is the most shocking celebrity death of a week filled with celebrity deaths. Ed was old. Farrah was sick. There was something sadly inevitable about Michael Jackson's sudden death at a middle age. But, Billy Mays? So full of life? So into promoting whatever he was selling? This one seems wrong. Is he selling some new product, that a fake death might help promote?

Probably not.

So, after about six weeks of making almost no updates to my Dead People Server site, I've gone and made another one for this week. Kind of sadly. I may not miss him that much, but there's something especially sad about this death.

Brainstorming for the G-20 in Pittsburgh

The local organization leading the organization for the G-20 in Pittsburgh this September is a group called the Allegheny Conference. They decided to have a series of brainstorming sessions and invite the public to them, to generate ideas for further discussion.

On paper, this is a great idea. And, to a degree, it was. There were some incredibly good ideas proposed, including:

• Student ambassadors to observe and report on the proceedings (this from a high school student)


• Welcome banners and audio greetings in all of the languages spoken by members of the G-20


• A whole month of activities around the countries of the G-20, focusing on each of the countries and stressing educational programs


• Various ways to present the arts and music of Pittsburgh


• Stressing Pittsburgh's leadership as a green city


• Name badges for Pittsburghers with the flags representing the country of whatever foreign language the person speaks


• An event featuring foods prepared by foreign-born chefs who cook at Pittsburgh-area restaurants

But, an awful lot of the ideas started off with, "Hi, I'm X my company is Y, we make Z and here's how we can offer Z to the people coming to Pittsburgh for the G-20."

As a result, there was very little actual brainstorming. Almost no one's ideas seemed to spark other people's ideas, and that was somewhat disappointing. During the first brainstorming session at Point Park last week, 57 ideas were generated. At ours, I'm sure it was less than that because it was more about selling than idea generation.

I came up with some ideas, and presented them this way: "Hi, I'm Laurie Mann, I'm a blogger and I have nothing to sell. I just have a couple of ideas." My suggestions were to make sure that the G-20 uses the lovely rooftop terrace at the Convention Center. I'd been going to events there for years before I stumbled over the terrace at one event, which was being used informally that day. It has a great view of the city, the Allegheny River and the bridges. It's basically an unappreciated gem of the city. My other suggestion was to use some of the empty storefronts along Penn and Liberty as art galleries for students, robot makers and filmmakers.

There will be one last public brainstorming at the University of Pittsburgh, Alumni Hall in the Connolly Ballroom from 5:30-7:00 tonight (Tuesday, June 23).

Why You Should Vote Out Bigots Like State Senator John Eichelberger (R-Blair)

One of the people currently reviving the "no gay marriage" fight is John Eichelberger, R (naturally) of Blair county. Recently, he said something particularly heinous in a hearing:



They’re not being punished. We’re allowing them to exist, and do what every American can do. We’re just not rewarding them with any special designation.



I've written the following to Eichelberger to take him to task for his bigotry:




I understand you said the following in reference to homosexuals in a hearing the other day:


They’re not being punished. We’re allowing them to exist, and do what every American can do. We’re just not rewarding them with any special designation.


Thank-you for living out that famous cliche about Pennsylvania: "It's Philadelphia in the East, Pittsburgh in the West and Alabama in the middle."

If anyone ever said "We're allowing them to exist" in reference to, say, white men or fundamentalist Christians, would you have agreed with THAT ATTITUDE too?

I thought Pennsylvanians got rid of that level of state-sanctioned bigotry when we voted out Rick Santorum.

I know people like you will never change your minds about bigotry. I can only hope to help educate your constituency that bigotry in a modern society is unacceptable.

Laurie Mann
McDonald, PA

Hey KDKA Radio - Why Can't You Cover Local News Competently Anymore??

We usually go over to Bocktown Beer and Grill for dinner and the Wednesday beer tasting. After that, the plan was to go out to Friendship to attend a planning meeting for Confluence.

When we got to Bocktown, it was threatening but not raining. By the time we got our beer, we could hear the loud thunder overhead. As we sat in the back, we couldn't see the storm, but it had gotten very dark outside in a hurry.

By about 6:15, we were done eating and went to the front of the bar to try some Abita beer. It was raining so hard that that we couldn't see the parking lot from the front windows. The rain was coming in sideways, and the wind whipped up for a while. Lots of lightning and thunder. The rain and lightning were so heavy that we didn't dare go to our car.

Unfortunately, some of the Bocktown staff were out on the partially covered patio. By the time they got in, they were completely drenched.

We watched the rain for a while. Then, it lightened up slightly and the torrents calmed to mere rain. Even though the storm was going east, and we were going to be following it, we figured it was probably safe to drive to Friendship. According to KDKA radio, there were severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings for our area. While the severe thunderstorms were obvious, the tornadoes weren't as the wind wasn't too bad and we hadn't seen any hail. But, following the standard news/weather check, KDKA went back to its regular talk shows. So KDKA did not view the situation as particularly dangerous. We changed the channel and listened to classical WQED instead of listening what passes for talk.

As we approached the city, we were back in the heavy rain again. Usually, we take Bigelow Blvd. to go to Friendship, but there's a tendency for rockslides in the heavy rain. I chose to go through Oakland. After all, most of the students were gone - how bad could the traffic be?

Oakland had a horrible traffic jam. It took us nearly a half hour to go about a mile. And we couldn't figure out why. We kept switching between "news radio" KDKA and WQED, the classical music station. KDKA had no specifics - their 7:30 "news" show lasted about 30 second before it went back to standard talk radio bloviation.

As we got through the Forbes/Bigelow intersection, we suddenly saw why the traffic was so horrible in Oakland - street flooding in front of Carnegie Hall. I thought I could get through it. Jim insisted that I could not. So, I pulled a U-turn (highly illegal) and got back to the road between the parking lot and the library (going the wrong way briefly; luckily, the PAT bus let me go by). Many cars were stopping, and the sounds of police sirens were louder than the thunder.

There was street flooding on that street too. However, it didn't look as bad, and past that bit of flooding was higher ground. I slowly drove through the flooding and turned left past the library to make the relative safety of Schenley Park. We drove up the hill and parked by Baker Hall at Carnegie Mellon so we could hit a bathroom and consider our options. Running the 50 yards from our car to the hall made us both completely wet.

Several people were standing by the door of Baker Hall, trying to figure out the best thing to do. We visited the bathrooms and waited for the rain/lightning to calm down. After about another ten minutes, it did. The woman who was left said she'd parked her car in Schenley Park and wasn't looking forward to walking to her car. We offered her a ride. There were branches down but it was not as bad as after the tornado in 1998. There was also minor street flooding in Schenley Park - maybe 1-2 inches rather than the 6 inches we saw in Oakland. We dropped the professor off at her car, and decided it was safer to skip the meeting and go home. We drove through Squirrel Hill to get to the parkway.

While KDKA continued favoring talk show crap over actually reporting the news, we felt lucky to find that Squirrel Hill didn't have the flooding of Oakland. The only street flooding we saw was near the parkway entrance. The rest of our trip was uneventful, and we finally got home a little before 9.

KDKA ought to be ashamed of itself for the way its "local breaking news" was so completely useless during this storm. I remember back in 1998, the same station focused on the local wind and rain damage following the Mt. Washington tornado. This time, "news" station KDKA provided almost no local news. So much for helping the public. If stations like KDKA were still reporting local news rather than blathering on, it would have been much more helpful. Luckily, it sounds like no one was seriously injured last night, but there were apparently dozens of cars stuck in flooded areas all over eastern Allegheny county.

The Pew News Survey of Current Events

This is a really fast survey on your current news knowledge.

I scored 12 out of 12, which put me in the 94th percentile.

When you're underemployed, you tend to read the news...a lot!

Tracking Your Medicines

A few years ago, I realized I was already taking a variety of supplements and some prescription drugs. I started tracking what I was taking, so I would always have a quick record for my doctor. Also, I'd always know what drugs did work and what didn't work for me.

I found it easiest to track this information in an Access database. However, I thought I'd share the list with others, and many people don't have Access. So I also created an .rtf table, that can be read in Word and other word processors. You can download the files from the links below and adapt the database or word processing table any way you want.

The drug history, if you maintained this information in Access, would have this general format:

Drug History (pdf)

Tracking Your Medicines in Access

This is a pretty simple Access database. It's written in Access 2003, but uses only tables, queries and reports, so it could probably be read in older versions of Access. The database does not have a forms-based data-entry screen, enter the drug information directly in the data table.

mydruglist.sample.mdb (Access file)

When you open up the database, click on the tables option to display the data tables:

o druglistblank
o druglistsample

druglistblank is an empty database table. You can open it and just start entering drug data. druglistsample is a database table with sample data. The tables are the same; one has sample data and one does not.

Here are the fields in these tables:

ID - an auto-numbered identifier field. You can ignore it.
Date Added - a date field that defaults to the current date
Drug Name - the name of the drug
Type - prescription drug, over the counter drug, supplement
Dose - recommended dosage
How Often You Take It - the possible values are Daily, Occasionally, Post-op, Stopped Taking It. Record how frequently you take the drug.
Date Started Taking It - when you first took the drug
Prescribing Doctor - who prescribed it for you.
Notes - What you're taking the drug for, if you had any side effects, why you stopped taking it (if appropriate)

I think it's best to sort this information so that the drugs you are currently taking always sort to the top of the report. So I've written a query to sort the information in this way. Display the queries:

o drugblank
o drugsample

drugblank is the query that sorts your information from the druglistblank table. drugsample is the query that sorts the sample data in the druglistsample table. The default sort field is the "How Often You Take It" field. When you run the query, the drugs you take every day will sort to the top of the query table, followed by the drugs you take occasionally, followed by the drugs you've taken after surgery or hospitalization, followed by the drugs you've taken in the past but do not take anymore.

Finally, display the reports:

o drugblankreport
o drugsamplereport

drugblankreport creates a report based on your information in the druglistblank table.
drugsamplereport creates a report based on the sample information in the druglistsample table.

Open the drugblankreport to see your information. At the top of the page, you'll see YOUR NAME, BIRTHDATE. Delete those strings and enter your name and your birthdate.

Tracking Your Medicines in a Word Table

Download mydruglist.blank.rtf. After you've downloaded it, you can enter information directly into the table. You should save the modified table under a new name, so you'll always have a blank table available online. Be sure to add your name and your birthdate to the top of the file.

There's a government site with a recommended text file for collecting medical information. AARP also has information on collecting drug and medical information.

On Not Closing Guantanamo - The Fear-Mongering of Republicans Never Ceases to Amaze Me

We have all kinds of dangerous Americans in prison.

And yet...

Republicans have brainwashed people (including, sadly, a bunch of Democrats) into believing that about 200 terrorism suspects can't be housed in American prisons.

These terrorism suspects don't have super-powers. They've not going to jump over the fences, mind-control all the guards or create an atomic bomb out of their tea. So why not house them in American military jails? Didn't we manage Germans and Japanese in American military jails without having them invade America? Maybe Americans were just smarter and braver during World War II.

I suspect the majority of the people remaining in Guantanamo probably do have ties to terrorism. We've released nearly 500 "terrorists" from Guantanamo over the last seven years because there was inadequate evidence (even by Bush administration "standards") to hold them.

What should happen is that the remaining terrorism suspects should be moved to at least two American military prisons and they should be tried. If they're innocent, they should be returned to their countries. If they're guilty, they should serve out their term in an American military prison. Obama has forcefully stated that America won't continue the heinous practices of the Bush administration, including terrorism. But holding terrorism suspects indefinitely in a third-party country has seemed, frankly, as un-American as engaging in torture.

Some Signs of Life in the Pittsburgh Housing Market

The Pittsburgh housing market had a massive crash in the late '70s and early '80s when manufacturing jobs went abroad. I remember coming in from Ohio to visit Jim's family and seeing literally half the houses in some neighborhoods with For Sale signs. As a result of that massive crash, the Pittsburgh housing market has been on the cheap side ever since. So, while parts of the rest of the national housing market have been crashing, Pittsburgh's housing market hasn't lost too much value, though it has been on the quiet side.

We live in the country not too far from Pittsburgh International Airport, in a development of new houses. The oldest house in our development is about six years old, and most of them are in the three-four year range. I generally like it, except for the need to drive everywhere to get anything (*sigh*). But, it's quiet and we finally have the space to shelve all of our books.

When we moved out here three years ago, there were about 100 houses built, in an area where, maybe, something like 220 houses could be built total. While there was a fair amount of building activity for the first year, the last two years have only seen one or two houses being built at a time.

I took a longer walk than usual today, and walked up into the newest street. Where about six weeks ago, there were, maybe, two houses being built, there are five new houses framed-in and two cellars. A surprising increase in activity.

The builder builds big but not "luxury" homes, so they are fairly affordable. And there's maybe only about 10 existing houses in the neighborhood that are on the market. But that upswing in new construction is interesting and is probably some good economic news.

Bach Choir of Pittsburgh Presents the American Premiere of David Chesky's The Agnostic

The Bach Choir of Pittsburgh has been performing a challenging selection of pieces over the last year. Each piece is tied to the overall theme "Journeys of Courage, Conviction and Conscience."

Last November, we performed Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light, a vocal score to the famous silent movie classic The Passion of Joan of Arc. This event was part of the Three Rivers Film Festival.

In December, we sang Handel's Israel in Egypt.

In early April, we're performing the American Premiere of a very unusual piece, David Chesky's The Agnostic in collaboration with the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble. It's challenging both musically and thematically. If you'd like to hear a truly unique work, we're performing it at Carnegie Hall in Oakland on Wednesday, April 1 at 8pm. On Saturday, April 4, at 8pm, we'll be performing it at the Richard E. Rauh Theater, Shady Side Academy, Fox Chapel. See the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh Web site for more information. You can buy tickets for the concerts from ProArts (412-394-3353) or at the door.

PARSEC Field Trip to the Warhol for The Vader Project

At the March meeting, Gary came up with a good idea - visiting The Vader Project exhibit at the Andy Warhol Museum. A bunch of us said we thought that sounded like fun, so we met up on Sunday March 22 and toured the museum.

The Vader Project (http://www.thevaderproject.com/) was the brainchild of the founders of DKE Toys, Dov Kelemer & Sarah Jo Marks. They worked with 100 artists from America, England and Japan to envision a full-scale Darth Vader mask in a variety of ways. Sadly, random museum visitors were not allowed to photograph the renderings of the Darth Vader masks, but some artists have put photos of them online (http://www.toycyte.com/darth-vader-meets-andy-warhol).

The one I thought was the most creative and the most subversive was "Carmen Mirandarth" (http://girlsdrawingirls.blogspot.com/2007/07/carmen-mirandarth-gdg-and-vader-project.html), created by Melody Severns, Anne Walker, and Debbie Bruce of GirlsDrawinGirls. While many of the Vader helmets had a heavy metal or military theme, Carmen Mirandarth was a big blast of color and plastic fruit.

While most of the Vader masks were plastic, at least one person created a plushie.

Another artist built a Tatooine action figure display around a sand-colored Vader mask (http://www.suckadelic.com/Art.html).

Sometimes, the simplest mask was the most interesting. One Vader mask and was painted "Candy Cobalt Blue," a rich shiny blue with some subtle gray designs faded in the background.

One big disappointment about the exhibit for me (beyond not being allowed to take photos) was that none of the artists who were invited to submit were science fiction artists. I believe most of the artists involved in this project were either toy designers or comic artists. A shame. I would love to have seen what someone like Bob Eggleton would have done to a Vader mask!

If you like Star Wars or have an interest in toy design, this exhibit is definitely worth the trip. If you are a member of the Carnegie Museums, you can visit the Warhol for free. Check the Warhol Web site (http://www.warhol.org/museum_info/planning_a_visit.asp) for admission information. The Vader Project is due to be at the Warhol until May 3.

Now, what about the rest of the Warhol, you may ask?

It's an odd mixture of good news and bad.

The seventh floor was a particular waste of time. There was a loud video running constantly, and there was a strikingly bad exhibit called The End. So, if you go, do yourself a favor and skip the seventh floor.

Much of the museum displayed a small portion of Warhol's massive collection of celebrity ephemera. Some of the photos of celebrities might have been a bit more revealing than the subject intended. While his photo of OJ Simpson was taken in 1977, it looked oddly like the profile view of a mug shot.

There are also a few interactive exhibits, including a room with large fans and big silver balloons you can bounce off the ceiling.

After our trip through the Warhol, we went over to Soho (at the Marriott Springhill Suites) and had a late lunch. I walked into downtown to take photos of a large metal work at the corner of 7th & Ft. Duquesne Boulevard - It was a huge Transformer-ish sculpture comprised of the bridges of Pittsburgh:



We enjoyed our field trip, and hope there will be more in the future.

2009 Oscars - What Should Win, What Will Win

My annual thoughts on the Oscars.

I'll probably be Facebooking/Twittering during the Oscars.