cellio | Entries tagged with pittsburgh

I read in the Jewish Chronicle last week that this weekend Rabbi Ethan Tucker from Mechon Hadar will be at Beth Shalom leading assorted programs. I know Mechon Hadar from Yeshivat Hadar, which has an enticing one-week summer program that I haven't made it to yet. (Maybe next year.) By all accounts these people "get" lay empowerment and community/chavurot and engagement, and I'd like to both experience more of that and learn more about how to make that happen. (In my case, within the context of my congregation.)

So anyway, I'm happy to learn that Rabbi Tucker will be visiting. I'll definitely go Friday night, and they're having assorted programs on Saturday afternoon, some of which I plan to go to. There's a brochure on Beth Shalom's site and everything is open to the public. Aside from that and the Chronicle article, I've seen zero publicity.

I was pleased to read in today's local paper that, finally, there will be justice for Nikko the husky. One good thing came out of a sad incident, at least.

( possible trigger: child died, dog got blamed )

Our neighborhood had a block party today. (Not all of Squirrel Hill, just a six-block-long stretch on our street plus nearby blocks of side streets.) I'm glad somebody organized this (and a mailing list); we've lived here for over ten years and I still don't know very many of the neighbors, but knocking on doors just to say "hi I'm Monica; who are you?" feels weird.

We were all wearing name tags (name + address), and as a result I met a cousin I didn't know existed. I thought my parents and their descendants were the only members of our family in Pittsburgh, but I was wrong. The person I met, Linda, is the granddaughter of the brother of my great-grandfather. (She doesn't seem to be as old as my parents, but until recently the generations in our family had lots of kids with some spread, so that's not surprising.)

I learned that her mother had visited Bugnara, the small town in Italy that her grandfather and mine are both from, many years ago. She met some relatives then but everybody Linda or her mother would have known there is dead now. A little closer to home, it turns out that after my grandfather died, my grandmother bought Linda's mother's house -- she told me the address and yes, it is the house we went to visit my grandmother in when I was growing up. So if I'm understanding this correctly, we regularly visited the house Linda grew up in.

Linda does not actually live in our neighborhood (though she does live in Pittsburgh); she was there with somebody who does. I'm going to email her the link to the genealogy page that

tc_tick maintains.

Small world.

Friday night I went to a fellow congregant's home for a monthly shabbat gathering (about which I've written before). I've been to most of these gatherings though it's mostly different people each month so I'm the outlier in that regard. (That's fine; the family-oriented service that would be my other option at my own congregation does not really work for me.) It's really refreshing to have an adult-oriented gathering -- singing, discussion, some personal sharing -- on a regular basis. This time I particularly noticed an emerging sense of community -- most of these people didn't know most of the rest and yet we clicked anyway. I've got to figure out how to bottle this and carry it into Shabbat afternoons.

There is no way that house is really only 1.6 miles from mine. The path is Pittsburgh-flat (nothing is really flat in Pittsburgh, but there were no major hills) and it took me 40 minutes to walk home. I don't mind a 40-minute walk in nice weather (which we actually had), but I was a little surprised.

Last Sunday we went to my niece's graduation (she got a master's degree from the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU). I hadn't realized the class was so large; I somehow had the impression, probably because of all the close collaboration they do, that there were maybe 25 students. I didn't count, but I think close to 100 graduated this year. Wow.

The ceremony was very well-organized. You know it's going to take a certain amount of time for each student to walk across the stage, receive a diploma, and pose for a photo with the folks on the stage (dean etc) -- so the emcee (I didn't retain her actual position) gave a short summary of each student while that was happening -- projects worked on, internships, and (where applicable) where the student would be working. She'd finish that, take three steps to be in the photo, then step back and start announcing the next student. And since all the projects were done by teams, meaning we'd be hearing the same names over and over, she managed to space out the explanations of what they were so that it wasn't tedious but we got clues about what they were rather than just names. Very smooth.

Today I got a notice in my mailbox from the neighborhood association. We have a neighborhood association? Cool! Not all of Squirrel Hill -- six blocks of our street plus some side streets. There is a block party in a few weeks that I will miss unless it rains (I'm free on the rain date), and there is apparently an email list (which I will now join). Even though we've lived here more than a decade I still do not know most of the neighbors, and it would be nice to start to fix that.

Several weeks ago somebody hit my car in a parking lot and was decent enough to leave a note. (Scuffed paint, hit by a car of a contrasting color, but no dents.) We were going to resolve it privately until the sticker shock set in (it was her first accident), so I set off to get an estimate to send her. My regular car guy does innards, not body work, but I've been driving past Mark's Auto Repair and Service in Greenfield (Beechwood near the bridge to Squirrel Hill) every weekday for something more than a year, so I figured I'd see what they had to say. They were friendly, IT-challenged (they were having fax troubles possibly at the hand of Verizon, and they don't seem to have a web site), smoking like chimneys (ugh), and kind of casual -- when I stopped by a couple days later for the written estimate to follow up on the verbal one (because the fax was still out) Mark typed one up on the spot with the actual work summed up in one line-item. (Plus there were a couple standard add-ons, including tax.) But they sounded like they knew what they were talking about, the place is always busy, this was pretty safe work to try them out with, and they assured me that they never smoke in people's cars. So a few weeks ago, once I had the check from the insurance company, I went back to Mark's instead of accepting the insurance adjuster's offered repair service.

They do body work on weekends, so Mark suggested I drop the car off on a Friday and get it on Monday ("possibly Sunday afternoon"). That sounded optimistic to me, but I could drive Dani's car to work Friday and Monday -- and, if needed, longer -- so I did that. They were very good about giving me rides between my house and their shop to facilitate this. When I dropped the car off I asked how much extra it would cost to also fix another ding (not that driver's fault), and Ken (the body guy) said "I was already planning to do that; no charge". Bonus! Then on that Monday morning when Ken came to pick me up he said he'd noticed some scratches on the front bumper (nowhere near the other damage), so he took care of that too.

It turned out that the timing was optimistic; there hadn't been enough time for the paint to fully dry so he could buff it. He apologized and asked if I could bring it back on Friday for that, which was fine. He did a very nice job with all of this work; I don't think anybody who didn't already know would be able to say where the damage was. And he washed and vacuumed the car -- washing didn't surprise me, but cleaning the interior did.

In talking with both Mark and Ken I learned that it was just the two of them until the week they were doing my work, when they hired a third guy. They are looking for property nearby so they can have separate places for the body shop and the repair shop. (I didn't ask, but I infer from the scheduling that they interfere with each other somehow.)

If you're looking for a place that will specify all the work in glorious detail in advance, this might not be your place. (In contrast to their one-mostly-empty-page estimate, the insurance adjuster gave me a five-page bid. I gave it to Mark to make sure that was the work he was planning to do and he said yes.) But if you're looking for a place that will treat you well and do more than was promised, give Mark's a look. I'll be going back there in the future.

The interview meme is going around again, and in starting to respond to my questions from

hrj I stumbled upon a way-overdue set from

ichur72. Oops! And, ironically, there's some overlap. :-)

( hrj's questions )

( ichur72's questions )

The conventions ("rules" is such a strong word :-) ):

Leave a comment asking for questions.
I'll respond by asking you five questions to satisfy my curiosity.
Update your journal with the answers to your questions.
Include this explanation and offer to ask other people questions.

Fair warning: you might not get your questions from me until after Pennsic, so turn on that notification email or check back here.

I'm going to guess that the letter from the gas company taped to a neighbor's door, informing him that his gas will be cut off tomorrow for non-payment of bills, means the odds that I'll be able to get him to trim his hedges so they don't block the sidewalk are low. Bummer.

I have never met this neighbor despite living here for 11 years and walking past his house several times a week. His hedge maintenance is consistent with his snow-removal habits, but I was still hoping to have a friendly and effective conversation. It's possible, after all, that he just hasn't noticed, if he never walks in the back of his house himself. But he never seems to be home to talk to. (Things change from time to time, like holiday decorations, and the lawn gets mowed, so it's not an abandoned property.)

I know some but not all of my neighbors, some by name and more by sight, but ours isn't a tight block. It's a typical city street -- the apartment building at the end of the block has typical churn, people on the other (rich) side of the street don't tend to be out and about (they don't mow their own lawns, for example), and I feel funny knocking on doors just to say hi. But I do know some people, including the SCA folks three doors up who I've known forever.

This morning as I was walking downstairs I heard the familiar squeal-thump that the intersection in front of our house produces a couple times a month (sometimes more). Someday someone will get killed and they'll put in a traffic light, but mostly it's fender benders caused by people not yielding (it's not an all-way stop) or people speeding down the hill. This squeal-thump was followed by a car alarm, which is unusual, so I went out to take a look. (If I'd have had any caffeine yet I might have parsed that without looking.)

There was a car nearly perpendicular to the road, and mostly on our sidewalk and grass. It had been parked (no owner present). It was badly dented; I find it hard to believe that whoever hit it was going less than double the speed limit. There was no other car in sight. There were half a dozen people on the sidewalk across the street; two of them walked over to me and turned out to be members of my congregation out for their morning walk. They told me what I'd surmised -- hit and run, two people had already called 911, and they didn't get a license number. They asked if it was my car (fortunately no). People who aren't us park in front of our house all the time; I don't know why, as they are usually passing up spots closer to every other house on the block. I have no idea who this car belongs to. Someone left a note with a timestamp so he could more easily sync up with 911 when he discovered the damage. I went back inside to feed the cats.

When I left a few minutes later (police were just pulling up), the SCA neighbors were out and asked if it was my car. A little farther up the block someone walking her dog asked the same question. It was 8AM; I didn't expect so many people to be out and about. (They usually aren't.) But now I wonder whether, if I hadn't been around, somebody would have left a note on my door or something. I would do the same for someone else, but before today it hadn't occurred to me that I lived in a neighborhood where people might pay that much attention. Neat.

Back in June we had a big storm, and a large stretch of sidewalk along my route to my synagogue became covered in a thick layer of dirt. After a couple weeks passed without the now-packed-down dirt being cleared, I left my first polite note. (No one was ever visibly home when I was walking past.) Time passed, and summer rains turned that packed dirt into occasional mud deep enough that you really couldn't walk through, especially if wearing nice shoes, and even if it weren't that deep, it would still be slippery. I left another note -- referencing the first one, but still polite.

Time passed with no action. It was dry for a while. Then fall came and with it more rain. A few weeks ago when I tried to walk around the mud, by walking on the strip of grass by the sidewalk, I found that that was too swampy too, and I had to walk in the street. The combination of night and rain makes it hard for me to see stuff like this; I found out the grass was unsafe by slipping and nearly falling. If I had trouble I can only imagine what the elderly are going through. So I wrote to my city councilman, Doug Shields, through the council web site.

Friday night the sidewalk was clear. Gloriously clear! It rained this weekend and I didn't have to care. I have now sent Mr. Shields a nice thank-you note. (I'll probably never find out whether city council caused the owner to fix it or just sent workers over. As a taxpayer I care, but not enough in this case to stir the pot.)

Time to clean out some browser tabs.

The customer is not always right. Some of these are really funny! Some might not be work-safe. Thanks to talvinamarich for the link.

A coworker shared this collection of funny or bizarre comments in source code.

Can you serve humanity on your kosher china? That's "serve" in the sense of "to serve man".

Via another coworker comes this story about a cyber-attack on a US city. Why haven't I heard about this through mainstream channels? By the way, I had not previously known that ham-radio operators are plugged into emergency-response systems. Kudos.

Pittsburghers: You probably already know that Giant Eagle is test-marketing "food perks", the inverse of "fuel perks". (That is, buy gas from their affiliate to get grocery discounts.) I learned over the weekend that you can get a one-time 5% discount on a single grocery trip by sitting through this video and then entering your advantage-card ID. (And some email address; I've seen no evidence of validation.) You don't actually need to watch the video; you just need to get to the end of it.

There is a national lecture series, live telecast from NY (with Q&A opportunities from the remote locations), for which my congregation will be the local provider. The first lecture is tomorrow night: "A Moral Courage Conversation", with Christiane Amanpour (CNN) and Irshad Manji. Text study (Jewish sources, accessible and open to all) at 7:15, lecture at 8:00, Temple Sinai. (Speakers later this year include Rabbi Telushkin, Seinfeld, and Al Gore -- quite a mix.)

From the flyer:

Christiane Amanpour is CNN's chief international correspondent. Her coverage of the Gulf War, genocide and natural disasters around the globe have made her one of the most recognizable international correspondents on American television. She has earned numerous awards including an inaugural Television Academy Honor, Emmys, Peabody Awards, George Polk Awards, an Edward R. Murrow award and other major honorary degrees. Irshad Manji is the Muslim reformer whom The New York Times calls "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare."

There is an admission fee. I'd like to see the series do well, so if you are local, know me, and want to come, let me know by 5:30PM tomorrow and if you're among the first 4 or 5 people to ask, I'll give you a ticket. (This will be implemented as "your name will be on a list at the door"; we don't have to connect with each other in advance.) Or just show up, buy a ticket, and support my congregation; that works too. :-)

I just posted more hints for the music challenge.

A few days ago I read about a skydiver who was doing his first dive, with his instructor stapped to his back. The instructor had a heart attack on the way down. That's sad, but I must admit that my first question was: was the student's technique that scary? :-)

Real Live Preacher is taking an unusual approach to publishing a (paper book), essentially soliciting enough pre-orders to pay for the initial print run. That's probably not unusual for publishing houses, but I'm not used to seeing it from individuals. He's only looking for a bit over 400, so I figured that given his popularity he'd have that in days, but so far no. It's kind of sobering that even that low-sounding goal is a challenge. (It does suggest that the likes of unknowns like me wouldn't muster enough interest to publish on dead trees. Maybe most people don't read dead trees any more, but I still prefer them for many things.)

CNN might be using your bandwidth to publish (link from

goldsquare). Keep that in mind the next time you watch something live and big.

For the locals: Temple Sinai has some interesting presentations open to the public coming up; the first (on February 18) is Christiane Amanpour, CNN's chief international correspondent. I'll post more about this in a few days, but if you want to go, drop me a note. This sounds like a neat series that I want to support, so unless I get flooded, I'm inclined to buy one ticket (for any of the presentations) for anyone I actually know who expresses interest.

The power is currently out at my house, and I've discovered that Duquesne Light appears to have no online source of real-time information on outages. C'mon, I expect to see a map of affected areas and outage times! Or at least an RSS feed with status updates. The last thing I want to do is call the "report an outage" number and gum up the works just looking for information. Besides, I'd probably have to navigate a terrible automated system to end up on hold.

(What? I'm at work and may as well stay here if we're not going to have light, heat-distribution, or internet anyway...)

Pittsburgh has an annual foot race, and I have the misfortune to have the starting line just outside my bedroom window. (The sellers did not disclose this... which actually led to me going to traffic court the first year over a parking ticket, but that's another story.) I understand the necessary noise from a crowd of 10,000 people, but the unnecessary, gratuitious noise of loudspeakers blasting music at 7AM (!) has been an annual irritant. (We're talking loud enough to rattle windows.)

Last year I wrote to the mayor (who, by the way, was facing an election six weeks later) and asked that they alter the race (location or start time) and kill the unnecessary music. I did not receive a reply, not even one of those generic brush-offs that politicians routinely send. When the web site for this year's race went up I sent my request again via their web form -- again, nothing. And in early September we received a letter telling us about the race and its parking restrictions (hey, first mailed notice in nine years of living here!), and the letter included a phone number, so I tried that. (At this point, obviously, I was focusing only on the music issue, as all other aspects of the race were fixed.) I never succeeded in reaching a human at that number (possibly by design?) and left a message, which -- do you see a pattern here? -- was never answered.

I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised to find this morning that the obnoxious music was gone! The loudspeakers fired up around 8:30, but they were making announcements, not blasing music. It didn't become unbearable until close to 9, and it was all over by 10.

I never tried to coordinate a campaign with the neighbors (thought of it too late), so I have no idea if others complained too. Was this a coincidence, did they receive complaints from multiple people, or did one person actually effect this change? I'll never know, but that's ok if this sticks.

This week I will be following up with thank-you notes/calls in hopes that we can keep this modification next year. (It would really suck if the lack of music was just due to a technical difficulty or something...)

Lately the Jewish Chronicle has had ads from Giant Eagle pitching their kosher deli (in the store at Center and Negley in Shadyside). Last week they advertised a special on rotisserie chickens. Drool. It's been years since I've had that, because Kosher Mart doesn't do them in their prepared-foods section. So tonight after work I headed over to check them out. The chicken was very tasty and tender, and I picked up some side dishes for later use. I'll definitely be back.

Small-world moment: the friendly and helpful person who took care of me is

happyingreen's husband. :-)

I still enjoy reading a paper newspaper -- not for the national news, which I can get more efficiently online, but for local news and features, and for the tactile experience of reading it with a cat snuggled on my lap.

Pittsburgh has two newspapers, the right-wing one and the left-wing one. Both of them are oftentimes offensive to me with their editorial slant, but I find that the right-wing one is more moderate in its wing-ness and is generally less annoying to me. And, face it, I'm not going to find a paper in wide circulation whose editors I'll usually agee with. So, all things considered, I like getting the Trib, and I've been getting it ever since the now-defunct Press went on strike in 1993.

I understand that delivery can be challenging. The pay's probably crap, which makes it hard to keep good people, and someone has to get the paper to my house every morning anyway. I take this into account when tipping my carrier. For the last couple of years I have had excellent service.

Then, at the end of June, the Trib outsourced its delivery service -- to, it turns out, the Post-Gazette. My delivery service has degenerated badly; I would estimate that in the nearly two months since then, I have missed almost as many papers as I've received. Every time the routine is nearly the same: I call to complain, they (optionally) promise me a replacement paper, said paper (if promised) does not arrive, they promise that a circulation manager will call, and it doesn't happen in a timely manner. I have received two calls -- after stretches where papers were missed nearly every day, there'd be a good stretch for several days and then someone would call to ask if things were ok now. Both times I've said "so far"; the second time I said "but it didn't continue last time". I have yet to receive a call for the current run. The folks who answer the phones are not authorized to put me in direct touch with someone higher up, of course (or so the script says).

I'm fed up. The whole point of getting a daily paper is to have it show up without me having to do anything. I am not going to go to the trouble of seeking out a paper to buy every day, or on the days when the paper doesn't show up. If I can't shake a manager-type person loose, I will probably just cancel.

Is anyone else in Pittsburgh having delivery problems -- with either paper, since it's apparently the same people now? It might seem in the PG's interests to slightly degrade the outsourced service compared to their own, but I assume they're smart enough not to try that (it would get them a short-term win and a long-term loss). I'm curious how widespread the problem is, and if anyone else has been able to solve it.

My house isn't hard to find, and it has a nice wide porch and an uncluttered lawn -- a big target area, in other words.

(If I do cancel: can someone point me to a customizable web-based comics aggregator? Ideally I want to go to one page that displays today's strips from a list I specify. Following forward/back links for my subscription list would be acceptable. Having to find each strip in a menu/list is not. I don't want to syndicate to my LJ subscription list; I want them all in one place in a batch.)

This morning at my ophthamologist's office, through the collection of lens parts that she used to mock up a new glasses prescription for me, I read a letter from the 20/30 line. I have never done that before. Woot! Yeah, office conditions are probably optimized compared to real life, but even if the raw numbers don't matter the deltas should. And yeah, it's only one letter, but it still passed a threshold. (If I understand correctly, this would mean a rating of 20/38 on that single test.)

Now if I can just find an optician to correctly make them for me. I had rotten luck with that last time around. (The guy I used before those guys was excellent -- but he retired, which is why I went to someone else.) Locals, any recommendations? I have a complicated, finicky prescription and complicated, finicky needs on things like the precise placement of the bifocals. I need someone skilled and detail-oriented who (1) is that scrupulous about what comes back from his lab and (2) can work with me on this. I recognize that this is a non-standard level of service for which one should expect to pay extra. (I would also like someone to advise me on frame shape to optimize my vision; most places want to optimize their bottom line or some sense of "fashion".)

Bonus points for proximity to either Squirrel Hill or South Side Works, because even if he is excellent I'll probably have to make a couple extra trips as part of this. My glasses just don't happen as one-shots. So running up to, say, Cranberry at lunch time (because places aren't open at 8:30AM) would be a challenge, though doable if absolutely necessary.

( geekiness for the curious )

Dear Lazyweb,

1. Where, in Pittsburgh, am I likely to find a decent variety of recliners for sale? Much to my frustration it is more expensive to reupholster our current ones than buy new ones. Last time we looked we found an over-abundance of short, wide, voluminous chairs; we're looking for something more restrained and tall enough to provide head support. I can use the yellow pages (etc) as well as anyone else, but if any of the locals have favorite furniture stores, I'd love to hear about them.

2. Where, local or online, can I buy light-weight (chinos etc) casual pants in larger sizes that have decent pockets? I pretty much want the standard jeans layout -- two back, two front, though the watch pocket is strictly optional. Locally I can't find back pockets (and sometimes not front pockets); online I can't find descriptions that specify their pockets.

( assorted )

The interview meme is making the rounds again.

( singing, adaptive technology, trope, food, retirement )

The interview "meme" returns. Here are my answers to five questions from

loosecanon.

( Read more... )

If you want to participate, post a comment asking to be interviewed and I'll ask you questions, which you'll then answer in your own journal.

Locals already know this, but for anyone else who was curious about the results of the elections I wrote about yesterday... from the county returns:

( Read more... )

Ravenstahl won the mayoral election, which isn't too surprising. I had hoped his margin would be lower, but a 35% share for a Republican in a city that's 5:1 Dems:Repubs is something Ravenstahl should pay attention to.

I'm pleased that the Libertarian candidate for controller got 10% of the vote. While there's still a long way to go and Pittsburgh might be degenerate, I think the best path for third parties given the official biases against them is to win smaller races and work up from there. I'd love to see a libertarian on city council. (No, not enough to run.) Remember, until yesterday our mayor hadn't been elected as mayor.

In other news: county-wide, 26.7% of voters (over 69,000 people) used the "straight party line" option. Sigh.

Tuesday Pittsburgh is having a special (off-cycle) election for mayor. The incumbent, Luke Ravenstahl, was the president of city council and stepped in after Mayor O'Connor died a little more than a year ago, so this election is for the rest of the term. Now, Pittsburgh has been suffering one-party rule for decades, with five times as many Democrats as Republicans registered, so usually the contest is in the Democratic primary, not the real election. But this year, for the first time in a long while, there's a credible Republican challenger, Mark DeSantis.

I was surprised to read this week that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which leans pretty far to the left, endorsed DeSantis. So did the police union. (So did the more-conservative newspaper, but that's not a surprise.) DeSantis doesn't have as much money in his campaign fund as Ravenstahl, but he's got a decent war chest, and his contributions have been outpacing Ravenstahl's for the last few months.

The election is probably still Ravenstahl's to lose, so I'm a little surprised that he's gone in for negative campaigning (and pretty stupid negative campaigning at that), and that he doesn't seem to demonstrate the political acumen to deal with the public blunders he's made while in office. Yes, elected officials misuse public property and blow off their obligations all the time, but he got caught and, instead of apologizing, tried to justify it.

DeSantis has credible ideas for getting the city back on its feet financially, he seems to know that he's accountable to the public, and he's not part of the "same old, same old" club that's been running the city into the ground for years. Is he perfect? No, of course not -- but he's better than maintaining the status quo. And he's got momentum, which the third-party candidates I would otherwise pay closer attention to do not.

I know it will be hard for DeSantis to accomplish all that much directly if elected. I have no illusion that the Post-Gazette's endorsement is sincere; I think they hope to dispose of the current mayor, use city council to prevent the new mayor from doing anything, and then come back strong in two years with whomever the Dems have groomed while out of the spotlight. But even so, all that said, I'd like to see what DeSantis can do, both directly (fixing some of the city's problems) and indirectly (breaking the one-party mindset). I plan to vote for him on Tuesday, and I hope enough others will step out of the "I vote for my party" pattern to give the guy a chance to improve things.

I've noticed that when there is a great feline tussle in my house that leaves piles of hair around, the vast majority of the time the hair belongs to Baldur. I see several possibilities: (1) his greater surface area makes him more likely to be hit; (2) his hair just doesn't stay attached as well as the other cats'; (3) he gets picked on a lot (he's the biggest cat BTW); or (4) he has developed the "eject hair" escape technique. Hmm.

I missed the first episode of the new TV show "Pushing Daisies" but caught the second. Wacky! Surreal! Fun! The narration as commentary is a nice touch. Yeah, that it's written by the person who did "Wonderfalls" shows; I hope "Pushing Daisies" fares better. ("Wonderfalls" was great for about 8 or 9 episodes, then sucked for a couple more, and was then pulled after 13.) I'm also watching "Journeyman", about which I'm undecided.

We drove through the rockslide zone of Route 28 on the way to visit my parents today. No rockslides were in progress at the time, and it looked like last week's had been completely cleared. The news had said inbound lanes would be completely closed for the weekend, but we saw continuous traffic while we were driving outbound so we didn't look for an alternate path home. It turned out that one lane was open. That was fine for a Sunday, but I'll bet it sucks for commuters right now. That said, rockslides suck more.

Two Shabbatot ago a first-time (in our minyan) Israeli torah reader asked me to be his checker. I expressed concern that I wouldn't be able to keep up; he said he reads holy texts slowly. His "slow" was too fast for me. Then this past Shabbat a different reader asked me to check for him and I figured this wouldn't be a problem; I had just a bit of trouble keeping up. Both times I was checking from the new Plaut (oodles better than the old Plaut), and using a magnifying glass to be safe. I conclude that my problem is Plaut + magnifier, not necessarily me, and I should only check when I can do it from larger Hebrew text such as what Trope Trainer produces. (I'm not the only torah reader in our group who uses that software, and in fact I have been handed TT output to check from at times.)

Without saying anything about the merits of Al Gore's work, I do admit to being puzzled by how this is a peace issue. Of course, in political processes all bets of rationality are off, but still... isn't there a more appropriate category in which to consider his work?

I heard a cute story recently: One night at dinner the seven-year-old girl asks her parents "where did I come from?" Oh crap, the parents each think; we thought we had a few more years before we'd have to deal with this. They exchange glances and then fumble through a discussion of birds, bees, and what happens "when mommies and daddies love each other very much". The girl says "oh" and everyone sits in silence for a few minutes. Then she continues, "my friend Becky comes from Cleveland".

I'll de-snark this before actually sending it, but right now I just have to get this out of my system.

Dear Mayor Ravenstahl,
I write concerning the annual disturbance of the peace known as the Great Race.
As you will see from my address, I live on the starting line for this event. This means that crowds begin to gather at 7:00AM and the sound system is fired up soon thereafter. I understand the need to give instructions to the racers, but the primary use of the sound system is to play high-decibel music. I do not understand the logistical need for that.
I work hard all week, and Sunday is the one day when I can sleep in a little -- except when this great ruckus occurs outside my bedroom window. (There is, in fact, no room in my house where this is not a problem, so I can't just sleep on the couch that night.) I understand that you consider the Great Race to be a great community-building event, so I would like to suggest that some other neighborhood become the beneficiary of this community-building starting next year. It's time for the race to move. If you can't change its location, please change its time by several hours; the end of September is late enough that the mid-day heat is not a concern for runners (and late afternoon would certainly not be a problem).
Regardless of when and where the race is, I urge you to eliminate the unnecessary noise; residents are more likely to tolerate the necessary noise if we do not feel abused by gratuitious disregard of our Sunday mornings.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. I would appreciate the courtesy of a resolution before election day.

Monica

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