6 posts tagged “pittsburgh”

Behind my building there is maybe 30ft of wilderness before the next row of houses. Yet in spite of this seemingly minuscule patch of land I routinely ( as I do now ) see herds of deer making their way to and fro.  One weekend our parking lot was invaded by wild turkeys.  On Friday night I frightened a stag and it galloped into the dark and out of sight.  I live 5 mi. from downtown Pittsburgh and at most 2 mi. from East Liberty, how did they get here?!?

I'm wikked beat.  Studied a lot over this past week and I think managed a solid C on my Bio midterm, which is about the best I could hope for given the breadth of material and my lack of experience. Go team!  I think I stand a good chance of passing the class.  Comp. Neuro. is still focused on Matlab so I'm killing it, and the Linear Systems teacher grades very easily. 

Still working out my schedule for next semmester.  System Neurobiology is a must, and I might also take Control Systems and the Brain. 

Rode about 18 miles yesterday morning.  Tried to take a sweet jump ( TM ) in Panther Hollow and botched the landing.  Shoulder is a little sore and I goy grass stains on my favorite shirt, but not too much worse for wear.  Knees are still creaky, but it was totally worth it.

This place looks krad, but it's all the way over in Cleveland.

Small quantities of good beer are hard to come by in this town.  All the dedicated shops sell cases of 24+ which isn't going to work unless I get a rack on my bike. ( Disc compatible racks are currently sold out ).  There is however my local church which sells incredibly expensive 6-packs of their micro brews. Amen.

I've spent the week trying to unravel the mystery of Steel City. Or Iron City.  The proper nickname is still a mystery.  Today I walked for a long long time along the Allegheny.  So far it's a tough nut to crack, but I think that may be mostly due to my location.  There's a lot of houses.  More houses than anything else.  Where do these people work? Where do they shop?  Do they ever go outside?  Outside of  Oakland I haven't see much in the way of pedestrians.  One or two people every 5 minutes. Sometimes it feels like a ghost town.  There are a lot of boarded up houses near me.

I stumbled upon the Strip Disctrict which runs along the south bank of the Alleghany from 11th to 33th.  It doesn't seem particularly convenient to any residential areas, and there are 5 - 10 food markets neighbouring each other.  Saturday mornings ( and maybe others ? ) all the markets are open and I guess a lot of the population comes out to shop.

I should be able to get my PITT I.D. on Monday which is important because buses will be free and I'll finally have transportation.  I need to talk to a professor about removing a block on the neuroscience course I need to take.  Hopefully he won't make me take prereqs. because that will eliminate any chance I have of passing my qualifier this year and I only get two chances.  Bummer.  I think even if I don't get to take it this time around after 2 years of classes passing it will be fairly easy.  Right? 

I got an invitation to tour a lab and potentially get a position, but I don't think it's a good match.  I still want to hear him out, but I don't look forward to looking the gift horse in the mouth.  There is a different professor who runs a lab for which I think will be a perfect match, and he is still looking for three more people.  The goal is applied vs. theoretical work.  When I am done sometime in 20XX I want to go back to concrete engineering so I want to make sure I have the right experience.

I now have a place in Pittsburgh in the Highland Park area ( about a mile from the park itself ), best described by Urban Dictionary:
"As the least dirty area of Pittsburgh, Highland Park stands as an example of pure middle class living. With plenty of hot bitches and scary people to keep the neighborhood exciting, Highland Park represents Pittsburgh well, combining a welcoming atmosphere with a dangerous nightlife."
Not bad.  It's a large place with central heat and air with laundry in the building for 635/mo.  My only complaint is that the stove is electric, but this is only an annoyance. It's about 3.5 miles from School, which is about the distance from my current place to Central Sq. 

As for the rest of trip... it was as ill conceived as any other trip I've personally planned. Three of the four flights were delayed. My rental was a Chevy HHR, a concern because the Pittsburgh infrastructure involves merging five times a minute, scaling mountains every other block, and very tight roads.  The perfect environment for an underpowered, overbuilt American(?) car.  The HRR is a sack of gahbage from any perspective and I took that personally.

Speaking of American cars, my trip involved a stop over in Detroit.  Two comments from someone who has never been: clearly, and appropriately designed for cars.  Second: the signs at the airport all had Japanese translations, which goes to show just how American our American cars are.  The Northwest terminal had an EKUSUPARESU TORAMU to help navigate the 80 or so gates. Or perhaps it's nothing more sinister than Northwest routing all of it's Japan routes through one of its major hubs.

The flight home was delayed by a monster storm, the type that conjures images of sculpted men with beards committing fratr/patri/matricide and then topping it off with some incest.  Impressive from a high vantage point and a safe distance.

I was supposed to drive to NYC today for a concert tomorrow but my left eye isn't really working.  This happens time to time.

Bike Pittsburgh is wonderful, I love this site even if it's slow as molasses.