ornoth

I write a lot of blog articles, but only about half of them ever get posted. Every so often I have to clean out my “drafts” folder, and sometimes I find an oldie but goodie that really should have been shared.

Such is the case with this puppy. Six years ago, when we were still living in Western Pennsylvania, the following map sparked a wee leetle rant:

This is a map of Pittsburgh. The green dots represent areas where the land slopes at greater than a 25 percent grade. You’d look at terrain like that and say, “Basically, that's a cliff.” Looking at the map, you might wonder why there aren’t any mountain goats native to Western Pennsylvania. You wanna know why? It’s ’cos they’re fucking scared of these hills!

If you don’t live in Pittsburgh, your city prolly doesn’t have many – if any – slopes above 25%. At 15%, people wonder if their car can make it up, or whether it’ll be able to stop at the bottom going down. But in Pittsburgh, they build roads on 15% grades. And 25%. And 30%! And 35%!!! Then they plunk whole neighborhoods down right at the edge of that precipice.

It’d be one thing if Pittsburgh’s geology was nice, stable granite like New England, or limestone like Texas. Nope. Pittsburgh’s built on something called “slushstone”. Every time it rains, some hillside somewhere in the city decides it can’t hill anymore, embarks upon a brand new career path as mud, and slides down into the nearest valley, usually taking a major road and a number of houses with it.

Believe it! There’s a neighborhood here called “The Bluff”. You know why it’s called “The Bluff”? Because it’s just one big 300-foot cliff face. What do Pittsburghers do? Cantilever no less than six separate levels of two-lane highways hanging in mid-air off the side of the cliff, stacked one on top of the other! And just for good measure, they built a big hospital and a major university right on top of the cliff. What could possibly go wrong?

Six levels of roads stacked on Pittsburgh's Duquesne bluff

Now, if you think Pittsburghers are stupid for building houses and roads on the side of an unstable cliff, consider the alternative: building houses and roads in the valleys directly underneath those slushstone cliffs. When the slushslides come, that might not be such a bright idea, either.

In fact, living in Pittsburgh is kinda stupid, like living near the top of an active volcano... Except that a volcano might not explode for twenty, forty, or a couple hundred years, whereas Pittsburgh has landslides every time it rains. And – I shit you not! – Pittsburgh actually has more rainy days per year than Seattle!

Notice those all-white flat areas on the map, right next to Pittsburgh’s famous three rivers? Those are obv the easiest ways to get around town, and as such they’re filled to bursting with railroad lines and superhighways. Good thing Pittsburgh’s rivers never flood! Oh, wait…

With highways and railroads leaving no room for cyclists on the flats, if you’re gonna bike around here, there’s only one direction you can go: up! They really missed an opportunity when they gave the city “Benigno Numine” as a motto; it really should be “Excelsior”, because no matter where you are or where you hope to go, it’s guaranteed to require an arduous climb… or five.

The whole package is enough to make me wanna hang up my bike and buy a pedal boat. Except even the rivers here are also just liquefied slushstone, liberally mixed with industrial waste and sprinkled with sunken coal barges, rail cars, and aircraft.

Now that I’m 18 months removed from it, I’d like to reflect on my seven years in Pittsburgh.

Let me apologize in advance; this’ll be more negative than positive, because I want to talk about why I left. My intention isn’t to shit on anyone’s chosen hometown. There really is a lot to like about Pittsburgh and Western PA, many good reasons to live there, and lots of genuinely awesome people. But I also want to be forthright about why I was eager to leave.

View of downtown Pittsburgh from Grandview Ave

By far the biggest reason actually had nothing to do with Pittsburgh itself; it’s just that I never intended to stay. When I left Boston in 2015, my #1 desire was to finally move somewhere warm, after enduring 50+ New England winters. Pittsburgh’s weather wasn’t much of an improvement, so I always knew Pittsburgh was a temporary stop on my way to something else. Even before I arrived, moving away was a foregone conclusion, though it did become more urgent as the years ticked by and my patience ebbed.

Before I moved to Pittsburgh, my impressions of Western PA were informed by two or three trips to the SCA’s Pennsic War, one DargonZine Summit, several trips to visit Inna, plus some trips to do database work with the local hospitals. Based on that, my pre-move image of Pennsylvania was of beautifully scenic wooded rolling hills and farmland, with Pittsburgh as a leading center of medical excellence.

After living there for seven years, I left with a very different impression: that of an exploited and poisoned environment, with more openly mean-spirited people than I was used to.

But let’s start with what I thought were some of Pittsburgh’s best features:

The countryside really is strikingly beautiful, when seen from a safe distance.
Pittsburgh has a compact, attractive downtown with a beautiful skyline that’s shown off well from its dramatic gateway entrance and numerous surrounding hilltop overlooks.
There’s lots of noteworthy architecture and cultural institutions, thanks largely to the philanthropic legacy of Pittsburgh’s oil, steel, and industrial magnates.
There is an easily-accessible and uncrowded casino whose state-stipulated blackjack rules are more advantageous for the player than nearly anywhere else.
The airport pipes in music from local classical radio station WQED.

Yes, citing a casino and crowd control music as top features is an instance of damning with faint praise, and I have a lot more negative things to say. But before I dig into those, I’d like to mention a few things about Pittsburgh that were both good… and bad. Let me show you what I mean:

Land and housing are extremely affordable. That would be delightful, except it’s due to the fact that Pittsburgh’s population has not grown in any 10-year census period since 1950, shrinking by 55% in that span, leaving a lot of underutilized, vacant, and/or abandoned properties.
The winters are slightly better than Boston, with considerably less cold and snow than Maine. Being further south, winter days have more daylight hours, and should have more sunshine and less oppressive darkness. But you actually see less sun during the winter. Although thankfully not inside the Great Lakes snow belt, Pittsburgh is close enough that there’s perpetual overcast skies and sporadic light flurries all winter long, and that lack of sun can be just as depressing as the shortened days up in Maine.
Pittsburgh’s airport is spacious and quick to get through… But that’s because it was built as a major USAir hub just before that airline’s insolvency. Today PIT handles a minuscule fraction of the volume it was designed for. You can’t escape the cognitive dissonance when the loudspeakers proudly announce “Welcome to Pittsburgh!” and it echoes down the vast corridors of an empty airport.
Pittsburgh is arguably the hilliest city in the US. As a cyclist, the upsides are intense physical workouts and memorable events like the infamous Dirty Dozen hillclimb; while the downside is a dearth of calm, relaxing routes, because all the flat land has been claimed by highways, railroads, warehouses, and industry. And if you’re a driver, those hills can be treacherous in winter.
There’s a very friendly cycling community and loads of interesting cycling events. On the other hand, it can be difficult to get around on a bike, as there aren’t many good options heading east or south or west of the city.

And now we get to the heart of the matter: the things about Pittsburgh that turned me off. I tried to whittle this down to major points while still making myself clear.

It’s dirty.

To be fair, there’s been a ton of progress in the 150 years since Atlantic Monthly described Pittsburgh at the height of its industrial output as “hell with the lid taken off.” But a lot of damage done to the land, water, and air by the coal, oil, gas, iron, and steel industries still remains. Western PA is the only area outside California that consistently receives all ‘F’ grades in the American Lung Association’s air quality reports, and often records the worst air quality in the US. Even today, the culture of fouling the environment still lingers, as can be seen in the preponderance of roadside litter and illegal garbage dumping. Having grown up in the Maine woods, the lack of respect for the natural environment disturbed me.

It’s blighted.

I’ve already mentioned the population decline and abundance of abandoned and condemned buildings, so I won’t belabor it, save to say that the amount of urban decay and blight is off-putting. I’m sure it didn’t help that Pittsburgh was in receivership for 14 years (from 2004-2018), despite residents paying an extra 1.5% city income tax!

Collapsing infrastructure.

Pittsburgh has some unique challenges that other cities don’t. The steep topography means that parts of the city get flash floods (Washington Blvd, Mon Wharf, the Bathtub, Millvale, Glass Run). And there are seasonal landslides that can close roads for months (Greenleaf, Commercial, Pittview, Route 30). But then there’s also numerous avoidable, man-made infrastructure failures. For example, during my brief years in Pittburgh:

The Fern Hollow Bridge carrying Forbes Ave over Frick Park collapsed.
Concrete slabs from the Swindell Bridge fell onto the Parkway North, forcing closures on I-279.
More concrete fell from the Greenfield Bridge over the Parkway East (I-376) , so the state built a semipermanent “bridge” underneath the main bridge just to catch the falling debris.
Several building facades collapsed in the Southside, Lawrenceville, and the Strip, including Kraynick’s bike shop.
A Pittsburgh city transit bus was driving along Liberty Ave in the heart of downtown when a huge sinkhole opened up and swallowed it whole.
An entire parking deck collapsed in the Penn Hills.
Repeated train derailments in the South Side, Harmar, and a dramatic moving conflagration as a burning train rolled on obliviously for twenty miles through Freedom and Harmony, PA.

So much anger.

I don’t want to overemphasize this, because I made a lot of wonderful friendships in Pittsburgh. But in comparison to New England, many Western PA locals seemed eager to take opportunities to be rude or mean toward one another, while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet or ensconced in their self-propelled rolling fortresses. Pittsburgh has a lot of schadenfreude, which was unpleasant.

A culture of unlawfulness.

A lot of cities found themselves at odds with their own police forces following the Black Lives Matter protests and de-funding rumors, but Pittsburgh already had a head start. Speeding has historically never been enforced; in fact, it’s still illegal today for county and local law enforcement to use radar guns to enforce speed limits! In seven years living (and riding) there, I don’t think I ever saw a state trooper, and saw only one or two traffic stops by local police.

The Covid pandemic provided another disincentive to conduct minor traffic stops. And the police reacted hostilely to BLM and de-funding protests. Then both the city council and even bike advocates asked the cops to stop traffic enforcement! All this made it much more dangerous to be a pedestrian, cyclist, or motor vehicle operator in Pittsburgh. Tho sadly, I now realize this is a much broader problem than just Western PA.

Monopolies in healthcare and groceries.

Healthcare in Pittsburgh is dominated by UPMC. Because it’s loosely affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, this immense hospital chain does everything it can to take full advantage of its categorization as a non-profit. No one I talked to had a positive experience with them, whether as a patient or an employee.

Pittsburgh also suffers from a near-monopoly in grocery stores. You would think that when I lived in downtown Boston’s tony Back Bay, my groceries would have been extremely costly; but my food bill actually jumped 25% higher after I moved to Pittsburgh.

Misplaced regional pride.

I get it: every place needs to have a sense of regional pride. But it’s kind of lame that the “Paris of Appalachia” bases its sense of identity on things that are ubiquitous throughout urban America, such as putting a chair out to reserve a parking space, or trying to jump the green when turning left at a traffic light. Or rabid loyalty to a company like Heinz, which left Pittsburgh 20 years ago. Or mindlessly hating all the other cities in the region (Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit). Sure, take pride in your city, but make some effort to identify the things that genuinely make Pittsburgh special; the “Pittsburgh Left” ain’t it.

The food.

I just don’t know how Pittsburgh gained its reputation as a city for foodies.

Let’s consider the foods Pittsburghers take pride in: Beer. Ketchup. Pickles. Lenten fish frys. Pierogies. And sticking french fries into literally everything. None of these qualify as “cuisine”. If I were a Pittsburgher, I’d be ashamed.

And while I’m admittedly a culinary philistine myself, I didn’t find any places that impressed me in my preferred food zones, like burgers, Indian, and Mexican food. Thai was a wasteland except for Thai & Noodle Outlet. Pizza wasn’t “all that” but Aiello’s was tolerable… tho they (and their arch-rival Mineo’s) still refuse to deliver and require payment in cash. And the best Pittsburgh could offer for ice cream was Bruster’s (no, don’t talk to me about Page’s or Dave and Andy’s).

Toxic redneck culture.

I grew up among rednecks. A lot of my family were rednecks. Almost everywhere I’ve lived, there have been a lot of rednecks. And outside of Pittsburgh’s city limits, Western PA is infested with rednecks.

I just don’t fit into – or get along well with – that culture anymore. The rabid devotion to the local sportball teams (The Stillers, The Pens). The preoccupation with beer and alcohol. The gun fetish (open and concealed carry are both legal). The mindless nationalism. The constant othering and barefaced xenophobia. The utter absence of compassion or open-mindedness.

Several Western-PA wing-nuts played leading roles in the 2021 Trump-inspired attempt to overthrow the United States government. And in 2018, less than a mile from our apartment, the deadliest massacre of Jews in United States history took place. I hope I don’t need to tell you how offensive those are.

In closing:

Pittsburgh was a city of contradictions and trade-offs. Western PA was beautiful, if you looked past the pollution and decay. The cycling was great, but also quite challenging. It was inexpensive (housing), except where it wasn’t (groceries). I met plenty of wonderful people (undoubtedly including the Pittsburghers who are reading this), and about as many that were truly hateful.

Although the winters, as the natives say, “weren’t all that”, it was a fine place to spend a half-dozen years. I have a lot of very fond memories of Pittsburgh. Those include the many valued friends I made; the heart-warming meditation communities that welcomed me and nurtured my growth as a teacher; plus the people and landscapes and rides that I enjoyed while cycling. These will stay with me forever.

But from the very beginning, I always planned to move farther south, beyond the clutches of the Snow Miser. And as the years passed, I needed to move on to a warmer, sunnier place.

It goes without saying that Austin, our new home, came with its own set of pleasures and challenges… But that’s a story for another post.

Our move over the holidays from Pittsburgh to Austin was a long, hard road… both literally and figuratively. Here are some of the lowlights (plus a couple highlights) from the hectic, stressful, and eventful month gone by.

Final week at Hobart Street

Boxing up Hobart Street produced an unanticipated cat fortress!

Closing the book on the Hobart Street apartment

Hell is real... especially in Ohio!

Home at last, after a 1,450-mile road trip

Orny broke a couple chairs out of the moving trailer to make the wait for our movers more comfortable

We successfully moved our huge pile of mess from one place to another

The lease on our new Austin home began on December 15, but there was no way Inna and I could finish packing up our belongings that quickly, so we made arrangements with movers for December 28th.

The overwhelming sensation in December was stress. All the packing, selling, giving away, donating, or trashing all our belongings took time and the dust we kicked up caused my asthma to start acting up.

Then there was the weather. A week-long arctic blast brought record cold and wind chills below -25°F, and of course I’d prematurely sealed up the box containing my winter coat and boots. It was like the northeast -- where I’ve lived for my entire life -- was taking one final, vicious swipe at me for daring to move south.

The brutal cold snap laid bare some of our old apartment’s frailties. The window in our spare bedroom fell apart in my hands. The jerry-rigged kitchen sink plumbing gave way on Christmas Eve, and the landlord’s Christmas Day repairs only revealed further downstream blockages, presumably due to frozen pipes, so we were left with no water in the kitchen. All this trauma happened while Inna was out of town for four days, visiting family. It made me very glad we would be getting out of that death trap, if only Mother Nature would let us! But all this sure made it easier for us to leave Pittsburgh.

During the bitter cold, I had to post no-parking notices and claim four parallel parking spaces in front of our house that would be required for the 28-foot U-Pack trailer that we’d be loading into. Although it was a nerve-wracking wait for other people’s vehicles to move on, I was finally able to clear the space and the trailer was dropped off on time.

That night before loading day, Inna and I stuffed our cat Begemot into the car to go set up a temporary household in her mother’s condo a couple blocks away. But in the middle of a quick stop to pick up Indian food on busy Murray Ave, the car refused to start! This did nothing to assuage my anxiety about setting off on a 1,450-mile road trip in a 14 year old car!

After some worried fiddling, we managed to get the engine to turn over and drove our reduced household over to our temporary digs. But Begemot immediately hid himself in an inaccessible corner of the basement. And after we fished him out and confined him in our bedroom, he kept us awake the entire night while he suffered his own sneezing/asthma fits and freaked out over being in an unfamiliar place.

That was our segue into:

Week at Mom’s

After our first sleepless night at mom’s, the cold snap broke, and we went back to the apartment to meet four guys from “Zooming Moving” of Salem, Ohio who would load our belongings into the trailer. They seemed smart and fast, taking 2½ hours to load our 155-ish boxes and pieces of furniture into less space in the trailer than we believed possible. It was magical watching our place rapidly clear out, then seeing everything stuffed trash-compactor style into a tiny section of our trailer (FYI that was a clever bit of foreshadowing, there). When we asked them at the last minute, they even squeezed in four chairs that Inna had feared she’d have to give away.

Once the trailer was locked and the guys gone, Inna called and arranged to have U-Pack pick it up. I visited my oral surgeon for a previously-scheduled followup that was painless but carried disappointing news. Afterward I circled back to the old apartment and found the trailer had been hauled away, so I pulled down the parking signs and went across town to visit El Burro: a favorite burrito joint.

That was on Wednesday the 28th, but we didn’t plan to leave Pittsburgh until the following Tuesday, to avoid being on the road over the New Years holiday. So we had a week to close up the old apartment and hit up some favorite places, which included ice cream at Bruster’s, lunch at Pamela’s diner, and dinner from Thai and Noodle Outlet. For Inna in particular, it was the end of an era, having lived in that apartment for 12 years!

On one hand, it was a major relief that we could stop working like slaves; all the packing and planning was finally done and over with! We even had time to run a load of laundry! And we watched with delight as our stuff traveled to Ohio, then spent the holiday weekend in Arkansas, and arrived in Austin on Monday, eight days earlier than our promised delivery date!

On the other hand, we found ourselves with too much time and nothing to do, combined with the uncomfortably cold temperature of Inna’s mother’s condo. The waiting was especially hard on Inna, who -- having committed to the Austin move -- was eager to hit the road.

And I had time to reflect on how even the holidays had been out to get us this year. Halloween featured my oral surgery; Inna twisted her ankle during our Austin trip over Thanksgiving, and our old apartment’s electrical panel went bad the night we returned; a frigid Christmas featured frozen water pipes and hectic packing while Inna was away visiting her father; and we were spending New Years living out of a suitcase at Inna’s mother’s condo, while our new house and all our stuff was already waiting for us in Austin!

But time passed, the calendar ticked over to 2023, and our long-anticipated departure date finally arrived.

The Drive

Between our fatigue, a stressed-out cat, and our 14 year old car, we allocated three days for the 1,450-mile drive down to Austin. We’d made reservations at Red Roof Inns along the way, relying on their open policy toward pets. Setting out, we were tired and nervous, but happy that things had gone as well as they did.

We left Pittsburgh on Tuesday January 3th in steady rain that tapered off the further we went. The three of us all fared well, and after nine hours we pulled into our motel in Nashville. I downed a terrible “jalapeno cheez chicken” from the Mexican place next door and settled in. The room was garbage, with broken lights, thermostat, and faucet. Bigi’s stress-response asthma was really bad. Then at 5am a group of assholes came around screaming and pounding on doors, and took three body-slams attempting to bust our door in. It was very reminiscent of our horrifying experience at our Austin motel in November. What the fuck is it with you Southerners that you turn into raving murderous assholes when you go to a motel?

After a horrible night we set out on the middle leg of our journey. Inna did most of the driving on a sunny day, enjoying the 75 MPH speed limit through memorable towns like Bucksnort, Tennessee. In the middle of Arkansas we had our one worrying car malfunction when our tire pressure monitor signaled too high air pressure. But it reset after we pulled aside for a lengthy stop, and we proceeded more gingerly. Our motel in Texarkana was less run-down, but I was so wary about the guys hanging out in the parking lot that I couldn’t eat. Fortunately we didn’t have any more overnight visitors, but the cat’s asthma made for another rough night.

On the final day we got up and showered, then faced our shortest drive of the trip, all of which improved our moods. After seeing a bunch of beaver-bearing billboards advertising “Buc-ee’s” truck stop, Inna decided to stop and check one out. It’s kinda of like Pittsburgh’s Sheetz -- a local favorite convenience store -- only with the ridiculous size, decor, and attitude of a huge casino. We definitely weren’t in Kansas anymore! Then, as Austin came into welcome view, we reflected on how well both the car and cat had done on the road trip; the latter experiencing only one outburst in response to Inna’s singing along with her chosen tunes.

Arriving midafternoon on January 5th, our first stop was of course the new house. After discovering that the real estate agent’s promised lockbox was nowhere to be seen, we found the key literally under the doormat and let ourselves in, giving the place a quick once-over. I got our fiber internet router set up while Bigi began to to settle in; meanwhile, Inna made a grocery run and tried to track down the king-sized mattress that FedEx was supposed to deliver for us.

We’d reserved a hotel in Austin in case we got in late, and decided that was preferable to sleeping on the floor, so we bundled poor Bigi back into the car. Our room was fine, but we had another restless night and checked out early the next morning to spend the day at home, watching for our mattress.

Taking up residence

Watching for deliveries proved very fruitful, as we received not only our mattress, but also Inna’s laptop, which we’d dropped off at an Apple store in Pittsburgh for repairs, and a huge grocery bag full of useful stuff (including notably non-Heinz ketchup) from Inna’s former Pittsburgh/now Texas friend Traci.

After making my own grocery run, I was hanging around and saw a kid park his car at the end of our cul de sac and jog between our house and the neighbor’s. I shrugged it off as a local picking up something he’d forgotten. But ten minutes later Austin cops swarmed the area, took possession of the car, flagged me to tell them if I’d seen anything, and started a manhunt complete with search dogs! Day One in our new house, and there’s both criminals and police crawling around our property. I’m afraid Bigi was the only one of who was feeling secure in our new home. But hey, it was January 6 and a delightful 78°F!

Over the next three days we worked to slowly make the place more livable. We didn’t have anything to sit on, but procured our new mattress, bed sheets, food, trash bags, a dish rack, and started laundering things. Bigi’s asthma receded and he became more adventurous, but – in characteristic feline style – he also managed to cover himself in ashes while exploring the fireplace.

Getting our stuff home

Meanwhile, our stuff had been sitting at a shipping warehouse for a week, and we were eager to have it delivered. Because our house is on a steep hill and a narrow dead-end street, U-Pack couldn’t drop our trailer off at the house, so we had hired another moving company -- a national chain ironically named “Two Men and a Truck” -- to transfer our belongings into a smaller truck and shuttle it from U-Pack’s depot to the house.

Since the trailer had arrived early, we got the movers to bump our job up to Monday, but when we met them at the facility, they showed up in a truck that was even bigger than the trailer! And that was the smallest truck they had. No way could they move our stuff, nor would they move it into a smaller rental truck like a U-Haul. We were completely screwed. After much wrangling, their chief agreed to use a company minivan the next day to shuttle our stuff from the top of our hill down to our house. To add one more frustration to the day, I grazed a low retaining wall trying to back out of our insanely un-navigable driveway and knocked an exhaust tip from our Accord.

The next morning – January 10th – we met up with the movers and they shuttled our stuff from the U-Pack trailer into their big truck. That was when we learned the downside of the “amazing” packing job that Zooming Moving did back in Pittsburgh: lots of damaged belongings. Three pieces of wooden furniture were broken and more than half of the 22 plastic bins we’d used had been crushed. Fortunately, not much stuff had actually spilled out, so I used plastic wrap to patch together the shattered bins. But our poor stone “Boo-boo Buddha” statue – so named because he had originally come with a chipped knee – was now fully decapitated! The only good news was that our two big glass desktops had somehow arrived intact.

After loading and the 20-minute drive to our place, I showed their driver why U-Pack hadn’t dropped our trailer in front of our house: the steep, curving descent down our street, the overhanging tree branches, the sloping narrow driveway, and the limited space in our cul de sac for turning around. While using a panel van to shuttle our stuff would suck, we thought it too dangerous to try to bring a huge moving van down that hill.

But the driver was a young Black guy fresh out of high school, and he fearlessly wanted to try it. I told him it was all on them, but he actually managed it. He parked the van at a precarious tilt and chocked the wheels.

The movers still had to carry our stuff down the driveway, but they were able to unload, saving us the extra time, expense, and damage that using the minivan would have required. It wasn’t quite as magical seeing all our stuff pile up in the living room. But despite all our pointless worrying, the entire job was done in just over four hours, leaving us shoulder-deep in a fortress of cardboard boxes, broken plastic bins, and randomly-scattered furniture.

And with that, our long-anticipated move south and the month-long moving ordeal was finally complete! Even after so much stress and all the trials thrown at us, we were now in our new place in Austin, complete with all our stuff, including Inna’s car and Bigi the cat.

Our next step was to begin digging out from the mess, but we put that on hold long enough to enjoy a well-earned celebratory dinner at Inna’s favorite: Lupe’s Mexican restaurant.

Life since then…

It’s been a week and a half since our stuff arrived, and we’ve had time to address most of the mess and begin getting comfortable in our new base of operations. In the wake of our move, there’s lots of organizing, arranging, and decorating to do, but we can thankfully say that the hard work is complete and behind us.

In addition to literally “getting our house in order”, Inna and I have made our first few expeditions afield, starting to explore all that Austin has to offer. We’re really excited to start going places, seeing people, and doing things… Finally building the new life that the two of us have dreamed about for so very long.

Stay tuned for our further adventures!

Having just picked up the new Google Pixel 6 Pro, specifically for some of its photo capabilities, it's time for me to share my first look at the Pixel's camera features and performance.

My previous two cellphones were the HTC One 11 and the HTC One M8, both of which received high marks for their cameras. But in 2017 Google bought most of HTC's R&D team and integrated them into their efforts to improve the Pixel lineup. So I've been closely following the Pixel line, and between the need to upgrade to 5G and the Pixel 6 Pro's new 4x optical zoom camera, its October release convinced me to finally replace my beloved HTC.

So on the first sunny day after getting my new unit all set up, I took a little photo walkabout in Pittsburgh's Southside, capturing the images that follow. All images were uploaded to Flickr exactly as they came out of the camera, unaltered in any way, although you have to click through to the full-sized versions to see the actual, untouched originals and their full level of detail.

Let's begin with a couple basic snaps that I took just because they caught my eye. These were taken at various levels of zoom (more on that in a bit). Under conditions of harsh afternoon light, the Pixel's HDR processing did a good job pulling detail out of the shadows, even if in some cases that was desired, and in some cases it wasn't.

Aside from the fairly subtle HDR, Google's next image processing trick is "portrait mode", which identifies a human subject in your shot, and then applies a not very subtle blur to everything else. Here's a couple portrait-treated shots, and a normal shot for comparison.

A couple shots to test the Pixel's color handling. Nothing too special here.

The number one reason why I got the Pixel 6 Pro variant is that it has a 4x optical zoom. Unlike a digital zoom, which just makes each pixel larger, an optical zoom can capture a much greater level of detail.

Here are three images shot from the same location, about 230 meters (760 feet) away from the north pier and tower on the opposite side of the river. The only difference in the images is the zoom level: 1x, 2x, and 4x.

The fact that these aren't just cropped and enlarged is clear if you click though to the full-size images and compare the clarity of the lettering on the road signs at the far end of the bridge, and on the buildings atop the bluff. You can even count the individual rivets on the bridge tower!

The extra detail and image quality provided by an optical zoom is an immense differentiator, putting this cell phone ahead of its competitors and much closer to a possible SLR camera replacement.

Next we have two panoramic images, as created by the Camera app's image processor. The stitching is pretty good, and produces very usable results.

Like any panoramic photo, the wider the scene, the more lens distortion occurs at the edges. While it's not noticeable in the first image, it's far more noticeable in the second, which spans a nearly 180° arc.

Google has included beta versions of two tools that try to capture motion. The first motion capture mode is "long exposure". The idea is to simulate taking a long exposure, where static elements appear clear, but moving elements are blurred.

Sometimes this works well (the moving cyclist below left), and sometimes it doesn't (the ghost bicycle at right). Sadly, Google's camera app doesn't offer the kind of "clear image plus light trail" effect you'd normally get on an SLR with a flash synced to the front or rear curtain.

Note that in these cases where the Pixel is post-processing images, it saves both the altered image as well as the original.

The other motion capture tool is called "action pan", which does the exact opposite: bringing moving objects into focus, while blurring the unmoving background. This is supposed to simulate a standard camera panning to follow a moving object, like I did in this shot. But the Pixel does all of that in software; the user doesn't actually pan the camera himself.

Sometimes it works surprisingly well, like the first couple pictures at left. But it can be hit and miss. If you click through to the full-sized image of the second cyclist, you'll see what looks like a lot of pixelation surrounding him.

That's not actually pixelation or loss of data, but an artifact of the Pixel's software not being entirely sure where the dividing line is between the moving object and the static background. So what you're seeing is just a bit of in-focus background that the Pixel chose not to blur.

This is blatantly obvious in the final image in this series, where the autumn leaves to the left and right of the cyclist are motion-blurred, but the leaves you can see through the wheels are in perfect focus, yielding a ridiculous and completely unusable image.

The final feature I wanted to test was the Pixel's "magic eraser" function, which allows you to selectively remove unwanted objects in your photo, kind of like an intelligent version of Photoshop's healing brush.

The left photo below is another action pan shot I took, this time with two cyclists in the frame. The lead cyclist is in focus, but the trailing rider is a little blurry, so I chose to remove her.

She definitely was erased from the image, although I might not go so far as to call it "magic". The Pixel did a good job figuring out what I wanted to remove, and how to back-fill the area, and matched up the berm and railroad tracks well. But I did have to go back and run the tool a second time, in order to also remove the rider's shadow, an oversight that many users might easily make.

The overall result isn't bad, especially given how little user input it required. Good enough for casual use, but for better quality I'd still do the work in a desktop photo editor.

Overall, I'd say I'm very happy with the results. Big plusses are graduating from my old phone's 12MP main camera to the Pixel's 50MP, and the amazing 4x optical zoom. I'm happy with the panorama mode, and am more than willing to play with the good but imperfect magic eraser and motion blur modes. I'm also looking forward to testing out the Pixel's improved low-light and video capabilities.

From a photographic point of view, there's very little to complain about. The Pixel 6's noticeable "camera bar" design hasn't been an issue for me so far. The only serious shortcoming I've noticed is that the front-facing selfie shooter is a meager 11MP, which is 31% smaller than the 16MP on my 5 year-old HTC.

That's all for today, but watch this space -- and my cycling blog -- for more images from the new Pixel 6 Pro!

Well, that was curious...

Inna and I have a saying: “Nothing good can happen if you don’t leave the house.” Usually it’s a simple reminder to help motivate us to fight the inertia of rest and get outside. However, once in a while it also comes up when we go out and something unexpected, good, or interesting happens.

Today we went out for a walk to enjoy Pittsburgh’s rather generous definition of "fresh air and sunshine". It was the first time either of us have been outdoors (for more than a couple minutes) since we went into self-imposed Corona virus lockdown nine days ago.

Our route included a cul de sac in some nearby parkland that’s commonly used as a meeting place for anonymous gay hook-ups. Since the road is cambered to both sides for drainage, Inna suggested we walk right down the middle, where the road is flattest.

Walking along, something on the ground caught my eye: a brass-looking coin. The US doesn’t have brass coins in circulation, so I thought it might be foreign, maybe a Canadian Loonie or something more exotic. I put on a glove, bent over, picked it up, and Inna and I examined it...

Looking first at the text, it read “HEADS I WIN”. That meant the back probably said… Yup: “TAILS YOU LOSE”. As soon as that was confirmed, we saw that the design on the reverse was a pair of buttocks. And after some squinting at the worn design, the obverse was confirmed to show a woman’s face and bared bust. It is exactly the same as the image on this page (as usual, you can click to see the full-sized image, if you’re interested in a detailed view).

A tacky and puerile novelty, but curious and noteworthy nonetheless. I pocketed it and brought it home.

Where I turned to the interwebs for advice. Apparently, such “flipping coins” were in common use by troops during the two World Wars, and have also been used over the years as tokens in coin-operated peepshow viewers. The smutty ones are all pretty similar, and are commonly referred to as “Busty Bettys”. Authentic antique examples are considered collectables, but apparently there are plenty of newer copies around, such as the one I found.

So there you go: there’s no telling what kind of stuff you’ll find if you just step outside your door and look!

In their recent marketing communications, the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center has published brief interviews with some of their regular practitioners as a kind of “get to know you” feature.

Although I haven’t made an appearance at CIMC in years, I thought it’d be fun to answer some of those questions myself, especially since today marks the 15th anniversary of my first visit to CIMC (or any meditation center).

CIMC meditation hall

CIMC: Tell us about yourself.

I discovered Buddhism around age 40, while seeking a way to live in closer accord with my inner values after a divorce, moving, and changing jobs. The teachings resonated with me, and I found CIMC’s non-sectarian method pleasantly approachable.

I was a CIMC regular and volunteer for eleven years, during which time my practice matured rapidly. In 2015 I moved to Pittsburgh, where I now support and occasionally teach two vipassana sitting groups.

CIMC: How did you learn about CIMC? When did you come to CIMC for the first time? And what program did you attend?

I first checked out a Tuesday night Beginners’ Drop-In sitting in April 2004, and followed up with a two-day Beginners’ Workshop with Maddy Klyne the following month. After that, I started going to all the Wednesday evening sitting & dhamma talks—enthusiastically absorbing everything I could—then joined some standing practice groups; formed a kalyana mitta “spiritual friends” group; and undertook retreats at CIMC, IMS, and the Bhavana Society to begin putting all those teachings into practice.

CIMC: How has CIMC or a teacher transformed or benefitted your life?

More than any single teacher, I benefited from the unbelievable diversity and expertise of the guest teachers CIMC brought in to lead weekly Wednesday night sittings and dhamma talks. In addition to our own esteemed guiding teachers, CIMC provided a rare and precious opportunity to learn from many of the most respected teachers in the world.

I knew almost nothing about Buddhism when I arrived at CIMC. The teachings I received there—combined with my own meditation practice and independent study—have transformed how I relate to every element of my life, thereby addressing my original desire to live in harmony with my values, and gave me the confidence and depth of knowledge to begin advising and teaching others.

CIMC: Are you a member? If yes, why?

Although I left Boston in 2015, I am still a member at CIMC. The urban center has immense capability to bring the Buddhist mindset to a mainstream audience who would never engage with this path of wisdom otherwise. Having received so much benefit from CIMC, maintaining my membership is how I continue to support the center, the teachers, and the mission of offering the dhamma to others.

CIMC: What’s your favorite way of supporting or engaging with the CIMC community?

I always used to stay for tea after the Wednesday evening dhamma talks, having detailed discussions about practice in the dining room with other attendees right up to (and sometimes well beyond) the center’s official 10pm closing time. The conversations were always thought-provoking, and helped me feel like an integral part of the center and supported by a community of engaged, like-minded practitioners.

For more than a decade, CIMC was one of the most important elements of my life, and I continue to benefit from the time I spent there, even though I’m no longer a familiar face at the center.

Beyond that, there isn’t a lot for me to say in observance of today’s 15th anniversary of practice; I covered most of it in my 10th anniversary blogpost.

In the five years since I wrote that post, there have been two major developments in my practice.

The most obvious has been establishing my practice here in Pittsburgh, where I have been fortunate to find two local sitting groups, and was able to sit a retreat with venerable Bhante G. at the Bhavana Society in nearby West Virginia. These have provided regular prompting for my sitting practice, as well as the continued support of like-minded practitioners.

In addition, on several occasions I have led sittings and dhamma talks for these two groups, which has been a major change from how I practiced in Boston. After a decade and a half, I now find my practice transitioning from absorbing and practicing the dhamma to sharing it with others and offering instruction. This has been a major shift, and—as I mentioned above—one I would not have undertaken without the confidence and depth of knowledge I gained during my time at CIMC.

On my recent trip to North Carolina, I was able to sit with two large, thriving groups: the Triangle Insight Meditation Community in Durham and the Insight Meditation Community of Charlotte. Unexpectedly, the leaders of both sittings claim CIMC’s founders as their primary teachers.

That experience prompted me to drop a note to CIMC’s guiding teachers, wherein I shared the following. Speaking about the teachers I met during my trip:

They provided very visible examples of how important CIMC’s teachers have been in spreading vipassana practice throughout the US. It’s a noble legacy that will persist for decades and impact thousands of lives.

This experience was an unexpected reminder of how indebted I am and how much I miss CIMC. Now, as my practice transitions from absorbing the dhamma to sharing it with others, I realize how blessed I was to have spent so many years at CIMC and learned so much from such eminent teachers.

After several years in a long-distance relationship with Inna, I thought we might see more of one another after I moved in with her in Pittsburgh back in 2015.

But last winter I spent five months up in Maine, caretaking my mother. And now Inna’s job has sent her to the other side of the planet on a six-month project in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!

The Petronas Towers at night,
from Inna’s hotel room.

The first thing to be said is how proud I am of her career. After a complete reboot, she’s become an experienced procurement consultant, helping clients optimize capital expenditures ranging from a quarter million dollars up to a freaking beelion, without any fluster or fuss. It says a lot about her competence that—out of all her peers—she was chosen as an expert to kick off this absolutely critical project.

Two years since I moved in, with my baby 10,000 miles away: this seems like a good time to step back and reflect on how our living together has worked out, and our prospects moving forward.

But first, some context. We first met back in 1998, and have been dating on-and-off for the past twenty years (happy anniversary!). The early years were a little rocky, as we had very divergent expectations and equally poor skills at navigating conflict.

In contrast, our living together has been remarkably placid; there’s been virtually no conflict or drama. I guess we’ve learned how to tolerate one another’s idiosyncrasies, make workable compromises, and be respectful and supportive of one another, whatever the circumstances. It’s also helped that we’re both introverted homebodies, and we’re each financially stable on our own.

Oddly, our biggest challenge has been finding ways to spend time together. We have quite divergent tastes and interests, most of which are solitary, which leaves us both feeling a little bit unfulfilled. But we both love and need one another, which means we’ll continue to look for opportunities to share and integrate our lives.

After dating for two decades, and now living together, it might be time to reflect on whether this is “forever” and if marriage is in the cards.

This is not a straightforward question for me. Several lifetimes ago, I married a woman I was very deeply in love with, only to see it turn to shit over time. Once burned, twice shy; I’ll never be so unreservedly in love again, nor make a lifetime commitment so easily. That past experience has left me hesitant to even consider marriage, despite Inna’s and my happiness and obvious commitment to one another. For now I can still only say, “We’ll have to see…”

Having moved to Pittsburgh to be with Inna, now I face six months all alone in this foreign land where people structure their entire lives around professional sports, and haute cuisine is stuffing soggy french fries inside their sandwiches. It feels really strange being in her city and her apartment without her, since she’s my only reason for being here at all.

On the other hand, I feel a strange sense of freedom by not having her peering over my shoulder. I’ve got the opportunity now to cultivate a larger sense of ownership of the apartment, and the impetus to go off and explore the city and the region on my own. Living alone—even temporarily—requires fewer compromises and consensus-building, and that’s refreshing after the challenges of sharing one’s life and living space. It also engenders less laundry, fewer dirty dishes, and no more messes around the house!

But setting the laundry aside for now… Being apart has only made it abundantly clear that we each make the other a much better person, and I’ll be very happy when she finally comes home, and we can resume figuring out what a future together will look like.

And if you’re not aware of it yet, you can see ongoing updates by following her new blog: My KL Life—A 6-Month Adventure.

When I moved from Boston to Pittsburgh, one of my friends was interested in how the two cities differed. After living here for a year, I now feel like I can make some somewhat informed contrasts.

Here’s my list of the top twenty differences between Boston and Pittsburgh.

Time is a little bit different. Pittsburgh is a little further south than Boston, so its days are a little longer in the winter and shorter in the summer. But more importantly, Boston is at the eastern edge of the time zone, while Pittsburgh is at the western end; so the sun rises and sets about 30-45 minutes later.
Pittsburgh doesn’t get Boston’s cold onshore sea breezes in the spring. On the other hand, Boston doesn’t get Pittsburgh’s periodic light lake effect snow.
There aren’t many evergreens in western Pennsylvania. It’s mostly hardwood, unlike New England.
Obviously Pittsburgh is hillier, but the soil is also different. Boston is granite and glacial till, whereas Pittsburgh is all sedimentary rock: visible strata of limestone, sandstone, and shale, a whopping three miles deep!
Surprisingly, western PA has a lot fewer lakes than New England. Most rainfall winds up coursing down narrow canyons and into the major rivers.
Because of this lack of natural reservoirs to trap and hold rainwater and snow melt, combined with the steepness and softness of the underlying rock, western PA is very prone to flash flooding and debris in the roads. The only time New England floods is during spring runoff, and that rarely washes debris into the roadways.
Aside from its tiny downtown, Pittsburgh is a much less walkable city. Distances between points of interest are greater, and the outlying towns don’t have dense commercial or cultural centers, so it’s mostly undifferentiated sprawl.
As such, Pittsburgh is a much more car-oriented city. There’s no subway, no commuter rail, and minimal public transportation. The automobile is a necessity here, whereas they are a liability in Boston.
Despite that, the landscape and street design makes it stunningly difficult to get from Point A to Point B in Pittsburgh. Unlike Boston, where you can pick between several bad routes, there’s usually only one way for Pittsburghers to get where they need to go. That in turn creates horrible blighted sections of roadway like Bigelow, Liberty, Washington Boulevard, Second, Fifth, Penn, Carson, Ft. Duq, 51, and BotA.
Because of the poorly-designed infrastructure, and Penn DOT’s unconcealed hostility toward accommodating cyclists and pedestrians, there are fewer road cyclists in Pittsburgh, and more of them are killed by motorists than happen in Boston, where government is more responsive and the cycling and pedestrian advocacy groups are better organized.
Between that and the lumpy terrain, there aren’t as many century rides in western PA as there are back in Massachusetts.
Pittsburgh does have a ton of railroads and former railroad and mill property. There’s a lot more post-industrial wasteland than you find in Boston, where most of it has already been cleaned up and redeveloped. In that sense, Pittsburgh is more like Lawrence MA, only on a vastly larger scale.
There’s certainly more poverty, abandoned and/or condemned property, and overall urban blight in Pittsburgh. Property values are too high in Boston for space to sit unused and uncared-for very long.
There does seem to be a greater rate of crime, murder, and drug problems in Pittsburgh, as well.
There are, of course, certain neighborhoods in Pittsburgh that are gentrifying, but it’s decades behind Boston in rehabilitating itself overall. Tho they’ve made a lot of progress from their industrial past.
In addition to property prices being lower, salaries are also much lower in Pittsburgh than Boston, which has always been a tech hub. On the other hand, groceries in Boston are considerably less expensive than western PA.
There’s less ethnic diversity in Pittsburgh than Boston. Sure, there are some small enclaves, but Boston is far more integrated than Pittsburgh, with a greater variety and diffusion of immigrants from all kinds of ethinic origins.
At the same time, western PA has a whole lot more uneducated, low income white folk. The substantial redneck population reminds me a lot more of rural Maine than cosmopolitan Boston.
Pittsburgh might be widely known for its food, but I find it pretty uninspired. Their signature pizza places don’t even deliver! Frankly, I don’t know how they stay in business, because delivery makes up the majority of most pizza joints’ orders. Oh, and they call them “cuts”, not “slices”. Stupid.
On the other hand, Verizon doesn’t sell its Fios fiber optic internet service in Boston. It does in Pittsburgh, and that’s a noteworthy plus!

For three hundred and sixty-three days out of the year, our apartment is located a couple blocks from Schenley Park, the second largest municipal park in Pittsburgh. But for two days every July, the park—and our neighborhood—are taken over by the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix, a free motorsports festival that draws hundreds of racers and a quarter million spectators. And from our house, the roar of the action sounds like a big hive of extremely angry bees.

Having been a racing fan in a previous life, I had to check it out. There really isn’t a lot of story to tell, but I did bring my SLR and took a few hundred action shots of the cars powering along roads I typically bike on. In this case, the photos probably tell the story better than words could.

Here are a handful of my better shots, but if you like these, you can see a couple dozen more in my PVGP Flickr album.

Think you’re gonna find Buddhism in Steeler Nation? I didn’t. When I moved to Pittsburgh, I didn’t expect to find many meditation centers; certainly not the diversity and convenience that I had enjoyed back in Boston.

I easily found Pittsburgh Shambhala, but Tibetan Buddhism is radically different than the Theravada Buddhism that speaks to me, and I’m uncomfortable with how they venerate their teacher, the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, to a fault.

Searching online, I discovered the Pittsburgh Buddhist Center, a small center run by three monks from Sri Lanka: one of the three primary Theravadan countries, together with Thailand and Burma. PBC even stream their Wednesday evening sittings, so I could get an idea what it was like before visiting. So that was the first place I checked out in person.

Their center is 40-minute drive out of town, which makes it inconvenient. The sangha is small, split about evenly between locals and Sri Lankan expats. Because of this, the practice retains a lot more of the Asian cultural context than the Americanized Vipassana centers I’m used to: there’s incense, offerings, extensive chanting in Pali, and their meditation sessions feature a lot of verbal instruction, which I don’t find helpful. Because of the Sri Lankan cultural influence, I haven’t felt especially integrated with that group.

On the other hand, they’re solid Theravadan, which is great to find in this town where refinement amounts to stuffing french fries inside your sandwich. And they’re the genuine article: fully-ordained monastics straight from Asia, rather than watered-down secular American teachers with no monastic experience. Even in Boston, being able to discuss practice and philosophy with a monk was a very rare and precious thing, and I never imagined that ongoing weekly contact would be available to me in Pittsburgh.

So PBC has pluses and minuses, but it seems like a place I’ll visit occasionally.

During my first visit to PBC, I was given a small pamphlet that listed the Buddhist groups in the area. That was a great resource, and one of the entries intrigued me. It was for something called “Vipassana Sitting Group”, which meets (at a Jewish temple, ironically) only a couple blocks from my apartment. Anachronistically, it listed no website and no Facebook page; just the personal email address for Rhonda, the organizer.

It turns out that Rhonda Rosen was of the same circle as people like Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield and Larry Rosenberg: American hippies who practiced in Asia and returned to establish centers like CIMC and the Insight Meditation Society in Barre. Rhonda studied under the late Indian teacher S. N. Goenka, who is widely known for his rigid but effective teaching style. It turns out that she has run this small, unaffiliated meditation group under the radar for decades, generally following Goenka’s model.

Much like CIMC, her group is entirely made up of Americans with very diverse levels of practice experience, and she too has stripped off all the Asian cultural baggage in favor of a familiar secular, earnest, practical focus. She also maintains running verbal instructions during meditation, which runs sequentially through anapanasati, body scan, and metta.

Being so similar to my previous practice at CIMC and IMS—and conveniently located in my neighborhood!—I’ve attended Rhonda’s group more regularly, and have found it a lot easier to integrate with. My biggest frustration is that I can’t attend both her group and PBC because they meet during the same Wednesday evening time slot!

With attendance varying from 8-24 people each week, Rhonda’s group has a new and interesting dynamic for me to explore. It’s sort of halfway between the large-group formality of CIMC and the small-group informality of my little kalyana mitta spiritual friends group.

What do I mean By “formality”? At places like CIMC and IMS, most discussion is Q&A, where students pose questions that are addressed by the teacher, but students are usually discouraged from addressing one another’s questions directly. It’s a more centralized model where the teacher is the sole authoritative voice. In contrast, my KM group had no teacher, was completely egalitarian, and individual practitioners simply kicked ideas back and forth.

I’ve been carefully sussing out whether Rhonda wants her group to be more centralized or more open, and she has consistently encouraged me to offer my own ideas and experiences during group discussions. And with twelve years of study and practice under my belt, I often have useful ideas to contribute and experiences to relate.

With things to offer and encouragement to contribute, this group feels like a safe little laboratory for me to test the waters and find my own voice as a potential future teacher. That’s not a vocation that I intentionally pursued, but as people express appreciation for my comments, I become more aware of the value I can share, and more confident in my ability to articulate it in a way that others can receive. It’s a very new and interesting place to find myself, and so far I’m enjoying it.

This past weekend Rhonda’s group held a one-day retreat at the Zen Center of Pittsburgh, which sounds lofty but it’s really just an old farmhouse twenty miles out of town. I attempted to bike out to the retreat, but broke a spoke and had to abort my ride and drive out.

The retreat itself was nice, with about twenty people attending… And also three cats who live there, which I found delightful. One even came by to meow inquisitively a couple times during one of the sittings! It was nice to share a little more of an experience with Rhonda’s “regulars” beyond our short Wednesday sits.

For myself, I did have one minor insight, although it takes a bit of explaining to convey.

We’re all familiar with the geeks who desperately try to score points by knowing more about everything than everyone else, who turn even casual conversations into opportunities for one-upsmanship, to everyone else’s annoyance.

Behind their lack of social grace, all those people are trying to do is win others’ respect and admiration; they think that people will like them if they can show how much they know.

I’d use the word “mansplainers”, but that is a hatefully sexist term that does an injustice to most men and fails to address the women who exhibit the exact same behavior.

Those of us who realize that people don’t respond well to unwanted corrections have largely given up on offering them. A more fatherly approach that I usually take is to offer information only when it is useful or expressly desired.

Even though I’ve long-since abandoned the impulse toward parading my knowledge and one-upsmanship, I was surprised to realize that I still expect that being knowledgeable and competent will cause people to like me.

But that’s not necessarily true. In Rhonda’s sitting group, I’ve been trying to offer advice, suggestions, and insight to less experienced practitioners… no more than once per day, tho! My contributions have been really well-received, so my image in that group is generally one of knowledge and competence. But does that mean they like me? Not at all.

Maybe they like me, and maybe they don’t. Probably people’s impressions vary from one end of the spectrum to the other, based less upon how I present myself, and more determined by their own character and backgrounds. Demonstrating knowledge and experience isn’t a requirement for being liked, and actually doesn’t correlate well with social favor.

I’ll try to keep that realization in mind as I continue to build relationships with the people in the group and explore my own voice as an experienced practitioner.

When the condo sold back on Leap Day, I figured a good way to celebrate would be to make my first trip to Pittsburgh’s riverside casino, creatively named “Rivers”.

What I hadn’t figured was how painfully difficult it would be to obtain a fistful of Bens for my initial cash buy-in. ~~BayBank~~ ~~BankBoston~~ ~~FleetBoston~~ Bank of America has no branch anywhere within a day’s drive of Pittsburgh, and I didn’t have an account at any local banks. I finally opened a local account with a token amount, but they won’t cash checks for more than your account balance, and they won’t let an accountholder cash a check drawn on another bank for 16 days! Another local bank advertises that they’ll happily cash anyone’s third party checks (for a fee), but when I went there, they summarily declined my check with absolutely no reason given. In the end, I had to do an EFT transfer from one of my other accounts to my new local account, wait four days for it to clear, and only then could I finally pull cash out of the new account. Pain in the ass!

But you don’t want to hear about my banking woes, you want to hear about my subsequent visit to the casino, so how was that?

The trip itself was noteworthy because unlike Foxwoods, Rivers is in town, saving myself from renting a car and several hours of drive time as compared to Foxwoods. But more importantly, if you factor transportation costs into my Foxwoods expeditions, things like car rental and gas and tolls have eaten away no less than 65 percent of my gambling winnings! In Pittsburgh, the lack of transportation expenses will allow me to actually pocket my proceeds for once, rather than handing them directly over to Hertz et al.

After a pleasant walk from downtown across the Allegheny, I stepped into Rivers for the first time and scoped the place out. It’s a pretty decently-sized facility, although as usual most of the space is allocated to offensively loud and gaudy slot machines. Slots always attract the most victims, despite being by far the worst bet in the house. In terms of table games, there is a separate non-smoking sections near the cage, although I didn’t see any $25 blackjack tables in that area. On a Thursday morning it wasn’t very crowded or smoky.

In terms of blackjack rules, they’re very similar to Foxwoods, which are amongst the most favorable rules you’ll find anywhere on the planet. In Pennsylvania, the state mandates the specific set of rules, which includes double after split, dealer stand on soft 17, and late surrender, all of which are meaningfully favorable to the player. The table I chose was surprisingly using a 6-deck shoe with no mid-shoe entry. That was a little inconvenient, but the short shoes made the wait shorter.

Their dealers were generally pretty good. The players seemed pretty competent, as well, although there were rarely more than two other players at my table at once. And considerably fewer Asian gamblers than one would see at Foxwoods.

As for my run of play… It was a long, intense, difficult battle. Unlike my farewell trip to Foxwoods where it took only 20 minutes to reach my win limit, I had to work this table for a solid two hours. After being up initially, the deck turned against us for an extended losing streak across multiple dealers. Several times when I got close to busting I managed to collect on anxious CLB bets, including one well-timed blackjack on an atypical $300 bet (the state also requires BJ to pay 3:2).

After an incredibly nerve-wracking battle, eventually the cards turned back in our favor, and I found myself ahead of the game, surprisingly $75 above my predetermined win limit. I colored up and pocketed that amount, but played on to parlay my spare $75 into a couple hundred before it was finally taken away from me. However, in that time I won a side bet for a $50 toke for the dealers, which made everybody happy.

So although it was in doubt for quite a while, I was satisfied that my first trip ended with the casino’s money in my pocket. The hard-fought two-hour battle provided quite a different feeling than my 20-minute farewell victory at Foxwoods, but one could say that I received more entertainment value for my money.

Or rather, their money! ;^)

So I moved. Issat such a big thing?

For me, absolutely! Never in my life have I moved this far, and never before have I relocated beyond the familiar woods and towns of New England. Previously, my longest move was only half as far as this one, and that was more than 25 years ago!

It’s not just the distance that makes the move a big deal, but also the tearing down of my Boston life.

When I arrived in Boston, I spent the next quarter century carefully constructing my ideal life: a meaningful career, an amazing home, and financial stability, surrounded by intelligent and interesting people, in a vibrant and captivating city. With the passage of time, I exceeded my own expectations and achieved the life I’d dreamed of.

Obviously, the symbol of that success was my condo: my ability to finance it, its history, and its location at the very center of Boston’s urban life. Directly outside my bay windows were the Hancock Tower, the Pru, and the unforgettable campanile of New Old South Church. On any given day, if I looked outside I would see horse-mounted policemen, streetcorner buskers, shoppers indulging in posh Newbury Street shoppes, Hare Krishnas chanting, Critical Mass or charity rides, Patriots or Red Sox championship parades, the Pride spectacle, First Night festivities, classical or pop concerts in Copley Square, all manner of political rallies, the finish of the Boston Marathon, or the seasonal Santa Speedo Run… You get the idea: there was always something going on, and thanks to where I lived, my life was more eventful and enjoyable… Which makes it very difficult to walk away from.

For all these reasons, I love Boston more than anywhere else in the world. It was the home that I created with a reasonably successful adult life, and my condo was the physical symbol of that achievement.

Hopefully that helps you understand why leaving my condo and my city behind is such a big deal for me. I am turning my back on everything that I love and know and rely upon, and beginning again from nothing. It’s a huge challenge, and moving out of the safe, familiar, and controlled is not something I’m very comfortable with.

As if all that weren’t enough, I’m embarking on living with a woman for the first time in 22 years. Although my previous attempts didn’t last terribly long, I’ve hopefully learned something from those mistakes. But after two decades of happily living alone, cohabitating will be yet another major challenge to adapt to.

At the same time, the Boston I love has been changing out from under me. I’m reminded of how fleeting happiness can be, and that even if we could keep things from changing, humans aren’t wired to be happy in a static situation, no matter how pleasant.

So that’s the background. For some people, moving is just a regular and routine part of life. But after comfortably “settling down” in Boston, I find it downright scary to pull up roots and transplant myself into an utterly unfamiliar city.

I’ve now been in Pittsburgh for two weeks. On the positive side, the mundane, practical aspects of integrating households have gone well, and kept me from excessive navelgazing (until now). Food and cooking will probably require the most adaptability, thanks to the most obstinate gas stove in the history of mankind.

In the meantime, the chaos of moving has thankfully relieved me of the duty to observe this year’s holiday season. Thanks to record-setting warmth, I’ve already completed four bike rides, exploring 75 miles of local streets: every road steeper than anything in Massachusetts. And I’ve had a few social encounters, which will remain a perpetual work in progress.

The attempt to sell my Boston condo has begun, although there’s stress there due to this being my first time through that process, as well as some chaos introduced by my real estate agent. I’m hoping it will be unexpectedly painless, but that’s probably not realistic. But there should be a bucket of munny at the end of it…

Which leaves the relationship to talk about. Inna and I have worked surprisingly well together thus far, given our historically divergent tastes. Although we’ve been close friends for 18 years, it’s still very early days and our relationship will evolve quite a bit over the coming weeks, months, and hopefully years.

With such a basal change, it will probably be decades before I can conclude whether moving out of Boston was the right thing to do. But had I not done it, I would always wonder whether I should or shouldn’t have. Making the move was the only definitive way to find out, and it makes sense to do it sooner, while I am still hale enough to handle the transition.

I’ll miss Boston and my friends there terribly, but after two weeks away: so far so good, at least.

I started taking casino blackjack seriously about ten years ago, and the venue for three-quarters of my gambling junkets has been Foxwoods. Over those years, they’ve been very good to me.

A frequent birthday ritual has been to take the day off and drive down to Connecticut, play some blackjack, and then stop off at Purgatory Chasm on the way home.

The timing of this year’s trip was a little interesting for three reasons. First, it occurred during my last week working at Buildium. Secondly, the remnants of Hurricane Patricia—one of the most powerful storms on record—passed through New England the night before. When I left that morning, the overnight rain clouds were just beginning to break up, promising a beautifully warm and breezy day. And finally, this would be my last trip to Foxwoods before moving away.

Upon arriving, I first went to their Fox Tower casino. I wanted to check it out, because I hadn’t been there since a 2011 loss, back when it was the MGM and brand new. Sadly, all they had were $1 tables, which was an obvious waste of time. So I hoofed it back to my usual haunt at the Grand Pequot.

Once I sat down and started playing, all the chips just got sucked into my gravity well. It took a mere 23 minutes to achieve my predetermined “win” threshold, so I got up, took a deep breath, and cashed out.

It might seem silly to drive four hours and only spend a few minutes at the table, but I don’t go to a casino to play games; I go to win. Winning makes me happy, and you can’t win if you don’t walk away when you’ve won. And if it only takes 20 minutes to achieve my goal, then the sooner I get out of the casino the better! Except, well, I did stop to have a big ice cream before I left…

So that was my last expedition to my favorite casino. They had the most favorable rules I’ve come across, and I’ve only lost on one of my past eight trips, which exceeds all reasonable expectations.

However, that may not be my last opportunity to find a good game of blackjack. There’s a casino right in Pittsburgh, and their state law mandates rules that are even slightly better than Foxwoods’, who annoyingly started hitting soft 17 a couple years back. So we’ll just have to test whether the Pennsylvania government are going to be as generous to me as the Mashantucket Pequots of Connecticut!

Of course, since I was in the area, a stop at Purgatory Chasm was also required. It’s always an amazing, fun, breathtaking, spiritual place, which inevitably provides a dramatic juxtaposition with the overstimulation and consumerism of the casino. The warm weather was a special blessing on what will probably be my last visit there, as well.

And because I was in a self-indulgent birthday mood—and because it was National Cat Day—on the way home I stopped by Boston’s Angell pet adoption center and socialized a few cats, just for fun. It’s been just over a year since I lost Grady, and there’s been a lamentable lack of feline presence in the house.

So overall it was a good day, even though it was the last time for this particular set of rituals.

As part of this whole move thing, I’ve begun looking into UX job opportunities in Pittsburgh. Naturally, I’m gonna start by looking into things I know work here in Boston: tech meetups, events, and local branches of national groups.

Among the most successful branch groups here is something called Refresh Boston. Here’s how they describe themselves on their website:

Naturally, I wanted to see if they had an equally active branch operating in my future home. Here’s the number one result when searching on “Refresh Pittsburgh”. The contrast is pretty damn telling, don’t you think?

Enough stuff has happened in the past two months that it’s time for another aggregated life update.

Health issues remain inconclusive. After surgery in December, I had another attack of abdominal pain around New Years, which prompted another visit to the GP and a followup CT scan. That detected nothing, so I’m back to eating a regular diet and taking a wait-and-see attitude. Meanwhile, I’ve taken the lull in proceedings to catch up on dental and eye stuff, get a new pair of glasses, and a haircut.

Watched the Super Bowl, since the Patriots were in it, and it proved to be a remarkably exciting finish. Whatever. I would rather the Revs have won.

Last month I observed the one-year anniversary of my kyūdō First Shot training. I also started learning hitote, which is a more involved form involving two shots and repeated kneeling down and getting up. It’s nice to have something new to think about and work on.

In January I made a long-overdue four-day visit to Pittsburgh, which was extended by two days due to Boston’s first huge blizzard disabling air travel. Pittsburgh wasn’t very eventful, but it was a nice visit.

Since then, Boston has been pounded by huge snowstorms one after another, causing daily gridlock, forcing the transit system to shut down for days at a time, and setting numerous all-time records for snowfall, wind, and cold temperatures. A sampler:

For the entire winter up to January 23rd, Boston only had 5.5 inches of snow. In the next three weeks, it would receive an additional 90.2 inches (over 7.5 feet)!
February broke the record for Boston’s snowiest month ever, and did it by the 15th of the month!
By the end of the month, Boston had received five and a half feet of snow, beating the old record by 50 percent.
Boston set the 4th snowiest 30-day period anywhere in American National Weather Service records.
It snowed on 20 out of 28 days in February.
Boston set its all-time record for greatest snow depth.
This has been Boston’s 2nd snowiest winter on record. We’re less than two inches away from setting a new record (9 feet of snowfall), and we typically get about 8 inches of snow in March.
An avalanche off the roof of a skating rink hit four people, burying one. Two of them had to be hospitalized.
Boston cyclists built a 40-foot-long “underground” snow tunnel for commuting.
In many cases, cars were so deeply buried that owners had to put cardboard signs on them warn snow removers not to plow there.
An MBTA ferry and a Coast Guard icebreaker both got stuck in the sea ice in Massachusetts Bay.
Blocks of sea ice more than 7 feet thick came ashore on Cape Cod.
During one of our blizzards, Mt. Washington recorded the highest wind gust it has experienced in seven years.
February was 12.7 degrees below normal temperature.
It was the 2nd coldest February on record
For the whole month of February, we only had one day where we reached the day’s average high temperature.
At 15 days, we fell one day short of setting the record for consecutive days below freezing.
At 43 days, this was the longest consecutive time that Boston has ever stayed below 40 degrees, beating the old record by 8 days.

I could go on at length, but it’s an experience that honestly is best forgotten. I will say that it has unambiguously strengthened my commitment to moving to a warmer climate.

Out of utter frustration with the weather, I set up and started using the indoor cycling trainer, which I didn’t use at all last winter. As a result, I’ve already earned $66 as a paid cyclist, thanks to my company’s health benefit…

And I’ve now been working at Buildium for 100 days. The money is happy, the atmosphere is friendly, and we’ve added yet another old Sapient (and Business Innovation) coworker. I’ve been doing a lot of Javascript, Knockout, and Angular work, which is enjoyable (mostly).

Thanks to the snow, I worked from home several days, and enjoyed an empty office when I made the trek in. I’ve made three satisfying lunch expeditions for Thai from Lanta (formerly Rock Sugar). Our company recently announced our first acquisition, and it looks like the two businesses complement each other well. And I hope to hear news about improvements to our office space.

While there, I’ve enjoyed rebuilding my foosball skills, and have been alpha testing a new version of my foosball ranking site. I’ve optimized the UI for mobile devices, made it more interactive by porting it to the Angular Javascript framework, and made it behave more like a single-page application by burying all the data requests in behind-the-scenes JSON AJAX requests. After talking it up to my coworkers, I’m excited to open it up to general use! I’ve even played with the Web Speech API and hope to incorporate speech recognition into it soon.

Otherwise I think things are quiet. Like that thrice-damned groundhog, I’ve been holed-up, waiting for the mountains of snow to recede before venturing back out into the world.

I spent last weekend in Pittsburgh for my BFF Inna’s milestone birthday. First time I’d been there in a couple years.

As always, the main activity in da Burgh was eating. I had an interesting jalapeno steak & cheese at Fat Head in Southside; basil-laden slices from Aiello’s; fajitas at Mad Mex in Shadyside; and a bisonburger and a Nestle Crunch & Nutella frappe at Burgatory, which is in the Aspinwall Waterworks strip mall.

Non-food activities included a trip to the Regent Square Yard Sale, where I picked up a copy of the excellent Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for a dollar at the Wilkins School Community Center book sale.

I helped Inna find the Homestead Labyrinth, we visited her friends Jay & Amy, and stopped in at her mom’s to say hi, pet her cats Theo and Pumpy, and play Dominion (I won, despite it being my first time playing the game). And we got a galloping greeting from an orange tabby at the Shadyside Plaza pet store.

Of course, the main reason for the visit was to celebrate Inna’s birthday. I also finally got a tour of her new apartment, and we had some great conversations that covered topics like meditation practice, our interaction patterns, and how habits work.

But of more interest to you are probably the two running gags we christened. The first came about thanks to Inna’s habit of continually scanning the area around her for dogs. While crawling through Regent Square traffic she exclaimed, “Puppy!!! Uhh… no… WHAT?!?” as she did a double-take at the man walking his beagle-sized black pig on a leash in the park. That was pretty priceless.

Equally amusing was my expression of frustration at a sign advertising “fresh corn” in May. Obviously it wasn’t local, “It probably had to be flown in from some place like Iguanastan.” Aside from the awesome new place-name I’d coined, the joke was immortalized moments later when we passed a native Iguanastani woman in a hijab walking nearby.

All told, a pretty good visit, and it was great seeing Inna—and da Burgh—again, especially since it wasn’t in frozen February!

Last weekend’s Pittsburgh trip: not much to talk about.

Saturday morning, a package I’d ordered arrived: new Teva sandals. I put them on and went for lunch at the Prudential mall food court, which was overrun with costumed attendees of the Anime Boston convention. Pretty surreal.

Full Photoset

Grabbed my bag and left home, but on the way out, I received another package I’d been waiting for: a second battery for my video camera. Threw that in my bag and made my way to Logan.

The flight was fine except the descent into Pittsburgh was bumpy due to wind. The woman next to me squealed on touch-down. Weather a balmy 82 degrees but overcast.

Hit a grocery store that Inna wanted to visit, then dinner at Maharaja, an Indian restaurant tucked inside a Days Inn by the highway. It was set in a long-abandoned ballroom, with used dinner plates littering several of the many empty tables. To my horror, Inna violated my first rule of Indian—never order the buffet!—and it delivered in spades. Spots in the steam table labeled rice and naan were empty, and what food there was looked like it had been sitting on the Sterno for months. At least they didn’t serve Goat Bone Curry like Ajanta used to!

Since Inna’s mother was traveling, we stopped by to feed her cats Theo and Pumpy, then called it a day.

Sunday was Easter, so I tried to get Inna to sample a chocolate bunny, but she refused. We spent a mostly lazy day doing not much of anything, since most places were closed for the holiday. We walked around Shadyside and had ice cream at Oh Yeah!, then drove around at random, ending up having a nice walk around the reservoir at the summit of Highland Park.

After feeding mom’s cats, we went to a place called Thai Cuisine on East Liberty, which was unmemorable, then home so that Inna could study.

Monday I walked down to the Fifth Third Bank and snagged some small bills, then off for ice cream at Klavon’s. Drove around Lawrenceville, and saw three deer in Allegheny Cemetery. Back in Squirrel Hill, we stopped at Radio Shack to pick up Livestrong wristbands for the cats to play with, and chocolate for us.

Dinner was a burger at the Elbow Room in Shadyside, which wasn’t bad, then we went home and played “Wits & Wagers” and some “World of Goo” game on Inna’s Wii.

Tuesday I packed up and we hit the Waterworks Mall where Inna shopped for clothing while I picked up some Eneloop batteries and found a kitten to play with at Petco. We made our way out to Moon Township and had a tasty lunch at Mad Mex before saying our goodbyes at the airport.

All told, it was a very low-key visit, which seems pretty typical of Pittsburgh. Atypical, however, were the mediocre meals, since my experience has been that the thing Pittsburgh usually gets right is its food. But the weather was pretty gorgeous for early April, which made a nice change from the freezing cold of my previous two visits. Mostly it was good to see Inna, since she’s been buried up to her eyeballs all year with work for the one-year sustainability MBA program she’s enrolled in.

Since I seem to have a large contingent of yinzers in my flist, I’ll post this brief writeup of last week’s PIT trip.

Since food seems to be the majority of what PIT is good for, here’s the run-down.

India Garden on Atwood: been there three times now, and still feel they’re passable, but nothing special.
Mad Mex on Atwood: very tasty enchiladas, but they fought with my internals. Went at 3pm and so avoided the raucus college crowd.
Pamela’s on Forbes: as always, very good but insanely greasy and too much food.
Green Mango on Braddock: not bad. New Thai place. Grabbed a fistful of Thailand tourism pamphlets for future reference.
Klavon’s Ice Cream on Penn: odd retro place with eerily friendly staff, but an awesome Pecan Ball with caramel. I’d do that again!
Oh Yeah on Highland: okay ice cream place. Somehow both reminiscent of JP Licks and yet nothing special.
Mario’s South Side Saloon on E Carson: very good burger, for a second choice after the Fat Head had a 45-minute wait at 3pm.

Other activities included: a very profitable trip to Papermart on Baum, where everything (including red mini-Sharpies and big glass markers) was seventy percent off due to the store closing; a damned cold walking photography expedition from Heinz Field, around the Point, up to the Seventh Street Bridge and back down past PNC Park (full photoset here); sharing my Scotland photos and travel info with Inna’s mean friend Monika; meeting Inna’s new cats Pumpkin and Prawn; and just generally driving around and getting a better idea of Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods and what they’re like.

Took JetLoo for the first time; seemed no different from any other airline, except the ground crew were a lot more potty-mouthed (pun intended) than on Merkun, Untied Airlines, or USHair.

Wasn’t a bad trip. It was nice to have a reason to break the camera out, even if it was really too cold to do a lot of work with it.

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Entries tagged with pittsburgh

Slushstone Memories

Twist Away the Gates of Steel

Austinitis

Final week at Hobart Street

Week at Mom’s

The Drive

Taking up residence

Getting our stuff home

Life since then…

Pixelated!

Hello, Busty Betty

We Are CIMC

Inna Anna Outta

Past Perfect

Angry Bees GP

A State of Enlightenment

Take Me to the River

Moving in Stereo

Out of the 'Woods

How Refreshing!

Life. Don't talk to me about life...

COPOK

A Brief PIT Stop

Pittsburgh 'n' At

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