Did you know that there are trees being watched downtown?  Take a look:

Seriously, no touching.  I went to see Wicked, and it was amazing!  If you get a chance, check it out, there are still tickets to some of the weekday shows I believe.  And for fun, here’s a pic of one of the trees I wasn’t touching:

Lost Love at Trader Joes

Originally uploaded by pittsburghmetblogpics

This little guy is just sitting here on the shelf of cereal bars at Trader Joes. By the way I love that Trade Joes cereal bars are labled “this apple walks into a bar” maybe more food packaging should contain humor.

Good show, sir.  Good show.

Spotted in Oakland, on Fifth Avenue.

Typically I try not to blog about work, just easier to keep everything separate, but this is a fun event and it’s open to the public so I wanted to spread the word.  Flag Plaza Scout Service Center, home to the Boy Scouts of America, Greater Pittsburgh Council and the National Flag Foundation is celebrating its 40th anniversary this Friday (we’re the stone building next to the Mellon Arena with the giant flags).  The building will be open until 7 p.m. with refreshments and, on tour from the national gallery, original works of art by Norman Rockwell (in addition to the other art already in the building).

The building is really interesting unto itself, and the amount of art it houses is pretty spectacular, but even more fascinating is the fact that the second half of the building was the principal gift to the United States for her bicentennial (much like the Statue of Liberty was a gift for her centennial).  Freedom’s Atrium displays all 50 state flags, as well as Liberty’s Five Flags, flags once lost to history and originally used to celebrate the ratification of the constitution.

Shown here is the Statue of Freedom, my favorite piece in the whole buildling.  The original is on top of the Capitol dome in Washington and our copy sits in the Bicentennial Room.

We’ve been cleaning the building both inside and out (including what I dubbed “Amateur Landscaping Night”) and it looks really great, so please stop up, take a look around, enjoy some Boy Scout popcorn and see some awesome art.  Also, in case you were wondering, the five flags outside the building in the plaza are the flags of the United States, the City of Pittsburgh, the State of Pennsylvania, the Greater Pittsburgh Council and one historic flag that changes daily.

Best use of a Yard Sign

Originally uploaded by pittsburghmetblogpics

The obama campaign is getting their money out of this yard sign.

Bakery Square from Broad Street

Originally uploaded by pittsburghmetblogpics

Surprised that Lindsay didn’t post about this already, but figured it should make the MB: Progress Pittsburgh, one of the driving forces behind the slow process of political reform in our fair city, has started a PAC.Will $1000 or so remap the face of Pgh politics? Probably not, but it’s $1000 more than a candidate otherwise would have had, and that’ll buy quite a bit of pizza to feed weary canvassers. They’re running a challenge to raise said $1000 in the first 10 days of operation. Tonight’s happy hour will probably bring in a bit, but if you’re interested in good government, probably worth stopping by their website and dropping your two bits in the pledge bucket.

Today is a very important day, and doubly so for those of us in Pennsylvania.  Today marks the beginning of the state-wide smoking ban.  I feel like we’ve been through this before, and truth be told, I haven’t taken much interest in the ban this time around.

Now, I should be happy about this.  A large portion of my friends smoke, and  I seem to be some sort of smoke magnet.  No matter where I’m sitting, and no matter what the air flow is like, smoke seems to find my face (this also applies to campfires, but that is a different post all together I suppose), so if anything, this ban will certainly help me.  But I don’t know, I guess I’m almost hardwired to expect bars, sport lounges and the like to be smokey

But I still have to see if my favorite haunts fall under the exceptions.  One of them might, when I finally get a chance, I’m going to head over and see what is or is not in the air.  But in the meantime, what are your thoughts about the ban?

Google has begun a project to scan as many newspapers as they can (presumable to have a database to search and for history’s sake).  I was alerted to this fact via Lifehacker, who featured this issue of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette from July, 1969.

The scanning isn’t perfect so far, and on as small a monitor as I have, it can be a pain to read the articles, but it’s still pretty cool.  Also, page 16 ends up as page 1 due to how it was scanned, a small detail, but it bugs me a little bit.

Anyway, it could be a fun tool to use and compare not only layouts and typography (I know, I’m a dork), but you know, the news.

Well I’m finally back from living in the woods for the summer.  And I’m glad to be back, as awesome as camp is, and as nice as it was to have a change of pace for a while, it’s good to be back.  Although while I was gone, there was at least one thing that could remind me of Pittsburgh: the construction.

I’m now fairly confident that Route 119 (at least parts in both Westmoreland and Fayette counties) is the new 22 (or 376 or 279 or 76…take your pick really I suppose).  Time and time again lanes are shut down for seemingly endless construction projects, resurfacing and my personal favorite: no apparent reason (the infamous lane blocked off with miles of cones and barrels but nothing being done and nobody around to even stare at other people working).

But even as I travelled that one lane of 119 (the other closed for resurfacing I believe, even though that same project had just finished the year before), it was a bit of nostalgia, not only to be going home to the eastern suburbs and the daily commute into town (now on the bus, more posts about that soon!), but also for some imaginary time where there was no major road construction.