While not as glamorous as last year’s election, today is your day to go vote!  Need to know where to your polling place is?  Do you live in Allegheny County?  Then this is the link you need.  You can also make sure that you are registered to vote.  Take your ID and you’re all set.  You might even get candy or something (no promises).

In this episode:

• I’m going to go ahead and call it awesome music!
• Glimpses of more of the set
• The definition of “the wafflestomper.”  Hint: it’s not about waffles.
• The definition of “a pippi longstocking.”  I’m leaving that one alone.
• The most festive tuba ever.

Would you like a waffle named after you?  Who wouldn’t?!

Once again, I’ll be spending November writing a 50,000 word novel.  As of this writing, there are currently over 1,000 (1,080) participants from Pittsburgh.  Right now, five of us are busily writing at Panera Bread in Wilkins, and write-ins are happening all the time, all over the city.

Join in if you want, or watch as we attempt to beat both Sacramento and Philadelphia in a word-war that will be going on all month.

In the meantime, I’ll be back later tonight and all this week with Waffle Shop Week.  The good folks from CMU went a bit crazy with the uploads, and there’s all kinds of syrup-ey goodness to share.  And I’ll be back on Tuesday with another installment of PATransit Tuesday.  I’ll be chronicling some Christmas Creep, and later in the month, geeking out to Star Wars in Concert.

Enjoy the beautiful day everybody, catch you later!

Note: I’ve been sitting on this story for a week, hoping for resolution (hence no column last week).  And in the meantime, I’ve listened to a lot of Lewis Black, so I’m going to pay myself on the back for not swearing or wiggling my fingers.

Today, I have a story to tell, about hellacious public relations by PAT.  Normally they seem to be on the ball, but this is inexcusable, at least to me, at least for now.

About two weeks ago there were ‘unathorized’ flyers distributed on some of the buses.  My route happened to be one of them.  They weren’t copied well, when folded they didn’t match up, but I read it, and walked away with some concerns: mainly the same I’ve had all along.  I still don’t know if I’ll have service.  Here’s the run down:

• It has been stated that service to Monroeville will terminate at the Mall park ‘n ride.
• The map of the new P68 (or P67, can’t remember which at the moment) shows service going past Monroeville Mall, on one of the current routes
• It is noted that there will be three route variations
• Those variations are not listed anywhere
• PAT has said it will keep service to all Park ‘n Ride lots and open new ones, as well as create transportation hubs

So, will there be service to my local Park ‘n Ride which is past Monroeville Mall?  The flyer said no.

I’m a little bit of a (read: a really big) dork, and while I don’t have a Twitter account, I read the Port Authority’s feed since it often has more information than their website.  There was a message on it saying that if you had questions, to contact them via Twitter.  Well, since I don’t have an account, I opted to instead use the form on the website to ask a question.

Here’s where things started to break down.  I sent in my question, using complete sentences and explaining my situtation, including the unathorized flyers, the twitter account, all of it.  I get a one line reply back the next day (to the best of my memory this is what it said, I can check it word for word when I have access to my e-mail tonight):

You need to send a letter to the TDP

That’s it.  No help.  Not even an offer to forward my question to the appropriate department, you know, like any reasonable customer service department would.  Nothing.  So I send an e-mail back asking for two things:

1. An answer to my original question, will I still have service or was the brochure correct
2. Some sort of explanation as to why I was not offered any kind of help whatsoever or even any kind of decency as a customer

It’s been a week.  I haven’t gotten a response yet.

A favorite site of mine, Consumerist, covers their beat during the G-20: quality and value of consumer prouducts.

It’s a stunning story because electronic devices rarely survive the fall from my hip pocket to the floor, let alone from a high-rise into a demonstration

Read the entire article here, even if it does take a jab at Pittsburgh.

I love zombies.  Ask anyone.  However, my love mostly goes into books and the occasional movie and video game.  That being said, I think the  international zombie day is a wonderful thing, especially since it is a huge fund and food raiser for the Pittsburgh Food Bank.  Personally I have no desire to get dressed up, but more power to those that do.  The Zombie Olympics are going on right now in the parking lot outside of the old Boscov’s (and before that, Kauffman’s) end of the mall, and the record-setting zombie walk will take place at 6.

Coming to the mall on this day is always a treat, I laughed when I got cut-off by a family of four zombies in a pick-up truck, and once had to stop myself from complimenting someone on her make-up and costume: she wasn’t here for the walk.  Oops.

And, quite ironically, going on at the Monroeville Convention Center right across the road is a gun bash.  I hope they have shotguns.  Or even better, machetes.

Waiting, originally uploaded by Mike @ pittsburgh.metblogs.com.

The line snakes down Bedford. Let’s go Pens!

PATransit Tuesdays: Bike rack, originally uploaded by Mike @ pittsburgh.metblogs.com.

I’m not a biker, I’m fairly uncoordinated, on occasion I have enough trouble walking.  However, I was intrigued to find out that the buses (and inclines and Ts at non-peak times) can accomidate bikes.

From reading the directions online, I was thoroughly confused, and convinced that it was even more complicated than cycling to work, but as it turned out, today for the first time, as I watched, a cyclist deftly pulled down the rack, hoisted up his bike, secured it and got on.  Easy as pie.  I’ve also seen the bike racks on a significant portion of buses, but from what I can gather, only a select routes are guaranteed to have the racks all the time.  But, I do have to admit, if you need a vehicle, what greener way is there than public transportation and bikes combined?

In case you missed it, John Oliver of The Daily Show ran a segment yesterday about the protesters:

Ok, so I’m not really writing this until Wednesday, but I’ll back-date it to put it on a Tuesday, but really, I was late.  I’ll go to detention now.

I think I might have thought that this would be a bigger post, at least when it was in my head.  Really, I just wanted to thank PAT for how they handled the G-20.

It was stressful for everyone, commuters and anyone trying to travel especially.  While the detours seemingly were posted later than I had hoped for, or thought they would be available, getting reliable information about the G-20 seemed to be an issue that just about every company had trouble with.

So with my detour map in hand, I headed downtown.  The map actually proved very useful, as I said before, I work at the end of town near the Convention Center, so I’m not that familiar with the end closer to the Point.  The map helped me on more than one occasion, and helped me find my bus stop to get home, even though I kept double and triple checking it.

I ended up the wrong side of the street, to catch my bus home (a different route too, so all kinds of new experiences smashed into one day), but since the Boulevard of the Allies had as much activity as a graveyard, I was able to run across and get on.

As I stood there, waiting on what was to be the wrong side of the street, I did call PAT, just to make sure things were still running smoothly.  The customer service rep was nothing but helpful and very kind, a big thumbs up for that.

And of course, the constant e-mail and twitter updates, even retweeting messages from outlying transit agencies, kept everyone in the loop.  I am glad I didn’t have to experience the total shut down of transit during the march for peace on Friday, but PAT seemed to take it in stride.

All in all, a commendable experience.  Will it encourage anyone to make the switch to transit?  Sadly, I don’t think so.  With the TDP changes coming, and what will probably be the most noted, the fare increase, I seem to think that the deft handling of the G-20 summit will be lost in the PR shuffle.  Hopefully I’m mistaken.

As promised, here is part three, the part where I talk about my day in the Golden Triangle for the summit.  Pictures are coming in the fourth installment, I find myself with my camera at the moment (but using free WiFi at a Barnes and Noble!) and a fifth installment will go over how a “company” tried to scam me during the Summit.

It started, as most days do for me, with riding the bus into town.  Not unexpectedly, the bus was almost vacant.  Once we got past a couple stops on the East Busway, it turned out that there were two of us going into town.  And for almost the entire trip, we pretty much flew into town.  Until we got to the Arena.  Then, we pretty much just sat there, crawling down Centre Ave.

I think the slow speed, the detours, plus the fact that there were exactly two of us on the bus all contributed to the bus driver’s surly attitude, not that I could blame him for it.

But truth be told, the delays allowed me to view the first of a recurring theme throughout the day.  More after the jump.

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A couple thoughts for everyone.  Part three will be coming, probably tomorrow.

• See, this is what we didn’t want to happen, now go home!  Police say that most damage caused by man from California (the state, not the city).
• Apparently the rebound of Pittsburgh is due to the Penguins, most notably, the Canadian and Russian players.  Wow, the logic (it does seem to be tongue-in-cheek though)!
• Honestly, I think this is a good idea.  The Pirates can’t get any worse, right?
• I met up with a friend during the day, his thoughts and photos are here, make sure to check out the awesome Pirates protest sign.

So what did the Pittsburgh Summit produce?  Here is a link to the document, and the main points of it are after the jump

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I’m been ruminating (can that be used as a verb?) about  the G-20 for a while, and I’ve had all kinds of thoughts, random bits of brilliance and so much mulling around in my head.  It’s strange to think it’s practically come and past already.

My day in the Golden Triangle during the summit was uneventful in the traditional sense, but gave me even more to think about.  After the jump I’m going to write about the lead-up to the summit, protesters, violence, the media, and probably some more stuff.  I’ll have my own pictures (which I am sorting through), and if I can get my computer to work, possibly a short presentation of sorts, but that may be a ways off .  See you after the jump.

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Here’s a quick recap of what went down as the G-20 summit opened:

• Downtown roads began to shut down at 8 p.m. on Wednesday night, throughout the night, additional closures went into affect and barricades were erected
• The Golden Triangle was shut down to motorists, although cyclists, walkers and certain vehicles were able to enter
• Various protests were marked throughout the day, including a Free Tibet rally
• Protesters squared off with police in Lawrenceville as well as Oakland.  At this time, the police are still working in Oakland.
• President Obama arrived at the 911′th and he and the First Lady welcomed the dignitaries to the opening reception at Phipps later this evening
• Spouses left to go to the Heinz farm and the meetings will continue tomorrow morning

More thoughts, reactions, recaps and pictures tomorrow.  Be safe tonight.