Memorial Day Weekend: Biking and Fire Making

When this publishes, I'll be at my desk daydreaming about my weekend. The past few days were wonderful. The keywords for the weekend were "biking" and "fire making," but we may as well add "beer" and "whiskey" in there for good measure. On Saturday, my friend Ross and I took an epic bike ride down the GAP. The section between the South Side and the Waterfront being open is awesome. There's been more bike traffic on that side of the trail coming off the Hot Metal Bridge than ever before. We took the trail 25 miles down to Dravo's Cemetery, where I've camped before and now plan to do so on a *hopefully* monthly basis. 

Saturday night involved a lot of beer. I met up with my friend Sam, who I met at Pitt, but who also lived in Boston at the same time as me. We drank flights of beer at the Beer Market on the North Shore. This place is all right with me. I got two flights (four samples each) and a draft that mixed Guinness and cider. Total = $26. You can also bring your own food into this place, because they don't serve any! (While laughing over Boston-times, Sam reminded me of the time we were booed by the ENTIRE Garden during a Bruins-Pens game when we got on the Jumbotron and held up a Terrible Towel, basically completely blocking the cute little girl Bruins fan the cameraman was meaning to showcase. Proud moment of my life right there.) After parting ways, the night continued for me in various Bloomfield establishments. It's not often I'm closing down bars anymore. Hockey playoffs certainly kick my liver into high-gear.

Sunday (after a much-needed double egg and cheese at Primanti's in order to regain human status) was another nice day for a bike ride, which I did with my friend Ben. We took the GAP, but only to McKeesport. From the ride I went directly to Shur-Save for a bottle of Aleve. My knees are feeling it today, for sure. That night we had a fire in his backyard. Friends gathered and we roasted hot dogs, made smores, and had beer and whiskey around the fire. Nothing in the world is better than waking up smelling like a bonfire.

This morning I hosted a brunch, which was a genius way of motivating myself to a) clean my apartment and b) go to the grocery store. I love cooking breakfast for people. I suck at being an adult in most things in "domestic" life, but making breakfast is something I take pride in. (Example of sucking at being an adult: my friend Kate hooked me up with ice because I had four ice trays in the freezer and they were all empty.) The day will end by having a pizza party with my brother and watching Arrested Development. I don't think I ever want Memorial Day Weekend to end.

Happy (Belated!) Birthday, Blog!

Holy crap! The heat has definitely infected my brain, because I totally missed EverythingBetterPGH's birthday! I am not one to forget an anniversary (seriously, I celebrate the weirdest things every year because I can't forget the dates), so I feel kind of bad about this. Sorry, blog.

Let's celebrate!

I can't believe I've been doing this for a year now. It's been a very strange year for me personally. Only a handful of posts were published before my mom passed away, which means this blog exists in the shadow of that life-altering event. This was one of the hardest years of my life. For a long time there, nothing was going right. Every morning I woke up and wondered what horrible thing would happen that day. That's dramatic, I know. But seriously: In the span of a few weeks the following things happened to me: got in a bike accident with another biker and totally messed up my knee, was nearly assaulted (i.e., hit with an umbrella) when someone tried to steal my cellphone at a trolley stop in BETHEL PARK, and was the unfortunate person sitting next to the guy in the theater whose ladyfriend gave him a handy during Crazy Stupid Love.

I digress.

In order to survive the past year, I've had to live with a very "full throttle" attitude toward getting through the day to the next day to the next day until the day when I would stop being sad. I still don't know if I'm there yet, but I'm starting to really appreciate the present, which means I'm starting to slow down a bit. Living in the moment, and all other such sayings.

When I look back at these things I've written about or taken pictures of throughout the past year, I'm so so so glad I made myself keep this blog going. I have this awesome collection of memories now, and I can look at them and realize that through all the sad stuff, there was a heck of a lot of fun. In celebration of EverythingBetterPGH's first birthday, here are ten of those fun moments, ones that I would go back and relive in a heartbeat.

(In no particular order.)

Why Not? Biking Pittsburgh at Night with Flock of Cycles

Paddling Pittsburgh: Kayaking the Allegheny and the Ohio

Kennywood's Open (For Terror and Fun)

PGH's Best Night of the Year: The Bloomfield Halloween Parade

Halloween Miracle #2: STEELERS BEAT THE PATRIOTS

The Only Fear You Have to Overcome is Getting the Nerve to Do It

Malkamania: Penguins 8, Tampa Bay 1

Winter Camping Feels Like Spring to Me

Sitting in the Splash Zone: A Saturday Night on the South Side

My Idea of Vacation: The GAP and C&O - Days 3 & 4

Tonight, at midnight, I'm going to go see The Dark Knight Rises. I promised myself I would keep this blog going until I could write a post about seeing the movie that I watched being filmed on my streets.

I can't wait to write that post. And so many more after that.

Thank you for reading!

EvBetPGH Tweets March 2012: Fires & Fireworks

Hey, guys. Sometimes I have thoughts about or photos of Pittsburgh that I want to send out into the world. I believe the kids are calling them "tweets." (Though my mom, she always asked me if I was "twitting," which honestly was very odd sounding!) You can follow the EvBetPGH twitter, if you're brave enough to sign up for a direct line into my Pittsburgh-obsessed brain.

Here are a few of my March 2012 spontaneous ramblings and photos:

(This was during the Pittsburgh Power game. More on that in the coming days.)

Correcting the Past: Light Up Night for Fun

When I was in middle school and high school, I played in the South Hills Junior Orchestra (string bass, represent!). Every Christmas we were booked to play the PPG Wintergarden during Light Up Night, and every Christmas I dreaded it. (I hated the uniform, and riding on school buses with my peers was kind of a nightmare scenario.) As a result I never went to a Light Up Night for my own enjoyment - even though it includes one of my favorite things in life: FIREWORKS. So, this year, I decided to change that and attend a Light Up Night and enjoy it.

Allie and I headed straight to Wingharts after work for burgers and beers to keep us warm while we wandered around waiting for the fireworks to begin.


After our delicious burger meal (and after I nearly fought someone in line for the bathroom when she complained about the business of the place ON LIGHT UP NIGHT IN MARKET SQUARE), we went to check out the Macy's windows decorated for the season. (Confession: I had no idea what I was looking for and started taking pictures of the normal window displays! Oooops.) Here are some of the real displays, which made a lot more sense as to why they were special.




Next we walked over to PPG Place to check out the ice skaters and the tree. We discussed ice skating at lunch and whether or not that would be the best idea possible. I've only gone skating on this ice once, and I have fond memories from that evening of skating round and round on the small rink.


Once we'd watched enough skating to make us dizzy, we made it to the PPG Wintergarden and came across dozes of Santas from around the world (they get a post all their own later on in December) and the gingerbread houses you see below. Much to my dismay (okay, joy) the South Hills Junior Orchestra was not on stage, which meant I didn't have to suffer through embarrassing teen-Allison flashbacks.

Heinz Field gingerbread house.

Check out Bert & Ernie!

On the street, as we made our way over to Fort Duquesne Boulevard, we watched this guy chainsawing ice sculptures in two. Still not sure if he was supposed to or not.

And then it was fireworks time!

My first legitimate Light Up Night experience was a success. It wasn't even that cold out, as we've been in the midst of a nice cooling off period. I know it's about to get wintery, and my outdoor adventures will lessen, but for now, I'm enjoying the slide from fall into two or three months of snow, ice, and lots of sitting under warm blankets.