What Comets, Stars, and Moons are all about

Spent the weekend in Pittsburgh for the AFGE Convention. I was there to learn what the concerns of federal employees are throughout the country and they seem to have quite a few qualms with the current administration. The concerns led the largest federal employees union to endorse John F. Kerry as their choice for President. The issues run the gamut from privatization of government jobs to the Rumsfeld telling Department of Defense workers that they cannot be in a union. Apparently, more than 80 percent of the AFGE members are registered Democrats, so the unification behind Kerry shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. However, if these individuals go home with the same fire in their bellies that I witnessed this weekend, then Bush could be looking for even more of a fight. These are some scared people. Many of them are so insecure with what Bush has planned for their jobs that they are willing to put religious concerns aside to get the man out of office.

As for Pittsburgh itself, I was very impressed. I had some downtime to do some proper exploring of the different neighborhoods. I was most happy on E. Carson Street. It’s where all the hipsters, punkers, hippies and indie shops are located. There seemed to be more independent shops on that one street than in all of Madison. Madison has sadly been losing its independence. Sure we have locally owned places to eat, but when it some to shopping, it just seems as though all the local shops are being closed. Just look at State Street, my least favorite part about this city. It’s becoming corporate row…or maybe more like McDonald’s row. It has a McDonald’s off of State, a Chin’s and a Chipolte…both eating establishments owned by the golden arches. Still, there are a lot of options for coffee. Anyway, this is about the Pitt, not Madison’s decline.

On Saturday I saw a band that I have to keep watching. They are called Lovedrug and I was absolutely blown away. Take the best parts of Grandaddy, Sunny Day Real Estate and Radiohead, throw it all in a hat, shake it up, add a small dab of cock-rock (a very small dab) and we get Lovedrug. They have a debut LP coming out at the end of next month that I can’t wait to hear. If they come to your town, I highly recommend going to see them.

I ate dinner at the top of the incline. Yep, that’s about all I have to say about that. Nice view.

The Pittsburgh Carnegie Science Museum was a bit of a let down for me. If I had kids or if I was a kid I probably would have enjoyed it much more. But I don’t and I’m not, so I was bored. I’ll stick with the Boston Science Museum as my science museum of choice.

We ate at a place called Fat Head’s, which could have been my favorite part about Pittsburgh. I love that place. I love any place that has great indy beer from around the country (the only place I have ever been that has Rogue and Bell beers on draft! The only drawback was they have no Wisco breweries represented in draft or bottle form!) and a menu with more than forty items on it….most of which will give you a heart attack on the spot. Here is an example of one of their mighty fine “Headwiches”

The Southside Slopes
This is for Wayne, who has lived on the Slopes for half his life. It has kielbasa topped with fried pierogies, American cheese, grilled onions, and horsey sauce. If you really want to live in Wayne’s world, put some ketchup on it and wash it down with an Iron.

I also finally discovered what could be my favorite stout in all of America… the Left-Hand Milk Stout. So yummy and smooth.

One of the most striking features of Pitt was it’s hodge-podge of architecture. I felt like I was in a very large backset of film company lot. The downtown area surrounding my hotel was quiet and empty. All of the buildings seemed to come from different eras of architecture. I spend a great amount of time looking up, something I strive not to do in cities because it is one of the primary characteristics of tourists (which I guess I was, so it goes).

On Friday I ventured out to Squirrel Hill to see Fahrenheit 911. I didn’t really get a chance to explore the area, but it struck me as one of the areas I would consider living in if I moved to Pittsburgh. There seemed to be a solid community and there were also independent theatres and some independent shopping. We also ventured out to Shadyside, where all of the Universities and rich people live (as far as I could tell). It was nice, because not doing Camp Trucking this year I’m not going to be able to visit Port Washington, Long Island or Westport, Connecticut and get a healthy dose of social stratification. Visiting Shadyside helped make up for that. I did visit a very cool Japanese toy store on Walnut Street. T-Ra picked up a cat burger pillow. No joke, it’s a happy cat wrapped in burger meat with a tomato, lettuce and two buns. It’s disturbingly cute. See, here is a jumbo version. This must be the American sized cat burger.