Airlie Gardens
Category: Vacation
4th of July Was a Blast
I had a really wonderful 4th of July holiday with my family. We were invited to a number of cookouts, had a picnic, went to Idlewild, and finally, to Keystone Lake State Park. It was a blur of activity, but the weather cooperated for all of it and everyone enjoyed themselves immensely.
Finally, A Guy Singing about Being in Space From Space!
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield covers Space Oddity by David Bowie from, well from space. Where else?
This dude is pretty sweet.
The Solar Floating Resort
Check out this imagining of homes of the future: a floating, energy independent resort sea home! Pretty radical. I would like to see an investor take this on. I know, there are a lot of concerns with something like this (like the underwater viewing bulb smashing into a coral reef) but hey, points for effort!
It is a cool concept. I think there is enough in the idea that is practical and currently demonstrable that the designer might be not far off from reality. Sure, an eventual “sea home” might not be round, or have a viewing bulb, but my guess is that it would have a photovoltaic skin coating, and harness tidal power, and be manufactured of extremely lightweight materials.
If I see future concepts, I would like to see sea water desalination, fresh water storage, storm shutters/immersion technology, anchor capacity, a docking slip, room for a dinghy … and yeah, a beer tap.
via GLOBAL WARMING:THE SOLAR FLOATING RESORT SETS EXAMPLE. – YouTube.
Pittsburgh is the new Portland?
Pittsburgh is the new Portland. That is the news out of the Washington Post this week. It is pretty exciting to make it onto the “in” list of what’s cool. It appears, though, that Pittsburghers are taking the acclaim in stride.
One of the things that make it a cool place to live is that the people living here in the burg’ don’t really care much about being cool. We just want to have fun, enjoy the arts & music, and keep our tax assessments low. It doesn’t seem that the added hype is going to change things.
We’ve already made a bunch of great lists and still, we act as though we’d only just won another superbowl. Sure, I am being smug. But only to make a point: Hipsters and other trend-setters probably don’t care about NFL football because it is so mainstream. So here is a city whose proudest moments are summarized with the phrase “More Lombardi Trophies than you. How can we be cool? This is a town that still shuts down for the first day of deer hunting season (killing is out of style but, butchering has made a comeback). Football and hunting have not been urban-scene hip since the days when George Washington slept here (which is weird because football wasn’t even invented back then).
Pittsburgh is cool because Pittsburghers don’t judge others. We complain and gripe, but we don’t judge.
I am glad Pittsburgh has made the “in” list for 2012. It is pretty exciting. But when it is freezing outside and you are snug as a stinkbug in the house, sauce is cooking on the stove and venison is curing in the basement, it just doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Pittsburghers have our list of what’s important, and everyone else has theirs.