Local Blogger Unable to Blog his Way Out of Snow

Local Blogger "Fruster" was found today by acquaintances after three days without power, phone service, or internet. He is reported to be in good health, and it resting comfortably after a meal of chinese food and pizza.

"Fruster," whose real name is Ken Rice, had not been heard from by his twitter followers, Facebook fans, or blog commentators for three days during the on-going snow event. According to his Twitter feed, the last thing he "tweeted" was "OK, snow's coming down now."

"I figured I'd be able to blog my way through the storm, giving updates on my cat 'Mittens' and rail against the poor snow plowing on my street," said Mr. Rice from his home futon, "but my phone died at about 1 AM Saturday morning, and the power and phone lines went down shortly thereafter. I was literally trapped in my house, with my own thoughts, unable to share my observation of mindless minutiae with the world."

After several days of waiting and with no communication, his "friends" decided to take action. They found Mr. Rice at his home, curled up under a blanket with an old Smith Corona typewriter, trying to figure out how to hit "send."

"He'll be OK, we think," said blog guest contributor Andrew Davidson, "We took him down to Starbucks for the WiFi, and he'll be back up and posting in no time. Maybe next time [Fruster] should blog himself up a shovel."

An Apology

You know, I'd like to blame the Mayor, or the County Executive, or somebody for the ongoing Snowpocalypse (or Snowmageddon if you prefer), but I have to admit that it's my bad. I didn't realize that this blog had the power to influence the weather.

Sorry 'bout that.

A Bureaucrat's Aside Re: Snow Closings

Please note that this blog is running on a 2 hr delay, with no morning kindergarten.

Readers are advised to slow down and take care when reading posts.

Local Man Actually Does Need "Supplies"

When Scott Cznewski of Mt. Lebanon heard about the incoming winter storm, he didn't immediately rush out to buy toilet paper, milk, and bread. Like the nearly dozens of rational residents in the region, he decided that he can wait out the nearly eight hours of inconvenience. Mr. Cznewski, however, was in for a shock: he was out of toilet paper.

"It didn't hit me until after the fourth Taco Bell burrito. There I was dropping the kids off at the pool, reading a back issue of 'Entertainment Weekly', when I realized I was down to my last two feet of TP. I knew that if I didn't act fast, I would be using old gym socks to 'do clean-up duty,' if you know what I mean."

Mr. Cznewski's troubles, however, were just about to begin. The Giant Eagle on Cochrane Road was already packed with people picking up "essentials" for the coming winter storm. Shoppers loaded their carts with milk, eggs, bread, fruit, diapers, toilet paper, cigarettes, and other miscellaneous sundries necessary to survive 12 inches of snow. Shelves were picked nearly clean, with only such items as "canned bread" and "pickled giblets" available for last minute, panicked shoppers.

One of those panicked shoppers, Elsie Greenblatt said that she literally feared that she and her family would not make it to Monday.

"My children drink about a gallon of milk a week, but I know that as soon as the first flake drops, they're going to drink it all. That's why I'm buying 17 gallons, just in case. Plus my husband Saul really likes those pizza roll things, so I'm buying a palette of them in case we're snowed in until June."

Thousands of people like Ms. Greenblatt had already taken the toilet paper, desperately needed by Mr. Czenewski, leaving him with few options.

Dr. Don Jones, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Weather and Psychology say that this type of hording is an irrational response to media frenzy.

"We believe that we, as a society, are unprepared for these types of events that we completely lose sight of how ridiculous this level of panicking is. Most U.S. homes are well stocked or overly stocked with essentials and, given today's levels of public service, the blizzard that once killed hundreds is now reduced to a slow commute come Monday Morning."

Dr. Jones was unavailable for further comment as he was "down to his last case of turkey gravy."

For Mr. Cznewski, however, there is a happy ending.

"Despite all I had to go through, I did finally get what I needed. I also learned that People Magazine is more soft and absorbent than Teen People."

In Memoriam

I thought you said you'd never forget!

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Hey there boy! Is this the Pennsylvanian station?

No, sadly:

The White House today released the list of high-speed rail projects that will share $8 billion in stimulus funds, and, as expected, Western Pennsylvania was largely shut out.

Other than funding for a study of high-speed trains between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, most of the funds for the Northeast involved improving existing services between major cities. A total of $27 million will be dedicated to improving the Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg rail line, with an expected $750,000 of that for a study on extending that service to Pittsburgh eventually.

Pity that.

Now, this actually makes sense in the grand scheme of things: the "Keystone" plan is to link Pittsburgh with Harrisburg and Pittsburgh with Washington, which, if you've ever taken the Turnpike eastwards, you'll know are very difficult corridors from a civil engineering standpoint. Reinforcing the Harrisburg/Philadelphia corridor does make sense if the administration needs a proof of concept project, so I won't begrudge them for it.

Now, stepping back for a moment: it's only a one hour, forty-five minute drive from the Harrisburg Amtrak station to the Philadelphia Amtrak station. Assuming that most of that is highway (and uncluttered with traffic) and you'd be doing the speed limit, if the "High-Speed" trains are doing 100 mph, you'd see a one way trip taking about 45 minutes or so. (I have in on authority that it currently takes about an hour at the less than "high speed" speeds.) I'm not sure what the threshold Philadelphians have for their maximum commute times, but that's not outside the realm of possibility, I suppose, so Harrisburg could be reasonably considered a commuter suburb for Philadelphia. The MARC system, by contrast, extends from Washington D.C. to Martinsburg, WV, which is an hour and thirty-six minutes drive time; there's a station out there, so obviously Martinsburg, WV is also being used as a commuter suburb. If the same kinds of metrics were used in Pittsburgh (admittedly a smaller market), we'd be seeing long commuter trains from Cleveland, Erie, Greensburg, Johnstown, etc.

What's missing, however, is a good mid-to-local rail service: service to the Airport, to Etna, to Monroeville and service to Shadyside, Hazelwood, Manchester, Sheraden, and Banksville. These bit and pieces are actually far more important to the economic health of the region than the long commute line. You see, while the Port Authority has invested heavily in bus service, there is something different about local rail service; bus routes can change tomorrow; rail is permanent. The development of local rail corridors for medium range trips and light rail for intercity trips provides a focus for future development plans. A line from the airport to downtown to oakland will establish a permanent transit corridor and pretty much force developers to concentrate development close to stations, if they want to benefit from them.

In essence, the transportation planning bodies are establishing future, long term investment areas. Now I wonder if the folks at PAT consider this when they are making their investment choices or if they are getting much input from local economic development agencies. It would seem that there's no reason to do any of that, as no one is making them do it and it is not within their core competency.

But one day, hopefully everyone will start working together and I'll be able to jump on the T at 10 AM, make it to the noon meeting in DC, and be back in time for tea in Oakland.

A girl can dream, can't she?

And Now...

H/t to Bram, who played the Gremlin once or twice to the local Looney Tunes establishment.

I give him three months until he returns.

Breaking(ish) News: Lemieux, Penguins co-owner offer to buy Pirates

From the P-G:

Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle, co-owners of the Penguins, recently made an unsolicited offer to buy the Pirates in a face-to-face meeting with that team's owner, Bob Nutting, but the offer did not receive a response.

Sources on the Penguins' side last night described the offer made by Mr. Lemieux and Mr. Burkle as "very serious," without divulging a dollar figure, and said they remain interested in following up...

The reasons Mr. Lemieux and Mr. Burkle would want to buy the Pirates will not be clear until they speak to that, though that is not expected soon, if at all.

One possibility, according to a source, is that a joint ownership of the Penguins and Pirates could create a business "synergy" that would allow one to pick up the other in tough times, and vice versa. It would help, the source added, that the NHL and MLB seasons have little overlap and that the teams currently have the same local television rights-holder in FSN Pittsburgh...

I have my own theory: the Penguins are trying to provide job opportunities for Hill District residents as party of the agreed upon CBA. Hiring someone from the Hill to play third base would probably net you at least equal quality as what they have now.

If that were true and if I were a Hill Resident, I'd be insulted. I mean, the CBA calls for "quality" jobs, not 3rd rate, minor league jobs.

State of the Union Pre-Game

Back in heady days of my youth, I was involved in a group that regularly met to play cards, specifically a trick-taking card game similar to Bridge. This was a weekly occurrence, and several of us got quite good at the game.

I was, and I suppose still am, a fairly cautious card play: I refuse to bid unless I know that I can win my hand on my own, as I have no faith that my partner will be able to help me. This can be frustrating to my partners after the hand is played, as it is sometimes quite obvious that between the two of us, we could have won the hand had we tried.

There was one among our group, let's call him "Steve," who was, by far, the most ingenious player I've ever met. It was not rare for him to make an absurdly high bid, and still manage to eek out a victory, collecting all of his points. Steve would later go through a post-game analysis saying "well, I had this and this, and I assumed that you had this, and that the other guys had those, and I took a chance that this other card was in the discard pile..." and on-and-on until he proved to us that, no matter the quality of cards we had in our hands, he was going to win.

Steve was really, really good at cards.

Which brings me to the State of the Union. The way that I see it, Obama has a decent hand to play. It may not be a winning hand right now, but with some help from his partner, a little luck, and by being able to control the pace of the game, he could win big, like Steve. Unfortunately, he seems to view the hand that he has been dealt like me; sure I have a fist full of high cards in the trump suit, but because I can't guarantee a win I'm going to pass. In our little game, that means that the opposition gets more and more opportunities to score points as the hands drag on.

So what do I want to see from the State of the Union tonight? I want to see a President that knows that he can run the table, even if he's short one or two trump cards.

...And then starts to play that way.

A Bureaucrat's Aside Re: Baseball

Now that the Pirates have announced a new statue of Bill Mazeroski, does anyone have any ideas on how long it's going to take them to trade him for three minor league statues to be named later?

On the other hand, five more statues and they may be able to field an all-bronze team... which may actually break .500.