Two Ways to Spend a Night in the Dark

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra recently issued a call for bloggers to cover this year's season of performances, so I threw my text-based hat in their web-based ring. They took me up on it, and now I'm one of nearly a dozen bloggers who'll be offering "outside perspectives" on various PSO performances over the next 8 months. If you're a fan of classical music (or incongruous and occasionally insightful commentary about it), you can follow the PSO group blog here.

Meanwhile, a case of celestial irony: Shortly after attending the PSO's "sneak preview" concert -- at which new maestro Manfred Honeck was not in attendance -- I posted my first PSO blog entry, entitled "A Night Without Honeck". Suitably amused, the gods then caused a wayward tree branch to collapse on some electrical lines in my Greenfield neighborhood, resulting in A Night Without Power for me and about 30 of my neighbors. (Since Duquesne Light is still swamped with reports of outages, we're not expecting ours to get fixed anytime soon.)

As a result, four of my neighbors gathered on their shared stoop last night and listened to the end of the Steelers-Browns game by candlelight, on a battery-powered radio. I couldn't quite hear the details from my open window, so I wandered down and listened to the closing moments with them. Funny that it takes an act of nature (and NFL scheduling) to force people who live less than ten feet apart to actually make the effort to introduce themselves.

Lastly, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an interesting profile about the hard-fought rise of Maestro Honeck, who -- since he wasn't the apprentice to an established conductor -- decided to become one by starting his own orchestra. Talk about innovating your way to success...

Photo by Sriram

What Flooding Can Teach Us About To-Do Lists

Pittsburgh (actually Allegheny County) is under a State of Emergency due to the storms that rocked the region all day and caused massive flooding, power outages, downed trees, etc. Several areas (like Millvale, Ross Township, etc.) are in very bad shape.

On the news tonight, Public Safety Director Mike Huss said one of the reasons things are as bad as they are right now in the North Hills is because all of the debris from the flooding caused by Hurricane Ivan (in September of 2004) was never cleared away. That means today's floodwaters had even less wiggle room, so to speak -- because they're contending with leftover trash from 2004.

The good news? Huss said they're optimistic that they "may bid" on a proposal to clean that debris up... in October.

Not to be glib, but what leftover item keeps floating down your to-do list? Why not nip it in the bud now, before it causes problems down the line?...