cww.blog!

This trip to Pittsburgh has nearly come to a close. I need to leave the hotel for the airport in about an hour.

Yesterday, I checked out the Three Rivers Regatta. It wasn't a regatta like the Harvard-Yale Regatta is a regatta, but it turned out to be cool nonetheless. It took place at the "point", on the downtown side of the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela. They did have a few boat races, but they also had a bass fishing competition, kids rides, terrible food, radio stations, a bunch of U.S. Navy propaganda, and some other stuff. At one point, I heard a gentleman singing Music of the Night (Phantom of the Opera) on behalf of an AM radio station, and that segued into a Sinatra song, and then his last number was Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies, which had most of the audience in tears. That was pretty cool. Overall, the "regatta" was worth the $1 admission fee, but I don't think I stayed any longer than an hour. I think I was the only person there wearing long sleeves and shoes any fancier than cross-trainers.

I started reading Friday by Heinlein on the plane Thursday, and I finished it yesterday. It's an excellent read, as most of Heinlein's works tend to be. If you enjoy science fiction, this is for you.

It's good that older science fiction explores things like future culture. All the new stuff is so dry. It's like creativity in science fiction took a huge hit when Asimov came out of his prime.

Oh, by the way, I'm going to rent the apartment I mentioned here a couple days ago. It'll be on a 17-month lease, which is great for me because I can't guarantee I'll be here any longer than is necessary for a masters degree, but it sucks for the landlady because finding a new tenant in a very university-oriented part of town in the winter is difficult. Because of that, I couldn't talk her down on rent, but I'm also not giving her six months in advance. So, that six months payment will just sit around and earn interest in my hands, instead of in hers. She's obviously not a financial advisor. Sucker.

Well, I need to go pack and then find some way to kill half an hour.

It'll be a pity to leave the clime of Pittsburgh (holy hell, I just looked outside at the building across the street, and it almost looked like it was snowing... alas, it is not), but it's a necessary evil. Back to the daily grind. Bah. At least I have a holiday on the Fourth to readjust to 100+-degree weather.