so, obviously i went on a short road trip this past weekend — through cleveland to meet up with the lovely miz KC for delicious sooshee lunch then on to to assist the very capable LiveJournal userinfo mistergrumpy with setting the greater pittsburgh area on fire. well, not really so much on fire. okay, maybe just a little on fire, but only where no one would notice — because that’s the kind of people we are!

things i learned this weekend:

  • i-pass and ez-pass are, like, run by the same people. this means i didn’t actually have to pay tolls on the pa turnpike. now if only ohio and indiana would get their asses in gear i would be cooking with gas. indiana are at least planning to implement ez-pass in 2007, but ohio is whining a whole lot about how they don’t have commuters and since they use the ticket system, people ought to just pony up their nine bucks and shut up. i wrote ohio a letter and tried to convince them they were wrong. it probably didn’t work.
  • pittsburgh is very hilly. i should have remembered how hilly philly is, and not been surprised, but nooooo, i’m a dumbass.
  • pittsburgh also has lots of trees. this, in combination with the hills, means pittsburgh is definitively not “midwestern.” flat states represent!

friday: dinner at penn brewery (appetizer of kartoffelpuffer, entr�e of schweinebraten, and a pint of penn dark — the schweinebraten was fabulous and the portion was hyooge; i was sad at the waste but i could not eat that much food!, and the beer was pretty tasty) followed by driving around until my poor sleepy self could not cope anymore (and/or my host could not cope with my whining about being sleepy anymore; six’a one, half a dozen t’other). saturday, brunch at pamela’s in squirrel hill (i thought very hard about the french toast, which sounded yummy, but in the end went with an omelet) followed by a jaunt out into the countryside to watch some folks get hitched.

then off to shootz on the south side for pool and pints of yuengling (“ying-ling”), to shoot some pool in our wedding-guest finery (though i am forced to admit to having changed my cute t-strap pumps into chucks before leaving the reception — not just to make a fashion statement, either; though, d. changing from a button-down to a clash shirt was fashion-motivated, i believe!). shootz was a bit crowded with the just-turned-21 crowd, but they thinned out after a bit and the table was nice so it all worked out well in the end. also, i did not suck completely, so i was feeling pretty good about that. of course, unlike at kasey’s, there was chalk, so there was opportunity to suck less. sunday involved a strange sammidge-shaped culinary experience involving pastrami, provolone, white bread, french fries, and coleslaw. it actually turned out to taste pretty good, unlikely a combination as it sounds. the fries i don’t think did a whole lot for the sammidge, but the coleslaw was tasty — kinda like mild, crispier sauerkraut. and everybody loves sauerkraut, right? so that was at primanti brothers — well spotted, jonathan! — in (i think) north versailles. then a couple more games of pool, and i honestly do think i play better on three-quarters size tables than full-size tables, oddly, though i think i ended up losing in the end. alas. on the way back from sammidgelandia, picked up a case of iron city beer to take home with me. it’s currently in the trunk of my car waiting for me to head north and pick up the keys to my new apartment, where it shall be the very first personal possession taken inside the new digs. because i have my priorities right in line, my friends; yes i do! then six and three-quarters hours rolling, a smidge over 7 hours in total, straight back home, listening to the game on WMVP AM 1000 (which i picked up just west of cleveland, handily enough) until the rain delay hit. got home just in time for my guys to crush cleveland. i declare this road trip a success.