Attacks In Midtown

This weekend saw a couple of assaults in my neighborhood:

Attacks unnerve residents

The first was on a residential block about two blocks from my house; the second was in front of a bar about 7 blocks away (a quick aside: I wouldn't describe Shady's as "near the Broad Street Market." I'm sure the management of the Market was un-psyched to see it pop up in this article; they need all the help they can get attracting visitors).

The article I linked to is a typical nearly-useless Patriot-News article, but it does have an interesting quote from Mayor-For-Life Reed:

"We aren't going to tolerate that crap," Reed said. "If we find them, we will arrest and prosecute them."

I am of two minds about our tough-talking mayor. On the one hand, I wonder if he gets this upset when kids get shot in Allison Hill, or only when people get beat up in the one neighborhood that can be pointed to as a New Urbanist success? In general I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he gets upset anytime someone gets assaulted; it's just that the Patriot-News doesn't bother going to him for a quote because they figure assaults in black neighborhoods don't sell papers.

On the other hand, I'm glad he's upset, and publicly, because THIS IS MY NEIGHBORHOOD. There was a roving gang of eight to ten hooligans beating people up, just a few blocks from my house! That is fucking scary. So, yeah, Steve, glad you're pissed. Now let's see the HPD do something about it.

[UPDATE 6/20}: The Penn Street crew (of which I am an auxilliary member) was out in full force last night, with about a dozen of us hanging out on the block for about three hours. We've been doing this since long before these recent attacks, but it seemed like an opportune time to re-convene.

While we were out, a patrol car came down the street, followed a few hours later by an officer on foot with a police dog (who also made an appearance up on Susquehanna, according to some friends up there). Then, right after I went in, a couple plainclothes in a van stopped by and mentioned that they had caught two of the kids:

2 Juveniles Arrested In Midtown Robberies

So, right on. A little increased police presence and at least two of these guys are in custody. Let's hope the police attnetion doesn't fade away, not just in Mindtown but throught the city.

Welcome to 2001, UGI

UGI Utilities has finally implemented online bill payment. For the last two years, the UGI bill has been the only monthly expense I had to write a check for -- everything else, from the phone to daycare to the mortgage, is paid online (and, in fact, automatically).

This cuts my time spent on monthly bills to almost nil -- just an occasional check of the checking account to make sure no one has stolen my identity and my money, and a few minutes here & there tweaking the Excel spreadsheet. Plus, thanks to autopay, I'm never late on any payments. That's a big plus for someone with a tendency to procrastinate like me.

The only downside is that I'm pretty much locked into the bank I have my checking account at -- I can't imagine the hassle involved with changing over the various autopays.

But, that's a small concern; overall I'm just glad that I've finally, in 2008, gotten back to point I was at in 2001 before I left the Bay Area and struck out for the less tech-savvy parts of the country I've lived in since. Now if someone could just figure out a way to bring back Webvan...

Movie Friday: SideStreet Cinema

Movies instead of music this week, as I finally got confirmation that SideStreet Cinema is back! I'll be there, Midtown cocktail in hand, for 'Dazed & Confused' this Saturday, and 'Raising

Son, you got a panty on your head.

Arizona' in a few weeks for sure. I'm glad to see they're doing the live music thing again, this time for the awesome 'Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.'

Here's the press release with the dates & movies:

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SideStreet Cinema returns to Midtown Harrisburg this summer. Moviate and The Salvation Army will kick off the outdoor movie series this Saturday, June 7. The screenings, held biweekly at the corner of Green and Cumberland streets, begin at 9 p.m. A $5 donation is requested and benefits The Salvation Army and Moviate Film Camp and Filmmaker In-Person Series.

Nonna's will provide hot dogs, Italian ice and Boylan's soda for most screenings.

SCHEDULE:
Saturday, June 7: "DAZED AND CONFUSED"
Saturday, June 21: "BARBARELLA"
Saturday, July 5: "RAISING ARIZONA"
Saturday, July 19: "FORBIDDEN PLANET"
Saturday, August 2: "SERIAL MOM"
Saturday, August 16: "MR. HULOT'S HOLIDAY"
Saturday, August 30: "THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI" with LIVE ACCOMPANIMENT

For more information, go to www.moviate.org.

Music Friday: Music Intelligence Quiz

Here's a fun little music quiz created by eMusic. It's a mix of pretty easy questions and "who the hell knows that?" stuff.

Music Intelligence Quiz

I scored a 141, just below the "musical magician" level. Not sure how the scoring works, since I got 24 right out of 30. I'm guessing some questions are weighted differently than others. If you care, the ones I got wrong were #5, #9, #12, #16, #20, and #27. I'm embarrassed about two of those.

On another musical note, don't forget: Mike Doughty's free show at ABC is this Saturday. It's part of their 11th anniversary festival -- there's live music outside starting at 4:00, and then Doughty and Scrap Livingston play inside at around 9:30, followed by a DJ set by Doughty into the wee hours. Should be a blast!

Bad (Soup and) Salad

Saturday night we went out to dinner and a movie. Well, originally it was just supposed to be a movie, until we found out that the movie we wanted to see, No Country For Old Men, wasn't actually playing at time that Movies.com and Yahoo Movies told us it was. It's not very often that the Internet let me down, but it certainly did this time.

Luckily our babysitter was willing to stay until midnight instead of 10:00, so we decided we'd go see the movie in E-Town and grab some dinner first. We decided to walk down to Blue Bistro, a neighborhood spot which had replaced the late, lamented Jackie Blue. We had had a bad experience last fall (poor service, food took forever, wasn't hot when it arrived) but decided we'd give them another shot because we really, really want to like a restaurant that's walking distance from our house.

We had decided we'd go with simpler fare the second time around, so we sat at the bar and ordered a cheeseburger (me) and a steak salad & French onion soup (DJo). Things started off nicely -- the bartender was very friendly and poured us nice glasses of wine. After a little while DJo's soup came, which was very tasty until she discovered a big hunk of plastic in it.

We let the bartender know and he was properly apologetic. He took the soup away, told the kitchen to 86 the soup for the rest of the night, and comped our entire meal (which was more than we expected and was excellent customer service).

About a half-hour later, we started wondering where the rest of our food was. How long does it take to put together a burger and a steak salad, especially in a restaurant that isn't full? Ten minutes later the bartender looked over at the service counter and said, "is that my steak salad and burger there"? Apparently our order had come up and no one had told him. Bad kitchen service.

Then we got the food. My burger was a) lukewarm and b) rare. I ordered it medium-rare, but this was definitely not that. But, at least it was edible, which was more than can be said for DJo's steak salad, which was a) cool and b) mostly raw. Seriously, she was only able to eat able three bites of the steak, since the majority of it was just plain uncooked.

We considered our options. We'd already been comped, so it really wasn't worth complaining -- the food had taken so long that if we got replacement meals we would miss our movie. So, we just ate what we could and prepared to leave, figuring that someone would probably notice the raw beef that DJo left on the plate. As we were finishing up, we overheard the waitstaff chatting amongst themselves (which is one of the reasons I like to sit at the bar) -- basic "can you get me a bottle of wine" and "can you clean something up" type stuff. But then, after one server asked another to do something, I'm pretty sure I heard her say, "and can you polish the brass on the Titanic while you're at it?"

Geez. Does the staff feel like they're working on the Titanic? Do they feel like, no matter what they do, they're being handicapped by incompetent/uncaring kitchen and management staff? Two things are especially telling -- first, the problems we had were kitchen problems, just like the last time, which was five months ago. Second, the owner was in the restaurant and didn't come over to apologize. The staff, especially the bartender, did their job well (and we tipped him well, and based on what the bill actually would have been) but the problems the restaurant has may be more than they can fix.

That's our last trip to Blue Bistro; it's a shame that they didn't turn out to be the neighborhood place we wanted, like Jackie's was before its last few months. I guess it's back to Bayou -- our friends rave about it (though we had a bad food experience there as well) -- or else maybe hope that Blue Bistro actually hits the iceberg and is replaced by something else.

(The movie, by the way, was great. And we saw it in a theatre with only five other people, so no talking. Couldn't have been better.)

It's An Inch of Snow, People

When I moved to central PA, I had it in my mind that the weather here was similar to the weather where I grew up (outside of Chicago). I expected snow through most of the winter and cold (teens or lower) temperatures semi-regularly. I also figured that people here would know what to do when it snows. As Rick Blaine said, "I was misinformed."

The good folks of central PA are freaking out a little bit about the 1-2" of snow we've gotten so far today. A ton of elementary schools closed today and now the afternoon/evening closings are coming in and every college and church in the Harrisburg area appears to be shutting its doors. All the Penn State campuses, HACC -- the public library closed, for chrissakes! For an inch of snow! This is ridiculous. I expect the shelves at the grocery store to be devoid of milk and bread when I stop by there after work, too.

God help us when a real storm shows up -- three or four inches might bring the total breakdown of society.

What Kind of Name Is 'Lady Horizon,' Anyway?

Yesterday we took the girls to see the Harrisburg Lady Horizon basketball team. I was shocked to see that there actually was professional women's basketball in Harrisburg -- apparently they're part of something called the Eastern Basketball Alliance, which as near as I can tell is about a sixth-string minor league. The teams play a double-header, women first followed by the men's game. The men's league seems a bit more substantial than the womens' -- the women's page on the EBA website lists seven teams, but one of them has no roster and two others apparently only play road games.

The game was played at the Harrisburg High gym, and kids got in free with an adult, so it was a cheap afternoon out. Zosia really got in to watching the game for about the first 15 minutes we were there, remarking that the players were doing "cool stuff" like jumping and running and shooting the ball. After a brief conversation about how "shooting" and "time outs" were good things in basketball but bad things in life, her attention drifted and she found herself much more interested in the snacks at the concession stand and the mascot than the game, so we decided not to push our luck and stay for the men's game.

She has been playing soccer at pre-school (Soccer Shots) and I think she is just starting to think about the concept of a team sport. We've talked a little bit about what it means to "win," and just about every time we go up the stairs, when we get to the top she says, "I beat you." Of course, that's often followed by "What does 'I beat you' mean?"

The Horizon looks like a good (and cheap!) way to introduce her to these sorts of sports -- certainly cheaper than my original idea, which was a Hershey Bears game -- and I expect we'll be going to quite a few games over the rest of the season.

(And an aside about the title of this post -- today in the Patriot News there was a picture of a player on the Penn State women's basketball team. Across the front of her jersey it said LADY LIONS. I'm pretty sick of the practice of naming the women's team the Lady Whatevers -- it's extremely patronizing, and brings to mind antiquated phrases like "lady doctor" -- but in this case it's beyond ridiculous. There is a word in the English language that means "lady lion": LIONESS. If the men's teams are the Nittany Lions, why not name the women's teams the Lionesses? This would have the added bonus of being extra fierce since it's the lionesses that go out and do all the hunting while the male lions laze around and try to decide which of their cubs to kill.

Anyway, Lady Horizon. Feh.)

Quite Exciting, This Election Magic

After last night's split decision on the Democratic side, it's looking more and more like Pennsylvania's April 22nd primary will actually mean something. So:

* If you haven't done so already, register. In order to vote in the primary, you must be registered by March 22nd. Or maybe the 23rd, I'm not sure exactly how "30 days before" would be digured, so better make it the 22nd just to be on the safe side.

* Don't make the same mistake Jersey Mike did. If you want to vote for Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama (or anyone else on the Democratic ballot), make sure you register Democratic. Pennsylvania is a closed primary state, and if you are registered to any other party (or Independent) you will not be allowed to vote in the Democratic primary.

Street Cleaning Redux

The joy I felt at the sight of my newly-cleaned block was tempered somewhat on Friday when I found out that my friends and neighbors on Penn Street still had a dirty, leaf-filled street to contend with. It wasn't until later in the day that one of my neighbors called Public Works and had what I've sure was a calm, reasoned conversation with them about why it's been more than two months since their street was cleaned.

Apparently, due to prior complaints of cars getting dinged, the width of the street, and the axles on the vehicles being used, if any cars at all are still parked on the street the cleaners will pass it up.

This seems like made-up bullshit to me. My street, which is plenty wide enough for the street cleaner to come down, even with cars parked on it, didn't get cleaned for two months. What was the excuse for that?

If you're in Harrisburg and your street isn't getting cleaned, I recommend calling the Bureau of Neighborhood Services at 717-236-5274 and registering a complaint. Who knows if it will do any good, but it can't hurt and who knows, maybe enough complaints will get someone to pay attention.

Hey Harrisburg, Yesterday Would Have Been A Good Day To Clean The Street

Yesterday was street cleaning day on my block. And it came at exactly the right time, since due to the vagaries of the calendar -- there were five Thursdays in November -- the street hadn't been cleaned in three weeks. In that time, every single ginkgo tree in a two-block radius had gone bare, and as a result the gutters of the street are filled with a solid 3-4" of wet, matted-down leaves. Come to think of it, so are the gutters of my house -- I should do something about that. Or should I wait until after Christmas?


It's like this, only mushy and gross. Oh -- picture used without permission, I'll probably have to take it down soon.

Anyway, with the ice storm looming (as well as this weekend's potentially huge snowstorm), we were looking at the possibility of the street becoming just about unparkable pretty quickly (as opposed to last winter, when it took the Valentine's Day snowstorm, aka The Day Daryl Didn't Get Her Brownie, to render it such), so I was happy that the street cleaners were scheduled to come.

My happiness lasted until the moment got home from work last night, got out of my car, and saw the same 3-4" of matted wet leaves sitting in the gutters that were there when I left. The street cleaners apparently never showed up!

Now I know I've already written about how I should stop being disappointed when Harrisburg neglects to give its citizens basic services. But I guess I just can't help feeling that, in return for paying my taxes and abiding by the cities laws and regulations, the city should do things like clean up the three weeks of leaves which are about to turn into a solid, immovable block of frozen ginkgo badness. Call me crazy (or naive).

Oh, and the best part? My neighbor's car got ticketed for parking on the block during street cleaning hours, despite the fact that THE STREET DIDN'T GET CLEANED. If that had been my car getting ticketed I would totally contest that ticket.

Hey Midtowners, Be Careful Out There

Over the last few weeks there have apparently been a series of muggings in Midtown, and specifically in my part of Midtown. Last week a guy was help up at gunpoint a few blocks north of us, and in one that hits close to home in a few different ways, on Sunday a woman and her infant were mugged at knifepoint two blocks away. They were unharmed, thanks to a quick response from neighbors, who heard her screams (no Kitty Genovese redux in the HBG), and the cops were on-scene within minutes, but the assailant got away.

Scary stuff. Neighborhood infomaven Ryan Hickey, who sent out the email letting us know about these attacks, has this to say:

"We all need to look out for each other, so please talk to your neighbors, exchange phone numbers, call each other if you need an escort to your car, and please call the police immediately should you see any loitering or suspicious behavior of any kind.

We can't let our fear of being a nuisance to our neighbors deter us from trying to improve our neighborhoods and watch out for each other."

Amen, and let me add, since he didn't, TURN ON YOUR OUTSIDE LIGHTS. It's really something to be walking up Penn Street, where everyone has their front lights on, and to cross Clinton, where it suddenly gets real dark. Light acts as a deterrent to criminal activity, plain and simple.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving, and enjoy time with friends and family, taking time to remember all the things you're thankaful for.

Music For a Friday Afternoon

(Gym on Wednesday, plus volleyball last night. Ask me about my bruises!)

It's a beautiful day in The Hbg. Time to mix myself a Midtown, sit on the steps, and crank the stereo.

Join me, won't you?

Out and About in the Neighborhood

(Gym yesterday: yes. Also added in sit-ups and torso rotation)

I walked around the 'hood with the Big Girl (formerly known as the No-Longer-Tiny Baby) and snapped a couple of photos:

Smile! The police state is watching you! (Although to be fair, I'm sort of glad someone is doing surveillance at Al's.)

Who's in there -- a welder, or Indiana Jones and a bunch of Nazis?

(And yes, I know that, in the latter case, it would be spelled "ark." Work with me here.)

A Couple of Questions For Harrisburgers

1. When is the next "large trash" day? I looked around the exquisitely unhelpful official Harrisburg site. Unsurprisingly, I couldn't find any info.

2. When will Halloween be celebrated this year? For those who live outside the Hbg, this is not a trick question. The towns around here apparently have their "official" trick-or-treat nights on nights other than the 31st. Sometimes it's as much as a week before the actual date of Halloween, and I think the date choice has something to do with Daylight Savings Time, church, and when Penn State plays (but not necessarily in that order). Again, the Harrisburg website was unhelpful.

Any information would be much appreciated!

Walk Scores

I saw Walk Score mentioned on a blog a few weeks back -- it's one of the best Google Mashups I've seen yet. The idea is simple -- you enter an address and the site determines a walkability score from 0-100, based on proximity to stores, bars, restaurants, etc. the author is an advocate of a

The Business Rush
Originally uploaded by dziner

walking lifestyle (check out his page on walkable neighborhoods) and has positioned his gadget as a way to determine if a house you're interested in is in a walkable area.

One of the reasons we love Harrisburg so much is because of how walkable it is, so I was not at all surprised when our house rated an 82 (and it should be higher, since Riverfront Park shows up as 0.66 miles away when in reality it's less than a tenth of a mile away). What makes that even better is that our old house in the mountains of southern California rates a 3.

A few friends on The Well have posted their scores and I've seen a 100 (East Village NY) and a 2 (in the hills between San Jose & Santa Cruz). I plugged in a bunch of my old addresses, and I think the progression is interesting:

In the Shadow of Wrigley Field, Chicago: 93
The Historic Crack District, San Francisco: 100
The House by the Lake, Oakland: 83
Mountains of Southern California: 3
Current house, Hbg: 82

Which of these things is not like the others?

Walk Score is a fun site, and a perfect example of the great stuff you can do with Google's API. One of these days should figure out how to use it. See what your house's score is (and post it here if you do). Somewhere, Jane Jacobs is smiling.

National Night Out...With Cocktails

Despite the hard hitting Patriot-News article from earlier this week suggesting that it might not do anything when it comes to preventing crime, we'll be out on our stoop tonight, celebrating National Night Out.



Truth be told, we're out on our stoop most nights, enjoying a tasty beverage, like this one, which I've christened The Midtown:

Like this, but in a pint glass. Originally uploaded by thegit

In a pint glass, combine over ice:

2 shots vodka
1 oz pomegranate juice

Fill to top with lemonade. Add a splash of Triple Sec. Garnish with a sprig of mint if you're into that sort of thing. Drink. Repeat.

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Listening to: Wilco - Company in My Back via FoxyTunes

I Love Troeg's

I don't have a whole lot else to say other than that; I just got home with a case of Troeg's Scratch Beer #2 (a porter) and it's fantastic. In case you didn't know, Troeg's is putting out a series of beers this summer that are small-batch brews they don't normally make. As far as I know they're only available at the brewery (and not even on tap there). The first one was a "California Common" Beer that reminded me of Anchor Steam, which is high praise indeed. It was nice and hoppy and perfect for a hot summer's day.

This porter is also excellent, with a prominent but not overpowering toastiness and a good hoppiness. It's not quite as creamy as their Oatmeal Stout, but it's pretty damn good. I think I'm actually drinking it a little too cold -- the next bottle is sitting out on the counter warming up a bit.

I'll be anxiously awaiting Scratch Beers #3 (Belgian) and #4 (Barleywine), and I'm considering grabbing another case of this Porter to hold onto until wintertime. I would definitely recommend trucking down to the brewery and picking up a case. You won't be disappointed.

Crazy From The Heat

OK, maybe he was crazy before the heat, but I'm sure it isn't helping. AccuWeather meterorologist Jim Kosek give the weather forecast for the Harrisburg area, and this is not your father's weather report:

Weather Forecast | Weather Maps | Weather Radar

"We get CRANKED!!! on Thursday! You want a round of severe weather, you STICK AROUND FOR THAT!"

Apparently I'm not the first to notice this guy's particular style. One commenter in the Eastern US Weather Forums referred to him as "the little weather nerd with a truck driver's vocabulary." That sounds about right.

[UPDATE 6/27]: As noted in the comments, this forecast automatically changes every day, so you don't necessarily get to see exactly what I was talking about. But today's forecast includes a spit-take, something you don't see very often from a meteorologist, so it definitely worth checking out regularly.

Nothing To Get Hung About

Looking for something to do this weekend? What if I told you there were places you could go which would let you do the sort of backbreaking labor that falls into the "illegal immigrants do the jobs that Americans don't want to do" category? Is that something you might be interested in?

Last Saturday the famiy loaded into the minivan and headed to Loysville, where Spiral Path Farm was holding its annual pick-your-own-strawberries weekend. We lurrve Spiral Path; they're an organic farm that has a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program -- you pay an annual fee and every week from May to October they deliver baskets of freshly picked organic to drop-off sites throughout the area. It's great to eat tomatoes, lettuce, peas, etc. that were picked the day before, and in this age of increased awareness about farming techniques and food miles I love knowing that my food was grown less than an hour away.

(By the way, apropos of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Spiral Path hipped us to Jujo Acres, who deliver organic and free-range beef and other meats. It's all good.)

So anyway we drove out to Loysville, ready to pick our allotted two gallons of strawberries. It was a beautful day, sunny, with a light breeze, and when we arrived the fields were already full of other city dwellers:



We quickly got to work; I took charge of Zosia while Daryl got back in touch with her Polish peasant roots, picking berries with Genevieve sleeping (and occasionally screaming) in the sling:



After an hour or so, we had our berries and were ready to head home. After some hardcore hulling and culling, we had the loot, ready for consumption in pies, ice cream, or as-is:



One of the main reasons we wanted to do this was to start introducing Zosia to the idea of where food comes from. It's an easy thing to not think about; you go to the market or grocery store or restaurant and get your food, and it's easy to forget what went in to getting it to that point. I don't want my kids to think that food comes from "the store," and we're lucky enough to live in a place where the actual production locations of so many foods are so close by.

Plus we wanted to get out in the fresh air, and give Zo something fun to do. I think she enjoyed it, as you can see from this shot:



Want to go strawberry picking yourself this weekend? Learn everything you need to know, including locations and how to do it, at PickYourOwn.org.

Enjoy!

Feeling Blue In This Red City

Why isn't there a chapter of Drinking Liberally in Harrisburg? There are chapters in Chambersburg, Gettysburg, York, Lancaster, and Reading, but that's as close as they get. I would think there would be enough people interested in the combination of beer and Democratic politics to put one together. Then again, when I participated in a conference call for MoveOn a few weeks ago, trying to get a chapter started here, there were a total of three people on the call. So maybe there really isn't.

And yes, I know the answer to my complaint is, "why don't you start one, then?" And maybe I will. My first choice of place to have it closed, though, and I'm not that well-acquainted with the bars in Midtown (if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it within walking distance). I'll take a look around and who knows, maybe there will be a Harrisburg chapter soon enough...

Have A Drink On Me

Pennsylvania slouched toward reason today, as a Senate committee approved a bill which would allow beer distributors to sell beer in six-packs.


Gimme one of those to go, please.


Yes, that's right, perhaps one day soon Pennsylvanians will no longer have to choose between buying an entire case of beer at a distributor, or over-paying for a six to go at the local bar.

The story in the Patriot-News touches on all the reasons why this is a no-brainer: increased choice for the consumer, the possibility that people might try something new now that they don't have to buy 24 bottles at a time, even the possibility that allowing people to buy less beer might lead to them drinking less beer. Everyone is in favor of this, from the beer distributors (duh) to the breweries, to M.A.D.D.

The one group opposed? Why, the Pennsylvania Tavern Association, of course. They're looking at a loss of revenue now that people no longer have to pay $9.00 for a six-pack for Coors Light. My heart bleeds for them.

Dear anti-choice protesters picketing outside of the Hillcrest Women's Medical Center on North Front Street:

Thank you for reminding me that I need to send a check to Planned Parenthood.

 

Memorial Day Weekend Plans

We have friends driving down from Rhode Island for the weekend, so we'll be out and about, taking advantage of what looks to be a gorgeous holiday weekend.


On this Memorial Day, take time to pause & reflect on what our brave men and women are fighting for.

Tomorrow morning, of course, we'll start out with our weekly trip to the Broad Street Market. After that, it's off to explore Artsfest, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. There is always a lot of cool stuff in among the chintz, and of course it's an excuse to eat as many funnel cakes as humanly possible. The rest of the day will probably be spent on City Island, letting the kids blow off steam at the playground and maybe catching a few innings of the Senators-Rock Cats game.

Sunday's agenda apparently includes Hershey Park, where we'll spend hours in line withe hundreds of our closest friends christening the brand new Boardwalk.

Monday will hopefully be a little lower-key, just hanging out in the neighborhood (maybe with an expedition to the top of Mt. Midtown) enjoying a summer cocktail or three.

I hope your weekend is fun and safe!

My Vote Counted!

Wow...for the first time in my adult life, the votes I cast actually made a difference.

Harrisburg City Council Results:
Gloria Martin-Roberts	1,658
Susan Brown Wilson	1,554
Brad Koplinski	1,549
Eugenia Smith	1,545
Calobe Jackson Jr.	1,520
Kia Hansard	1,343
Patricia Stringer	680

The "Reed Team" (Koplinski, Smith, and Jackson) missed gaining a majority on the council by nine votes (the difference between Wilson and Smith). I'm especially heartened to see Smith and Jackson lose, after finding out that they raised a combined total of $75 for their campaigns, which was effectively bankrolled by Mayor Reed.

So instead of a Reed-controlled council, Koplinksi, Wanda R.D. Williams and Patty Kim should be more-or-less held in check by Martin-Roberts, Wilson, Linda Thompson, and Dan Miller.

Which is how it should be; in a city with a "strong mayor" system, having the City Council in the hands of pro-mayor folks does a disservice to the citizens of that city.

Fast, And With A Multitude Of Casualties

I'll be back later with my thoughts about Saturday night's free (!) Hold Steady show at the Appalachian Brewing Company, but in the meantime here are my photos.

Big, big thanks to Jersey Mike, the man who made it all happen.

Paradise By The Dashboard Light

When we were living out in the California mountains, one of the things we liked to do on occasion was drive down the hill to the drive-in movie theater in Santee. It was always a fun time, with families enjoying an evening out on the cheap. They showed relatively new movies, and you always got a double feature, which meant, for example, that you could follow up SWAT (a perfect drive-in movie) with The Grind, one of the worst movies ever to grace the silver screen. We usually picked up Mexican food on our way in and enjoyed a nice evening, with the baby (usually) sleeping in the back seat. It was a lot of fun.


Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat.

We never made it to the drive-in last summer; I think that we figured our girl was at the wrong age for it -- too old to just sleep in the back seat, but too young to sit still and watch the movie. Now, though, with the kid pushing three, I think we'll be heading out to see what central PA has to offer in terms of drive-ins.

My research (which consisted of visiting Drive-Ins.com) turned up four screens nearby:

* Haar's Drive-in, US-15, Dillsburg, 432-3011. Tickets are $7 for adults, $2 for children 3-7. This weekend they're showing Spider-Man 3 (woo!) and Are We Done Yet? (currently rating an 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. Unfortunately they have a link to this fruitbat news site on their site, which is enough to make me not want to patronize them.

* York Drive-In Theatre, 334 Carlisle Ave., York, 792-5223. Tickets are $8/$6. As of this morning, the website and phone message are still touting last week's movies (Meet The Robinsons & Wild Hogs).

* Sky-Vu Drive-In, Hwy. 25, Gratz, 365-3816. Tickets prices aren't shown on their website and there was no message when I called. This weekend they're showing Spider-Man 3 and Perfect Stranger.

* Cumberland Drive-In, 715 Centerville Rd, Newville, 776-5212. The website still shows them as "closed for the season" but the phone message is updated. Tickets are $6/$3. This weekend they're showing Spider-Man 3 (big surprise) and Premonition.

See you at the show!

I Can't Believe I'm Still Protesting This War

D Jo got an email from MoveOn.org yesterday, announcing a rally to protest President Bush's veto of the war funding bill. It was pretty short notice, but I headed out of work a little bit early, and she and the girls and I walked down to Front & Walnut Streets to take part.

We marched in San Diego in 2003 to protest the beginning of this war, and it's amazingly depressing to think that, four years later, we're still protesting it. At least now a larger percentage of the American public agrees with us; when we marched back in '02, drunk 23-year-olds wandered out of the Hooters in the Gaslamp District to flip us off. This time, with a few minor exceptions, anyone who favored an open-ended occupation didn't see fit to let us know.

The rally was pretty well-attended for something that had been organized on such short notice. At its peak I counted 38 attendees, and organizers put the final estimate at between 40-50 total:



We flanked both sides of Front Street:



Most people had noisemakers and signs and were encouraging drivers to honk to show their support:



The response from drivers was almost uniformly positive. Every second or third car honked and/or waved, and I only saw two cars react negatively: one was a pickup truck with a couple of guys who yelled something unintelligible as they drove away, and another was a guy in an SUV who dropped his car into neutral and gunned his engine, which I tool to be conspicuous consumption of gasoline and pretty stupid as far as anti-anti-war statements go.

A camera crew from WHP news was there, and the reporter asked me to say a few words about why I was here. The news piece led the 11 o'clock news and included a brief clip of me in which they even spelled my name correctly.

Open Letter To The Lady At Reilly & 2nd This Morning

Dear Random Lady at Reilly & Second this morning:

The Pittsburgh Left is not your God-given right. It is a privilege, a gift from one driver to another, a small piece of civility on the mean streets of western Pennsylvania (and, increasingly, central Pennsylvania).



I probably would have let you make the turn. My wife just had our second daughter last week, and life is good right now. I'm feeling pretty magnanimous toward the world, and a day like today is a good day to practice random acts of kindness in a vain attempt to counter-balance the unfathomable evil that occurred a couple hundred miles south of here yesterday.

So like I said I am definitely pre-disposed to allowing people to take the Pittsburgh Left in front of me these days. But, when you pull up to the intersection across from me with your wheels turned and flash a pre-emptive "thanks for letting me go" hand gesture as you start to roll into the intersection before the light turns, you better fucking believe I'm going to aggressively defend my right-of-way, and re-enforce it with a two-handed one-finger salute.

The Pittsburgh Left is to be given, not taken. I don't remember what kind of car you were driving, but I guarantee it's worth more than my 15-year old piece of crap pickup truck, and that's probably why you stopped before I did. In the future, you might want to consider giving someone the chance to be nice to you before you allow your inflated sense of entitlement to put you in a situation where, if we had collided, you would have been 100% at fault.

Have a nice day,

The Dilettante

Broad Street Market Information

When I was at the market last weekend, I noticed that they finally have a directory available, listing all of the shops, their locations, and their phone numbers. All this information is available on their website, but it's in a little tiny window and buried down two levels into the site, and who needs that?

In the interest of ease-of-use, here is a list of all the shops, with phone numbers and, in some cases, mini-reviews of each. If you'd like to add your two cents about the stores, email me at ruz AT cruzich.com and I'll add to this post.



STONE MARKET (West Building)

From West to East:

Golden Gate: 233-3677. Vietnamese food, including pho soup.

Dessert First: 448-1834. European-style pastries and desserts.

Tep's Fresh Seafood: 232-4065. Fresh and prepared fish and seafood.

The Bangkok Kitchen: 395-8079. Thai food.

Capital Box Lunch: 232-9323. Cheese steaks, wraps, and salads.

P&R Baked Goods: 350-5327. Homemade pound cakes and sweet potato pie.

Curry In A Hurry: 233-1202. Indian food.

Luna Pastel: 236-2121. All-organic breakfast, lunch and desserts.

The Corner Rotisserie: 364-6941. Greek food: gyros, baklava, Greek salad, soup.

BRICK MARKET (East Building)

From West to East:

Han's Frozen Custard: 645-9332. Homemade frozen custard.

Lebanon Valley Meats: 236-2518. Fresh and smoked meats.

Sinful Sweets: 238-4762. Freshly prepared desserts, savory bakery items, candies.

Lee's Produce: 233-1394. Fresh produce and fruits.

Brandt Farms: 238-4762. Flowers, plants, seasonal homegrown produce and fruits.

Stoltzfus Pretzels: 909-6904. Soft pretzels, pretzel rolls, lemonade, candied apples.

J.W. Seafood: 238-4762. Fresh seafood.

Stoltzfus Candies: 909-6904. Asher's Chocolates, premium nuts, old-style candies.

Kocevar Farms: Local fruits and vegetables, plants, flowers.

Caiti-Jo's Coffee: 267-825-1985. Fresh ground coffee, cappuccino, and smoothies.

Kabob House: 236-7120. Kabobs.

Market Gift Shop: 315-2787. Jewelry, ceramics, crystal, engraving.

The Culinary Garden: 233-8598. Bagels, sausage, salads, meats.

Hummer's Meats & Cheeses: 232-4150. Fresh and smoked meats, deli meats, cheeses.

L&L Country Meats: 236-3668. Country meats, sausages, prepared foods.

Nude Food: 236-8499. All natural dried fruits, nuts, spices, juice/soup bar, bread, tea, organic foods.

Beiler's Ice Cream: 234-7719. Hand-dipped ice cream, shakes, smoothies, dairy products.

Creations Of Family Muhammad: 234-7724. African cloth, clothing, incense, books.

Fisher's Donuts: 232-3101. Fresh baked donuts, desserts, soups.

Beiler's Poultry: 234-7719. BBQ chicken, ribs, fresh chicken and turkey products.

Fisher's Deli: 232-8522. Subs, deli meats, salads, cheeses, puddings.

Garden Fresh Produce: 236-0822. Local and international fruits and produce.

Cafe George: 234-8421. Diner serving breakfast and lunch.

Old School/New School Pampering in New Cumberland

I spent part of Saturday taking a break from baby preparations and celebrating my birthday. The lovely D-Jo make me an appointment at a massage therapist, and I preceded that with an old-school shave-and-a-haircut. Both places were within a mile of each other in New Cumberland, which made for an interesting contrast.



First up was Semoff's Barber Shop on 3rd Street, as recommended by my friend Brandon. Semoff's is as old-school as you can get, a third-generation barber shop with walls covered with photos, news articles, and memorabilia from the last 50(?) years, including autographs from Joe Paterno and Bobby Knight, among others, and a plaque marking the high-water mark of the 1972 flood. They specialize in military cuts -- it's apparently one of the few places you can get a razor-cut high-and-tight. I certainly didn't go that far, but I got a standard short back-and-sides and as an added treat got a shave as well and if anyone noticed, or cared about, my captive-bead earrings, no one said anything.

It was the first time I've gotten a shave like that and it was niiice. Very relaxing, and I got a great shave to boot. I'm sure I'll be going back there regularly - you can't beat a shave and a haircut for $18. Semoff's is at 205 3rd St. in New Cumberland and their phone number is 774-9816.

My next stop was Stevenson Family Massage, just over the creek. D-Jo had gotten a great massage from Shani a few weeks ago, something which passed from luxury to necessity once she hit the nine-months-pregnant mark. While she was there she made an appointment for me, which was awfully considerate if I do say so myself.

I haven't had a massage in a couple years and was really looking forward to it. I was not disappointed. Shani showed me into the massage room, which is in her house rather than in a storefront. Much homier and friendlier. There was nothing unusual about the massage -- it was your basic relaxing, new-age-music playing, scented-oil using massage, and it left me feeling rejuvenated. I highly recommend her for a massage, and apparently she also teached yoga so check that out too if you're interested. Stevenson Family Massage (her husband Tony is a massage therapist as well) is at 100 Ross Ave. in New Cumberland and their phone number is 571-2993.

Geocaching, The Susquehanna, And The 1996 Flood

I was surfing around for some geocaching links today -- I've never done it, but I'm thinking I might give it a try this summer. After all, it involves walking around outside, and gadgets. What more could you ask for? For those who are unfamiliar with it, geocaching is an activity where you use a GPS receiver to try to track down a "treasure" which has been hidden somewhere. It's like orienteering crossed with a scavenger hunt and it looks like a fun way to spend a weekend afternoon.

Anyway, when I went looking for geocaches in the Harrisburg area, I found one cache that appears to be hidden in the Sunken Garden, which I walk to almost every day either with Zo or the dogs. It includes a bunch of photos of Riverfront Park during the 1996 flood, which saw the Susquehanna River rise 15 feet in 14 hours and eventually tear the Walnut Street Bridge off its moorings and smash it into the Market Street Bridge. This one is my favorite:



The river has been rising and falling over the last few weeks, but of course it hasn't gotten close to that height. The first warm spell took it up over the walkway along the river, and when it receded, it left giant chunks of dirty ice along the walkway. It went back down, and then after the next rain, it was back up over the walkway, leaving a giant bathtub ring of mud along the side of the river. It was back down for a few days but as of this weekend it was up again, due to Thursday's rains. Here's the graph of river height from the USGS website:



(That's measured at the Market Street Bridge, by the way. And kudos to Mapquest for being the only mapping site that allows you to easily map by latitude and longitude.)

Have any of you geocached before? Is it fun? I figure I could take Zo along on the hunt for some of the easier treasures, especially ones like this which are walking distance from my house.

Harrisburg: The City That Doesn't Work

So we got home at the end of the day yesterday, after trekking up from Middletown and picking up Zo at the JCC, ready to enjoy the snow. I love snow, and now that I have a kid it's great to have an excuse to play in it. I was looking forward to this snow because, unlike the Valentine's Day storm (known around our house as The D-Jo Doesn't Get A Cupcake For Her Birthday Storm), this looked to be nice, fluffy wet snow that would be good for snowballs, snow angels, and the like. It was shaping up to be much better than the icy mess that we dealt with last month.

We're driving down Front Street (where, shockingly, people were still behaving as if it were a three-lane street) when I wondered out loud if the city would be plowing our street. We live on a narrow one-way street in Midtown, one that doesn't see much traffic at all, and as a result we're pretty far down the plowing priority list. Like at the bottom. Like we're still waiting for a plow after last month's storm.

After we finished having a laugh about the possibility of the street getting plowed (it's good to laugh), we turned onto the street, where we greeted by this:



Nice, huh? Apparently someone (I'm guessing it was a city worker, but who knows) started to plow the street, got about 1/3 of the way down the block, and then...who knows? Maybe his shift ended, or he got distracted, or maybe that was the exact moment that the storm bankrupted the city. For whatever reason, the plower just stopped, leaving a big wall of snow in the middle of the (only) lane of the road:



Now honestly, it could have been a lot worse. All I had to do was hop out of the car, grab my shovel, and spend about 10 minutes clearing the snow. But really, I should have had to spend zero minutes doing that -- that was 10 minutes I couldn't spend playing in the snow with my daughter.

I've been living here for just under two years, and I guess it's time for me to stop thinking that this city has some baseline of competence, like every other city I've lived in. This is, apparently, a city where the streets don't get plowed after major storms, where the members of the City Council get into fistfights with each other, and where the mayor can pretty-much single-handedly prevent a smoking ban from going into effect. Now that I know these sorts of things happen, I guess I should work on changing my attitude, and thinking of local governance more like a spectator sport than like the underpinning of society it's supposed to be.

Ah, well. The afternoon wasn't a loss, by any stretch -- we still got some prime snow-playing time in:

Passover Coke

Coke that's kosher for Passover -- made with sucrose (from beets and cane) instead of evil, evil High Fructose Corn Syrup -- is once again available in select markets.


Look for the yellow cap and stock up!

Something tells me Harrisburg isn't one of these markets, though OUKosher.org does say that Baltimore-Washington and Philly both are, so maybe some has found its way here. I'm heading out this weekend to find out. Meanwhile, which of my living in a big city and shopping at stores which would stock yellow-cap Coke are going to hook me up?

And no, before you ask, Mexican Coke isn't necessarily the same thing. Not all Mexican Coke is made with cane sugar. Which is not to say I don't enjoy a good Mexican Coke when I can find one, mostly because it comes in glass bottles, but also because the mix is a little different -- a little sweeter.

Restaurescat In Pace

Do you have a favorite restaurant in the Harrisburg area? Do yourself a favor and don't tell me about it. We've lived here for less than two years and have already seen six favorites close.



* One of the first things we looked for when we moved here was good sushi. Living in the Bay Area we were spoiled, since we had multiple places to choose from, from cheap (No Name Sushi on Church Street) to expensive (Kirala in Berkeley) and everything in between. There are a couple of decent spots in Harrisburg, but the best sushi we found was at Gobo Restaurant on Lucknow Street. They had a good selection, everything was fresh, and best of all they delivered! We actually went there for D-Jo's birthday last year, and it was our go-to spot for celebratory take out. Alas, they closed about a year ago.

* The next great find was this little hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese place just off Paxton called Pho Viet Nam. Their pho and spring rolls were excellent, and they were also the only Vietnamese place we'd found which served banh mi, the fantastic Vietnamese sandwiches. It was right on the route I'd take from work to home when the highway was backed up, and I found myself taking that route more and more, calling D-Jo and suggesting banh mi for dinner, a suggestion she rarely vetoed.

Then one day I drove by and the doors were locked and there was a big notice on the window that they had been closed for health department violations. Whoops.

We can still get really good Vietnamese at The Garden and great pho at Golden Gate in the Broad Street Market, but we are, sadly, banh mi-less.

* Right next to the Garden on Reilly Street was Cedar's Lebanese, above the used bookstore. It was a little pricey, but the food was authentic and delicious and it was walking distance from our house. A few months ago it closed, though I have since heard that it is re-opening on the West Shore. Too far to walk to, though.

* About six months ago another one of my culinary prayers was answered as the Al Madina Halal Grocery in Steelton started selling prepared foods. This quickly became our work lunch spot of choice, as I was glad to drive up from Middletown for fantastic shwarma, hummus, and fool. It was a good decision for Al Madina, since I started picking up things like olive oil, pita, and feta cheese every time I stopped in for lunch or dinner. It only took a few months, though, for the take-out part of the market to close up shop.

* Recently a post went up on Harrisburg Nightlife mentioning that it looked like Jackie Blue might be undergoing an ownership change. It eventually came out that yes, it was closing, to be replaced by an "alternative bistro," possibly serving fondue.

I loved Jackie Blue. Once again, being within walking distance of our house (and those of you interested in stalking me ought to have triangulated my position by now) helps, but every time I went there (Except the last time -- more on that in a second) it was great. Great food, excellent service, fantastic atmosphere. I took business associates from Montreal there and they were impressed as well, which made me feel a swell of pride for my little city. Heck, I went over there on Super Bowl Sunday to drink a couple of beers and take advantage of the giant HDTV behind the bar.

Our last visit was a different story -- after waiting for 15 minutes to be seated in a mostly-empty restaurant, we were seating next to the window, and as the bitter cold streamed in we noticed that everyone in the restaurant was freezing and TPTB appeared to be unable to remedy the situation. Undeterred (and late for our movie) we ordered our entrees, and I ordered a glass of house red wine.

A long while later, our food arrived, and on each of our plates the main item (my steak, D-Jo's chicken) was not hot. All the sides were, but the meats were lukewarm, telling me that they had come out early and sat on the counter while everything else was cooking. Disappointing, but not as disappointing as the fact that, when my food arrived, our server informed us that they were out of red wine.

Out of red wine? In a restaurant, at 8:00 PM on a Friday? I was too shocked to suggest he go behind the bar and grab another bottle and open it, but really I shouldn't have had to figure that out. We finished out meals and headed out, a bad taste in our mouths both figuratively and literally. I hope to get back there one more time before they close so I can leave with a positive memory.

* The last straw was last week. Over the last six months we've been driving out to Ephrata every few weeks to eat at the Nav Jiwan Tea Room at the Ten Thousand Villages store. It's a long haul, but the draw has always been that every week they featured the cuisine of a different country. It was amazing -- you'd go there one week for great Indonesian food, and you could go back a few weeks later for Ethiopian, or Malian, or Ecuadorean. It was all good, very authentic, and reasonably priced, and it was a great treat to have, say, Thai food, and have it be as spicy and flavorful as it is supposed to be.

I logged on last week to see what the upcoming countries were, and found this message:

The Nav Jiwan Tea Room will be closed from Monday, March 19, 2007, through mid-spring. Following this period of renovation and restructuring, it will re-open with a new format, offering fair trade coffees and teas and light fare.

I'm sure it'll be good, but I won't be driving nearly an hour each way for tea and finger foods.

So that's six special restaurants in under two years. We still have a handful of favorites: Mangia Qui/Suba, the first restaurant we ate at in Harrrisburg; Bayou, the current walk-to favorite; the Middle Eastern trio of Skewers, 2nd Street Kabob, and La Kasbah; and all the great places (Nonna's, Golden Gate, Curry In a Hurry, Corner Rotisserie) at the market. But given our history and the apparent fickleness (or uncomfortableness with unfamiliarity) of the dining community here, I fear for all of them.

Greetings Fellow Harrisburgers!

Thanks to the heroic efforts of Dave Sheranko, I am now being syndicated on Blog Harrisburg, an amalgamation of folks writing in and about the midstate. So this seems like a pretty good time to introduce myself.

I'm a 36-year-old guy, married, with a 2 year old daughter and another kid on the way (very soon, as a matter of fact). We moved to Harrisburg about two years ago and bought a house in Midtown. We love it here -- we love everything the city and surrounding area has to offer. I wrote Sunday about the idea of living in a city specifically because of what it has to offer, and I think Harrisburg has everything I'm looking for.

Of course, it has a lot more, too, like specifically the sort of bitter, windy cold that gives me flashbacks to my college days on the frozen tundra of southern Minnesota. But I'm sure before too long we'll be sitting out on our stoop, enjoying a summer cocktail and watching the neighborhood in the summer heat.

Anyway, I'm glad to be part of the Blog Harrisburg crew! If you're reading me because of a link from there, drop a note and say hello. We can share a virtual Troeg's and take bets on whether or not tomorrow's snow is going to cripple the region again.

I Think I Saw Tobey Maguire On The Train. Or Was It Elijah Wood?

Well the snowstorm we were expecting showed up in a slightly different format. We got about three inches of snow yesterday, and then overnight it turned to sleet and we woke up to a good old-fashioned ice storm, complete with beautiful ice-encrusted trees and impassable roads. Good times!

We stupidly forgot to call the JCC to see if daycare was open (it wasn't) so after driving up there and getting stuck in the middle of the road we turned around and came home. Well, we stopped at the Broad Street Market first to try to pick up a cupcake for D-Jo's birthday but the cupcake lady was nowhere to be found. So it was back home to try to chip through the ice, which I managed to do just in time for the snow to start again.



They're still saying up to 12" of snow today, so I think the decision to not try to drive into the shop was a good one.

Hooray For The JCC!

Zosia switched to a new school last week. OK, I suppose it's not technically a school, but it's more than a day-care center, too. Let's go with "early childhood program."

For the last year she's been at the East Shore YMCA, which has been extremely convenient. It's less than 5 minutes away and right on the way to work, and we got a free gym membership when we signed her up. So for us it was ideal.

For her, though, it was OK. Good but not great. The teachers are very nice but there didn't seem to be a whole lot of learning going on. I feel a little strange complaining about some of the things I didn't like -- lots of coloring on photocopied drawings, snacks consisting of discount sugary cereal -- because those things were done that way due to the shoestring budget they operate on. Other things were more significant -- for example, the Y lacked an outdoor play area. On warm days they would pack everyone up and go out to Riverfront Park, or even over to City Island, which was great, but most days their physical play consisted of a couple hours in the gym. And there were no art facilities, no sand or water tables or the like, no chances for the kids to get dirty.

Still, Zosia really enjoyed going there, she made her first real friends among the other kids, like I said her teachers (Monica, Margaret, and later Kasey) were great. Plus, you know, they totally potty trained her, which was worth the cost of daycare all by itself. Over the last few months, though, we sensed that maybe it was time for her to move on. She was getting close to the age when she'd move up to the next class up, and that class had gone through a significant amount of teacher turnover. The next result was, it seemed to us from observing during pickup and dropoff, lots of time spent watching videos and playing on the computer. Plus it seemed like the way discipline was doled out was different than in Zo's current class -- it's not that the teachers were rough with the kid, but they raised their voices more (and more quickly) than we would have liked. That might be how they thought they needed to deal with rambunctious three- and four-year-old boys, but it just seemed wrong to us.

So we started looking around and ended up visiting the JCC Early Childhood Center and loving it. The vibe was fantastic, with lots of kids of lots of different ages running around doing lots of stuff. There were art stations set up, water tables, books, dress-up, blocks, you name it. The teachers seemed extremely involved with the kids, and, to top it off, they have a huge outdoor playground that they use every day (as long as the wind chill is about 20 degrees). We were sold right as we walked in, and the more we learned (they're moving over the a Reggio Emilia program, they have weekly music and art classes, the JCC has a full gym and pool for us to join), the more we wanted to get Zo there right away.

Alas, we had to wait a few weeks since they were full. But they were working on hiring another teacher so they could increase the number of students while maintaining their ratio, and within a few weeks the new teacher was hired and Zo was in!

She started about a week and a half ago and I think she's really liking it. She already talks about her new friends (including Ben, with whom she discusses Blue's Clues and lollipops), and the things she does throughout the day. It just feels like she does more -- at the Y I feared that she was getting bored and therefore acting out a bit, and I don't get the sense she's bored at the JCC. In fact, I think they run her a little ragged -- she's been sleeping more at night and taking longer naps on the weekends -- which is great. Today the temperature is in the 30s and I'm psyched to think she's out climbing on the jungle gym.

Snow Coming

The first big snowstorm of the season is bearing down on Hbg. One to two inches are predicted for later today, with the possibility of six to twelve inches tomorrow.


It could be worse, we could be in Buffalo.

Apparently Blogger will not allow me to insert the forecast HTML from Accuweather, so click here to see the official advisory. The latest forecast actually calls for warmer temperatures, which means less snow and more sleety goodness.

So now here's the multi-million dollar question: do we get our streets plowed, thereby bankrupting the city, or do we get unplowed streets and a solvent Harrisburg? I grew up in the Chicagoland area, and I remember how a snowstorm led to the end of Michael Bilandic's career.

Your move, Mayor Reed.

GMap: Proposed Courthouse Locations

As an exercise to learn how to make Google Maps, I used www.yourgmap.com to plot the locations of all the proposed new courthouse locations.

Click here to see the map.

I'm happy to see that none of the 10 locations involve large-scale relocation of residents, the way the first three finalists did. Some of these look really good to me, and as a Midtown resident the two sites near me are especially interesting.

How do you feel about the proposed locations?

Won't Someone Please Think Of The Children?

The effort by Pennsylvania grocery stores to be allowed to sell beer hit a snag yesterday at a Liquor Control Board hearing. Senator John C. Rafferty, the Berks County Republican who chairs the Senate Law and Justice Committee, says he's worried that allowing beer sales in grocery stores will cause problems for the poor, impressionable teenagers who work in those stores:

"You have a lot of underaged people who work in grocery markets. I'm very concerned over the age issue. I'm very concerned over how it will be handled and the possible sale to minors."

I'm sure his concerns are based on solid research from the many states which allow beer sales in grocery stores, and has nothing to do with the fact that his committee oversees the PCLB, which is fighting to keep its state-sanctioned monopoly in the face of a desire for increased competition in the alcohol sales market.

What's it going to take for Pennsylvania to scrap its unnecessarily Byzantine liquor, wine and beer laws, and allow consumers the sort of choice that they're allowed in most states in this country?

The Sound Of The River

We've been having a cold snap over the last week, with only one day above freezing and several nights down in the teens. As a result, the Susquehanna River has lots of ice on it. The first time I drove down Front Street on Saturday morning, it looked like it was frozen over, which is far from being the case, although of course it has happened in the past.

I've had a chance to look at it every evening for the last week since we changed our evening routine a few weeks ago -- D-Jo is now on bathe-the-kid duty, giving me time to take the dogs for a walk. It's a responsibility we'd been slacking on, and D-Jo decided we needed to get back into the habit of a daily walk. If you have dogs, you should walk them at least once a day, and if you don't (and one of them is a 4-year-old, 90-pound Doberman), you are asking for trouble. Both dogs seem to be in much better spirits now that they're getting out regularly, which means they aren't quite as needy and annoying during the evening -- they're content to just sit on the couch with us.

Typically I walk the two blocks to the river and then walk for a block or so before cutting back over. Sometimes we end up walking down what I think is the prettiest block in Midtown, the 1600 block of Penn. Other times, though, especially when its as cold as its been, instead of walking on the bike path I go down the steps and right next to the river. When it's this cold, there's no one there, and I can let them off their leashes, take off Jake's muzzle, and let them run around like proper dogs should.

When I did that this evening, I heard a sound I hadn't heard before. It took me a while to figure out what it was, but once the wind died down I realized that the gentle muffled scraping sound I was hearing was the sound of the big sheets of ice rubbing together as the current carried them down the river. It was an incongruous sound to hear in the middle of a city, a little bit eerie, and very cool.

Perchance To Dream

It's a step...apparently two Philly-area grocery store chains are applying to sell beer and wine in their stores. I wrote the other day about Pennsylvania's archaic, cronyist liquor laws, so you can imagine I'm thrilled at this possibility. As I said before, coming from another state it's ridiculous to me that I can't buy beer at the grocery store (or Costco), and especially that, in order to buy less than a case of beer, I have to go to a neighborhood bar and pay $8-$9 for a six-pack. Personally, I stick with refilling my Troeg's growlers at the brewery, but I sure would like to be able to pick some up at the Giant as well.

One thing I didn't mention in the previous post is that I believe the current system discourages exploration when it comes to trying new types of beer. Unless you happen to live in a relatively hip neighborhood, the chances are good your local bar isn't going to stock a ton of beers for sale, and the same goes for the average beer distributor. Besides, even if there was an interesting beer for sale at the local distributor, having to buy a full case instead of a six makes trying new beers four times more expensive than it needs to be.

Of course, I could be extrapolating my personal experiences here. The bars around my Midtown house aren't exactly teeming with the sort of people who love to try the latest microbrew (as far as I know there isn't a beer distributor at all in Midtown, so my options are either that skeevy bar on Third Street or that other skeevy bar on Third Street), and the same could be said about the beer distributor by my office in Middletown.

It's all probably moot anyway, because the Malt Beverage Distributors Association of Pennsylvania opposes this request by Wegman's and Acme, and presumably any other request to overhaul the laws, because it might put beer distributors out of work. Hey, here's an idea -- why don't the distributors, you know, distribute? A true distribution system would allow the distributors to stay in business by selling to the retail outlets. That way everybody wins!

Sour Grapes

Jonathan Newman, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, resigned yesterday. If you don't live in Pennsylvania, this will probably elicit, at best, a yawn. For those of us in the Keystone, thought, this is a big deal. See, the state has a monopoly on buying and selling wine & spirits here. The only place you can buy wine and hard liquor are at state-run stores, and this guy was head of the organization in charge of this process. Therefore, this is legitimately big news.

He apparently did a lot to improve the selection in the stores, he instituted Sunday wine sales, and I believe he was responsible for the really nice search functionality on the Board's website. It would seem his resignation was due to Governor Rendell appointing a former state Senator to act as CEO of the board, at a salary more than double Newman's, which doesn't seem right considering how much Newman apparently did during his tenure.

Now I only moved to Pennsylvania 18 months ago, so I can't speak to whether Newman truly revolutionized wine buying in PA, but a couple of quotes in that Patriot-News story really caught my eye. The first is this quote from San Francisco Chronicle wine writer W. Blake Gray:

"In less than three years, Newman has transformed Pennsylvania from an enological backwater into arguably the best place in America to buy wine."

Gray gets bonus points for using the word "enological" (but not too many -- after all he is a wine writer, and isn't it supposed to be "oenological"?), but immediately loses those points for making a statement that's absurd on its face. I lived in the Bay Area for 6 years and if this guy seriously thinks Pennsylvania is a better place to buy wine than California, he's straight-up nuts.

The other killer quote is from Senator John Rafferty, in charge of the committee which oversees the PLCB, and obviously a big fan of Newman:

"He has completely modernized the sale of liquor in Pennsylvania and has moved us into the 21st century."

Into the 21st Century? Please. Nothing's more 21st century than the Internet, but you can't use the Series Of Tubes to ship wine to PA. Go to wine.com or wine.woot and try to ship a bottle of vino to me. You can't. No less an authority than the Supreme Court says you should be able to -- they ruled that preventing an out-of-state winery from shipping into a state is a violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution -- but PA hasn't gotten around to changing their laws to be, you know, constitutional. Anyone know how Rendell's draft legislation on this topic fared this fall?

But you know, allowing us to buy wine over the Internet is a big step. Why not start small, and let us buy wine in more places than just state-run liquor stores? If I'm having a party and I need to stock up on wine, beer, and snacks, I have to make three stops: at a Wine & Spirits shop, at a beer distributor (or bar), and at a grocery store. That is flat-out ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the chances of this changing anytime soon seem pretty slim. After all, there was $1.6 billion in wine and spirit sales in PA last year, and the state not only gets to collect taxes on that, it gets to make a profit, too. Why would they possibly give that up?