Explore the Concrete Beach

Finally a concert people are going nuts about before tickets are even available.

Lady Gaga will take the stage on the new Consol Energy Center September 5, for her Monster Ball tour.

Honestly, I think I might buy tickets, because I just like a spectecal and it’s at the new arena. Though I know it won’t be the first concert, but it will totally overshadow whomever performs their first.

As more information becomes available I will post it here. Ew.com is reporting tickets go onsale this Friday March 19th for all dates, but still waiting for confirmation.

As I’ve been talking to people on Twitter and at work everyone seems to be wrapped up in the Winter Olympics and this includes myself. The Winter Olympics > The Summer Olympics any day for me. I just enjoy the winter sports more, hockey, the sledding events, skiing, speed skating, snowboarding and many others, I enjoy watching them all.

So I decided to have fun and imagine Pittsburgh would host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. First off why 2022? Well the bidding process for the 2018 games is all ready closed and only three, yes THREE countries submitted bids and none are from the US since the US Olympic Committee put everything behind the failed Chicago 2016 bid. Denver was going to submit a bid.

Little known fact: Denver was awarded the 1976 winter games but declined. Ya, I know how odd.

So let’s imagine Pittsburgh 2022 (BTW I hated this slogan from Pittsburgh 250 and found many things wrong with it and that whole 250 celebration, that’s for another day though.) the Olympic committee is on a kick with making the games “green” and affordable for cities, and it does cost a lot so let’s use as many existing areas as possible.

Here are the some venues:

Heinz Field- Opening/Closing Ceremonies and Medal Ceremonies- This is a given as it’s the largest space we have in Pittsburgh to accommodate a lot of people. Extra bleachers can be added to bring up capacity to the middle 70,000 (BC Arena in Vancouver can hold 55,000).

7 Springs/Hidden Valley- Skiing events- This would be tough because of traffic, two ski resorts would have to share the wealth, and it’s an hour away. But in comparison Whistler is 2 hours away from Vancouver. Each would have to put a lot of work into creating courses suitable for international competition, but this is all pretend anyway.

Consol Energy Center – Hockey Medal Rounds/Figure Skating/ Short Track- I know why just the medal rounds for hockey, well hockey is the longest tournament in the Winter Olympics and the ice can’t have all the hockey markings for figure skating and short track. Since those two sports are held earlier in the 17 days there would be enough time to hold the medal rounds there.

RMU Island Sports Complex- Hockey/Curling – They would host the bulk of the hockey games to be played, which may also be shared with either a temporary venue or an existing ice rink. And since the Curling Club is housed there why not let them have this? It makes sense in my head at least.

David L. Lawrence Convention Center – Speed Skating- I know your thinking “how?” Well it has a ton of floor space so why not build a temporary speed skating rink on the site? If now a new venue would have to be constructed because typically these venues have to exist 2-3 years before the games begins. But it’s reusing what we have, I also thought about PNC Park, but the whole outdoor thing here wouldn’t work.

New Sledding/Ski jumping venue- This would have to be constructed somewhere and it would be permanent. It most likely would go out in the Laurel Mountains to keep all of the “snow” events out there.  

The Athletes Village- While I have no location in mind to put it I do know these apartments would be great affordable housing after the games were over. Well that’s the plan at least.

Olympic Cauldron- This one has me torn. I though well a cauldron above the fountain at the point would make sense. I also keep thinking the top of Mount Washington makes sense too as it can be seen anywhere in the city, but the Point just makes sense so I leave it up to debate as it doesn’t matter it’s not real.

There are other things I thought of, like an outdoor winter village where guests can play in the snow ride down ice slides, watch concerts etc…

In the end though Pittsburgh can’t even clear snow off of streets so the Winter Olympics are far out of reach, but its fun to dream and imagine the possibilities. The games would cost too much and there is all ready enough political red tape on the City, County and State levels that would need to make improvements to roads and transportation needed to host the game impossible.

It’s fun to dream.

So quick hits:

I’m going to duck as soon as some Pittsburghers see this. I’m glad Luke Iwonhahanannynannyenstahl (Ravenstahl) won on Tuesday. For all these people crying foul and how Dowd would lead this city yada yada yada… Where was Dowd’s presence? I don’t live in the city so I don’t vote for this, but I would have voted for Lukey.

Why?

1)      Dowd did nothing to convince anyone he existed and when I saw him on TV news all I saw him do was rant and rave about the current Mayor. Zzzzz…

2)      Why have people harassing people downtown on Tuesday walking through town during lunch and after work by people on every corner asking to vote for Dowd. Um… a lot of people who work in the city do not live there. One followed me as I walked up Grant even after I said I don’t live in the city.

3)      I never heard what he would do for the city. I saw no signs, no promotion and face it, all elections are based on promotion. His campaign was a failure no matter what is said. No clear message, just lots of ranting about a half built electronic sign from what I saw. You are what gets picked up on TV.

:ducks from flying tomatoes:

Michael Vick was released from prison. So what. He shouldn’t be able to play in the NFL again, but the NFL is a PR machine and some team will pay an outrageous amount for him. He did something very wrong and illegal, why should he get rewarded with it in the end just because he spent some time in jail? Seriously the NFL wants to make football a family friendly letting Vick back in will not help. It just shows you can do something totally illegal and someone will give you millions once you serve some time. Bad lesson.

I wrote my first complaint letter to Walt Disney World. I never had a problem there before until I received some ghastly customer service because of an incorrectly marked item. I’ll keep everyone posted on that when I hear back from them in “7-10” business days.

Enjoy the 3 day weekend (4 for some) and I’ll be back next week.

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

That was my feeling at the end of yesterday’s Super Bowl when the Steelers defeated the Arizona Cardinal 27-23 with only 35 seconds left in the game.

Actually I only let out the Woooooo! After I had a little heart attack when the Cardinals went down the field with 2:35 to go and scored.

Thankfully, though Ben marched the team down the field and with one great tiptoe catch by Santonio Holmes the Steelers regained the lead and the defense held at the end causing a fumble with :05 left on the clock and it was over and the city erupted in celebration.

When you live in a city like Pittsburgh, where the ups and downs of the day and the mood of the people are determined by how the local sports teams perform, it’s a pretty great day. And when we get our parade (Yes, the local government IS working on a parade, that we almost didn’t have) America will see like they did in February 2006 how much the city loves the Pittsburgh Steelers.

As I watched the coverage before the Super Bowl, I noticed a lot of networks wanted Arizona to win and they loved Kurt Warner (and apparently the cameramen love his wife as we got about 20 shots of her during the game), and the story of Larry Fitzgerald, and people love an underdog and NBC and some other networks almost got their stories. They were spoiled by an amazing drive by Pittsburgh.

Chris Collinsworth(less), whom I don’t think he said one good thing about the Steelers all day, is worthless if he can’t be fair to both teams. When the Steelers won he and, still bitter, Mike Holmgren just wanted to talk about Kurt Warner and the Cardinals. Yes, they had a great comeback, but they still lost.

The Steelers spoiled all of there Cinderella stories. Collinsworth(less) predicted at halftime that Arizona would score at least 30 points because they did so in their playoff run. Just because they did it before doesn’t mean they will do it again.  He never, ever liked the Steelers are he played for the Bangles.

I know the city is thrilled, but residents of Oakland, why do such a classless thing as burn couches, throw parking meters through storefront windows and act like jackasses? Have some class you dumb drunks. Oh and if your going to do it, then don’t do it when there are 100s of camera crews around catching you on tape or doing it while the local news in on a Live shot showing you pouring lighter fluid on a couch and igniting it. Why to go, I hope you got arrested.

I hope Ben and Santonio enjoy there trip to Disney World today as they will be in the afternoon parade as part of the “I’m going to Disney World” campaign.

Congratulations Pittsburgh Steelers! SIX TIME Super Bowl Champs!

I know a silly title, but one I will explain.

On Tuesday’s and Thursday’s I have class after work. Woo! MBA! 

I have time to kill. Actually at this moment I am doing just that

I’m sitting inside Bruegger’s on 4th Ave in downtown Pittsburgh sucking up some free Wi-Fi, but more importantly, I just ate one of the best sandwhiches EVER… The Chicken Roadhouse.

A cooked chicken breast, a little bacon, american cheese, ciabatta bread  and the best honey mustard you have ever had!!! And that’s what makes the sandwich, the honey mustard.

Why?

Because it’s more honey than mustard. You know how you how honey mustard is usually runny and most of the time is a little, well, blah? Well this honey mustard is as thick as molasses and it you get it on your hands  forget it you’re licking it off your hands for the next hour. Try a napkin you say? Nope not gonna work you just have pieces of paper stuck all over your hands.

So if you looking for a really awesome sandwich and you just happen to be at a Bruegger’s Bagels, try the Roadhouse Chicken sandwich. You will not regret it.

Another cold Monday here in Pittsburgh.

All the news stations were doing live reports from the airport covering the Steelers trip to Tampa. A note to news reporters, it’s just Tampa not Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is a body of water. I don’t think you want to say “they will be landing in Tampa Bay….” I don’t think the team would appreciate that.

Tomorrow is media day so every TV show will have someone there. I usually watch Jay Leno because he sends out someone all the time and it’s usually entertaining.

I can’t wait for the game on Sunday. Let’s hope it’s a Steelers win!

This weekend I worked at the mall.

It was OK I sold a lot, but there were a few returns from odd places. Like a store in Las Vegas. Did you know Las Vegas has a 7.75% sales tax? Does Las Vegas really need a sales tax? Between Vegas and Reno doesn’t that make enough for the whole state?

Any way the girl who brought back these Versace’s was like Oh I bought these in Vegas 2 days ago and I just wanted to return them. This to me says, “I wanted to have fancy glasses while out in Vegas but since I’m back in Pittsburgh I can stop pretending to be fancy and I’m returning these because I’m just cheap.”

Seriously it gets annoying when people buy sunglasses for vacations and return them a week later. It makes you look cheap. When you stop by and say “I need a pair of sunglasses” and we spend a good amount of time helping you find the right pair and you come back a week later because you really just wanted them for a week, you didn’t need them if you’re returning them.

Plus people don’t realize when that happens we lose money. When sunglasses are returned what ever commission we made off of them originally comes out of our next check. Its one thing if you tired them out and you didn’t like them, or there was a problem with them, or something broke on them. Hey no problem, but it’s when you specifically bought them to just return them a week or a few days later because you wanted nice sunglasses for that amount of time. It’s really taking advantage of a company’s policy.

Whew! Sorry for the tangent.

Sunday, I sat home and read my chapters for class then went to my sisters and got a shock when I opened the garage door to see snow covering everything. Seriously it wasn’t supposed to snow this bad. Pittsburgh weather people suck for not being able to predict this stuff. Today when I look outside my office window I see that that river is frozen, so you know it’s been cold.

I really want to get out of town to warmer weather soon, but I have class and my only break is the first week of March. Oh well the sacrifices we make for higher education.

Oh, another store is closing at the mall, Arden B. That makes 23 or something. Also the mall manager and assistant manager got canned last week. Wil there be change on the way? 

That’s it for now.

Later!

I still can’t believe this weekend. The game right now was all a blur and that’ OK by me as I was probably an emotional wreck.

First there was the Penguins game. They so needed a win and they got one. Way to look sharp for once Pens, especially winning 3-0 against one of the best goalies in the league. Fluery was a wall when need be, but he didn’t have too many difficult shots to block thanks to the play of…well everyone. Best team effort all year.

Congratulations to Chris Minard for getting his first goal in the NHL well deserved.

While the Pens game was finishing up. I was standing in a parking lot across from PNC Park tailgating. There was a sense of nervousness in the air as many people who stood around me have been there before and left disappointed.

Everyone knew what was at stake we didn’t need news people to remind us, even though they milled about the lots ready to ask, “Do you know what this game mean?”

Seriously, people may be drunk, but they know “what this game means.”

The wait in the parking lot felt forever. Some people had the Arizona/Philly game on keeping tabs of the score of that game. At moments it felt like time stood still. As each second passed it felt like an hour. By about 4PM everyone was ready. Many seemed filled with nervous excitement, but ready to go, but there was still 2 ½ before the game.

At about 5:30PM we left the tailgate and headed toward gate “A” like we did 11 previous times this season (2 exhibitions, 8 regular seasons and 1 divisional play-off round).

Walking to the stadium on any given game day is exciting, but this was the AFC Championship game. The closer you go to the throngs of people waiting to go through security you can feel the energy of the fans. Yes, there were a few Ravens fans scattered through the crowed and kudos to them for showing up. Got to have respect for a fan that travels to another stadium for a game and are brave enough to show their colors.

Finally, made it into Heinz Field in about 10 minutes. Thanks for the quick and efficient security checks this week. I still remember what a disaster that was the Dallas game trying to get in.

As I traveled the escalators to the top level, I looked at the Carnegie Science Center which was projecting lasers on their building. The weather cone had the Steelers emblem the side of the Omnimax rotated between a few phrases like, “Here We Go Steelers!” I then looked across the river at Mt. Washington to see that those same lasers were being projected on the side of the “hill.” It was pretty cool.

The next 60 minutes were a blur until the 4^th quarter. I remember looking over at the scoreboard seeing 15:00 on the clock and at that point I wanted to throw up. Those last 15 minutes were painful as everyone was excited, but once again, nervous. All that nervousness turned into excitement when Troy Polamalu intercepted that Joe Flacco pass with 4 ½ minutes left and ran it in for 6 and the place went wild. You could feel the ground move and I mean MOVE. The upper level of Heinz Field can shake like a springboard at times and at that moment you would think you would be taking off into the air at any moment.

Then Tyrone Carter ended it with a fumble recovery on the scariest moment of the game. When Ryan Clark landed a strong hit on Willis McGahee, which left Clark dazed and McGahee leaving on a stretcher, which is never good, but thankfully he will be OK.

A few plays and a few kneel downs and it was over and the place exploded. The stadium PA system blared “Here We Go” and a few other songs while the assembled the makeshift stage to present the conference trophy. That part took forever, but as Jim Nantz said, “No one left,” except for the few Ravens fans who…well, flew the coup.

They showed the front page of the Post-Gazette which read, “Here We Go (Again!)” the hats and shirts were given to the players. Some players ran over the North end zone and the two side lines and jumped into the stands with the fans in celebration. Hines Ward, gimp knee and all ran down the sideline high fiving fans; it was just a surreal moment I won’t forget.

It was Mike Tomlin who, always humble in any speech or talk he gives who gave the most sincere thanks to the fans I have ever seen a coach give. I know all, well I’ll say most, coaches really do appreciate the fans, but it was the way Tomlin said it you knew it was true.

As I walked out of Heinz Field we decided to walk the ramps down. Those ramps were filled with excitement as people were singing and high fiving each other. I caught a glimps of the laser messages again, “Tamp Here We Come” and the one on Mt. Washington shown in giant letters “AFC Champions.”

It was over and I couldn’t have been more excited and dazed at the same time.

But it’s true the Steelers are once again AFC Champions and on their way to Super bowl XLIII.

So much is going on around here and in the nation as it is Inauguration Day and Barack Obama will be our new President. So it’s an exciting week all around.

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“I’m over this weather!”

I’ve said that line about 80 times over the past week as each day grew colder and colder.

Let’s take a look at the weather report from earlier today.

-7.

Yeah, I’m over this weather.

Last night I had to walk to class from my office and then walk back afterward. I thought I was going to freeze to death. The walk back was painful.

Even with a hat, gloves and a nice big winter coat I was still freezing. I couldn’t feel my nose when I reached the garage. It was amazing how warm the parking garage felt. It was still cold in there, but compared to the outside temperature it was like a heat wave even though it was probably 15 degrees in there.

I’m glad that today is not the Steelers game; temperature for the game will probably be the high teens to low 20s better then -7.

Have a great weekend everyone and stay warm!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

That’s the only way I could describe this morning with the 4 degree temps and -22 wind-chill that settled in on Pittsburgh.

I should’ve worn thicker pants to work as when I walked from my parking garage to my building my legs were freezing. And if it’s this cold I want to see snow and lots of it.

A lot of things seemed frozen this weekend.

The Penguins put on a pitiful performance at Mellon Arena Saturday getting crushed by the Toronto Maple Leafs 7-3. Pathetic. It amazes me how the Penguins can look so good one game and the next play like a pee-wee midget team that doesn’t know how to pass or protect the puck. Hopefully they get a boost by getting defenseman Ryan Whitney back. I will be at the game Tuesday against “Pittsburgh South” AKA the Tampa Bay Lightning.

We’ll see how that goes.

Then yesterday the Steelers played a pathetic game against the Tennessee Titans, losing 14-31. Ben Roethlisberger needs to learn to be the QB he once was and the offensive line just needs to learn what an offensive line is suppose to do, which in case they need to know is protect the QB and open up holes for the running backs.

I remember listening to a radio show a few weeks ago when a player from the offensive line was complaining that when they do something good you don’t hear about it, you only hear about the bad. Um…yeah…hello it’s like me saying, “You never hear a thing when I do my job right at work, only when I screw up.” It’s your job, so when you don’t hear anything about how you’re playing, your doing well.

I also ventured out to the mall this weekend. It was a pain to get to and park, but the mall itself wasn’t crowded. Looked like a normal Saturday to me. Some stores, like Brookstone, were busier than others, but nothing to bad.

I’m now going to hole myself in a conference room and input test scripts into a computer. I have to go hide in a conference room because, if I don’t, I will be bothered at my desk all day by the co-worker who lacks common sense, sneaks up behind me, and asks awkward questions that can be answered by the person who sit directly across from him.

OK, time to hide for the day.

Later.

Hello from Monsoonburgh…err…Pittsburgh. I can’t believe the amount of rain falling at this moment. I sort of wish it was snow because that would almost guarantee a white Christmas, but if this rain were snow there would be about 2 feet of it all ready and I would just complain about that.

So I was reading the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette off my iPhone, since their website crashes my computer for some reason, but anyway I was reading the A&E section because I am a follower of local TV and Radio.

There are nice stories in today’s PG about Andy Gastmeyer and Marilyn Brooks both whom are retiring. So make sure you read those stories, because it’s always sad when someone you see on TV almost everyday is gone.

Which leads me to something that was buried in yesterdays TV notes. Jon Burton is leaving WTAE after 8 years on December 31^st.

This is sad to me. WTAE is one of my favorite stations and JB, as he was known, was one of the best sports reporters in Pittsburgh. There was something in his delivery of sports that didn’t feel fake. Also, if you ever hear him on the DVE Morning Show, he was a funny guy.

In a statement from General Manager Rick Henry said the JB’s position was eliminated “due to economic condition.” It’s sad that was the reason they gave, but Burton seemed to be in good spirits about it and was very classy, as expected, in his statement saying, “I am excited to move on to the next phase of my career. I enjoyed my time here. This is a class organization through and through.”

See, a classy guy.

No replacement has been announced, but WTAE has one of the smallest sports departments, so I’m kinda surprised he got the boot. Who are they left with now Guy Junker who usually does weekends and Tim Benz, a fill in who, honestly, I don’t care for.

I have met Tim Benz in person several times, each was more off putting then the next, and someone needs a dose of humble pie. Once again, my opinion.

Maybe Jake Ploeger can fill in for a bit as he started as a sports reporter on WTAE before moving to weekend anchor, doubtful though.

I’ll have to write about local TV news at some point, just because I have opinions on the styles of the three local newscasts. Here’s my ranking just to show you WTAE, KDKA, then WPXI.

I’ll blame one person for all of this!

Yes, Sid Bream, this is your entire fault still!

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