Photos from our trip to Pittsburgh.

Lorin looking out the hotel room window and drinking her morning coffee. Action shot!

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View out our window. There was an annoying plastic film stuck on it, so the images are a little fuzzy. That's the west end bridge over there.


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The fountain at Point State Park. It raises and lowers itself in real time as a function of windspeed. I sat and watched it for a bit, pretty darn cool. That diamond shaped thing down there is the outline of Fort Duqesne. (pronounced DOO-cane, not DOO-kes-knee.) Apparently the french pioneers had a fort right on that spot. Good choice, they had a great view of the fountain and the bridges. Rumor has it that when the german Heinz showed up to make his ketchup the French surrendered and floated down the river to New Orleans and began drinking heavily.


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Here we are at breakfast. I love breakfast in the northeast. Diner coffee, cigarrette smoke, and 'healthy' means they cooked it in butter, not bacon grease.


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While I can't prove it, I think my toast was used to clean up the spill from an overturned butter truck on the highway. If we lost power, I could have lit it and used it as a torch, like Indiana Jones, to find my way out of the restaurant. Or I guess I could have followed the orange glow of cigarrettes as the locals made their way out. I'm not complaining, I like butter. If Reagan were a true visionary, he would have had it declared a vegetable along with ketchup.


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Here is the lovely Lorin photographed in front of the 6th street/Clemente bridge. PNC Park (Pirates baseball) is in the background. She is making her "My boyfriend-takes-more-photos-than-a-Japanese-tourist face.


   

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Check out this building. I don't know what else to say.


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Here is the lovely Lorin in front of the commermorative plaque by edge of Fort Pitt. Lorin is making her This-is-a-very-interesting-historical-site face.


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This is why I simultaneously love and hate mankind. No vehicles. Tire tracks. Note the van back there. As the day went on, more cars drove back there.


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Here is the commemorative plaque for Fort Duquesne. It's got a little floorplan.Ultimately it was abandoned because it was a bitch to find furniture that fit the rooms properly. Kind of like those weird round houses they build.


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Looking back on downtown/the hotel from the fountain. Note that while other people are wearing short sleeves, Lorin has a sweater on and is bunching her hands up. She's from Galveston. Anything below 85F is too cold. Just off to our right there was a guy laid out and sun-tanning.


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The waiting room of the Duquesne Incline. For the uninitiated, the incline is a single car train that goes straight up the mountain. It's a pretty neat invention. It costs $1.75 to ride one way, and they only take exact change. There was an old guy in the booth, and I had six one dollar bills and a fistful of yuppie food stamps. ($20s) I gave him the six, and told him I'd get change up at the top. He pointed at me and said, "You owe me a dollar!" Needless to say, I made sure I got a dollar and I did pay him back.


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When that light turns green, you go in and get into the car. Note the 4th grade history project hanging there telling you about Cincinnati's inclines. Don't get me wrong, the incline is way cool, but am I supposed to think, "Wow, right after we come down, we're going to Cincinnati to ride theirs!" or is it supposed to reassure me? "I'm sure it's safe, they have them in Cincinnati!"


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Old coal stove? I can easily imagine cold, snowy winter days. People have been working hard in the mills, they've trudged over the bridge, and they're inside waiting for the incline. The people seated closest to this have steam rising off their wet clothes. The whole room has that hot, humid feeling that is reassuring during winter.


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Looking up the track. It's steep I tell ya.


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View from the top of Mt. Washington. Heinz field. (Steelers football for you cave-dwellers.)


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Fountain, PNC Park, lots of bridges (jeez, it's like they used to get cheap steel around here!)


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Downtown. I'm not sure why this is tilted, we hadn't had lunch yet. That's the Fort Pitt bridge. Note: everything in Pittsburgh has something to do with Carnegie, Heinz, Pitt, or Duqesne. It's the analog to Texas where everything is named after Travis, Houston, or Austin.


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Zoomed out. It's a pretty city.


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Full of bustling young executives on tiny cell-phones. "I want that deal done by noon today. Fax the contract to my secretary, Lee. Hopefully he won't f*ck it all up again. Last time he stapled himself to the copy table and had to chew through his suit coat to get free. It took him three days. It was horrifying - from Tuesday to Thursday of that week, everytime you went into the copy room, he was in there whining and gnawing, like a dog in a trap. Oh and the smell..."


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More city.


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A tugboat rearranges some barges. The driver (captain?) did a neat maneuver to hook up and move a barge. I'd explain it, but it's hard to do, and you probably don't really care. If you do, go run around the block a few times. It'll fade.


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Lorin walking back along the Fort Pitt Bridge. Please note that this is an ART SHOT with the railing in the corner like that, receding into infinity. The composition is meant to convey a sense of direction and motion. The hard steel railing disappears to a point in the distance. The human figure walks alongside it, guided to that singularity, which represents her destiny, or maybe a flight of stairs. From left to right the trees and hills come down and are transformed into buildings and a city. It the progress of mankind. Finally to the right the conclusion - the massive bulk and strength of a big steel bridge. The human figure crosses the bridge, suspended above the waters below that threaten to sweep her away to a different world. What will she do? Does she have free will? Will she follow the railing to her destiny? Will she leap off the bridge and choose a new, albeit somewhat shorter life?


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No, she just keeps going, leaving her boyfriend far behind while he jacks around with his stupid digital camera and making up bullshit art critic nonsense.

Keep this in mind next time someone 'explains' a painting, or a photograph, or someother piece of art to you. They're most likely making it all up on the fly just like i just did. It isn't that hard. Try it.


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Here's me, my dad, and my sister. People are constantly trying to keep up with us.

That's it.