Posted by admin on Feb 8, 2009 in
Events Back in 2001 when I first started my “professional career” at Ripple Effects Interactive (Now BarkleyREI) one of our clients was the State of Pennsylvania. One of the first web sites I worked on updating was a micro site about Groundhog Day. While working on the web site I never made the trek to experience Groundhog Day but one day I would plan the trek to Gobbler’s Knob.
Groundhog Day over the years has become quite an event even being featured in the movie Groundhog Day staring Bill Murray and attended by thousands and thousands of people every year.
On Groundhog Day, February 2, 2009 I left Pittsburgh at 1:45AM to make the drive to Punxsutawney. I arrived at Punxsutawney around 3:30 AM in the morning, hopped on the bus to Goblers Knob for the Groundhog Day festivities. It is an interesting experience seeing thousands of people waiting for Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary to make his prediction. Every year 20,000 people take part in Groundhog Day in Punxy. Yes, that is right I was apart of the 123rd trek to Gobbler’s Knob!
The interesting part of Groundhog Day for me was seeing the “Inner Circle” as they are called wearing their top hats and tuxedos. They are the members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club who take care of Phil and put on the event of Groundhog Day.
After enjoying the festivities and seeing Phil (and his shadow), his prognostication of 6 more weeks of winter was made and I headed back home. I hiked out of Gobbler’s Knob back to my car a couple miles away and then drove back to Pittsburgh.
While others may go wait for Staten Island Chuck to give his weather prediction — nothing will match up to Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney.
Check out the photos from the event on my Groundhog Day 2009 Flickr Set.
Posted by admin on Feb 8, 2009 in
Activities Over the summer I joined a local group in Pittsburgh called Venture Outdoors, mainly for the reason I wanted to go kayaking one morning. Over the course of time I have debated doing other activities but never managed to get out to do them. Finally, I decided to give snowshoeing a try.
Brett and I registered for the event and headed up to Bear Run Nature Reserve in the heart of Laurel Highlands for my first snowshoeing adventure. While there wasn’t as much snow as would have been nice it was still an interesting experience. We ended up going up trails, down trails, even blazing our own trails as we hiked around the Laurel Highlands. The temperature was pretty cold but after a while of hiking around you don’t even realize the cold.
Check out the photos from the event on my Snowshoeing in Laurel Highlands Flickr Set.
Posted by admin on Feb 5, 2009 in
Activities Being super competitive in life and wanting more activities to keep busy with this winter I decided to join a dodge ball league through the Pittsburgh Sports League. American Eagle was sponsoring a team and not having played dodge ball in probably 15 years more Will and I decided to give it a go and join up. After playing several weeks of dodge ball at this point I have come to a few conclusions.
- I am horrible at dodge ball.
- Anyone wearing gloves while playing dodge ball instantly gets better.
- I should buy gloves to wear while playing dodge ball.
My first ever competitive game in our dodge ball league we were pretty much destroyed by a group of guys that were huge and of course wearing gloves. A loss 11-0 is not quite good for the ego but the experience was fun. Our league has continued for a few weeks and we will continue for a few weeks more and we have started to play better (anytime we don’t get shut out it is a good thing). Hopefully in the final remaining weeks of our league we will at least pull out a victory for the week, and if not at least I know that dodge ball is not a sport that I will excel at.
Posted by admin on Jan 30, 2009 in
Events Over the course of the past few years one of the few sporting events I have wanted to go too but never made it to was a Pitt Men’s Basketball game at the Peterson Events Center.
In the modern day era there is nothing more exciting then watching Big East Basketball especially when you have any one time as many as 7 or even 8 teams ranked in the top 25. On Monday January 19th, 2009 – I finally made the trek to Oakland and the jaunt up “Cardiac Hill” as some say and made it to “The Pete” to watch the then #4 ranked Pitt Panthers take on the #8 ranked Syracuse Orange.
The Panthers coming off a tough loss a few days before on the road at Louisville rebounded with vengeance to crush the Orange by 18 points. The opportunity to watch potential first round NBA Draft picks like DeJuan Blair and Sam Young play on there home court in a huge conference match up is as close to March Madness as you can get in Pittsburgh in January.
Posted by admin on Jan 30, 2009 in
Activities After attending a variety of bowling events and spending random nights at the bowling over time the decision was made to join a bowling league. After competing in my Pittsburgh Sports League events in 2008 Will and I decided to form a team for the Winter PSL Bowling League. From that point on the Nine Dash Heroes were formed and we hit the lanes on January 15th, 2009.
Prior to the start of our bowling league I made the executive decision to purchase my own bowling ball. Jay and I headed to the bowling pro shop and as a result I ended up with a nice new custom drilled finger tip style Brunswick Fury.
Learning to throw a new ball was a challenge – but slowly I am starting to get the hang of the new ball. The first week of our league we set our averages and then began competition on January 22nd, 2009. In the first week of actual competition we won all three of our games and our team set the bar with the highest scratch team game in our league, and the highest scratch team series. In addition currently I hold the current high scratch series for an individual, but I doubt that Will let my current score stand for much longer. Check out our league results!
Our league ends on March 5th, 2009 – but so far our first attempt at actual competitive bowling has been an adventure — and Thursday nights at Arsenal Lanes in Lawrenceville are surely an adventure.
Posted by admin on Jan 8, 2009 in
Events On New Year’s Day this year, after years of talking about taking the plunge, this year I finally did. I joined the Pittsburgh Polar Bear Club and made the plunge into the icy waters of the Monongahela River.
With water temperatures around 37 degrees and the air temperature outside at 17 degrees Fahrenheit I showed at the Mon Warf meeting over 400 other people to take part in the Pittsburgh Polar Bear Plunge.
After standing around in my flip flops and swim suit waiting for the official plunge time, finally at 9:30 I made the plunge into the Mon!
After getting out of the river, drying off, and heading back to the car I realized I made the plunge with my glasses on and as a result my glasses are at the bottom of the river. With a jolt o my system it is time for new glasses and a new year!
Check out the photos from the event on my Pittsburgh Polar Bear Plunge Flickr Set or check out the news story from the event.