Walkway Between Two Houses

Two Houses, No Pruning

From The Southside

Pittsburgh Skyline

Dead Bat Encounter

Deceased Myotis lucifugus

An untimely end for one of the healthy bats not suffering from White Nose Syndrome.

Stairway of the Damned

Condemned Stairway

Like Lemmings Off A Cliff

Coast Guard on the Ohio River, Pittsburgh

That dread time is nigh upon us, the G-20 and thousands of law enforcement officers have descended upon the city. Reportedly the reason that Pittsburgh was selected to host the summit is because 17 other cities turned down the honor. Which means we were picked because we're easy and said 'yes'. It's going to be nearly impossible to get into downtown starting, I don't know, yesterday. The rivers are even closed off to boat and barge traffic.
MK is coming to my house this weekend because I promised to give her candy and a foot rub. I probably could have skipped the candy dangling, foot rubs seem to be a big motivator for her.
Anyway, that is it. Pittsburgh is a ghost town patrolled by the legions that chased us out and shut us down. It'll be interesting to see what sort of protests take place. I should grab my camera and venture forth to capture this historic event, but I have a fear of being tazered by a rattled cop in riot gear.
At least on Saturday we're taking advantage of being in parts north of the city and going a hike with the Pittsburgh Wilderness Women. Great name for a club. Makes me wish I still had that coonskin cap from childhood.

Fringe 2.1

Fringe 2.1, "A New Day In The Old Town"

First, Agent Dunham returns to her world proper, in smashing fashion, crashing through the tinted windshield of an SUV.
Second, we've got an interloping assassin, a soldier shape shifter, possibly from the alternate universe, on a mission to interrogate and then neutralize Dunham. Orders given by a self typing typewriter. This post would certainly be more arbitrary, if not more interesting, if I had one of those.
For her part, after the smash and crash, Dunham is reportedly brain dead, lying in a persistent vegetative state in the hospital, until, that is, she comes to her senses in a fit of Greek. Believe me, in the context of this show, it all makes perfect sense.
The would be killer takes on the guise of Dunham's attending nurse and soon discovers that Dunham can't recall anything yet from her visit to the other side. She's still a bit brain dead, not all brain dead, just a smidgen. The nurse/soldier attempts to strangle the bed-ridden Dunham, only to be shot by new-on-the-Fringe- scene Agent Jessup, who is accompanied by Peter and Agent Charlie Acevido. The nurse/soldier, shot twice in the back, jumps out a window and flees to through the cargo bay into the hospital's basement, or, as realtors like to say, Lower Level. Charlie encounters the nurse/soldier first, near the incinerator, and squeezes off two quick shots before the scene cuts to Peter and Jessup. When they arrive the nurse/soldier is dead and there's a device used to facilitate the shape shifting lying on the cement floor.
End of story? Not so fast. Charlie, Agent Acevido is later dumped into the incinerator by none other than the nurse/soldier, now FBI agent/soldier, what killed him.
A few thoughts:
Who is going to do the autopsy on the nurse's body? Two things will present themselves to them at this time: She was shot only once, not four times, and the wound was post mortem. Oh, a third thing, she died of a broken neck.
Nina Sharp and Deputy Director Broyles kissed!!! To say that I did not see that coming does not do my myopic vision justice. Completely blind-sided.
The Greek phrase that Dunham uttered upon her miraculous recovery was something that Peter's mother used to say to him every night at bedtime. "Be a better man than your father."
Jessup seemingly has found a possible link between the Fringe Files and the book of Revelations.
An episode of The X-Files was playing in the background when the first guy was murdered.

Finally, best Walter lines:
"He invented the Ho Ho!"
"That is correct, Astericks."
I wonder at what point he'll just start saying 'Astrid'.

Note/Book

I pick up a lot of books second hand. You never know what you're going to find at a yard sale, a thrift store, the library. Sometimes I stumble across a true treasure (like the first edition of Tales of Sherlock Holmes), and sometimes I come across things people have left in books (cards, letters, bills, photographs). The latter fell in my lap today, a card and several cat pics. The card was from a mother to her son, written March 9, 1999, while he was in rehab to deal with alcoholism. It seemed invasive to read the card, so I set it down, but then I picked it back up and finished reading it. In a hand that was not easy to decipher she wrote lovingly of how she much she cared for him, but how he has to get this help so that he can manage the disease and move forward with his life, and how she and Newton (the cat) are always there for him.
Of course then I wondered what's happened to this man, his mother, and the cat in the last 10 years. Did he get sober? Did it stick? Is the cat still alive? Are any of them still alive? Will I write a letter to Reichter while he's off at basic training and he'll use it as a bookmarker and then someday someone else will come across what I said to him? Imagine how the tendrils of our lives get flung so far afield, falling into random hands.
Maybe we should all leave a note in a book.