lonely fire

Having recently moved back in, here’s some of things I found whilst poking around in the basement:

My collection of various Grateful Dead memorabilia from when I was 15/16 (the poster is for a show on some mountain in CA in the mid-80’s, billed as “the highest GD concert in the world”):

the concert ticket from when I saw them in 1995 on their last tour:

my lava lamp:

my authentic Bob Ross Beginner’s Painting Kit:

my guitar string “sculpture”:

and finally, the cream of the crop:

my 6th grade biography assignment, “Good Trips, Bad Trips: The Beginnings of Jimi Hendrix.”

note especially my explanation of the title from the Introduction. How I got away with this in Catholic school, I don’t know…

and last but not least, my grandfather’s WWI medals and plaque, dated 1918, from when he was a soldier in the Italian army:

impressive, yes, but note the signature at the bottom:

“B. Mussolini.” Whether it was handwritten or stamped, I’ll probably never know (unless I get it appraised or something). Nonetheless, how many families can claim to have the signature of an infamous 20th century dictator hanging on their wall, hm? I wonder what else I can scrape up…

So, I recently moved back into my parent’s house (at age 26 no less). Last summer before she got sick, my mom had started to rip down wallpaper in one of the bedrooms so that she could paint it. When she started taking down the wallpaper, she discovered pictures on the wall drawn by my dad’s sister some 55 years ago….. This room is the room that I just moved into, and I before I finished the paint job, I took picture’s of Aunt Louise’s work…. The majority of these pictures can be found on my Flickr page, but I thought I’d include a couple here:

First, Mama Conneaut herself:

some jive hep-cat lingo:

put on yr. dancin’ shoes:

senior prom anyone?

before:

after:

So, during the times that I’ve been able to travel in the past few years, I’ve always made a point to do something outdoorsy and camper-like; be it bummin around Arches, drinking beers on the Craters of the Moon, sleeping under the stars in Spearfish, hiking around Rainier, or chillin with ponies at Assateague, etc. But I hardly ever manage to do these types of things around Pittsburgh…..

So I’ve been planning this massive post with info on all the local hiking trails just outside of town, to kind of spur along my own intentions of seeing many of these places for myself… And whilst doing some internetting for good sites, lo and behold, at the beginning of June, our good friends at the Carnegie Library already went ahead and compiled a comprehensive list of hiking trails in Western PA…. So dig in! Who knows, maybe you’ll even run into Brangelina pettin the wild cthulu’s mane at Ohiopyle….

And one last note about summertime and tunes- gotta say, this time of year makes me want to listen to nothing but CCR and the Rolling Stones (Exile on Main St. in particular). When I was 13, Chronicle was one of the first albums I ever bought with my own money (on cassette no less!), so all the green & humidity of Pgh in the summer just gets me all nostalgic….

For the past 3 years, 11 months and two days, I have spent approx. 37.5 hours a week of my life here:

But no more! This Friday is my last day.  :)  In the picture there, you’ll notice my Hasler WJ250 Mail Metering Unit, fancy-pants touch screen ‘puter (viewing a certain infamous message board), and that brown box there left of center? That has someone’s ashes in it. I mail a couple of those out a week (long story).

Yeah,  I was planning on having some long, thoughtful essay on the nature of work and capitalism and yadda yadda yadda, but I’m just happy to be done and moving on with my life. You can read Working by Studs Terkel at your own leisure. I used to think there would never be a job that I could work that I would be satisfied with; but now that I’m a little older and have a better idea of how the world works in general, I feel that what I’m moving on to is the best possible choice I could ever make. I’m a much different person in many ways since I’ve started this job, and thats a good feeling.

Yeah, so if you’re in town, meet me at Dee’s in Regent Sq. for some taters and burrs! :)