torley manor

Saturday I went to a post-honeymoon brunch gathering at Rick and Charissa’s where they showed us pics from their Paris trip and fed us. Allen and Jen brought tator tots, which was good cuz Rick burned the homefries. Tator tots and tofu scramble were enjoyed and then I accidentally added real milk to my earl grey. Bum deal - but i drank it. Waste not, want not, right???

After a fruitless attempt to find a replacement alarm clock for Emma (her’s is a pitiful creature these days with a snooze button that sticks and numbers that only light up halfway), I met up with Emma and Sarah at the Quiet Storm after they got off work. Food was delicious, but service was slooooooow.

After dinner Emma and I didn’t want to go home, so we decided to dash off to Ikea. We had no real need to whatsoever, but did get a chance to look at some possible new bedside lamps, new dining room tables and a few other things. We once again cursed the fact that all of their smallest couches are about 2 inches too large to fit into the alcove in our living room where we would like a couch to go. Damn you Torley Manor for your awkward proportioned living room!!

But anyway, we get done at Ikea and aren’t really convinced that its time to go home yet. Emma says “Isn’t there a mall out here?” to which I reply, “uh, yeh, i think.” So we decide to hit up the mall. We get to The Mall at Robinson, walk through the Sears and out into the greater mall. We round the first corner and who do we see sitting outside the Borders Express signing copies of his DVD’s ???? Rick Sebak!

For those not in the know, Rick Sebak is a director/producer of primarily documentaries who works through the local PBS affiliate WQED. Rick is responsible for the many Pittsburgh history documentaries made through WQED, many with silly names like “Things That Aren’t There Anymore”. Rick has been a topic of conversation around Torley lately on account of our friend Mike who also works at WQED. Mike mentioned the Torley Manor Mixtape Exchange Party (which is this friday the 14th @ 7:00 - bring a mixtape/cd, get a mixtape/cd - e-mail us for details if you are interested) to Rick, who it turns out is a mixtape fanatic. Apparently Rick has a gigantic mixtape collection and is super methodical in his mixtape making approach. And when Rick first found out about our party, he was considering coming, which would have been amazing. Sadly, he we already booked to be somewhere else that night.

So anyway, we figure we should go introduce ourselves. After hanging around for along time while some couple reminisced with Rick about Luna Park and Forbes Field for about 10 minutes, we got to introduce ourselves. Rick was awesome and was excited to learn more about our mixtape party. He checked on his iPhone to make sure that he really couldn’t be there (nope! doing another signing at Century III Mall that night). We decided to pick up a DVD and have him sign it. We went with “Things That Are Still Here”.