Category Archives: Pro-PGH

You belong at the Union Project for the “You Deserve It” Happy Hour

Usually the Union Project is all about the community. But this Thursday the Unioon Project is about you, well you helping the Union Project help the community. On Thursday, Dec. 14th the Union Project is hosting the 3rd event this Holiday season and this event is all about fun.

You should join the folks from the Union Project (and me) for an evening of fun times to support the Union Project.

    There will be a silent auction with some amazing items. Don’t know what to get for your parents? Stop by the Union Project to bid on:

    -Dinner and a tour of Braddock with the Mayor of Braddock, John Fetterman

    -Two Quantum Theatre ticket vouchers

    -East End Gift Basket

    -A Family Membership to the Carnegie Museums

    -Haircut and styling for two by local famous stylist

      With music provided by the amazing DJ Omar-Abdul this is definitly going to be a great way to celebrate the holidays.

      I think the Union Project is one of the best things to happen to Pittsburgh. I didn’t know I needed a community center/meeting space/amazing cafe (you can see my previous posts on how much I love the Union Project and the cafe). until the Union Project opened. Now, I don’t know how I could live with out it.

Botanical Garden Bodaciousness

My usual response to growing things is a greedy, “nice garden, what’s edible?,” but I recently visited Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens new exhibit, which recreates a tropical forest environment in Thailand, and loved it.

For one thing, when the weather is maxing out at below freezing outside, it’s wonderful to walk into a tropical environment, where they have to keep the fans on and you get to take your coat off. Even better, because Phipps has focused on environmentally friendly building (oxide fuel cells, energy blankets, thermal massing and root zone heating for those of you in the know) there’s no need to feel guilty about wandering about in mid-70s weather in the middle of winter.

Best of all — the good folks at Phipps invited Buddhist monks to bless this Thai tropical forest so that it could be spirit-friendly, as well as eco-friendly.

Ellen James of Phipps explained, “Anytime there is new construction in Thailand, spirits who lived in the trees and the land have been distrubed and need to be welcomed back to the structure. The blessing was conducted by Buddhist monks but the ceremony has its roots in animism. There are two spirit houses in the tropical forest where the spirits can now live. In Thailand spirit houses are everywhere in front of small huts to large corporate headquarters. People leave offerings like flowers, rain water, cigarettes, and fanta soda.

Tom Anderson of MySpace fame, looks for friends on beta social networking site with barely 100 total members.

Lindsay’s Comments: Check out Humble Voice, its like MySpace, but way better and it is based right here in Pittsburgh. Awesome. Even Tom from MySpace, yes that Tom, has joined Humble Voice.

Tom Anderson, of MySpace fame, seems to think 136 million friends is just not enough! The guy who has become famous for being the President of one of the most popular websites on the internet has recently registered for a profile on Humble Voice, a new social network that was just launched in beta mode and only has 100 members. Tom claims on his Humble Voice profile that if he was going to do it (referring to MySpace) all over again, that he would do it like Humble Voice.

I find it hard to believe it could really be Tom out there looking for new friends or even bothering to stop and admire a small new operation. However, according to the founders of Humble Voice, they say it appears to be him by all aspects of his account. Interesting. In any case, it looks like Humble Voice could have a promising future with their unique approach to the social networking buzz.

PGH Trivia: Hill Street Blues

I was reading this article today from Bloomberg.com about liens on property in Pittsburgh, how much money is being made and how this complicates redevelopment.  Fun stuff, not so much (It is important stuff though and I reccomend you take a look at the article).  I learned this fun fact from the article – the Hill district was the inspiration for Hill Street Blues.  I did a double take and then went to check this out on Wikipedia (there is some amazing stuff on there).

The name of the show was based on Pittsburgh’s Hill District. Chief writer Steven Bochco attended college at the nearby Carnegie Institute of Technology and used the downtrodden Hill District as inspiration for naming the show.

The Wikipedia also has a page on the Hill District.