Road Trip Day Two . . . Can I Keep It Short and Sweet?

In order to keep my fans from migrating to my competitor's blog, I am going to summarize our second day in Pittsburgh in as few words as possible . . . I'm going to try my best to be terse and laconic:

1) we visited the Carnegie Science Center, which is quite a bit better than the Liberty Science Center (although I found being inside the submarine extremely claustrophobic);

2) while my wife and kids were watching a show in the Buhl Planetarium, I slipped off to the Jerome Bettis Grille in order to watch the noon Brazil/Chile World Cup game and found myself sitting alone, making strange noises at a giant TV, and drinking copious amounts of beer to mask my embarrassment, because every other person in the bar was in town for the 4 PM Pirates/Mets game, and they were doing their best to look at anything besides the soccer match-- though it was on the majority of the TV sets in the place-- so these people were watching baseball pre-game, or hockey reruns, or even looking at the autographs and memorabilia on the walls . . . they all seemed to be of the same mind, that if their glance happened upon soccer, they would turn communist or something worse . . . but my wife and kids joined me at half-time and an ethnic guy (Asian? Filipino? Colombian? all three?) from Long Island, who was also a soccer coach, stood next to us and we all yelled and rooted like crazy people, as the match was fantastic and went to penalty kicks, but even though they made a special announcement on the PA about the game and actually shut off the classic rock for a bit and played the volume, the baseball fans in the bar still refused to look at the game, they focused on their deep-fried cheeseburgers and got ready to enjoy an afternoon watching America's pastime, not some artistic sport that you play with your feet and head (and you heard me right, the Jerome Bettis Grille specialty is the deep-fried cheeseburger . . . I was tempted to order one until I actually saw the sort of person who eats one . . . 

3) we then hauled it up the hill into the Mexican War Streets -- the best name for a neighborhood ever-- and went on an epic quest in the epic Pittsburgh heat to find The Mattress Factory . . . a contemporary art museum with room sized installation pieces . . . and once again we were going against the grain, walking past a tide of Mets and Pirates fans, none of whom knew the way to this museum . . . but we finally found it and it was weird and eerie and dark and fun and mainly air-conditioned, much more exciting than an afternoon baseball game in 90 degree heat game could ever be;

4) and finally, my wife (and competitor) has banned me from using her pictures, so this is all I have to offer in the way of photography (and so much for keeping it short and sweet, but I'm better with words than with a camera . . . and that's not saying much).

An Original Photo by Dave