Greetings from Pittsburgh

I spent last night in Pittsburgh. I'm pretty sure it was a full moon and I'm absolutely sure things were weird.

In Ohio and Western Pennsylvania the high winds from the recent storm have literally been a disaster. Trees and tree limbs litter almost any street you drive down. Tens of thousands are still without power. Many schools are still closed. It's been a trying time for hundreds of thousands of people. Yet you won't catch anyone from Ohio or Western Pennsylvania complaining.

The storm after effects have indirectly impacted my life. I do my travel arrangements mostly last minute because my schedule is always changing. It was tough getting a rental car in Pittsburgh because so many people have come in to help with the storm damage or have rented a car because their car is now in the shop after having tree limbs fall down on them. I'm not complaining since my inconvenience was an extra 15 minutes checking 4 web sites instead of my usual one or two. I rented from a company where I don't have "points" (poor me) but I got a nice Pontiac Torrent - a small SUV I never would have thought to have rented.

The storm after effects also impacted my hotel accommodations. So many rooms have been rented by people without power, people like first responders and out of state electrical crews that most of the rooms are occupied. I ended up having to get a smoking room at a Holiday Inn Express (Holiday Inn is about my fifth choice for hotel stays). I didn't feel smarter for staying at the Holiday Inn Express either. To be honest - if anything I felt "oogey."

Let me explain. The smell of smoke and seeing ashtrays all over the room (even in the bathroom) made me think back to the 70's when that was common place. That made me think of this old-timer sales road-warrior I knew who explained that back in the day it was 50/50 that when staying in a hotel that you'd find a Penthouse or Playboy under the mattress. This made me start thinking of my room as seedy - and I explained my feelings about seedy hotels before. I almost decided to sleep in my clothes.

As far as the weird. I stopped at the Pittsburgh Chop House for dinner. As I was alone and as I expected to find a game on - I decided to eat at the bar. You can smoke in the bars in Pennsylvania but smoke has never bothered me (unless its a smoking room in a seedy hotel I guess). Anyway - I was eating at the bar but there was no game on. The Pirates were playing at home but the bar didn't have the channel. Being from Boston - that's almost unimaginable. And weird.

The really weird thing though happened while I was finishing up my meal. Next to me at the bar sat a lady in a wedding gown who was soon joined by her groom. After I offered my congratulations - the bride explained that this was her second wedding and that they were married that afternoon. They had a small reception and then they went to the chop house to have dinner alone. She thought it was perfect. I thought it was weird. Who gets married on a Tuesday? Who asks their friends and family to take a day off in the middle of the week to attend the wedding? There's some things a bride and groom should be doing in private on their wedding night but it never occurred to me to include having dinner as one of those things. Weird.