Some of you might know that I'm an avid reader and fan of Pirates P-G beat writer Dejan Kovacevik. I read everything he puts out, and I often take for granted the outstanding insight he provides into my favorite baseball team and (and I think this is where most of you should take interest) my favorite city. Dejan speaks of Pittsburgh the way I hope I speak of Pittsburgh, with the realization that Pittsburgh is a flawed yet unique and beautiful place to live that Pittsburghers should be proud to call home.
Part of my nightly routine before I go off to bed is to read the P-G's Pirates coverage (mostly written by DK) that's published every night at midnight. (Fun fact: In China, it was my pre-lunch routine at noon.) I just finished his weeknightly Q+A (which is only found on the Internet) and wanted to point you all to it, because Dejan has a lot to say about cities and Pittsburgh and perspective this evening, all of which I found very interesting. He continyes tonight with a series of "Things That Make Pittsburgh Great" that he includes each weeknight when the Pirates are on the road (which sounds terribly confusing, I'm sure, to a non-baseball fan) and tonight the Bucs won in Denver.
If you don't have any interest in baseball or in specifically a pretty bad baseball team, that's fine, but I hope you (by, perhaps, spending a few days following his Pirates coverage) can appreciate the seriousness in which Dejan does his work and reports on a city and its baseball team, and I'm glad his thoughts and observations are a part of my daily reading.
On another note, it made me exceedingly proud tonight (as the group I traveled with to Sweden gathered at my house to look back and look forwards) to hear Arianna, who has started blogging here, cite Russ' thoughts, from his blog here, in our conversation. (It wasn't only through hyperlinks, I had used what Russ wrote here to initiate some conversation in youth group a couple of weeks back.) I try to take my life, conversations and connections on this Internet seriously and use them, not for viral videos and forwarded e-mails, but for a conversation that we otherwise could never have. It really made me proud and happy. I've never specifically realized or thought out all of the things I try to pass on to the younger generation as I work at my church, specifically, but some of these things I've been blogging about tonight vaguely (like place, stories, community and conversations) are certainly some of those things.
Part of my nightly routine before I go off to bed is to read the P-G's Pirates coverage (mostly written by DK) that's published every night at midnight. (Fun fact: In China, it was my pre-lunch routine at noon.) I just finished his weeknightly Q+A (which is only found on the Internet) and wanted to point you all to it, because Dejan has a lot to say about cities and Pittsburgh and perspective this evening, all of which I found very interesting. He continyes tonight with a series of "Things That Make Pittsburgh Great" that he includes each weeknight when the Pirates are on the road (which sounds terribly confusing, I'm sure, to a non-baseball fan) and tonight the Bucs won in Denver.
Thing No. 53 that makes Pittsburgh great: We are a terribly insecure people.
We always want to know what everyone thinks of, and we always are surprised when they like us, they really like us.
A history buff might suggest that has to do with our polluted industrial past. After all, who could brag about a place that was immersed in darkness in mid-afternoon?
Someone else might say that the mass exodus of jobs in the late 1970s and early 1980s, one of the greatest in American history, contributed. After all, how happy could anyone be with a place that was being virtually abandoned?
Whatever it is, it most surely applies.
Eve Picker, a loft developer in the Downtown and Strip areas, hails from New Zealand. Way before it became cool -- or profitable -- she was buying up vacant buildings and converting them into residential properties. And, as I recall from the one conversation I ever had with her, she was doing so with a sense of bemusement that so few people here seemed to appreciate what he had or, potentially, could have. As she put it, it took an outsider to come in and show us. There is a lot of that going on.
The Uruguayan guy who designed the convention center was inspired by the flow of the Three Sisters bridges, a view he glimpsed from driving atop the Fort Duquesne Bridge. Might someone here have noticed that?
The travel writers around the country who come here and glow about the place point out things in a way some of us never could see or, in some cases, never have taken the time to see.
It is a somewhat endearing trait, in a way, that we care what others think about us. But it also illustrates plainly that we do not think enough of ourselves.
Visiting San Francisco last week and now here in Denver, these are two places where you can ask anybody about these cities, and they will do everything but sing and dance in describing them.
We need to do more of that. No rose-colored glasses are needed, either.
If you don't have any interest in baseball or in specifically a pretty bad baseball team, that's fine, but I hope you (by, perhaps, spending a few days following his Pirates coverage) can appreciate the seriousness in which Dejan does his work and reports on a city and its baseball team, and I'm glad his thoughts and observations are a part of my daily reading.
On another note, it made me exceedingly proud tonight (as the group I traveled with to Sweden gathered at my house to look back and look forwards) to hear Arianna, who has started blogging here, cite Russ' thoughts, from his blog here, in our conversation. (It wasn't only through hyperlinks, I had used what Russ wrote here to initiate some conversation in youth group a couple of weeks back.) I try to take my life, conversations and connections on this Internet seriously and use them, not for viral videos and forwarded e-mails, but for a conversation that we otherwise could never have. It really made me proud and happy. I've never specifically realized or thought out all of the things I try to pass on to the younger generation as I work at my church, specifically, but some of these things I've been blogging about tonight vaguely (like place, stories, community and conversations) are certainly some of those things.
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