Trying to eat in Regent Square

Regent Square, where I'm currently living, is about 6 miles or so from the Point in downtown Pittsburgh. When I was looking for paces to live here, lots of people suggested this area for its friendliness, vicinity to the largest of the 'Burgh's 4 parks, it's art scene & sense of community. Places like this tend to host enjoyable places to eat & at first glance, Regent Square is no different.

D's Six Pax & Hot Dogs, arguably the most popular, was the first place that caught my eye when I was looking around here. It was exactly what the name says - a six pack shop (here in PA, the only places to get beer to go are six pack shops and beer stores (for 12's, cases, kegs, etc.)) that also served hot dogs (plus fries and some sandwiches). They claim to have over 600 different beers, it used to be more than 1,000). Well, right around the time I moved in, they decided to renovate the insides and overhaul the menu. Granted, 600 beers is more than plenty to choose from, but they eliminated 400(!) choices from their selection of micro brews, specialty beers & imports. They expanded the food menu to include soups, salads, pizzas & calzones and a wide range of appetizers.

While it would seem that all these new choices would be great for the customers, right? Not even close; think about it - you've got a staff used to serving (and being somewhat knowledgeable about) beers and dogs and now you're asking them to deal with everything that comes with having, what is pretty much, a full menu. The "cooks" couldn't give a shit about the quality of the food, the waitresses are tragically overwhelmed, a number of the guys behind the bar are way too busy watching the LCD TVs and talking with their friends to give any thought to service, and the owner appears to not care because he's rolling in money.

From what I understand, D's used to be a small, respected hole in the wall with a lot of regulars. Now, its become a food factory with the uniqueness of being a hot dog and specialty beer bar fading away. When Creech was down here, about a month ago) we had lunch at D's and I haven't been there since. The experience we had turned me off of that place for good.

They'd had one of those A-frame chalkboard street signs outside, but it was raining so all we could see was something about "chicken wings" and "all day". Inside, we sat at the bar, and noticed the sign above, "Chicken Wings $.25 all day". We got 18 wings and some other stuff. When the bill came, we'd been charged 50 cents per wing. So we asked what's up, the sign says .25? The guy who'd been "waiting" on us went over and pulled the most incredible move I'd seen in a while. He erased the sign. "The other signs all say 50 cents", he says. Wait, what other signs? HE GOES AROUND THE CORNER AND POINTS TO A SIGN NO ONE IN OUR ROOM COULD HAVE SEEN! What the fuck is that? Apparently the sign outside (which had the writing washed away from rain) was #2.

Alright, this is a joke, right? We told him we weren't going to pay (by this time, it was only about fucking over this guy, the money was no issue) and asked for the manager. He says, "uh, I am the manager (his friend - not coworker - was standing at the bar next to us while this was going down and the barback was trying to look good for him, he knew he'd fucked up)." I laughed right at him, all I could think of was The Chapelle Show's Kinko's skit. Comedian, this guy. "I don't believe you," I say to him.

Somehow, we got some old lady who works there to come over ( I've always taken her to be the owner/manager's wife but, either I was wrong about that or she's just the worst business co-owner ever). She tells us that the wings are 50 cents, so that's what we owe. We appeal with, "but the sign said .25!?" "There is no sign that says 25 cents," she says. DAMN IT! At this point, I'm starting to lose it, this is fucking crazy. "HE ERASED THE SIGN!!!" Steve and I say in unison. She just walks away, just didn't do anything. We're stunned.

No, we didn't pay for the wings, we left. I refuse to go back after this. Sucks too, because I've got these little punch cards good for a free hot dog and one for a free sub. Damn. Hope the manager is glad he's got this guy on board working for him; kid's probably gonna cost him 500+ dollars over a matter of $4.50, I won't go and I've told enough people that their frequency going in there has lessened.

The Map Room is directly next to D's. To say they're a step up over D's is a bit of an understatement. While the menu here still has some staples like burgers (I don't think D's does), they've got an all around classier menu, shrimp, nuts on salads, probably some fruit in there too. Needless to say, they don't do much business in Pittsburgh.

With the name The Map Room, this bar is kind of homage to cartography. I've read a review somewhere about the maps on the walls in there. At my last count, there were 2 maps. This place is open later than D's and is right by me, so I'll stop in late night sometimes. Good place, best service I've had in this state (and I haven't asked them for anything but beers and salads), but really, where are the maps?

Dunning's (it's got an extended name, but I don't know what it is) is on the corner of the same strip that D's and The Map Room are in, and doesn't the best business amongst people not looking to get hammered - the families, elderly, casual business lunches, etc. The food is pretty damn good, but it was here that I first learned that many places in Pittsburgh put french fries on your salad, as standard practice.

See, you've got to know that the Panini sandwich was allegedly created in this city. Primanti Bros. is a local chain (+2 in Florida) that started out as single location in the Strip District. I guess when the guys working the overnight shifts at the docks/factories were on their lunch hours or getting off work in the morning, this was a place pretty much catering to them. The sandwiches are huge, obviously, but put together so well & wrapped in foil so that the workers could stuff their faces with one hand allowing them to work, drive, or whatever. The place eventually become a favorite late night place to get greasy food after a night out and business exploded. The Strip District also has a big bar scene, so the original Primanti's down there isn't exactly hurting for business.

Back to fries on the salads - on a greasy sandwich is one thing, but salads? I ordered the salad to avoid that crap. Well, Dunning's is a calm family atmosphere, and they seem to be doing pretty good business. The same bartender has been there each time I've been in. The kid may be the son of the owner (do I always think families work together at bars?) One day, at a time when they weren't particularly busy, I went in and sat at the bar. Must have sat there more than 10 minutes before I just gave up and left. Never once saw someone working behind the bar, people on both sides of me had food so there must be someone, but where is he? I was torn because I knew the longer I waited, the closer he would to coming back, but if I've already waited that long for you to show up the first time, how long are you going to be after that?

This all brings me to the reason I'm even writing this; Ryan's Pub & Grill. Up the street on the corner of Forbe's & Braddock, this, I guess, is what happens when a sports bar and an Irish cafe go for a roll in the hay. The table-tops are green w/wood trim and the walls are a dark wood. They've got all kinds of signs about whiskey. But the menu is bar food, through-and-through. I think they bring in a decent crowd, word has it that on Mondays, they've got a mad karaoke scene.

Well, I wanted to try it out last night, but the kitchen was closing in 20 minutes, and there's no way I'm ordering food at that point, so I left. Went back for dinner today around 5:30-6:00 and was surprised to see only 4 or 5 other patrons in there. When I walked in the bartender was on the phone taking an order, so I took a seat at the bar and waited for her. Seems like she and the person on the phone weren't on the same page so she was a bit flustered when she hung up. She was going through a menu, doing something for awhile, stopping only to look up at the news on TV and yell something to me about Britney Spears being a "crazy bitch".

15 minutes later she's still nose deep in that menu! She had her back to me and was a good 20 feet away the whole time, never looking over. I finally just got up and left. As I was halfway out the door, she shouts, "Sorry." "Yea, but I don't have all day." I wanted to try their, supposedly, good sub.

Most places I've gone to eat in this city have terrible service, as a whole, Pittsburgh service sucks. Notable exceptions are Kelly's, Harris', Square Cafe (in Regent Square, wow), the East End Food Co-op, and some Italian place I went to with my parents & Lauren in Point Breeze.

It's not just restaurants and bars, service around here, in general is pretty bad. More on this all later.

Didn't we go to school with him? Oh, MARK Price

Continuing with the theme of recognizing birthdays long after they've passed, I bring you my favorite Cav of all time.

Born February 15th, 1964, Mark Price was a standout at Georgia Tech though whether he could make it as a pro was in doubt due to his short stature, tendency to telegraph his moves, complete lack of defense and overall mobility deficencies. Standing 6 feet tall (right...), Price was less of a leaper than even me. He had the right handed layups down pat, but seriously, he probably went his entire playing career without ever touching the rim. I've seen Carlton from the Fresh Prince dunk in person, and Mark Price couldn't do it.

Regardless of his shortcomings, Price was successful in his niche as a professional player. He was among the league leaders in assists, twice won the 3-point shootout, was a 4 time All Star and retired as the best free throw shooter in NBA history. The draft day trade that brought him to the Cavs also introduced an era of success in Cleveland basketball, with the team making the playoffs 7 of the nine 9 years he was around.

Thinking he was old and washed up, on September 27th, 1995 the Cavs traded Price to the Washington Bullets, and in the process made Cleveland basketball irrelevant for almost a decade. I can still remember the radio breaking the news... "We all knew this day would come someday..." We did? Trading the face of the franchise and fan favorite during a playoff bound season? No sir, I did not know that day was coming.

Not even 2 years after the kick in the balls that was the Bernie Kosar release, the franchise hadn't learned anything about how Cleveland fans apparently react to being fucked without even getting dinner first. (On the plus side, the Cavs got a 1996 draft pick in return and chose Vitaly Potapenko. Who's Vitaly Potapenko? He's the guy who was drafted one spot ahead of Kobe Bryant. Wise move.) Way to be blind, asshole.

Well, that day in September was probably the last day of me being a Cavs fan. I was 14 at the time. I'd been lucky enough to go to probably 100 or so games by that point. I, um, collected all kinds of Cavs crap. I mean, I even had the Mark Price Dream Team jersey (#5) hanging on my wall! Since that trade, I don't think I've been to 3 games. Go ahead and move the team now, save us the months and months of stories about LeBron not being able to bring a championship to his "home town". Sorry Cavs fans, but I can't get behind them and I've tried.

Trade Mark Price? How's that make sense on any level? What's next, Bobby Phils dying and the team signing someone who may have been responsible for his death? Well now that I've gone and sufficiently pissed myself off, I'm outta here.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK PRICE!

Explaining a picture becomes Appalachian Trail, Day One

This is the picture that we're (the royal "we") using as our profile picture on this here endeavor. Find it somewhat fitting as this picture was taken literally moments before I began hiking the Appalachian Trail on March 25th, 2006. That's me on the left and my friend/AT hiking partner, Dan Carter, on the right. We're at the Amicalola (which is a suprisingly difficult word to type/write and we've done it plenty of times.) Falls State Park visitor's center and his cousin (sister?) is taking the picture before the two of them drive off.

I can't completely explain the emotions going through either of us at that moment; "nervous" "anxious" and "excited" don't even begin to cover it. The main thought going through my mind was, "My god, I'm gonna piss my pants!" The transition from having thought about and preparing to hike the AT to actually doing it was intense, to say the least. In the visitor's center at the terminus of the 8.8 mile (mainly uphill) climb, we just wandered around thinking whatever thoughts one has mere seconds from embarking upon an attempt at a 2,175 mile thru-hike through the mountains, knowing full well that this will be a life changing experience which will unfortunately limit contact with friends and family but will allow plenty of time to do some of the things one enjoys most. That's one hell of a run-on sentence.

Dan and I somehow signed the register (I say"somehow" because I was shaking so much, I could barely write my name) and said goodbye to civilization. Straight out the back door of the visitor's center at Amicalola Falls is an archway over the trail head, announcing it as the approach trail to Springer Mtn. A sign states that it's 8.5 miles away, my guide book said 8.8 and since I aways gauged my mileage by my guidebooks, I always go with 8.8 (maybe they'd moved parts of the trail since the sign was put up?). Regardless, to the right of the building were the bathrooms which I desperately needed. We had our pictures taken by the sign (can I get a copy of that picture?) for the center's album and I made a beeline for the john. As the start of this hike crept closer, I hadn't really calmed much so after a few minutes in the last room I'd be in for a while, I just decided to up and do the thing. So out I went to find Dan and head up the trail.

Where is he? Took me a couple minutes to finally decide that he'd headed up the trail while I was in the shitter and I needed to play catch up. I knew I couldn't fault him for taking off, we'd never really talked about it and I hadn't asked him to stay and wait for me, so I started my Appalachian Trail hike alone.

So, to get ready for this hike, I'd done some pretty intense training. Or so I thought. I biked about 8 miles each way to work and back plus pretty much everywhere I went, I ran alot, did all sorts of exercises to strengthen my core muscles, and obviously went on a bunch of hikes alone and with others. I was ready to go! Physically this thru-hike was going to be no problem, right? Wrong. I don't know, maybe 10 minutes in, I'm wondering, "How has anyone made it up this fucking mountain alive?" and yes, I was actually swearing I was so overwhelmed. I had immediately realized what people meant when they said that walking 8 miles in Ohio would be nothing like 8 miles on the AT. I was constantly taking breaks to get my breath but wanted to catch up with Dan.

The trail had started out as a bunch of switchbacks leading up through sparsely leaf-ed trees, as it was late March, but turned on to what I think was a former access road. It was a hellacious climb and though I don't recall what it actually looked like, the ground was destroying my feet. This wasn't what I needed, more quick breaks from exhaustion and cursing myself for my underestimation of this hike. This access road kept going up until it finally came to....a parking lot? What the hell?

Huh, apparently all that climbing had gotten me to the top of Amicalola Falls, the tallest waterfall in Georgia, at 729 feet. Yea, way to be paying attention; I'd been so beaten down by the trail that I was hiking with my head down and didn't know where I was. Hiking with your head down kind of defeats the purpose. I walked to the bridge over the top of the falls and looked down. Man, I had gone a long way up. This was cool. I then turned and looked over my shoulder where the trail lead, up, up, up. I'd gone less than 3 miles, but needed a break so I relaxed on a bench on the bridge. And wait a minute... 729 feet? For reference, the Terminal Tower is 708 feet tall, but I had to get up to nearly 3,800'. I'd started at 1,700'. Do the math. Only later would I learn that nearly everyone else was struck at how difficult this approach trail was, which helped.


Although from my vantage point, I couldn't see the beauty of the falls, I had a great view of the land below and the mountains on the horizon (except that everything was kinda of brown from the receeding winter. As a friend would later say, "It looks like the damn desert."). Never once on my thru-hike did I consider dropping out, but as I sat there, I contemplated how different the reality of this undertaking would be from my fantasy. I knew everything would work out if I just kept at it. I heaved my unbearably heavy onto my back and took off up towards Springer.

After I had left the top of the falls, I'd passed some shelters with people hanging out and eating but didn't really want any long breaks, and since none of them had seen Dan, I just kept going. I finally caught up to him on the summit of Springer, freezing, guess he'd been there about an hour or so. Oops. I knew he'd probably be faster than me, but by that much? It was 8+ miles, but damn. Alright, well, we got our pictures taken (again, where is it?), signed the register, chatted with the ridge runner and started down another 2.5 miles to our destination for the day, Stover Creek Shelter. By the way, the summit of Springer Mountain is the official terminus of the Appalachian trail.

The first blaze of the AT and a plaque

About a mile down from the summit is a parking lot that allows one to skip the approach trail, and instead opt for a hike of less than a mile to the top, and a mile back down. We here have no opinion on whether including the 8.8 mile approach trail is necessary to a thru-hike, but we're glad we did it, even if we cursed it and hated it the whole time we were on it. There was a former thru-hiker in the parking lot taking a survey of the current ones for his masters thesis or something. I figured with only a mile and a half to go, yea I'd do it. While standing there for a couple minutes, the day's 10 miles of ascent and descent all seemed to take its toll at once. When I finished with his questions, I could barely move I was so sore; my legs, ankles, feet, hips and groin were all letting me know they didn't like me. The exertion and cold were wearing me out - I know it's Georgia, but it was late March and Springer at 3,782 feet and the parking lot not far below were freezing and windy. (sidenote: the guy with the survey called me a couple months ago and we finished his survey, apparently I was somehow last on his list to call back. Not sure that's a good thing. Awesome.)

At the shelter, we met up with 3 guys on Spring Break from Auburn out for a section hike who I'd run into earlier. Surprisingly, I was able to carry on conversations with them that didn't reference Bo Jackson. Staggering in amongst the random boy scouts, weekenders (it was a Saturday), and section hikers were 4 thru hikers. 3 of them were, for different lengths, somewhat on our schedule so we saw each other a lot; Scott (to become "Scoot") and Dubs (don't remember his real name, and even if I did, that's not what I know him as) were a couple of friends from South Carolina who pitched a tent and hammocked, respectively and Casey ("Cupcake" from the way he talks with his girlfriend) also put up his tent. Dan, myself and someone who's name I can't come up with (Travis?) shared the shelter.

During dinner, Scoot spilled his meal right next his tent after cooking it. To this point, Dan and I had felt that we aren't nearly as "professional" hikers as some thru-hikers and it was a relief to see someone else screw up, especially one that seems to know what he's doing. Well, during the night I had to use the bathroom. And not number 1. Must have been 20 degrees out there, and the fog - couldn't see with my headlamp on and it was 3am. There's no toilet obviously, so I'm going behind a tree. I've never spent a night outside in Georgia, so I don't know what's crawling around here, or if any animals are out in this cold. I just want to get back to bed. So as I'm doing my business, I realize that I've made a (common, apparently) mistake. In my haste, I hadn't played the angles right and was now micturating in my boxers, and as I said, 20 degrees out here.

Well I finished and got back to bed after changing my clothes, falling asleep with endless thoughts running through my head. Day one, we had gone 11.3 miles (2.5 into the AT), pretty damn good.

(If anyone there has pictures of any of this, send them along, they'd be greatly welcomed)

(I started out trying to explain how the picture of me and Dan starting the AT, but ended up pretty much describing the whole day. Expect a lot of that. And doing this thing here is in no way similar to the AT, so you know what, I just wasted 1600 words.)

My first quickie

Welcome, figured I'd take the time to introduce what's going on 'round these parts, in Q & A form.

Q: What's the title of the blog mean?
A: It's a tribute to John Lennon. Figure it out. (That's what he wants, to inspire me to name a blog after a lyric.)

Q: What topics will be discussed on here?
A: Everything and anything. Mainly sociological matters (sounds important, huh? It's not), the Appalachian Trail, hiking, sports, music, critiques, memories, etc. And yes, there will be swearing allowed in here.

Q: How often will there be posts?
A: Who knows? It'd be a farce to say "everyday". The best guess is that I'll neglect this every so often and then unload all kinds of posts in a day.

Q: Why are the lights blinking in your apartment?
A: I don't know, but I'm leaving.