Category Archives: Trips

Königs-Pittsburgh walk success (mostly)

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The Königsberg bridge problem is an (unsolvable) problem where you want to cross each bridge in Königsberg exactly once and end up on the landmass you started from.

The Königs-Pittsburgh walk, similarly, is a 39-mile walk that crosses each pedestrian-accessible trans-river bridge with at least one endpoint in Pittsburgh exactly once and ends at its starting point. (Thanks to the exploded nature of the 31st Street bridge, this is possible and you can end on the same node you started from.)
Today we attempted this walk with mostly success. (With thanks to Greg for planning the route, organizing the trip, and jotting down the timing information that I have used below.)

Keith, Dan, Ben, Greg, and I started the walk this morning around 5:30 in Friendship, then first crossed the Highland Park bridge around 6:30.

Next up were the 62nd street bridge at 7:23,

the 40th street bridge at 8:14,

and the 16th street bridge at 9:25 putting us in the Strip District where we met up with Owen and had a small ~30 minute stop for snacks (bread, pastries, hot dogs, chow mein).

Next we crossed (in quick succession) the 9th street bridge (where we also picked up a cbuckey) at 10:27,

the 7th street bridge at 10:31 (followed by a quick stop for camera batteries, as Greg’s point-and-shoot was sad),

and the 6th street bridge at 10:54,

putting us in the North Side where we had a long detour up to the McKees Rock bridge, crossing it at 12:22. We had an hour-long detour afterward for lunch (at a Subway). After lunch, it unfortunately started raining, and didn’t let up for the rest of the trip.

Crossed back over the West End bridge at 3:07

followed by the Fort Duquesne bridge at 3:39, putting us at the Point.

At this point, we lost an Owen and cbuckey, took a 20-minute break, and then crossed the Ft. Pitt bridge at 4:10 to the South Side.

Next were the Smithfield Street bridge at 4:34,

the Liberty bridge at 4:50,

and the 10th street bridge at 5:26, after which we lost a Keith.

We crossed the Birmingham bridge into South Side around 6, where we stopped for a 70-minute dinner at OTB Bicycle Cafe.

Next up was the Hot Metal bridge, leaving South Side around 7:42.

About 15 minutes before the Glenwood bridge, we lost a Dan. We crossed that bridge around 8:48, followed by a 15-minute break in West Homestead.

We crossed our final bridge, the Homestead Grays bridge, at 9:54, finishing around 10:05.

Despite my feet still being fine, and over Greg’s desire to “properly” complete the hike, we decided to stop it there (due to the cold and rain and time) and caught a 64 bus home, for a total trip of just over 35 miles. (Hence the “mostly” success of the trip.)

Overall though, the trip went very well. Learning from the Ohio walk earlier this summer, I bought some cloth tape and taped my toes (for padding), then taped them together (so they wouldn’t rub into each other and blister). This worked far better than anticipated, resulting in my feet feeling completely fine up until around the 10th Street bridge, and even then it was more of a “my feet are getting tired” feeling than a “my feet and legs hurt” feeling. (I suspect blisters make me start walking strangely, which makes my feet and legs hurt because they’re not used to it… so normal walking throughout means my legs and feet don’t really hurt.)
After sitting down over dinner, I had fully recovered and they felt perfectly fine through the end of the walk. Even now, I don’t feel any real pain in my feet or legs… they definitely feel overused, but they’re not complaining like they usually do after a walk of more than 20 miles.

Blister-wise I came out great also. I ended up with only one blister (in the weirdest place; on the very tip of my toe, where I guess I hadn’t covered it with tape and so the sock rubbed against it).

More photos can be found at my photos page.

So mission success. Congratulations to everyone that walked, and particular congratulations to Dan for making it more than 32 miles (including his 2-mile walk from home to the starting point) on his first long-walk experience.

In other, non-bridge related things, I went PIUing with Max and Yubin again this past Wednesday, and Thursday was the usual board games night. Yesterday, all four of the other house inhabitants had a pumpkin-carving party on the porch, and it was kind of awesome. It’s been a good week. :) Photos of games and the pumpkins will be on photos tomorrow, since it is now late and I would like to sleep.

Edit: Board game photos are here and pumpkin carving photos are here.

Life, hike, (hopefully lack of a) rant, and foo

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It’s the end of another four month period, so life (both stats and life) has been updated. Yay more life. There are also some photos up at photos.

Things have been funness lately. Today we took a bus and the T down to the Montour trail for a 10-mile hike. The original goal was to hike it for 10 miles, to Clairton, then continue upward to McKeesport (another 5 miles) to catch the 61C home. However, we didn’t get to Clairton until after 5:30 and I was feeling really unhappy by that point (due to the heat, humidity, and dehydration from my stupidity of not bringing drinking water), so we caught the Y46 bus to downtown, ate at the Golden Palace Buffet that wasn’t a buffet due to the dinner and weekendness, and came home to collapse.

I have also now surpassed 300,000 tagged photos. Photoshop album reports 300,951 photos tagged. This is lower than the actual number taken, since I now go through photos and delete many before saving the rest (for example, today’s trip was reduced from the 261 taken to 181 to keep). But it’s still a fun statistic. The 300,000th tagged photo was of New House (Stever?) getting ready for House Wars.
In another fun milestone, my D90 has broken 100,000 tagged photos (100,874 right now). It should overtake my D50 (105,067 tagged photos before it died, after being repaired once) at some point in the next few months.
I’ve also been noticing how more (most, even?) of my photos are now taken portrait style, rather than landscape style. I think this was prompted by the template redesign of People Wars (where card photos are portrait style now), but it’s spilled over into my general photography. Not a bad thing, just something that amuses me. (Even my portraits used to be landscape.)
Speaking of which, I released the next People Wars expansion a couple days ago, and also added a way to list cards by expansion (since the old card database was only useful for listing by type). I need a good “E” name for the next expansion. Any ideas?

I got a raise at work. Apparently I’m doing good work. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it and it feels like I don’t get nearly as much done as I should, or as other people do. But apparently that isn’t true. I’m trying to work better (9-5) hours, given my habit of just working from when I wake up until the evening. So far it’s kind of working out?

KoL continues. The new challenge path (Zombie Slayer AKA become a zombie and eat brains) has managed to get me addicted to the game again. Currently nearing the end of my second run (with good luck, I can be done tomorrow. But this is rather unlikely.) and it’s enjoyable in the same way Boris was enjoyable… less fiddlyness, more of a sense of success after each run, and more being able to push my normal character abilities. The new IotM looks amazing too. Perhaps it is time to break into the horde of Crimbo meat I have to get one.

Not much else is happening. Life continues. Life is good.

New music lately includes Alexandra Burke (sadly not available in MP3 format in the US), Josh Gracin, and Alanis Morissette (which was free after my $3 album credit and $5 coinstar credit). I have managed to keep myself from spending much more money on Kickstarter lately. This is a good thing.

Greg has convinced me to get a bike. Being the sort of “meh whatever” person I am, I will probably pick one up at Costco the next time we’re there for food. We shall see.

I kind of want to write a rant about how “social justice” and content warnings have been turned into these horrible (offensive, in a way?) concepts for me because of things that keep appearing in my (few remaining) social media feeds. But I will refrain from that for now because it will not do anything productive and probably just get me flamed by everyone.
I understand and sympathize… really, I do. I just feel like people take things way too far sometimes and overreact, which in turn makes the entire thing something I am more inclined to disagree with. And, as a concept taken too far, it really clashes with my “personal responsibility” (or lack thereof in current society) view of the world.

Perhaps this has much to do with what I consider my general movement towards being more moderate and generally trying to be more understanding of differing views. …something along the lines of, “People that disagree with you are not wrong and are not unreasonable. They just disagree with you.” Which I suppose is also dangerous because it’s an absolute (yes, sometimes people are actually just “wrong,” like if they’re arguing that the Earth is flat), but it’s closer to what I feel than the opposite.
That part is what I alluded to at the end of my last post, but I still haven’t really figured out a way to put my thoughts into coherent words, so they shall continue being unwritten.

I’ll leave you on a more positive note with photos from today’s hike because I like photos and I like hikes and I like posting. Yay hike.






Wedding, Boston, and things

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Tim got married last weekend. It was an awesome time, and was definitely the best wedding I’ve ever been to.

More photos will be posted at some point when I am not in Boston.

Because, yeah, right now I’m in Boston (well, Cambridge, anyway). It has been a fun time. Yesterday we did an 11+ mile walk around Cambridge and Boston. Today’s plans include more hiking. I really like this area… I think if it weren’t for the prices of everything, it’s somewhere I would be happy to live in.

MIT has a building uglier than Gates! Yay!

Ohio walk failure

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Mission “Walk to Ohio” was a failure. I skipped out at the 26 mile mark (just past Midway, which is a suitable name) and came home. I probably could have made it to dinner (another ~5 miles) and maybe West Virginia (another ~6 miles after that), but a car was being called for some other people anyway, and the decision at that point was either heading back or finishing the entire 45 miles, which I didn’t feel like I could do. (Route here.)

I think having done the West Virginia portion before made me less inclined to push myself, which in retrospect was the right decision. Final count is five blisters and one (still) red sore spot, which means continuing onward for another 11 miles would not have been smart.

For self reference, in the (likely) event that I attempt such a walk next year, shoes are hugely important. The pair I wore today I had only worn once before, and for less than three miles. I found that the tops pinch my foot too much, causing pain starting even before mile 10. Wearing my old pair of boots would have been a better idea, since they have more top padding. Also, I need to buy medical tape or similar to bind my toes before starting. My feet and toes are kind of weirdly bent, so the way I walk causes lots of rubbing of toes together and of toes and sock. Protecting them beforehand would have helped greatly.

Still, I think it was a good experience. Photos will be posted at some point.

Greg, Keith, and David are still going and hoping to hit Ohio around midnight. Best of luck to them.

Edit: Photos have been posted here.

Edit edit: Ohio group made it to Ohio and back safely. Huzzah!

Edit edit edit: Greg has a much more comprehensive writeup here. Yay for anti-aliasing weeds! :D

Whee trip

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I suppose I should write an update given I’ve been away for a month and I’m about to head home.

I have been in Thailand, with a week-long excursion to Japan. I’ve had multi-day excursions to Chang Mai and Amphawa. I have eaten lots of good, and lots of not-so-good food. I have taken a few thousand photos. I’ve gone shopping nearly every day (although much more rarely for things for myself or for gifts; my parents recently purchased a condo and we needed to outfit it, culminating in a bed and mattress which were delivered yesterday). I’ve spent lots of time with relatives and been missing people back home and had a much-needed break from work. And I’m sad it’s almost over.

Photos will be forthcoming at some point, maybe. Possibly not, given I still haven’t done anything with the photos of my last Thailand trip and Europe excursion. We shall see.