My blog n'at

I probably could have worded that better but I won’t. That’s exactly how I feel right now.

I will not being going to the Winter Classic with the ticket I was offered through the Pens by the NHL. If you know me I would go to the ends of the world for my Penguins (I’ve been a ticket holder for 10 years and sat through the no playoff debacle, I can say they’re MY Pens) but here is why I gots to do what I gots to do… n’at.

When the email came out I was getting a ticket because of my season ticket holder status it was like Christmas morning. the details were sketchy but I was happy. Early August came and the invoice showed up. $140 for 1 ticket! Heck it’s the Winter Classic in Pittsburgh I cant miss this! Then I continued to read. I’m in the 500 level at the top. That’s right, the far back corner at the top. Lovely eh? Whatever, I was still happy because I was going. Then the shocker. Money was due August 25th (that would be today). That’s in between pay periods for me. UGH!

I called the Pens to see if there was anything they could do with the due date since I would get paid in a couple days. I thought maybe some Ticketmaster giftcards I had or add it to my ticket package would work. A very snippy ticket rep (she was probably tired of these calls) told me this was an NHL event, not a Penguins one and that if I didn’t pay by the 25th I would lose my seat.

Lushie and I sat down to see if we could make it work. I had sold some school books online so there was extra income but I thought about it and finally stopped. Why am I going through all of this trouble trying to figure out how to get money together for a game? Its not that I don’t want to go bad enough, it comes down to responsibility. I just finished moving, we still have a lot we need for the house plus a kid on the way in January. I could borrow it but since we started saving for the house last year its been a “If I don’t have the cash, I wont do it” mentality. No charging. Yeah I’m missing out on some things but so what, I need to do whats best for the house. (Holy shit, when did I become an adult). Now the NHL thinks they can give me 2-3 weeks to come up with $140 without any prior indication of what we may be paying besides rumors on the internet?  Screw that.

The NHL doesn’t care. They know the seat will get sold and that’s what counts. I’m tired of how half assed the league keeps doing things. It sucks when you get 2-3 weeks notice that you have to make a payment on playoff tickets for the Pens but we know what to expect to spend at least.

So thank you NHL and the decision makers for this. Thank you for having an unrealistic approach for ticket holders of the teams involved.

I’ll find someway to get into the game but it’ll be on my own terms. I’ll still buy the hat and the shirt because I support hockey and am a cheerleader for Pittsburgh. Besides, sitting on my couch with Teaspoon is a great way to watch hockey.

I just hope Lushie doesn’t go into labor…

I’ve made it a personal mission to eat in as many Pho restaurants as I can in Pittsburgh. There isn’t a timetable so I can ease into each restaurant and make sure i’m in the mood for Pho. It’s a spiritual thing after all.

This trip took me to Mekong in Dormont. I’ve diven by it a few times and based on the reviews from Urbanspoon I figured it would be a nice little treat while Lushie and teaspoon were away last weekend.

The restaurant is very quaint with enough room for a small handful of tables. I took a peek at other dishes patrons were enjoying and every single one looked bountiful. One menu item caught my eye, Deluxe Eggroll. Turns out for $4 more it comes crammed with curry and shrimp. I stuck to my guns and when the very pleasant server arrived placed an order for a single eggroll and Pho. I know my stomach and that much food could slip me into a coma. As luck would have it  the eggroll had very chewy dough inside.

The Pho arrives and the bowl isn’t as big as Vietnam’s Pho but it does win on visual appeal (the pic above doesn’t do it justice). First thing I did see what that the broth was darker than usual. I let it sit so the beef could cook a bit and when I took the first taste I came up with a mouthful of bloody beef. I started to look at the meat and 1/2 of it was still mostly raw. I’m all about flavor in my beef but the time I waited the beef usually continues to cook but the temp was lukewarm. I picked out the pieces that were done, fished off the noodles and left the broth. I really did try to stomach it but the blood was too overpowering.

I will go back for other menu items and try them out but the Pho is something I’ll have to pass on.

If you’d like to meet for Pho sometime shoot me a message.

Sunday was the day I have waited for since it was announced the Pens would remain in Pittsburgh. Sunday I finally walked into the Penguins new arena, the Consol Energy Center. I had pretty high expectations, I won’t lie. I wanted the absolute best and the Penguins blew me away! As a ticket holder we were only able to walk around as if it were a game day and the Party Suites were open also (anyone have $10-12,000 for a suite? ).

I didn’t take many pics or videos since you can find them all over the web but if you want to check out my flickr stream head over here.

What I Loved
When you enter at the Trib Total Media gate there is an interactive area for the Penguins Greats and a virtual Stanley Cup. using a touchscreen you can browse through videos and stats of players plus zoom in on the Pens sections of the cup. Pens Gear is the new Pens Station and quite frankly if I had credit cards with me I would have maxed all out.

I walked around the lower bowl and suite areas with much pleasure seeing that there is not one obstructed view. in fact you are always walking down to your seat to arrive and up to leave. After soaking in seats i’ll never sit in I made my way up to nosebleed which is where I sit. Along the way I noticed many more concession stands and each had quality arena food, not those generic things they threw on bread and overcharged for at the Mellon Arena.

Kids Zone looked fun from the brief moment I was in there. You can pose on life-like bodies of Sid and Fleury and also take shots at Sid’s washing machine. It was packed so I left fast.

A nice tribute that you probably wont see in many other cities was high school/youth hockey jersey wall. Granted I was partial to this one I did think it was a nice tribute to the schools who provide kids with a chance to play hockey. Just around the corner from there also is a wall made from the bricks of the old Duquesne Gardens and still standing Mellon Arena.

View from the seat – I was worried that I would have an obstructed view but that wasn’t the case at all in fact I LOVE the view and I’m close to the exit for fast runs to the bathroom and nacho stand.

Food – the first thing you must do when hunting food is get yourself a Kielbasa Grinder from the Smokehouse on the 200 level. I met up with my bud AJ there and he clued me into the culinary masterpiece that is the grinder. We also tried the pulled pork and Erie’ own Smith’s Hot Dogs.

Jumbotron – words can’t describe the levels of badass this shot past. the picture is unreal. UNREAL!

What I Hated
The ONLY letdown I had of the entire experience was the beer situation. The arena was boasting how it was built around local ties from food to design but yet the beer selection is your standard macros. PNC Park, home to the team which has lost for 18 years has Erie, Penn and Dogfish Head products in great supply but Consol the most adventurous you’ll get is Corona. *yack*. I’m writing an article about the travesty this is for Examiner but since this is my blog I can say it, its fucking embarrassing. There is a section called The Brewhouse, this is where I expected to find the goldmine. Yeah that didn’t happen.  There are 5 stations to get a draft and they’re all macros.  I can understand that since they are your main draw but when I looked in the coolers of bottles I saw… well take a look. The name BREWhouse should tell people you can get craft beer then. Its a step above what is available everywhere. Complete FAIL. I have an email out to Consol and Aramark to find out how this can get fixed.

What’s Next?
I’m hitting 1, possibly 2 pre-season games before the home opener October 7th vs the Flyers and then my big event will be the RMU Hockey Showcase. I plan on spending the whole day stuffing my face with grinders, watching college hockey and enjoying our new arena.

Lushie, Teaspoon and I pulled into the McDonalds drive-thru this morning and it wasn’t until I saw on their sign that there were new menu items. I’m not a big breakfast meal person so I usually just cruise by the fast food places while eating a breakfast bar. I’m always up for new items so I gave that a shot plus ordered food for the family. Normally I’d let them starve but I was feeling generous today and Lushie was buying.

Lets start with the food first. The Steak Egg McMuffin (not on website or I’d link) was a pleasant surprise. The butter was really pronounced on the steak but the meat was rather dry sitting on top of an overcooked egg and between chewy muffins, yeah not good. Overall as a meal it wasn’t bad but the dryness was a bit much.

OK, now with the fun part. As I pull up to the cashier she asks if I would like to fill out a survey and in return get $5. I figured taking an online survey would be fast and an easy $5 Lushie could use when she’s out with the kid. That’s when I got this…

That would be a NINE PAGE PAPER SURVEY! That’s right, its paper and there isn’t even an option to fill it out online! For a second I thought I was in a McDonalds Time Machine to 1995 and was waiting for my no. 2 pencil to arrive. If you click on the image you can see that I have 48 hours to fill it out and mail it (how on earth you’re going to do this tracking with snail mail is beyond me).

This is McDonalds, the overall king of fast food with innovative web marketing for its multi kajillion dollar company yet they’re making me fill out paper? Oh we’re not done yet. I start reading the questions and its like a tax form. There are codes look up for certain items, don’t fill out this if you answered A and B but do if you filled out C, your hair is brown and you like turtles.

I’ve taken the liberty of scanning this so you can see the insanity yourself. You can download the pdf here.

Now the kicker, at the very end they ask FOR YOUR EMAIL and it will take 4-5 weeks for delivery of the coupon. Needless to say I’m not wasting my time filling out 9 pages for $5. I’ve passed this along to colleagues who will most likely use it in their Marketing/PR classes for what not to do. The amount of money spent on this must be epic when you think about it. They printed up the survey, the envelope to give it to me and the envelope to send back PLUS paid for postage.

How do you handle this in 2010? Hand out business card size err cards at drive through with a surveymonkey link (I’ve done many forms online to know this would be no problem and really easy) and at the end of every day/week you run a report to get the info. Bam you’re done. You have instant feedback and can turn the reward around fast. Heck we’ve done shorter surveys with $50 itunes and $25 Starbucks gift certificates to hundreds of people.  $5 is just enough for a value meal, you could have given me a coupon to print out at the end and saved the postage.

If you want to find out more about how social media can save you from making costly (seriously, I’m just thinking about the money spent on printing and shipping and man hours to enter the data INTO A COMPUTER)  mistakes come to Podcamp Pittsburgh 5.  You can hear people like me talk and educate for FREE.

Quit laughing. If you know me you’re saying “he doesn’t shut up”. That’s besides the point right now. I’m talking about presenting at Podcamp Pittsburgh 5 this year.

I’ve been an attendee since the first Podcamp Pittsburgh and a speaker since the second one but never have a doubted if I would be able to be involved until this year. Podcamp is my favorite time of year because great people get together to educate the masses on what makes up social media/networking, trends and you really cant beat the price, it’s free! That’s right, you get FREE advice from industry leaders that might normally charge you some hefty cash.  I also go for the friendships I’ve made with podcampers, to get chopped by the Wrestling Mayhem Show and to brainstorm (total geek-out moments).

Should I Drink That has become a staple of providing the alcoholic beverages for the Meet n Greet the last 2 years (we’ll be doing it again this year!) and thats where I really get to sell the show to people and talk beer. The following day we join the Wrestling Mayhem Show for a joint session in Grassroots Podcasting but this year sickpuppy wants to try something new so who knows what we’ll do. Podcamp is a great promotional tool for us plus it gives us a chance to talk shop with those wanting to learn.

That’s not where my issue comes from (3 paragraphs to get to my point, see what I mean, I like to jibba jab), I do social media for a living and the hesitation I have is if I have time to prepare a quality presentation. I know, its podcamp and a very laid back environment. I can talk this subject in my sleep and have been to a few events where I didn’t know what the topic was until 5 minutes before I went on but this is different. This is non-SIDT Doogle and if you’re coming to hear me talk I want to make sure you’re getting a quality presentation. I’ve always shot from the hip with a few note cards and that worked really well but this is a setting that a lot of information can be given and I want to make sure nothing is lost.

I could be over-thinking this and selling myself short on how fast I can actually put this together. I may be taking this more serious than I need to. Maybe this is the time I make that leap I’ve hinted to some of yinz about. Since I was brainwashed in my role as project coordinator at Ericsson many moons ago sometimes its a curse to be so meticulous.

what do you think?

(click me and i’ll get bigger)

I check out our stats religiously to see if there are any spikes in traffic. Once the whole buying a house/moving process started I got a little very lazy on keeping up. I was checking out a few things yesterday when I saw another spike so I had to start investigating and thats when our good friend Adri broke the new to the world – Should I Drink That was listed under the ‘What’s Hot” section of iTunes in the Food category!

I don’t even know what to say about this one. Amazed is probably a good one. SIDT is in the process of re-inventing how to cover beer festivals and live events so to get news of this honor gives me the extra boost to keep on going when I could just say screw it, I’m done, i have more important things to do. If any of my readers are fans of the show I want to thank you for downloading it and supporting us. If it wasn’t for you we would have stopped after 10 shows. We do love all of you, even if you’re from Philly

cheers!

The almighty Sorg posted this morning a link to the movie “The Social Network” coming out in October which tells the story of how Facebook was founded, the drama and blah blah blah. Other White Jim also posted on Facebook (ironically) about it and I got to thinking, if one was made about the Pittsburgh social networking scene who would play you? Let me know in the comments your top 2 choices. Yinz outside of Pittsburgh feel free to chime in also, you can have a cameo.

I’m taking first dibs here and saying Zane Lamprey or Jack Black

I can’t even make this shit up. Just watch the video.

If anyone freaks out about it they should, as sickpuppy would say, headbutt a train.

what a joke.

Lushie hates shower doors and apparently knew when we did the walk-through that they were coming off. Personally I could care less but really, you think I’m going to fight over it knowing a loss was coming? The doors came off with no problem but the tracks, yeah that was another story.

I posted on Twitter asking the easiest way to get this removed without ruining the tub. We had tried the day before with  the usual razor and flat screwdriver didn’t work. My M.I.L. was down this weekend an pulled out this paint stripping tool and said give it a shot. IT WORKED! It made enough of a dent that I was able to get most off once it was started. I need brush up on my caulking because that stuff wasn’t coming off without a fight. The downside was the funk water that was under the bottom track.

The end result is what you see above. Neighbors started whispering about piece of the bathroom being on the front porch. Apparently its a neighborhood that doesn’t see much turnover of residents so I’m sure everyone is curious.  Oh trust me, there are more changes to come! I’ll need somewhere to brew beer and bbq outside

Lushie picked up beef kabobs from Giant Eagle for dinner tonight. They’re soaked in red wine (don’t ask me which, its not on the sign). Really, how can you go wrong?

Saturday while in 85F heat we thought “Hey, this would be a great day to take Teaspoon to the Arts Festival!” OK I’ll be honest, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds for him, he was under shade with a constant breeze and sunscreen while I was the dumbass walking around in shorts, sneakers, wait for it… and 2 shirts. Whenever I wear a polo I always have a t-shirt on underneath it. As luck, and my wardrobe would have it a black tshirt. Fluffy guys don’t like the heat so no matter what I’m screwed for the next 3 months.

The Arts Festival is very cool event to check out if you’re in Pittsburgh the first 2 weeks of June each year but make sure you pack an umbrella because it ALWAYS rains at some point. (Not simple shower rain but monsoon downpour and on this day though, it was just freaking hot). You can walk around Point State Park and the area surrounding Gateway Center to find incredible pieces of work from artists all over the country. That maybe why you go. Me, I’m there for one thing, festival food!

We gave Teaspoon his first taste of a staple in Pittsburgh cuisine with a small piece of Funnel Cake. He did 3 chews, looked confused and promptly spit it out to go back to his crackers. Don’t worry bud, I’m not a big fan either. Lushie settled on her go-to of fresh lemonade and I hit the sausage tent with fresh peppers. I don’t know why but that is my go-to when I see things like seafood being served by a guy that hasn’t washed in a couple days. I just can’t justify eating seafood that’s been sitting out all day in the heat and then gets cooked in front of you. I’d have an alien coming out of me.

The festival season for me has started and we’ll make our way to a few key parish festivals so I can humiliate old people with my crazy bingo skills. I grew up on church festivals and work a couple carnivals (Harborfest woooo)  so I appreciate any events like the arts fest or any outdoor event.

I enjoy walking around with my wife and son to public fairs which is odd because even 5 years ago i scoffed at the idea.

Maybe I’m at that point in my life now where I find joy in simple family outings like this.

Maybe I just really want to find the ultimate festival food

Maybe I’m becoming my dad…