Happy belated birthday, America! You look good for your age, from the purple mountain majesties to the amber waves of grain. Technically, the Rocky Mountains, the alleged purple mountains from the song “America the Beautiful,” formed around 80 million years ago during the Laramide Orogeny ...
Summer in Pittsburgh can only mean one thing: It’s orange cone season. I can’t leave my house within a mile in any direction without being stopped by a road crew. Every day, someone in a bright-yellow hard hat and matching fluorescent yellow vest stops me on the street with a sign. It ...
Cue “Pomp and Circumstance,” because it’s graduation season. I’ve been riding the party train all month (eight days). I’ve been up in Ohio for Kent State's commencement, where my niece Chloe grabbed her diploma. I went to a high school graduation party for my cousin’s kid, Natalia, ...
Huzzah! The Annual Burning of the Scalp event is upon us. It’s not really summer until I sear the flesh off the top of my head in a ceremonial ritual of warm weather. Every year, I burn my scalp because I go out without a hat or forget to slather sunscreen on my bald pate. I don’t know ...
I start my mornings pondering the question, “What went wrong this week?” Instead of gazing into my navel, contemplating the greater meanings of life, the universe, and everything, I’m scrutinizing my mishaps, misfortunes, and assorted bits of mayhem. I’m looking for trips, falls, and ...
I am too dumb for smart technology. I’ve had a series of incidents involving technology in which I lost the war against the machines. In March, I had to watch a YouTube video on how to reset the clock on my car's dashboard display for Daylight Saving Time. In early April, I had to reboot ...
