Best of the 'Burgh

Let's get this over with. Voting for Pittsburgh Magazine's annual Best of the 'Burgh is underway through April 20th. I'm honored to be nominated in the Local Writer category. Thanks to everyone for submitting my name as a nominee and thanks if you vote for me or for one of the other finalists in this category.

As many of you know, I live in Northern Virginia. While I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, I am not likely considered a "local" writer if Pittsburgh Magazine has a specific definition of local. I mean, I'm local to Pittsburgh compared to the Artemus II astronauts circling the moon but that probably doesn't count. With that written, many of my posts are Pittsburgh related or have Pittsburgh references. Not including this post, I have written 13 separate posts in 2026. Of course I'd like to write more, but that's a different topic for a different day. 11 of the 13 posts include some type of mention of Pittsburgh. The other two are about my youngest son participating in a spelling bee and about my passing the Brimley / Cocoon line. (For the spelling bee post, I included a story about how I participated in a spelling bee when I was in third grade. Although I didn't actually name the school or my teacher, that spelling bee occurred in Pittsburgh.) I think a spelling bee and reaching a certain age milestone are universal for residents of Pittsburgh and beyond.

If Pittsburgh Magazine and the Best of the 'Burgh voters want someone who lives in Western Pennsylvania, I understand. If they want someone to write only about local topics, I understand that too, though I believe that the great Hal B. Klein is the only nominee that meets this criteria. If it helps my candidacy as a local writer, I can write about very specific local topics such as why it's "sus" (as the kids say) that the longtime Woodland Hills High School Band Director and Director of the Spring Musical retired just a few weeks before opening night of Young Frankenstein at the auditorium named in his honor. Or I can write about two of my kids being in the background of a story filmed by WTAE last week. Is that local enough? Look, I haven't lived in Western PA for many years but Pittsburgh and the region will always be part of me. 

2021 Best of The 'Burgh

Voting is currently underway in Pittsburgh Magazine's annual Best of the 'Burgh. As I mentioned last month, I want to sincerely thank my friends and family for nominating me in the Local Writer category. I'm a finalist up against an impressive group of nominees in Damon Young, Gene Collier, Merecedes J. Williams, Natalie Bencivenga, and Tony Norman. All of these individuals have better credentials than me and get paid to share their opinions. If you've read this blog at all, you can tell that no one is paying to hear from me. 

Before I go any further, I should probably address something fairly important for this contest. I'm not a local writer. I mean, I'm a local writer for where I live, but that place isn't Pittsburgh or Western Pennsylvania. With that written, I was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Before the pandemic, I tried to get back at least once a year to visit family and friends and to expose my kids to Pittsburgh. I regularly write about Pittsburgh in posts including our family vacation, the closing of one of my favorite restaurants, The O, and predictions for the Pirates this season. My guess is that at least 1,000 of my over 3,000 blog posts here reference Pittsburgh. Historically, more people in Western Pennsylvania read my blog than from anyone else. I am also a proud member of the Pittsburgh Bloggers group on Facebook, and the majority of the people I follow on Twitter have Pittsburgh ties. In addition, I regularly visit blogs and websites devoted to Pittsburgh and listen to Pittsburgh podcasts. Basically, I believe that I have the credentials of a local writer except that I don't have a phone number with a 412 area code.

So this is the part of the post where I should encourage you to vote for me. If you'd like to, please do. However, any of the other nominees are deserving (and probably more deserving), so I'm not going to start a "None of the Above" campaign.

Voting concludes on Saturday, April 17th at 11:59 PM. The local writer category is under "Personalities." And thanks for checking out my third blog post in my 30 in 30ish challenge.

Random Ramblings: March 2021

* While I'm happy that more and more people are getting vaccines, I'll admit that I'm getting a little jealous of seeing people my age and younger getting vaccinated. I realize that I'm in decent health without any underlying medical conditions, and I don't work in a medical profession or any other job that would qualify as an essential worker, but I'd still like to get vaccinated sooner rather than later. I'm hoping for May or June.

* With Passover coming up, a catering company offered all types of meals and side dishes. When I saw that they have a Kosher for Passover brisket meal serving 6 for $40, I jumped at it thinking it was an incredible deal. About a week after submitting the order, the catering company contacted me after noticing that I only ordered 1 meal when the minimum order was 6. That $40 was actually $40 per person, which makes complete sense now. After learning that I would need to spend $240 for this meal, with little chance that my kids would eat much of this (and the fact that it's $240!), I revised the order and went off the a la carte menu.

* Although I have not worked as a soccer referee since November 2019, I continue to receive constant emails looking for refs to work games. I'm planning on taking the spring season off (see the not vaccinated thing above), so it might be nearly two years between working games. I think that I'm a pretty good ref, but I'm definitely going to need to brush up on the laws of the game when I return. Starting with some lower-level kids games might be a good way to start too rather than working adult games. 

* My 4th grader and 1st grader recently returned to school two days a week. With only my 3 year old at home on these days, I thought that I might be able to get a lot more work done. That has not happened. Apparently, he likes the one-on-one attention that he's rarely had over the last year.

* Once again, I'm happy that I didn't put any money on the NCAA Tournament. I fill out brackets for fun, but learned years ago that I'm just throwing away money in any pay polls. While I completed several brackets, I had Illinois getting to the championship or winning in most of them and also had Ohio State going far. I chose poorly.

* Finally, thanks to my family and friends for nominating me for Pittsburgh Magazine's 2021 Best of The 'Burgh in the local writer category. I'm a finalist up against these accomplished individuals: 

Damon Young, author of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker (which is a finalist for the Thurber House for American Humor) and co-founder and editor in chief of VerySmartBrothas.

Gene Collier - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist who I read growing up. He's also received a few Pulitzer Prize nominations.

Merecedes J. Williams - She's the owner and operator of Movie Scene Queen and writes for the New Pittsburgh Courier 

Natalie Bencivenga - Syndicated advice columnist who is also a Public Relations Strategist for Savvy Pittsburgh

Tony Norman - Award-winning columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

You're certainly welcome to vote for me, but this is truly a case where it's an honor being nominated. While I enjoy writing this blog, I'm clearly a distant sixth in this group.