So long, farewell auf wiedersehen, goodbye!

What better way to title my last blog entry than bringing it all back to the beginning.  Later this morning I will be heading south to Jacksonville to meet up with the rest of the SUS '12 crew.  If you want to follow me as I bike across the country add my blog to your Google reader, list of favorites, etc! 

Thank you to everyone who has been following along these past nine months, who took time to comment and/or send articles of interest; it definitely made it easier to know I was not writing to a big black internet hole.

Penultimate Post

After 250 posts (including the official last post) and 3200+ hits from 18 countries on this little web project of mine, I am pleased saddened to give you my penultimate post.

A last minute change in my schedule mean that I would be heading up to Philly to surprise my family at my cousin's graduation.  Before my mom and I headed across the state we decided to hit up the Carnegie Science Museum which was something on my PGH bucket list; between fun hands on, dare I say educational, activities and a HUGE miniature train set how could you go wrong? Also as a disclaimer, I am also a huge fan of science museums. 

As soon as we walked in the door we were greeted by a water table which was displaying Bernoulli's principle.   Long story short this principle is what allows a person to balance a light ball on the top of a stream of water.

From there we made our way through each of the floors, with the second being the highlight.  The miniature train room was pretty impressive, boasting four seasons and timed day and night portions with the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.  All of the homes/buildings were handcrafted and based off historically accurate buildings of Western PA.

"The Miniature Railroad & Village^® features hundreds of wonderfully realistic animated scenes that illustrate how people lived, worked, and played in our region during an era spanning the 1880s to the late 1930s. "

Old Forbes Field

Mr. Roger's house (while not a real house in PGH, definitely a notable one)

With a working roller coaster

 Last stop on the tour was the USS Requin (named after a sand shark).  

PACKING Like It's My J-O-B

Today we were able to get all my worldly possessions into a 8x7x5 storage box which will be picked up next week.  One more task has been crossed off the list!

The Real Hunger Games

The REAL Hunger Games have begun in the Capitol: This week the House is voting on $36 billion in cuts to nutrition assistance, or SNAP, which would kick 2 million people off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps), reduce benefits for 44 million more, and drop 280,000 low-income kids from school lunch.

A Day in the Life: John Fetterman

If you remember all the way back to MLK Day in January I had briefly mentioned John Fetterman, Braddock's Mayor.  Emma, a PHC member, found a short HULU documentary that not only talks about his work, but also the history and future plans of Braddock.  While it is a short piece, he does a great job talking about the different socioeconomic factors which led to the fall of this once booming steel town.

"typically artists will see value in something that others haven't and that is the essence of the Braddock argument"