Random n’at
- November 2, 2009
- filed under Local media, Mayor Ravenstahl, Steelers
1. Oh, Halloween candy. Evil tyrants hell bent on making me gain weight. As my twitter friend @RockingPony wrote about Halloween candy, “I’ve taken to hiding mine from myself. Unfortunately myself always watches where I put it.”
Myself does the same thing. Myself also misbehaves horribly at the grocery store and buys junk I don’t need to eat.
2. Speaking of evil, how about that time change that makes small children wake up at 5:30 a.m. all, “GOOD MORNING MOMMY AND DADDY! LET’S HAVE SOME FROSTED FLAKES AND GET THIS BEAUTIFUL DAY STARTED! WHAT DO YOU MEAN GO AWAY?! WHY IS MOMMY TRYING TO HIDE UNDER THE COVERS?! NO I WON’T STOP SHOUTING UNTIL I GET SOME STUPID FROSTED FLAKES!”
I remember a time when I embraced this “fall back” thing, now I just want to stab it in the face.
3. Speaking of falling back, Lukey fell back on his standard canned language when speaking to the New York Times:
“I’m most definitely up for the challenge,” Mr. Ravenstahl said. “I learned a lot in my first term, and we are ready to move forward.”
Do you think he did that on purpose as a shout out to us all or do you think he said it and then in his head went, “DAMN IT!”
Regardless, aaaaaaand … DRINK!
(h/t to all of you that emailed it to me.)
4. Bennett Ryan continues to amaze. (scroll down)
(h/t Amy and Meghan)
5. Reader Shelly won the Bach tickets and the Confluence shirt when Random Number Generator picked her comment #153. I already have a shirt lined up for my next giveaway, so I’m excited for that. Soon.
6. I still hadn’t yet formed my opinion on the closing of UPMC Braddock and just like that, Ruth Ann Dailey is pulling me to her side of the fence.
7. Yes, we’re still working on giving our sick kids at Children’s Hospital the games/gameroom they deserve. More soon on that. I haven’t forgotten about them, and I promise I’ll be coming to you for help on their behalf soon, because if there’s one thing Mike and I are good at, it is scheming and shenanigans.
8. Speaking of speaking, the video of me and Mike Woycheck’s PodCamp Pittsburgh 4 Presentation is up for your viewing pleasure.
You’ll learn the secret I hadn’t shared before (you learn that in the first five minutes), you’ll learn the real story about the CNN interview, including why I did the interview, what I said to the reporter about being fired and how I felt about my face being on the front of CNN.com (hint: NOOO!). You’ll learn how my husband feels about my blog, what my plans for the future are, and everything that went into taking The Burgh Blog down.
I would like to add that the camera adds ten pounds and that this particular camera was obviously a hater because it added all ten pounds to my hips.
Holy crap. I bet the pears are all, “Ugh, I’ve got such a Ginny figure.”
MamaBear
November 2, 2009 3:01 pm
Totally and completely agree that time changes are EVIL. My 1 year old twins were totally awake at 5:30 yesterday and we continued to have the LONGEST DAY EVER. Face stab, indeed.
L-A
November 2, 2009 3:01 pm
Thanks for the Bennett Ryan update…I’ll keep sending positive thoughts their way.
Bobbo
November 2, 2009 3:08 pm
I was going to make a comment about Mike looking very thin in that pic… until you mentioned that you THOUGHT it put 10 pounds on you (which is a lie).
Still A Fan
November 2, 2009 3:16 pm
What do you call a video of a podcast where people are talking about a blog?
A vlobcast? Did you tweet anyone to read the post?
SpudMom
November 2, 2009 3:36 pm
First, thank God you finally posted and there’s no more Rhino Anus ™ up top.
Second, shut. up. about the camera adding 10 pounds. I watched the footage over the weekend and I thought to myself “damn. wish I looked that good after 2 babies.” Trust me, I don’t.
gunnlino
November 2, 2009 3:40 pm
Yeah Bennett,
Yeah Ruth Ann
But I always liked pears !
cp
November 2, 2009 3:48 pm
The hips don’t lie. Interesting secret.
Sooska
November 2, 2009 4:18 pm
1. I despise the spring leap forward, love the fall back. I am tired all summer despite the sun. It is unnatural. No wonder some kids have problems the whole school year.
I would rather get up early than have a kid who will not go to bed at night. My son, with or w/o day light savings, used to crawl out of bed and come into our room on Saturday and Sunday mornings and open the blind (it was a dormer so the windows were very low) and yell in his baby voice “it’s LIGHT DAY OUTSIDE!!)
6.UPMC has made a nice habit of coming into to small towns, buying up local hospitals, then closing them. Non profit my ass.
bucdaddy
November 2, 2009 4:31 pm
What SpudMom said. After two kids, seriously? There’s nothing wrong with your hips, Your Hotness. You do a disservice to women with self-esteem issues everywhere …
Ah, who am I kiddin’? I don’t give a fig about any of that (except the Your Hotness part), and a damn good thing too, or I’d be steamed.
Carpetbagger
November 2, 2009 4:47 pm
My wife and I were complaining about Halloween candy when someone innocently (and annoyingly) asked, “Why don’t you buy Halloween candy that you don’t like?”
We had no answer. It was like they were speaking jibberish. Stop talking! Who let this crazy person into our house? Right, like we’re going to go out and buy bit-o-honey by the pound.
spoon
November 2, 2009 5:14 pm
Lushie was killin me Halloween night (no pun intended) because she passed out all of the Reese’s Cups first and left me with the Whoppers. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a great candy but goddamn I love me peanutbutter cups.
Clair
November 2, 2009 5:20 pm
3 kids at home = 3 huge hauls of halloween candy. ack!! not to mention any leftover candy we have since the rain here in VA kept a lot of kids inside. (not mine tho! ha!). Funny thing tho, this year it does not look as appealing as it has in prior years. i wonder why that is! Not complaining since it will keep me from raiding their bags!
btw the oldest…who moved back to the Burgh to go to school, had the NERVE to go to Kennywood on Halloween! HUMPH!!
the clock falling back sucks not so much cuz the kids get up earlier but because it gets dark so early and that is depressing!! maybe cuz my kids are older (6, 11, 12 at home, 18 away at school) and they are up early for school anyway so it does not seem to mess with them. When they were young enough for it to matter, we lived in AZ and since they do not do daylight savings, we never had issues with changing the clock cuz we did not do it. So we never had 5:30am wake-up calls.
Schuyler
November 2, 2009 5:20 pm
I agree with the others – you look great! Two kids and leftover Halloween candy aren’t helping me any!! :-) And Carpetbagger, it just seems wrong to buy candy you don’t like, no matter how much I complain about eating it!!
Watched the podcast – super interesting stuff! I give you kudos for not only coming back publicly with this blog, but for now doing all that you are doing – meeting people, doing presentations, etc. It’s a lot to ask from someone who just wants to write!! But we appreciate you letting us get a sneak into your life! And thanks to Mike (your butler) for all he does to help!
Jeni
November 2, 2009 5:20 pm
As an (almost) audiologist, I knew your secret as soon as you started to talk. Thanks for being forthcoming about it. I love you even more now. :)
joe
November 2, 2009 5:23 pm
This son of an audiologist thinks your secret is pretty cool.
bluzdude
November 2, 2009 5:26 pm
Oooh, I’m so excited. Can’t wait to get home and watch the vid. Extra 10 pounds? Are you kidding? From the pic at the top, you look positively waifish. I’m with bucdaddy on this one.
Love the time change… my favorite sleeping day of the year, because it’s all cool in the house. That hour is like a gift from The Sandman.
Unrelated thought: Shenanigans sounds like it should be a town in Michigan. As in, “Yeah, I had an exhausting trip from Shenanigans to Kalamazoo.”
Pensgirl
November 2, 2009 5:30 pm
Ginny, you look better than I do and I don’t have any kids to blame it on (the overly-stressful job with long hours and a bad commute have killed my figure, but that doesn’t sound as valid as “I popped a veritable bowling ball out of my body. Twice.”).
The lack of charity care provided by organizations granted tax-exempt-charity status has become nothing short of appalling. I have long wished that the IRS would throw its weight around and tell the UPMCs of the world to either start acting like real charities or lose their charity status.
I love the fall back, but I’d gladly give it up to get rid of the spring forward. We should have voted every member of Congress out back when they extended DST by four weeks. Bastards.
unsatisfied
November 2, 2009 5:31 pm
spoon — come on down — we couldn’t stay long enough to pass out candy for trick or treat on sat night (hell, we had a party to get to all the way out in irwin).
so, we still have a buttload of reese’s. mmm, mmm, good.
maggiemae
November 2, 2009 5:36 pm
From the Post Gazette: “The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s worldwide push for revenues and markets could soon make it the largest operator of private hospitals in Ireland and take the UPMC flag to new parts of the United Kingdom, the Mediterranean and the Middle East”
Nonprofits are exempted from paying local taxes because they provide a benefit to the community. UPMC is run like a for-profit business
Tax’en Dan-o
AndyTheo
November 2, 2009 5:39 pm
To fix the clock change problem, let your kids have a sleepover the night before the clocks change. We did and my daughters looked like Lindsay Lohan the day after an allnighter at the Viper Room.
No Princesses Here
November 2, 2009 5:49 pm
Whole-heartedly agree about the time change. My daughter has been up at 5:30 the past two mornings…..and REALLY angry an hour before mealtimes, naptime, and bedtime. Poor kid. Here’s hoping they all adjust soon!
Thanks for the Bennet Ryan update! Looks like miracles really are happening! We’ll keep praying.
And now to try and hide the Halloween candy from myself…….
lipreadergalore
November 2, 2009 5:52 pm
I asked my husband to interpret the beginning of your video because I was curious about your secret. As soon as he heard you talk, he knew what it was, because I have a deaf accent too. Like you, my deafness is only one part of me, along with being a writer and having a sense of humor. I already loved you, but now I do even more. Is that wrong?
butcher's dog
November 2, 2009 5:56 pm
Used to be the spring forward messed with my system. Now they both do. Sucks gettin’ old.
Ginny, if the pic at the top of this page made you look any hotter there’d be drool on my screen. And Mrs. Dog wouldn’t take too kindly to that. Seriously, the whole body image thing is important even if you don’t know that it is or are shooting for humor. I spent 37 years in front of classrooms full of teenaged girls, too many of whom were dealin’ with stuff that got in the way of what they should have been dealin’ with. We are who we are. If the physical, walkin’ around part keeps us from doing what we want because we’re in bad shape or is breaking down and causing us health problems, then it needs to be fixed. Otherwise, deal with it and learn to love it.
Just my two cents.
Sarah
November 2, 2009 6:31 pm
Is it wrong that I buy Halloween candy even though I live in a condo building where we have no trick or treaters…this is the only time of year that I can buy a couple bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups without being judged..
pghgeorge
November 2, 2009 8:45 pm
How do you get an anonymous blogger back in the bottle? Wait, I don’t have a funny answer for that. (wtef) *post*
bluzdude
November 2, 2009 8:58 pm
Just watched the webcast and a couple of things are floating around in my mind…
Adorable… immensely cool… surprising… smokin’ hot burgher… totally human…
I so wish I could have attended. That was a stellar room. I almost lost complete track of time.
Never stop, Ginny, never stop!
steeler_tom
November 2, 2009 8:59 pm
So you are hearing impared, you speak very well.
You sound very confident. This is not an issue.
You feel your hips look 10 lbs bigger on Tv. Esteem issue? Nobody like how they photograph.
Heck Ginny,
You are “Perfectly Normal”
I was hoping for a really big secret….. none exists….
When you pen your first book, (one had better be in the works) all I ask is that you sign one for me when I purchase it.
You are loved, respected and admired.
Thank you
Karen
November 2, 2009 9:16 pm
What SpudMom said. Of course, maybe if myself would stop eating the Halloween candy I’d not look like I was smuggling the pears IN my hips.
SpudMom
November 2, 2009 9:42 pm
Ahem. Ditto Karen.
Bojack
November 2, 2009 10:57 pm
FYI- Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, aka HIGHMARK is allegedly “not for profit,” meaning they are supposed to deliver health insurance “at cost” to PA residents, but they sit on a $10 billion (and growing) pot of OUR gold because……?????
In Pittsburgh the only players (over 4 million subscribers) are Highmark and UPMC. Both “non-profit” corporations make constant multimillion dollar annual profits and have multibillion dollar surpluses. In May, 2009 and August, 2009 Highmark applied for double digit rate hikes on 40 different product lines.Though UPMC put them to shame by filing one for a 48% increase.
Time to start paying attention kiddies!!!
Bojack
November 2, 2009 11:00 pm
Tomorrow, Tues, November 3 is election day!!
VOTE!!!!! Teach your kids to vote!! Show them YOU vote and why!!
Cassie
November 2, 2009 11:04 pm
My favorite thing about UPMC is that they took our raises away from us for an additional 6 months, so instead of the usual year raise, we have to wait 18 months. But don’t worry, they still got a several million dollar bonus/raise for themselves.
BTW, good job with your secret. It’s a good one, but something to be proud of. You’re awesome.
PittCheMBA
November 2, 2009 11:30 pm
Great Video from PodCamp Pittsburgh 4. Educational and Entertaining at the same time.
Bojack
November 3, 2009 12:36 am
OMG!! I just watched the podcast……
Ditto what Cassie said! You are VERY awesome!!!! :-)
Great tip on checking out archive.org to see if my old blogs are empty!! PHEWWW!
(I had one where I didn’t sugar-coat it like I do now!! LOL)
Thank you for your blog, and for letting me rant. I want to have your children!!! (figuratively :-) )
I didn’t hear you say “n’at” even once??? What’s up with that??
malbrec92
November 3, 2009 1:49 am
Deaf? Def. You rock, Ginny!
Novos51
November 3, 2009 9:39 am
Ginny the only way to end this debate about your figure is to post a lot of pictures of you in bathing suits and lingerie in exotic locales (like homestead or carrick) for us to critique.
And on your secret: You are a role model and should be held as one. God bless you.
Norm
November 3, 2009 11:46 am
I’ve got that camera sitting right next to me as I type. In the camera’s defense, it didn’t know who you were until Mike flashed batman on the screen.
@Novos51 lets leave the scantly clad blogger photos off the internet.
unsatisfied
November 3, 2009 1:48 pm
ruth ann dailey — hot AND right on the money, as usual.
Karen
November 3, 2009 2:54 pm
Interesting that Ruth Ann thinks low income people only go to the hospital to push out babies and get treated for cancer….
wckdcll
November 3, 2009 4:08 pm
“Holy crap. I bet the pears are all, “Ugh, I’ve got such a Ginny figure.”
Holy shit I almost peed my pants at work!!!!!
Damn woman, you are wicked funny!