Still getting used to it

I know Caution Thinking has been gathering dust. This is partly because I've been working on the new Western Pennsylvania Culinary Warfare League contest. As previously noted, I have a better work ethic when it comes to the more focused projects.

In addition, I feel the need to devote time to some housing issues -- cleaning, packing, and the like -- while staring down the barrel of a nasty overtime schedule later this month. All that time at work will likely increase blog output in general, but I can make no promise that there will be more than a series of classist screeds.

My final excuse is the work I'm doing for my Dungeons & Dragons group over at Crippled Vulture Games. My players have been more patient than could be expected during this lengthy hiatus and I want to play again as soon as possible.

And now a little something for the locals. I just read this article in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Honestly, I'm not sure how to react to the news that perhaps we may have over-estimated the impact the new Children's Hospital would have on the area. I did not grow up in Lawrenceville, but I've been here for two years now and I consider myself a member of the community.

Lawrenceville and the surrounding neighborhoods -- which are all very nice in their own way and I can't see why one would feel the need to claim one's establishment is in Lawrenceville when it's just across the street in Bloomfield -- are experiencing an economic revitalization lately. As opposed to the Whole Foods falling out of the sky-style rebirth of East Liberty, more often than not this is the result of the success of various small local shops and whatnot.

So while it is unfortunate that these joints aren't getting the kind of business injection they had hoped for, I think it may work out better in the long run. Until the Children's Hospital came around, the area's growth was a more organic, ground-up sort of thing. UPMC, however, is a massive organization that likely maintains a few dim, smoke-filled board rooms. It would be sad indeed if sometime in the future their executives decided that our charming Liberty Avenue, Penn Avenue, and Butler Street commercial districts would better serve the overlord as glorified food courts made of national chain restaurants. I'm not saying UPMC doesn't lack the power to do this anyway, but we might as well just hand them the keys if so many local places are counting on traffic from the hospital.

Call me paranoid, but it just seems that relying on the big corporation to support a neighborhood when that neighborhood's success thus far has been the result of local commitment is counter-intuitive.