PLAYING PITTSBURGH

After a bit of worship with good microbrews and good food at

one can step out and see the town and what's happening at the Strip and Carnegie Museum.

ANCIENT DAYS

Back when the world was young, or me at any rate, there were machines like this all over the place and they had the coldest drinks you could buy for a quarter. When the bottle top was removed, ice would form in the neck of the bottle and the first few sips were like ambrosia on hot southern days.

When I was a little older and in a much hotter clime, the two men from SUPSHIPDETNAPLES who ran my work packages through the paper-mill in Bahrain for MSO Drydocking and Intermediate Availabilities, had one of these machines in their office up on the second floor of my favorite building in Bahrain Ship Repair and Construction (BASREC). Their CocaCola machine was always full of ice cold bottles of beer and if one was in good graces with the powers (the two engineers from Naples), one could always drop in and have a cold beer for nothing. We never told anyone else that this was even a possibility. While young, we were smarter than that.

THE TONGA ROOM

We will be in Baghdad by the Bay this summer for a conference. I am thinking of hitting the the Tonga Room. It's kitsch, but it's delightful kitsch. We might head up to the Top of the Mark before heading back to the Berkeley Hills, if I can find them.

OK, I'm sure I can find them. I can see them from the driver's seat in my car parked in Pacific Heights.

The odd thing about Bagdad-by-the-Bay is that it is a city that sleeps. If you find yourself there at 0300, the silence is deafening. With the demise of Borders in Union Square, probably nothing happens at all after dark in downtown.

A TRIFLING THING

Abortion is indeed of no account in the United States. You have to look at State laws on the sales of beer, wine and hard liquor to discern the founder's intent when it comes to the real meaning of the laboratory of democracy and State's rights. I went to school in Pennsylvania. It is an odd state. It has the most ridiculous liquor laws I've ever seen and these days I live in MetroParkCentralis where a teenager cashier is forced to call for adults to actually physically lay hands on any wine or beer that passes through the cashier's lane, so that's saying something.

I moved here from California where they'll sell anything that doesn't move without any wriggle room at all in the law. They still have counties that won't let you carry a gun legally but you can certainly buy them everywhere.

How do such arcane and arrantly stupid laws remain on the books while the courts loftily overturn State laws on gayness and abortion and other words that weld people to their convictions about what is right and lawful? Even guns, ammo and concealed carry get a more reasoned and rational debate about why one state is allowed to set/make/enforce different laws than other states. Yeah, New York, I'm looking at you.

We have a day to reflect on the meaning of independence before heading back to work. It's certainly worth thinking about. You guys in Pennsylvania and New York might right a letter to your legislators and ask them why they are so stuck on stupid on these topics.