I was coming home from my uncle’s last night and was day-dreaming and ended up missing my exit and wound up on the North Shore.  I decided to take this as an opportunity to check out all the development going on over there.  The casino garage looks just about done and the casino itself seems to have all the walls up from the outside.  there’s at least 1 hotel in the works by PNC park, and I think another building in construction as well.  They razed the sportsworks complex to make way for the northshore T connector already.  One thing I couldnt explain, is the construction around the the Manchester Bridge Pier near Heinz Field.  It looks like they cut a hole in it or something.  So I went to research mode.

Turns out, it’s going to be the new Mr. Rogers monument.  It was supposed to be completed in Fall 2008, but I guess they hit some major delays.  I found a few articles that said the 10 foot scultpure of him is already done and sitting in a warehouse somewhere since may 2008.  That’s a long time.  This looks like a pretty cool place though.  I’m almost concerned that the northshore is going to become something like washington DC with all the monuments along the Mall.  Either way, I’m happy to see new stuff, especially for Mr. Rogers.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07144/788654-53.stm

Had a small dream last night where i was at my dad’s funeral, but it was in washington DC. Afterwards, my step-dad, Chris, and I walked out of the funeral home, and across the river you could see the lincoln memorial, but it had 7 circular rotundas in a semi-circle around it, each one about 25 feet in diameter. Chris said that he knew the name for the display, and they seemed very familiar, as if they were some monument from somewhere else, just relocated for a seasonal event. We just kept on walking down the street, and my cousin adam was riding a bike down the side walk, and he hit a spot of uneven pavement, and flipped over the handlebars and hit his head on the street. I went over to help him up. He was a little shaken, but fine otherwise. It was just me and him then, and we were going to continue walking down the street to meet up with my mom and sisters. We walk to this dead end street, and on the opposite side of the street, 2 teenagers got into a car, and broadsided an empty parked mini-van about 20 feet away from them and then drove off. We just looked at eachother like, “what the crap was that about” then, another 2 kids got into another car, and drove head to head into a bronco looking empty parked car. They backed up and did it again, and we assumed it was the car of the first 2 kids. then, this is where it gets graphic.
they had a deer (looking animal, it was larger like a camel) tied up next to their house, and a duck, that was actually more of a cartoon duck like daffy duck. the duck had arms and had a very animated face. anyway, they took a rope, tied it to the car they were in, threw it around a power line crossing the street, then took it back 40 some feet and attached it to the deer’s collar. then they tie another rope to the bumper, and the other end around the duck’s neck. the duck grabbed the rope with both hands, like begging for his life. Adam and i are just standing across the street on this porch of a house that we think everyone else should be at watching this go on in disgust. so the car starts to drive away, drags both animals for about 30 feet, the deer scraping his stomach on the street, and the duck tumbling around. Since the deer’s rope was tied around the power line, it started to get pulled up vertically, as if being hung. It got pulled up around 5 feet in the air, and from being drug on the street, a whole had torn through its skin on its stomach. intestines and stuff jsut startting falling out through this hole, and it was freaking out. so they cut it the rope above it, and it started to run back to where it was besides their house. At that point, adam and i just walked back the way we came, and a block or two down, we found everyone else.