Only in the city

There was a bit of excitement in town today - during lunch, as the officemates were discussing the double standards held to different genders in teacher-student scandals, the senior clerk (who listens to the radio while he works) burst into the room, exclaiming, "Sniper!"

There were reports of a sniper in one of the buildings downtown (a la Phone Booth). Entire sections of the business district were closed, people were herded inside buildings and not allowed on the streets... The SWAT team was there. Everyone wondered what the commotion was about with the choppers and sirens, and now it made sense. Productivity dropped a good 40% as people stood around speculating what happened. All the local news websites crashed my browser when I tried visiting them, from the heavy traffic I suppose. It was an odd coincidence that the President was just in Wheeling, WV earlier in the day, not far from here, with hundreds of security personnel standing by for all of the 15 minutes he was there. Still, there was no reason for the two to be related - why would a sniper be in downtown Pittsburgh on a Wednesday afernoon? Who among us is that interesting of a hit?

After all the tension, frantic media, hours of being stuck inside, hundreds of cars rerouted, closing the tunnels, SWAT team mobilized and ready to go, the afternoon ended in an anti-climax, to say the least. The police found out the bearded man wearing camo with a sniper rifle was simply a maintenance guy with his pellet gun shooting pigeons. Ha!! What a joke. The funniest part of the whole thing was that the guy who caused the big deal managed to walk away, oblivious and unnoticed. 'Excellent' longtime employee of the city or not, this guy is about as smart as someone who waves around a toy gun on a commercial flight. And I have so much more faith now in the competence of our local authorities...

What a day.

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Unrelated: We had dinner at Nakama. It was much like the Big Burrito group - upscale, trendy, cool concept, good food. Parking was a pain in the butt. I made reservations through OpenTable; it's one of very few local joints listed on the site. (We need more cool places, less chains.) Young crowd, not family-friendly. Lots of well-to-do types and wannabes with their martinis... and then there are dorks like us, that stick out like a sore thumb. :P I took E out this time, and he reciprocated with dessert at our favorite ice-cream shop around the corner. Yummy!