Monday, January 18, 2010

Is this the World's Steepest Street?

I have heard that this is a contender for the world's steepest street.  It's one of the hills in the famous "Dirty Dozen" bike race which takes place here every November. I was too much of a wimp to try it this year. Maybe next time?

Here, here and here are some of the other hills in it.

Here is a vid of some suffrin' riders

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Snow, Snow and More Snow

Just like dear old Blighty we have have been getting large amounts of snow and freezing temps. However, this is pretty standard for Pittsburgh in January.  We spent today at Chatham College, sledging down their big hill. Soph is an instant wizz on the snow board (check out this video link).

Adam has discovered that he can surf the web and send email from his dsi, which in theory is great apart from the fact that he seems to be able to access just about any web page he wants. Educational as long as I can figure out how to block the dodgy stuff.

I'll be 43 tomorrow!!!  Gulp!


Sunday, January 3, 2010

Happy 50th Birthday Dave Woods!!!!

Check it out....click this text!

Happy Holidays

Belated Happy New Year to All.  We had a very mellow Christmas and New Year.

It has been freezing cold here.....-12 oC today with wind chill taking it down to -20 oC.  It's pretty grim when it gets that cold.  Yesterday I went to get gas (petrol) and pump up the car tyres and forgot to take a woolly hat and gloves.  I almost lost an ear and it took about 30 minutes for the blood to start flowing through my hands afterwards.  Brrrrrrr!!! It's so bloody cold that our bathroom pipes have frozen.....with us living in the house with the heating on full blast.

The laziness of Christmas has been interspersed by a few outings.  We spent an eclectic time at John and Cecile Allison's on Christmas night with John's mum and dad, his brother and wife (who hunts deer for food  with a high powered rifle) and a Bulgarian accordion player called Raddo.  Lots of eating and drinking was followed by lots of loud singing and playing of the accordion.  Cecile is French and is quite possibly the world's greatest cook.  We hit the Carnegie Science Centre for an afternoon of fun and took in the Roboworld exhibition, went for a freezing walk at Raccoon Creek (where we often swim in the summer) and did some sledding in Chatham College which is round the corner from our house.  I sold a bike on ebay and immediately went out and bought another.  This is definitely a mid-life crisis bike (another one) as it is designed for going fast fast fast.