Last weekend, I finally made it to my first ever Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix in Schenley Park in Pittsburgh. An event many of my friends have gone to, I have never had the chance to go until this year.
Since 1983, the PVGP is a race and car show that draws about 200,000 spectators. With over 2,000 cars on display, it is an opportunity to see rare and exotic domestic and imported automobiles.
Yesterday, we had to get rid of two thing. A chicken coop and a 25 foot Winnebago Itasca. Luckily, my friends and I tend to be quite advanced in our methods of creative demolition, and naturally a heavy static object and a heavier moving object make the perfect couple.
As a treat for Valerie’s birthday last weekend, I surprised her with a Couple’s Night cooking class at Gaynor’s School of Cooking in Station Square (or is it South Side? not really sure… in between I suppose).
The menu for the evening was:
Merry Christmas (Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, etc.) and happy New Year! I’ve been so involved with my side project, Mystery Tricycle, that I haven’t gotten to put much content on shutterBURGH recently. But it was a fun Christmas at the Smarto household, so here are some highlights.
Its September 1. The dreaded day that bookends the summer. Usually, right about this time every year, I look back on the summer and wish I had made something more of it. All too frequently since adolescence, I wish I had either done more, seen more, traveled more, or whatever the regret of the day happens to be.
Sometimes I wish I could have the Foo Fighters play as a soundtrack in my head.
For some odd reason, Nathan and Dave decided to invest in a hang glider. (That some reason I refer to is actually a triumphant ‘why the hell not?‘)
I think that 5 years ago, if someone were to tell me that my friends would rent a car, drive to Baltimore, pick up a $300 used airfoil and try to fly it that night, I’d have thought it irrational, dangerous and ridiculous. But, as it turns out, while we haven’t gotten it totally off the ground, in due time it seems to be a pretty promising hobby for us.
As I was traveling through Bedford returning from a Mother’s Day family affair, I wound up at the Flight 93 National Memorial. I had been there before, but there seemed to be a special kind of reverence here on Mother’s Day. Despite the frigid cold and windy day, I got the camera out to snap some photos:
Before I let Valerie go back to London for another 5 months, I had to get her out of the house for a little while, so we took a drive down to my old stomping grounds in Western Maryland. On the way, we stopped to admire the Ohiopyle falls. We got to bask in the 80 degree weather, and I got to snap some really pretty pictures of Val:
Valerie’s birthday gift to me as a trip to Ohio to do a Hocking Hills Canopy Tour. The tour was through the tree tops over 10 zip lines and 5 sky-bridges, the longest zips were about 500ft! One of the zips ran across the river, another went over a cave, they were all different and very fun. If you ever need a gift idea, I highly recommend this.
My eyes peeled open, crusty with disbelief. I… I survived it? I survived Sturgis?
It wasn’t a normal vacation, but then again, it wasn’t really a vacation at all. My uncle John is the CEO of a small startup company called MotoringUSA. This year, the company had the opportunity to work along side the city of Sturgis, SD and plan the entire Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. We arranged all of the corporate sponsors, vendors and events. My role was to act as the city of Sturgis photographer and to capture imagery for next year’s magazine.
