Drove into the city Saturday to attend a BaconPalooza at Shadyside's Harris Grill, with some uncertainty about what we'd find on The Day After. We found Pittsburgh, same as it ever was.
We did learn that it's a tactical error to drive through Bloomfield during their Little Italy days; my GPS wasn't clever enough to avoid that. The streets were crowded with booths and businesses and the Sons of Italy, with nary a black hoody or zip-tie handcuffs in sight. 
The BaconPalooza was as advertised; we had shrimp-n-bacon, bacon perogies, bacon wings, bacon sushi, and a few slices of a Bacon Explosion (which was really good). We had bacon cupcakes from CoCo's Cupcake Cafe, also excellent. We did not venture into the chicken-friend bacon. We met Pittsburgh blogger Mr. BaconPants, who unfortunately does not have his signature trousers for sale yet, but hopes to shortly.
We realized we had a shopping target of opportunity, so we went to the Apple store on Shadyside's main drag to get some replacement ear buds. There was a queue of people standing in the rain to eat at Pamela's. We saw plywood sheets on a few storefronts but there was no other indication that on Wednesday, people weren't certain what Thursday would bring.
In the week prior to the G-20, PghComet cleverly pointed out that anticipating the G-20 was like being at Nags Head and wondering where the hurricane was going to hit.
To me, the G-20 seemed like an event horizon; all planning, concern, etc. went as far as Thursday, and no further. Now we're over the horizon, and there's a day or so of the "sweet spot" familiar to survivors, followed by a too-quick return to the nagging details of life: money, health, politics, war, plumbing, logistics, car pools. Here we go Steelers, here we go...
There were a few blog posts during the G20 and the "sweet spot" that I really liked:
- RiffRaffGregg offered a world leader's guide to Pittsburgh.
- Eve identified the silver lining: the G20 sharply reduced vehicle traffic and bikes took over. To repeat her question, how can we plan for this more often?
- Illyrias compared the G-20 experience with damages caused in Superbowl celebrations.
- I enjoyed Infinonymous' wrapup, as well as ALL of his G20 posts, most excellent
- 2PoliticalJunkies assigns responsibility to Luke in a great column, but I really don't think Luke thought this up - he just handed his city over to the professionals, who applied the Miami model, which is what we just saw- the military application of superior firepower, airpower, information, and control. Sonic weapons, tear gas, n'at. Downtahn shock and awe.
Best G-20 Burgh Photo/shop
Originally seen at ThatsChurch, from Burgher Magnus Patris' blog, we have this:
It's an excellent bit of work. Only Pittsburgh can turn a Greenpeace protest at a world economic conference into the backdrop for a sports discussion.
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