I swear it’s like clockwork. Every year between the second week of August and the first week of September, I get a very bad cold that knocks me on my ass for a few days. I always thought it coincided with the first week of school, but I’m out of college now and still annoyingly sick.
My guess is juvenile grass spider or maybe a hobo spider? Sorry for the bad picture. I’ve found several in my house and all of them have been in poorly lit areas, so have been able to get a good picture
Most of these pictures are Dave DiCello’s, but I shared a few of my own. I wish I had taken more.
What an incredible, once in a lifetime experience to take part in. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the draft for almost the entire day on both Thursday and Friday, and I went back down on Saturday evening to enjoy the end, even though we were exhausted.
I grew up a MASSIVE sports fan, and obviously, being from Pittsburgh, my teams are all quite successful. I’m 25, so I’ve been fortunate enough to see 2 Super Bowl wins, 3 Stanley Cup Championships, and even a Pirates playoff run (lol). I knew that this city would be a perfect candidate for the NFL draft, but I did not realize just how incredible it would be.
805,000 people came to see the draft, with over half a million coming in from around the country and even around the world! I met fans from Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Australia this weekend. I had such a great time chatting with people from all over the place this weekend, and was shocked to hear that almost nobody I met had a bad experience. They loved the unconventional layout of the city that we’ve grown to hate, or maybe just agree to live with. They thought public transit was actually better than expected (it’s not great, but it’s there if you need it), and they loved how walkable the city is. I heard a lot of comments about how clean it was and how great our food and cultural scene is. On top of that, everyone seemed to get along! Other than the incident in market square and I’m sure a few other isolated incidents (which I don’t even think were draft related), everyone behaved themselves. I think the layout of the draft, while it could’ve been slightly better, was very good, and allowed newcomers to experience a large chunk of our downtown and north shore. I never felt crowded or got mad about lines. Food and drinks were a bit pricey, but that’s why we decided that we would try to support local businesses as much as possible. With that being said, I do want to address the elephant in the room.
If you are a local business owner, I really hope you did okay this weekend. The city definitely failed to advertise your appeal in favor of the very corporate and very overpriced NFL draft areas. I am seeing that reports from a lot of businesses saying that business was steady at best, with some places in the midst of the draft even being slow. I know that my gf and I tried to avoid eating & drinking at the draft (sometimes this was unavoidable, but we tried to spend as little money as possible) and instead focused our business on local bars and restaurants, as they were much cheaper and offered much better food and drinks. I was recommending to everyone that i met that they do the same. I think the layout of the draft should have been expanded slightly to cover areas like the strip, so that tourists would be more encouraged to visit for a bit longer and maybe spend a bit of money locally. As is though, it is very unfortunate. I’m hoping that on the bright side, these businesses go back to normal, and hopefully see an uptick in business from new visitors in the future.
At the end of the day, I am so happy that the draft was held here, and I’m hoping to have it held here at least once more in my lifetime. Judging from Detroit’s post draft economy, I’m thinking that Pittsburgh will see a MASSIVE return on investment, somewhere upwards of 10:1, and will see improved tourism numbers in the future as a result. I’m also hoping that this improves the city’s hopes of hosting other large events, and improves planning for existing events *Cough, cough, PICKLESBURGH*. It feels really cool to be on the world stage as a relatively small city, but it’s even cooler to see overwhelmingly positive reviews and experiences, so thank you to all of our weekend visitors, and of course, my fellow yinzers, for making this weekend so special.