Pittsburgh is no Miami

I spent the last three days in Pittsburgh (Ambridge to be exact) visiting my cousin, Karen, and her family. They just moved there from Singapore and will be there for the next couple of years as her husband, Jon, attends a Seminary there. Ambridge is definitely a town that has seen better days - lots of old and abandoned factories everywhere. Still, it was great to see Karen and Jon again, and to spend some time with their kids, two of whom I hadn't seen in five years and one who I was meeting for the first time. From L2R in the photo here thats Elizabeth, Rachel, Dan and Karen.

We went out to Pennsylvania Dutch country to "soak in the atmosphere" (excuse me, where can we see some Amish people?) which brought back memories of an early and nixed idea for a Netscape ad campaign. Fought hard, and eventually succumbed to, the urge to point and say "look". A bit embarassing really - its not like its a museum, but it's at least some consolation that I saw one Amish kid point at us as well - maybe he hadn't seen too many Chinese people either!

We also went to the Ambridge Veteran's Day parade which was an interesting experience. Lots of high school marching bads. My memories of high school don't involve so many large people. Width and Height have both seemed to increase. Width especially. Not sure if that's a function of rose colored memory glasses, the times, the US, Pittsburgh or the nature of marching bands and flag teams, but it was certainly noticeable.

One Vietnam vet waved at us and said "Hello Charlie". It really annoyed me. Its probably the first time in over 15 years that someone has made a racial comment to my face. But its hard to get into it with a guy marching on Veterans Day and not look like you're the jerk, so I let it go. Its actually hard to even know where to start with a comment quite as offbase as that. Later that day, at lunch at the "Eat'N'Park" a couple of WWII vets came by to say hello to the kids and one of them pointed to his T-shirt and said "this is what I looked like in '45, when I was in your country". He was being perfectly friendly, and his buddy at least had the presence to ask if we're Japanese (which we're not) so I guess it puts the comment into context of ignorance rather than malice, as is usually the case. Its a good reminder that the world that I am lucky enough to inhabit, of tolerant and reasonably well educated people, isn't necessarily a good sample set for all of the US.