August 26, 2005

Free Advice and Worth Every Penny

It's that time of year, when students around the region are entering colleges, universities and, in some cases, reform schools. People often ask me: "Did you intend to dress that way?" They never ask me, "Say, what advice do you have for students entering college?" So, I've decided to answer that question instead.

1. Choose your major well. A retiree that I knew and admired gave me a valuable piece of advice: "Get a job that you like. Otherwise, you've got two jobs, and the first is getting out of bed in the morning." Don't choose your major based on what your parents think, or that you're choosing only based on its future earnings potential. On the other hand, you're best served by selecting a major with some practical value, because those college loans are going to come rolling in sooner than you think. (That means that if you want to become a writer, technical writing is a better option than, say, poetry.)

2. Run far, far away from Citibank. And Chase and Bank of America and Discover and all of the other people on campus who are going to be plying you with credit card offers. They'll ply you with gifts like crummy plastic water bottles and pen and pencil sets; you can buy stuff of better quality at a dollar store. They'll tell you that getting a Visa or Mastercard will help you establish a credit rating, which is true, but you can do that just as easily with a department store card or a gasoline card, and they don't have giant credit limits that are going to get you in trouble. (Just make sure you pay them off every month.) The credit card people will also tell you that they're good for emergency expenses, but once you have them, you're going to be tempted to whip out your Visa or Mastercard to pay for lunch or other frivolous expenses. Then you'll wind up paying 12 percent interest on a cheeseburger you ate a month ago.

3. Discover the world outside the dorm. I talk to people occasionally who had miserable college experiences. When I ask them why, I usually find out they didn't get involved on anything on campus. Join a club or participate in an IM sport. The average college has about 900 different activities, from board game clubs to rugby teams. It will be the quickest way to make friends on campus and find cheap entertainment.

4. Get practical experience. When you graduate, few if any potential employers are going to want to see your transcript. They will want to know if you've produced anything of value during your college career. So take internships in your field or work on student projects. Save samples of your best work. Ask for leadership roles in groups that you join, and then make sure to do the work you're given. Telling a recruiter at a job interview that you were president of the campus chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers and built a race car your senior year is going to impress him or her more than a resume that shows good grades but no outside activities.

5. Treat people like you want to be treated. That seems pretty basic, but a lot of people have played "big man on campus" during their college years, only to graduate and find their status evaporating. Don't forget, too, that people who are your classmates now may be a potential co-worker or boss in a few years, and they will remember the slights and petty offenses.

6. Don't be stupid. Underage drinking may seem like a victimless crime, until you get busted. Then it's just a crime, and when you have to fill out that first job application and they ask if you have a criminal record, how are you going to answer? (Remember, you're an adult now in the eyes of the law, and your record isn't sealed any more.) If you're going to drink anyway, then for crying out loud, be discreet, and don't drive. If you're going to fool around (and you probably will, those people going into the seminary excluded, I hope), use protection. (And girls, don't trust us guys, 'cause we lie.) Nothing will put a wet blanket on your college experience like those three-times-a-week visits to the STD clinic. Remember No. 5? People will remember if you were a jerk. They'll also remember if you were the campus drunk, stoner or skank.

7. Don't sweat the small stuff. You may get wrapped up in undergraduate intrigues, arguments, political protests and other "scandals" that will seem overwhelming at the time. Your first failing grade, or worse yet, a completely screwed-up semester, may seem like the end of the world. Keep your perspective and don't do anything you'll regret later on. A year after you graduate, your problems will be forgotten, and you'll wonder why you were so upset at the time.

8. Keep your perspective. It helps to get off campus once in a while, get some fresh air and see the real world. The sun will continue to shine (OK, maybe not in Western Pennsylvania) and people off-campus will continue to live happy lives despite the current upheaval in the college chess club or the misery of calculus lectures. It also helps to imagine the worst possible scenario, which probably isn't that terrible. Maintaining your ties with your friends at home will help, as will getting an off-campus job or just making time for a trip to the mall, the movies or a baseball game. (That last one is particularly important. If you're miserable, why not go to a Pirate game and see what real misery looks like?)

If any college students see this, I hope the advice helps. And if your college or university needs a commencement speaker, I'm available at extremely reasonable rates to dispense additional hackneyed, homespun "wisdom."

Heck, unlike some fancy-pants scientist or celebrity, you could probably get me for a cheese sandwich and carfare home. (I'm not proud.)

(Needless to say, opinions expressed here are not those of my employer or of anyone else, as far as I know. But you knew that.)

...

Gas Pains: Readers of the Mon-Yough Gas Gauge know that the cheapest gas in Our Fair City this week was $2.489 per gallon. Find out where, and report your gas sightings today!

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Local News You May Have Missed: I though this story from Irwin in Thursday's Post-Gazette was inspiring. The borough's deputy fire chief, Shawn Stitely, was severely injured in a motorcycle crash back in April on Route 30. Doctors told him he might never walk again, and that if he did, he might be able to return to work in six to seven months.

He went back to work last Monday, and walked to the podium at the borough council meeting this month.

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To Do This Weekend: Turtle Creek Community Days will be held tonight and tomorrow night at the town square near the borough building, 125 Monroeville Ave., featuring games, rides, food and bingo. The Vogues perform at 8 p.m. Saturday ... Dallas Marks plays the Hartford Heights Volunteer Fire Department on Route 30 in North Huntingdon (near the old Blue Dell Drive-In) tonight. Call (412) 823-9796 ... the Stonee Ridge Band plays Paintertown Volunteer Fire Department, Paintertown Road near Irwin Country Club in Penn Township, on Saturday night. Call (724) 863-1338.

Posted at 12:29 am by jt3y
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August 24, 2005

Briefly Noted

Just a short note today to say that I'm still seeking people to report gas prices in the area for the new Mon-Yough Gas Gauge. Actually, I'm having a lot of fun doing it. It's like a scavenger hunt; I keep a little pad and a pen on the driver's seat next to me, and jot down the price of every gas station I pass. This is what passes for entertainment when you're a geek, I suppose.

Now, here's Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten in an online chat yesterday:

Washington, D.C.: After seeing how Pat Robertson wants to deal with public figures who tick him off, have you requested any extra security?

Also, isn't the funniest thing about that story -- by far -- the fact that Robertson's assassination request was broadcast on the ABC Family Channel?

Gene Weingarten: Yes, in case you missed it, the Rev. Pat Robertson has said it would be a good idea to assassinate the president of Venezuela, who says bad things about our government and our president.

That shows misjudgment. You can think whatever you want, but to say some things, when you have a public forum, is just plain irresponsible. For example, I would never SAY that I thought assassinating Pat Robertson wouldn't be so bad.

Posted at 12:55 am by jt3y
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August 23, 2005

Where There's Hope, There's ... ?

Like Anne Frank, writing in her diary that people are basically good as she hears the boots tromping up the stairs to the attic, I keep looking for signs of hope.

For instance, I read Ann Belser's story (which took up most of three pages in the Post-Gazette on Sunday, and I thought, "Well, at least the pictures are nice":

It's not so much the high-profile crimes, those that draw the television cameras and are splashed across the news, that erode the quality of life in areas like McKeesport. It's the day-to-day hassles of gangs of young people in the street, punctuated with shots that may hit no one, that grind the residents down.

This year has been a busy one for the department. In just the first two months of this summer, McKeesport police answered 5,725 calls and made 596 arrests. During the first seven months of this year, the 60-member department answered 18,333 calls, which is already 4,738 more than all of the calls answered last year. McKeesport is not among the highest crime communities in Pennsylvania; it is among a group of towns and neighborhoods that have persistent levels of both nonviolent and violent crime.

Belser didn't pull many punches in describing the current "state of the union" in Allegheny County's second city. How (or why) could she? We who live and work in Our Fair City or its suburbs know what's going on, and the people who Belser talked to told her the straight truth.

So why did I feel some optimism after I finished the story, besides the pretty photos from Martha Rial? Because it shows that people haven't given up yet. Not the 15-year-old girl from Midtown Towers who's trying to make the honor roll and her mother; not the man from Sumac Street who's coaching the Little Tigers; not the police who've stepped up patrols or Mayor Brewster, who's committed to eliminating blight by demolishing abandoned buildings and clearing vacant lots.

About the only thing in Belser's story which I can fault was the headline: "Taking Its Toll: Anxiety over crime, social problems, wears down McKeesport." I didn't see that people were "worn down"; on the contrary they're fighting back. I'll concede, however, that they're anxious. I know I am. (Contrary to popular belief, reporters don't write headlines, and sometimes the people who do don't read much of the story.)

Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy, and reversing the city's fortunes is not going to be easy. The fact that so many people are willing to make the effort, and are unwilling to allow criminals and absentee landlords to do whatever they want to whomever they want, is reason for optimism, and those people deserve our support and gratitude.

And then there was Pat Cloonan's story in Saturday's Daily News. It points out that there's still much work to be done, and that as Our Fair City moves forward, some of its old glories may fall by the wayside, and that the process may be painful; among the buildings targeted for demolition by the city are the old Eagles Aerie on Market Street and the Penn-McKee Hotel. (Others include the old Henry B. Klein store on Fifth Avenue and the Swedish Singing Society and McKeesport Appliance Parts buildings on Shaw Avenue.)

I will be sorry to see the Eagles go, since my grandfather was a member, and I have fond memories of attending functions there, but it's been sad to watch it deteriorate, and I have a bad feeling that the damage to the building is well advanced. As City Administrator Dennis Pittman told Cloonan, any structure can be rehabilitated, but once the costs of fixing the old building are more than the cost of building a new one, it's unlikely to happen. The Eagles and the Shaw Avenue buildings are owned by something called the Museum Hair Institute, whose managing partners say they want to open a museum of hair. Well, stranger things have been memorialized in museums, I suppose. If they're serious about doing something to preserve the Eagles (which was originally one of the mansions that once lined Market Street), I hope they act already.

I'll be even sorrier if and when the Penn-McKee goes. With the opening of the McKee's Point Marina and the revitalization of the Palisades, which is hopping several nights a week these days, I was hopeful that someone would buy the Penn-McKee and reuse the lower floors for retail and maybe a decent sit-down restaurant. I'm not sure what you'd do with the upper floors, though I suspect senior citizen housing will continue to be a booming business in the Mon Valley for at least the next 20 years.

I don't know how much use Our Fair City has for a hotel, although the explosion in hotel construction in West Mifflin and North Huntingdon leads me to believe there's some demand; the Penn-McKee's rooms, which are very small and run down (the hotel was most recently a flophouse), would basically need to be gutted and completely reconstructed.

Still, the Penn-McKee was once considered a very important part of life in the valley, having hosted (among other things) the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1947, and as long as it's standing, there's hope that it can be reused.

There have been some frankly half-hearted attempts to market it over the years, and I'm not sure who's to blame for allowing this landmark at the gateway to Downtown to fall into disrepair. County deed records show that the tax bills for the Penn-McKee go to Edward L. Kemp Inc., the heating and air conditioning contractor on West Fifth Avenue, while the registered owner is something called "See Bee Inc." (For what it's worth, Kemp owns more than a dozen other buildings around the city, several of which the county's assessors have rated as "poor," "very poor" or "unsound." But don't take my word for it. All of the information is publicly available to anyone who wants to read it.)

A check with the state's corporations bureau gave me no information about See Bee other than the fact that it's a real-estate investment company with a Pittsburgh address.

Frankly, the Penn-McKee and the city's residents and taxpayers have deserved better stewardship than the building has gotten, whoever is responsible for its current deplorable state. It pains me to say it, but if the owners have no intention of doing anything with the building until it falls down (like the Hunter Livery building did a few years ago), then perhaps it's better if the Penn-McKee is torn down. If anyone has a realistic plan for saving it, I hope they step up, and soon.

Ah, there's that word "hope" again. Am I just kidding myself, or do I have reason to keep the faith?

Posted at 12:49 am by jt3y
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