shiver me timbers

brrr. it is cold! well, i have decided not to stay in pittsburgh for the protest. i was staying there waiting for a piece of mail, the tags for my truck, and just stewing. i was going back and forth and not accomplishing anything. the determining factors for leaving consisting of these things. i had attempted to get together with people working on outreach for the event, and wasnt gotten back to. i offered to help flyering and leafletting while i was out exploring. while i was there i watched the hollywood film "battle in seattle" for the first time.

i thought it was a good enough film, certainly not in depth enough as far as the protesters standpoint and the way they portrayed the blac bloc? c'mon. but, for a hollywood film it was amazingly honest. but it was something at the end of the movie that turned me off from pgh. in the end credits they had little paragraphs about actions that had come since seattle and one of the last said that the police and the government were caught off guard in seattle, and they never would be again.

and that was true. the tactics employed by protesters havent evolved enough since then to really make a huge difference. that and the numbers are dramatically dwindling. even while bush was in office, the numbers were going down due to mass arrests and the general state of repression agaisnt the people. because of things like protest cages. a number of my old protest friends arent getting up to go to this one, i dont know what theyve been doing the last three years, but the arent protesting this, now. at least not in pittsburgh.

and it might be becasue of barack obama. or, really just liberal democrats. see, in 2004 at the democratic national convention in boston there was a protest to shut it down, that the democrats and certainly john kerry wouldnt be an upgrade from the bush regime. the numbers for that protest were markedly smalled than that of the rnc protests. now, with obama in office the liberal democrats feel justified in letting their democracy slip away to his pussy-footing bi partisan agenda.

so, the numbers wont be there and the my old friends wont be there, but the thing that kept me on edge the most and finally tipped me over was my friend david. an activist friend that i met in miami, one of the first people i met there, has lived in pittsburgh for a long time and is doing a lot of the organizing for this event. i contacted him to get together, but he was so busy with this things that he didnt make time for me. that was sad. and i understand the stress of putting together mobilizations, i dont blame him. but, had he gotten to me, i probably wouldve stayed. really, i just needed someone to ask me to help, but that never really happened.

thankfully.

and that brings up the last reason, because it is so fucking cold right now. and i am planning on going north from here, and it will only get colder. my truck is weak and wont stand up to snow and ice and frosty mornings. my sleeping area is not insulated and in the mornings i will be freezing. so, if i am to keep up with this path, i have to stick with the weather. so, north i venture, hoping for some kind fall weather.

currently i am in bradford, pa on my way to ithaca, ny. i spent last night in du bois, pa. and since i started this second leg of my trip it has been harder to get back into the groover of it all. it might be becasue while i was in indiana i started liking the idea of having a home that doesnt move. i wanted more to be grounded and to get on with my life. however, i still think that what i am experiencing now is a proper and necessary doorway into the next stage of my life.

so, lets wrap up pgh once and for all. there wasnt much that happened while was there, i spent most of my time either downtown or in squirell hill. and i read most of the time, watched some movies, and did a tiny bit of exploring. the football (american) season opened while i was there and there was a free concert at point state park. i tried to get onto a rooftop nearby, but there was security. i was going to go into the concert itself, but i didnt want to go through the security.

so i sufficed myself by walking down to the stadium, on the river, and watching the tailgaters and rivergaters. it was interesting. i thought that if a protest could draw this many people how successful it would be. but then i thought how wild the idea of drawing 50,000 + demonstrators to an event would be, now. when the game started i walked back downtown and took the bus back to squirrel hill.

some other day i went to new kensington, that was the place that i wanted to buy a building in a couple of years ago. it was a nice, albeit desolate town. about 80% of the storefronts were boarded up and the few people milling about to put forth much hope for the resurgence of the birthplace of the aluminum industry. it was a nice drive out there and on the way back i received some news. first, food stamps called me and wanted to know why my food stamps were being used "all over the east coast" i made up some story about visiting family and that i would return to oregon on the 20th. that is not a true statement.

which means that my food stamps will probably be discontinued and i may have to pay some of them back. my hope is that the news doesnt trickle down to the unemployment office. and it certainly has the capacity to do so. so, i will keep my fingers crossed on that front. also, i talked to emily on the phone. we talked for a fair amount of time and i think we solidified our current positions. she is just now starting on her journey of being self-sufficient and well, i am still here.

i ended up leaving pgh without my tags, it was a tough decision, but i couldnt justify waiting any longer. they have since turned up, returned to sender. my next goal of intercepting them is in ithaca, ny. hopefully nothing goes awry in their next journey!