Winter in the 'Burgh

I don't want to celebrate yet, but I am ohhh so close to surviving my first winter in Pittsburgh. Although Spring doesn't officially begin until March 20th, I'm escaping the cold this Friday & heading to Chile for 2 weeks! By the time I get back, I fully expect the snow to be melted & the sun to be shining on a 60°F heat-wave shrouded Pittsburgh.

All in all, I think I did a pretty damn good job adjusting to the weather. I complained a lot early on, but as I experienced more lows under 10°F & foot after foot of snow, I came to accept...and maybe even embrace...the coldness. It didn't hurt that I had other real-winter virgins like Gary around as a support group & experienced snow-veterans like Drew to tell us we were a bunch of girls for complaining about 2 lousy inches of snow. Honestly, I don't even remember what it's like to not have to wear layers of jackets & sweatshirts every day! The only downside to this winter...we did not once have classes canceled!

Some snowy, icy highlights from winter 2007:

My street, shrouded in snow & ice.


Icicles on my balcony...which was rendered useless by the cold.

From Winter in the...

From Winter in the...

One thing you can be sure of in the winter...the trees will look awesome!

We are the Champions!!!!

Yes ladies & gentlemen, February 11, 2007 will go down as one of the most important days in recent history. Tonight, under a pressure-packed atmosphere and in front of 1 or 2 spectators, we, the Statistics Department intramural floor hockey team won the grad school hockey CHAMPIONSHIP, winning 7-6 in a well-fought, hard-battled championship game, avenging our only loss of the season to 'Brian's Team'.


Your 2007 GSA floor hockey champions!!!







After a 30-minute delay for technical difficulties (i.e. the lights had to warm up after being inadvertently shut off), we came out of the gates on fire! After some sick saves by Dave 'The Cat' Friedenberg on the PK, we opened up the scoring in the first period on a wrister by Elan 'Don't mess with Dave or I'll put you on your ass' Cohen and took a 3-0 lead into the 1st intermission. But our scrappy opponents wouldn't go away, tallying three goals in the second period to our one. We padded our lead early in the 3rd period with a rocket from half court by Steve 'You can't stop me, you can only hope to contain me' Wasik. However, Brian's Team still had a few good shots in them, and promptly catapulted themselves to a 6-5 lead. Things were looking bleak for the Statisticians, but that's when we were at our best, winning lose pucks, scrappin' in the corners, and pounding home a couple rebounds to take a 7-6 lead with under 3 minutes left. After a few stellar defensive plays we iced this baby away with an impeccable ball-control clinic. And of course best of all, we won t-shirts!