The weather all morning was ominous, with clouds big and dark enough that it you saw them in a movie you'd balk at their obvious symbolism and heavy-handedness. It seemed unlikely that we'd get through the race without some precipitation, (even though it's sparkling Downtown as I write this) and we indeed did not. The cloud omen proved true in another way, as upon opening co-racer Nick's trunk we discovered that his bike tire had developed an incurable (for us) flat, marking the third time in six triathlons his bike has experienced a pre-race deflation. Anyway, my small band and I hopped in the lake (which was warmer than the air) later than anticipated thanks to an unusually pokey female Sprinter...

Read More

One idea was bike racks on buses, he said, "and now I read that all the buses have them. The Sprout Fund is celebrating its milestone 10th birthday by funding a signature piece of public art with its largest grant ever, $100,000. From its first grant of $900 for a temporary art gallery in the Skinny Building, Downtown, the Sprout Fund has become a powerful little engine on Pittsburgh's road to artistic and environmental innovation. Small "seed" grants have been that fund's pulse -- $6,000 here, $7,500 there, giving legs to hundreds of ideas, projects and passionate bands of advocates. "It's unclear to me where we will go after this signature art project," said Cathy Lewis Long, who, with Matt Hannigan, founded Sprout, itself a seed of the New Idea Factory that former county Executive Jim Roddey launched when he was elected in... He called Sprout's impact "enormous" and said the economic benefit from $4 million dispersed over 10 years is "probably 10 times that.

Read Article