Education

My son moves-in at his dormitory at the University of Pittsburgh next week. Freshmen get to move-in a week ahead of all the other students, to familiarize themselves with the campus.

The University of Pittsburgh (aka Pitt) mascot is the Panther - all their athletic teams are called the Panthers. This statue of a Panther is located outside the Pitt Student Union on Forbes Ave.

University education - the next step towards broadening a young person's horizons and moving beyond the basics taught in high school.

He gets a chance to explore options and focus on what he feels is important - to make-up his mind about what matters.

I wish him the wisdom to chose clearly.

Burning Rubber

My car failed the annual safety and emissions inspection.
The tires were too worn-out ...
Might it be that the wide tires my car requires wear-out too soon?
I certainly don't feel like I am pushing the car to its limits, driving aggressively and all that.

- The stock Michelin MXV tires lasted about a year-and-a-half (13,670 miles).
- Then I bought a set of Avon Tech M550 tyres (British spelling) - they lasted one year and one month (8,380 miles) - AVOID these tires at all costs!
- The third set I bought were a set of Yokohama Avid H4S tires - they lasted one year and nine months (15,470 miles).
- Now I just bought the fourth set - they are Michelin Pilot A/S Plus tires - all this on a car that is four-and-a-half years old and has a total of only 37,520 miles on the odometer!

The tires seem to be wearing-out much too fast under what I can only describe as "normal" driving conditions.
My guess is that the tire manufacturers have figured-out how to make their tires wear-out faster, so that the drivers will need to replace them more often.
I'll apologize if I sound like a conspiracy theorist -- I think the proof I supplied above speaks for itself.

How to Say it

My first blog entry ... what to write?
Explore my motivation to create a blog perhaps.
Well, that is easy - to record some random thoughts, to help make some sense of all the varied inputs, to leave some breadcrumbs which might help me find the way.

I looked-up the U2 song "One" today, prompted by a post from my cousin Stavroula, and discovered the Mary J Blige version on YouTube. While I had heard the U2 version of this song many times before, I was riveted by this particular performance. This performance was different, this one made it past my ears and the auditory apparatus in my head, this performance went deeper.
I felt there was such emotion in this recording and I thought of the title for this first blog entry - I thought, they found out "How to Say it", how to connect with me.

But before I forget, I need to present a disclaimer (I work too much with attorneys): the thoughts presented here are solely my own and are not associated, nor do they represent positions held by my employer