William World News William F. Yurasko's blog v.14 – Nats, Redskins, Capitals, D.C. life, transportation, not so much Penn State anymore,

Financing for turnpike/I-95 connector concerns auditor general – The Inky
In not-all-surprising news, that Pennsylvania Turnpike/I-95 green card scheme has gotten the attention of Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale.
DePasquale said he was especially interested in why an entity was created to broker the deal, in which wealthy foreign investors would lend the turnpike $200 million [...]

An interchange I go through to get to my in-laws, Interstate 81 and US 22/322 had a nasty tanker truck fire on Friday. I-81 is still closed, though it may open on Monday with Tuesday being more likely. Tolls are suspended for motorists traveling between the Carlisle and Harrisburg East interchanges on the Pennsylvania Turnpike [...]

PITTSBURGH — I am not sure I can overstate what a wonderful combination of architecture, location, size and that is PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. In fact, I only detected one flaw* with the whole ballpark.

No cupholders.
*A unscientific sample of Pirates fans agreed with The Onion that there was another flaw – the [...]

PITTSBURGH — When I was about 7 years old, I determined that adding french fries to the top of a hamburger greatly enhanced that experience and I’ve been doing it ever since. Once, when I was a student at Penn State Hazleton, I had some McDonald’s with me at the beginning of class and I [...]

PITTSBURGH — A few years ago I learned of a book called “The Paris of Appalachia (amazon.com)” Now, using the “Paris of…” for anything is good for a laugh in most cases. I haven’t read the book, but I think the author has a point.
Having spent a weekend in Pittsburgh attending a Washington Nationals [...]

Chinese investors to fund turnpike-I-95 connection – The Inky
The multi-generational saga to build an interchange between the I-276/Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 95/Delaware Expressway just got weirder:
To help pay for the construction of the long-awaited connection between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95, turnpike officials plan to borrow $200 million from wealthy foreign investors.
The investors, expected to [...]

Praise for a gigantic can of Pepsi

Iron City Beer is pretty bad. As in it tastes skunked out of a can or on draft. One friend, with some experience in construction, suggests that it leaves a similar taste as after a day out by a site with lots of steel grinding going on. When I told two Pittsburghers natives that I had an “Arn” this past weekend they both exclaimed “WHY?!”.

There are three things that tend to make a view from a ballpark spectacular: skyline, water and hills/mountains. PNC Park is perfectly situated to show the beautiful Pittsburgh skyline and Allegheny River in all of their glory with Mount Washington visible between the skyscrapers in a few spots. Behind center field, the Roberto Clemente Bridge spans the Allegheny to the Golden Triangle. Many fans eschew parking in stadium lots or using the newly built light rail tunnels to walk over the river to the game. If there is a finer entrance to a baseball stadium, I haven’t heard of it.

After many years of wanting to, I finally followed the Washington Nationals to Pittsburgh for their annual series against the Pirates in beautiful PNC Park. I made it to the Saturday game. The Racing Presidents were there too for the Great Pierogie Race (Let Teddy Win).
The series went down just as Sam predicted it would [...]