Toasty!

The building where my company is located provides heat and utilities for all the offices (we don't have to pay for it). As a result of increasing energy costs, the building has decided to cut down it's heating costs by turning the thermostat down during the day, and off after 5pm. So now it's freaking cold in here!

The space heaters arrived today! Yay! I'm nice and toasty. I actually think I need to turn the heater down a bit.

Yesterday was the Steelers' parade downtown, and I was unfortunate enough to be running an errand downtown right before the parade. As a result, I got stuck behind the barricades, and what should have been a 5 minute trip to the office took 1 hour as I weaved my way all the way around the parade and took a back way to the north shore. One of the more annoying hours in recent history.

Native Pittsburghers (yes, that's what they're called) take their sports *very* seriously. So seriously, that I was afraid to leave the apartment on Superbowl Sunday. But other than a lot of honking, screaming, a few cop cars, and a helicopter with search lights, not much happened after the big victory. The non-native 'burghers (that's my name for them) are happy for the win b/c it means the town won't be as depressing for at least the next few weeks. I recently heard that Pittsburgh has an average of 65 sunny days/year. Is that better than Ithaca? If so, then it's only slightly.

In other news, my application to Pitt has been verified to be complete, and was forwarded to the Human Genetics department for review yesterday! Yay! I was a little worried they'd tell me my GREs were outdated.