Pre-Covid, it definitely varied by day also. I noticed West End and 376/51/65/28/279 traffic was light on basically all Mondays and most Fridays, and very heavy on Tuesdays through Thursdays.

I always chalked the light Mondays up to deliveries not arriving from shippers being closed over the weekends and restaging/receiving Mondays, so that meant Tuesdays had a lot of shipping/truck volume.

I always felt Fridays were light due to workers who have 4-day work weeks (M-Th), and the heavy Fridays were due to cultural events Downtown.

I would have no clue what the rhythms are today. Literally everything has changed in the past three years.

And also what trail-coffee said, I felt like 5-10 minutes (especially 3:30pm) made the difference between quickly moving and near gridlock.

This. And unplug/replug Cat 6 cables. I live on the thrifty side of life and my cables are down to a price point. Sometimes they need to be reconnected if there is any chance something has physically moved.

Fairywood obv

Registration is linked directly to your Driver License address. So unless you're willing to change that address (say, to a family member's address), pay taxes at that address, go to jury duty in that county, vote there, etc., the registration hack won't work. I think like a couple others suggested you may just need to continue to shop around for a friendlier inspector.

It will be even more difficult to address Postal Service issues also, or at least ballots reaching the office. Unfortunately what I consider to be a given, "we need a national postal service", seems to be a debate these days. I would say all in all, after two major cycles of mail-in balloting, the system seems to be working well.

Redditors by and large are Internet-savvy, but I'm blown away how many people still don't know you can track your ballot status. I'm not faulting anyone in this thread, I'm just saying I thought it was common knowledge. From my perspective, I get tons of TV news segments, articles, emails, postcards, the news flashes about fixing/curing ballots, etc., with mail-in ballot information on a regular basis, so I'm secure in this process. I am still shocked how many have no idea how this works on their own personal level. How many people ask in my local subreddit where their freaking polling station is, people waiting literally till election day to find their voter card or ask if they need an ID to vote, people asking how to check ballot statuses, etc.

I'm grateful how much of the system does work, given all these challenges from the top of the pyramid down to the individual voter.

And now I think you and I fully agree. I think the headline even mentioning Democrats was slanted from the beginning, but the article was quite neutral. And yes a lot of the comments in this thread really missed the point, especially claiming it's a form of voter suppression, but like I said in my edit to my comment above, this is exposure to the risks and rules of the system so people will actually learn from the mistakes. Too many people hating the game instead of learning the game's rules. Voting is not political. Politics are political, and a lot of people can't separate the two. Unfortunately that's mostly due to partisan meddling in voting itself.

All I wanted was for you to explain your position and I'm glad you took me up on it. I 100% agree.

I would have preferred "Despite warnings from election admins, nearly 2% of mail-in ballots discarded due to voter errors with envelopes, dates" but yours is probably more positive in encouraging people to vote altogether.

I've seen your copy-pasted responses all over this page, so I have to ask. What is the more appropriate headline? Literally, the majority of all mail ballots that were rejected were from Democrats. I agree on your 1% and 1.8% numbers, but what does this really mean?

Let's take your numbers and make new headlines:

• Commonwealth election officials wonder if Republicans are too dumb to vote with mail ballots
• Republican mail ballots discarded at alarming rate (nearly twice that of Democrat ballots!!)
• 1%-2% of mail-in ballots rejected in PA due to procedural issues
• Democrats vote with mail-in ballots at 5x the rate of Republicans

Like seriously this was about the most factual, non-inflammatory headline they could have chosen. Instead, why don't you look past the headline (like you beg others in the comments) and make some real commentary? What do these numbers mean? Or do you just plan to copy the same thing over and over and over in this thread? You can't just say "they're pushing a narrative guys!!" and not say what the narrative is. WHAT is the deception?

Edit to add: If anything, this article gave the people exactly what they needed: transparency in the operations of mail-in voting. We know exactly how many were rejected and for what reasons. And those reasons were litigated well in advance of this election up to the Supreme Court and advertised here for everyone to learn from for the next election. All parties had the same rules applied to them, and these numbers were the outcome. There's no "narrative" to be had.

Posting this not because of the party mentioned, but instead to remind people that

• Every vote counts
• Make sure your vote counts
• Use the secrecy envelope
• Date your ballot envelope
• Check your ballot status and make sure your email address is correct and accessible

These 16,000+ ballots that went void due to avoidable procedural issues. Thankfully quite a few counties allowed mail-in voters the opportunity to fix their mistakes.

I started this trip a couple years ago with my RV and didn't make it very far. Once you get into the western half of Ohio, the route is ROUGH. I had to weigh whether I could risk damage from all the potholes, shit paving jobs, and above-grade railroad crossings. At that point I just switched to the Interstate. I would highly recommend it though with an ordinary passenger vehicle. I will give it another attempt with just the truck some time in the next year or two.

I know different people have different definitions, but this is my method of "slow travel". I love taking the state/US highways like this. As long as I'm not in a hurry, I do stay in these little towns overnight, visit sights, and exit through the gift shop. 30 and 22 are the only two I've really done this with in PA, but this spring I plan to visit as much of the northern and half and north-central of the state as I can. I'm glad you enjoyed it and shared your experience.

I don't have any insider knowledge, but I imagine a lot of factors are at play. It's entirely possible that the fees for licensing and testing Top Tier gasoline are prohibitive, or the retailers decided to cut them as an expense. Association and certification fees are huge in some industries. They may have decided that it wasn't drawing any more consumers having it than not having it. Or maybe they are seeing a future of much higher gasoline prices, so as a cost/price-cutting measure they did away with it to avoid scaring consumers away. The joke's on us in that case since the PA gas tax just went up again. Either way, I'm willing to bet overall inflation (with or without fuel) drove the decision.

I'm hopeful someone who works for GetGo can shed some light on this since the topic seems to come up every now and then.

We were just talking about this a few days ago, but I don't think anyone came up with an authoritative answer. I'm guessing since they may be or are removing the stickers, and they're no longer listed on the site, they must no longer have that certification.

Edit: Err I guess they deleted the post. OP was asking because the pumps at their favorite station had the Top Tier stickers removed.

I thought I saw GetGo on the Top Tier website a while back, I'm reasonably sure. They're not on the list right now. But the GetGo website (copyright 2021 lol) says they are. I don't shop there because their prices are always well above adjacent stations, and Costco carries Top Tier so much cheaper that the membership paid for itself for me in gasoline alone in 4 months. Maybe others who frequent other GetGo pumps know the verdict.

[Serious] First Google result

The Wexford branch ATM is listed as a depost-taking ATM. Their web site means "cash and check taking ATMs" when it says "deposit taking ATM". Their telephone support line should be open till 1 today, so give them a call to confirm.

I wouldn't be worried so much about the cost as I would be the claim process. Is anyone willing to chime in about positive/negative claims experiences with these insurers?

Central Outreach is still doing testing I believe. I'm not sure which one(s) they're using. Maybe give them a call if timesuck's suggestion doesn't work out.

https://www.centraloutreach.com/resources/covid-19-testing-sites

A daytime view

https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/zwk0gu/found_a_bike_from_denver_on_allegheny_avenue/

I was going to agree with you, but I gather from the rest of the comments that all Chipotles in the area are garbage lol. That Robinson one is the worst among the 4 or so I have gone to in the past 3 years in my opinion.

I think what makes it worse is that you fight all that bumper-to-bumper Town Center traffic getting there and that violent Walmart parking lot, and then you are blessed with that wonderful Chipotle experience.

That's an AWESOME pic! But I'm not down on winter... yet. That was a pretty hard freeze for just 3 days, now a pretty rapid warm-up. Check in again in late February lol. I have my fireplace ready for whatever comes next. :-)

I have no personal connection to them, but I live close to the Steamfitters training facility, you might look into them.

Heck yeah, another gorgeous one. I'm glad you're continuing this next year. It's quite a wholesome series.

My usual thing is going to a state park alone and chilling while it's nice and quiet and everyone is at home. It was too cold and windy this year though. I woke up and heard that my water pipes were finally thawed from the heater I set next to the frozen pipes, so that was a small miracle. I have been catching up on some Netflix and Star Trek Online. Made a nice little feast for myself at around 2, had a kitty cat nap, and been relaxing by the fireplace. I generally don't do holidays with family anymore. Even when it's "good times", it's still too dramatic and noisy for me. I just wish I wasn't stuck inside for a few days this time around. Kind of a meh closing to a meh year.

My heart goes out to all the people around Lake Erie that have suffered or died this weekend.

How was yours?

Which really drives home the point that corporations talk about social and environmental sensitivity, then lie and cheat to extract a better profit at the expense of what society really needs, while shoving the responsibility onto individuals.

Your reply and the one above hit the nail on the head. I have no clue why it is always our individual responsibility to make these changes when wasteful corporations make up double what we consume. At my office, they don't recycle. No one in the entire suburban office park recycles. So one of my coworkers set out a bin and takes our recycling to his home. Like, why does everything have to roll down to individuals like this when companies have the same access to light switches and recycling services and energy-saving fixtures we do, but they won't.

Edit: It reminds me of the phrase "We aren't going to paper-straw our way out of this problem."