We’re thinking of moving to Pittsburgh in the next 1-5 years.

[felser]

There is some beautiful (and incredibly fertile) farm country outside of Lancaster, but you become very aware of the cultural dissonance very quickly when you are an adult.  And the city itself has been fighting a notable opioid crisis for a while.  Also, Pennsylvania in general takes on a very different political character when you get away from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.  The old joke is that a map of Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh on the left and Philadelphia on the right with Mississippi in the middle.

[JSngry]

What is this "cultural dissonance"? The Amish and such, Mennonites? Or the Klan?

The latter, I got a sideways glimpse at while playing a bar gig in Uniontown.

 

[felser]

1 minute ago, JSngry said:

What is this "cultural dissonance"? The Amish and such, Mennonites? Or the Klan?

The latter, I got a sideways glimpse at while playing a bar gig in Uniontown.

 

Mainly Amish.  Some Mennonites have adapted modern cultural norms much more than others.  Amish don't even use powered lights on their horse-drawn buggies (black or grey, lantern lit with oil powered flame wicks), which makes night driving in that area pretty hazardous. Lots of other examples. Many Mennonites are still horse-and-buggy, but with powered lights    Other Mennonites are totally modern in culture.  Huge spread.  Not a case of right-vs-wrong, but definitely differences which are jarring.  I have not seen a lot of Klan presence when there (also definitely not looking for it), though I've seen some,but my understanding from others is that it's there and active.   

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Hershey used to make everything in Hershey, PA. These days, not so much. All of their "minis" are made in Mexico, including the mini Reese's peanut butter cups. Many of their novelty bars, like the jumbo Reese's PB cups, are also made in Mexico. All York Peppermint Paddies are made in Mexico. For a long time, all Hershey kisses were made in PA but there seems to be some variation to that.

BTW - we will never know where much of their chocolates are made because the US has never required any food product to be labeled with a country of origin. It's even worse with M&M/Mars products as they hide where all of their products are made. At least Hershey labels some of their products for us.

[JSngry]

Mexican chocolate, like Mexican vanilla, is a thing unto itself. There is a devout following for both. How that pertains to Hershey products, probably not much, if at all. It's labor, not creative.

31 minutes ago, felser said:

Mainly Amish.  Some Mennonites have adapted modern cultural norms much more than others.  Amish don't even use powered lights on their horse-drawn buggies (black or grey, lantern lit with oil powered flame wicks), which makes night driving in that area pretty hazardous. Lots of other examples. Many Mennonites are still horse-and-buggy, but with powered lights    Other Mennonites are totally modern in culture.  Huge spread.  Not a case of right-vs-wrong, but definitely differences which are jarring.  I have not seen a lot of Klan presence when there (also definitely not looking for it), though I've seen some,but my understanding from others is that it's there and active.   

Ah, ok.

I actually dig the Amish in theory. Work hard, work honestly, take care of your own, do no harm, and fuck all attempts to control you by changing you into being their commodity bitch.

That much is ok by me. I'm sure the interior dynamics and realities aren't that simple (or always that pure), they almost never are. But I do remember that ice cream being really REALLY good

[felser]

23 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I do remember that ice cream being really REALLY good

It is.  Amish reality is much more complicated if you're a community member who wants out, or at least some freedom of expression.

[jazzbo]

I assure you that here in this area of Ohio most Amish buggies have battery powered lights in use when they travel at night. Was just behind several on Thursday night. And these would not refer to themselves as Mennonites.

Edited March 9, 2025 by jazzbo

[Kevin Bresnahan]

36 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Mexican chocolate, like Mexican vanilla, is a thing unto itself. There is a devout following for both. How that pertains to Hershey products, probably not much, if at all. It's labor, not creative.

The chocolate on the mini Reese's PB cups is not the same as the chocolate on the full sized cups. It's harder and has a waxy consistency. I am not a fan. I stopped eating the mini PB cups years ago for this reason.

[JSngry]

12 minutes ago, felser said:

It is.  Amish reality is much more complicated if you're a community member who wants out, or at least some freedom of expression.

No doubt.

But that's true of any culture built on sustainability/survival through conformity, not just the Amish.

4 minutes ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

The chocolate on the mini Reese's PB cups is not the same as the chocolate on the full sized cups. It's harder and has a waxy consistency. I am not a fan. I stopped eating the mini PB cups years ago for this reason.

How much of that difference do you think might be engineering, making the smaller product harder so it stays intact better?

[rostasi]

In the Wiki article above:
"The presence of butyric acid in Hershey's chocolate, due to the use of controlled lipolysis in the production process, results in a flavor unfamiliar to those accustomed to chocolate from other parts of the world. In the UK, this has often been compared to the smell and taste of vomit."

[Michael]

Not to veer the thread from chocolate chemistry but if you would like to PM me, we can exchange numbers and, as a 69 year resident of the area, I would be happy to provide information about various neighborhoods/parts of the city and suburbs...

[Holy Ghost]

Pittsburgh rules! I'm from Florida, went to college in Ohio, then PA. The Steelers/Browns issue is my favorite, so when I went to grad school in Pitt, I made it a point to walk into any bar wearing a Browns jersey, just to piss people off...where I was promptly told to get the fuck out (I never left). But when I went to school there for six years, I loved living there. Squirrel Hill and the South Side were my clutch hangouts. Having said all that, if I was offered a position to stay there, yeah, I would've stayed, but I was offered a position in Ohio instead; but with all that being said, I consider Pittsburgh a vacation spot, and I took my family there two summers ago, and they had a blast (some mention the great museum connection, its incredible!) and other cultural cornerstones, yeah big plusses.  Great city. 

[felser]

3 hours ago, Holy Ghost said:

The Steelers/Browns issue is my favorite, so when I went to grad school in Pitt, I made it a point to walk into any bar wearing a Browns jersey, just to piss people off

We're in Philly.  My daughter went to Slippery Rock, just north of Pittsburgh.  She used to become this rabid Eagles fan on Sundays to tick off all the Steelers fans, though she never cared about football previously, and has never cared about it since.

[Holy Ghost]

3 hours ago, felser said:

We're in Philly.  My daughter went to Slippery Rock, just north of Pittsburgh.  She used to become this rabid Eagles fan on Sundays to tick off all the Steelers fans, though she never cared about football previously, and has never cared about it since.

Haha. Philly and Pitt are like Cleveland and Cincinnati; these cities might as well be their own sovereignties.  

Edited March 10, 2025 by Holy Ghost

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Holy Ghost said:

Haha. Philly and Pitt are like Cleveland and Cincinnati; these cities might as well be their own sovereignties.  

Ruled by the King of Prussia?

[Holy Ghost]

7 hours ago, JSngry said:

Ruled by the King of Prussia?

Maybe 🤔

[felser]

8 hours ago, JSngry said:

Ruled by the King of Prussia?

Ruled by Jalen Hurts & Co.  My grandson's been wearing his Jalen Hurts jersey around the house ever since the Super Bowl.  We here in KOP are still in celebration mode 😊.

[Holy Ghost]

2 hours ago, felser said:

Ruled by Jalen Hurts & Co.  My grandson's been wearing his Jalen Hurts jersey around the house ever since the Super Bowl.  We here in KOP are still in celebration mode 😊.

Earned. Most disappointing super bowl of late. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Have you watched "The Pitt" on MAX? If their depiction of a Pittsburgh hospital waiting room is based on fact, I wouldn't want to live there.  

[Aggie87]

On 3/9/2025 at 12:35 PM, felser said:

There is some beautiful (and incredibly fertile) farm country outside of Lancaster, but you become very aware of the cultural dissonance very quickly when you are an adult.  And the city itself has been fighting a notable opioid crisis for a while.  Also, Pennsylvania in general takes on a very different political character when you get away from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.  The old joke is that a map of Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh on the left and Philadelphia on the right with Mississippi in the middle.

We called it Pennsyltucky when we lived outside of Philly.  Outside of the Philly & Pitt areas it's really a very large rural state.

One thing I'll say about the Amish in Lancaster area is that they have terrible puppy mills.  They don't consider dogs to have souls, and they overbreed them in terrible conditions, and sell them to the "English" as they call the rest of Americans.  So for a group of people that don't interact with the outside world, they eagerly sell unhealthy puppies to them, for profit.  Most of these puppies have health issues as they grow up, and have shorter lifespans than typical dogs.

https://woundedpawproject.org/the-amish-community-and-puppy-mills/

[felser]

1 hour ago, Aggie87 said:

We called it Pennsyltucky when we lived outside of Philly.  Outside of the Philly & Pitt areas it's really a very large rural state.

One thing I'll say about the Amish in Lancaster area is that they have terrible puppy mills.  They don't consider dogs to have souls, and they overbreed them in terrible conditions, and sell them to the "English" as they call the rest of Americans.  So for a group of people that don't interact with the outside world, they eagerly sell unhealthy puppies to them, for profit.  Most of these puppies have health issues as they grow up, and have shorter lifespans than typical dogs.

https://woundedpawproject.org/the-amish-community-and-puppy-mills/

There's actually a large tourism theme throughout parts of the area.  "Genuine Pennsylvania Dutch" whatever....

[Rooster_Ties]

Update:  We’re moving to Pittsburgh in February! — in about 7 short weeks.

We found a nice apartment in a ridiculously good location about 3 miles east of dahntahn, between the rivers (Bloomfield-Friendship-Shadyside neighborhoods area).

We’ll literally be a 15 minute walk from a dozen places we really wanted to be close to — and there’s tons more within a 30-40 minute walk.

Even downtown (or ‘dahntahn’ as they say there) is just a little more than an hour’s hike one-way (with plenty of bus lines back).

For years we’ve sometimes hiked an hour to the Kennedy Center in DC (and taken the Metro subway home) — likewise, we plan to hike to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra when we can (and bus home).

We also bought a new car!! (2026 Prius) — after 15 years without any cars in DC.

Although we wanted to drive, especially longer trips — we also want to be able to walk everywhere (weather permitting), like we do now.

(I’ve been walking 5 miles a day, every single day, for the last 6 months — which I plan to try and stick with as much as I can.)

We are super excited about Pittsburgh!! — which as I said before, we’d only visited once way back in 2013 for a long weekend — and then two trips last year to explore, and look for an apartment.

Edited yesterday at 12:44 PM by Rooster_Ties

[Dan Gould]

Congratulations, and may I ask, what has six months of 5 miles a day accomplished?  I have been closer to about 4 miles a day, virtually every day, for about 17 months now.

[Rooster_Ties]

2 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

What has six months of 5 miles a day accomplished?  

10,000 steps a day keeps the cardiologist away. 

It’s definitely helped manage my blood pressure (and probably stress too) — and affected my mood (for the better).

Of course I probably need to redouble my efforts — I haven’t lost as much weight as I need to (I lost 20-25 lbs over the last several years, but I really need to lose 20-25 MORE).

I’m pretty sure being in a new place, with TONS to explore — and the luxury of time, initially not working for maybe six months, and then only part time after that — will help too.

With my wife fully retired now (she might try and pick a part-time job in a bookstore, eventually, mostly for fun and book discounts, as she’s a voracious reader) — I’m sure we will have all the time in the world to exercise more, as we work to walk the entire city.

Pittsburgh has 90 distinct neighborhoods, and I hope/plan to walk half of them within our first year.

 

[Dan Gould]

👍

There's not much exploring in mostly rural Plant City and anyway I stick to the property in the dead of pre-dawn mornings.  Stuck at 80-85 pounds lost and want to reach at least 100 total.