Saturday, the plan was to get up and go to the Pittsburgh Zoo. Figured we gawked at some dead animals on Friday – why not see some live ones on Saturday? Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans…actually I don’t really know what they say but I’m fairly certain it’s poignant.Fridays’ shenanigans played a role in us sleeping pretty late. At some point we thought we heard someone with an Asian accent outside our door saying something about calling 911, but we assumed it was a dream. There were all sorts of doors slamming outside our room as well – but we tried our best to ignore that too. We did eventually drag ourselves out of bed – but it was really too late to consider getting something to eat and then trying to find the car, and then the zoo, so we decided to skip it.We went to the hotel restaurant needing breakfast but it was too late – so we ordered some odd German meal that included an egg – it was as close as we could get. While enjoying our second consecutive early lunch/breakfast substitute we spotted a wedding party in the lobby taking photos. It was an interracial couple, which of course made Chrissy all misty (she still had red wine in her system). We encountered several other interracial couples while in Pittsburgh, but our concern for the newlyweds was weather the catering hall would position their dais at the reception next to the bathroom or the kitchen.

 It’s a nice day so we walk across the bridge to see what’s going on across the river. There’s a huge rowing competition taking place. You just don’t see that on Long Island all that often. Hundreds of people lining the river shouting “Stroke! Stroke!” and talking about their crews. We had no idea what was going on, but lots of the folks there had some really nice doggies.

It was field day at PNC Park – season ticket holders get to bat on the field, pitch in the bullpen, and one lucky fan will get to play second base for the Pirates in 2010. Seemed like a nice family day. We got to walk around the park a little bit – but only the stadium area of course – I’m guessing that it was attendance typical to a regular season Pirates game.

We grabbed a couple of beers at Mullens Sports Bar across the street and caught the end of the Michigan-Michigan State game. Then we walked back into downtown Pittsburgh in search of a Heinz ketchup shirt for Junior Miss Giddy. There’s a Heinz gift shop on 6th Avenue – but it was inexplicably closed. Saturday afternoon and the gift shop is closed for goodness sakes? We try a few other stores, but no luck, no ketchup shirts. The one responsibility we took with us to Pittsburgh appears doomed to failure. We vow to keep our eyes open for a ketchup shirt. Chrissy however, is having some difficulty keeping her eyes open – so we journey back to the room so she can grab a quick nap before dinner.

Heading in, a fast walking gentlemen pauses to hold the door for us. He looks very familiar. He’s familiar because it was renowned sportscaster Bob Costas. Seems the whole NBC crew was staying at the Renaissance for the Sunday Night Football game at Heinz Field. That explains Bob being there, but it also means that Tiki Barber is probably in the house!  Huge Giants fan that I am – I thought that it would be great to run into Tiki. Chrissy is a Giants fan too – but she just thinks Tiki is dreamy. So she’s all excited, and we’re talking about looking around the hotel for him as we’re waiting for the elevator. Getting on the elevator, she starts singing along to the song that’s playing. By this time, Bob Costas has returned with a pizza, and I return his favor by holding the door for him to get on. Chrissy knows the song but can’t recall the artist, so she asks me. I don’t know who it is – so I just blurt out Luther Vandross. She then berates me viciously on my apparent lack of R & B knowledge – calling me horrible names. Poor Bob Costas just wants to get back to his room to eat some pizza with Tiki Barber and he has to put up with us bickering about who’s providing the smooth vocal stylings coming over the elevator speaker. Eventually she realized it was John Legend, and Bob confirmed that she was indeed correct. As we got to our floor we wished Bob a good evening and delicious pizza. I’m wondering that if I had just known that John Legend was our elevator music in the first place, that Bob would have told us where we could find Tiki. At the very least, he may have offered us a slice of pizza.

After my lovely wife’s seemingly endless nap – we went for a nice dinner at the trendy Six Penn, located, interestingly enough, at the corner of Penn and 6th. Then back to the hotel room where we rented “The Hangover” on the movie menu. Highly recommended! The Hangover was one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, and trust me; my lazy ass has seen plenty of movies, so that’s a great review.

Tomorrow is game day – so we turn in right after the movie.