Lets See How Far We've Come 2012: A Review

So Apparently 2012 is over now. For me, it was an interesting one to be certain. I sort of summed it up in my Christmas Letter in about a sentence:

This year was a challenge to see how full a schedule could be, and how much we could change.

Change in this case can be a good thing and a bad thing. At the beginning of 2012 I made a resolution to post once a week, on a Friday if I could, and this resulted in the 59 you see on the sidebar.

January brought Bishop Daniel to Carnegie. I invited the bishop to Slickville, and He said that he would try his best to come out sometime. I visited the nationality rooms on the campus of Pitt, and I also read John Green's new Book, the Fault in Our Stars.

February brought yet another college campus visit - this time to Carnegie Mellon for a Merit Badge program. March brought an adventure to the wilds of West Virginia, the wilds of the studios of WYEP, and the wilds of theater.

April brought the Drowsy Chaperone, my first ever musical that I performed in. It also brought a rant on Love timed around Easter.

May may have been the craziest for one weekend: Cinco de Mayo weekend. Friday brought a Camporee for which I designed the patch for. Saturday brought the first ever Re(imagiNATION) competition. The following day Bishop Daniel kept true to his promise and visited Slickville. He called the Tuesday before, and said that he had remembered me inviting him. I also became a Life Scout in May.

June brought NYLT, a training course made by the devils of the scouting world to change you from whatever it was you were to a leading man. It also brought me to Camp Seph Mack. We had developed a tradition of inviting the staff down to our site for a bonfire. It seems that bonfires bring people together, and this was no exception. On outpost night at NYLT, we had a bonfire I will remember for years.

July brought my first ever guest post, from my father, regarding vacations. I took my first ever vacation with my family out to Delaware. I celebrated 3 years of writing this website, and I started taking almost weekly bus rides out to WYEP to work on various projects.

August brought back school, and I quoted some songs for blog titles. I also started book reviews.

September brought my debut into announcing for the Carlynton Golden Cougar Marching band, and some side adventures with that.

October brought Homecoming, which I had the pleasure of sharing with a good friend of mine. It also brought Jamboree on the Air, and the end of the Football Season,

November brought the Ten Commandment Hike, references here to Squanto, and some reflection on natural disasters and the sort.

December brought me some good music, the 2012 HOOTENANNY and the 'end of the world as we know it'.

So this is where I break off and say thank you. I decided to write every week because I wanted to work on my writing skills a little, and develop a voice for this. Anyone that knows me can tell you I am not good at finishing things. I will start, or add a middle part, but finishing doesn't work with me. But I've had motivation

Back at the end of 2011, I had a total view count of 3,000 something. It's doubled in the past year, now at nearly 7500. All I can say is thank you. It helps to know that someone out there is reading what I'm writing. Friends, Family, Canadians, I don't care who you are, I just want to thank you, and invite you to join my little site here in 2013.

I plan on writing by the way until at least 2015. From there only time will tell, but that seems to me to be a tad far off. Thanks again, Happy New Year, and May God Bless You All!
-Alexander Popichak, the 2015Blogger

An Adventure in Public Transit

So on Tuesday I went to WYEP. I know this seems semi-repetitive, but I promise, there's an actual story to this one!

So mother dropped me off at the Carnegie Station on the Busway on her way to work this past Tuesday. A few things to non-Pittsburghers- 1)The Busway is a magic highway reserved just for Port Authority buses devised to make routes actually be on time [I realize if they keep cutting, there will be no times, but that's an editorial for another time] 2)I have only ever taken public transportation like once before.

Carnegie is the end/startpoint of this magic Bussuperhighwaythingy so it was kind of comedic having to stand there and wait for a bus that was literally 50 yards away. Granted, it was already comedic being a teenager standing there in my Green Day t-shirt and shorts surrounded by gentlemen in dressclothes and black pants. ANYWAY! So bus gets there 10 minutes early and I need to ask for a transfer once I get on. The bus driver groaned at me and asked me to "PAY QUICKER, I don't have ALL DAY". First off, I am paying HIS paycheck. Second, YOU'RE TEN MINUTES EARLY.

Anyway, I get into town, get off at the wrong stop and have to walk two extra blocks before standing in wait for the next 51 to take me out of the city and to the South Side. I stand for a few minutes before hearing "Hey, Alex!" coming from behind me.

I have been in Pittsburgh for maybe 5 minutes.... and someone already recognizes me.

I turn around, and there's Matt from WYEP. Matt is one of the radio education team that helped put on the made-of-awesome Re(ImagiNATION) event, and I've known for nearly a year now.

Turns out he is waiting for the bus too, and apparently it was his first time on a city bus---granted, he's like 20 something.

So we sit and chat on our way to the South Side and get off at the stop a block away from WYEP and are greeted by a gentleman making a delivery to WYEP as well as my friend Lana and her mother... the Marketing Director of WYEP (too much awesomeness in one lobby).

In this brief moment I was reminded why I love doing this. Through putting up with the old angry bus drivers semi-early on a Tuesday morning. I do it to get together with perhaps the best crew I will ever be able to work with (no offense, WCHS... you never took me to Occupy Pittsburgh or sparked a band competition). And yet on that day, no one from the group was there except for the directors of our little project.

Matt told me that he would be DJing that night from 12midnight-4AM and wanted to pre-record two hours of it. I, jokingly, asked if I could come along. He said he would check. Unfortunately, none of the studios were open for pre-recording then...

The gentleman I had talked to going into the South Side almost put me on the radio.

I took the 48 back with him into town. We missed the first bus by like 45 seconds because it wasn't marked 51 (we probably could have chased it...). We parted ways and I took the 31 and walked the rest of the way home (I wasn't about to run into the grouchy busway driver again). Fresh on my mind was all I had done down at the station, who I've met in my short time down there so far, and just how awesome the next 3 years will be.

Stories, and Projects, and Some Cemeteries

I recently posted a thing on my Facebook account along the lines of complaining that I can't use the same name for all of my projects. Writress Lana Meyer commented that I should just begin calling everything "The Projects." Lana, this is for you.

So Wednesday I spent a few hours at our Scout Group's chartered organization's Cemetery somewhere in Collierish Township. There were like 8 of us painting this fence with a stain that now stains my work jeans.

Friday I spent on an island in the middle of the Parkway West right outside of the Fort Pitt Tunnels planting flowers. Our honor society has this strange tradition of doing this... as well as dragging along all 80 of us. Later that day I worked lighting and stage for a production at school.

Saturday morning I spent with my scout troop out at Chartiers Cemetery at the GAR Plot. For those keeping score at home, I have been working with the local Civil War reenactor group for about a year and a half now, and last year we started this annual Memorial Day project of cleaning up the GAR plot as well as shining up the monument and planting flowers.

The reenactor group had raised money to have the headstones that had sunk into the ground re-set, and as a result, the bottoms of the headstones were dirty. A few of us scrubbed off the dirt and generally made the headstones easier to read.

We also planted flowers at the graves of all of the veterans, as well as generically cleaned up stuff.

I took on the long task of placing a flag at each of the 120-something veterans' graves. I thought this was cool---a Boy Scout laying flags at the graves of the Union soldiers who after the war fought to get an American flag in every public classroom. I also (being my egotistical self) thought... now what would they think? Then it donned on me---a lot of the veterans died before the Scouting Movement started in the US. So, in a strange way, it came full circle.

I also took a pilgrimage around the cemetery containing a PA governor, Myron Cope, a monument to a fatality of the Titanic, and a fatality of a Flood in either California or Florida. Looking around at all of the graves brought me back to John Green video (which can be found here) about going to see a cemetery.

In short, it is amazing to look around and admire those who had gone before you, and to those you don't know... just imagining their stories.

Cemeteries fascinate me just as much as they disturb me. I love to look at the names and imagine the stories, but when you look at the permanence of it all, and the thought that you too will become one of those lost stories... it's unnerving.

But at the same time, in the end, it fascinates me. The least I can do for these people whom I never met nor will ever meet is to place a flag at his grave, or maybe plant a flower, or even read their name aloud.

Wild, Wonderful, and Apparently Not Wireless

So this past weekend, my backwards troop fulfilled a tradition that has been going on for about 15 years and took a trip to the West Virginian wilderness to spend a weekend at a Girl Scout camp.

It is kind of a feat just getting there. As with many places, there is no direct way to get from my house or for that matter, the Greater Pittsburgh area, to the tiny town of Bruceton Mills. So, what should take about an hour directly takes about two going further south than needed via the highways, and then the magical back roads to this camp.

I didn’t know why we went to a Girl Scout camp until we got there. The “cabin” we were in was basically a secluded ski lodge with indoor and two outdoor fireplaces, bunk beds, heated floors, and a huge kitchen. This “camp” was a hotel in comparison to winter camping in Guyasuta in tents.

So Saturday rolls around and our Scoutmaster Extraordinaire proclaims that we have a “mandatory hike” to a place called Coopers Rock. I am not a huge fan of large rocks, or hikes for that matter, but because it was mandatory I went.

He had proclaimed that this hike would take a little while and would be a short hike. What he hadn’t accounted for was the fact that the road leading to the part where we would have started was closed. So we start at the trailhead which proclaims about 3.2 miles to go.

Anyone that has been to Laurel Caverns can testify that the signs proclaiming usually one mile are in fact terribly wrong. Coopers Rock is no exception.

About 4 miles and a change in elevation of at least a good 300 or so feet brought us to the actual site which had a drop of about 1700 feet. To say the absolute least, the view was fantastic.

After successfully injuring my ankle and my knee, we hiked the 3.2 miles back to the car. Unfortunately, when I got back to the luxury cabin, it donned on me that I had not even tried getting WiFi to publish my previously written blog. A few clicks and it would have been published. But alas, the beautiful views and amazing wilderness-ism came at the cost of not having Wifi. I also attempted to text from there. I am however trying to piece together a hike video that I filmed as a “Thoughts from Places Video” a la Vlogbrothers.

I learned later (Keep this in mind) that our carrier (Verizon) does not have any towers in the entire state of West Virginia. (I am dead serious here – West Virginia and Verizon almost had a monopoly deal a few years back but decided that they didn’t need West Virginia, so consequentially there are no towers there) So, West Virginia is amazing, mountainous, wild, and wonderful but apparently not wireless.

Culture. Cultured. Culturing.

So I guess this week's "theme" if you will, was the arts. Tuesday morning I spent on Pittsburgh's North Side to see The Elephant Man (to be detailed later). Wednesday brought TIED to the arts. Today, well, I did the morning announcements — does that count? {The only reason I felt obliged to have three things in that sentence is because three-thing sentences are much better than two-thing sentences.}

Tuesday. So I went to Pittsburgh's North Side with my school's GATE group to watch The Elephant Man on stage. This group called the Prime Stage Tehater was putting this on at this neat little theatre called the New Hazlett. The show itself was about the true story of this man who was born horribly disfigured into a circus family (his mom was trampled by an elephant when she was pregnant-get it, elephant man?). Anyway, when I go to theatres I look at three things — the acting, the content, and the tech.

The acting was phenomenal. This theater is set in an intimate fashion, and the acting made you ask yourself whether or not they are talking to you, the audience, or to the offstage "public".

The content was not overly amazing, rather it was the way in which it was presented. Each scene was divided by a 30 second music break with a slide with a quote from the upcoming scene. The interesting thing about the set is that it started quite bland — Just a circle set with a drawing in the center. As the performance went on, things were added to the set — A Bathtub, a bed, a chair, a desk, etc. — But nothing was ever taken away. It was a unique technique, so that at the end of the show you saw this progression as well as what the final original set looked like.

On Wednesday, I took part in a Carlynton Event called TIED to the arts. Basically, it is a pep rally for the arts in our District. The chorus sings, the band plays, and the Musical — oh, the musical — Musicate. I have been on all ends of this event. This time, I was in the chorus and in the musical.

The chorus sang this lovely song about believing and whatnot, but I think the most interesting part from a Choral member standpoint is just how this whole song got put together. The High school learned our part, the Junior High theirs, the soloists theirs and the Elementary— well, theirs. It was only about an hour before our actual performance that we ran through the song all together— once. Amazingly, it was lovely and wonderful and all of those things that you don't hear choral directors say but parents told them to pass it on so they will... 

As for the musical, we performed one of the numbers in our show in our Musical Promo t-shirts as opposed to costumes; and sang unaided by microphones, or you know, a stage or orchestra. Check out the final performance April 19-22nd At Carlynton Jr. Sr. High school. Tell them the 2015Blogger sent you (that would actually be really cool, just to confuse the ticket people :-) ). 

It is very different to be on the other side of a performance. I think we all do something that has another end to it, it's just that we rarely get to be on that other side. If you get a chance, try it sometime.

I Should Write about My Adventures

So my week has been rather busy. Christmas was amazing, but Boxing Day was a tad boring. For those of you who don't know what a Boxing Day is, its a magical day where Canadians and English are supposed to give their servants gifts for working over the holiday, while the masters either play football or (regretfully) shop. Nowadays, there aren't many masters or servants, but there are shoppers.

To anyone following BBC or a national station, you saw a report of people using mace and other various weapons to get past other shoppers in order to get after-Christmas sales. In my opinion, that's quite un-awesome of those Canadians. But what do I know, I am just a Pittsburgh Blogger! All I did was fly a Canadian Flag!

Speaking of being a Pittsburgh Blogger, on the 29th, my awesome aunt (introduced me to John Green [now known here as Jay-Scribble]) took me to her workplace - KDKA Television in Pittsburgh. She took me out to DeLuca's in the Strip beforehand for a breakfast including my Belgian Waffle that was a tad larger than my head.

Following the large waffle, she took me into Gateway Center through the back offices of KDKA into the editing suites. There I met a man named Marty, who was the KDKA master of Final Cut. Apparently what KDKA does is they record tapes, and digitize them into a form for Final Cut and then re-burn them onto tapes for the tape people to run in their master machines.

After talking to the Final Cut Wizard, we ran into the morning anchor Rick Dayton. He talked back and forth with us for a good 10-15 minutes, and then he had to prep for the Noon News. After making our way through the newsroom (running consequently into the producers, Dave Crawley, Ross Guidotti, John Shumway, the Dispatcher, and Satellite man) we took a journey into the Satellite pointy room where a kind man (his name eludes me) showed us how the tape decks work and how using this mounted iPad-looking thing, he points the Satellite receivers so they can pick up the signals live in the studio.

After that, we went into Studio B where they film the Nightly Sports Call and the mini-kitchen for PTL. Finally, we made our way into the control room (Video, as we had just met the audio dude) to watch the opening of the Noon News.

If I thought running WCHS (Morning Announcements) video feed was tough, KDKA's is impossible! They are watching 17 or so different monitors ranging from video bugs (logos in the corner) to camera angles to satellite trucks to CG stuff to the tape room. Needless to say, I was awestruck.

Big Promotion from WCHS, huh? - DavidWov

During the break, we worked our way onto the studio remote-control/teleprompter deck. There, we watched the studio from inside the actual room. During the next break, I actually made my way onto the set, about 20 feet from the anchor and Floor Operator.

After the news was over, I sat in the anchor chair as Rick Dayton recorded the ID Tags (Whats Coming up at 4, 5, etc) And once that was all over, Rick and I posed for some pictures:

Overall, it was a great day. Special thanks once again to my aunt who not only took me there, but introduced me to everyone as well as took these three pictures. Also, thanks to Rick Dayton for putting up with us two


IN THE NEXT BLOG (Scheduled, at least): I will talk about my adventure to the University of Pittsburgh's Nationality Rooms. Oh, and just a heads up: In 2012, I will work on bringing you a blog at least once every week, usually on a Friday or Saturday.