You Know, Downtown Pittsburgh Life Can Be Quite Sweet

English: Downtown Pittsburgh (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was a downtown Pittsburgh resident for the month of Buctober and Ducktober.

A bit of an explanation first: In August, I entered an online contest sponsored by Imagine Pittsburgh, an initiative of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, designed to drum up interest in living in the Golden Triangle. The prize: One month in Millcraft Investment’s River Vue apartment building, the old state office building.

And my room had quite the view, overlooking Point State Park and a spectacular vista including Mt. Washington, and our three rivers. I liked River Vue, which bills itself as luxury apartment living — a lot. It’s quiet, the residents are friendly, and it’s in a great location.

Downtown living was a big change for me. Even though I’ve worked at the Trib on the North Side for more than 31⁄2 years, I’ve always been a suburbanite and have owned a house in Beaver County for more than nine years. I’ve never lived in a big-city, downtown setting.

Read more: http://triblive.com/lifestyles/morelifestyles/4941109-74/downtown-river-living#ixzz2jVJqYDn7
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Merck Files Notice Of 500 Montco Layoffs

Location of Upper Gwynedd Township in Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The drugmaker Merck & Co. will lay off 500 people from its facility in West Point, Montgomery County, between Dec. 23 and Jan. 5.

Merck said on Oct. 1 that it would eliminate 8,500 jobs from its worldwide workforce beyond the 7,500 it had not yet cut from an earlier restructuring plan, but company officials were not specific about where and when.

Several big pharmaceutical companies with operations in the area are cutting jobs. Message boards devoted to Merck have been full of discussions about which units would lose people, but official public notice of the 500 job cuts at the West Point facility came because of a federal law called the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN).

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20131102_Merck_files_notice_of_500_Montco_layoffs.html#S8XhpVChWKLAmKe5.99

What’s Lost In Gaining An Hour

Time change at the end of Daylight Saving Time Nederlands: Tijdsverandering aan het eind van de zomertijd (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At 2 a.m. Sunday, by arbitrary human decree, time will stand still for one hour.

While this rare interstice of being and nothingness offers great opportunities for philosophical musing – Who knows where the time goes? Does anybody really know what time it is? And is time really on our side? – a price must be paid for messing with the universe.

For with this annual lapsing of daylight saving time comes a constellation of ill health effects, from the mildly uncomfortable to the nearly nightmarish.

Studies have found that on the Monday after the time changes, more people kill themselves, hurt themselves on the job, and lose money in the stock market.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20131102_What_s_lost_in_gaining_an_hour.html#lcw8rvcBfCelIK9p.99

Poll Workers Needed In Pottstown, Change In 5th Ward Polling Place

POTTSTOWN, PA — There may be some hiccups at the polls Tuesday in the borough.

Two polling places in the First Ward — Invictus Ministries Inc. at North Hanover and Chestnut streets, and the Pottstown campus of Montgomery County Community College — have no personnel to work the polls.

Mark Lawler, judge of elections in the Fifth Ward, said election officials have been unable to contact those who have done it in the past, or that those who have done it in the past are unavailable.

“We need a judge of elections, which pays $110 for the day, and majority clerk and minority clerk, which each pay $90 a day, for both 2-1 at Invictus and 2-2 at the college,” Lawler said.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/general-news/20131101/poll-workers-needed-in-pottstown-change-in-5th-ward-polling-place

Key Player In Synthetic-Pot Ring May Be On The Run

A 1947 topographic map of the Reading, Pennsylvania area. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A week after raiding a corner grocery store in southeast Reading, city police are still looking for its owner, whom they said is a central figure in a ring that manufactured and distributed synthetic marijuana.

Eric Cintron, 22, of the 8000 block of Allentown Pike, Maidencreek Township, was charged Oct. 24 with possessing K2, or synthetic marijuana, and conspiring to manufacture and distribute the drug, risking a catastrophe and other counts.

Investigators said Cintron is considered the owner of Cotton Street Mini Market at 14th and Cotton streets, which police raided Oct. 25 along with Cintron’s residence and two other locations.

They said they believe Cintron has fled the area.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=517936