not your astronaut: sunset teaser

it's way too late for me to do a full-fledged blog tonight, but i wanted write a little something and post a few photos from today. we had a really nice day today ... did some cooking and some cleaning, i some work (and some more work), and my mom came out for an early dinner which was nice. peter and erik came with me to the lab for awhile after dinner so i could get a few things done there. erik loves looking at all the cars and trucks passing by from the lab windows, and when i was finished with the lab work we went out onto the patio and were treated to a beautiful sunset. i am a sucker for sunset photos and took many of them tonight. here are a few of my favorites:

today the world celebrated 'earth hour' by turning lights off for one hour. i have to admit that we didn't participate, but i was rather amused to see that the giant white upmc sign on the us steel building was turned off. it's the first time in many months that i saw pittsburgh's nighttime skyline without that big white scar:

here's a photo from a few weeks ago for comparison:

there was an amazing crescent moon hanging low over the city this evening but i was too lazy to go out and photograph it. the only place in the house where we have an unobstructed view of the city is from erik's window, but he was asleep and i didn't want to go in and wake him. hopefully someone got a nice photo of that because it was really really cool.

one other brief note - my mom came over on thursday night and took us to the new hofbrauhaus in the south side works. it was awesome! the food and beer were scrumptious, and they did the chicken dance while we ate! there was a lot of cheering and singing and of course beer drinking. and a man playing an accordion. we loved it and are already itching to go back. i can't recommend it highly enough!