PSoTD

For Pennsylvanians in search of pubs, this review blog can be helpful.

There is actually a festival about this held in Stahlstown every year. The things you can learn about Pennsylvania, and the activities of others, using this Internet thing.

But I am amused that there's an organization called The Pennsylvania Gourd Society.

But that's wrong.

Pennsylvania is the fourth-most visited state in the country, with an estimated 138 million visitors annually. Travelers to Pennsylvania spent approximately $27 billion in 2007, including nearly $20 billion by leisure visitors on transportation, food, rooms, shopping, entertainment and other items.

Now how do I get in on this 27 billion...

A few years ago we were in Colonial Williamsburg, and we saw a Great Wolf Lodge on our way to our motel. On the way back we stopped to look inside, it was a complete lure to our kids - an indoor water park set inside a hotel, with 3 or 4 story slides and lots of kids running around, having fun. Almost on the spot we told the kids that someday we would stay at one.

So last weekend we went up to the Great Wolf Lodge in Scotrun in the Poconos and stayed a night, and the kids had a blast. It WAS nice to get out of near freezing rain, put on a swimsuit and play in relatively warm water in an 84 degree air environment. We saw kids from toddlers to maybe 14-year-olds running around in the waterpark having a blast, but I think the place doesn't offer enough different rides to retain older teenagers - which, if you're like us and don't have older teenagers, is just fine.

It's not cheap, but you can take two days at the waterpark for every night you stay there, so you have to think of the cost in terms of both lodging and water time. Also, the GWL has several programs for the smaller kids, including crafts and story time and games. In the evening, we spent $25 to let our kids buy a wand and play a game called MagiQuest which was spread out throughout the hotel with interactive stations, and they played for four hours that night and a couple of hours the next afternoon after we hit the water slides again. It was ALMOST as big of a hit as the water slides, and there were kids running around all over the hotel, brothers and sisters in pajamas playing as teams, having lots of fun. Well worth the $25.

GWL has pricing deals that are better than the night we went, but because of school and sports our flexibility was limited and we were ready to end our kids' asking, WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GREAT WOLF LODGE. We were a bit concerned that we would see it as not worth the money and effort, but we came away feeling like we had a fun and worthy weekend. Of course, now our kids are scheming to go with their friends again someday in the future...

Just spent our first weekend ever in the Poconos this weekend. Very nice place, but does it always rain this much?

"Light Up Night" searches going through the roof in Pennsylvania!

I agree, there should be a sports team in the Pittsburgh area called the Zombies, and George Romero ought to help out on any campaign to get it going.

This seems like a great place to hold a Pennsylvania blogger meetup next June.

A friend of mine told me that "Terror Behind the Walls" at Eastern State Penitentiary is pretty damn scary.

Here's your chance to prove it. Good luck!

Last month PennDOT announced the new web site of The Keystone Line Amtrak website with some good press. It is a nice looking site, however...

I just think it's POOR not to provide pricing on the site. I know there's a lot of variables, but airlines do it, bus services do it, why not here?

And it really doesn't have to be that way - because the Amtrak site DOES provide fare - and reservation - information. So... why not use to fares with that reference?

When it comes down to it, this site is brochure ware, which is okay, but only if used in conjunction with other marketing programs. It is not a standalone, and frankly, if promoted as such it will frustrate consumers as much as benefit them.

The Washington Post travel section suggests escaping to our town!

It's a young crowd we see, but not completely young, as we wend our way down North Second Street. It feels like Mardi Gras mixed with a beach-town boardwalk, bodies pressed together, weaving around sidewalk tables. Live music blares from a half-dozen bars. By 11 o'clock, lines are forming at dance clubs as black-garbed bouncers check IDs.

Can this be Harrisburg?

Weird, never heard of it before.

It's actually... within a 4 hour drive!

If this blogger caught photos of us when WE were on the Skyview yesterday at Hersheypark.

I have heard this place in Philadelphia is very good. Anyone out there have a personal recommendation?

Anyone know what this is about?

I didn't realize these organizations in Pennsylvania actually have blogs:

American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Democratic Party
Pennsylvania Republican Party
Pennsylvania Builders Association
PennFuture
Congressman John E. Peterson
Pennsylvania Family Institute
Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association
Pennsylvania Independent Automobile Dealers Association
Pennsylvania Business Council
Intelligent Transportation Society of Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has a nice little calendar application so you can see what is going on, either at ALL of their parks or at one of their parks. I have a suggestion - they should also add a feature to generate a calendar by one of their regions. If you look at their map, you see they break their parks into 7 different geographic regions - it would be nice to be able to generate a calendar by those regions. After all, we might be looking for something to do at some relatively close state park some day, but we don't want to have to do a search on ALL the parks.

Yes, there's still a lot of local government in Pennsylvania not using the Internet.

In analyzing the quality of e-government services among municipal governments (including boroughs, townships and cities), the most striking finding was how little local governments in rural Pennsylvania use the Internet at all, as measured by the availability of a website. The exception, a county with a strong tourism economy, had a high-level Internet presence.

Lack of broadband is a big part of the issue.

Truckers invaded downtown Harrisburg today to protest the high price of diesel fuel.

Watch out for the Jimmy hauling hogs!

Glendale School District, which straddles Cambria and Clearfield counties, is providing lessons in Mandarin Chinese to every kindergarten through sixth grade class and to one class in each of the junior and senior high schools.

Hey, where did it go? Did Pennsylvania give up on using DSF for their primary official web site?

Why not just call it mothereffing chicken... Do people actually buy their meals at Sheetz, anyways?

It also seems like a pretty big insult to potential customers. How stupid do you have to be to have the word frickin convince you to buy a product? Or to be impressed with such rhyming capability? Did Sheetz come up with this brilliant effort, or did they hire an advertising agency with expertise of dumbing down the customer base?

These Pennsylvanians and their groundhog celebrations...

Looking for some rural land to buy in Pennsylvania?

More than 20 percent of Pennsylvanians are obese.

Pennsylvania is upgrading their computer system.

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Gun retailers in Pennsylvania can't sell weapons at the start of the hunting season this weekend, and they're not happy about it. Neither are Republican politicians.

The shop owners complain that they will lose business because Governor Edward Rendell, a Democrat, decided to shut down the computers used to run criminal background checks on prospective gun buyers. The system will be off line for an upgrade from Sept. 2 through Sept. 5.

No rifles, shotguns or pistols can be sold during the three-day holiday weekend, from Saturday through Monday. The state's dove and goose hunting season opens Saturday.

`It just seems like the worst possible timing,'' said Chris O'Hara, promotions manager at Bass Pro Shops, a sporting goods store in Harrisburg, the capital. ``Labor Day weekend is a big gun-sale weekend for us.''

Perfect time for the Commies to invade!

Philadelphia has it all.

Hey Penn State, what's the dealio? The BugMobile doesn't seem to be getting out much anymore?

A few weeks ago, I was driving on 83 towards Baltimore, and the corn fields were very, very short - it was clear that it was a bad growing season down there.

On the other hand, I was driving out in Western Cumberland County last week, and the corn looked pretty normal for this time of year. I thought the drought that I had been noticing was regional. But apparently, it's spotty around here.

Pennsylvania’s drought situation could be best described as inconsistent. While some counties are seeing significant drought conditions, others have had plenty of rain this summer.

“I’ve never seen a summer where there have been such good crops, yet you drive only 20 miles, and there are crops that are dryer than normal,” said Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff.

It seems to me that when a tragedy in a foreign country occurs that kills someone, when there is conflicting news about the story initially but eventually it is cleared up to show that it was a horrible accident not possibly foreseeable by the victim, that any blogger that posted such event as a "Darwin Award Winner" would have the common sense - and decency - to remove the post, as it adds nothing to anything.

But apparently this "blogger" isn't up to that standard...

In a few weeks, the 6-year-old and I will be on our own for a few days, and I was looking at places to take him during that time. I was looking at the National Historic Site in Scranton as a possibility (and also the Houdini Museum there). Have you been to Steamtown? If so, what did you think of it?