"Original Hot Dog Shop"

Today has been relitively stressful. I don't enjoy working on problems that I don't know how to solve, and that I don't know or cannot get to the resources to solve them. The over-arching theme for the day was Multivariate Gaussians (don't worry I don't really know what they are either), Probability Mixture Models, and Image Gradients (also something that I am not getting right...).

I did have to take a break for suctinance before heading home, so I ventred back towards PITT. I knew that my bus ran through the food area over there, so I figured I would get dinner then jump on a bus. Given the fact that I would have a better chance of getting on a bus later in the afternoon ( I should say prevning) and that I did not really have any food back home, this sounded like an awesome plan.

So I decided to try out the "O" Hot Dog Shop! If anyone is interested it is located on Forbes, just west of the PITT campus.

Inside is very much reminded me of zips, old hand written menus, lots and lots of options to go with everything, that old yellow counter top and tile from the late 70's Anyways, the people behind the counter were very nice (that could be that I was one of the only people in a large establishment), and they went over all of my options. I settled on the hot dog, (small) fries and drink combo. The girl that was helping me, started off by putting some potatoes in the fryer, then started getting my dog ready. I figured that they were not going to have a bunch of fried sitting there getting cold, so they wait for a customer to order before making them... ok, moving on. My modest sized hot dog was put in a bun and covered with slices of American cheese, and toasted. Then covered with a house spicy brown mustard, chopped onions, and a special chili. At this point the girl puts a sheet of wax paper on a plastic tray, arranges the hot dog on one side, and puts a little paper "boat" on the other. Now, this boat is about the size of my hand, not really too big. She then goes over, removes the basket from the firer, dumps all of the fries in to a bigger paper boat ( 8 x 8 ), inverts the small (now dwarfed) paper boat, puts it on top of the mountain of fries, then for the big finale: inverts the whole thing over my tray, spilling fries everywhere and getting about half of them in the boat, which cannot be seen anymore. I almost started laughing in the store.

Let it be noted that I ate a few fries before this picture was taken.

 The hot dog was good, nothing special. The fries were very hot, and very crisp (mother, Auntie Donna, and Gramps, you would have liked them). The diet coke was diet coke... nothing impressive there... Yes, that foil thing is ketchup for the fries. I would certainly go back there, apparently it is another "landmark" in Pittsburgh.

The view, as I clogged my arteries.

The picture does not do Forbes justice, I managed to capture the least busy moment. They had 2nd floor seating, that I had all to myself. It was a good break before heading home to lock myself in the attic, working on HW until now...