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The other day I went for a walk in Schenley Park and realized that I had taken photos there last fall and never put them up! I actually meant to do a whole blog post on the park but I never happened so here it is now! If you live in Pittsburgh there is a good chance you have been to Schenley Park or at least have heard about it. I had heard about it before I moved into the city, but never actually went to it till last fall. One thing that I’ve learned about living in the city is that there are actually a lot of parks located in the city, which is really nice for people that live in the city. That way we don’t have to drive 30 minutes out of the city to feel like we are out of the city in a nice park.

Schenley Park is located in the heart of Oakland and is really easy to find. It is actually quite a large park, made up of 456 acres! What’s crazy is that many people don’t even know its there! The park was actually founded in 1889, so it’s been there for quite a while. The annual Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix and the Komen Pittsburgh Race for the Cure are held at Schenley Park every year. I actually haven’t even been through the entire park but it is filled with trails, a huge lake, golf course, pool and an ice skating rink.

I usually go to Schenley Park to just relax and get a good walk in and take some photos. Also Schenley Park is right next to Schenley Plaza so some days I will go to the park then head over to the Plaza to use the free WiFi to get some work done. Here are some photos I look last fall at the park.

You can see all of the photos I took here in my Flickr set. Schenley Park is a really great park and even better that its located right in the city! If you are ever in Pittsburgh make sure you take a stroll though Schenley Park you won’t be disappointed!

Let’s face it working from home isn’t the easiest thing. Some people may think it is, but remember you are your own boss, you are the person that has to push yourself to work etc. It seems every few months or so I get in some sort of funk where I am working myself to death, I am stressed all the time and I am not very happy. I guess most people would call this burning out. It’s not really a good feeling and it is a hard thing to come back from. I’ve always have done things to help myself from not burning out, say take a day and work from a coffee shop or something similar. This works in the short term, but it is not a solution. Recently I have been reading The 4-Hour Workweek and I really dawned upon me I need to get out more, not just for work, but for fun.

Even when I would be out before I would always would be thinking about work, believe me that is very stressful. It is a very big relief to go out and be able to enjoy my time not be thinking about work all the time. So how did I accomplish this? Well first as weird as it sounds it starts with work! Working really hard for 2-3 days and getting most of my work done for the week. For ThinkComputers we normally publish 4-5 reviews a week. So I get most of those done a scheduled within that 2-3 day period. That way I have everything all ready to go and for the rest of the week I only have to worry about simple daily tasks.

Some people may fear working really hard for 2-3 days straight, but I always have something to look forward to after those hard working days, that’s knowing I won’t have to worry about work for the rest of the week so I can relax and be stress free. This “mindset” makes it so I never burn out! So what am I doing with this free time I have? Well I have been going out and enjoying life! It is great going out with friends and not having to worry about work!

So right now Wednesday through Saturday are pretty much days where I don’t really need to do any hard work. I hope to work even more ahead so I can take weeks at a time off from work and go places and do more things. Right now I am testing how easy it is to do this then I will work towards my next goal. If you can work really hard for a few days and automate the rest of your tasks then life will be a lot less stressful for you!

If you haven’t heard of foursquare by now you should have! Foursquare is a location-based social networking site. I have actually been using location-based social networking sites for a while now. I first started with Brightkite, which was a service where I could check in places and share my location with people. Foursquare is much the same thing except they have added a sort of game aspect to it by giving you points for checking in places and awarding badges for doing certain things.

This game aspect is very fun and foursquare even provides weekly leader boards of the people with the most points in each city. Also if you have the most check in’s at a location you become the “Mayor” of that location. So every time someone goes to check in they will see your picture and be notified that you are the mayor. Badges also make the service very fun, think of them like achievements that you would get on Xbox. For example you get the Explorer Badge for checking into 25 different venues and the Bender Badge for checking in 4 nights in a row.

So how do you start using foursquare? Instead of me explaining it to you there is a great video showing you everything below.

I really enjoy foursquare and my friends and I always compete to see who can get the most points each week! It is also a great service to see where your friends are at, some nights I’m sitting here and see a lot of my friends checking in a certain place and I end up going there. If you haven’t checked out foursquare then you should! Also be sure to add me!

Since first getting into tea I have really come to enjoy it! I’ve tried so many different types of tea’s and been to quite a few tea stores here in Pittsburgh. If you live in Pittsburgh I would suggest you check out the Teavana store in Ross Park Mall, it is a great place if you don’t know that much about tea. Anyways when I first started brewing my own tea I used the Adagio Glass Mug and Infuser, which worked really well, but was a pain to clean. So I was looking around for other options and I came across the IngenuiTEA teapot from Adagio.

The thing I really liked about the IngenuiTEA was that it is very large, which means it gives the tea leafs room to fully expand as you steep your tea, which brings out more flavor. Also the way the IngenuiTEA works it makes it so less of the tea leafs and debris goes into the actual tea your drink. Here is a video of me showing you how it works…

When I made this video it was the first time I’ve ever used the IngenuiTEA so you can see how easy it is to work. Also cleaning the IngenuiTEA is easier than any other diffuser / teapot that I’ve used before. Right now the IngenuiTEA is only $15 from Amazon so I would definitely pick one up!

As I said in my Rethinking 2010 post I wanted to work on more projects and this is my first one. Have you ever had a bad roommate? I sure have and I realized there really isn’t anywhere online to complain and rant about your bad roommate. So I decided to create I Hate My Roommate, I place where you can put your roommate on blast! I have collected a few stories from friends and I have quite a few of my own on that will be going up on the site in the coming weeks. The site really isn’t there to make any money or anything like that, just something fun to do.

Right now we have it so anyone can submit and story, but we also have a thing called Dear Roommate where you can write a short blurb about what is bothering you about your roommate currently. That is located on the side of the page.

The site is of course based on Wordpress so it is very easy to update and of course I can schedule posts, which makes things a whole lot easier. My friend Jack helped modify the layout and he did some extra coding for the site as well.

We really hope that the site catches on and we have people submitting stories to us everyday! Already many of our friends enjoy the site and I hope you do too! If you have any suggestions or comments on the site please let me know and make sure to follow I Hate My Roommate on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook!