The list: Read and engage with your local papers and blogs

"Read and engage with your local papers and blogs (as well as the national and international ones), or start your own."
- The Embedded Neighbor Checklist

When I was in college I went on a tour of Greece and Italy with a choir I was in (yes, I was that cool). As you might expect, we stopped in Athens for a spell. I was sick and Athens was filthy and full of menacing packs of wild dogs, so I ended up really hating the place. I frequently fantasized with my friends about sending a postcard addressed to "Athens, Greece" that simply said, "F**k you," without the censoring.

Fastforward a bunch of years and allow me to tell you how much I am bothered by the Pittsburgh bus system. When I visit Jake in Pittsburgh, I am routinely thwarted in my efforts to sit back, relax and enjoy the visit. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that I traveled throughout newly-post-communist eastern europe and Russia, and their bus systems seem more customer-geared than the extensive Pittsburgh system.

So I decided to help Jake and his bus-loving friends in Pittsburgh by writing a letter to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with some suggestions for a "bus~olution" (a term coined just this afternoon by my friend Clare -- thanks Clare!). I always love reading the letters from visitors to Chicago who gush about how gosh darn nice we Chicagoans are. And guess what? It was published today. (Scroll down to "The mysteries of navigating Pittsburgh.")

I'm sort of on a streak of letter publishing luck. I had letters published in the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune earlier this summer. Actually, the one in the Tribune was also "picked up" by Desi Talk. I was randomly reading the letters section of the Indian-American newspaper shortly after my letter appeared in the Tribune while waiting for a dinner party on Devon Avenue in Chicago and realized that I was reading my letter from the Tribune, but that my name had been conveniently changed to "P.S. Naidu." They had lifted the entire contents of the Tribune letter section and changed everyone's names! (Journalism watchdog Mandy alerted the proper authorities.) It was sort of the highlight of my life.

Next time you get back from a trip to a city that needs some fresh ideas, write a letter to the local paper with the common sense suggestions that would never get published if you were a mere resident. Use "The Neighbor's Workbook" to get started.