Hi,

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme (1986),  the 228 riot in China where Taiwanese cigarette vendor had everything she owned confiscated for violating the Chinese government’s cigarette monopoly causing a major riot (1947), the USS Princeton exploded when a gun backfired killing many crew members and politicians (1844)   and NATO downing Serb jets (1994).  Birth anniversaries include French acrobat Charles Blondin (1824), comic strip creator Milton Caniff (19907) and gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (1906).

Want to learn how to make a  broom, Old Economy Village is offering a three hour class on how to March 5 and a class on the art of paper cutting called Scherenschnitte at the visitor center.  Pre-registration is required and you can do that by calling David Miller at 724-266-4500 next 110 or emailing him  at davmiller@pa.gov.

A number of years ago, I was at a flea market and there was a box of framed pictures marked $2 each.  Most of them were those boring “Why would someone buy these new?” types.  Then I came across these two Scherenschnitte:  I had them matted and framed.

Scissor Art

Make an over night venture out of it by staying at the newly opened Bed and Breakfast, The Heslett House opened about a month ago.  Dennis has been fighting local government trying to get open for over a year now.  Speaking of uncooperative governments, It looks like The Allegheny Inn may be at their last hurdle, where to place the compressor for their AC unit.  Justin hopes to finally open in about a month after several years of battling city hall.

I think I told you in a past post how the sausage had taught herself how to open doors.  Dee and myself kept finding her in the Mansion and the assumption was that we weren’t properly closing the Pantry door, leaving it unlatched.  Then the two of us started paying attention when we went through the pantry door into the dining room.  And we were still finding her out there, so I went into discipline mode.  She’s stopped.  But earlier in the week it was warm and I went out to do errands leaving the back door open so da kidz could come and go as they wanted.  When I got home, RJ was in the cold kitchen on one of the dog beds.  I assumed she was outside.  I went to put the flour in the hot kitchen and when I opened the door (it also has a handicapped lever type door handle and she was inside.  She was so stressed and happy to see me.  Here’s the new picture of us I just posted on my home page:

905 911 57

She’s the short fat one on my right.  She came home from the dog park last week in tears.  When I asked what’s wrong she said all the other dogs at the dog park were calling her “Fatty”.  The poor girl.  🙂

If you’ve read my past blogs, you know the respect I have for the police.  There’s always the exception, like the forty + year old bully that beat up the drunk 19 year old football fan outside Heinz Field last year.  No where near the absurdity of our public servants shooting unarmed civilians.  Matakovich earned $190,644 last year.  Between his $69k base, $17k shift differential, uniform allowances and special event pays.  He was the the seventh highest paid Pittsburgh employee.  The kid was drunk and walking away from him.  When Matakovich a “trained” “professional” knocked him to the ground and began to pummel him.  I’m upset, not so much because of his bullying, but because my taxes are paying for the belligerent actions.  And his audacity demanding his job back.  Which page in the police handbook about protecting and serving did he miss?

When I was a small child (no comments like Did they have cars then?”).  🙂  We lived in Baldwin Borough on top of the hill above the Hazelwood Bridge, Rodger and I would walk down the hill and “fish” in the Mon River, not surprisingly, we never caught anything.  I remember when they tore the old Hazelwood Bridge down, my dad said it was to be part of a future highway.  It looks like Penndot is finally planning on completing the long delayed Mon Valley Expressway.  It now stops in Pleasant Hills.  I don’t understand how they plan on taking the highway up that steep hill on the Hazelwood side to reach the parkway east.  I think they plan on building a Squirrel Hill tunnel bypass as part of it to relieve congestion on the parkway.  Currently, route 51 is the highway connecting the city to the Mon Valley.  This is great news for the Mon Valley, where I really grew up in Finleyville.  I hope it’s not too late to help those poor towns down the valley that’s been suffering so much since the mills closed.

Days are getting longer, temperatures improving, I’m happy,

ed