Birth anniversaries include Stanley Kubrick (1928), George Bernard Shaw (1856), Aldous Huxley (1894) and painter George Catlin (1796); the armed forces were united under the newly created Department of Defense by President Truman (1947), New York ratified the constitution in 1788 making it the 11th state and independence was achieved by Liberia (1847) and Maldives (1965).
Paul and Shirley, from Jacksonville, checked in Monday with another couple. As we were at the table filling out their registration, I mentioned that I used to own an Inn in South Florida. Paul asked me where it was and I said West Palm, actually Lake Worth. He brightened up and said “What was it called” and I replied The Parador of the Palm Beaches. Paul and Shirley looked at each other and then at me and said “We stayed there”. 🙂 Honestly, when I processed their reservation request, I remember thinking their name sounded familiar and before I created a new entry, I looked them up and come up with zippo. My third year up here, when I sent my holiday cards out, in the greeting, I told all my Lake Worth guests if they wanted me to continue them in my data base to let me know. Otherwise I would delete them.
Being a Penn State Alumni, I have a little more invested in the reputation at stake in this PSU controversy. They still don’t get it! Children were molested and the half a million dollar a year president and his top cronies covered it up for years “because it was the humane thing to do for sandusky”. All this whining about the fine, the lost wins, lost scholarships, etc is missing the point. I can’t believe people are so dense. Let me make this clear and simple: #1 Children were raped by an adult on school property and elsewhere. #2 Criminal actions were taken by adults with power, influence and hefty paychecks for their own form of Watergate. #3 The school still hasn’t come clean with the events. I think what the NCAA levied on the school was fair and just. I think the NCAA may be the only ones that have a clue (and Freeh of coursed) about the magnitude and seriousness of this.
Did you know the paterno family is “negotiating” with the school about life long season tickets? Did you know spanieer is now blaming the PSU’s top attorney for not giving him key details during the grand jury investigation? What about the e-mails he sent ten years ago saying to sweep this under the carpet. It’s bad enough that they hid this back then, but they let this monster continue to prey on children unabated. The more I think about this and read the more incensed I get. My lack of respect shows up in the lower case first letter of their names.
OK, I’m going to whine in a bit (not as intense as above), but first lets talk about the new food trucks debut in Lawrenceville this Saturday. The first Food Truck Roundup will run from 6 pm until 10 pm in the lot at 188 43rd Street. Parking will be there as well. Franktuary has been around for awhile and is sponsoring it. New comers will include Polish Pierogi Truck, Oh My Grill and of course Franktuary will be there. This is the first of a series of Roundups they are planning, I think this could be pretty cool.
In March, I got the cement contractor to replace the composite decking with exposed agrigate cement on the Veranda. My intention was to move the wheel chair ramp from inside the gate into the Ballroom outside in the parking lot. Well, you can see the structure from the street and since I’m in a historic district, I had to go before the city historic review. I got approved in May and have been waiting for the contractor DiBucci and Sons to be able to work me back into his schedule. I got the phone call on Wednesday that he wanted to do it Thursday/Friday. They were going to do all the excavating and forming Thursday and pour the concrete on Friday. I said OK, but I was sold out Friday and needed access to Bromeliad for a guest (that was part of the plan, to give Bromeliad a decent entrance). He said the cement would be cured by Friday afternoon that my guests could walk on planks they would put down. My next door neighbor bought the old bank next door about the same time as I bought my place. There used to be an old chain link fence between us. He brought all this dirt in and made his back yard a garden. The chain link fence pretty much held his dirt back, but when I removed it so we could do the ramp, it started moving down into my parking lot (it’s about three feet higher than my elevation). Back when we bought our places and he was doing his landscaping, he build a block wall around the back of his building keeping that dirt away from his house making a patio right outside his door with steps up to the garden and his parking. We talked about where the dirt was abutting my property and and back then his plan was to continue the block wall with a privacy fence on top. The contractor asked me about all the dirt on my side, I told him it was OK to remove it. He go a little aggressive with the dirt removal and actually got to close to one of my neighbor’s posts and his fence basically collapsed. They put it back up and braced it, it looks like my neighbor is going to go ahead with the plan of a cement block wall to hold it back with his privacy fence on top. 🙂 Here’s the ramp:
I love it, again, it looks like it’s been around for fifty years. I have to get John Groll out to do the railings and I have to wait until my neighbor’s wall’s up to finish off around the ramp. But it is so much nicer than that pile of dirt my guests were having to climb over to get to Bromeliad (the door at the bottom of the ramp). I’ve talked about the great work Rick DiBucci and crew have done here, I haven’t talked about John Groll. Follow the link to his web site and see some of the cool works he’s done at Phipps, Duquesne U and other places (you’ll actually see my front fence with the Parador truck inside the fence). 🙂
I have whined about the Buncher plan for the vacant land behind the Terminal building in the Strip. My main complaint has been Buncher’s plan to demolish 1/3 of the iconic Terminal building so his for profit venture has easier access. (He wants to tear the Terminal building down from 17th Street down to 16th Street so he can put proper traffic signals in at 17th Street that would connect Liberty, Penn and his development. My position is he should go down to 15th Street (where Lydia’s restaurant is) and upgrade that intersection leaving the Terminal building intact. I don’t know why I didn’t think to make an issue about the $50M Buncher wants of public money to build this for profit endeavor. ($50M is a large portion of the $400M this project is supposed to cost)! On Sunday, John Conti came out against this project as well. I hadn’t seen the details of the plan, I’m just against destroying a huge portion of an iconic Pittsburgh building and am against subsidising for profit endeavors with cash the city could use for other purposes (like lower our pension legacy costs). I highly recommend you read Mr. Conti’s article. He’s an architect with some very sound insights.
It’s cooled off enough, I have a couple of errands to do and it’s not too hot for da boiz. They will be in heaven, with this heat, they haven’t traveled with me much lately. Have a great rest of your week,
ed
