Hi,
Productive week. Fairly busy with guests, but I still got around to painting the Ballroom. I had to do a couple of patches and decided it was time for a fresh coat of paint. It’s amazing how you (rather what I’ve missed) when you don’t look closely at the walls. Particularly in a “party” room where you have events. It looks so much fresher now, I’m happy.
I had my first Bar Mitzvah this Saturday and a wedding next Saturday, so the Ballroom paint job will be put to good use. I was a little nervous about having thirty to forty 13 year old kids. They were very enthusiastic in the Ballroom with dancing and stuff. But there were well behaved. Jay, from Catered Elegance did a real nice job with the food and Steve Lebo did a nice DJ’ing and getting the kids moving and grooving.
Guess what? My blog has a fan club!!!!!!!!!!!! Ron & Rosa from Kentucky visited last week. He belongs to a creative writing club there and liked my blog and has his other club members following me. I better start watching my grammar closer. 🙂 Ron and Rosa went to Nicky’s Thai Kitchen, one of the restaurants I recommend. They ran into Marcella & Mike (visiting from Connecticut after dropping their youngest son off at college in Melbourne). Then, the next day, Ron and Rosa were touring the Cathedral of Learning and who’d they run into? None less than Marcella and Mike. Too small of a world. The next morning at breakfast, Rosa said her camera broke, so Marcella offered to E-mail her the pictures she took of the Cathedral. The Cathedral is very cool space for anyone coming to visit.
In the 1920’s, the chancellor of the college of Pittsburgh wanted to get kids interested in education. Back then, as today, many kids don’t want to go to school, they want to quit and do what daddy does. Well, particularly back then, daddy did very dangerous things like working in steel mills or in coal mines. So the chancellor decided to build the tallest educational structure in the world, which the Cathedral was for many years, it still is the tallest educational structure in the US. This way, anywhere in the City kids looked up, they would see this structure and it may inspire them to pursue education. He then got the kids involved by collecting pennies to actually buy bricks. He then decided to create the Nationality Rooms. Pittsburgh was originally settled by the French and British, but when industry came in, the Germanic’s came over. So the kids could relate more, the chancellor got the German club of America to buy German building materials and use German craftsman to create the German classroom. The Poles, Czechs and other second wave immigrants did the same. These first nationality rooms are on the first floor, the third floor has the newer immigrants like the Indians, the Chinese, etc. These rooms are particularly interesting during the holidays when they have their ethnic holiday trees and decorations.
I only have three passes to the Warhol left, what a popular special that is. I have to buy more passes, I think that will be the fourth time since I started this. I can buy passes to the Warhol and the Carnegie in Oakland at basically half price. Instead of creating a “package” and working that into the price, I just offer the tickets to anyone that want them. A lot of people miss this special on my Specials Page, always take a peak around web sites when visiting, you never know what you may find.
Something pretty interesting is coming to Pittsburgh, an LST 325 (Landing Ship Tank). It’s one of the few left from World War II, they were the work horses of the invasion at Normandy. It’s big enough for two helicopters to land on it’s deck at the same time, and it can hold 20 Sherman tanks and 30 trucks at the same time. Tours and cruises will be offered September 2 through 7. Something I didn’t know, Pittsburgh had two shipyards that produced 269 ships during the war, more than any other city. The LST 325 was actually built in Philly and is permanently docked in Evansville, IL and will be going back after the Pittsburgh stop.
One more thing, I periodically check my page ranking with the major search engines and how many people have visited my web site. Lately, I’ve been having 55-65 visits a day. My current average daily hits have been 71 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ya Ho! 🙂
Early b’fasts tomorrow, my UK friends are taking a gray hound to Fallingwater and need an early meal,
ed
