Hi,
I thought I hit publish last night and must have it save instead. Sorry I didn’t get the article out on NORAD tracking Santa on time.
Tomorrow’s the anniversary of the discovery of Radium (by the French couple Carrie), that devastating earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific around Sumatra (2004) and Jack Johnson became the first black heavyweight champion (1908). December 26 is the Bahama’s version of Marti Gras called Junkanoo, it’s Boxing Day in Great Britain and many former colonies and it is Independence Day for Slovenia. Birth anniversaries include Moa Tse-Tung (1893), entertainer Steve Allen (1921), controversial American author Henry Miller (1891) and signer of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Nelson.
The Audubon Society put their webcam up for the Hay’s Eagles. They don’t expect to start their nesting activities until sometime in January, but you can see them hanging out defending their nest currently.
New York’s Central Park Arsenal is in the midst of their annual holiday wreath contest. More than 100 applied to have their wreaths, 55 were selected for the 32 year of the event. There are some strange ones, like the one titled Have You Been Naughty? made of black velvet with a whip, one made of rat traps, brightly painted fake finger nails to name a few. 🙂
Dick Scaife had his two kids pegged. When Jennie (51) and David (48) were born, Mr. Scaife had his mother, Sarah Scaife Mellon set up a trust fund for them in addition to the one she had already set up for him. During the later days of Mr. Scaife’s life, he used up his fortune and inheritance to support his passion, The Tribune Review and charities he believed in. The Trib expanded out of just a local Greensburg newspaper to one of the two dominate newspapers in Pittsburgh. The greedy trust fund babies are suing anyone they can to re-coup their father’s money. It’s estimated each of their trusts have a value of around $350M and they draw $12M annually. My heart goes out them trying to survive on a measly $12M a year. I dealt with quite a few trust fund babies when I worked on Palm Beach Island and lived in Lake Worth. One of them rented from me at my Inn and I ended up calling the police to remove the comatose woman from my property. One of the officers knew her when I identified her by name before they entered the room. He asked me if she was on cheap vodka, they had her MO.
Port Authority finally fired those two bus drivers that were playing race cars on I279N, ruined a bus and the one driver was hospitalized for injuries when she lost control of her bus and it plummeted over a hill. One commuter that was behind them testified that she slowed down to let them stay in front of her because they were scaring her. The camera on one of the buses caught them making whipping motions like they were jockeying horses in a race. The union contends her bus had gross mechanical problems, which was never shown in the inspection after the wreck. Here’s where I have a problem with unions, they will unilaterally defend a guilty member no matter what. If the unions want support from the general population, they need to know how to represent responsible behavior. When I was a beverage manager at one of the Atlantic City casinos, I caught a bartender stealing. All my i’s weren’t dotted and t’s weren’t crossed. I admitted then and today that I did not have the proof required by contract. I spoke privately with the union rep in a hallway. He admitted the bartender admitted to him that he was stealing, but because I didn’t have the proof required by the contract, I was up a creek without a paddle. I suggested letting the bartender resign and the union could easily get him a job at another casino. Lesson learned? No, that was not acceptable. In the union reps eyes, theft was acceptable! I did eventually get the bartender and he was fired.
New to Pennsylvania, you can get a beer with your delivered pizza! The pizza shop has to already have a liquor license and they need to get what’s known as a “transporter-for-hire” license as well. Also, you will have to pay by credit or debit card when ordering. Not sure how they we ensure that the orderer is actually of legal age, but I think over all it’s a good idea. The article I read didn’t say when this was going to take effect.
Most of my life has been in the service industry, many times waiting tables and tending bar. I’m very aware of service when I go out to dine and am pretty generous when I receive exceptional service, you have to be pretty bad to receive just 15%. Mayor Peduto was on the TV show Under Cover Boss and after his stint camouflaged with a beard, long hair and fairly grubby cloths, part of the show was to reward exceptional employees he interacted with. Aware of his position as Mayor and ethics, all of the money was donated by individuals, at this point, they requested to be anonymous. There’s some criticism about him giving money to select employees and not all. It wasn’t a city bonus, the city didn’t fund the money, it was a tip provided by private citizens for a TV show. Back off all you Grinches. 🙂
Just up the road in Jeannette is Jensen Manufacturing. Founded by Tom Jensen who emigrated here for better opportunities from Denmark in 1931 during the Great Depression. He was a mechanical engineer and failed to find work with an existing firm, he started building miniature steam powered trains in his basement. His big break came when he delivered six samples to Kaufmann’s Department Store. A toy buyer from FAO Schwarz toy store in New York saw them and then Macy’s, Spiegel an other retailers all saw them and placed orders. Everything in the trains are manufactured at the Jeannette plant, no out-sourcing! And they do it by hand with just 4 employees. They make 2,000 to 3,000 trains each year. Highly prized by collectors, his engines are also sold to prestigious universities like CMU to teach engineering principles. Prices range from $133 to over $772.
Conflict Kitchen is in the running for the International Award for Public Art. They are one of the 32 finalists, the final seven will be announced in March. In case you are not aware of Conflict Kitchen, is a food venue that features food from areas the United States has a conflict with. It is meant to open a civilized dialogue on issues between that country and the US. It had to close for several days last month over death threats over it’s highlighting Palestinian food. Apparently someone didn’t get the memo on how to be civilized. ):
There’s an interesting exhibition at Space on Liberty Avenue called Obsessions that runs through January 25. It’s six artists that interpret obsessions in their works. One, by Jeremiah Johnson of Williamsport, is called The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He has a picture of a tree and among the roots sprout underground ideas and they “bloom” above ground. Laurie Trok of East Liberty works in paper and her exhibit A Cruel Country Where I Am No Longer Afraid is created on long rolls of Yupo paper where she spent hours cutting and removing the negative space to expose her drawings. The most dynamic exhibit is by Nathan Margoni called The Digestive System. a This Benton Harbor, MI artist sculptured a huge three D rendering from a face with a mouth all the way through the digestive system (completely to the butt end of the system). 🙂 He relates it to how everything in life changes from the food we eat, through the nutrients absorbed to the detritus expelled. Becky Slemmons of Highland Park’s exhibit is called 9,331 Days We have Been Together … and Counting is a tribute to her husband. It is mauve colored additions to her tribute to her marriage. Jason Lockyer of Philadelphia/LA created a video where a fly flys through a landscape of his hand drawings. In No Matter Where You Go, There You Are he encourages you to notice the mundane you take for granted and miss in your every day life. The final video is by Mary Martin from Brooklyn, NY. In her project Face Faucet she nurtures a rosemary plant with the sweat from her face after working out. She also has two untitled sculptures in front of the video. It’s a free exhibit and more info can be found at their website.
At Space’s sister gallery 709 Penn is an exhibit by Colombian born artist Sheila Cuellar-Shaffer who now lives in Hempfield. Sheila chronicles the emigrant experience in her somewhat abstract paintings. This exhibit that runs through January 23, it is also free to the public. There’s a guest book in the gallery and Sheila will be in the gallery during First Night activities and will award an original piece of art to one of the signers of her guest book.
For any of you that aren’t aware of how NORAD started tracking Santa’s progress on Christmas Eve, here’s my holiday story. In 1955, Sears ran an ad in the Colorado Springs newspaper with a phone number listed to call Santa. There was a typo (I don’t know if it was Sears or the newspaper’s fault) that listed the “red phone” at Colonel Shout’s desk. Colonel Shout, a very straight laced typical military commander, was the chief on NORAD and the “red phone” was ONLY used to alert him of an eminent attack. When he answered the red phone, imagine the trepidation he was feeling and a small boy’s voice said “Is this Santa”? Colonel Shout, assuming it was a prank got gruff with the boy and when the boy started to cry, Colonel Shout asked to speak with the boy’s mom. She said “Didn’t you see the Sears ad in today’s paper”? He then spoke very nicely to the boy and ended up assigning troupes to answer the phone as Santa. When he came in to work the next day, there was a picture of Santa in a sleigh on their big screen that tracks aircraft in the United States. When he questioned the unauthorized image, the troupes apologized and asked if he wanted it removed. He declined and they started the Santa Tracker that many people have followed since.
Well, that’s about it for this post. I wish you all the best holiday ever, you deserve it.
ed
