Hi,
Tomorrow’s the anniversary of the start of the Korean War (1950), the devastating flood in central China (1991), Kim Campbell, Canada’s first elected Prime Minister (1993), the Battle of Big Horn (1876), the US Supreme Court’s rulings on “the Right to Die”, “Abortion” (1990) and “Banned School Prayer” (1962) and Montserrat’s volcano erupted devastating 3/4 of the Caribbean island (1997). Birth anniversaries include author George Orwell (1903), illustrator and author Rose O’Neil (1874), US General Henry Arnold (1886) and the death anniversary of Mildred “Axis Sally” Gillars (1988).
My little girl isn’t so little anymore. When she first arrived two and half weeks ago she fit under the shelves, can’t do that anymore:
She is such a pleasure, she hasn’t had an “accident” indoors in two weeks, she’s learning to walk on the leash, she knows her name and knows the “Come” command, just chooses to ignore it sometimes. 🙂 She only left the parking lot once when someone was on the sidewalk making a commotion about how cute she is. Her new little den is under the side stair to the front porch, she loves hiding under there. And it is so amazing to see her learn her boundaries. Basically I tell her “No” and she remembers, like da kidz aren’t allowed in the hot kitchen, she’s a chewing machine and when I see her chewing on a lamp cord in the Office, she doesn’t chew that cord again. Other cords are still fair game in her mind. And her and RJ are best budz these days:
The icon Three Sisters Bridges that connect the Northshore to Downtown (6th, 7th and 9th Streets) are up for rehab in the next few years. They are owned by the county and the county is considering painting them different colors than Pirates/Steeler yellow. They are considering painting the 6th Street Bridge (Roberto Clemente), the 9th Street Bridge (Rachel Carson) green to reflect her dedication to the environment and the 7th Street Bridge (Andy Warhol) silver and gray. I think they should stay yellow, but you can vote at the Allegheny County’s website.
While we’re talking about voting, want to influence the naming of an octopus? Science Friday has a video of the cutest octopus and want it named Octopus Adorabilis and I think the name might be very appropriate.
What says summer more than watching a movie outdoors? Whether it’s at a drive in movie (there are still a few of them around) or in a local park, what a better way to enjoy a summer evening watching a movie with neighbors and friends at your local park. Citiparks started hosting outdoor summer movies at Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park in the 1970’s. Movies at Flagstaff are frequently drawing over a 1,000 people these days. Citiparks also has movies in Arsenal Park, Lawrenceville; Brookline Memorial Park; Grandview Park, Mt Washington; Highland Park; Riverview Park, Observatory Hill and Elliot Overlook, West End. Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is a Downtown Rooftop Shindig August 26 showing The Warriors on the Theater Square Garage rooftop with themed food and beverages. Suburban movies are being offered in Cranberry, Keystone State Park, Verona, Kittanning and Penn State New Kensington. Citiparks has an extensive list on their website of movies being offered by location.
Pittsburgh will be hosting the 2015 Professional World Disc Golf Championship August 1 – 8 at Deer Lakes Park, Knob Hill Park, Moraine State Park and Slippery Rock University. We will also be the first city to host a traveling exhibit on the history and evolution of the sport at John Heinz History Center opening August 3 and running through October 25.
Chanel 11 will be doing a live broadcast of the July 4th fireworks. Before the start of the fireworks, they will be running specials on other July 4th activities. So if you can’t make it down to watch them, you can still see them live on TV.
There’s a resource for gardeners at The Garden Resource Center in Larimer. The Center is open from 3 – 8 pm Wednesdays and Fridays and 9 am – 3 pm Saturdays. There’s a lot of info on their website, the Center has a lot of information and borrowing things, but you will need to join to participate at the Center.
Talk about getting up on the right side of the bed, this member of the British Red Devils display team certainly did. While performing aerial agility, his parachute failed to open, luckily his quick thinking teammate grabbed him and brought him down safely to the relief of the spectators standing below.
The artist Seward Johnson who turned heads (and still does) here with his life sized and real life looking sculptures of people placed around Downtown over the past few years has placed 18 of his sculptures around the Garment District and Broadway in New York City. Most are based on subjects in Impressionist painting, but of course he has several others like the icon picture of a sailor kissing an unknown girl after World War II ended in NYC.
Two years ago (almost to the day), I spoke about WindStax a wind energy start up in Lawrenceville and his novel approach to wind energy. Instead of harnessing wind energy with those fairly unsightly towers with propeller type blades, founder and CEO Ron Gdovic come up with a cylinder design that you can actually place in your back yard. It’s a totally new concept, it has a vertical turbine that the wind pushes the actual turbine instead the energy going through the propellers that convert the energy through gears to turn the turbine. A lot more efficient design using air drag instead of air lift, and they use a magnetic break system to keep the turbine moving steadily. He makes a 20 foot model ($19,900) and a 40 food model ($39,900) . Most of the pieces are subcontracted out and he’s looking to expand so he can actually manufacture the entire machine on site. They are currently making about two turbines a month and if he’s successful with this expansion, he hopes to up that to ten a month. I think he’s at that point where growing to the next level, he will be able to bring the price down to make they systems more affordable.
There’s an amazing conference at the DL Lawrence Convention Center running tomorrow through Sunday, the 29th Woorturners Symposium. They selected Pittsburgh for this national conference due to the number of woodturners in our area. the local chapter, Turners Anonymous has 120 members. I’m surprised with that many members I haven’t seen more of their work around. It’s amazing what these amateurs and craftpersons can create with a lathe. In addition to the displays of their handiwork, there will be 160 instructional demonstrations ranging from very basic wood turning to much more advanced processes.
Well, that’s it for today, enjoy this bright and sunny day, it’s not going to last long,
ed
