Hi,
My BFF Jeff Bezos stopped by a couple of weeks ago. We just hung out on the veranda with a bottle of wine. He told me how much he like Pittsburgh and looks forward to moving here when they create their second headquarters.
I finally believe spring is here. My bleeding heart is very happy, the best it’s been:
Another gift from my good friends in State College Tony & Sue Solomon’s Seal is also happy:
And the Aliums (also from Tony & Sue) are opening:
There’s something in car insurance I wasn’t aware of and it’s called “Diminished Value“, what happens to you car’s value after an accident. If you are in an accident, ask your insurance company about this. My understanding is it is a one time payout for the diminished value of your car after an accident.
Everyone has heard of ride sharing, UBER, how about Bird Scooters? They started in Santa Monica, CA earlier this year and have already spread to San Francisco, Atlanta, Nashville and DC. It works through an app, you schedule on and they give you the closest scooter to you and you use your smart phone to unlock it. The cities they are already working in are starting to complain about scooter drivers not following normal driving standards (wrong lanes, not stopping at stop signs, etc) and driving on pedestrian sidewalks. As well as just dropping the scooter anywhere when they get where they want to be.
I’ve talked about new attractions like the hatchet throwing outfit in Millvale and the play rooms where you have to follow clues to get out of the room. Here’s something that’s sure to be a smash hit (pun intended). It’s called The Break Room in Monroeville. Their tag line is come in angry and leave happy. They give you an option for destruction, hammer, ax, baseball bat to mention a few. And the price includes some items they have on hand like lamps, china, and other items easily crushed. You can even bring in things special to you like a picture of your ex. Not the real person though. 🙂 They want you to know if you are moving or doing spring cleaning they accept donations. Crew Newcomer the manager says his biggest demographic is women. They have smaller rooms for individual anger releases and larger rooms you can rent for a group for say birthday parties, bachelor and bachelorette parties. as well as office team building parties. I had my own Break Room in my kitchen yesterday after having another battle with my computer. Luckily for me I had the presence of mind to leave the computer where it was and took it out on a parfait glass. I did feel better.
Pigeons, the scourge of earth and myself are battling. I love my kidz, squirrels and song birds. Pigeons found the bird feeder and I had one or two for a few days, the other day I had 8! So nut case that I am, stockpiled a bunch of da kidz tennis balls on the veranda and hurled them every time the pigeons landed or sent da kidz out to chase them. Then I realized the fat lazy pigeons sleep in in the morning. Instead of filling the bird feeder at 7, I do it when I get up at 5:30 I don’t fill the feeder all the way up and my song birds get fed before the pigeons roll out of bed and the food’s pretty much gone. I’m down to one or two pigeons and they won’t be around for long. When I was a kid, my parents bought and old house that had been empty for years in the country and we had a rat problem. My dad said something I thought was funny at the time and now am a believer in it “Rats don’t live where they’re not wanted”. It’s not that rats are smart enough to read nasty notes you leave around the house saying “Rats go somewhere else”. Make it hard for rats to get in your house, remove food sources, and make the place generally rat unfriendly (this also includes killing them-not many creatures I’m willing to kill other than rats, maybe pigeons [city rats with wings] and maybe some people-just kidding on this last option don’t be nervous). If you remember my possum story a few months ago, he learned he wasn’t welcome in my yard and hasn’t been back (at least not during the day).
The ballroom is cleaned and I have the tables set up for the jazz event next week and most of my supplies. Sunday and Monday I will be picking up the last minute perishables and starting cooking. The last few days I’ve been making my cheese cakes and freezing them in my neighbor’s extra freezer. I even seem to have figured out how to use my credit card processor with a remote application like Square. Pretty exciting I was able to download the app and I should have the devise to add to my iPad tomorrow and will try some test charges on my credit card. I’m getting scared about the turn out. When Thomas first approached me about it, I figure it would be a couple of you, up and coming musicians with a bit of a following, so wasn’t ready then Thomas dropped the bomb shell, Pittsburgh legend Joe Negri would perform at the first jazz event. I’ve had a lot of inquiries and we’ve even been on the new Pittsburgh jazz station WZUM that took over when WDUQ was bought out and turned into WESA news and NPR station. I don’t have a system in place to take reservations, so we’ll just see who and how many show up. Wish me luck.
Enjoy this wonderful weather we are having,
ed
