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Hi,

I hate living in Pittsburgh in the winter because of the cold and I hate living in Pittsburgh in the summer because of all the road construction.  It took me almost and hour to travel from my house last August to Miller Hardware in Mt Oliver (normally a 15-20 minute trip because of all the road closures from repaving ), PWSA waterline replacement and gas line replacements. My first house was on Southside slopes so I know Mt. Oliver well  and every time I tried a new route to by pass construction I ran into other construction.  Just kidding about living in Pittsburgh, but the construction is necessary when the weather permits.

Well, the election is over, but apparently DJT isn’t leaving quietly. What a total fool he is. What scares me is I think he may have set the new norm for the Republican party. Lies and deceit seems to be the new normal for some of them.  I like Connor Lamb a lot, being a vet (and Happy belated Veteran’s Day to all my fellow vets).  Connor went to Washington to be a public servant I believe.  His opponent in this year’s race Parnell ran a very negative campaign and filled it with many outright lies.  Lamb ran his campaign on his record and a positive campaign and Parnell ran one of the most negative campaigns I’ve seen.  So glad he lost. Although DJT didn’t get the resounding defeat I wanted, I think it may have been enough to have caught the attention of  many of the Republicans.  Some fairly powerful ones are currently distancing themselves from his foolishness.  I would love America to have more than two parties and don’t want either side to unfettered control.  I personally don’t care for Mr. Biden much, but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  I’ve heard many very negative things about what he was going to do with taxes, etc. and I assume most of it is fake news being circulated.  See my next paragraph.

Speaking of unfettered control, I saw a very interesting series on PBS Hacking Your Mind and caught many of them.  It was a very interesting series about how the big players in the internet are controlling us.  I had never discussed this with my sister.  Out of the blue last night she sent me and email suggesting I find a program she saw on Netflix on Social Dilemma about how the big guys are mining our personal data.  This is very scary, her email NEVER has been put in my spam filter. and I saw it there this morning.  She didn’t have any hyperlinks in it, just the suggestion I should find the show.

No big projects this year, so I’ve had this handyman over (he took offense at that name and told me he was a “contractor”).  🙂  I got several doors fixed that were causing me problems,  I have at least duplex plugs (2 plugs )on either side of the beds and invariantly someone unplugs the alarm clock and plugs their phone in that so I wanted quad boxes (4 plugs) hopefully to end this.  So we’ll see if this cures that.  He also repaired a closet ceiling problem caused when they installed the new A/C in the attic late this summer (carpentry is not one of my strong suites).  🙂  He’s also the guy that fixed my front fence.  When they installed the new parking lot two years ago, the roller they used to pack the graduated gravel down before paving caused a lot of vibrations and a crack in the sandstone actually broke.  I was thinking of adding a support rail to it to stabilize it before I had more serious problems with the iron fence.  He said no, he wanted to make a form, pour concrete in it and then he did a faux work with black paint to make it look like the original sandstone.  It worked great.

Reggae is famous for one run albums.  I have a number of Reggae CDs and was trying to find an album by Ibiza when I lived in Florida.  I found a site Reggae Express on line and started buying albums from him.  We became friends with my questions on different groups and albums.  One email he complained about being cold.  I’m thinking how can you be cold in Jamaica?  So I asked him assuming he was out of Jamaica, he laughed and said no, not Jamaica but Maine. The reason I bring that up, is a guest turned me on to the group Midnite, which I hadn’t heard before.  Their best album is Unpolished, I can only fine one on Amazon used for $870, I’m not paying that for a CD, if anyone knows another way to grab that album, I’d appreciate the info.  Speaking of Amazon, I am ashamed to admit I was l bought Gingko Biloba through them and they automatically added Carmela Caberra’s album I had purchased in the past from them.  I clicked cancel but apparently it didn’t take. When the album arrived last week I called my credit card company to dispute the bill (they didn’t include a return shipping label).

I’m up to 115 followers on Instagram and over a thousand on Fb.  I’m becoming quite the social media mogul.

Just finished deep cleaning the dining rooms and paste waxing the floors.    It was such a pleasure this year, because it was so warm I could store the furniture out on the veranda instead of squeezing it in the pantry and I could keep the doors open to air out the smell of the paste wax..  Slow this weekend so I hope to get my outside decorations up.  Even though they canceled Light Up Night, I would still like to have it finished before Thanksgiving.

I’m massive into recycling and keeping all I can out of the trash stream.  With as busy as I can be sometimes (not recently though) I only put one trash can out per week.  I compost, feed the birds left over bread (not the best for them, but I also sometimes eat something that’s not best for me) :), I separate cellulose cardboard, newspapers, office papers from other recyclables (because broken glass ruins it’s value) and drop it off in the Strip’s recycling center that has a bin dedicated to paper only and just put out glass, plastic for the biweekly city collection.  I get a lot of Styrofoam from guests getting take out.  I clean out the left over food (makes the recycling better and keeps me from getting fruit flies in my basement-where I store the Styrofoam until I get enough to take it down to Appliance Warehouse in the Southside.  I have a cardboard box in the basement where I store metal (I get a lot of those dry cleaning metal hangers from guests) and metal from my projects. There’s a dumpster out at Construction Junction that you can put clean metal in (not mainly metal with plastic things attached to it for example). A great resource on recycling is the PA Department of Environmental Protection. Batteries you can drop off at Construction Junction, there is a fee for this or Batteries Plus does the same, there’s one on McKnight Road I drive past frequently and it’s more convenient than CJ out by Frick Park.  Something I used to recycle but no longer do is pizza boxes, I used to put them in with my cardboard, but the grease from the pizza ruins the recyclability of these and I now put them in with regular trash.

A funny story about my composting, OCD and Rayzette was two years ago, I had my mulch scheduled to be delivered, I had my plastic tubs I put the compost in  position in the areas I was adding it to for the year (I add it to different areas of the gardens each year).  I heard he truck backing into my parking lot so I dumped the first two tubs in the garden and went out to get the mulch to cover it.  Da Gerl discovered this tasty treat and was eating some of it when I wheeled the first wheel barrel full of mulch into the courtyard.  I covered it with mulch, but now she knew there was tasty treats under the mulch and I kept finding spots where the mulch was pulled away.  I know it’s disgusting, sorry for embarrassing you Gerl (she reads my blogs).

That’s it for today, Stay healthy, wear a mask, practice social distancing and keep us all safe,

ed

Hi,

First off, I’d like to give an update on the Terminal Building.  It will start opening up later this fall with the first to open will be a state store.  Coming up, under lease City Grows (their second location, much larger foot print than the current on in Lawenceville) OnPar will be opening their first location, it’s virtual and geared towards woman (all sexes are welcome).  The other outlet under contract is a District Brew Yards, founded in Chicago (the developer’s home town) it’s a beer hall and they are planning on featuring Pittsburgh’s craft brews.  McCaffery has promised 25% of the businesses leased to in the Terminal will be Pittsburgh based.

I had friends in last week I hadn’t seen in years, it was great hosting the visit.  If you follow my Instagram (it also posts to Fb) that stained glass gecko her husband Skip made for me. They are DJT supporters and I obviously am not.  We both decided to table that discussion and it made me reconsider my position and why. I’ve though a lot about it because I have a lot of respect for Lynne on many levels and I’ve seen other’s whose opinions I value support DJT.  After taking emotions out of the equation, my objections to him boil down to two major issues I have with him.  Honesty is the biggest one, to me if you lie to me once, I will have a hard time believing anything you say in the future.  The Washington Post says DJT has given out more than 20,000 false or misleading statements.  My other grounded problem with him is I believe in facts and science.  Experts aren’t always right, but they are doing what they believe to be the best.  The CDC has made some serious inaccurate statements and policies, but that doesn’t change the fact that covid is a pandemic.  How we battle it is up for discussion.  DJT is trying to run this country with donors to his endeavors and not experts in their fields.  He put Betsy DeVos as secretary of education and postmaster general Louis DeJoy are two of his appointees that don’t have experience needed for their jobs.  The office of president is nothing more than any manager.  My experience is in restaurants and related hospitality endeavors so my example is a restaurant manager is only as good as the staff he hires and how he leads them.  There isn’t a restaurant in America that could survive with supervisors that never worked in a restaurant as well as waite staff that have never waited on tables or bartenders that never made a drink.  Hiring people to do jobs they don’t understand the mechanics behind the job is ludicrous.  Yes, there are exceptions to my rule, but generally speaking, I think this is a pretty basic foundation to run a business.  And then to dominate and intimidate your hires into submission is counter productive.  Bullies may dominate the playground, but what do they become in the future?

I have had direct contact with some of DJT’s shenanigan’s, I held a department head position when he opened Trump Plaza Casino in Atlantic City in the 1980’s.  If you see me sometime and care to hear one of my stories, ask me about the dust balls over the soda dispenser in the employee cafeteria. My other dealing with DJT was when I lived in Palm Beach County in the late 1990’s.  DJT had bought Mar-a-Lago.  Mar-a-Lago was built in the 1920’s for heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post.  I had been in a light shop in West Palm, I had been walking along and all the prisms reflecting light caught my eye. I walked in the shop and met the owner, a nice older guy that took time to talk to me about his lights and what made them special.  A few years later I read the story in the Palm Beach Post about DJT buying all his best chandeliers and had him install them in DJT’s recently purchased resort.  After they were installed on DJT’s property, he then sued this small business and refused to pay for the chandeliers because “they were not of the quality the business owner said they were” and that they were poorly installed.  DJT would not let the man back on his property to remove the chandeliers it drove this small business out of business.

I wrote this over the weekend and decided to wait to publish it until after Tuesday’s debate.  What a fool DJT made of himself, showed his true colors as a bully, not listening to anyone not even the proctor.  He was so bad the debate committee is coming up with new rules that the debaters will have to agree to to go on the program.  One of my favorites would be to shut his microphone off when he continually interrupts and ignores the proctor.  To me the best part of the debate with DJT himself.  I think there’s a lot of DJT supporters that are on the fence because of his antics.  They may not vote for Joe Biden, but I think a fair amount of them will not vote for him this time around.  I’m not a big Joe Biden fan, but as far as politicians go, I think he’s pretty trustworthy.  I will do anything to keep another four years of the same from happening.  When the results come in, I will either remain an American or see of another country will give me amnesty.  I think it’s worth the shot.

Thanx and happy fall,

ed

First of all, I couldn’t go to bed without some sort of a tribute to those American Heroes on Flight 93. I only hope I’m brave enough if I am ever in such a situation to do what they did.  This is not an option, you are required to got to Shanksville (not put on a bucket list) but actually go actually go there and pay respect to a group of Americans like no other (actually I think there’s a lot of people out there that would do the same thing.).  I don’t usually pay much attention to my personal Fb page, but was pleased to see how many people chose to remember today.  In particular thank you Amy, Joe and Brian.

I blog on my website and need to go through my personal page to see who’s viewing my blog of Fb and saw the above posts.  A new friend read my last blog and what I had to say about BLM and shared the You Tube for TN Representative John DeBerry, you really need to watch this video.  We are a great country and don’t need anyone to make us “Great Again”, we already are.  We just need someone to actually lead us towards our potential.  In case you haven’t followed my blogs, I am a very patriotic American that believes in our great country and love it with all her problems and challenges.

Allegheny Ludlum sold three stainless steel cars a 1960 Thunderbird, 1936 touring sedan and a 1967 Lincoln Continental Lincoln convertible for $950,000 last week. Allegheny Ludlum is headquartered here in Pittsburgh and the cars had been stored in their Brackenridge facility.  There was only a total of 11 stainless steel cars made.  Allegheny Ludlum is a specialty steel maker.  There is a 1936 stainless steel sedan on display at Heinz History center.  Allegheny Ludlum is now known as ATI Allegheny Ludlum.  And they still have one stainless steel car in their possession.

Good Night and always remember what makes us Great,

ed

Hi,

Northside seems to be getting quite a face lift.  East Ohio street had one person that owned much of the real estate who passed away and his heirs are selling off the properties.  (this is similar to what happened on Rt 51 South through Whitehall, Brentwood, etc)T he main business street here on the Northside really is showing a lot of rejuvenation.  After completing the replacement of the water fountain on the corner of North Avenue and Cedar last year which I talked about last year.  The city is investing a little over a million dollars upgrading the Commons along North Avenue from Cedar.  The city is spending a fair amount of money replacing sidewalks and paving some streets or at least some intersections, replacing dead or dying trees.  There’s a group here on the Northside that has owned many properties they let run down and rented to section 8, they are doing massive improvements on many of these run down properties.  I hear they are still section 8 and that the government (state or federal I don’t know) is paying for most if not all of these improvements.

I am so over this pandemic.  It’s bad enough with all this social distancing, mask wearing, canceled events, etc but when you add to this all the shortages. What’s driving me crazy is this rotating shortage of items. I have a severe case of OCD and I really like to use products I like.  We can start with the bacon I have bought the same product at Restaurant Depot for years, I am aware of the close working conditions in the meat packing industry and the shortages caused by this.  I’ve finally found another product that’s acceptable. I don’t use Old English a lot, but it has it’s purposes and I’ve been having trouble finding it.  Iron Out is a product you might want to look into, it’s great at removing stains on linens (if you use it wash in hot water and never use any kind of soap, bleach or pre-treatment).  I haven’t been able to find it for weeks now and just found smaller bottles of Old English at Rolliers in Mt Lebanon.  I have always used anti-bacterial to clean the bathrooms, there’s always been a number of products out there like Lysol and Tilex are two products I’ve used in the past, neither can I find these days.  I’ve had to switch back and forth between Kemp’s vanilla yogurt and and acceptable alternative James Farm.  I could go on with examples but to keep from beating this to death, I’ll stop here.  Like I said, I understand the problems with meat packing, but all these other “shortages” is it because so much of our stuff is made in China and the feud we currently have with them?

I drove through the Strip district, the first time in months and I have take my hat of to the McCaffery group from Chicago for doing such a nice job.  To see the pictures I took of the Terminal building and the big building across the street that was home to the barter group Green Apple and a series of night clubs (the first I remember was Metro Pool and that space had several different themes over the years) you will need to go to my Instagram account it will be my post tomorrow to see the two pictures I took today.  I’m at theparadorinn.  Although I am not a big fan of our mayor these days, I give him a lot of credit for stopping the Evil Empire Group Buncher from tearing down 1/3 of that iconic building so they had easy access to those boring apartments and other housing units they’ve squeezed between the Terminal Building and the river.  I’m adamantly apposed to that developer that wants to tear down Wholey’s old ice house storage building.  I agree it’s an eyesore, but a modern 26 story glass and steel office building among three story buildings.  You want to build a Downtown high rise office building, fork over the bucks for a piece of Downtown property.  The next time you are in Pittsburgh (if you don’t currently live here), take a drive through the Strip to see all the construction going on down there, it will blow you away. One final whine on this topic, I hate this modern construction that uses those pre-made colorful panels that are cheap and easy to install instead of creating architectural interesting designs.  What happened to architects?

I don’t know if you’ve heard of the melee on Liberty Avenue this past weekend.  I think by far the majority of America is supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement.  And I also believe the vast majority has serious issues with the lawlessness associated with many of these protests.  Besides the destruction of personal and government properties there’s also the chaos in many of these gatherings.  The BLM needs to organize themselves.  It’s a new group that hasn’t had time to develop itself.  They need to learn from other movements (not just political, but all kinds of movements like Pittsburgh’s Great Race, the Arts Festival, quickly come to mind).  They started small and as they grew, they learned they needed  to control the crowds, they organized cooperation with the city to close off certain streets and keep activities on those streets.  They also have volunteers working the crowds.  I suggest BLM on a national scale organize their splinter groups in a way that they have volunteers that hold attendees to certain standards like wearing face masks and impartial volunteers selected to document events like this past weekend’s disputed interaction between restaurant patrons, bicyclists, protesters and bystanders. Nothing is more powerful than pier pressure at keeping things peaceful, Martin Luther King would be appalled at the violence.  My biggest concern here is the edge this disorder is giving a certain person in this race that thrives on discord and votes of people that would normally vote him out of office might be swayed to “vote for the law and order candidate.”  If you think things are unfair now, just wait and see what the next four years could bring.

If you’ve followed my blogs in the past, you know I am a big fan of the Hays Bald Eagle live cam and I believe the nest in Harmar now has one as well.  Check out this new one following the Elks during their rutting season here in Pennsylvania.

That’s it for today, stay safe and healthy and support your local small businesses,

ed

Hi,

First thing I would like to talk about is my new cancellation policy.  My policy has always been you can cancel for any reason up to two weeks prior and receive a refund.  After the corona virus hit and it became pandemic in March I was having second thoughts on this.  I ended up issuing $30K in refunds for visits booked before the virus went pandemic.  When the Steeler’s schedule came out the end of April and I started getting all the reservations for this season, I went on line and saw what others in the lodging industry were doing and I took the most liberal policy I could find, no cash refunds instead a two year credit.  If we get the pandemic under control this fall things should start to pick up, what we obviously need is a vaccine.  I would think there should be a viable vaccine on the market by sometime this winter so next season should be fine.  But I’m sure some people will still be wary of traveling next fall, that’s why I extended it to two years.  So I put the notice on my Guidelines page under Stay With Us. I created a form letter in my reservation system explaining my policy and why.  By far, most of my fall reservations are from guests that have been here before and I anticipated most of them understanding.  All did except one that I had considered a friend and someone that would be sympathetic to a small business trying to stay afloat.  Other than him, just about everyone either just accepted it, many accepted it and wrote me a note voicing their support.  I have even received this response from folks booking here for the first time.  Again, except for one.  🙂  She flat out refused my offer and has filed a “charge back”-disputed with her credit card company (I have submitted my rebuttal).  She also filed a complaint with the BBB which I am working on my rebuttal there.  So two out of close to a hundred I feel pretty good.   Which goes to show you what a great country we live in, people supporting other people and businesses during this crisis.  With all the hatefulness in this country being portrayed in the media, it’s good to see we still have compassion (at least most of us).  A big THANK YOU to all of you for your support.

Rayezette received the harshest punishment I have ever inflicted.  She’s been pooping in the garden around one of the elephant ears.  I haven’t been positive it was her but thought it was (when she poops, she drops little gifts separately as opposed to RJ and most dogs that poop in a pile).  She just did it in front of me.  So the good boi RJ and myself came up to the office leaving her locked in the courtyard.  I figure I’ll go out in about an hour and let her come up with us.  (OK, I only lasted 15 minutes before going down)

My new water feature out front at the end of the deck is turning out to be very popular.  I’m getting a lot of guests hang out there.  Partially the seclusion from other guests, of course the water feature and you can observe the street from relative obscurity.  I used the same small pump when I moved the statue to the new base.  It just had this little filter and with it sitting in the sand, there was too much grit and I burnt the pump out.  I went up to Scotty’s Water Garden out by Monroeville.  Great place and great guys, he isn’t always trying to sell you the most expensive and lots of up selling.  He looks for a reasonable solution to what you are trying to do

Target has taken a lease on most of the first floor of the old Kaufman’s building and plan on opening one of their urban stores.  (It will have a smaller foot print than the one in East Liberty).  Nice to have a larger retail store Downtown but I’m sure all those little convenience stores Downtown are dreading this.

Carrie Furnace in Rankin has started showing themed drive in movies.  They held the first one last week, a nice way to get out, enjoy some social distancing and seeing some classic movies.  I don’t know if they will let you walk around the furnace while there for the movies, since it’s dark and there’s probably a liability issue they need to be

Speaking of movies the week of September 16 a new movie venue is coming to Pittsburgh a floating screen on the river. great option if you have a boat or a strong swimmer.  🙂  Details and permits aren’t complete yet if I hear new details, I will bring them up.

I drink a good bit of water after stopping all sodas, iced tea & lemonade.  I’ve been fine with tap water up until about a year ago.  I was getting a film on my glassware.  I assume it was the chemical they were placing in the water to seal the lead from contaminating the drinking water.  PWSA has replaced many of the known lead service lines and  they seem to have repaired many of the lines that were either breaking or eminently ready to break.  First of all I’m no longer getting film on my glassware and the water tastes so much better.   Also, Pittsburgh water pressure was noticeably decreased about the same time.  I had mentioned to my sister how I was again drinking city water and I swear the next day the news interviewed the mayor and the new head of the water authority saying our water is the best it’s been in years.

Technology and me, no peace exists.  I have battled my iPhone for over a year, I couldn’t hear people that called me (my hearing’s fine) .  I blamed it on Apple for not sending the call correctly-I could tell the caller let me call you right back and everything would be fine.  I fought with my local phone carrier because most of my calls come from my business line or toll free number and is then forwarded to my cell.  Very few people have my cell number so I was then blaming my carrier for not forwarding correctly.  FINALLY I went to Verizon and said either fix this or I will go to another carrier.  they immediately offered me a replacement phone.  It works so much better.  Windows did an update and it’s probably my fault when I restarted my computer and it screwed all my settings up, Answer Group, my IT people fixed that in short order.  I really like those people, they have access to my computer and go in and fix many things.   This blog has been sitting in my computer for over a week, I haven’t been able to load pictures.  This will be my last post in Word Press, the platform is no longer supported by it’s developer.  Nick, my web guy has switched me to a Tumblr format.  It will look different and Nick will put a link to past post in Word Press if anyone wants to see old posts.  I start working with it next.  You might see a series of short posts as I learn the new format.

Instagram is going well, I made my 100th post today and have over 100 followers.  I’m at theparadorinn if you want to check it out.

Thanx and wish me luck learning the new blog format,

ed

Hi,

I have been battling Kohl’s for about a year.  My Boston Acoustic Radios died and I needed a new alarm/clock radios to replace them.  I found a Sony clock/radio at Kohl’s on line. I had to give them my name address phone number and email for the order to process.the order (there was no “opt out” option on the order form-I always look for that).  I started getting solicitations from Kohl’s and called them to stop it, after several phone calls and multiple transfers because “I can’t handle that, let me transfer you to someone that can”.  Finally the rep said she could put me on the no solicitations list.  they stopped for several months then they started again.  I went through the same thing again two more times and finally insisted that they remove all of my personal information from their data base.  I was repeatedly told “I can’t do that” and we got into a conversation “This is my personal information, not yours” and then every employee I was transfer to it was “I can’t do that”.  So guess what, I then contacted Josh Shapiro’s office, the PA State Attorney General.  Go ahead, you can laugh at me, during this pandemic, I go to the state AG’s office to get my personal information removed from Kohl’s sales team’s.  I thought I’d never hear anything from the DA’s office.  Sure enough a few weeks later i get a letter from some executive at Kohl’s admin assistant saying “I would no longer receive email solicitations” with no return phone number listed.  So some employee of Mr. Shaprio’s office called me to see if I was satisfied.  I told him absolutely not.  It’s my personal information and Kohl’s has no right to it, particularly when I specifically say to please delete my personal info from their data base before another “accident” happens again.  So Mr. Shapiro’s assistant told me he’d take care of it.  It’s been just a week, I’ll give a follow up when I win and I will win.  🙂

If you follow me on Instagram, you can skip the next two items, unless you want extra details.  Razor had the lumps on his body and I knew old dogs get lumps that are benign fatty tumors.  RJ’s had this one that’s  had me concerned, it was more pronounced than anything Razor had and there was a coloring in it.  So when we went for their yearly check up the vet saw it and wanted to check it out a bit more and took a sample looked at it under  a microscope and though she didn’t use the “C” word, she said she was concerned that if it broke it might spread to his organs.(sounds like a potential “C” word).  So we scheduled surgery for this past Thursday.  Here’s the lump:

So he had it removed Thursday, when I picked him up, he was still all whacked out from the anesthesia.  Here’s da boi without the lump, just lots of stitches:

Here’s the sad boi:

Good news, he’s mending rapidly  The funny thing with this ordeal was da gerl’s reaction to him.  She didn’t know how to handle her sick brother- she never go close to him, but was always within eye sight of him and watching him that first day.  By day 2 she she was looking to him to play with her..  Within two days he was running around the courtyard chasing his sister.

Nice thing about this pandemic is I’m slow and got lots of time to focus on my projects.  The deck in my “beach” has been a sore spot for me for a number of years.  I knew to fix it it was going to take a lot of time.  Adding the new water feature spurred me on to take on this project.  I now have a new location in the courtyard for guests to relax in.  Here’s the nasty deck before:

And here’s the renewed deck:

And finally the deck from the sidewalk so you can see it with the water feature:

Another project almost completed is refinishing the captain’s table on the veranda.  It’s finished and drying, I’ll put pictures in my next post.

OK, I can’t do a post without whining someone.  Just 3 things this time Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin refused to list recipients of federal bailout PPP loans because it was proprietary information.  The hell it’s proprietary, it’s federal tax dollars I paid into and I have every right to know who received this money and how much.they got.  I don’t care about their social security number tax EIN, home address, phone and email address.  I want to know that Morton’s Steak House received $20M in bailout money.  The “interesting” thing about the PPP bailout money most of it needs to go to payroll.  The Feds don’t require % to whom.  So I’ve hard senior mgmt drew large paychecks while the hourly  got a couple of hours at their minimum wage rate.As it turns out the reason Munchin didn’t get flak from our elected officials is that many of them own companies that received PPP money.  Thank god for our free press.

Another other gripe is DJT sending federal law enforcement to Oregon.  There are heavily armed supposedly law enforcement people arresting citizens and these thugs have no IDENTIFICATION on their “uniforms” of camo clothes in vehicles that have not identification on them.  This is police state tactics.  This is unbelievably outrageous we are not Caracas, Moscow, Beijing-this is America.  

OK, my last whining is about public statues.  I’m a law abiding citizen (OK I speed sometimes)  😉   These statues belong to me and the rest of us.  Because someone doesn’t like them, there’s a process to have them removed.  I didn’t agree with moving the statue honoring Pittsburgh native Stephen Foster from outside the Cathedral of Learning, but that is democracy and I’m willing to be OK with that, they went through the process.  If you don’t want a statue honoring Christopher Columbus who sort of discovered America because he owned slaves. You have no right to throw ropes over it and pull it down because you don’t like it (there’s a lot of things in America I don’t like, but I don’t take the law into my own hands),

One final happy story I was on the front porch today, when my homeless friend John stopped by to pet da kidz and asked if he could buy them a vanilla ice cream cone (they’ve never had ice cream), I told him he could.  So he bought them one, him one and me one.  I took them to the parking lot and with my hand scooped ice cream out of their cone and mine and tossed it on the ground.  They loved the ice cream,

That’s it for today, have a great day and remember to hydrate,

ed

Hi,

Here’s my new fountain and my deck project, I hope will have it done enough to apply the stain for this weekend.  All the heavy sanding is finished, and I’ve stripped I’m using between the boards is 3/4 finished.  Once I finish that tomorrow morning I will do one more sanding with fine grit sandpaper will will be able to apply the stain (hopefully tomorrow afternoon).  I’ve been ashamed of the deck for years and so excited about how it’s finally going to look (with the new fountain-it’s going to be a popular place to hang out).   🙂  I’ve had a bunch of people stop by as I’ve been working complimenting me on the view from the street.

And here’s what that nasty deck looked like when I started this project from the opposite side.:

Speaking of pictures, I’ve been pretty active on Instagram, generally I post once a day in the morning.  I’m at thepaadorinn if you want to see my posts or follow me.

Pandemic refunds are killing me, my normal refund policy is I offer a full refund if you book from my website, but do charge a$20 fee for reservation made through an OTA (Online Travel Association like Expedia Group, booking.com, etc) because they charge me a 15% commission-it’s always less expensive to book from my website).  I’m fairly popular and had a lot of early reservations for 2020 concerts Kenny Chesney, Rolling Stones, Green Day, Motley Crew and four reunions.  I lost all concerts, 3 of the 4 reunions and my one wedding went from 130 to 20.  Overall I’ve given almost $30,000 in refund for guests that booked before Corona became a pandemic.  So I’m not offering refunds on reservations made after Corona became a pandemic.  I’ve checked what other travel industries are offering and I am no longer offering refunds, but a two year credit.  In particular if you have booked for a Steeler’s game and this nightmare is still around next year or you are still uncomfortable traveling you can use it of the 2022 season.  Surely those idiots in Washington can fix this by then.

I can’t say I’m giving him credit and I’m not forgiving his lack of leadership, but DJT  is not at fault for the federal government’s failure to assist small businesses during this pandemic.  It’s our entire government and it’s dysfunction, it’s not the child’s play between the democrats and republicans.  Read this article and you will be ready to join the revolt

https://apnews.com/99928b101367ad74358283c82de0fa1a

I can understand our alien founding fathers did not to address that businesses are not people and should not influence our elections. how could they envision multi billion dollar companies existing? but they really should have addressed the corruption of life long politicians become.  I want you to write me in this fall for a two day presidency (actually I want to be king or dictator for two days only and I promise to step down after I enact 2 things by decree.  #1 two term limits for any elected position anywhere in this country.  And #2 corporations are not people and can not contribute to or influence elections.  You can replace me after my two day term of dictatorship you fool enough, you can have DJT back.  🙂  America will not be fixed in two days, but this will give us a running start, just call me an alien.  🙂

Can I talk about the “new normal”?   We have to now deal with the idiots that used to stay in the back ground and now seem to be center stage.like that lady in California refusing to wear a mask in a grocery store screaming it was her constitution right not to wear a mask..  If you want to contract covid19 and infect your family, that is your constitutional right, but not to infect mine.  The next idiots I would like to address are all these protests across the country lately.  They have a right to protest, but the video’s I saw maybe 1/2 were wearing masks.  Is a coincidence that all of a sudden we have major spikes in the Corona virus infections?

After all my whining I feel awkward wishing everyone a Happy Fourth of July, it is still a great country and great people.  I guess we need to add a new group to add to the people we need to include, the idiots.  🙂  Sorry, I couldn’t let that one pass.  Seriously have a safe and happy holiday and remember what principles this country was founded on, there’s still hope for us all.

ed

Hi,

Well, I guess DJT doesn’t want one black vote this fall.  Even for him I am shocked at what happened outside the White House Monday just for him to have a photo op in front of a church with a bible in his hand.  He had peaceful, legitimate protesters removed from the path he was to take for his photo op with rubber bullets and tear gas.  This was before the curfew and the protesters were peacefully protesting.  So he wants to call up the military to stop protests?  See the second paragraph below this.

Mildly related to the above, the artist Christo passed away May 31.  Honest there is a connection here.  Some of Christo’s most famous pieces include the one in Central Park called The Gates.   Another famous one was Surrounded Islands Biscayne Bay.  Another one was Paris’ famous Arch of Triumph which was really his big thing to cover something to show it in a different light, he started small with paint cans and oil drums and worked his way up to these huge projects.  He would spend years and millions of his own money (and that of his wife Jeanne-Claude) researching and planning these pieces.  All his pieces were properly approved by local authorities.  OK, here’s the tie in to DJT, after decades in the planning and $15M of his own money, he abruptly canceled the project that was to cover miles of the Arkansas River in Colorado because the “landlord” would have been DJT because it’s federal land.  I like his quote his & Jeanne-Claude’s projects “exists in their time,impossible or repeat.  that is their power, because they cannot be bought, they cannot be possessed.”

OK, I had to put Christo above, actually this one should have been the second paragraph.  Have you read the book Franklin & Washington by Edward Larson?  If you haven’t you need to, or if you read it a bit ago, pick it up again and re-read it.  As I’ve said many times in the past our founding fathers had to have been aliens, or possibly seers.  As I was recently reading it, OMG, DJT is the anti-Christ or whatever you want to call it that scared the hell out of them. He is what they envisioned when they created the separation of government into three distinct branches with checks and balances to keep our nation from falling into a dictatorship. Dispite the direct correlation  to current events, it is a very interesting book and I highly recommend it.

OK, if you don’t have a Tony in your life, I recommend hanging out at your favorite nursery, bring them coffee and donuts once a week.  (This tactic doesn’t always work my one brother after graduating college wanted in the FBI, so he would occasionally stop by their Pittsburgh office and drop off donuts.  He now works for the DEA, not the FBI)  🙂  Now that Tony’s Alliums are fading, these beautiful iris’s are just blooming Tony’s gifts to me are not just pretty flowers, but flowers timed to open as another closes.  Remember coffee and donuts open doors!

Lets continue with pictures.  Here’s the old water feature next to the courtyard wall:

A beautiful base, but useless.  It was too narrow and the water would bounce out and only last about an hour.  I haven’t used it for years over this frustration.  I got a new base from Scotty’s North HIills Water Garden, which I go to regularly:

Unfortunately I am going to have to move it.  There’s too much crap that falls from the honey locust tree it’s under, yes, it’s only a couple of months that the seeds and other debris falls, but it clogs everything up.  So I’m planning on moving it out front by the front fence.  It will make my little beach a little more appealing and people on the street can enjoy it as well:

And yes, that’s my next project.  I pressure washed the deck and hopefully this weekend can take my belt sander to it and then re-stain it.

Inside scoop, I’m going to be hosting another concert series this summer, with members of the symphony.  It definitely looks like it’s a go.  We had talked about possibly having it in the courtyard, but my contact was concerned about the elements and their quality instruments. so it looks like it will be in the ballroom.

Well that’s it for today, be good, be safe, be happy,

ed

Hi,

Happy Memorial Day, couldn’t let the holiday pass without talking about the men and women that gave the ultimate sacrifice so we could have what we do.  Being a Vietnam era veteran, I know a lot of vets that were in the war and I can’t imagine the horrors they lived through and can barely grasp the horrors of past wars like WWI and mustard gas, etc.  Never forget those that gave so much.

My vertical hydrangeas have been doing so well in the back of the parking lot.  I only planted 2, one on either side of the wall I wanted to cover.  After three years, and them not filling in the space I got another and just planted it in the middle.  Here’s my baby and she seems pretty happy with her new home:

Ohio is one of the states that allow motorcycle riders to ride without a helmet.  My problem with helmet less motorcyclists is if that stupid person wants to ride without a helmet, that’s his/her business.  I don’t want to be saddled with paying for their medical expenses for the rest of their lives because they chose to be stupid.  Now Ohio has made it legal for them to use earplugs to save their hearing, again I have problem with that.  Why don’t they tune down the loudness of their motorcycles and save their hearing that way?  🙂  My street is a popular street for motorcyclists to ride down and they are in a pack and going fairly slow (usually) and they keep revving their engines making all kinds of racket.  Again, save their hearing and my peace and tranquility.

Well, this is just a short blog recognizing Memorial Day.

Stay safe, keep your distances,

ed