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Hi,

One week until Christmas, are you finished with all your shopping and decorating?  Remember, it’s not the expense of the gift or the height of the tree, it’s what’s in the heart.  🙂

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the release of, at the time, the most expensive film ever produced Titanic was released in 1997 and The Music Man made it’s debut on Broadway in 1957.  Birth anniversaries include arctic explorer Sir William Parry (1790), Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (1906), suffragette Mary Ashton Livermore (1821) and American black historian Carter Godwin Woodson (1875).

I have a question.  I keep seeing all these penalties the federal government is getting in the millions of dollars, BP in in the billions.  I mean this is constant, I can’t remember how many in just the past year was awarded.  This covers all bases, accounting, banking, environmental, etc.  Where does all this money go?

It was bound to happen.  They’ve had those posters around for years that look like a window with a view behind it.  Well Sky View has come up with framed faux windows with a high definition LED changing scene behind it.  It can also come with sound.  There’s about three dozen scenes to pick from and lots of options.  Needless to say, this Christmas gift ain’t cheap.  🙂

Have you been invited to, or organized your own Ugly Christmas Sweater Party and not been able to locate an ugly sweater?  This time of year, thrift stores can’t keep them in stock, the ugly Christmas sweaters are becoming quite the rage.  Some people are resorting to buying a regular holiday sweater and then finding tacky embellishments at thrift stores or craft stores and applying them to the sweaters themselves.  Andrew Sutton is organizing to have a national ugly Christmas sweater party day on December 21 and has over 3,500 likes on his Facebook page.  You can find ugly sweaters at the Ugly Christmas Sweater Party web site,  ugly Christmas t-shirts can be found at Vardagen, the ugly Christmas, or travel to the virtual Dr Frankenstein of ugly Christmas sweaters, Gail Tavernaris who sells her wares on Esty and in The Trading Post in New Brighton.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the American Studio-Glass movement.  It started when Dominick Labino a Carnegie Mellon University engineer and inventor joined teams with Harvey Littleton.  They developed a small portable furnace and low-temperature melting point glass giving studio artists get into what had been restricted to those with access to large industrial furnaces.  Celebrating this at Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery at 5833 Ellsworth Avenue in Shadyside is Cheers, Salute, L’Chaim to the Next 50.  Eight national artists are showing a wide array of various applications of this art form.  It runs through January 30 and there’s more information at their web site or by calling 412-441-5200.

For the seventh year in a row, Western Pennsylvania Humane Society is at The Mall at Robinson doing free gift wrapping all the way up to Christmas Eve.  WPHS brings adoptable pets with them as well as service animals which are quite a hit with the young and old.  They pared up with Panera Bread who donated the boxes and wrapping paper.  As I said, the gift wrapping is free although WPHS is asking for donations to help with the care for 12,000 animals they service each year.  I was there today and they have the cutest pet themed holiday wrapping paper.  Any donations go directly to WPHS.  By the way, on Charity Navigator WPHS comes up 4 out of 4, an excellent rating.  More below.

With government funding being cut more and more, charitable organizations need our help more and more.  And Americans are stepping up to the plate.  The National Day of Giving had a 53% spike in donations this year over last (it grew up to $10M).  And it’s more important than ever to donate wisely.  Particularly at this time of year, you get a ton of requests through snail mail, e-mail and on the phone.  The most dangerous are the requests on the phone.  NEVER give credit card information to these people.  NEVER give cash.  NEVER make a check out in the name of an individual, ALWAYS in the name of the charity.  If you buy into what the phone call is plugging, insist on mailing a check and double check the address given to you that it is legitimate.  The most common scammed charities identify the recipient is a police, fire or veteran’s organization.  Generally, even if it is legitimate, they generally source the collection out to a company that charge outrageous fees, most of the donated money goes to the soliciting company.  If you would like to donate to one of these three, contact your local organization and ask how you can donate directly to them.  When giving to a charity, be sure you are actually donating to the charity you want to receive your donation.  For example, the Children’s Defense Fund sounds a lot like the Children’s Charity Fund.  Both are legitimate charities, but which do you want to donate to?  And of course, there’s the obvious scam where some nefarious person or group creates a web site that looks a lot like the legitimate one and re-directs you to their site.  A big thing these days is texting to a charitable organization.  Be careful here as well.  If you are not 100% comfortable with texting to a charity, check them out at the Mobile Giving Foundation.  Remember, any donation over $250 has to have a receipt to be tax deductible (depending on your income level, there’s a certain amount of charitable donations you can make with no real documentation, when you go over that thresh hold, you need receipts for anything over that).  One  thing to consider, everyone has their hand in the pie.  (And I’m not talking scamming here.  There are “legitimate” costs like credit card processing fees the charity has to pay to redeem your donation, if you do it by credit card).  It may be more cost effective to donate to one charity $100 instead of donating to four charities $25 each.  Finally, make a “wish list” of what tugs at your heart.  Do children’s charities move you more than environmental?  Did a police officer give you a ticket and a fireman saved your child when your house caught on fire?  Then do your homework.  What charities are out there that service needs that appeal to you and make a list.  Then find out which charities are most effective, don’t believe what they have to say, go to the TripAdvisor of the charity world.  In addition to Charity Navigator,  there’s Great Non Profits, Guide Star and finally  Wise Giving Alliance  (Wise Giving is a division of the Better Business Bureau and I’m not a big fan of the BBB.  They’re not evil, but they very actively solicit sponsorship for a fee).

Yuengling , America’s oldest brewery, took the title of the largest American-owned beer maker from Sam Adams.  Dick Yuengling, great, great grandson of German immigrant David Yuengling still brews beer in Pottsville, PA.  Dick attributes his success to several things.  #1, let quality speak for itself.  #2, keep with the nuts and bolts of your industry.  #3, push profitable products, they sell a lot more of the highly profitable kegs than Sam Adams and finally, #4, don’t waste advertising dollars.  As beer sales continues to slip in the US, craft beers continue to grow.  Which means one thing, small business craft beers are steeling market share from the huge internationals Anheuser-Bush, SABMiller and Miller Coors Brewing company.  Yeah!  🙂

Have a great day, keep warm and dry on this dreary day,

ed

Hi,

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the premiere of the film Gone With the Wind (1939), the anniversary of Sitting Bull’s death (1890), the anniversary of the Battle of San Pietro (1943) and effective date of the Bill of Rights (1791) MASSIVE.  Birth anniversary of Alexandre Eiffel (engineer Eiffel Tower 1832), sub machine gun inventor Uzi Gal and Polish oculist Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof (1859).

It’s nice to see a local mega bank has the spirit of Christmas.  PNC seems to be making a big deal about they are starting a moratorium on throwing people out of their homes for two weeks over Christmas.  I think a bigger Christmas gift would be where a bank straightens out their foreclosure process so it’s fair and just.  #1  I acknowledge there’s a lot of people that should have never received a mortgage because either they are irresponsible or don’t have the income to afford it.  #2  I also acknowledge a lot of properties are “underwater” (I’m not referring to Super Storm Sandy aftermaths).  🙂    As far as #1 goes, banks have no responsibility for these folks.  #2 I think the attitude should be if the bank forecloses on the property because the owners paid too much for it before the bottom fell out on real estate, a different attitude towards this situation is a lot different than #1.  The bank is not going to be able to sell the property for what the current owners owe, so since the property is going to be sold for less, why not re-negotiate what the value of the house is and create an appropriate mortgage?  I know why, because the banks have the legal recourse to take over the property through foreclosure, write off their expenses, steal (my opinion) the equity the current owners have built up in it and then sell it for a profit.  Just because it’s legal, doesn’t make it right or moral.

The warmest story from the Western PA Humane Society.  A passerby found an abandoned dog along the side of the road that was in really rough shape.  He took her to a local shelter and was turned down because the shelter was full.

She had a severe case of mange, open sores, malnutrition and was terrified of everything and everyone.  They named her Hope.  Because the passerby and the Humane Society didn’t not give up on Hope, here she is today:

What an amazing transformation.  Just look at her eyes before and after.  An amazing side story, Hope doesn’t have a home yet, but her foster mom is being treated for cancer and they are both growing their hair back together.  🙂  Thank you Humane Society for all you do.

Speaking of life’s creatures, I talked about this awhile back, Audubon Society is looking for people to take part in their national Christmas Bird Count.  You don’t have to be a professional birder or any such.  Just some free time and a desire to step outside in some fresh air.  This is the 113th year of the count and they expect 60,000 people to participate.  Each count is done in 24 hours and are in a 15 mile radius that each team covers.  In addition to long term trends, these counts show season blips like the Canadian finches that are migrating farther than normal because weather conditions kept their natural food supply of pine cones depleted.  Don’t fret, the Christmas Counts aren’t done on Christmas day.  🙂  Most of it is done this weekend or the weekend of December 29 & 30.  More info at their web site or by calling 412-963-6100.

I was filled with hope recently about the proposed Buncher project down in the Strip.  Mayor Murphy addressed City Council last week and expressed his displeasure with the proposal.  (Mayor Murphy was a huge proponent for re-developing the river fronts).  He said the proposal on the table was overall very boring and the planned development along the river was a best very needing.  He tactfully expressed concern about the demise of 1/4 of the Terminal Building.  A week ago, John Conti, the architectural contributor to the Tribune Review bashed the project as well.  He’s pointed out the shortcomings of the proposal twice, so I’m adding a second link here Trib .  Well, this morning I read that City Council voted to approve the project.  Council President Darlene Harris voted in favor of the project, when questioned about the set back from the river, she said City Council has no authority to make Buncher use a larger set back than is required by code.  When I read that, I send her a comment through her web site that maybe not, but City Council sure does have a say so in whether Buncher can get $50MILLION in city money and City Council does have a say so in whether Buncher can tear down 1/4 of the historic/iconic Terminal Building.  Of course, once again I received the automated response acknowledging that a citizen made a comment to Council President, nothing else.  I guess my votes doesn’t count.

This week, Paris celebrated a special birthday.  Notre Dame turned 850 years old.  It was pointed out that Notre Dame out lasted 80 kings, 2 emperors and 5 republics.  I don’t recall the name, but I read a very interesting book about how the architects back then figured out how to build these grand edifices.  I did a web search and nothing came up that I recalled.  And I did a in my past postings and nothing came up there either.

Ricky Dick’s creation Castle Blood in Monessen is open this weekend for a Spooky Little Cryptmas.  He’s the guy that that converted and old multi-plex into a horror themed venue.  Obviously, it’s huge around Halloween, but he does other holidays like if February he does My Bloody Valentine.  He has toned down the the show and added lots of poinsettias, Santa hats, etc.  He also rents the venue out for special occasions.  Admission is $10 and it runs Saturday from 11 until 7 and Sunday from 2 until 5.  More info at his web site or by calling 724-314-3563.

Have a great weekend,

ed

Hi,

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in favor GW Bush over Al Gore in the Florida recount (2000), it is Frank Sinatra’s birth anniversary (1915), it is the 225 anniversary of Pennsylvania ratifying the US Constitution and it is the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a major Mexican holiday.

Several new birds of prey have been added to The National Aviary.  The new cast members include a four year old Bald Eagle, a Snowy Owl and a Red-Tailed Hawk.  The Aviary’s collection contains 600 specimens of 200 species.  Like Phipps, it’s always a nice place to pretend you’re not in Pittsburgh in the winter.

Not surprising, the film industry is phasing out 35 mm and Blu-ray discs and are adopting Digital Cinema Packages (DCP’s as they are known in the industry).  DCP is portable hard drives which download movies into computers at the theater.  This format gives a higher quality film and is a safe guard against pirating.  Unfortunately, it is quite costly, $35K to $50K per screen which quite possibly will make it inaccessible to the small theaters around the country.

I found a cool site, Mom and Pop Motels is an internet directory of non-franchised, independently owned and operated hotels, motels, bed and breakfast inns, and vacation rentals. No chains are allowed!  And a convenient and easy way for travelers to find a cool place to stay.  First of all, Mom and Pop Motels are most likely less expensive. Go ahead, call around. If you are traveling on a budget or like to watch what you spend, a Mom and Pop will suit your needs much more comfortably. Plus, staying at Mom and Pop motels contributes directly to family-run businesses and their local economies.  I need to add my listing to their site.

Another small business advocate site I found is vintage roadside attractions.  They talk about roadside diners, attractions, motor courts, etc, but you have to work to find things.  The way it’s set up is you go to their gift shop (and you can do this by category) and click on the tee shirt of the location that caught your interest.  Below the retro shirt is the history from where it came from.  Some attractions are still open, some are closed.  If you are into retro, a very good find for you.  They also talk about trips they’ve taken in their blog and look for stories from their followers that they post as well.  The thing I didn’t like is they don’t have a search feature.  You can’t type in Pittsburgh, PA somewhere and see what vintage attractions are in a location.  They do have some excellent links on their links page.  I’m not overly whining about this, it’s still definitely a worthwhile site to visit.

If you want to take a road trip, Koziar’s Christmas Village over in Bernville, PA (about four or five hours east of here) is a family farm creation of 500,000 lights on ten acres.  The tradition, began in 1948, was William Koziar’s idea of decorating his farm for the holidays for his wife and two small children.  Each year, William would add new displays.  The family has continued this tradition and you can image what they have created in sixty-four years.  The farm is still owned by the family and they get started in August, open in early November and close right after the holidays.  It really is a sight to see.

I got two of the nicest e-mails today.  Several years ago Patrick and his family relocated here from New England to take over the Mon Valley Initiative, a non profit like Pittsburgh’s URA trying to foster growth and job in the Mon Valley.  Initially, when they bought their first house and was remodeling it, his parents Bob and Monica would stay with me.  This is their recent e-mail:

“Ed-Monica and I just received your Christmas card today and enjoyed seeing the picture of you and your “family” as well as reading what you’ve been up to. It then made us go to your web site and begin reading your blog. The City of Pittsburgh should have you do their public announcements for them. Now when we come to visit Pat and his family, we’ll know where to look to see what’s going on. We’ve always enjoyed our stays at the Parador but hope you understand that we enjoy too, being able to stay right with Pat and his family. Should he ever run out of room, we would certainly return. Hope you continue your success with the Parador and have a great holiday season-and I hope you can get the Steelers back to winning.”

The second e-mail was from Norma from Aletier, a company out of Philly that specializes in moving higher end objects, the founder Hal Jones worked for the Philadelphia Museum Art Museum and saw a need for a specialized company for this.  Norma arranges all the details and about a week ago, called and wanted to do something a little special for her guys instead of the normal Motel 6.  The guys stayed with me last night and here’s what she wrote:

“Hello Ed!

Big thanks from Atelier for taking care of our guys.  They seemed to really enjoy the decor and said they were very comfortable.  It was a very special treat for them to get away from the usual roadside motel. One of them even hugged me in happiness when they got back to the office.   I hope to book with you again next time our guys are out that way.”

In the 1960’s, Joyce Byers decided to make her own Christmas decorations because she couldn’t find ones that reflected her taste.  She started creating decorations on her kitchen table using coat hangers as the base skeleton and then adding paper mache, paper scraps, pieces of cloth, ribbons and other scrap items lying around.  She kind of settled on her more iconic rounded mouth carolers that she is so famous for.  At friends’ requests, she started making them as gifts and occasionally for sale.  She started selling them full time at the Woman’s Craft Exchange in Wayne, PA.  When her husband’s construction business went bust in the 1970, the whole family moved into the garage “factory” and started Byer’s Choice LTD.  They now have a real factory in Chalfont, PA cranking out hundreds of thousands of the carolers that are carried in 2,500 gift shops nationwide.  They still use coat hangers at the basic skeleton and employ 120 local artists to complete the figurines.  Although some of the pieces are generated in bulk, each figurine is finished by one of the 120 and so each are unique.  If you want to tour the factory, they are located in just outside State College and the factory tour takes you over the factory and you can look down that the artists creating their pieces.  One collector has over 4,000 figurines.  The price has gone up from the $12 back in the 1970’s, most are in the $70 range.  Not bad.

So here’s some holiday pictures from The Parador Inn:

The exterior:

Coconut ornaments:

The colorful objects in the top panel of the windows are actual coconuts that I spray painted and then painted holiday images like the green one on the right with a snowman the red one on the left with Christmas trees.

My more formal tree in the Parlor:

Festive lights in the Library:

And what would a Caribbean Inn be without a Caribbean tree:

Some of it you can make out in the picture.  It is covered with hand painted tropical fish, ornaments made from various sea shells, nautically themed ornaments and the red garland is actual real commercial fish netting that I cut into strips and spray painted red.

Well, that’s about it for now, have a great one,

ed

Hi,

Busy day in history tomorrow. Birth anniversaries include cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney (1765), artist Diego Rivera (1886), musician Jim Morrison (1943), American humorist James Thurber (1894)  and entertainer Sammy Davis Jr (1925).  NAFT was signed (1993), John Lennon was shot (1980), the AFL was founded (1886) and the Soviet Union was dissolved (1991).

HModcloth had their second photo shoot here at The Parador Tuesday.  This photo shoot was to highlight their Christmas collection.  The last time they were here, they named a dress and matching skirt after me.  🙂  The Parador collection quickly sold out, I don’t know if it was the name or the the style.  🙂

The Fire Escape Coffee and Tea shop (so named because it’s next to the fire station) in Ben Avon has been open for three years now.  Melanie & David Holcomb (and daughter) moved to the neighborhood and saw a need for a neighborhood gathering place and opened up their coffee shop.  Besides a wide selection of coffee and teas, Melanie makes the pastries and other menu items.  (I have spoken of The Fire Escape in a past blog).  Besides being a coffee shop and meeting place for the neighborhood, they keep toys on the lower shelves for kids, paperback books on the upper shelves for the adults, open spaces for meetings (knitting ladies meet Friday mornings) and they have occasional performances. More info on their web site or by calling 412.772.8569.

It’s that time of year again.  Be sure to make time to visit holiday institutions that make Christmas Christmas here in Pittsburgh.  Phipps Conservatory has their annual holiday flower display in full bloom (pun intended).  The Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland has their annual Christmas tree displays up and their theme runs with their show highlighting the old World’s Fairs.  The show, “Inventing the Modern World:  Decorative Arts at the World’s Fair’s 1851-1939” runs through February 24. There’s the annual miniature train display at the Carnegie Science Center.  And a must see is the Cathedral of Learning’s annual nationality trees in their nationality rooms.  There’s about forty nationality rooms completed and around rooms ten pending.  In case you don’t know, all rooms have to represent a classroom in that country at the time Pitt was founded (1787).  The history behind the Nationality Rooms is in 1920 the Chancellor of Pitt decided to build the tallest educational structure in the world so anywhere in the city, kids could look up and see it and maybe be inspired to stay in school.  Then in the 1930’s, he recognized Pittsburgh was first settled by the French and British and when industry came to town, the Germanics came over first (the Germans, Slovaks, Poles, etc).  So he got the national club to pay for, bring ethnic craftsmen and materials to create a themed classroom.  The first floor has the original immigrants and the newer immigrants are up on the third floor.  As far as having holiday trees in the classroom, obviously the Chinese do not celebrate “Christmas” and don’t have an evergreen tree decorated with lights a bulbs.  But all groups of people have some kind of New Year’s holiday and their room boasts what would be a traditional tree in that culture.

Although the food crisis a few weeks ago has been adverted, the Greater Pittsburgh Food bank still struggles to meet the increasing needs of it’s customers while it’s government assistance wanes.  The Northside Common Ministries right down the street from me is where I usually donate.  If you want to help, it’s much better to set a regular routine, like sending them a check on the same day of the month for say $10, $20 or $100.  Or they are always looking for shelf stable foods (ie canned vegetables, dry cereals, etc).  Again, say once a month, go to any of your big box stores and spend $10, $20 or $100 and just drop it off.  Cynthia at NSCM’s phone number is 412.323.1170.

The Hand Made Arcade is coming to the convention center for the ninth straight year tomorrow.  Free admission, it runs from 11 am until 7 pm and is hosting 150 vendors.  This is not like that show at the Monroeville Expo Mart several weeks ago that had roofers, window replacement specialists, a chiropractor and shop keepers selling items made in China (the did have real crafters there, you just had to look a bit to find them).  The sponsors of the Hand Made Arcade weeded through 300 applicants to arrive at the 150.  Not only are these true crafts persons selling their own wares, there’s a huge green aspect to the vendors and the event.

Changin’ Time Laundry Services is expanding.  Maria, Christina, Michelle and Amanda have been running a home based diaper service and have just opened an eight washer, ten dryer storefront laundromat that also accepts drop off.  With their current thirty customers, they thought it was time to expand.  They are eyeing a grey water recovery system and other green options for their location at 405 W Eighth Avenue.

I know I promised pictures of my holiday decorations, but I need to take them at night and I wanted to get this posted so everyone knew about the Hand Made Arcade tomorrow.  Last year I found the cutest “monster hoodies” for my nieces and nephews.  I will take pictures and do a pictorial post this weekend.

Have a great weekend,

ed

Hi,

Tomorrow is the anniversary of AP correspondent and Lebanese hostage Terry Anderson was released (1991), it is the 55th anniversary of Chase’s Calendar of Events (where I pick up all this trivia), Mission Santa Barbara was founded in Santa Barbara, CA (1786) and the National Grange was founded (1786).  It is the birth anniversary of possibly the biggest entertainer of the 19th century, Lillian Russel and Chase Calendar chronicler Helen Chase (1924).

Cast iron skillets, the “original” non stick cooking pans, are experiencing a resurgence.  Lodge Manufacturing Company, the last remaining American maker of cast iron skillets, says the last few years have been the best in the company’s history (they were founded in 1896).  When seasoned properly, a  cast iron skillet is an ideal non stick cooking surface.  They hold heat the longest (so you need to pay attention when heating them up for when they get to the temperature you want), they have no hot or cold spots and are basically non stick.  The thing that intimidates most people are the achieving and maintaining the proper temperature (which is easily mastered with a little practice) and the seasoning of the skillet routine, which is incredibly easy.  After use, scrub out all left over food residue and pat dry.  Place on high heat to finish the drying process and add less than a tablespoon of canola oil (you can use any fat, I like canola).  Take a paper towel and spread the fat around and absorb any excess fat.  Over time, the fat hardens (polymerizes) to form a dense, slick layer on the surface.  And there’s no Teflon chips to worry about.  🙂

They just re-released The Butler’s Guide to Running the Home and Other Graces.  Long time English butler Stanley Ager originally published the book in 1980, I think they should have updated it while releasing it.  Some of his advice is past due, like the amount of laundry detergent (too much for front loaders) and to not inform “the staff that a royal will be visiting” until the last possible moment.  There are a ton of useful tips like setting tables, properly packing cloths so they don’t wrinkle, leather shoe care and a lot of other tidbits you may find useful.  My hyperlink goes to snippets from his book, just type the title in a search and the book appears all over the place.

The evil corporate giant ConAgra bought Ralcorp that now makes it the largest maker of store brand labels.  Ralcorp makes cereals, crackers and other packaged foods under private labels.  These are the store brand labels that always under price name brand items.  ConAgra is huge in agriculture and they’re the ones that make mutant seeds and require the farmers that use their product to sign these extremely strict contracts.

Speaking of processed foods, I don’t understand the controversy over oversized passengers on airplanes.  I’m not a big fan of the airline industry, but if a passenger needs two seats to fit, they should pay for the second seat.  I know I’m not being overly politically correct here, but you don’t go into a McDonald’s and order a cheeseburger and fries and expect to get a quarter pounder because you’re over weight.

Well, I finished the deep cleaning on the first floor last week and have been busy decorating for the upcoming holidays.  Hopefully, it will be finished today.  As I’m doing all this, I’m also working on this year’s holiday cards.  Two huge undertakings.  (This year’s mailing list is 3,000).  Speaking of mailing things, just to get things started, I went to the Post Office and patiently waited my turn.  When I approached the postal clerk and requested 1,500 post card stamps, he looked at me with a straight face and said “You need to order them”.  I looked at him with an equally straight face and said “Postage is what you guys do here, right?”  After a few seconds of staring at each other, he said he’d look in the back.  He came back with probably 5,000 rolls of stamps.  Now I wonder why the Post Office is going out of business.  🙂

Anyway, back to what I started this latest about, while deep cleaning I found the manufacturer’s stamp on the blue chandelier in the front dining room. It’s a Tiche, which may make me famous.  I haven’t had a lot of time to research it on the web, what I have found is it’s Italian from Monza in the Lombardia region and goes back at least into the mid 1800’s.  The only real references I have come across is the brand seems to be pretty big in England.  There’s a fair amount of Tiche lamps that are being sold over there on their version of E-bay.  Apparently Wikipedia doesn’t have anything on it.  So when I have more time to find out more about Tiche, I’ll make my first Wikipedia inclusion.

Here’s some pic’s of my chandelier:

Here’s a close up of the cherubs:

And here’s a close up of their logo:

If anyone has any info on Tiche or know where I can find more info, please let me know.

Well, that’s about it for today, once I have the holiday decorations done, I’ll do another post with pictures.

Take care and enjoy this warm, but dreary day,

ed

Hi,

Tomorrow is the birth anniversary of Anna Nicole Smith (1967), painter & sculpture Charles Alston (1907), poet artist William Blake, cleric & author John Bunyan (1628 no relationship to Paul) :), French anthropologist and philosopher Claude Levi Strauss (1908 no relation to the jeans guys) and musician and composer Jean Baptiste Lully (1632).  They light the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center and it is the anniversary of the oldest scientific society in the world, The Royal Society (1660).

I am a major fan of Mayor John Fetterman and just when I thought he had impressed me as much as he could, he puts a new feather in his cap.  He’s opening his very cool home Saturday, December 8 for a pig roast/cocktail party for 100 guests in collaboration with Chef Kevin Sousa of Salt of the Earth for  a charity Mayor Fetterman started a few years ago.  Proceeds of the fund raiser go directly to buy winter coats and Christmas gifts  for Braddock’s youth.  A little back ground on Mayor Fetterman, originally from York, PA and Harvard graduate with a master’s degree in public policy came to Braddock after graduating as an AmeriCorps volunteer and fell in love with the gritty little town.  Mr. Fetterman and his wife, Gisele, bought an abandoned warehouse across from Andrew Carnegie’s first free public library in Braddock.  After renovating it, to expand they got two shipping containers that they raised onto the roof with a crane.  Mrs. Fetterman, a third generation vegetarian wanted to space for a yoga studio.  So if you would like to meet Mr. Fetterman, enjoy Chef Sousa’s creations, see this amazing home, call 412-441-7258 or e-mail Kevin at unionpgh@gmail.com.  Tickets are $100 and if it wasn’t a Steeler home game weekend, I definitely would be there.

Turner Dairy, that great Penn Hills dairy that takes pride in not using hormones or other unnatural products in their dairy recently won a first and third place awards at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, WI.  Their Fat Free Skim Milk crushed the competition with the highest score of 98.74%.  Their 2% milk came in third.  Other awards brought home to Pittsburgh was the Church Brew Works won Best Large Brewpub at 2012 Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO.  Brew Works master brewer Steve Sloan won Best Large Brewer of the Year.

Restaurant Expansions, it looks like after opening Verde Mexican Kitchen & Cantina, Chef Lynett “LBEE” Bushey is opening a new concept restaurant in Lawrenceville-Tender.  It’s going to be at 4300 Butler Street.  I guess opening a restaurant next to Kevin Sousa’s Salt things rubbed off.  🙂

Continuing with holiday tours, out in Venetia (right up the street from where I grew up) The Wright House Museum will be holding it’s sixth annual Soup and Stroll at their restored 1780’s log house on December 2.  More info at the Peters Creek Historic Society web site or by calling 724-941-5710.

Kennywood having their second annual Holiday Lights with over one million lights lit up.  There will be 50 live pine trees lit, Santa will be in a larger than life roller coaster next to The Racer and instead of flashing the ride’s name, it will flash Santa.  There will be live shows around the Lagoon, holiday music piped around the park and a number of rides will operate (mainly in Kiddie Land).  It will be from 5 – 9 on Fridays and Saturdays through December 30 and December 26 & 27 thrown in as a bonus.  Tickets are $16, more info at their web site or by calling 412-461-0500.

Guess who’s turning 100 this year?  Tarzan!  I find the back story even more interesting.  Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in 1875 to a wealthy Chicago family and was expelled from prep school and then graduated from a military but didn’t qualify for West Point.  He joined the Army, but that lasted less than a year.  Teddy Roosevelt rejected him as a recruit for the Rough Riders.  He lived out West where his venture into gold mining went bust, he bombed  with his stationary store in Idaho and railroad cop in Utah.  He returned to Chicago and tried selling patent medicine and managing stenographers at Sears, Roebuck and Company.  A few years later, selling his wife’s jewelry for cash while working for an advertising company, he was reading pulp magazines making sure his ads were in there and correct and decided he could do a better job than what he was reading.  So he sat down and wrote Under the Moons of Mars (which later became the Disney movie John Carter) and sold it for about $400 ($9,300 in today’s money)!  Always curious about science and interested in Darwin, he came up with this tale about a titled English couple that take an ill fated sailing trip to Africa their son John Clayton ends up being raised by apes.  Tarzan of the Apes was an 80,000 word adventure that really hit a nerve in the October, 1912 issue of The All-Story Magazine and was published in book form two years later.  It spawned 24 sequels in 35 languages, it’s significance has been recognized by the Library of Congress and has created 52 authorized films, a radio show, a comic strip even a Broadway musical.

The seven county Southwestern Pennsylvanian region saw a 24.7% increase in exports from 2010 to 2011.  We blew past Milwaukee, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Detroit, Richmond, Cleveland, St Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Boston and Indianapolis.  With all the turmoil in Europe and China’s slowing economy, they are predicting a more modest growth of 15 to 19% growth over last year, still not bad.  Our region has 89,000 people in manufacturing (10% of all jobs).  Manufactured goods are our largest export (47%) followed by Services (29%)  and the rest are agriculture/commodities and fuels.  Our largest trading partners are Canada (19%), European Union (14%), Mexico (13%) and China (8%).

Am I overly intelligent or moral?  I don’t understand what part of honesty, integrity, transparency Penn State has missed this past year.  On Monday, a PSU spokesperson “clarified” the status of Spanier.  In case you don’t remember, he’s the arrogant guy that was at the helm at PSU when the Jerry Sandusky case broke (not to mention he was the boss throughout the time Sandusky was molesting boys) and testified that he only “learned of Sandusky’s actions when the grand jury indictment was released”, later after he was booted from the post and couldn’t cover things up anymore, e-mails were discovered implicating him with a cover up “for years to keep PSU’s name in tact”.  (Both statements in quotation marks are paraphrased by me).  Earlier, PSU stated Spanier “was receiving no additional compensation from the university”.  Oops, they forgot to mention the $600,000 he receives as a tenured professor.  I don’t know, that sure sounds like compensation to me.  And the best part?  PSU REFUSES to release the terms of his separation contract!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  They really need to fire everyone up there above the level of janitor.  (Nothing personal janitors).  🙂

Well, that’s about it for today.  I’m currently finishing up deep cleaning the dining rooms getting ready for holiday decorating.  It looks like this weekend will be great weather to hang my outside stuff.  I remember some years it was bitingly cold.  I found out what that chandelier in the front dining room is, Tiche.  More to follow on my next post.

Be well,

ed

Hi,

Tomorrow is the birth anniversary of baseball legend Joe DiMaggio (1914), Andrew Carnegie (1835), John F Kennedy Jr (1960) and temperance leader Carry Amelia Moore Nation (1846-the hatchet wielding smasher of saloons).  Also, it is the anniversary of the presidential order dropping the speed limit to 55 mph due to the  1973 oil crisis and the Mirabel sisters murdered by dictator Rafael Trujilo in the Dominican Republic (1960).

In reference to a post I made a few months ago, I just found out the answer.  I was confused why the news providers kept referring to “Myanmar, formerly known as Burma”.  The former ruling junta summarily changed the name of this country 23 years ago.  The democracy advocates resisted this name change and continued to refer to their country as Burma.  As a result, most countries refused to officially change the name and Burma still appears as the name of the country in official American documents.  Aung San Suu Kyi recently was scolded by the military for using the word Burma in a public address.

Are any of you quilters?  If so, I assume you already know about The Quilt Company out in Allison Park.  They stock over 5,000 fabrics and  quite the assortment of tools.  They have bus tours come to their shop and even hosted 40 quilters from Ireland.  Karen & Carey Montgomery opened their store in 1993, closing in on their 20th anniversary. In a related topic, the traveling Original Sewing and Quilt Expo stopped at the Monroeville Expo Mart last August in their first stop in Pittsburgh and 2,000 hobbyists attended, even with the Squirrel Hill Tunnels closed.  It was such a success that they have already scheduled August 22 to 24 in 2013.  If you are a quilter or just a sewer, you may want to look into the Pittsburgh branch of the American Sewing Guild’s local chapter.  They have about 260 members that meet monthly in nine Pittsburgh neighborhoods in member homes to hone current skills and learn new ones.

Quilting is just one of the many crafts that make up the $30B craft industry.  The #1 hobby (in terms of sales $) is woodworking.  Rounding out the top three, drawing comes in #2 and food crafting comes in #3.  The food ranking seems to be attributed to all the cooking shows showing up all over TV (shows showing was a deliberate pun).  The Craft and Hobby Association estimates that at least one craft project is completed in 56% of the American households each year.

Do you know what drives me nuts?  (I know, that’s a long list).  🙂  I receive tons of junk mail and spam.  I assume Constant Contact has my name and e-mail address on file and they probably sell the mailing list to other businesses.  I am always getting e-mails from some business I’ve never heard of and it’s powered by Constant Contact.  So I always hit the “Unsubscribe” button (which takes time and effort out of my life), which takes me to a web site that then wants me to fill in my e-mail address to unsubscribe (more time and effort on my part) and then the icing on the cake is when they want me to fill out a form saying why I don’t want their stupid advertising filling my in-box.

There’s a cute UTube video, Gotham High.  It’s a parody of Batman and what’s cute about it is it uses actual film footage from teen movies staring real Batman stars like Christian Bales, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom hardy and Anne Hathaway in their youth.

It’s that time of year, Christmas house tours in our area.  The oldest and largest is right here in my neighborhood.  The Old Allegheny Victorian Christmas Tour (who won’t feature my Inn because I’m not Victorian enough) hosts in excess 1,500 guests.  The tour starts at Calvary Methodist Church (noted for the two huge Tiffany windows and recently spent $5M in renovations) and tour six homes, a holiday gift shop and an optional tour of a toy train collection ($10).  These guided three hour tours cost $25 and leave Calvary every 12 minutes like clock work.  More info at their web site or 412-418-2027.  The Zelienople Historical Society 20th annual Christmas House Tour.  This self guided tour of 10 homes decorated in a variety of themes and cost $22.  More info at their web site or by calling 724-452-9457.  The Scottdale Historical Society annual House Tour starts at the society’s Louck’s Homestead at 527 N Chestnut Street and high light the Homestead, the Alverton Center Bethel Church of God and four homes cost $15.  More info at their Facebook page or by calling 724-887-5045.  The Sewickley Christmas Santa House Tour is sponsored by the Edgeworth Garden Club and features six rooms in their clubhouse stuffed with all kinds of Santa Clauses and other folk art.  Tickets are $10 and proceeds go toward a scholarship to a qualifying student majoring in plant sciences.  More info by calling 412-818-5329.  Finally, the Greensburg Garden Center’s tour this year will feature five historic churches decorated for the season with the pastors talking to the tours about the history of the church and it’s architecture.  More info at 724-837-0245.

The Toonseum is featuring a show by and of Kensington Falls Animation that has been a on the cutting edge of scoreboard animations and  TV ads for the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates (as well as the deceased Spirit and Maulers).  More info at both Toonseum and Kensington’s web sites or by calling 41-.232-0199.  The show runs through January 27 and costs $5.

Have a great day,

ed

Hi,

Tomorrow is the birth anniversary of Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould (1900), Senator Robert Byrd (1917), broadcaster & author Alistair Cooke, astronomer Edwin Hubble, Bobby Kennedy (1925) and actor Gene Tierney (1920).  It is the anniversary of the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights by New Jersey (1789) and it is the anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (1945).

Every year, before putting the holiday decorations up, we deep clean the public space on the first floor and paste wax the floors.  This year, when we moved the Library table out of the way, as we were rolling up the carpet under it, I discovered fairly extensive moth caused damage to the rug.  All damage is in a circle directly under the table base.  No damage outside the parameter of the base.  The little bastards hid under the table and had a feast.  Insidious.  As much as I hate chemicals and pesticides, I think I’ll spray under the base of the table before putting it back.  And nervous Nelly will probably move the table throughout the year to see if they come back.  Luckily the rug in the Library is not one of the better rugs.  It’s OK, but the dining room rugs are of a much higher quality.

My favorite piece in the Mansion is the Shepard boy and his dog in the Dining Room by Moreau.  My second favorite piece is the Murano chandelier in the Parlor.   Not only is it beautiful, it is very unique.  I don’t know when, but at some point, Murano found out that the dye used was poisonous to the glass blowers.  They still make this model, but not in the color I have, so it is a very unique piece.  I get a lot of very favorable comments from guests about it.  And I certainly appreciate it.

All the pieces come apart.  As I was cleaning the daffodils, again I was taken by the beauty and craftsmanship each one is.

People frequently over look all the details seeing the forest instead of the trees, that’s why I’m taking a minute to highlight the piece.

Speaking of craftsmanship, I went to the Monroeville Craft Show I talked about this past weekend.  I always try and get my holiday gifts from crafts persons of one sort or another.  This craft show was advertised as the largest in the area.  Well, they might be the largest, but there certainly weren’t selective.  In addition to the crafts persons, there was a chiropractor, several roofers, gutter guard persons and other persons you wonder how they qualified.  Worse than that, they had a lot of shop keepers.  As I was browsing along, I was noticing the same thing in many of the booths.  Probably half of the “crafters” were shop keepers that bought quantities of product from some wholesaler that brought their goods in from China.  I tarried at one of the booths too long and the shop keeper approached me.  He informed my that the knitted hat I was looking at was made from genuine Alpaca wool.  I asked where it was made and he said he didn’t know, probably China.  Not to be discouraged by all the shop keepers, I connected with a number of true crafters, and made my purchases on handmade items created right here in Pittsburgh.  I now have all the little nieces and nephews covered, but can’t go into details in case one of my sib’s reads this.  I’ll talk about them after the holidays.

I like shopping small businesses, as anyone that’s ever met me or read any of my blogs.  Don’t forget, this Saturday is Small Business Day, support your local small businesses (come to The Parador).  🙂

Continuing along with my cleaning, as I said, one of the yearly holiday goals is to paste wax the first floor floors.  We clean, dust, vacuum, etc throughout the year.  But to paste wax the floor is such a major undertaking and so disruptive, I only do it once a year.  And I have THE tool

It’s a commercial quality Viper floor scrubber/buffer I got at Colker Janitorial Supplies on Penn Avenue in the Strip.  After doing this for six years, I definitely have it down pat.  The machine is quite powerful, #1 and in general can real toss you around if you’re not careful.  Particularly when you first put the wax down, it’s like wet ice.  Balance is extremely important.  Also, the amount of wax you put down is also very important.  My first year, I put too much wax down and it never really did dry right.  The floors look so nice when their freshly cleaned and waxed.  It’s like the Murano freshly cleaned.

It looks like I’m going to be in the Trib again.  I think I may be becoming THE local source.  🙂  When my good friend, printer, web master passed away back in September from that bizarre viral meningitis, the Trib contacted me about Joe.  One of the feature writers is writing an article on Airbnb, the Internet lodging Satins.  The government does work in logical ways, sometimes.  🙂  There are different codes depending on how a building is used for living.  If it’s your house, you should know where the front and back doors are in case of a fire.  If it’s an apartment building, they figure you should be familiar with where the rear fire escape is.  And you should have at least a battery operated fire alarm.  Short term lodging is a different story.  Hotel/Motel/Inns frequently get guests arriving fairly late for just one night on their way to someplace else.  If an emergency happens, these unfamiliar guests need taken care of.  Code calls for two methods of egress.  My smoke and fire alarms are required to be hard wired (into the regular electrical system with battery back up) and continuously wired (if the alarm goes off in one room, the adjoining room’s alarm wakes those guests as well).  My system has to be professionally monitored 24/7.  I had to install a sprinkler system that ended up costing me over $50K.  These people that are renting out rooms in their houses have none of this.  And they are ADVERTISING this on the Internet.  This isn’t a causal one time deal.  AND, they are not collecting 7% bed tax or 7% sales tax.  I periodically go back to Florida in the winter to get away from the cold and visit friends.  About three years ago I was in West Palm at the Hibiscus House B & B.  Back when I was still living in Florida, developers were grabbing up all the property they could (mine included)  🙂  and building town houses.  They were selling them pre-construction to speculators who inter would flip them to other speculators and they ended up being sold several times before they were even finished.  Most of the money was coming from New York and believe it or not, Brazil.  When the housing market crashed, there was all these investors holding over priced town houses.  They could take the loss and let the bank foreclose on it, loosing a bundle.  And having a foreclosure in their credit score.  Or they could hold on to them and wait for the market to come back and at least get their money back.  Remember these are investors with money.  So when I was down in West Palm, I saw all these lights on in many of these town houses.  The next morning when I said something to Collin about they seemed be to finally selling the town houses I got a scowl from him.  He said, no, the owners bought some cheap china and sheets and were advertising them on line for around $800 a month.  Again, none of the safety issues were addressed, nor was any taxes being collected.  How can a Bed and Breakfast compete with $800 a month.  The Hibiscus House was fine, they owned their Inn, they were the grandads of the area.  But Collin said all the other Bed and Breakfasts were either in foreclosure or on foreclosure’s doorstep because of Airbnb and other web site like it.

Well, that’s about it for right now.  Have a great Thanksgiving and don’t eat too much,

ed

Hi,

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Lewis and Clark reaching the Pacific Ocean (1805), it is the anniversary of the very colorful Louis Riel‘s hanging (1885), the anniversary of Saint Eustatius, West Indies first salute to the American Flag by a foreign government (1776) and it is the birth anniversary of blues man William Handy (1873).

I like to view myself as a reasonable man.  I am a preservationist and environmentalist, within reason.  Generally speaking, I’m against dams.  I think we artificially alter nature and frequently pay a high cost when Mother Nature responds.  I like seeing the state removing old dams because they are structurally deficient returning moving bodies of water back to their natural courses.  When it comes to dams and locks on the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio, we do need them for flood control and river traffic.   Why not turn them over to private businesses?  They are in terrible condition and seem to have an eminent threat of failure.  Turn them over (or sell them) to one of the energy companies.  They can rebuild them to generate electricity and collect the fees charged for going through the locks.  There’s green power potential just sitting there and I would imagine a power company could figure out a way to amortize the cost of construction and make it work.

NPR had a ditty on non-profits.  One example of a non profit they gave was the American Bureau of Shipping.  Of the $600M in profit they generated, they compensated their CEO $20M, invested $60M in hedge funds over seven years.  When MPR questioned ABS, they said they did nothing illegal and that America has a more favorable tax climate than most other countries.  The MBA recently changed their status from a non profit to a for profit company.  The NFL (who pays their commissioner $11 1/2M)  and NHA are both still non profit.  They estimate we loose $10B a year in potential taxes because of these companies hiding behind non profit status (like UPMC).  To hear the segment, just click on the NPR hyperlink at the beginning of this paragraph.

Also, from NPR, the Swedes built trash to electricity plants around their country several years ago.  The have started a green campaign that has been so successful that they are now importing trash from neighboring countries!  🙂

Dan Brown, the owner of Loggerhead Tools in in a battle with Sears.  He invented and patented the Bionic Wrench out of Illinois.  Because of the volume expected, he hired Penn United Technologies in Jefferson, Butler County to produce the wrenches.  They sold 250,000 through Sears last year.  Sears started dragging their feet this past spring about placing their Christmas order.  Penn Technologies couldn’t wait and so started new production runs assuming is was just bureaucracy.    Sears made some cosmetic changes, had the wrench made in China under their brand name Craftsman Max Axess.  Dan’s suing them for patent infringement, expects to win that battle, but loose the war to a cheaper import by one of our soulless companies.

Westmoreland Museum of American Art has come up with an innovative idea to maintain their collection.  You can “adopt” a painting in need of repair.  They have all price ranges, depending on the severity  of the damage.  In turn, you get a plaque next to the picture and free admission for a year.  WMAA is doing a $15M expansion/renovation, but is still open.  More info on their web site or by calling 724.837.1500.

Which reminds me.  I recently learned that frequently, computers don’t recognize how I present phone numbers.  If you use a dot instead of a dash, some programs see that as blank space.  Hmmm.

Don’t forget it’s Light Up Night this weekend.  Tons of activities.  In addition to lighting the tradition trees outside the City/County building and in the ice skating rink at PPG Place, there’s odd one in Market Square.  Fireworks Friday night, the life sized creche at Steel Plaza, the annual gingerbread contest in in PPG’s windows and new this year will be the Winter Garden in Market Square with vendors in Chalet looking booths.  I haven’t seen it yet, but have talked to people who saw them being erected say they were pretty cute.  In fact, I heard Allegheny West was having trouble finding vendors for their holiday shop this year for their annual Victorian house tour December 7 & 8.  Go to Light Up Nights web site for schedules of events and AW’s web site if interested in their house tour.

There’s a free exhibit at the Box Heart Gallery through November 24.  Minimally Charged: Drawings and Paintings by Jackie Hoysted takes a different view on the human body.  For example, Thoughtful explores the difference between nudity versus nakedness.  Jackie strives to highlight the person/emotion more than the traditional emphasis on the body.  Box Heart is at 4523 Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield.  More info at their web site or by calling 412.687.8858.  (I gotta quit using dots) 🙂

I like Halloween, I love Day of the Dead.  I really enjoy the artwork associated with Dia de los Muertos and the overall concept of this Mexican holiday.  My friend Kerry that owns KS Kennedy Floral has relatively recently gotten into the Day of the Dead as well and gave me this really cute Catrina:

Well, that’s about it for today, have a great one,

ed