Hi,

Today is the birth anniversary (1880) of Elisabeth Achelis, she advocated making the calendar the same every year.  First day being Sunday January 1 with equal quarters with each date falling on the same day each year.   It is John Belushi’s birthday (1949).  It’s also the anniversary of the discovery of gold in California in Coloma in 1848.  James Marshall, an employee of John Sutter was building a saw mill when he stumbled upon it.  They tried to keep it secret, but in 1849 the California Gold Rush commenced.

The coldest day of the year (of this winter) so far was last Saturday, it was 2 degrees when I went down to start breakfast.  When I bought this place and was doing the first major renovations, big on the list was making my kitchen commercial quality  legal.  One of the codes up here that I didn’t have to deal with before was hood systems are required to have a small furnace to heat the make up air (the hood system pulls air out of the kitchen removing cooking smoke, odors, etc and the other half of the system needs to replace this air).  Of course if you’ve read my blog, I’m quite proficient at whining.  When I heard about the additional $4k , I did a major whine.  The cooking kitchen has not regular source of heat, so when I first go in it in the winter, it’s always pretty cold.  When I turn the hood system on, initially it just pulls cold outside air in until the furnace kicks on.  Well, Saturday, it was pulling 2 degree air in and the furnace never kicked on.   Brrrr  I went out and shoveled the snow off the top of the external box for the hood system and then shoveled the snow from under where the outside air is sucked into the system.  I knew it was a long shot, and it didn’t help.  So I shut the system down and turned it back on several times and the furnace did finally kick on.

Speaking of cold, quite the game last night.  It was the coldest game ever played at Heinz Field. I didn’t make it to the actual sidelines last night, but was right next to the field and damn it was cold.  Had a great time.

Amazing, Voyager has been out in space  working for 33 years.  It is saving it’s info on EIGHT TRACK TAPES, the working memories is a million times smaller than your home computer and it transmits its finding back to earth on a 23 watt whisper.  In June it got to the place where charged particles from the sun -the solar wind- stops.  Voyager left the solar system.  Way to go little guy.

So you want to be an artist and don’t know how to start?  Make a ceramic mug, do some oil or pastel painting, maybe create a mosaic.  Why not get professionals to help you?  You don’t have to sign up for a full college class on any of these to get a taste and get a feel for this art form before making a commitment.  The Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, the Society for Contemporary Crafts, Sweetwater Center for the Arts, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art and the Greensburg Art Center all off “dabbling” classes.  Check out this article in today’s Trib for details.

Good Night,

ed