Hi,
Tomorrow’s the anniversary of the China Clipper, the trans Pacific mail flight from San Fransisco (1935), Fitzgerald Kennedy’s assassination (1863),On the Origin of Species was first publish (1859) and Lebanon’s Independence day. Birth anniversaries include aviator, parachutist, adventurer Wiley Post (1898), First Lady Abigail Adams (1744), President Charles DeGaulle (1890) and female British author George Eliot (1819).
The Syrian refugees, quite the contention here. I understand Americans having reservations about admitting Syrians, especially in light of what happened in Paris. But we are a nation of immigrants, my grand parents emigrated from Germany. We all are from somewhere else. And lets look at Australia for a minute, it was England’s penal colony for years, where they dumped their criminals and look what it’s turned into. Anyone being allowed to emigrate should be vetted to the best of our ability, but that doesn’t make any guarantees, we have our own brand of terrorists, look at the shootings in our neighborhoods, movie theaters, college and high school campuses. We have no “higher” ground to stand on when we can’t even protect ourselves from ourselves.
Let me step on another soap box for a minute, they easiest way to defeat ISIS is to dry up their source of income! That’s what the DEA and FBI tries to do with the drug cartels, etc If ISIS didn’t have money to lure their fighters in how many Jihadists do you think they would have? I finally heard on the news where we bombed and destroyed 160+ oil tankers. Blow up the oil fields, processing plants, pipes, etc. Lets see what they can do without money. It’s estimated they rake in $3M a day from oil. Oil is the low hanging fruit that should be easy to totally disrupt. Other sources of income like ransoms, illegal antiquities, drugs and other forms of illicit income will be harder to strangle, but my old saying if man created it, man can change it. And their other source of income donations from other Arab entities is something we should be able to track and take action against these sources as well.
Off my soap box, the Trib had a great article on LED lighting. Color temperature scale is how light is measured based on color. The scale bases it’s rank in “degrees Kelvin. This has nothing to do with heat, just how warm or cool the light will be, the lower th K rating, the warmer the feel from the bulb, the higher the colder and bluer the light will be. Don’t pay attention to packaging and the marketeers designation of warmer vs cooler. Manufacturers are more and more placing the K rating on their packaging and use this number as you would for wattage equivalent for a comparison on brightness. Here’s some bench marks to keep in mind, incandescent lights have been around 2,700K, so if you want a warmer glow. Further up the scale, big box retailers generally use bulbs rated around 3,500K to 4,500K. You can find bulbs as high as 5,000K to 6,000K which is like the color of daylight. There is concern about bulbs this high disturbing our biorhythms. Read the entire article for more details.
Want to do something dramatic, cheap and environmentally correct? Start working with wooden pallets. 10001 Pallets is a website dedicated to home handyman projects using discarded pallets. You want to steer clear of chemically treated pallets, which frequently will have an IPPC lable (International Plant Protection Convention). A HT (heat treated) stamp is preferable. Don’t just grab a pallet, be picky, select pallets that aren’t all beat up and splintery. If you are selective you can find oak, hickory even cherry wood pallets. You can create benches and tables obviously, but head boards, decorative shelves are a few of the many uses for these lowly resources.
We had our Western Pennsylvania Bed and Breakfast Association’s fall meeting last week. At our spring meeting, Clarion River Lodge (a new member) volunteered to host our fall meeting. The lodge is literally in the middle of nowhere. Several of us rode together an Ryan used the GPS on his phone. We pulled off Rt 65 on Clarion River Road. GPS told us to turn left up Cemetery Road which we did, it took up this barely single lane road and told us to turn left on the street the Lodge was located. We travel a couple of miles and GPS said you have arrived at your destination on the right. The only thing on our right was a house right out of Deliverance. There were lights on the first floor and basement. And all kind of stuff on both the front and back porches. I knocked on the door, hoping someone would answer and tell he where the lodge was. I think luckily no one answered, when I saw the size 12+ boots on the porch, I thought it best to leave. We went the other direction and found the Lodge. There was a sign on the door that they were close and there was a for sale sign on the far side of the parking lot (right on Clarion River Road-if we had just gone straight!). So the twelve of us went to the Sawmill Diner, very nice people. We bought sandwiches and they not only allowed us to bring in the sides we had brought for the meeting, they also supplied us with plates and silverware.
The window project is completed! Finally!! Once again, Don from Action Painting did an exceptional job, painting, staining and polyurethane the windows before installation. (If you need a great painter 412-403-6458). Mike an crew again did a great job with the installation. This brings me up to nearly 100 windows replaced. This knocked out all the large windows in the Mansion and all 6 in the kitchens. Maybe I’ll hate the winter less this year. 🙂
My fireplace company is coming by Monday to repair the two fireplaces I can’t get the remotes to work (one has the original remote from ten years ago. I imagine I need a whole new remote assembly.
And tomorrow I start decorating for the holidays. I wanted to get it done for Light Up Night, but the window project took priority. The weather’s supposed to be decent this week. I’ve put the outside garland up in bitter cold with the wind blowing in the past, that was a challenge.
This is about it for today, have a great Thanksgiving and if you are traveling, take your time and be safe,
ed
