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