Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Hi,

A lot of famous people were born on this day, Louis Braille was born in 1809, Jacob Grimm (of Grimm’s Fairy Tales) was born in 1785 and Isaac Newton was born in 1643.  Today, Utah was admitted to the Union in 1896.

Happy days are here again.  Paul, my plumber was here this morning.  There definitely is/was leaking into my walls from at least the second to the first floor, possible starting all the way up on the third floor.  The FANTASTIC news (sorry for shouting, but I’m really excited here) is we will not have to take the paneling in the front foyer down or take  the dining room wall out (it’d kill me if I had to damage Kathleen’s murals).  The problem is the stack (where the water comes down from the tubs, toilets & sinks) has failed.  It runs up the wall between the foyer and the front hallway next to the front door between the Parlor and Dining Rooms.  So we’re going to have to take out that little (maybe 18″) section of wall right next to the front door where the light switches are.  And it seems to get better.  It looks like if we need to repair the stack all the way up to the third floor, it runs through a closet in Bird of Paradise’s foyer that I store holiday decorations in.  All things that will relatively easily be repaired after the plumbing is fixed.  What a HUGE sigh of relief.  Paul’s coming back tomorrow morning, so once he has that wall opened up, we’ll see how extensive the work will need to be.

Here’s an interesting one for you.  The Palace at Versailles is being leased by the French government to a Belgium firm that’s going to turn it’s 23 bedrooms into a luxury hotel.   I’ve never been to Versailles, but I did visit Mad Ludwig’s recreation of it in Bavaria and it’s quite the palace.  The French government has assigned their top historian to oversee the renovations so the hotel doesn’t damage the integrity of the palace.  I can’t imagine what a night there’s going to cost.  I would imagine higher than my $150.  🙂

Disney’s national Mary Poppins’ tour includes three locals.  Case Dillard from Little Rock, Ark, Shua Potter from Erlanger, KY and Eric Hatch from Knoxville, IA are all on the cast and are graduates from Point Park University.

The PBS’s Antiques Roadshow is coming to Pittsburgh this year.  If you want your free tickets, go to www.pbs.org/antiques and sign up.  You have to do this by April 18.  They are also looking for large antiques for their Roadshow Furniture Roundup.  They plan on airing this show in 2012 and are looking for a selection of large antiques within a fifty miles of each other.

There’s a guy in California, Dan Balsam, that got so fed up with spam, he quit his job, got a law degree and now his whole practice is fighting spam. The attorney representing several of the spammers Dan’s sued calls him a “spambulance” chaser.  Pretty cute.  I love his poem on the front page of his web site.  His web site www.danhatesspam.com is worth a visit.

bye,

ed