Hi,
Tomorrow is the anniversary of Elizabeth Blackwell being the first American woman physician (1849), the USS Pueblo was seized by North Korea (1968), the 24th Amendment was passed eliminating any taxes being able to be levied to vote in Federal Elections (1964) and the 20th Amendment was pasted changing the presidential inauguration from March 4 to January 20. Birth anniversaries include French painter Edouard Monet (1832), comedian Ernie Kovacs (1919) and the first signer of the Declaration of Independence and patriot John Hancock (1737).
Pittsburgh City Council voted on whether to designate The Terminal Building as historic. (Not all of these images are of The Terminal Building). The vote was four against, three four and two abstaining. As I told you (and them), when they voted, I would publish their votes so you can remember them when you vote next. Bruce Kraus, Natalia Rudiak and Deb Gross (whose district includes The Terminal Building) voted in favor of historic status. Ricky Burgess, Theresa Kail-Smith, Daniel Lavell and Corey O’Connor voted against historic status. And Dan Gilman and the ex-president of City Council Darlene Harris abstained. In case you missed my last post on this, Darlene Harris represents my district and didn’t have the courtesy of even acknowledging my e-mail requesting support of this measure. I will remember. The second vote was the same, so the Terminal Building officially lost it’s bid for historic designation.
Gregory Hazuza owns a greenhouse in Sewickley Township that has been in his family for generations. He started brewing wine awhile back as a hobby and sparked the interest of Cynthia Helinsla who convinced him to take his hobby into a business. Greenhouse Winery LLC was born. They’ve been so successful that they are looking into creating a $1M new facility, they have totally outgrown the garages where they’ve been operating for the last few years. In addition to the wine making facility, they are planning on adding a retail outlet and banquet hall.
Interested in getting your beer from a local brewery in a growler? Here’s succinct list:
East End Brewery in East Liberty 412-537-2337
All Saints Brewing in Hempfield 724-289-1202
Red Star Kombucha in Point Breeze 412-897-6943
Hough’s Taproom and Brewpub in Greenfield 412-586-5944
Church Brew Works in Lawrenceville 412-688-8200
Penn Brewery in the Northside 412-237-9400
Arsenal Cider House in Lawrenceville 412-260-6968
21st Street Coffee and Tea in the Strip District 412-
Packs and Dogs on Mt Washington 412-431-1855
I hate flying, so the US Air American merger really has no effect on me. Parking, tickets, TSA, getting there two hours early and you walk right through or getting there one hour early and there’s lines around the corner, it’s all such a hassle. The merger was supposed to save the general public money, well the new airline has already started turning the screws. The DAY AFTER the merger, the new airline announced that American Express Platinum and Centurion card holders will no longer have free admission to the their VIP lounges. Particularly, if your a business traveler, those lounges gave you a comfortable place to do work while waiting on your flight (did I mention another thing I hate about flying is those seats in the waiting areas are very uncomfortable). American has had a working relationship with Citibank for years and Citibank has elbowed AMEX out. 🙂
The king of mining our data and figuring out how to sell it to marketers, Google, is stepping out of the Internet for a new venture to mine data in our homes. They just purchased Nets, the premier makers of a programable thermostat that you can access via your smart phone. Obviously they will have access to the temperature you prefer (how much energy you consume for one item out of that face), when you are home (are you at work, on vacation, etc), when you sleep and for how long. But this is just the beginning of what they can learn about you. They are one of the developers of that software that can track your movements in a store I’ve recently talked about. The software can tell where you are in a store, how long you are in particular areas through your smart phone, even if it’s turned off. From this data, they can sell the info to marketers that could send a coupon to your smart phone while you are standing at a counter. I can see a time where late at night your smart phone buzzes with a coupon for Trojan. 🙂
For those of you that miss the Igloo, David Aschkenas has a photo exhibit at the 707 Penn Gallery of 36 images (out of the 10,000 he took). He took pictures of the building intact and during it’s destruction, mundane pictures like trays of hockey skate laces, some pictures are as big as eight feet. You can see many more of his images at his website or purchase his book Arena: Remembering the Igloo with 100 images that he did in collaboration with Abby Mendelson. Besides the images, the book interview 50 people about their memories of the Igloo (they didn’t interview me, but I remember seeing an Earth, Wind and Fire concert when the roof still retracted. It was awesome). David admits never attending a hockey game, concert or other even in the Igloo, but has quite a bit of experience chronicling historic buildings like HH Richardson’s Allegheny Courthouse and Jail. His pictures are both warming and disturbing.
They are looking for tour guides at Old Economy Village in Ambridge. I’ve talked about them several times in the past, it’s an old German religious settlement that was trying to find utopia around 1824. It disbanded in the early 20th century, if I recall correctly and has been a museum since. It used to get a good bit of government funding that dried up with the recession and was facing closing down. The new guy in charge has re-arranged things and though they’re not making money, at least they are surviving. If you would like to volunteer, they are giving tour guide training Saturday, January 25 from 9:30 until noon. There’s more information on their website or you can call Carol at 724-266-4500.
The contractors are going gang busters. They will have Lady Palm finished today and since there’s a bit of a mess from the construction (they’re doing a nice job and clean up after themselves-I’m just a bit persnickety as Kerry Kennedy of KS Kennedy Floral likes to call me), 🙂 I went into Lady Palm’s living room to repair roof leakage damage. It seems Welte Roofing finally got that leak (I hope). The contractors are closing up Ruellia’s bathroom today and may even get to starting the tile work. It’s going to be a bit of a push, I’m sold out Friday and Saturday and need that bathroom serviceable and time to clean it. I’ll have some pictures on my next post.
And speaking of activities at The Parador, the paranormal event February 21 and 22 has been official for a couple of weeks now. I have a notice on the top of my website, posted it in my blog, Facebook, sent notices to a dozen paranormal groups around Pittsburgh and did a press release. Haven’t received on booking yet. Come on you paranormal fans, it should be fun.
I have been working on a new page on my website, The Parador Inn, Restaurants. There’s literally thousands of restaurants in Pittsburgh, many excellent. The purpose is not to list all restaurants worth dining in, that list would be too extensive. I think my next post I will just copy and paste that for your review. If I missed a restaurant you frequent and think I should include, please let me know so I can add it. I sent the list to a good friend Ann that lives in Chatham Village. Anne likes to find great and new restaurants and gave me some great suggestions that either I missed, mean on trying but haven’t yet or wasn’t aware of. Her home in Chatham Village is so cute, I love Chatham Village. Chatham is a “planned” community built in 1932 at the advent of popular use of the automobile. They designed this English village looking community with a discrete handling of the automobiles. Garages are from the rear and somewhat camouflaged and they have small parking lots spread around that are frequently screened. The community was designed for fairly dense occupancy, but with a good bit of open spaces because of proper planning. If you’ve never been there, you really should take a drive up and explore this Mt Washington gem.
Well, that’s it for today, keep warm, limit your outside exposure, pay attention to your pets and elderly neighbors,
ed
