Bakes

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Ok, I am hungry!! (Ok, I’m always hungry.) But Cleveland Clambakes are one of the very best ways I can satisfy that hunger. Those food photos really get me going. I might try breakfast, lunch and dinner bakes one of these days. Yeah, that’s a good idea. I found those cool b & w photos from the Euclid Fish Company. And that pretty picture of clam digging on the coast in Washington. Then, see that photo of the giant clam above? It’s a Geoduck found in the Pacific Northwest. And a quick Google search revealed an abundance of t-shirts to express your love of the clambake. Read on and enjoy!!

Autumn in Cleveland is marked by three things: lots of football, crisp weather, and the return of the fill your belly backyard feast called the clambake.  And as a foodie, I just love ‘em. Now it has been a few years since I have been able to gather my extended family together for a Kowalski clambake! Digging out the giant pots from the attic, and from family, the special trip to the seafood store and farmer’s market, prepping the backyard and staging everything, the strategic timed layering, the great aromas, and just the fun of being outside with friends and family drawing the broth and enjoying the rewards.  Hot, savory fresh clam broth is amazing, along with steamed corn and chicken (chef meat and fish variations include fresh sausage (gotta try mine), and of course our close friend Stacy who makes the absolutely best chowder!   When my family gets together, we easily finish off 70+ dozen clams,  making me really hungry just writing this!  The last of the season’s corn, local sweet potatoes, and lots of “slaw”. Then we like to top it off with a selection of local brews – spice, pumpkin and Oktoberfests, and I’m in heaven.  Of course, lots of crunchy bread and butter to soak up the goodness – followed by the slow crawl to the festive desert table. (hungry yet)  I came across this article by Annie Zaleski for thrillist.com and just had to share some of local history around “bakes”.  I have to humbly admit,  Cleveland clam bakes are the best!!   Enjoy, and please share your own recipes and traditions – I’d love to hear ‘em. skowalski@khtheat.com

  • A Cleveland clambake is unique and distinct in both process and composition from those held elsewhere. Instead of being prepared the New England way — on a beach or near water, using a sandy process involving fire pits, rocks, and seaweed — all of the components are thrown into one big pot and steamed together. And Cleveland’s variation is characteristically hearty: a dozen clams, half a chicken, an ear of corn, a sweet potato, rolls and butter, and coleslaw.
  • According to John C. Young, president of Euclid Fish Company, the Cleveland “big pot” approach has been the staple of area clambakes forever.  And he would know: his grandfather, chef John J. Comella, helped kickstart the clambake as we now know it by formalizing the menu and making the bakes more accessible and portable through the family catering business.  “We feel that my grandfather really said, ‘OK, here’s the clams, half-chicken, ear of corn, sweet potato, rolls and butter, coleslaw. Let’s put it all together.”  According to Young, his grandpa loved to cook, loved to talk about food, loved to talk about making people happy through cooking food … and helped supply a ton of “bakes” with churches and social groups throughout town.
  • By all accounts, Comella developed this passion early. He spent his childhood in San Francisco shadowing his own father, a fisherman and produce dealer. The family eventually moved to Cleveland; sadly, Comella’s father passed away when he was 12. The young man shouldered the responsibility to support his family during the Depression — first by selling waffles from a wagon, and then by peddling clams and oysters. Interestingly, his “first love” was actually baseball, Young notes: “[He] actually was going to play for the Indians, but couldn’t pull it off because his family was totally dependent on him.”
  • In 1944, Comella opened a market at E. 185th St in Euclid, OH, under the name Chef Comella’s Fish and Clambake Company. (This eventually evolved into the Euclid Fish Company.) For the chef, clambakes were a family affair. In fact, Young says his uncle (who’s also named John) remembers being at Comella’s house on Hiller Ave in 1944, “going up and down the steps, husking corn and washing clams” from the basement.
  • “When I was a kid, it was a real small house, but everything in the planet took place in that basement,” Young says. “Like a lot of Italian families, everything revolves around the basement, cooking, and with food.” Things started progressing outside of the house after World War II ended when Comella traveled to Toledo and bought some army surplus aluminum pots, which expedited the growth of the catering business.
  • Back in the day, seafood traveled by trains, originating in New York City and moving west through Great Lakes cities — Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, and eventually Chicago — where it would be re-iced. During certain eras, when shellfish such as clams and oysters arrived in Cleveland, they would often be directed to Lake County, where many of the city’s elite families had summer homes and would throw parties on Little Mountain.
  • Guys would bring out clams and oysters to Rockefellers and all the big-name people in town, because that’s what they were looking for during the summertime.
  • Still, pinpointing the exact moment when Cleveland clambakes became a Thing is tough. References to these types of events pop up in the Plain Dealer archives going back to the 1860s. On October 15th, 1866, an article titled “Great Clam Bake at Camp Gilbert: A ‘Running Account’ Of It” included everything from guests taking generous doses of cholera medicine in between artillery practice to the anonymous author being told a “history of clams and clam bakes,” hinting that the parties were already ingrained. His verdict of the day ended with the “firm opinion that clam bakes were glorious institutions.”
  • A Plain Dealer account of the following 1867 Camp Gilbert feast confirmed this characterization: the paper printed a gluttonous clambake menu featuring a staggering amount of seafood, meat, vegetables, and a spread of pies for dessert. A July 15th, 1878, article, meanwhile, references “a grand clam bake” in the works for September at a Euclid Ave house.
  • His verdict of the day ended with the “firm opinion that clam bakes were glorious institutions.”  In the coming decades, clambake references continued to appear regularly, both in the society pages and event listings. (From the September 25th, 1938, Plain Dealer: “Lindsay’s Sky Bar will have a musical clam bake on Oct. 6.”) They became favorites of local companies and political figures, as archival photos, papers, and letters at the Western Reserve Historical Society’s Research Library reveal.
  • Black-and-white photographs dated from 1941, 1945, and 1949 show employees of the Halle Bros. Co. (aka the now-defunct department store lovingly known as Halle’s) having a grand old time at a clambake while playing horseshoes or tug of war and chowing down on food. Posed shots reveal men in dress shirts looking raucous and slightly rumpled, perhaps because some of them were holding what looked to be adult beverages.
  • In light of such historical references, it’s no wonder that by the time Randall Ruhlman wrote his article for The Clevelander, a monthly magazine published by the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, in 1950, clambakes were popular enough for him to be cheeky about their ubiquity.
  • “Clam bake season, the period of the expanding belt line, has come to an end for 1950,” he wrote. “It’s a mighty important period in our scheme of living and it runs concurrently with the corn-on-the-cob season in these parts… The average businessman, trade association member, lodge brother, union member, butcher, baker and candlestick maker attend at least two or three clam bakes a season.”
  • More library research shows that these weren’t necessarily always sedate affairs. The October 1957 Cleveland Clinic newsletter touted its annual clambake sponsored by the professional staff — whose 100 attendees reportedly “devoured” more than 1,500 clams — like so: “Clams and clam juice, lobster, sweet potatoes, chicken, pie, ice cream and strained ligaments met 100 members of the medical and administrative staff on Saturday afternoon, September 14, at Cyrus Eaton’s Acadia Farms in Northfield. And, of course, a dignified amount of beer.”  (A separate letter written a few days after the bake by Jay, Eaton’s grandson, casually mentioned: “I am pleased to report that Mr. Becker, our only casualty, felt fine the next day and apparently did not have any serious problem. It was a great help to have Steve drive him into the hospital.”)
  • Naturally, clambakes in Cleveland could have their political inclinations, going by former mayor Ralph J. Perk’s papers at the WRHS Research Library. In 1967, the then-Cuyahoga County Auditor had a sizable election deficit from the previous year that he was trying to reduce by holding “card parties and other functions” — for instance, a clambake. The Friends of Perk Committee sent out hard tickets to the bake with a letter referencing how much he still had to raise ($9,887.50, down from $21,000) that also touted how Perk was “one of the few public officials in modern times who refuses to have a 2% kick-back fund from his employees to pay his expenses.”  (Apparently the strategy was brilliant: judging by the stack of responses from law firms, banks, and individuals, many people who regretfully couldn’t attend often donated money to Perk’s cause anyway and also sent back tickets — which could be given away to other people, especially senior citizens, so they could attend).
  • According to meticulous records, Perk kept up the clambake for years to come, and turned it into an annual fundraiser for his various political campaigns. In 1970, the Friends of Ralph J. Perk Committee sent out tickets with a not-so-subtle bit of messaging: “You will show your appreciation to Mr. Perk for his continuing devotion to public service and his excellent record as County Auditor by properly distributing the enclosed tickets to your many friends. If you desire more tickets they are available, and we will appreciate any additional effort to make this an even greater success than in previous years.”
  • And a 1971 bake in advance of his successful mayoral run was promoted with a more sanguine nudge: “As you know, Ralph Perk is a candidate for mayor of Cleveland this year, and the support of his friends is greatly needed in his campaign to bring experience and integrity back to this city.”
  • Today, Euclid Fish Company honors its founder by proudly selling Chef Comella’s Original Clambake, complete with a returnable steamer. But Young knows that clambakes are malleable — in fact, this year the company is also offering three different seafood boils: Low Country, Portland, and Mid-Atlantic. “People are kind of varying it as people’s tastes have changed,” he says. “I look at it as if [whether] you’re going to cook salmon or clams: ‘OK, what’s your taste? What do you like?’ It’s a blank canvas. Cooking is like art.”
  • Michael Symon has touted a (tasty) variation on a Cleveland clambake, which features shrimp and kielbasa in addition to clams. Andy Dombrowski, the corporate chef for Zack Bruell Restaurants, says the company did a “pretty traditional, straight-up” clambake at Platform Brewery back in August to celebrate the brewery’s Yammy Yammy beer, but Bruell’s Alley Cat Oyster Bar is planning a clambake in October which will utilize salmon in addition to the usual seafood offerings.
  • For most, it’s all about friends and family.  According to Dombrowski, the appeal of clambakes is obvious. “To me, a clambake is more of a backyard thing than necessarily a restaurant thing,” he says. “I think it’s a time to get together and have a party in the fall, eat and drink, and have a good time with your friends and family.”
  • It’s also ideal for a party since clams “hold up to being cooked,” he notes. “It’s not like something like a lobster or mussels or other kinds of shellfish, like shrimp, that if you cook them and they hang out for 45 minutes, they’re tough and not very good. Clams are fine — you dip ’em in butter, and they’re good to go.”
  • “It’s all about being outside,” Young says. It’s all about being with your friends, and all about enjoying food. I think that’s what my grandfather really believed in.”

Special thanks to the Western Reserve Historical Society’s Research Library. Sources used in the story include MS. 4456, Ralph J. Perk Papers; MS. 3913, Cyrus Eaton Papers.

 

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

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Partly Sunny

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From air, thin air, and no air in space to land and sea. Huge amounts of weather data is collected then algorithms and humans make sense of it. And BAM!!!!!! It’s on TV (or an App) in a form we mortals can understand so we know whether to wear a coat or sunscreen when we go out or to bring an umbrella. Amazing stuff!!!!  :)))))  Please…read on.

If you know me, I’m an optimist.  I prefer “partly sunny” to “partly cloudy” and wake up every day looking on “the bright side”, anxiously tackling your PIA (pain in the @%$) Jobs!  Today’s no different, enjoying a gorgeous morning sunrise as I look out over the lake from my office. I’m also intrigued by something that impacts us every day – the weather.  What we do, what we wear, what we talk about.  As we move into Fall, the weather around here is changing – cooler in the mornings and evenings, great cloud clusters, a different “blue” sky, and sometimes a bit unpredictable during the day.  Throughout the Midwest, farmers are harvesting crops, boaters are bringing in their boats, fishermen are targeting streams as fish head home to spawn, games are won and lost in the wind and rain, and most of us are moving our summer wear to the back of the closet.  Through technology, we can just ask our smartphone – “what’s the weather today”, and we get instant, detailed hour by hour response.  I looked up some history and found out the Nation Weather Service formally began today, over 150 years ago.  Through each decade, with the steady advancement of technology, our ability to track and better predict weather grows stronger each year.  Here’s some fun facts and trivia to expand your knowledge, along with a couple nice tunes for the day.  Enjoy, and thanks to noaa.gov, Wikipedia and You Tube for the info and videos.

John Denver – Sunshine On My Shoulders
Aquarius (Let the Sunshine in)
Good Day Sunshine (Remastered 2009)

  • On February 2, 1870, the United States Congress passed a resolution requiring the Secretary of War “to provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States and Territories…and for giving notice on the northern (Great) lakes and on the seacoast by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms.” The Resolution was signed into law on February 9, 1870 by President Ulysses S. Grant, and the precursor to the Weather Bureau and National Weather Service was born.
  • The new agency, called the Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce, was formed under the U.S. Army Signal Service. The new weather agency was placed under the War Department because “military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations.” Because of the long name, the agency frequently referred to it as the national weather service or general weather service of the United States.
  • The new weather agency operated under the Signal Service from 1870 to 1891. During that time, the main office was located in Washington, D.C., with field offices concentrated mainly east of the Rockies. Most forecasts originated in the main office in Washington with observations provided by field offices.
  • During the Signal Service years, little meteorological science was used to make weather forecasts. Instead, weather which occurred at one location was assumed to move into the next area downstream. The weather forecasts were simple and general in content — usually containing basic weather parameters such as cloud and precipitation.
  • The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce remained under the Signal Service until 1891. On October 1, 1890, Congress voted to transfer it to the Department of Agriculture and renamed the Weather Bureau.
  • Weather forecasters in the Signal Service and early Weather Bureau years primarily used information from surface weather observations. The early meteorologists were aware that conditions in the upper-atmosphere controlled surface weather conditions, but technology had not advanced to the point of taking upper atmospheric observations.
  • Around 1900, the Weather Bureau began to experiment with kites to measure temperature, relative humidity, and winds in the upper atmosphere. Kite observations were taken intermittently from about 1900 to about 1920 with a kite network of stations established during the 1920s and early 1930s. These pioneers (yes, Ben Franklin) were the first to observe classical meteorological features which significantly impacted weather over the United States. By the early 1930s, kites were becoming a hazard to airplanes in flight, causing kite observations to give way to airplane observations.
  • In 1931, the Weather Bureau began to replace kite stations with airplane stations. The use of the airplane as an upper-air observational tool continued to expand during the 1930s. Airplanes were an expensive and dangerous way to obtain upper-air data. Also, it frequently was impossible to use airplanes during bad weather; the time when observations were most important.
  • The development of the radiosonde was a benchmark to operational meteorology. With the relatively inexpensive instrument, the upper atmosphere could be sampled routinely and simultaneously in both bad and good weather. The radiosonde was one catalyst which increased meteorologists’ understanding of the weather. Following the implementation of the radiosonde, the science of weather forecasting began to improve substantially and steadily. How it Works
  • One of the more important advances for the Weather Bureau was the advent of the teletype system. The forerunner of the teletype, the telegraph, served the early needs of the agency, but it was readily apparent that this system was labor intensive and not reliable. The system contained many vulnerable areas, any of which could result in an important warning not being received or a critical observation not transmitted.
  • The teletype was introduced in the Weather Bureau in 1928 and its use spread rapidly. Within two years, teletype circuits covered 8,000 miles, mainly in the eastern part of the country, and by the mid-1930s, teletype circuits covered over 32,000 miles.
  • While under the Department of Agriculture, aviation weather services of the Weather Bureau expanded rapidly. Initiation of air mail flights and the increase of aviation activity following World War I placed a large demand on the Weather Bureau for forecasts of flying weather. In 1919, daily flying weather forecasts were started primarily for the Post Office and military aviation, but the most significant advances occurred with the passage of the Air Commerce Act of 1926 which made the Weather Bureau responsible for weather services to civilian aviation, establishing a network of stations across the United States to take surface and upper-air weather observations.
  • As the Weather Bureau became more associated with the aviation community, it became apparent that the agency belonged in the Department of Commerce. On June 30, 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt transferred the Weather Bureau to the Department of Commerce where it remains today.
  • During the late 1940s and 1950s, the main contribution to Weather Bureau operations was in the area of radar meteorology and computer models of the atmosphere. The military gave the Weather Bureau 25 surplus radars which subsequently were renovated to detect weather echoes. Information gained from the operation of these radars eventually led to the formation of a network of weather surveillance radars still in use today.
  • With the development of computer technology during the 1950s the way was paved for the formulation of complex mathematical weather models to aid meteorologists in forecasting. The first operational use of these computer models during the 1950s resulted in a significant increase in forecast accuracy.
  • The Weather Bureau entered the satellite age in the 1960s. The first weather photographs from space in the 1950s actually were by-products of films made to record the attitude of rocket nose cones. However, following the launch of Explorer in 1958, the importance of satellites to observing the world’s weather soon became apparent.
  • Most early weather satellites were low orbit versions which viewed small and different sections of the earth’s surface. In the 1970s, geostationary weather satellites were launched which provided meteorologists with continuous observations over much of the western hemisphere.
  • In July 1970, the name of the Weather Bureau was changed to the National Weather Service. At the same time, the National Weather Service was placed under the National
  • Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within the Department of Commerce where it remains.
  • The 1970s saw considerable expansion of technology and automation throughout the agency, led by the development of the Automated Field Operations and Services system, or AFOS. AFOS was designed to bring the NWS into the modern era, using alphanumeric and digital displays to view weather maps and compose forecasts and warnings.
  • In addition, radar technology and capability continued to expand. The NWS deployed new WSR-74S/C radar across the nation, while the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, experimented with Doppler radar technology. The Next Generation Radar Program, commonly known as NEXRAD, would revolutionize the NWS’ ability to forecast several weather.
  • A super-outbreak of tornadoes in April 1974 was a turning point for the agency, spurring what became the most ambitious and successful transformation in the agency’s history: the Modernization and Associated Restructuring, or MAR. Planned in the 1980s and implemented in the 90s, the MAR modernized the agency’s observational infrastructure. NEXRAD, a new generation of environmental satellites, the Automated Surface Observation System (ASOS), and a new Advance Weather Information Processing System (AWIPS) to replace ASOS, were centerpiece technologies.
  • The MAR was completed in 2000, and forecast capabilities continued to improve through the beginning of the 21s Century. However, another super outbreak of tornadoes in 2011 — eerily similar to the 1974 outbreak in both scope and lives lost — was a stark reminder that even timely warnings are only as good as the action people take in response to them.
  • From the “Critical Conversations” that followed between NWS and its partners in government, the private sector and academia, the concept of Building a Weather-Ready Nation was born and a refocusing of forecasting efforts toward “the Last Mile” with Impact-based Decision Support Services. The key to creating a prepared, resilient nation is connecting forecasts to the life-saving decisions that allow communities to withstand them. IDSS is all about delivering forecasts to emergency managers and public safety officials to ensure these decision-makers make informed decisions and understand the impending situation based on expected impacts.
  • The Weather Research and Forecasting and Innovation Act of 2017 codified the IDSS approach into law, authorizing the NWS to provide IDSS across federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels of government for the purposes of public safety and disaster management. As the NWS begins its next 150 years, the agency and its employees remain focused on one enduring mission that has remained consistent throughout its history: protecting lives and property and enhancing the national economy.

Additional Reading:

  • In addition to the hotlinks incorporated throughout this story, we invite you to learn more about NWS’ storied history by exploring the entirety of the NWS Heritage website.
  • Also, visit HERE for detailed history by decades.
  • Latest satellite imagery around the globe.

 

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

 

WOW

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Since its’ completion in 1965, the Gateway Arch has been a must-see monument to our westward expansion. And an opportunity to have fun with photography & Photoshop. :)))))))))))  Read on and be sure to check out the video link at the end. It shows the ride to the top of the gateway arch in a tram which is a mix between an elevator, a tram and a Ferris wheel. And the gateway to the west museum. What an engineering marvel!!! What a country we live in!!!!!

Splendid.  Impressive.  Enormous.  Majestic.  I could go on.  Having just returned from the Fall ’21 Heat Treating Show in St. Louis, (special shout out to all my peeps who took time to visit Peggy and I at the booth – so nice to interact with other humans face to face the old school way) one thing that is stuck in my “so, how was the show” response is the famous St. Louis Arch.  It is really something.  Not only does it match up with my love of engineering and architecture, it also triggers my love of PIA (Pain In The @%$) Jobs! – think about that first meeting – “hey Gang, let’s build a curving stainless steel monument to America’s westward expansion, make it the tallest in the world, and design it using about 900 tons of materials.  Buy the land – check.  Make some drawings – check.  Hire some engineers and builders – check. Work really hard to finish a structure that’s 630 feet long that visitors can travel INSIDE and then see about 30 miles off in each direction – WHAT?  It’s so cool, during my stay I made time to go for a run around downtown St. Louis making sure to go around the arch – simply awe inspiring especially in the dark!  So, I just had to do some info digging and share with you.  Enjoy! Special thanks to traveltrivia.com, Wikipedia and for the info.

The Gateway Arch is a 190-metre (623 ft) monument in St. Louis, Missouri, clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch.  It is the world’s tallest arch and Missouri’s tallest accessible building.

Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States and officially dedicated to “the American people”, the Arch, commonly referred to as “The Gateway to the West” is the centerpiece of Gateway Arch National Park and has become an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, as well as a popular tourist destination.

The Arch was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in 1947; construction began on February 12, 1963 and was completed on October 28, 1965 at an overall cost of $13 million (equivalent to about $100 million today). The monument opened to the public on June 10, 1967 and is located at the site of St. Louis’s founding on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

The search for an architect for a new monument at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial took the form of a competition. Among the 170-plus submissions received in the 1947 contest was a design from acclaimed Finnish-American Eriel Saarinen featuring a tall stone gate. His son Eero also entered.  Several months later, a telegram arrived at the Saarinen offices intended to inform Eero that he had made the shortlist; however, it was addressed to Eriel by mistake. Father and son celebrated a family success with Champagne. When the administrative error was discovered, they opened a second bottle and toasted Eero instead, as in the end, it was Eero’s design vision which resonated most with the judging committee.

You’ve probably seen photos where the arch looks taller than it is wide, but it’s an optical illusion. The arch measures 630 feet tall, and if you measure from leg to leg at ground level, that’s also its exact width. But because the shape of the arch draws the eye upwards and narrows as it rises, our brains don’t accurately process the dimensions, and we convince ourselves the arch is taller than it actually is.

The cross-sections of the arch’s legs are equilateral triangles, narrowing from 54 feet per side at the bases to 17 feet per side at the top. Each wall consists of a stainless steel skin covering a sandwich of two carbon-steel walls with reinforced concrete in the middle from ground level to 300 feet (91 m), with carbon steel to the peak. The arch is hollow to accommodate a unique tram system that takes visitors to an observation deck at the top.

The structural load is supported by a stressed-skin design. Each leg is embedded in 25,980 short tons (23,570 t) of concrete 44 feet thick and 60 feet deep. Twenty feet (6.1 m) of the foundation is in bedrock.

Saarinen’s monument is the centerpiece of Gateway Arch National Park, dating back to 1935, when the National Park Service created a space to represent Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a transcontinental United States and St. Louis’ role as a gateway for westward expansion. Jefferson believed the American West was worth exploring, and not the empty wilderness that some of his contemporaries believed it was. During his presidency, he secured the Louisiana Purchase and sent Lewis and Clark to map the Missouri River and find a way beyond the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean.

The original name for Gateway Arch National Park was the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The arch itself came several decades later, constructed between 1963 and 1965. It stands between the Mississippi River and the Old Courthouse, where the landmark Dred Scott case was tried. The monument honors both Jefferson and Scott and is dedicated to “the American people” overall. Six themed exhibits trace key events in U.S. history from 1764 to 1965, celebrating America’s pioneering spirit and the impact of westward expansion on landscapes and communities.

The arch is engineered to resist earthquakes and sway up to 18 inches in either direction, while withstanding winds up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h). The structure weighs 42,878 short tons (38,898 t), of which concrete composes 25,980 short tons (23,570 t); structural steel interior, 2,157 short tons (1,957 t); and the 6.3mm thick grade 304 stainless steel panels that cover the exterior of the arch, 886 short tons (804 t). This amount of stainless steel is the most used in any one project in history – (they should have called me to do the heat treating!!)

The arch is a weighted catenary—as a chain that supports its own weight is purely tension – its legs are wider than its upper section.  The geometric form of the structure was set by exact mathematical equations provided to Saarinen by Hannskarl Bandel.  A hyperbolic cosine function describes the shape of a catenary. A chain that supports only its own weight forms a catenary; the chain is purely in tension. The catenary arch is the strongest of all arches since the thrust passes through the legs and is absorbed in the foundations, instead of forcing the legs apart.

To get visitors to the top of the arch proved trickier than first thought, as Eero Saarinen demanded a solution that would not alter its exterior appearance. Engineers considered elevators, escalators, and even a Ferris wheel, but none of those options were practical. Finally, Saarinen hired an elevator parking specialist named Dick Bowser and gave him just two weeks to come up with a solution. Bowser presented his idea of a custom-built tram, and the puzzle was solved.  Two separate trams operate independently, one inside each opposing leg of the arch, and take four minutes to reach the top. Each tram consists of eight pods and holds five passengers. These pods begin their journey horizontally, suspended from a track above. As the track turns vertical, the pod pivots to ensure passengers remain upright, rotating 155 degrees in total. The trams use a series of cables, counterweights, and other features to function safely.

Though proponents envisioned a project that would revitalize the waterfront and stimulate the St. Louis economy, the plans to build the Gateway Arch National Park were met with opposition. Much of the financing came from federal funds, but some felt the money could have been better spent improving the lives of the people of St Louis instead.

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt approved the plans in 1935, he set in motion a chain of events which would lead to what one city engineer called “an enforced slum clearance program.” Amid allegations of vote-rigging, the order was given to raze several blocks of riverfront real estate to the ground. They contained many small factories employing around 5,000 blue collar workers.

That wasn’t the end of the controversy. When World War II came, the site stood derelict for a decade. Later, when construction of an interstate kick-started the redevelopment, it initially isolated the park from the surrounding neighborhoods. The issue that wouldn’t be fixed until 2018, when the CityArchRiver project, dubbed the “park over the highway” came to fruition and finally provided a pedestrian link to downtown St Louis.

Several U.S. presidents have visited Gateway Arch National Park, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. However, security concerns prevent a U.S. president from actually ascending to the top of the Gateway Arch. (In the confined space of the trams, they’d be vulnerable, but an exception was made in 1967 for Eisenhower).

While construction on the arch was completed in 1965, it wasn’t until July 24, 1967, that the inaugural public ride on the north tram took place. The attraction was then still a work in progress; the south tram wouldn’t be completed until the following year, while the landscaping and the Museum of Westward Expansion were still several years away.

In November 1967, Eisenhower accompanied Dick Bowser to the top of the Gateway Arch, going against the wishes of the Secret Service. Even so, there were certain conditions attached to his rule-breaking journey. It couldn’t be an official part of his itinerary (that way details wouldn’t be published in advance) and he’d have to visit outside regular opening hours to avoid the general public. Eisenhower agreed — and who could blame him for not wanting to miss out on such an experience?

The Gateway Arch is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world with over four million visitors annually, of which around one million travel to the top. The arch was listed as a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1987 and is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

VIDEO OF THE ARCH, TRAM AND MUSEUM

Construction of the Gateway Arch, St. Louis program (1965) Grab a cup of coffee, this baby is 29 minutes long.

 

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

O-H

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Ohio State Alumni and Ohio State fans are literally everywhere in the world. And they never miss an opportunity to display their O-H-I-O. Gotta love ‘em!!!!  :)))))))))))))))))))

I – O.  For anyone who is part of the college, either as an alumni, fan, or observer, this makes all the sense in the world.  Having attended and graduated from another university a bit farther southwest, I can still call myself a Buckeyes fan.  History, tradition, passion and buckeyes (yep, I eat them too), most just can’t say enough about OSU – the only university in the country the has the word THE in its name.  Today marks the anniversary of when the school opened so many years ago, so I scoured the net and found some fun trivia.  100+ year history, touching millions of lives each year (60,000+ enrollment yearly).  Enjoy, and thanks to OSU and Wikipedia for the trivia.  Enjoy!

Classic
Ohio State Battle Cry 

  • The Ohio State University was founded in 1870 as a land-grant university in accordance with the Morrill Act of 1862 under the name of Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. Initially, it was thought that one of Ohio’s two existing public universities (Ohio University and Miami University YEA!) would be designated as the land-grant institution, and each engaged in a vigorous competition to win over the state legislature.
  • At the strong urging of Republican stalwart Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, however, it was ultimately decided to establish a new university to be located near the legislature in Columbus. Hayes’ role in founding the university is recognized in Hayes Hall (named after Rutherford, not Woody), the oldest building still standing on the campus.  Hayes later noted that the founding of Ohio State was one of his two greatest achievements—the other being Ohio’s ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.
  • The school was originally situated within a farming community located on the northern edge of Columbus and was intended to matriculate students of various agricultural and mechanical disciplines. The university opened its doors to 24 students on September 18, 1873.
  • In 1878, the first class of six men graduated. The first woman graduated the following year.
  • In 1900, in light of its expanded focus, the college permanently changed its name to the now-familiar “The Ohio State University”. Ohio State began accepting graduate students in the 1880s, with the university awarding its first master’s and doctoral degrees in 1886 and 1890 respectively. 1891 saw the founding of Ohio State’s law school.
  • From its inception, a debate was waged between those in favor of broadening the university’s focus to encompass the liberal arts and sciences and those who favored a more limited focus. Governor Hayes viewed the selection of the university’s location as key to keeping the university free of excess influence by the state’s agricultural interests.
  • The (“broad-gauge”) faction was led by university trustee Joseph Sullivant. When the votes were completed, it had been decided to offer seven fields of study: agriculture, ancient languages, chemistry, geology, mathematics, modern languages, and physics. Only the ancient languages curriculum came down to a close vote, passing by a margin of 8–7. Later that year, the university welcomed its first class of twenty-four students, including three women.
  • Two factors in Ohio State’s formative years would hinder the university’s immediate development: Fueled by the agriculture interests and the Springfield business community that supplied them, the attitude of Ohio farmers towards the university had turned from one of indifference to one of outright hostility. By 1880, this hostility had begun to make its presence felt in the state legislature.
  • By 1891, Ohio State had grown to a degree that Governor James E. Campbell recommended a permanent levy on the tax duplicate to support its continued growth. The significant role that the fledgling university had begun to play within the state, as well as the peace that Hayes had brokered with the state’s agricultural interests, was underscored by the fact that the proposal passed without opposition despite the insistence of Ohio State’s board of trustees that neither Miami nor Ohio universities be included in the bill.
  • In 1906, Ohio State President William Oxley Thompson along with the university’s supporters in the state legislature put forth the Lybarger Bill with the aim of shifting virtually all higher education support to the continued development of Ohio State while funding only the “normal school” functions of Miami and Ohio University. Although the Lybarger Bill failed narrowly to gain passage, in its place was passed the compromise Eagleson Bill, which determined that all doctoral education and research functions would be the role of Ohio State and that the two older institutions would not offer instruction beyond the master’s degree level. This arrangement would stand for the next fifty years until population growth had necessitated additional Ph. D programs in the state.
  • 1912 saw the formation of Ohio State’s Graduate School to coordinate the university’s burgeoning master’s and doctoral enrollments. In 1914, Ohio State’s college of medicine was formed through a merger with Starling Medical College. That year also saw the founding of Ohio State’s School of Dentistry. In 1916, the board of trustees approved the formation of a College of Commerce and Journalism.
  • Subsequently, Ohio State’s solidifying of its role as the state’s flagship, comprehensive university was fairly rapid, as demonstrated by its 1916 induction into the prestigious Association of American Universities. To date, it remains the only public university in Ohio to be extended AAU membership.
  • This momentum was further accelerated by Governor Harry L. Davis, who in his 1921 inaugural address declared that, “In Ohio State University the commonwealth has an educational institution which should become the largest and best state institution in the United States. This is evidenced by the development of the institution in recent years, and I desire specifically to ask the co-operation of the General Assembly in the effort which I propose to make to help the Ohio State University to attain that goal in the not too distant future.” He subsequently shepherded a one-eighth of a mill tax levy through the legislature to fund a university building fund. Seventy-two percent of the funds were earmarked for the Ohio State University with the remainder split between Ohio University and Miami University.  By decade’s end, the university’s enrollment stood at 15,126 a more than fourfold increase from just twenty years prior.
  • With the onset of the Great Depression, Ohio State would face many of the challenges affecting universities throughout America as budget support was slashed, and students without the means of paying tuition returned home to support families.
  • By the middle thirties, however, enrollment had stabilized due in large part to the role of FERA (the Federal Emergency Relief Administration) and later the NYA (National Youth Administration).[6] By the end of the decade, enrollment had still managed to grow to 17,568. Two important initiatives were also begun during this decade. Each would come to play increasingly important roles in the university’s development up to the present time. In 1934, the Ohio State Research Foundation was begun to bring in outside funding for faculty research projects. In 1938, a development office was opened to begin raising funds privately to offset reductions in state support.
  • In 1952, Ohio State founded the interdisciplinary Mershon Center for International Security Studies, which it still houses. In 2003, the United States Department of Homeland Security decided to base the National Academic Consortium for Homeland Security at the university.
  • The bitter and sudden formation of Ohio State University in Columbus commenced a centuries-long conflict for funds ensue between the state’s oldest, established institution and the new agricultural and manufacturing university. In one incident, Ohio State attempted to use Ohio University’s federally trademarked name “OHIO” on its athletic uniforms; however, during the subsequent legal dispute, presidents of the two schools agreed Ohio State should not be permitted the use of that name on uniforms.
  • Presently, the university has reached the ranking of becoming a Public Ivy, as well as receiving high rankings and awards from many institutions, including U.S. News, Academic Ranking of World Universities, The Lombardi Program on Measuring University Performance, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and The Public Accounting Report.
  • The university now provides education to about 68,262 students each year in eight campuses throughout Ohio and is governed by President Kristina M. Johnson.
  • In 2019 Ohio State’s attempt to trademark the word “the” was turned down by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
  • When alumni travel throughout the world, they love to send back pictures showing the famous hand gestures spelling O H I O.
  • The Ohio State vs Michigan yearly football contest is considered by most to be the greatest rivalry in college sports.   GO BUCS!

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

King’s Awakening

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(top to bottom) Hurricane Ida from the International Space Station by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. And Ida from Bourbon Street. Destruction. Flooding. Displacement. Rescue. Reconstruction. But the levees held. (Check out this brief documentary on the Lake Borgne Surge Barrier. An amazing structure and system.) And of course the t-shirts are available online. Only in America.   :))

Engineers.  They are amazing.  Take a problem – a big problem, like we often do here at KHTHeat solving your PIA Jobs (Pain in the @%$ Jobs!), spend time figuring it out, measure, test, remeasure, retest, and then design and build something.  Simple, right? But honestly, who ever came up with the idea of a working levee system?  Stopping flood waters from the Gulf all the way up the Mississippi. Uncontrollable forces, hundreds of square miles, utilities, people, buildings and equipment.  When Hurricane Ida made landfall in New Orleans last Sunday, the destructive storm surges buffeted a system of levees and other flood barriers that had been greatly fortified since Hurricane Katrina crippled the city in 2005. This time, the levees held, thanks to $14.6 billion worth of improvements to southeast Louisiana’s storm-risk reduction system.  Amazing.  I was catching up on my “newspaper” reading and came across a great article by WSJ contributor Ben Zimmer. On the word levee and just had to share.  Bravo to all the engineers out there – you are a special breed, and I’m honored to have a few amazing ones here at KHT Heat. Special thanks to linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer for the insights, You Tube for the music and Wikipedia for the extra info.  Enjoy! (and be sure to crank up the Zeplin classic – I think it’s a whole lot better than the original).

For your listening pleasure:
When The Levee Breaks by Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie  – (1929)
Led Zeppelin’s Version – (1971)

A “levee” is a raised embankment that prevents a river from overflowing. Unlike flood walls, which are typically made from concrete, levees are built up from earthen materials. Like the structure it names, the word “levee” is intimately connected to the history of New Orleans, going back to its founding as a French colonial city in 1718.

The site for the city was chosen in part because it stood on relatively high ground, with a natural embankment that could protect it from floods along the Mississippi River. French maps dated to the 1720s labeled this embankment “La Levée,” running along the Mississippi—or the Saint Louis, as the river was then known. An English-language map of the time gave it a wordier designation: “Bank to preserve the Town from the Inundation.”  (check out the number of rivers off the gulf back in 1700’s – HERE

‘Levy,’ meaning ‘to raise taxes,’ comes from the same French root as its sound-alike ‘levee.’ The French word “levée” literally means “a rising” and is formed from the verb “lever,” meaning “to raise.” Ultimately, it goes back to Latin “levare” meaning “to lift up” or “to make lighter”

“Levee” came to be used for other more ceremonial purposes. Since the French verb “lever” could also be used for getting out of bed, it got attached to a morning routine by King Louis XIV at the palace of Versailles, where royal subjects would be received in his bedchamber. (I can’t imagine meeting my customers in my bedroom??).

The word “levee” was soon extended to other distinguished assemblages of visitors throughout Europe, then exported to the New World for formal receptions held by colonial governors. To this day, Canada maintains the tradition of the New Year’s Day levee, a reception hosted by the governor general and other officials.

In New Orleans, meanwhile, the use of “levee” for a river embankment crossed over from the French language into English. In 1770, Philip Pittman, a British Army officer who surveyed the Mississippi River, wrote, “the town is secured from the inundations of the river by a raised bank, generally called the Levée.”

The main purpose of artificial levees is to prevent flooding of the adjoining countryside and to slow natural course changes in a waterway to provide reliable shipping lanes for maritime commerce over time; they also confine the flow of the river, resulting in higher and faster water flow.

Some of the earliest levees were constructed by the Indus Valley Civilization (in Pakistan and North India from circa 2600 BC) on which the agrarian life of the Harappan peoples depended.  Levees were also constructed over 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, where a system of levees was built along the left bank of the River Nile for more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles), stretching from modern Aswan to the Nile Delta on the shores of the Mediterranean.

The Mesopotamian civilizations and ancient China also built large levee systems. Because a levee is only as strong as its weakest point, the height and standards of construction have to be consistent along its length. Some authorities have argued that this requires a strong governing authority to guide the work and may have been a catalyst for the development of systems of governance in early civilizations. However, others point to evidence of large scale water-control earthen works such as canals and/or levees dating from before King Scorpion in Predynastic Egypt, during which governance was far less centralized.

Levees are usually built by piling earth on a cleared, level surface. Broad at the base, they taper to a level top, where temporary embankments or sandbags can be placed. Because flood discharge intensity increases in levees on both river banks, and because silt deposits raise the level of riverbeds, planning and auxiliary measures are vital. Sections are often set back from the river to form a wider channel, and flood valley basins are divided by multiple levees to prevent a single breach from flooding a large area. A levee made from stones laid in horizontal rows with a bed of thin turf between each of them is known as a spetchel.

After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the Mississippi levee system, built up by the Army Corps of Engineers, came to encompass both natural ridges along the river and artificial structures made from piling up soil.

Levees only seem to attract national attention when they fail. That was the case in 1927, when the Great Mississippi Flood—one of the worst natural disasters in American history—put the word “levees” in headlines around the country. The flood also served to inspire the country blues song “When the Levee Breaks” by the husband-and-wife duo Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, released in 1929. “If it keeps on raining, levee’s going to break,” as the lyrics go. Four decades later, Led Zeppelin would reinterpret the song for the band’s fourth album.

While New Orleans was fortunate this time that the levees withstood the battering of Ida, the continued threat of flooding from storm surges will guarantee that “levee” remains part of the city’s lexicon, more than three centuries after its founding on a bend in the Mississippi.

WANT TO SEE VIDEO ON HOW THE LEVEE CHANGED IN NEW ORLEANS!

Overview

 

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Word

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Benjamin Day (top right) gave birth to the newspaper business (top left) and jobs for a whole lot of kids (under Mt. Day) in the US.  And while we may get a whole lot of information online these days, there is still nothing quite like a newspaper in your hand and a cup of coffee on the table.  :))

Habit. Ritual. Insights. Knowledge. Need to know. Comfort. World events. Gossip. Sports.  Comics. And more. I don’t know about you, but there’s just something special about sitting down and reading the newspaper.  Comfy chair, check. Hot coffee, check. Good lighting, check. Paper, got it.  Growing up I can remember Mom and Dad …reading both the morning and afternoon papers religiously. I usually read the comics first, and sometimes the sports page.  As a business person, I never tire of the stories, editorials, other business stories, the “sporty page” and future predictions. I can remember when traveling back in the day “everyone” had a copy of USA Today – in the airport, on the subway and in the hotels, delivered right to your door.  Today marks the anniversary of the first newspaper published in the US back in 1833, along with a unique method of distribution (my daughter would call this “a clever target consumer user engagement strategy”).  Now, I know I can get more than enough news on my phone and computer – it floods my inbox 24/7 – but it’s just not the same. Good for headlines and a paragraph or two, but not the same.  For those who know what I’m talking about, drop me a line (skowalski@khtheat.com) and let me know your habits.  (I know this is “e” blog/email – if you would like a hard copy, let me know!!)  Enjoy.  And thanks to quintype.com for the info and YouTube for the music.

Music while you read: Eddie Fisher

Newspapers have been an integral part of people’s lives for nearly 400 years. From the initial handwritten notes, to the advent of the printing press, print media has come a long way.

The history of written news dates back to the Roman empire around 59BC. Back then, Rome was the center of the western world and was the hub of innovation – from grid-based cities to the invention of concrete, Rome was leading the way. Most historians credit the birth of the regular written news updates to the Romans.

Acta Diurna (which roughly translates to daily public records) which was hard carved news on stone or metal sheets, covering politics, military campaigns, chariot races (wonder if drivers went to pre-season training camp?) and executions (now that’s something to follow – ugh), was published daily and posted by the government in the Roman Forum. The Acta which was originally kept secret, was later made public by Julius Caesar in 59BC.

The history of the printed newspaper goes back to 17th century Europe when Johann Carolus published the first newspaper called ‘Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien’ (Account of all distinguished and commemorable news) in Germany in 1605. You can access some of the digitised versions from 1609 here. Europe was the hub of printed newspapers in the 17th with quite a few of them starting operations in German, French, Dutch, Italian and English soon after.

The first newspaper to be printed in India was the Hicky’s Bengal Gazette in 1780 from a printing press in Calcutta.

Newspapers have been integral to society in recent history and have had a significant effect in shaping our political views. The initial newspapers were expensive and hence read only by the privileged few. The rapid evolution of the printing press brought down the costs of newspapers and helped print a lot more copies at much lower costs.

With the advent of advertising in the 19th century, the cost of newspapers fell significantly and was well within reach of a much wider population. As the circulation grew, so did the ad revenues. These were the heydays of print media — they were the innovators in using illustrations and images in storytelling, in using telegraph and telephone for rapid sourcing of news from across the world and setting up widespread distribution channels to reach their audience. Most of the publications were hugely profitable and owned by wealthy individuals who used these mediums to spread their political views. (by comparison, Google’s ad revenue last year was $85 billion – not a bad model to follow).

The American newspaper business as we know it was born on September 3, 1833, when a twenty-three-year-old publisher named Benjamin Day put out the first edition of the New York Sun. Whereas other papers sold for five or six cents, the Sun cost just a penny. For revenue, Day relied on advertising rather than on subscriptions. Above all, he revolutionized the way papers were distributed, selling them to newsboys in lots of a hundred to hawk in the street. Before long, Day was the most important publisher in New York.

Newspapers have faced competition from other media vehicles in the past. First, In the 1920s and 30s, when radio adoption was growing, and organizations started broadcasting news over radio transmission. News over radio was almost immediately available rather than waiting for the next day.

And then, in the 50s television was a new device in western homes and became the primary medium to influence public opinion. The news formats on television were a lot more engaging when compared to print or radio. The concept of primetime was invented, and people were glued to their television sets between 8pm – 10pm to catch the latest political, sports and weather updates in their country, and across the world.

While both these mediums did have an impact on newspapers initially, print didn’t face any existential threat from either of them. In fact, newspaper circulation continued to grow as television got more popular and they were largely considered parallel media rather than direct competition.

However, the last 20-25 years have not been that accommodating to print media in general. The rapid rise of digital media on the back of the internet and smartphone penetration has had devastating effects on newspapers worldwide, but advantages too, as it takes about 500,000 trees to make enough paper for one day of newspaper production.

Today most people get their news on their smartphones (news sites, aggregators, social, search etc). The industry is certainly facing its toughest time in history, much like the 90s and early 2000s when photography was disrupted through the invention of digital photography devices.

Of the estimated five billion newspaper readers in the world, three billion read print newspapers. Readers looking for a break from screen time have also been known to subscribe to larger print content. In certain niches and industries might prefer print over digital; this could be due to the internet penetration level and the nature of the population.

The 57th annual World Newspaper Congress, held in Istanbul in June 2004, reported circulation increases in only 35 of 208 countries studied. The significant increase in numbers came from the developing countries, notably China.

Top newpapers in the US today remain – The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, followed by LA Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and New York Daily News

In order for democracy to hold its essence, people will always need access to information. With “media mogals” buying up more local and national newspapers, we often wonder how “fact based” newspapers are these days as the political voice has shifted. This is being accelerated as the switch from mass media to personalized information is changing the very nature of content consumption.  See charting HERE.

Best print cartoons of the week HERE.
See how The New York Times Is Made HERE.

One last comment: Regardless of your political beliefs we all need to demand a free – fair uncensored press!

 

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Early Harvest

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Tomatoes. They just make me smile. Well, food in general makes me smile. But tomatoes are so wonderful and fresh. An incredible fruit to grow, eat raw, cooked and as pieces parts of fabulous recipes. Call me any time if you want to talk tomatoes…or any food, really. And of course, there are a ton of tomato costumes and t-shirts on the web. I especially like those couples’ shirts above. And don’t forget to enter the new coloring contest! A great prize awaits the winner.   :)))

Being a foodie, I just LOVE this time of year – when the summer crops start to leap out of the neighborhood gardens and pile high at the local market stands.  I get such a rush out of stopping by, and picking items to enjoy – cucs, corn, mellons, peppers, basil, onions and of course, those AMAZING local tomatoes.  Although I have to admit cherry tomatoes are not high on my list, their ok on salads or for decoration but they have to be in something.   Now how awesome are the beefstakes almost bursting out of their skins. I poked around the internet and found some great eating and cooking tips and recipes.  The quick pasta and oil ones are my favorite – so easy and so delicious.  And I definitely have a soft spot for BLT’s – crusty Italian bread, lots and lots of bacon, crisp lettuce, gooey mayo and big, think tomatoe slices – OMG!! (add a little fresh basil and BOOM!).  Simple chilled cucumbers, tomatoes and sweet onions, seasoned in mayo and vinegar just can’t be beat. Needless to say once I start, the more options for great food choices show up!  I found a nice article from huffpost.com, who did a search of their own and found some doozies – and if you have a favorite family/personal recipe, be sure to email me back at skowalski@khtheat.com and Jackie and I will give it a try.  Thanks Huffington Post, feastingathome.com, halfbakedharvest.com, howsweeteats.com, and naturallyella.com.

Here’s a link to 28 incredible recipes from huffpost.com (and some of my favorites)
I am not really sure about # 7 or # 22..  just saying!

Spaghetti and Fresh Tomato Sauce

Heirloom Tomato and Zucchini Galette with Honey + Thyme

Embarrassingly Easy Grilled Sourdough with Buttery Herbs, Heirloom Tomatoes + Honey Drizzle

Roasted Tomato Gazpacho

Red Wine Marinated Flank Steak with Cherry Tomato Caprese Salsa

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 

 

Creamy Goodness

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Soft serve ice cream is one of my favorite ice creams. Actually, I never met an ice cream I didn’t like. And I found on Google that there is no shortage of t-shirts and hats to show just how much ice cream means to you.  :))))

The things we often take for granted.  The car starts and runs.  The lights go on when you flip a switch.  The televisions, radios and computers just run, and run and run.  My phone connects to the internet and downloads in milliseconds. The washing machine cleans the clothes, and the dryer does its thing too.  I could go on.  But one invention that I’m a BIG fan of is soft ice cream.  Now, I’ll take any type of ice cream for sure – hard scoops of goodness from Mitchell’s or Malley’s here in Cleveland.  Lemon ice after a meal – especially when added to my favorite potent beverage!  But sometimes, when the moment is right, I’m just in the mood for soft ice cream served in a cone. Like you, I pause – sugar cone or traditional or in a cup.  Then comes the toppings (I must say Dairy Queen rocks here – hard shell dip, sprinkle dinkels (brilliant name) a little fudge and peanuts or just plain.  To compound decisions, some offer a “twist” of chocolate and vanilla – brilliant!  As a kid, we’d race on our bikes to meet the Mr. Softie ice cream truck in the neighborhood- I can still remember that music.  And then pass over our pocket full of change, after watching the magic twirl above the cone.  Our girls will tell you while trying not to laugh how Jackie would offer to help them “clean” the soft serve cones so they wouldn’t get messy when they were very young!  She is continuing this tradition with our grandkids! Yesterday was Soft Ice Cream Day,  so I just had to get some trivia and share.  Click on the music link and enjoy the read. And thanks to You Tube, Wikipedia and answers.com.

Mister Softee Ice Cream Truck Theme

Dog is crazy about Eddie the ice cream man

Video: The DQ Twist

Video: How Cones Are Made 

Soft serve, also known as soft ice, is a frozen dairy dessert, similar to ice cream but softer and less dense as a result of air being introduced during freezing.

Soft serve is generally lower in milkfat (3 to 6 percent) than ice cream (10 to 18 percent) and is produced at a temperature of about −4 °C (25 °F) compared to ice cream, which is stored at −15 °C (5 °F). Soft serve contains air, introduced at the time of freezing. The air content, called overrun, can vary from 0 to 60 percent of the total volume of the finished product. The amount of air alters the taste of the finished product.

Products with low quantities of air has a heavy, icy taste and appears more yellow. Ice cream with higher air content tastes creamier, smoother, and lighter and appears whiter. The optimum quantity of air is determined by other ingredients, if any, and individual taste. It is generally accepted that the ideal air content should be between 33 and 45 percent of volume. If more than this, the product loses taste, tends to shrink as it loses air, and melts more quickly than that with less air. Less than 33 to 45 percent, the product will not melt as quickly but will not taste good.

All ice cream must be frozen quickly to avoid crystal growth. With soft serve, this is accomplished by a special machine at the point of sale. Pre-mixed product is introduced to the storage chamber of the machine where it is kept at 3 °C (37 °F). When the product is drawn from the draw valve, fresh mix combined with the targeted quantity of air is introduced to the freezing chamber either by gravity or pump. It is then churned and quickly frozen and stored until required.

While some machines only dispense one flavor of the mix at a time, certain models of soft-serve machines have an additional nozzle that dispenses a mixture of two separate flavors simultaneously. This mixture emerges in a distinct swirl pattern. It is classified as its own separate flavor on menus as swirl or twist.

In the US, soft serve is not sold prepackaged in supermarkets, but is common at fairs, carnivals, amusement parks, restaurants (especially fast food and buffet), and specialty shops. All ice cream must be frozen quickly to avoid crystal growth. With soft serve, this is accomplished by a special machine that holds pre-mixed product at a very low, but not frozen, temperature at the point of sale.

Charles Taylor of Buffalo, New York patented an automatic ice cream maker in 1926 that is reported to be the first soft serve ice cream machine. His Taylor Company continues to manufacture the McDonald’s ice cream machine.

Over Memorial Day weekend of 1934, Tom Carvel, the founder of the Carvel brand and franchise, suffered a flat tire in his ice cream truck in Hartsdale, New York. He pulled into a parking lot and began selling his melting ice cream to vacationers driving by. Within two days he had sold his entire supply of ice cream and concluded that both a fixed location and soft (as opposed to hard) frozen desserts were potentially good business ideas. In 1936, Carvel opened his first store on the original broken down truck site and developed a secret soft serve ice cream formula as well as patented super low-temperature ice cream machines.

Dairy Queen also claims to have invented soft serve. In 1938, near Moline, Illinois, J. F. McCullough and his son, Alex, developed their soft serve formula. Their first sales experiment was August 4, 1938, in Kankakee, Illinois, at the store of their friend, Sherb Noble. Within two hours of the “all you can eat” trial sale, they had dished out more than 1,600 servings—more than once every 4.5 seconds.

The Tin roof sundae (or hot tin roof) was a version of the Cherry sundae sold by Chester Platt in 1893. Platt’s soda fountain in Ithaca New York was popular at the time and several area fountains added various toppings. Chocolate syrup and peanuts made up the “TIN ROOF” topping based on the original sound of the peanuts being removed from the cans in which they were sold, like the sound of rain on a tin roof.

It is a common myth that during the late 1940s, future UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher worked briefly as a chemist for food manufacturer J. Lyons and Co., at a time when the company had partnered with the United States distributor Mister Softie and was developing a soft-serve recipe that was compatible with the American machines.  Thatcher’s precise role at Lyons is unclear, but she is reported to have worked on the quality of cake and pie fillings as well as ice-cream and researched saponification. (never thought of her as a “softie”).

The US produces about 6.4 billion pounds of ice cream treats a year.  #1 flavor – vanilla.

The average American eats 23 pounds of ice cream a year – (and many carry it around with them afterwards).

 

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

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Scrambled Egg

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Paul McCartney…I just don’t know what else to say about this amazing talent and wonderful human being.

 

Like me, you’re probably saying to yourself “where has the summer gone”.  Here we are in mid- August – schools reopening, kids off to college, talk of football training camp and fewer and fewer days for me to think I can sneak off and get in “a quick nine” with my buds.  When I was younger, the summer never really had days or weeks to it – we just woke up, grabbed our bikes and headed out, hardly worrying how many days “were left”.  That usually ended when Mom made us go school clothes shopping – ugh.  That “going to the mall” torture has certainly not carried over into my adult life – Jackie knows the girls love to hear that Dad is going shopping, as it usually means everybody is getting something! Especially at Costco and my beloved “samples”!  Today marks a special date in music history, when The Beatles released their hit song “Yesterday” to the American public– you know – “yesterday, all my troubles seem so far away” – when things we’re easy, carefree (and Covid Free).  I jumped online, and found some fun history on the song, the group, and the endearing legacy of Paul’s solo song.  Click on the link to enjoy the music, courtesy of You Tube, and harken back to some easier times by the group, and the magic of creating a classic.  And be sure to get “nine” in soon, as the window is closing fast.  Thanks to writer Paul McGuinness from udiscovermusic.com. Enjoy!

Yesterday sound track

Yesterday (from back in the day) (With Spoken Word Intro / Live From Studio 50, New York City / 1965)

As the most-covered song in The Beatles’ catalogue, “Yesterday”’s origins have been pored over many times. It was written at 57 Wimpole Street, London, where Paul lived in attic rooms at the top of the family home of his girlfriend, the English actress Jane Asher. As Paul has testified many times over, he wrote it in his sleep: “I woke up with a lovely tune in my head. I thought, That’s great, I wonder what that is? There was an upright piano next to me, to the right of the bed by the window. I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor seventh – and that leads you through then to B to E minor, and finally back to G.”

Paul spent some time not quite believing that he had in fact written it. He would play it to everyone he met, asking if they recognized it, thinking maybe it was some obscure old standard. Of course, nobody did. “Eventually it became like handing something into the police. I thought that if no one claimed it after a few weeks then I would have it.”

As to when this all happened, however, opinions are divided. Some, including Paul’s friend and biographer Barry Miles, claim that it was written just a few weeks before it was recorded. John Lennon, however, remembered the song kicking around for months: “Paul wrote nearly all of it, but we just couldn’t find the right title. Every time we got together to write songs or for a recording session, this would come up. We called it ‘Scrambled Egg’ and it became a joke between us. We almost had it finished when we made up our minds that only a one-word title would suit and, believe me, we just couldn’t find the right one. Then, one morning, Paul woke up, and the song and the title were both there. Completed! I know it sounds like a fairy tale, but it is the plain truth.”

George Martin’s memory was that the song had existed in some form or another for well over a year: “I first heard ‘Yesterday’ when it was known as ‘Scrambled Egg’ – Paul’s working title – at the George V Hotel in Paris in January 1964.”

Paul was still working on it when they were filming their second movie, Help!, in 1965, as director Richard Lester recalls: “At some time during that period, we had a piano on one of the stages and he was playing this ‘Scrambled Egg’ all the time. It got to the point where I said to him, ‘If you play that bloody song any longer, I’ll have the piano taken off stage. Either finish it or give it up!’”

Finish it he did. After completing filming, Paul and Jane took a holiday at the Portuguese villa of their friend, Bruce Welch of The Shadows. It was on the 180-mile journey from the airport that Paul finally nailed it. “It was a long hot, dusty drive,” Paul recalled. “Jane was sleeping but I couldn’t, and when I’m sitting that long in a car I either manage to get to sleep or my brain starts going. I remember mulling over the tune ‘Yesterday,’ and suddenly getting these little one-word openings to the verse.

“I started to develop the idea: ‘Scram-ble-d eggs, da-da da.’ I knew the syllables had to match the melody, obviously: ‘da-da da,’ ‘yes-ter-day,’ ‘sud-den-ly,’ ‘fun-il-ly,’ ‘mer-il-ly,’ and ‘yes-ter-day,’ that’s good. ‘All my troubles seemed so far away.’ It’s easy to rhyme those ‘a’s: say, nay, today, away, play, stay, there’s a lot of rhymes and those fall in quite easily, so I gradually pieced it together from that journey. ‘Sud-den-ly,’ and ‘b’ again, another easy rhyme: e, me, tree, flea, we, and I had the basis of it.”

Welch confirmed this: “I was packing to leave and Paul asked me if I had a guitar. He’d apparently been working on the lyrics as he drove to Albufeira from the airport at Lisbon. He borrowed my guitar and started playing the song we all now know as ‘Yesterday.’”

Once the song was taped that Monday in June 1965, The Beatles and their producer, George Martin, began to wonder what to do with it. Martin remembers saying to Paul, “‘The only thing I can think of is adding strings, but I know what you think about that.’ And Paul said, ‘I don’t want Mantovani.’ I said, ‘What about a very small number of string players, a quartet?’ He thought that was interesting.” Paul’s own version differs slightly, in that he claims he was initially against the idea, that they were a rock’n’roll band. But he trusted Martin, and the pair worked on the arrangement together at Martin’s house.

With their string quartet arrangement recorded in an afternoon session on June 17, “Yesterday” was complete. This was the first time that a Beatles song had been augmented by such an ensemble, but it wouldn’t be the last.

“Yesterday” was included on the Help! album in the UK (though it didn’t feature in the movie), in summer 1965, and given a US single release on September 13 that year. Spending four weeks at No.1 (the song did not receive a UK single release until March 8, 1976, when it made No.8 in the charts), it would go on to be arguably The Beatles’ most famous song. So much so, that John Lennon remarked in a 1980 interview, “I go to restaurants and the groups always play ‘Yesterday.’ Yoko and I even signed a guy’s violin in Spain after he played us ‘Yesterday.’ He couldn’t understand that I didn’t write the song. But I guess he couldn’t have gone from table to table playing ‘I Am The Walrus.’”

Enjoy a full history of the song at http://www.beatlesebooks.com/yesterday

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

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Black. White. Brown. Pink. Stand on it. Lay on it. Lay in it. Sand—sometimes it’s how it feels in your hands & between your toes. Sometimes it’s just how it makes you feel. Bonus points if you can name those beautiful people in the little photos under the “feet” photo.  : )

Me and my wife Jackie’s summer wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the sandy shores of Kiawah Island, SC. We have been visiting since 1984. Kids have been coming long enough that a couple of them learned how to walk on the beaches of Kiawah.  Now, I’m not taking anything away from the “north shore” and all great beaches here in NE Ohio, but to be honest, there is really no comparison to getting away and digging my feet into the powder white beaches of the island.  Enjoying the ocean breeze and aromas, it got me to wondering about sand – why so many different varieties, textures and colors – and especially why so many variations along the eastern coastline of good old US of A. So, I did some digging with my laptop (and my feet).  As the warm gritty stuff gets in between my toes, I wondered why beaches become distinctive sandy stretches and why sand looks and feels the way it does – some powder white, some light brown, some darker brown and some black. Here’s some helpful tips from lifescience.com, funsciencedemos and YouTube.  Enjoy.  And be sure to use your sunblock!

  • A sandy beach is essentially where pulverized, weathered rock along with some fragments of shelled creatures and other biota have collected, tossed up by the waves and as sediment from inland areas.
  • Sand is basically the material you get when you get a breakdown in rocks, when the rocks weather and decompose over hundreds of thousands and millions of years. Not every rocky mineral is equally built to last. So, over time, the weathering process yields certain common compositions for sand as the stronger materials persist.
  • While some of the minerals are very unstable and decompose, others such as feldspar, quartz and hornblende are more stable because they are harder, more resistant minerals, and so they tend to stay behind.  These minerals — abundant in Earth’s crust — in ground-up form constitute a lot of the sandy particles comprising beaches. Probably the most common composition would be quartz sand with some feldspar.
  • This most common mineral formula gives beaches that sort of typically, well, “beachy” complexion of a light brown found in many places in the continental United States and elsewhere. The iron staining on the quartz and iron oxide on the feldspar gives the sand that tan or brownish color but can vary greatly.  Every beach is essentially a product of its regional and local environment and is accordingly one-of-a-kind. For example, in the Florida panhandle, the sand is often very white because of its high quartz content over feldspar and hornblende.
  • Tropical regions have more of this shell-derived sand than temperate regions, where the sand is mostly silica-based in the form of quartz.
  • South Carolina beaches are made up of a fine texture, but when looked at under a microscope one will see it is dominantly comprised of Quartz. Quartz is in the sand because the sand is deposited as it erodes from the Appalachian Mountains. There are also small bits of shells, as well as browning due to a rusting effect from iron. Some samples contain a mix of broken rocks as well as the shells and bodies of previously living organisms, including Quartz, Mica, Bivalves/Clams, Magnetite, and more.
  • Many of the beaches in Bermuda have not only white sand but have pink or reddish sand particles. The origin of this famous coloration is the remains of tiny, single-celled creatures called Foraminifera that have pink or reddish shells.
  • Hawaii, meanwhile, is well-known for its black sand beaches, the result of ground-up, dark volcanic rocks. Some beaches on Hawaii’s Big Island even have a greenish tint, thanks to the presence of the mineral olivine.
  • Consider the fact – sand on most of our beaches, especially on the East and Gulf Coasts, is rather old: some 5,000 years or so.  Very little new sand reaches the coast nowadays from the continental interior as it once did.
  • Beach erosion, due to changes in water patterns, wind, and sea level rise is impacting most oceanfront property.  The construction of roads and dams, especially in Florida, is another reason. Development along the coastline impedes the natural transport of sand from the interior to the coast.
  •  The general rise in sea levels over the past approximately 10- 12,000 years, which has flooded river valleys and created large estuaries such as Charleston Harbor, the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay and the Hudson River trap would-be sand before it reaches the coast.  The erosion of beaches, especially after major storms, often requires beach nourishment, or replenishment projects when sand is dredged up from offshore and deposited on the shoreline to rebuild lost real estate.

Great Video – Natural Coastal Erosion

Simple Science Demo – Sand and Wave Action

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::