Merry Christmas

 

 

 

 

A Blessing

PLEASE. Watch this show with your family and friends. A Charlie Brown Christmas is a wonderful show that’s such a great part of this wonderful season. I can hear the music now. Enjoy.

Now that we’ve turned the corner on November, it’s time of course to start thinking about the Christmas holiday time.  One of the classics “everyone” knows is A Charlie Brown Christmas, (who doesn’t love Snoopy’s doghouse with the lights??) written by Charles Schultz, the inventor of the Peanuts comic strip, about a depressed child who gets ridiculed by his friends but finds the magic of Christmas in the end.  The comic special has aired every December for over 50 years — longer than any other holiday program besides Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Lee Mendelson, who produced A Charlie Brown Christmas, thinks its message is particularly relevant this year, with at least half the population feeling like someone “pulled their football away.“ What most people don’t realize is that the holiday classic barely made it into production — and was almost buried forever. No networks had wanted it, but after Charlie Brown and the gang were featured on the cover of Time magazine, Coca-Cola’s ad agency, McCann Erickson, got the idea for a holiday special and approached Mendelson. Desperate after his documentary imploded, he told the agent that, in fact, he and Schulz had discussed such a project. He called Schulz and told him they’d sold A Charlie Brown Christmas. “Schulz said, ‘What’s that?’” Mendelson said, “It’s something you’re going to write starting tomorrow.” (Talk about a PIA (Pain in the @%$) Job!!  Here’s some of the history behind the show, and a few tidbits you likely never knew.  Thanks to Wikipedia for the info and YouTube for the music – (you gotta click the music link while reading to get the full effect!).  Enjoy.

Soundtrack

By the early 1960s, Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip Peanuts had gained enormous popularity.  Television producer Lee Mendelson acknowledged the strip’s cultural impression and had an idea for a documentary on its success, phoning Schulz to propose the idea. Schulz, an avid baseball fan, recognized Mendelson from his documentary on ballplayer Willie Mays, A Man Named Mays, and invited him to his home in Sebastopol, California, to discuss the project.

Their meeting was cordial, with the plan to produce a half-hour documentary set. Mendelson wanted to feature roughly “one or two” minutes of animation, and Schulz suggested animator Bill Melendez, with whom he collaborated some years before on a commercial for the Ford Motor Company. Mendelson later stated that he was drawn to doing an animated Charlie Brown after working on A Man Named Mays, noting that Mays was arguably the best baseball player of all time, while Charlie Brown, in a running gag in the strips, was one of the worst, making him a natural follow-up subject to his previous work.

Mendelson rang animator Bill Melendez, who had helped animate a two-minute segment in the never-aired documentary. The three met in Schulz’s office in Sebastopol, California. Schulz wanted the show to focus on the childhood stress of putting on a Christmas play. Mendelson had just read The Fir-Tree by Hans Christian Andersen and suggested the story include a tree that is as sad and misunderstood as Charlie Brown. They cranked out an outline and put it in a Western Union shipment to Atlanta. Several days later, the agency told them they had a short six months to deliver the animated special.

Halfway through production, when the team was still working with black-and-white illustrations, a McCann executive (Mendelson is almost certain it was Neil Reagan, the older brother of President Ronald Reagan) showed up in Sebastopol to check in on the progress. He was put off by the slow pacing of the story. Mendelson, Melendez, and Schulz assured him it would be better once there was music and color. The executive said he wouldn’t tell the agency what he thought — because if he did, he was sure they would cancel the show.

For the music, the team had courted up-and-coming jazz musician Vince Guaraldi, whose “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” seemed to strike the same balance of somber enlightenment and childlike buoyancy that Schulz achieved in his comic. But when they played the introduction song as the children skated on the frozen pond, Mendelson realized it was way too slow and solemn. It was missing something. He sat down at his kitchen table and wrote out the words to “Christmas Time Is Here” on an envelope. Guaraldi enlisted the children’s choir of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Rafael, California, to sing the lyrics.

Lyrics or not, the CBS executives didn’t think jazz belonged in a cartoon. They also challenged Schulz’s decision to use untrained children instead of professional adult voice actors. They especially couldn’t understand why children would use such big words. Schulz even got pushback from his own team. Mendelson suggested a laugh track would save the show and Schulz responded by standing up and walking out of the room. When Schulz, a Sunday school teacher, said Linus should recite from the Gospel of Luke, Mendelson and Melendez protested. “We looked at each other and said, ‘Well, there goes our careers right down the drain,’” Mendelson recalls. Of course, now Mendelson realizes that Linus’s segment probably made the entire project work. “That 10-year-old kid who recited that speech from the Bible was as good as any scene from Hamlet,” he says.

When CBS finally saw the finished product, they were sure it was doomed. It was still too slow, there was no action, the kids weren’t polished, the jazz didn’t belong. But Coca-Cola had already bankrolled the program, and it was listed in TV Guides nationwide. CBS had to air the show, but the execs were certain it would flop, never to run again.

When A Charlie Brown Christmas aired at 7:30 p.m. ET on December 9, 1965, half of American TV viewers tuned in. The reviews were outstanding. Washington Post TV critic Lawrence Laurent wrote, “Good old Charlie Brown, a natural born loser … finally turned up a winner.”

The only person involved who wasn’t surprised was Schulz. The cartoonist was plagued by depression and self-doubt his entire life, but he always had confidence in his characters and their stories. He believed everyone knew what it felt like to fail despite doing everything right. “We hear about authors who write best about what they know. Steinbeck wrote about the West. Hemingway wrote about, well, everywhere,” says Mendelson. “Schulz jumped ahead in school, so he was always the youngest, and he endured a lot of bullying. He felt a lot of loneliness, and I think that was the bedrock of his whole philosophy.”

Schulz’s message of perseverance in the face of dejection always resonated with American audiences, a reminder that we should keep kicking no matter how many times they pull the ball away.

In a classic scene, at the tree lot, Charlie Brown picks the only real tree there, a small sapling. Linus questions his choice, but Charlie Brown believes that once decorated, it will be perfect. When they return, however, Lucy and the others scorn him and the tree and walk away laughing. Crestfallen, Charlie Brown loudly asks if anyone knows what Christmas is all about; Linus says he does, walks to center stage, asks for a spotlight, recites the annunciation to the shepherds, returns and says, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Let us all remember the true meaning of Christmas.

If interested here’s the detailed link to Wikipedia 

 

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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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Lick and Stick

No matter how you receive your mail, it’s always nice to receive a card to hold in your hand. Read on to see how this wonderful tradition got started. 

In this digital, video screens, “always on” world we live in, there’s still something special about going to the mailbox and receiving a stack of holiday greetings.  Whatever your religion, holiday blessings or new year’s wishes, I just like getting and sending folks cards.  Now of course, I’ll admit, it’s Jackie’s organizational skills that gets the cards out – with over 100 brothers, sisters, in-laws, babies, grand babies, cousins, aunts and uncles, AND an extensive friendship circle, it’s quite the chore to keep everybody straight. Some families like to tuck an “update” recap in with their cards (not really for me) – you know the ones – “after completing our 2nd climb to the peak of Kilimanjaro last month, we sauntered through the French wine region and ended up meeting the kids, vacationing in the Alps, for an eco-ski-dinner.  Jimmy, receiving his third PHD in nuclear medicine, and his lovely wife and astronaut Becky, just had their third child, Einstein, and are struggling to decide which e-Land Rover buggy to get him – couple that with Billy surfing in Hawaii, Sandra walking the Appalachian Trial and Fluffy the Cat competing in online meoworamma competitions ….”  You get the picture.  I’m pretty traditional in my cards (kids and grandkids are great!), I’m more about the “reason for the season”– birth of Christ, love of Jesus, all things family and doing my best to pass along my heartfelt blessings and prayers for a fun filled holiday and a safe, prosperous New Year.  I found some fun tips about Christmas cards and just had to share.  Enjoy, and thanks to smithsonianmag.com and usps.com for the info and history.

  • Christmas cards were originally penned in England by boys who were practicing their writing skills and would present these handmade cards to their parents.
  • Postmen in Victorian England were called robins because their uniforms were red. Many Christmas cards from that time depicted a robin delivering Christmas mail.
  • Sir Henry Cole commissioned the first Christmas card in London, featuring artwork by John Callcott Horsley. The hand-colored card was lithographed on stiff, dark cardboard with the message: “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You.”  It provoked controversy in England because it pictured a company of people holding glasses of wine. Putting alcohol and holy Christmas in one picture was deemed offensive. (In 2001 it became world’s most expensive Christmas card when it was sold for $35,800 at auction).
  • A prominent educator and patron of the arts, Henry Cole travelled in the elite social circles of early Victorian England and had the misfortune of having too many friends. During the holiday season of 1843, those friends were causing Cole much anxiety.  With the introduction of the “Penny Post,” it allowed Henry to send a letter or card anywhere in the country by affixing a penny stamp to the correspondence.  He took Horsley’s illustration—a triptych showing a family at table celebrating the holiday flanked by images of people helping the poor—and had a thousand copies made by a London printer with the word “TO:_____” at the top – allowing Cole to personalize his responses, which included the generic greeting “A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year To You.”
  • While Cole and Horsley get the credit for the first, it took several decades for the Christmas card to really catch on, both in Great Britain and the US. Once it did, it became an integral part of our holiday celebrations—even as the definition of “the holidays” became more expansive, and now includes not just Christmas and New Year’s, but Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the Winter Solstice.
  • In 1875, Louis Prang, American printer, lithographer and publisher, brought Christmas card production to the US at his workshop in Boston, Massachusetts. By 1881 he was printing more than 5 million Christmas cards per year.
  • The modern Christmas card industry arguably began in 1915, when a Kansas City-based fledgling postcard printing company started by Joyce Hall, later to be joined by his brothers Rollie and William, published its first holiday card. The “Hall Brothers” company (which, went on to become …. come on …. you know …. think, think, think – Hallmark!) soon adapted a new format for the cards—4 inches wide, 6 inches high, folded once, and inserted in an envelope.
  • Between 1948 and 1957, Norman Rockwell (one of our favorites here at KHT) created 32 Christmas card designs, including Santa Looking at Two Sleeping Children (1952) for Hallmark.
  • The introduction, 59 years ago, of the first Christmas stamp by the U.S. Post Office perhaps speaks even more powerfully to the popularity of the Christmas card. It depicted a wreath, two candles and had the words “Christmas, 1962.” According to the Post Office, the department ordered the printing of 350 million of these 4-cent, green and white stamps. However they underestimated the demand and ended up having to do a special printing.
  • There are more than 3,000 greeting card publishers in America, with an unknow number of amateur writers and designers.
  • 15% of Christmas cards are purchased by men (ok, do the math, that means ____ % are purchased by ______. Nice)
  • Over 2 billion Christmas cards are sent in the US each year, with around 500 million e-cards sent as well.
  • Werner Erhard of San Francisco set a world record for sending 62,824 Christmas cards  in December of 1975 (that’s a lot of licking!) At $.58 per stamp this would amount to $36,437.92 worth of stamps in today’s dollars!
  • The most popular Christmas card of all time, however, is a simple one. It’s an image of three cherubic angels, two of whom are bowed in prayer. The third peers out from the card with big, baby blue eyes, her halo slightly askew.
  • Today, much of the innovation in Christmas cards is found in smaller, niche publishers whose work is found in gift shops and paper stores. “These smaller publishers are bringing in a lot of new ideas,” says Peter Doherty, executive director of the Greeting Card Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group representing the card publishers. “You have elaborate pop-up cards, video cards, audio cards, cards segmented to various audiences.
  • For me, I’ll stick with the classic.

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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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New Ideas

Amazing, incredible, astounding, surprising, impressive, astonishing, staggering, stunning, stupefying, mind-boggling, mind-blowing and sometimes bewildering! The new inventions that have come out in the last year are worth your attention & time. Speaking of time, Time Magazing is where I got the list. Link below. Grab a cup of coffee and dig-in.  

 

Shopping Friday.  Cyber Monday.  Deals galore.  It’s hard to visit my emails or watch TV without the onslaught of ads and offers now that the holiday shopping season has begun.  (I skipped the shopping rush this past weekend).  Each year I like to spend time looking for some really different gifts.  One of my inspirations is the “new inventions of the year” lists.  And I found a great one – Time Magazine’s Best 100 Inventions of 2021. I’m continually amazed at the progress of technology, and the visionaries who are behind these things.  Like so many of my great customers, they look for “better, faster, cleaner, smarter” versions of existing products, and also come up with some we’ve not even thought of.  I went through the list and picked out some of my favorites.  Be sure to click the link, and wander through the accomplishments – perhaps some will make it to YOUR shopping list.  Special thanks to TIME magazine for the link, and each of the inventors for their “bring to market” success – (note: deep scrolling may require a subscription to TIME).  Enjoy.

Wheel Me Autonomous Robots
Beeless Honey
Flat Wine Bottles
Non-Soggy Takeout –  This is my favorite!  French Fries – Onion Rings – Calamari!  My list is almost endless!
Better Base Layers for Runners

BONUS:
Biosynthetic Jeans
Bril:  Toothbrush Cleaner (found this one!)

 

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

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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Merry Christmas

 

The Nativity at Night, 1640 (oil on canvas), Guido Reni.

Merry Christmas!
From the whole Kowalski Heat Treating family to yours. 

 

 

A Christmas Star?

 

Yep, this is a special Monday post for all that I think you will really enjoy!  As the story in the Christian Gospel of Matthew goes, a bright star rose after the birth of Jesus Christ that the wise men then followed to find him. Was it a comet? A supernova? Could it have been something special with the planets?  Beginning tonight, just after sundown there will be a “great conjunction” (a conjunction is an apparent passing of two or more celestial bodies while a great conjunction refers only to Jupiter and Saturn converging). Be sure to find someplace to view this special once in a lifetime event – we think it’s worth watching!

  • Jupiter and Saturn tangle in a great conjunction—as seen from Earth—every 19.85 Earth years. It’s a natural symptom of Jupiter (taking 11.86 years to orbit the Sun) and Saturn (29.4 years to orbit the Sun), which naturally means they will sometimes appear to pass each other in our night sky from our point of view (despite actually being many millions of miles distant from each other).  Amazingly, the event occurs in the same part of the sky every 800 years or so.
  • The two planets will appear to be a mere 0.1º from each other. That’s about the width of a toothpick held at arm’s length according to Sky & Telescope magazine.
  • It will be the closest great conjunction since July 16, 1623 and the first to be easily observable since March 4, 1226.
  • One of the longest-running theories about the Bethlehem Star goes all the way back to Johannes Kepler, a key figure of the scientific revolution in the 17th century and the first to correctly explain the motion of the planets.
  • “Kepler thought that the star of Bethlehem was a triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn,” said Nigel Henbest, author of Philip’s 2021 Stargazing Month-by-Month Guide to the Night Sky in Britain & Ireland. “Here we are two millennia later, and a similar conjunction is about to happen within four days of Christmas Day … maybe a new Messiah is about to be born!”
  • According to Kepler’s calculations made in 1603 (during a year he observed a great conjunction), a triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn occurred in the year 7 BC. Why “triple?” As Jupiter laps Saturn in the Solar System the two planets align with the Sun for a moment, but from our faster-moving planet’s point of view the planets actually appear to go backwards for some weeks. It’s purely about perspective, but this retrograde motion can cause two or, in the case of the year 7 BC, three conjunctions in the same year. The last triple great conjunction occurred in 1980 and the next one is in 2239.
  • Were Jupiter and Saturn mistaken for a single star? Perhaps great conjunctions were considered omens, like comets. Either way, this week’s closest approach of Jupiter and Saturn in the telescopic age is a historic event that you must take a look at. All this week and next—but particularly TONIGHT —cast your eyes to the southwestern skies 45 minutes after sunset wherever you are and you’ll see two distant worlds become one.

Perhaps it’s a blessing to us all in these most difficult times.
Wishing you good tidings, clear skies and wide eyes always.

Now That’s Ugly! Congratulations.

Ugly Christmas sweaters are a real thing! They can be bought at the store and online. Or you can make your own. Above are some inspirational ugly sweaters to start you off. Oh, and look, there I am in my ugly Christmas sweater! If you can spot me let me know what’s on my sweater in an email for bonus points. And email a picture of you in your ugly sweater for even more bonus points. Above all, have fun and a very Merry Christmas!!!

What likely started out as a joke, has transformed itself into another holiday tradition I’ve come to enjoy – wearing god-awful sweaters. I have an especially lovely seater that I bring out each year.  It provides a unique experience for all who are “blessed” to see it!  Today marks National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day – celebrated around the world in offices and establishments aplenty.  Here are some wonderful examples to spark your creativity for next year – get the sewing needles out and get started – the competition is fierce – and FUN!  Thanks to Wikipedia, brittania.com and all those brave enough to wear these silly things.  Enjoy!

  • Every third Friday of December people all over the nation trade their casual garments for something more festive for National Ugly Sweater Day. An ugly Christmas sweater is any Christmas-themed sweater that could be considered in bad taste, tacky, or gaudy. The general consensus is that the more embellishments—tinsel, reindeer, Santa Clauses, candy canes, elves, presents, etc.—the uglier the sweater.
  • Ugly sweaters have been around for as long as people created a concept of fashion. They weren’t always made purposefully — maybe someone made a mistake in their knitting or tried a new design that didn’t turn out as cool as they thought it would. However, it wasn’t long before grandmas everywhere were knowingly (maybe while chuckling to themselves) knitting their grandchildren ugly Christmas sweaters.
  • It’s hard to say who invented the first ugly Christmas sweater (I think it was one of those beauties I wore back in the ’70s!).  As a matter of fact, we can presume that ugly sweaters were designed with the original intention of being fashionable. It’s only because of ever-changing fashion trends that sweaters once deemed acceptable are now considered ugly.
  • As a clothing item, ugly sweaters were often featured on situation comedies in the 1980s. They were mostly cardigans, buttoned down the front. The Christmas theme entered around the same time, with the first mass-produced Christmas garments being made under the name of “jingle bell sweaters” during the 1980s as well.
  • The city of Vancouver claims to be the birthplace of the ugly sweater party after hosting an event in 2002. (although I distinctly remember wearing ugly sweaters back in the ’80s!) Every year since, the Original Ugly Christmas Sweater party has been held at the Commodore Ballroom, where the dress code ensures an ugly sweater affair. Chris Boyd and Jordan Birch, the co-founders of the Commodore’s annual ugly sweater party, have even trademarked the word phrase “ugly Christmas sweater” and “ugly Christmas sweater party.”
  • To really get into the holiday spirit, the party is also a benefit that raises money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Canada, which grants wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses.
  • A sweater, or jumper, is a kind of knitted top, and knitted garments have been around much longer than the infamous Christmas sweater. Knitted clothing is created through the process of using needles to loop or knot yarn together to form a piece of fabric. Unfortunately, since knitting does not require a large piece of equipment like a loom, it is hard to trace the exact history of non-Christmas-sweater knitted garments. Instead, historians have had to rely on the remnants of the knitted clothes that have remained.
  • The earliest examples of the “two-needle” form of knitting we are familiar with today are the fragments of and whole Egyptian “Coptic socks,” which date back to 1000 CE. They were made from white and blue-dyed cotton and featured symbolic patterns called Khufic woven into them.
  • Fast forward to the 17th century and we see another development in knitted garments. The Cardigan sweater was named after James Thomas Brudenell, the seventh Earl of Cardigan and military captain who led his troops at The Charge of the Light Brigade into the Valley of Death. Brudenell’s troops were outfitted in knitted military jackets, which were nicknamed cardigans.
  • Popular character Bill Huxtable on The Cosby Show constantly made fashionistas gasp when he’d come into the scene in a gaudy, ugly, yet slightly endearing sweater that he knew was completely outrageous. In 1989, Chevy Chase added his own twist to the theme as Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation movie. (be sure to notice Eddie’s sweater over short turtleneck look in the eggnog drinking scene – hilarious!).
  • Today, ugly sweater parties and competitions are one of the highlights of the season, with everyone trying to one-up each other in searching for the most appalling outerwear they can find. The sweaters have gone from accidentally tacky to purposefully shameless. The only way this celebration can be more extra was if there was a holiday dedicated to it…oh wait! There is!
  • 23% of people will buy an ugly sweater, whether it’s for a house party, an office event, or for family photos.  The joy that comes with purposefully wearing an ugly sweater (without your fashion senses coming into question) is pure and unbeatable.
  • Uglychristmassweaters.com made $5 million – This company knows their ugly sweaters. In only three years, their profit has skyrocketed into being a multimillion-dollar company. This company allows you to customize your own ugly sweater and even has sweaters created by popular influencers. Some of their sweaters are so ugly that they’re 3D!
  • Many retailers (have you been to Kohl’s or Walmart lately?) have seen a good amount of profit coming in during the holiday season specifically from their stock of ugly sweaters, which goes to show just how seriously people take their decorative holiday-wear.

Companies this year are holding “virtual ugly sweater” photo and video contests, due to in-person restrictions.  We’ll likely see some giant coronavirus getups.

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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!!

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

First You Get the Ladder…

The fun of the season. Getting the house all lit up and glowing. It can be hazardous as those few pictures suggest so be careful out there. Below those images are a couple of really old ads for lights. That black & white ad is selling the safety of electric lights vs candles which may burn down your house. I’m sold. And a couple of old boxes of lights. Remember those bubble lights? I thought those were the greatest. Still do. Then there are the photos of some way over the top lighting displays. Love it!!!

Yep – it’s that time of year, my annual ritual of lighting up the house for the holidays.  Like you, I’m torn – my logical brain says I should take advantage of the warmer weather and hang the lights before Thanksgiving, cleaning out the gutters and avoiding the cold.  But my “do other chores or just watch football” brain says – oh, you can wait – and then I find myself outside in the freezing wind, shaking on the ladder as I hang half frozen bulbs across the gutters …  To be honest, my lovely wife Jackie helps me decide … 🙂  Now, although I love how our home looks all lit up,  I have reached a point where Jackie and I have agreed that I am not allowed to be climbing, crawling, kneeling, hanging on the roof any longer.  For some reason the downsides of falling off outweigh the upsides of hanging lights all over the roof-windows, etc!  With this in mind, I started to think about the design and manufacturing marvel those tiny little bulbs are.  Talk about a PIA (Pain in the @%$) Job – figuring out an efficient, low cost way to manufacture billions of bulbs to meet our ongoing desire to light up our homes both inside and out.  Here’s some cool history and info on the manufacturing of holiday lights. Thanks to the genius of Edison, and all those engineers who machined, (heat treated YEA!!) built the machines and make them go. Enjoy.  And special thanks to howmade.com and Business Insider for the videos.

  • Festivals in a number of ancient civilizations were celebrated with lights; any and all of these may have been the inspiration for the lights we use to decorate Christmas trees and the exteriors of homes.
  • The Druids in both France and England believed that oak trees were sacred, and they ornamented them with candles and fruit in honor of their gods of light and harvest. The ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia included trees decorated with candles and small gifts. The worship of trees as the homes of spirits and gods may have led to the Christmas tree tradition and that tradition has long been accompanied by the companion custom of decking the tree with brilliant lights evoking stars, jewels, sparkling ice, and holiday cheer.
  • From the beginnings of Christianity to about 1500, trees were sometimes decorated outdoors, but they were not brought into homes. One legend has it that Martin Luther (1483-1546), the father of Protestantism, was walking through an evergreen forest on Christmas Eve. The beauty of the stars sparkling through the trees touched him, and he took a small tree home and put candles on its branches to recreate the effect for his family.
  • Similarly, German settlers brought the Christmas tree to America where the first tree was displayed in Pennsylvania in 1851. Candles were attached to the boughs of the trees with increasingly extravagant candle-holders, some with colored glass that made the lights appear colored. Of course, the practice of using candles was hazardous; many fire brigades were called to extinguish fires started by candles that had ignited the trees or the long hair or dresses of the ladies. Candles on trees were lit for several minutes only and sometimes only on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day; the custom of lighting trees for extended periods of time had to wait until the invention of the electric light bulb.
  • The first electric lights for Christmas debuted only three years after Thomas Alva Edison invented the lightbulb in 1879. Edward Johnson, a resident of New York and a colleague of Edison’s, was the first to have an electrically lighted Christmas tree in his home in 1882.
  • The tiny bulbs were hand blown and the lights were hand-wired to make this event possible, but it opened an avenue for Edison’s electric company that produced miniature, decorative bulbs for chandeliers and other uses from its earliest days. Electric lights appeared on the White House Christmas tree in 1895 when Grover Cleveland was President.
  • General Electric (GE) bought the rights to light-bulb production from Edison in 1890, but GE initially only made porcelain light bulbs. To light a tree, the family had to hire a “wireman” who cut lengths of rubber-coated wire, stripped the ends of the wires, fastened them to sockets with brass screws, fitted a larger socket to a power outlet or light fixture, and completed assembly of a string of lights. This was too expensive and impractical for the average family. This was a major PIA (Pain in the @%$) job!
  • In 1903, the Ever-Ready Company of New York recognized an opportunity and began manufacturing festoons of 28 lights. By 1907, Ever-Ready was making standard sets of eight series-wired lights; by connecting the sets or outfits, longer strings of lights could be made.
  • Ever-Ready did not have a patent on its series-wired strings of lights, and this basic wiring system was adapted by many other small companies. These sets were not always safe, and episodes of tree fires raised public alarm.
  • In 1921, Underwriters’ Laboratories (UL) established the first safety requirements for Christmas lights. A number of light manufacturers merged in 1927 to form the National Outfit Manufacturers Association (NOMA), which went on to dominate the Christmas light business, with GE and Westinghouse as the leading bulb makers. Also in 1927, GE introduced parallel wiring that permitted light bulbs to keep glowing when one on the string burned out.
  • Bulb shapes also evolved. In 1909, the Kremenetzky Electric Company of Vienna, Austria, began making miniature bulbs in the shapes of animals, birds, flowers, and fruit. Companies in the United States, Japan, and Germany also made figurative bulbs, but Kremenetzky consistently made the most beautiful glass that was hand-painted.
  • World War I ended the influx of Austrian lights. GE made machine-blown shapes beginning in 1919, and the Japanese light-bulb industry, then in its infancy, began filling the void left by the Austrians. The Japanese techniques continued to improve and were quite sophisticated by 1930, but this trade ended with World War II.
  • NOMA started to make tiny lampshades with Disney figures on them to fit over standard miniature bulbs in 1936. The most spectacular miniature bulb success was the bubble light. Carl Otis invented it in the late 1930s, but World War II also interrupted this development. Bubble lights were finally introduced in 1945, peaked in popularity in the mid-1950s, and declined by the mid 1960s. So-called midget lights, midget twinkle lights, or miniature Italian lights began arriving from Europe in the 1970s and became the best sellers of all time in the Christmas tree light business.
  • Today, holiday lights are made of three sets of materials. The strings are composed of 22-gauge copper wire that is coated in green or white polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. Specialized manufacturers supply the wire on spools that hold 10,000 ft of wire. Two plugs begin and end each set of lights, and they are made of injection-molded plastic. The lights are held in lamp holders that are also injection-molded plastic and contain copper metal contacts.
  • The second set of materials goes into the making of light bulbs. The bulbs are made of blown glass, metal filaments, metal contact wires, and plastic bases. Bulbs are made in clear glass to produce white light, or they are painted to shine in assorted colors.
  • Finally, the finished sets of lights require packing materials. These include a molded plastic tray, a folded cardboard display box, and shipping cartons that hold multiple sets of boxed lights. The shipping cartons are made of corrugated cardboard. Each set is also packed with adhesive-backed safety labels and paper instruction and information sheets. All of the paper goods are made by outside suppliers and are produced from recyclable materials.
  • The basic design for holiday lights consists of a tried-and-true string of green plastic-covered wires with clear or colored light bulbs. Design aspects include the number of lights on the string (in multiples of 25 with 25, 50, 100, or 125 bulbs) and whether the string contains only clear bulbs, bulbs of a single color, or assorted colors of lights.
  • Green wires were made originally to blend in with the green branches of evergreens, either as indoor Christmas trees or outdoor shrubs. The tiny lights are used for many other holidays and for garden displays, so strings with white wires are made for other decorating uses. Plastic covers for the lights are also designed with Christmas and childhood themes as well as an extraordinary range for party decorating from aquarium fish to chili peppers.
  • The newest designs to take the decorating market by storm are nets of lights that can be spread over shrubs to save time in decorating, and icicle lights that look like long white icicles hanging from house eaves. Fiber-optic lights also became available in the 1990s; they are basic strings of wire and light bulbs, but each bulb is the source of light that passes through clusters of fiber-optic wire held in plastic covers that clip onto the bulb. Usually, they resemble flowers or other designs that take advantage of the cluster-like display of optic wires.

The Manufacturing Process – watch video or read the steps HERE

 

 


 

Understanding Ho Ho Ho

How DOES he do it??

It used to be that people took it on faith that Santa Claus and his reindeer could fly. Long before we became the skeptics we are today, no one really cared how the big guy accomplished his seemingly impossible trek through the atmosphere every Christmas Eve.  We just believed.  But, alas, times have changed.  Now people want to know exactly how – or even if – Santa does it each year. And the only way to keep them happy is to demonstrate through reason, logic, and pure, hard science that maybe, just maybe, old St. Nick can actually get in the air with his sleigh and reindeer, zip around the globe and deliver his toys of joy.  So, I decided to look at what Santa purports to do each year, and realized he’s harnessed some basic rules of physics, aerodynamics, thermal dynamics (my favorite), a little reindeer biology. Let’s just say it’s a combination of air speed, lift, fairy dust and the magic Christmas spirit.  (the exact combination is a trade secret that Santa does not even share completely).

His Sleigh
It all starts with the sleigh.  While most contemporary artists draw Santa’s sleigh as the classic 19th century wooden carriage, that can’t be accurate. It just doesn’t fly, you might say.  In order to get airborne, I found out the sleigh is constructed of super-thin aluminum alloys (Santa calls it “elfluminum”) that cuts down on weight (and when Santa’s inside, reducing weight is very important).

Very important is the curved front end, that creates lift – putting more pressure under the sleigh than over the top.  To make sure the wind beneath his sleigh exerts more pressure than the wind above it, Santa has designed it much like the folks at the airlines – curved on top and flat on the bottom. That design increases the air speed above the wings, which is vital since, faster air speed results in lower air pressure and contributes to that much-desired lift.

It’s called Bernoulli’s Theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli%27s_principle, discovered by 16th century Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli. His observations of fluid dynamics are at the heart of flight lift.  But let’s just say someone else a little further to the north might have known about it centuries earlier.

With the properly designed sleigh underneath his jelly belly and bag of endless toys, Santa then has to generate enough speed to get the lift needed to take off. Airplanes do it with powerful engines. But engines, of course, are very loud and would wake the children of the world as Santa makes his rounds.  That’s where his reindeer come in.

The Reindeer
Reindeer are hearty enough to survive conditions at the North Pole but quiet enough so as not to disturb his young customers as the big guy flies over their homes and lands on their rooftops.  Normal reindeer can run fast – by animal standards, at least – about 35 mph. That’s a lot slower than the 150 mph threshold when most jumbo jets take off but, of course, the reindeer have something else helping them out – their antlers.  These appendages also create lift.  With the air rushing underneath those antlers at a higher pressure than the air above, the nine reindeer can generate lift of their own and get airborne at lower speeds than otherwise needed.

Once in the air, some other parts of the reindeer’s anatomy help Santa stay up without crashing or destroying all those toys. On the ground, the reindeer generate the force needed to move forward by stomping their extra-wide hooves as they run. Normally, that force only sticks around for as long as there is something – like the ground – to react to the force of the reindeer’s kicking.  But this is Christmas, so, once in the air, to help keep them airborne, some scientists observe “good for kicking and paddling through the air.”  Scientists also think that the reindeer’s hollow hair is something special – which helps insulate their bodies in winter time – and allows the wind to blow right through the animals’ fur without creating that dreaded drag or slowing Santa down.

The Delivery
Based on census data, there are about 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. But, since Santa doesn’t visit all the children, that reduces his workload to about 15% of the total – 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average census rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes – assuming of course there is at least “one” good child in each home.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth (he travels east to west which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Makes perfect sense to me.  Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, (not counting “necessary” stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours), plus feeding the reindeer.

This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. (For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second) but hey, he’s Santa.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets one small gift (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying about 321,300 tons, not counting the reindeer or Santa, who is invariably described as “overweight”. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds (we’d need 214,200 reindeer).  This is precisely why Santa sprinkles them with magic Santa dust.

Basic Science Proves it All
So, let’s see – over 300,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. A lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Now, of course normal reindeer could not withstand this amount of heat (the entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second) – that’s why Santa put Rudolf and his shiny red nose at the lead. (Duh!)

And, if Santa didn’t have his special red suit that Mrs. Claus made for him, he would be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. But of course, he’s protected by his magic suit, and the air barrier around him (second duh!)

According to Arnold Pompos, a really smart guy at Purdue University, Santa would have to travel a total of 160,000,000km – further than the distance from the Earth to the Sun –  at a speed of 4,705,882km/h, far slower than the speed of light, but still fast enough that the air resistance would likely to vaporize Santa, along with all the children’s gifts… if he wasn’t riding a magic sleigh of course – (third duh!)

All in all, I still enjoy the love and joy and magic of Santa and his reindeer – on behalf of all the KHT Elves, loving every minute of your PIA (Pain in the @%$) Jobs, Merry Christmas to All and to all a good “flight”

To track Santa, go to www.noradsanta.org .