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!!

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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!!

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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!!

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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).

 

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

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!!

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

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

 

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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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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!!

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

CHEEEEEESE.

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Cheese starts with Cow or goat milk mostly. Although other animals get into the act, too. (read on to find out what animals) But it’s just fun and nutritious to eat cheese. Spread it, cut bites, throw a couple of slices on a sandwich. The uses are many. And it’s all enjoyable. People are so passionate about cheese that an industry of clothing, costumes and jewelry has grown around the stuff. Me? I’ll eat it any way I can get it. See that picture near the bottom? That’s my head. I had the x-ray just before lunch last week and if you look really carefully, you’ll see what I was thinking. The picture at the bottom is what I had for lunch that day.  :))))

 

Cheese.  And my love of food.  A partnership of devotion and enjoyment.  Last weekend, while grilling one of my perfect hamburgers, (see prior KHT Blog) I ran into the house to grab some cheese to put on top of my seared beauties.  I paused with the refrigerator door open, trying to satisfy my tastebuds – let’s see, what to choose… American, cheddar, swiss, smokey, pepperjack, blue, mozzarella, Kraft Singles (how do they get those little babies into the plastic wrapper anyway?) or one of my childhood wonders of the world – Velveeta – yikes. (what’s really inside that silver foil block of gold anyway – and who doesn’t remember using Mom’s wire cheese cutter and slicing off a big hunk of gooey love).  Talk about a PIA (pain in the @%$) Job!  I picked sharp cheddar and must admit it was perfecto!  Of course, there are countless types of cheese, all of which with their own distinct textures and flavors. I’m learning that most good cheeses start out with the same star ingredient: milk.  Variations include cow, sheep, goat, buffalo (and yep – camel, yak, and even horse).  So, I decided to write a bit about cheese.  Today’s blog is the detail on how it’s made – future blogs will explore flavors and techniques from around the world – along with some yummy recipes.  Thanks to sclyderweaver.com for the step-by-step details, and YouTube and Cricketer Farm for the fun production videos (I’m still amazed how much handwork goes into some cheese production).  Enjoy, and be sure to make a “toasted” (or grilled) cheese sandwich this weekend. If you have a personal recipe, please share: skowalski@khtheat.com.

Fun Production Video
Great Cheese Guide
Cheese Joke: What’s a basketball player’s favorite cheese?  (Swish).

While all cheeses have milk in common, the type of milk can differ from cheese to cheese. Some common types of milk used in cheese making include:

  • Cow’s milk: Most cheeses are made with cow’s milk. This is due in part to the wide availability of cow’s milk and the fact that it offers optimal amounts of fat and protein. Some examples of cow’s milk cheeses include cheddar, swiss and gouda, among many others.
  • Sheep’s milk: Sheep’s milk isn’t commonly enjoyed as a beverage since it’s so high in lactose, but it makes an excellent base for cheese. Some popular types of sheep’s milk cheeses are feta, Roquefort, manchego and petit basque.
  • Goat’s milk: Goat’s milk is also used to make some delicious cheeses, with a distinctive tangy flavor. Goat’s milk cheese is known in French as chèvre. In addition to fresh chèvre, other examples of goat’s milk cheeses include Le Chevrot and French Bucheron.
  • Buffalo milk: Water buffalo milk is not a common cheese ingredient, but it has made a name for itself in the world of cheese making as the traditional choice for mozzarella. (most mass-produced mozzarella today is made with cow’s milk).
  • Bit Obscure:  Camel milk is common to make South Africa caracane cheese. Horse and yak.

– Milk doesn’t turn into delicious cheese on its own. Another important ingredient in cheese is a coagulant, which helps the milk turn into curds. The coagulant may be a type of acid or, more commonly, rennet. Rennet is an enzyme complex that is genetically engineered through microbial bioprocessing. Traditional rennet cheeses are actually made with rennin, the enzyme rennet is meant to replicate. Rennin, also known as chymosin, is an enzyme that is naturally produced in the stomachs of calves and other mammals to help them digest milk.

– Milk and coagulant are the main components of cheese, but cheese can also include sources of flavoring, such as salt, brine, herbs, spices and even wine. Some cheeses may be made with identical ingredients, but the end product will differ based on different aging processes.

– It’s a natural process that requires some help from artisans, known as fromagers or, simply, cheesemakers. Another term you may hear is a cheesemonger, but this technically refers to someone who sells cheese.

– The cheese-making process comes down to 10 essential steps:

STEP 1: PREPARING THE MILK
Since milk is the star of the show, to make cheese just right, you need your milk to be just right. “Just right” will differ from cheese to cheese, so many cheesemakers start by processing their milk however they need to in order to standardize it. This may involve manipulating the protein-to-fat ratio.  It also often involves pasteurization or a more mild heat treatment (we like this step!!) Heating the milk kills organisms that could cause the cheese to spoil and can also prime the milk for the starter cultures to grow more effectively. Once the milk has been heat treated or pasteurized, it is cooled to 90°F so it is ready for the starter cultures. If a cheese calls for raw milk, it will need to be heated to 90°F before adding the starter cultures.  See how all things require us heat treaters!!

STEP 2: ACIDIFYING THE MILK
The next step in the cheese-making process is adding starter cultures to acidify the milk. If you’ve ever tasted sour milk, then you know that left long enough, milk will acidify on its own. However, there is any number of bacteria that can grow and sour milk. Instead of letting milk sour on its own, the modern cheese-making process typically standardizes this step. Cheesemakers add starter and non-starter cultures to the milk that acidify it. The milk should already be 90°F at this point, and it must stay at this temperature for approximately 30 minutes while the milk ripens. During this ripening process, the milk’s pH level drops, and the flavor of the cheese begins to develop.

STEP 3: CURDLING THE MILK
The milk is still liquid milk at this point, so cheesemakers need to start manipulating the texture. The process of curdling the milk can also happen naturally. In fact, some nursing animals, such as calves, piglets or kittens, produce the rennin enzyme in their stomachs to help them digest their mother’s milk. Cheesemakers cause the same process to take place in a controlled way. In the past, natural rennin was typically the enzyme of choice for curdling the milk, but cheesemakers today usually use rennet, the lab-created equivalent. This reaction allows the milk to form coagulated lumps, known as curds. As the solid curd forms, a liquid byproduct remains, known as whey.

STEP 4: CUTTING THE CURD
The curds and whey mixture is allowed to separate and ferment until the pH reaches 6.4. At this point, the curd should form a large coagulated mass in the cheese-making vat. Then, cheesemakers use long curd knives that can reach the bottom of the vat to cut through the curds. Cutting the curd creates more surface area on the curd, which allows the curds and why to separate even more. Cheesemakers usually make crisscrossing cuts vertically, horizontally and diagonally to break up the curd. The size of the curds after cutting can influence the cheese’s level of moisture – larger chunks of curd retain more moisture, leading to a moisture cheese, and smaller pieces of curd can lead to a drier cheese.

STEP 5: PROCESSING THE CURD
After being cut, the curd continues to be processed. This might involve cooking the curds, stirring the curds or both. All of this processing is still aimed at the same goal of separating the curds and whey. In other words, the curds continue to acidify and release moisture as they are processed. The more the curds are cooked and stirred, the drier the cheese will be. Another way curd can be processed at this stage is through washing. Washing the curd means replacing whey with water. This affects the flavor and texture of the cheese. Washed curd cheeses tend to be more elastic and have a nice, mild flavor. Some examples of washed curd cheeses are gouda, havarti and Swedish fontina.

STEP 6:  DRAINING THE WHEY
At this point, the curds and whey should be sufficiently separated, so it’s time to remove the whey completely. This means draining the whey from the vat, leaving only the solid chunks of curd. These chunks could be big or small, depending on how finely the curd has been cut. With all the whey drained, the curd should now look like a big mat.  There are different means of draining whey. In some cases, cheesemakers allow it to drain off naturally. However, especially when it comes to harder cheeses that require a lower moisture content, cheesemakers are likely to get help from a mold or press. Putting pressure on the curd compacts and forces more whey out.

STEP 7: CHEDDARING THE CHEESE
With the whey drained, the curd should form a large slab. For some cheeses, another step remains to remove even more moisture from the curd. This step is known as cheddaring. After cutting the mat of curd into sections, the cheesemaker will stack the individual slabs of curd. Stacking the slabs puts pressure on them, forcing out more moisture. Periodically, the cheesemaker will repeat the process, cutting up the slabs of curd again and restacking them. The longer this process goes on, the more whey is removed from the curd, resulting in a denser, more crumbly finished cheese texture. Fermentation also continues during the cheddaring process. Eventually, the curd should reach a pH of 5.1 to 5.5. When it’s ready, the cheesemaker will mill the curd slabs, producing smaller pieces.

STEP 8: SALTING THE CHEESE
The curd is now beginning to look more like cheese in its final form. To add flavor, cheese makers can salt or brine the cheese at this point. This can either involve sprinkling on dry salt or submerging the cheese into brine. An example of a cheese that gets soaked in brine is mozzarella. Drier cheeses will be dry salted.  Some cheeses have flavor added in other forms as well. Some examples of spices that find their way into some types of cheese are black pepper, horseradish, garlic, paprika, habanero and cloves. Cheese can also contain herbs, such as dill, basil, chives or rosemary. The options for flavoring cheeses are endless. For many cheeses, though, the focus is simply on developing the natural flavors of the cheese and adding salt to intensify those flavors.

STEP 9: SHAPING THE CHEESE
There are no more ingredients to add to the cheese at this point, so it’s ready to be shaped. This is where the final product really begins to reveal itself. Even with so much moisture removed from the curd, it is still malleable and soft. Therefore, cheesemakers are able to press the curd into molds to create standardized shapes. Molds can take the form of baskets or hoops. Baskets are molds that are only open on one end, and hoops are bottomless molds, meaning they only wrap around the sides of the curd. In either case, the milled curd mixture is pressed into the mold and left there for a certain amount of time to solidify into the right shape. These molds are usually round or rectangular.

STEP 10: AGING THE CHEESE
For some cheeses, the process is already finished, but for many cheeses, what’s known as aging remains. Aging should occur in a controlled, cool environment. As the cheese ages, molecular changes take place that cause the cheese to harden and the flavor to intensify. The aging process can take anywhere from a few days to many years. In some cases, mold develops, which adds unique color and flavor to the cheese. Once the cheese has finished aging, it is finally ready to be enjoyed by consumers. Cheeses can be sold in whole weels or blocks or by the wedge. When you know how much time, effort and care went into making your favorite cheese, it’s likely to taste even more delicious.

WHAT ABOUT “FRESH” CHEESE?
Fresh cheeses tend to be smooth, creamy and mild in flavor. There is one main difference that separates fresh cheese like feta, ricotta or fresh mozzarella, from other cheeses — they are not aged. Fresh cheeses must still go through the bulk of the steps we outlined above to varying degrees. If all you did was drain some of the whey off after initially forming curds and whey, you would have cottage cheese. For other fresh cheeses, you must continue to strain the curds to remove more moisture and pack the cheese into a shape. Making fresh cheese is a simpler process, so some home cooks attempt this type of cheese making in their own kitchens.

HOW IS CHEESE AGED?
Aging cheese doesn’t just mean leaving it lying around for a while. It is a carefully controlled and timed process, and even subtle changes can affect the texture and taste of the finished cheese. In general, cheeses are aged in cool environments with relatively high humidity levels. Another term for aging when it comes to cheese is ripening. There are two basic types of ripening that can take place:

  • Interior-ripened cheeses are coated with an artificial rind of wax or some other material to protect the surface. This causes the aging process to occur from the inside out. Two common examples of interior-ripened cheese are cheddar and swiss.
  • Surface-ripened cheeses are not sealed off on the outside, so a natural rind develops with the help of bacteria being introduced. This process causes the cheese to age from the outside in. Brie and Muenster are two examples of surface-ripened cheese.

Beyond these basic distinctions, it’s helpful to understand the process that goes into aging specific categories of aged cheese, including red mold (also known as washed rind) cheese, white mold (or bloomy rind) cheese and blue cheese.

RED MOLD CHEESE
As the name suggests, red mold cheeses are covered in a reddish rind. Some popular types of red mold cheeses include French Morbier, Reblochon and Taleggio. Red mold cheeses are also often called washed rind cheeses, which hints at how they are aged. These cheeses are stored in a very humid environment and are washed frequently in some type of liquid, such as wine or a salty brine, for example. The thinner the cheese, the more the liquid will permeate and soften the cheese.

WHITE MOLD CHEESE
Cheesemakers spray or rub a white penicillin mold onto aging cheeses to create white mold cheeses, also known as bloomy rind cheeses. When these cheeses are done aging, they are covered in a fuzzy white mold. This process results in a soft cheese that is creamy and pasty in texture. The most popular type of white mold cheese is brie, which is loved for its silky smoothness and mild flavor. Some other examples include French Normandy Camembert, Le Chevrot and St. Marcellin.

BLUE CHEESE
Some aged cheese doesn’t just have mold on the rind but throughout the inside of the cheese, as well. Blue cheeses, like the ever-popular French Roquefort, creamy gorgonzola or English blue stilton contain streaks of blue or green mold and have a characteristically sharp flavor. First, mold spores are added to the cheese at some point during the cheese-making process. Then, during the aging process, cheesemakers encourage the mold to grow and spread throughout the cheese by poking air tunnels into it.

 

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

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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Let Freedom Ring

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Enjoy this Independence Day Weekend!
Stay safe and remember…Don’t Burn the Burgers!!!!

God Bless this amazing country we live in!

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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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75 Years Ago – Nice Call!

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The car phone has come a long way, baby. From 80 pounds of equipment in the trunk to devices weighing ounces that are also great cameras, gaming platforms, email apps, and soooooo much more!!! Next you’ll be able to wear them and even see with them. Wow!!!!

Driving home, my phone rang through the car sound system.  It was a call from Jackie asking me to stop and pick up some groceries we needed for dinner.  Not taking my hands off the wheel, I was able to answer the call, talk with her, get the info and say goodbye.  Think about it.  A cell phone built into my car. People now take this type of technology for granted, but not so long ago it was firmly in the realm of science fiction. The transition from fantasy to reality was far from the flip of a switch. The amount of time, money, talent and effort required to solve PIA (Pain In The @#$) Jobs! goes far beyond any one product development cycle. Technology development really occurs on a timescale of decades. While the last steps of technological development capture headlines, it takes thousands of scientists and engineers working for decades on myriad technologies to get things to work correctly.  Here’s some history on the invention of car phones.  Thanks Smithsonian and Nevada Inventors for the info.

Here’s a classic from ELO to enjoy while reading.

  •  The first mobile phone service, for 80-pound telephones installed in cars, was demonstrated on June 17, 1946, that’s 75 years ago! The service was only available in major cities and highway corridors and was aimed at companies rather than individuals.
  •  The inventor of the car phone is Bell System Operating Companies, in 1946, an outcome of Bell Laboratories. Most of the equipment converted for the use of car phones were being experimented on, even before the second world war. Western Electric Type 28 VHF equipment radio equipment was used alongside Bell System equipment internally at that time.
  • The equipment filled much of a car’s trunk, and subscribers made calls by picking up the handset and speaking to a switchboard operator. The earliest car phone services were connected to Public Switched Telephone Network. At that time, the American population’s mobility grew drastically; it was the postwar years—designs of phones committed into the hands of Western Electric Corporation.
  • Western Electric Corporation was the major supplier of the phone sets to Bell System. Bell Laboratories built the phones’ overall system; they were responsible for setting specifications for the equipment.
  • During this period, independent Telephone Companies were building their design and were supplied by Automatic Electric. Western Electric Type 38 and Type 39 VHF FM police radio equipment combined with Bell System equipment made a stylish telephone with a selective calling decoder.
  • The decoder was designed to ring a bell in the automobile if any caller signaled the phone’s number. The decoder was enclosed in glass as a small wheel, having pins on some parts of its circumference.  The decoders were originally built for signaling right-to-way for the railway.  At some point, they were used in ships during radio installations in the 30s. The decoder development was a proven concept. It was named 102.
  • The result of the successful testing of the equipment led AT&T to announce the creation of the General Mobile Radiotelephone Service in June 1945. With the authorization of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), they established base stations.  Cities, where based stations were first established, were Chicago, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, Washington DC, Houston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Denver, Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, and St. Louis.
  • When the car phone was becoming a useful invention across the USA, Bell System and FCC concluded two forms of telephone service known as HIGHWAY and URBAN. Both services were VHF and used FM.
  • A major impetus for developing mobile wireless technologies was the need during World War II for troops to communicate on the move in the field. The SRC-536 Handie-Talkie was developed by the predecessor to Motorola Corporation and used by the U.S. Army in the war. The Handie-Talkie was a two-way radio that was small enough to be held in one hand and resembled a telephone. Motorola went on to become one of the major manufacturers of cell phones.
  • The story of military investment in technology becoming game-changing commercial products and services has been repeated again and again. Famously, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) developed the technologies behind the internet and speech recognition. They also made enabling investments in advanced communications algorithms, processor technology, electronics miniaturization and many other aspects of your phone.
  • The highway service was made to serve the major routes of land and water across the USA at that time, for barges on waterways and trucks on the highway with private vehicles’ exemption. Twelve channels were allocated to highway service with low band VHF. Their mobile equipment received 35 Megacycle and was transmitting on 43 Megacycle frequencies.
  • Urban service was serving subscribers who travel within the radius of an urban center. The service was available to workers in a major city, including doctors, ambulances, delivery trucks, news reporters, and other workers who met the requirements. Urban services operated on six channels initially, receiving on VHF 152 Megacycle and transmitting on 158 Megacycles. The need for separation in receiving and transmitting channels was so that a half-duplex communications circuit could be provided. It allowed the base stations to stay on air when a call is on.
  • The urban system first went on air in St Louis in June 1946, while the highway system first went on air in Wisconsin in August 1946.  Two years after the service was made available, urban service was accessible in 60 cities in the USA and Canada. They had 4000 subscribers at that time, and up to 12,000 calls were handled smoothly every month.
  • Highway service was accessible across 85 cities, having 1900 subscribers, and up to 36,000 calls were handled every month. The service was mostly covering the Midwest and the east side.
  • Bell System later went into business with the police department, renting them equipment for the police radio market. The rental service included maintaining and updating the equipment. Urban service was made available for smaller police departments.
  • Car Phones have improved as well, and its development has led to the invention of mobile phones – first known as cellphones, and their service was limited due to power consumption and signal quality between “cell towers”. The first mobile phone services used small numbers of large radio towers, known as cellular base stations, which meant that all the subscribers in a big city shared one central base station. This was not a recipe for universal mobile phone service.
  • The first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated in 1973, nearly three decades after the introduction of the first mobile phone service. It was nearly three decades after that before half the U.S. population had a mobile phone. Today the technology has advanced so significantly that I can be typing and sending this post from my phone!
  • Whether we need to check the weather forecast, instantly message networks of family, friends and followers on social media, consult a variety of apps to help us with our business, or just entertain ourselves with our favorite games, music or videos, it’s fair to say that we all rely on our smartphones to come to our aid at the swipe of a touchscreen. So, will the future of smart phones be different?  Here’s some predictions:
  1. Consumer demand dictates the speed of change. Future cell phone technology will have to reflect and keep up with an increasingly Internet-dependent world, as well as cope with shifting work trends. As such, faster wireless connectivity will be an absolute must.
  2. Videoconferencing, digital collaboration, and telecommuting have become central to our everyday working life, bringing with them a vital need for reliable connectivity and greater bandwidth. The future of smart phones revolves around being able to easily sync home and office experiences, instantly stream video content and unlock the potential of future smart technologies as the Internet of Things dictates.
  3.  Flexible, stretchable display screens are likely to play a role in the future of cell phone technology. While consumers love larger screens, tablets are bulky, and for the sake of convenience, mobile phones need to fit into pockets. Foldable phones may to some extent fulfil this need.
  4. Mobile phone companies have hinted at a wearable future of smartphones – perhaps wrapped around the wrist, or transformed into a GPS-enabled belt clip, or as a pair of glasses (rumors have been increasingly circulating about the release of the Apple Glass, which may or may not fare better than the Google Glass, which ultimately failed a few years ago). Devices, indeed, could soon be totally reshaped according to individual needs. However, whilst the concept of flexible phones has been demonstrated at trade shows and exhibitions, manufacturers have been slow to bring wearable phones to market
  5. Increased uptake of mobile apps related to banking, retail and general commercial functions suggests that the future for cell phone technology lies in a greater adoption of mobile payment technologies, which effectively transform smartphones into credit card and contactless payment devices.
  6. It can be argued that traditional smartphone design has reached its limit – hence the emergence of foldable phones and expandable screens. The long-term future of cellular and mobile technology may well be wearable, but shorter-term, the future of smart phones will be increasingly intertwined with the Internet of Things, 5G-enabled, and supporting ever-more sophisticated apps to handle more and more of our payments and finances.
  7. All of this mobile technology will find its way into your automobile. Likely touchscreen and handsfree.  It’s gonna be something.

 

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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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Father’s Day

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I’m so lucky to call you my Dad,
You’re the best anyone ever had,
To call you my own is a true honor,
There really could never be a better father!

Happy Father’s Day!