Now That’s Ugly! Congratulations.

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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!!

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“Run, run, fast as you can”

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Gingerbread. Cookies and cakes and houses, oh my!! Smells like food to me!!!

Ah, the aroma of fresh cookies baking in the oven. Nothing quite like it.  And simply nothing like the smell of gingerbread cookies.  The crunch. That spicy taste.  Molasses, brown sugar and honey – oh my! Dipping in coffee or milk to soften things up, and then boom, into my mouth for a holiday treat.  Jackie and the girls are so flipping good at baking – if I didn’t keep up with my workout routines I’d be as big as Santa. One problem is that my ladies very seldom let me assist in the decorating…. still not sure why after all these years!  I personally think that my decorating skills would certainly fall into the performance art category!  I went searching for info for you to get a better handle on the Gingerbread history and traditions and a few fun recipes to try.  Thanks to PBS, fillyourplate.org and befrugal.com for the tid bits.

  • No confection symbolizes the holidays quite like gingerbread in its many forms, from edible houses to candy-studded gingerbread men to spiced loaves of cake-like bread. In Medieval England, the term gingerbread simply meant preserved ginger and wasn’t applied to the desserts we are familiar with until the 15th century. The term is now broadly used to describe any type of sweet treat that combines ginger with honey, treacle or molasses.
  • Ginger root was first cultivated in ancient China, where it was commonly used as a medical treatment. From there it spread to Europe via the Silk Road. During the Middle Ages it was favored as a spice for its ability to disguise the taste of preserved meats. Henry VIII is said to have used a ginger concoction in hopes of building a resistance to the plague. Even today we use ginger as an effective remedy for nausea and other stomach ailments. In Sanskrit, the root was known as srigavera, which translates to “root shaped like a horn”, a fitting name for ginger’s unusual appearance. Health Benefits

Ginger root.

  • The word “gingerbread’ derives from the Old French word “gingebras”, meaning “preserved ginger”.
  • According to Rhonda Massingham Hart’s Making Gingerbread Houses, the first known recipe for gingerbread came from Greece in 2400 BC. Chinese recipes were developed during the 10th century and by the late Middle Ages, Europeans had their own version of gingerbread. The hard cookies, sometimes gilded with gold leaf and shaped like animals, kings and queens, were a staple at Medieval fairs in England, France, Holland and Germany.
  • Queen Elizabeth I is credited with the idea of decorating the cookies in this fashion, after she had some made to resemble the dignitaries visiting her court. Over time some of these festivals came to be known as Gingerbread Fairs, and the gingerbread cookies served there were known as ‘fairings.’ The shapes of the gingerbread changed with the season, including flowers in the spring and birds in the fall. Elaborately decorated gingerbread became synonymous with all things fancy and elegant in England. The gold leaf that was often used to decorate gingerbread cookies led to the popular expression “to take the gilt off of gingerbread”. The carved, white architectural details found on many colonial American seaside homes is sometimes referred to as “gingerbread work”.
  • Gingerbread houses originated in Germany during the 16th century. The elaborate cookie-walled houses, decorated with foil in addition to gold leaf, became associated with Christmas tradition. Their popularity rose when the Brothers Grimm wrote the story of Hansel and Gretel, in which the main characters stumble upon a house made entirely of treats deep in the forest. It is unclear whether or not gingerbread houses were a result of the popular fairy tale, or vice versa.
  • Shakespeare appreciated the value of gingerbread, with a quote from his play, Love’s Labour’s Lost, saying: “An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread.” 
  • Gingerbread arrived in the New World with English colonists. The cookies were sometimes used to sway Virginia voters to favor one candidate over another.
  • Gingerbread was considered the ultimate (edible) token of luck and love. Before a tournament, ladies would gift their favorite knights a piece of gingerbread for good luck.
  • Folk medicine practitioners would create gingerbread men for young women to help them capture the man of their dreams. If she could get him to eat it, then it was believed he would fall madly in love with her.  For those wanting to cut the maneating part out altogether, ladies could simply eat a gingerbread husband themselves to help them snag the real thing.
  • According to Swedish tradition, you should place the gingerbread in the palm of one hand, make a wish and then break the gingerbread with your other hand. If it breaks into three pieces, your wish will come true.
  • Some of the earliest forms of gingerbread didn’t even contain ginger and were not necessarily bread – they were essentially honey cakes.
  • Over time, the popularity and availability of spices would vary gingerbread recipes. However, the use of butter and cream in 18th century recipes transformed gingerbread to the way it is today.
  • Recently the record for world’s largest gingerbread house was broken. The previous record was set by the Mall of America in 2006. The new winning gingerbread house, spanning nearly 40,000 cubic feet, was erected at Traditions Golf Club in Bryan, Texas. The house required a building permit and was built much like a traditional house. 4,000 gingerbread bricks were used during its construction. To put that in perspective, a recipe for a house this size would include 1,800 pounds of butter and 1,080 ounces of ground ginger. For those of you interested, the house is estimated a mere 35,823,400 calories. Facebook page
  • Years ago you could actually dine inside a gingerbread house.  At the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain in Tucson, Arizona, they made a life-size gingerbread house where you could book for a private lunch or dinner during the holiday season. A dinner cost around $300 and guests could say they had a meal inside a structure made with 850 pounds of sugar! Images   2020 Ritz Carton Holiday Events

Some fun recipes:
Easy Gingerbread Cookies Recipe
Using butterscotch pudding mix, these cookies are easy to make with kids and fun to decorate from Seattle local station KCTS9!
Whole Grain Gingerbread Pancakes recipe
Make these gingerbread pancakes during the Christmas season or anytime for a breakfast that tastes like dessert from the PBS Food Fresh Tastes blog.
Building and Decorating a Gingerbread House
In this segment from “Craft in America,” Grove Park Inn pastry chefs Robert Alger & Iain Jones build and decorate a gingerbread house based on the President’s Cottage at Grove Park Inn.
Mini Graham Gingerbread Houses
Keep the holiday spirit going by making these cute Graham cracker gingerbread houses with your child from the PBS Parents Kitchen Explorers blog.

 

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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!!

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

 

A Unique Year for a Special Parade

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The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Floats and balloons and fun, oh, my!!!

I hope you enjoyed your augmented Thanksgiving yesterday with loved ones and also had a chance to see some of the parade.  As a kid, my brothers and sisters always found time to turn on the Macy’s parade and to see the balloons, bands, movie stars and of course Santa.  Mom used to say that Santa is now watching us until Christmas Day, so we have to be extra good.  My favorite of course was the giant balloons. We used to laugh at the people singing as you could tell they were just mouthing along with the words.  I was always amazed at how the folks didn’t just blow away while trying to hold onto the balloons. I had the opportunity after Jackie and I were married to march in a parade as a huge balloon “holder person” in Toledo.  I have to say there is definitely a system involved especially when there is a walkway over the street that the balloon has to get under!  My girls have grown up watching parts of the parade in between family football games and getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner.  I did some digging and found cool information about the parade and its origins.  Relax and enjoy your extended weekend. Special thanks to Wikipedia for the info.

  • The annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, the world’s largest parade, is presented by the U.S. based department store chain Macy’s. The parade started on November 27, 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States with America’s Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit (with both parades being four years younger than Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day Parade). The three-hour parade is held in Manhattan, ending outside Macy’s Herald Square, and takes place from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EST on Thanksgiving Day.
  • In 1924, store employees marched to Macy’s Herald Square, the flagship store on 34th Street, dressed in vibrant costumes. There were floats, professional bands and live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. At the end of that first parade, Santa Claus was welcomed into Herald Square and was enthroned on the Macy’s balcony at the 34th Street store entrance, where he was then crowned “King of the Kiddies”. With an audience of over 250,000 people, the parade was such a success that Macy’s declared it would become an annual event, despite media reports only barely covering the first parade.
  • The Macy’s parade was enough of a success to push Ragamuffin Day, the typical children’s Thanksgiving Day activity from 1870 into the 1920s, into obscurity. Ragamuffin Day featured children going around and performing a primitive version of trick-or-treating, a practice that by the 1920s had come to annoy most adults. The public backlash against such begging in the 1930s, at a time when most Americans were themselves struggling in the midst of the Great Depression, led to promotion of alternatives, including Macy’s parade.
  • Anthony “Tony” Frederick Sarg loved to work with marionettes from an early age. After moving to London to start his own marionette business, Sarg moved to New York City to perform with his puppets on the street. Macy’s heard about Sarg’s talents and asked him to design a window display of a parade for the store.

  • The balloons were introduced in 1928, replacing live zoo animals.  Sarg’s large animal-shaped balloons were produced by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio. That year there was no procedure to deflate the balloons so they were simply released. In 1928 five of the larger balloons were designed and filled with helium to rise above 2,000 feet and slowly deflate for whomever was lucky enough to capture the contestants in Macy’s “balloon race” and return them for a reward of $100 (equivalent to more than $1,500 with inflation as of 2020) – this lasted until 1932.
  • Through the 1930s, the Parade continued to grow, with crowds of over one million people lining the parade route in 1933. The first Mickey Mouse balloon entered the parade in 1934. The annual festivities were broadcast on local radio stations in New York City from 1932 to 1941, and resumed in 1945, running through 1951.
  • The parade was suspended from 1942 to 1944 as a result of World War II, because rubber and helium were needed for the war effort.  The parade resumed in 1945, and became known nationwide shortly afterward, having been prominently featured in the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street, which included footage of the 1946 festivities. The event was first broadcast on network television in 1948
  • The balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade have had several varieties. The oldest is the novelty balloon class, consisting of smaller balloons ranging widely in size and handled by between one and thirty people (the smallest balloons are shaped like human heads and fit on the heads of the handlers). The larger and more popular class is the character balloons, primarily consisting of licensed pop-culture characters; each of these is handled by exactly 90 people. From 2005 to 2012, a third balloon class, the “Blue Sky Gallery”, transformed the works of contemporary artists into full-size balloons; after a five-year hiatus, the Blue Sky Gallery returned in 2018.
  • In addition to the well-known balloons and floats, the Parade also features live music and other performances. College and high school marching bands from across the country participate in the parade, and the television broadcasts feature performances by established and up-and-coming singers and bands. The Rockettes of Radio City Music Hall are a classic performance as well, having performed annually since 1957, as the last pre-parade act to perform and their performance was followed by a commercial break, as are cheerleaders and dancers chosen by the National Cheerleaders Association from various high schools across the country. The parade concludes with the arrival of Santa Claus to ring in the Christmas and holiday season
  • On the NBC telecast the marching bands perform live music. Most “live” performances by musicals and individual artists lip sync to the studio, soundtrack or cast recordings of their songs.  Although rare, recent parade broadcasts have featured at least one live performance with no use of recorded vocals.  Cast members from a number of Broadway shows perform either in the parade, or immediately preceding the parade in front of Macy’s and before The Rockettes’ performance
  • For the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in 2011, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade invited family members from Tuesday’s Children, a family service organization that has made a long-term commitment to those directly impacted by the attacks and terrorism around the world, to cut the ribbon at the start of the parade.
  • More than 44 million people typically watch the parade on television on an annual basis. It was first televised locally in New York City in 1939 as an experimental broadcast on NBC’s W2XBS (forerunner of today’s WNBC).  The parade began its network television appearances on CBS in 1948, the year that major, regular television network programming began.  NBC has been the official broadcaster of the event since 1953, though CBS (which has a studio in Times Square) also carries unauthorized coverage under the title The Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS
  • Since 2003, the parade has been broadcast simultaneously in Spanish on the sister network of NBCUniversal (Telemundo) hosted by María Celeste Arrarás from 2003-2006. The parade won nine Emmy Awards for outstanding achievements in special event coverage since 1979.
  • Other American cities also have parades held on Thanksgiving, none of which are run by Macy’s. The nation’s oldest Thanksgiving parade (the Gimbels parade, which has had many sponsors over the years, and is now known as the 6abc Dunkin’ Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade) was first held in Philadelphia in 1920. Other cities with parades on the holiday include the McDonald’s Thanksgiving Parade in Chicago, Illinois and parades in Plymouth, Massachusetts; Seattle, Washington; Houston, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; and Fountain Hills, Arizona.
  • The 2018 parade was the coldest to date with the temperature at 19 °F.  The warmest was in 1933 at 69 °F. The 2006 parade was the wettest with 1.72″ (49 mm) of rain.
  • In August 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, Macy’s stated that it planned to change the format of the parade in accordance with New York health orders. The parade is being produced as a “television-only special presentation” over a two-day period, with 75% fewer participants and social distancing enforced. The event will not include college and high school marching bands nor any participant under 18 years of age. Balloons will be tethered to a “specially rigged anchor vehicle framework of five specialty vehicles” rather than carried by handlers, and the full parade route will not be used — with all activity limited to the Herald Square area.

 

 

 

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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!!

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

 

Just in time.

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It’s been a long week, take some time, read on.

Time. It just keeps ticking along. Over the weekend I was watching a couple of great NFL football games and was all caught up with the time clock.  Last-minute heroics seem to be just part of the game these days. Managing the clock.  Running the clock down.  Taking a knee to end the game.  It’s action-packed and keeps us on the edge of our seats.  It got me to thinking about my awesome team at KHT, and how we manage our time.  We estimate time for jobs, track delivery times and processing times, making sure your PIA (Pain in the @%$) Jobs! come out just right – time after time. Time is so important to how we live too – we do things at a specific time, “later on”, “suddenly”, “after a while”, or even “at the same time”.  We use a timer to cook, the alarm to wake us up, and our stopwatch to end an event or finish a run.  When a dear friend calls, we “make time” or disappoint them that we’re “out of time”.  Today marks a special anniversary of Willard Bundy, the inventor of the time clock – way back in 1888.  So, take a few minutes to “punch in”, gather up some trivia, and share with your co-workers during your next zoom chat before you (punch) log out.  Thanks to ontheclock.com, Wikipedia, and YouTube for the info and amazing music videos.  Enjoy!

If you “have time”, here are some fun songs to play while reading our post – and it’s ok to sing out loud – cause they are awesome!
The Doors – Love Me Two Times
Pink Floyd – Time
The Zombies – Time of the Season
Cindy Lauper – Time After Time
Chicago – Does Anybody Know What Time It Is?
Jim Croche – Time In A Bottle

  • The sundial represents the first relatively accurate method of tracking the time of day.  The earliest sundials can be traced back to 1500 BC from ancient Babylonian and Egyptian astronomy.  Before humans could track time, workers were most likely paid by the day.
  • In Roman times, soldiers were paid a “salarium” or payment to buy salt, which was used as currency and was considered essential for living in the time. Along with the word salary (so that’s where it came from), many experts believe these roman origins are where the phrase “worth his salt,” comes from. (now you know!)
  • From Ancient Rome through the Second Industrial Revolution in 1930, the term salary referred to payment for services. In this case, a salary could mean a flat fee for work or hourly compensation. It wasn’t until the 1800s that employers started differentiating between flat pay and an hourly rate for work.
  • In the late 1800’s, while unions were protesting and lawmakers were debating working conditions, one man in New York was tinkering away in his jewelry shop. Willard Legrand Bundy, born and raised in Cayuga County, New York, opened a jewelry store and used his trade to develop multiple inventions, many of which are still used today. Bundy holds patents for multiple cash registers and calculating machines, but he is known for inventing the employee time clock. The patent for his time recorder was approved on November 20, 1888 and Bundy started a business manufacturing machines that would record when employees would clock in and clock out of work.  A year later his brother, Harlow Bundy, organized the Bundy Manufacturing Company, and began mass-producing time clocks. (I love when families work together!!)
  • In 1889, the Bundy Manufacturing Recording Company opened in Binghamton with eight employees and $150,000 in capital. By 1898, the company expanded to 140 skilled workers and had sold more than 9,000 Bundy Time Recorders. These machines were sold as a solution for “vexatious questions of recording employee time.”
  • In the following years, as the time clock became commonplace in the American workplace, the Bundy Manufacturing Company merged with various other companies. It eventually became the International Time Recorder Company (ITR). In 1911, this business was incorporated in New York State as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, which was the forerunner of IBM (International Business Machines Corporation)… (now you know!)
  • As manual punch clocks grew more common in the American workplace and across the world, not much changed throughout the mid-1900s. However, a few circles started to buzz about special calculating machines called computers and how they could revolutionize our society.
  • When computers started showing up in every home and business, the market expanded from a few select companies to millions of people across America. The software industry changed dramatically to the creation of tools sold for small amounts to large audiences, a model most SaaS companies still follow today.  As the market for software evolved, developers created time clock tools that companies could buy and install on their computers, moving employee time tracking out of history and into its digital form.
  • One man, in particular, created an invention which many small businesses use today to balance their books and employee time sheets. Richard Mattessich is credited as the pioneer of the electronic spreadsheet, which allowed other develops to create some of the first mainstream accounting tools.
  • In 1978, Harvard Business School students Daniel Bricklin and Bob Frankston developed an interactive visible calculator called VisiCalc that could be used on personal computers. This way, anyone who had this computer and this program about track data and manipulate it for their accounting and analytical needs.  While paper spreadsheets have been around for centuries, the digital option made it easy for accountants to enter data and have it calculated automatically.
  • In 1991, computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee debuted the World Wide Web. This “web of information,” was meant to do more than send files. It was supposed to provide information to people and connect data from all over the world.
  • Over the next decade, the Internet would continue to grow. Dial-up modems became the background noise of homes, more companies would start using computer technology, and people started to share information by a communication tool called “e-mail.”  With these changes in technology, employee time tracking evolved, too. Microchips and employee identification cards meant team members could swipe in instead of physically placing a punch card into a machine. In some companies, employees could even clock in via computer.
  • The invention of the internet meant that employees could clock in online from their own devices instead of downloading software or using hardware in the employee break room. As long as team members had access to the web, they could clock in or out.  This is all so convenient today with our current “at home” workforces.
  • This opened the door for remote workers to check in wherever they are — whether they are working from home or calling in from a villa in Aspen. In 2018 about 70 percent of workers reported working remotely at least one day per week – (today that’s likely about 99%).
  • Modern technology continues to change how we work, but a few things remain the same – such as employee time tracking as long as people get paid by the hour. Employee time tracking is certainly transitioning, especially as more employers embrace BYOD (bring your own device) culture and mobile time management, but the core of the employee time clock will remain the same.
  • With the mass market proliferation of mobile devices (smart phones, handheld devices), new types of self-calculating time tracking systems have been invented which allow a mobile workforce – such as painting companies, truckers and construction companies – to track employees ‘on’ and ‘off’ hours. This is generally accomplished through either a mobile application, or an IVR based phone call in system. Using a mobile device allows enterprises to better validate that their employees or suppliers are physically ‘clocking in’ at a specific location using the GPS functionality of a mobile phone for extra validation.
  • Biometric time clocks are a feature of more advanced time and attendance systems. Rather than using a key, code or chip to identify the user, they rely on a unique attribute of the user, such as a handprint, fingerprint, finger vein, palm vein, facial recognition, iris or retina. The user will have their attribute scanned into the system. Biometric readers are often used in conjunction with an access control system, granting the user access to a building, and at the same time clocking them in recording the time and date. These systems also attempt to cut down on “buddy clocking” or ghost employees’, where additional identities are added to payroll but don’t exist.
  • Wonder what the future holds … I guess time will tell. (sorry, I had too…)

 

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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!!

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

And a One, And a Two…

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There is nothing we do that doesn’t require counting somehow. You can count on that. And you can count on me to brighten your Friday afternoons. Relax, and count your blessings.  :))

What a week.  With all the effort, time and money that went into the election, we find ourselves relying on a basic human skill – something that goes back thousands and thousands of years … counting.  It’s something that is so natural, we seldom think about its origins or how we learned to count in the first place.  As a youngster, I was privileged to watch Sesame Street, and enjoy one of my favorite characters, The Count.  Putting numbers to music was brilliant, and I still enjoy the songs and the number of the day especially with my granddaughter.  There are expressions we use here at KHT all the time, when it comes to solving your PIA (pain in the @%$) Jobs! – like “you can count on me”, “you can count on it”.  Many of us say “count me in/out” and “down for the count”. We “count our calories”, “lose count” and know “it’s the thought that counts”.  I’m often “counting my blessings” when I think of my wife, children, grandkids, friends, vendors and amazing customers and the gang here at KHT.  I’m also blessed to have married a counting savant.  Jackie’s natural abilities astound me, as she can organize numbers and things WAY better than I can even imagine – (if you could see my sock drawer I might have a chance!).  Here’s some history and trivia – and a song from The Count – enjoy!  Special thanks to Wikipedia and transom.org for the info.

  • Counting is the process of determining the number of elements of a finite set of objects. The traditional way of counting consists of continually increasing a (mental or spoken) counter by a unit for every element of the set, in some order, while marking (or displacing) those elements to avoid visiting the same element more than once, until no unmarked elements are left; if the counter was set to one after the first object, the value after visiting the final object gives the desired number of elements. The related term enumeration refers to uniquely identifying the elements of a finite (combinatorial) set or infinite set by assigning a number to each element. (how’s that for an explanation!)
  • Counting sometimes involves numbers other than one; for example, when counting money, counting out change, “counting by twos” (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, …), or “counting by fives” (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, …).
  • There is archaeological evidence suggesting that humans have been counting for at least 50,000 years.  Counting was primarily used by ancient cultures to keep track of social and economic data such as the number of group members, prey animals, property, or debts (that is, accountancy). Notched bones have been found in the Border Caves in South Africa that may suggest that the concept of counting was known to humans as far back as 44,000 BCE. The development of counting led to the development of mathematical notation, numeral systems, and writing.
  • Counting can also be in the form of tally marks, making a mark for each number and then counting all of the marks when done tallying. This is useful when counting objects over time, such as the number of times something occurs during the course of a day.
  • Tallying is base 1 counting; normal counting is done in base 10. Computers use base 2 counting (0s and 1s).
  • Counting can also be in the form of finger counting, especially when counting small numbers. This is often used by children to facilitate counting and simple mathematical operations. Finger-counting uses unary notation (one finger = one unit) and is thus limited to counting 10 (unless you start in with your toes). Older finger counting used the four fingers and the three bones in each finger (phalanges) to count to the number twelve.  Other hand-gesture systems are also in use, for example the Chinese system by which one can count to 10 using only gestures of one hand. By using finger binary (base 2 counting), it is possible to keep a finger count up to 1023 = 210 − 1. This explanation makes me tired!
  • Various devices can also be used to facilitate counting, such as hand tally counters and abacuses.  Computers at about 205 million per second. If the last value in the for loop is changed to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (the largest value that a 64 bit ulong can hold), this loop would take about 89,984,117,433 seconds which is about 1,041,483 days or 2,853 years! (would someone please call Jackie!)
  • Inclusive counting is usually encountered when dealing with time in the Romance languages.  In exclusive counting languages such as English, when counting “8” days from Sunday, Monday will be day 1, Tuesday day 2, and the following Monday will be the eighth day. When counting “inclusively,” the Sunday (the start day) will be day 1 and therefore the following Sunday will be the eighth day. For example, the French phrase for “fortnight” is quinzaine (15 [days]), and similar words are present in Greek (δεκαπενθήμερο, dekapenthímero), Spanish (quincena) and Portuguese (quinzena). In contrast, the English word “fortnight” itself derives from “a fourteen-night”, as the archaic “sennight” does from “a seven-night”.
  • Names based on inclusive counting appear in other calendars as well: in the Roman calendar the nones (meaning “nine”) is 8 days before the ides; and in the Christian calendar Quinquagesima (meaning 50) is 49 days before Easter Sunday.
  • Musical terminology also uses inclusive counting of intervals between notes of the standard scale: going up one note is a second interval, going up two notes is a third interval, etc., and going up seven notes is an octave.
  • Learning to count is an important educational/developmental milestone in most cultures of the world, but some cultures in Amazonia and the Australian Outback do not count, and their languages do not have number words. (I think this is where the expression came:  “be home before the street lights come on”)
  • Many children at just 2 years of age have some skill in reciting the count list (that is, saying “one, two, three, …”). They can also answer questions of ordinality for small numbers, for example, “What comes after three?”. They can even be skilled at pointing to each object in a set and reciting the words one after another. This leads many parents and educators to the conclusion that the child knows how to use counting to determine the size of a set.  Research suggests that it takes about a year after learning these skills for a child to understand what they mean and why the procedures are performed
  • Counting takes longer than you think.  To count to a trillion, a computer can get to one billion (9 zeros) rather fast – 15 seconds. But to get to one trillion (12 zeros) – the difference is amazing – 4 hours and 10 minutes.
  • If you love numbers, here’s some great trivia

 

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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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VOTE TODAY

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Please remember to vote today.  

Here’s a little trivia to share with friends.  Thanks to constitutioncenter.org for the trivia.

1. Elections took place way before the Constitution was ratified – The English in particular conducted voting soon after they landed in Virginia in the 17th Century. But not everyone could vote and not every office was up for election. But many colonies allowed male adults who owned land to vote for legislators who served in lower assemblies.

2. George Washington and Election Day consumption – In 1758, a young candidate in Virginia for the House of Burgesses footed a huge liquor bill to woo voters on Election Day. George Washington spent his entire campaign budget, 50 pounds, on 160 gallons of liquor served to 391 voters. Buying votes with booze was already a custom in England. Washington also was following a Virginia tradition where barrels of liquor were rolled to courthouse lawns and polling places on Election Day.

3. We wouldn’t recognize an Election Day about 200 years ago – Not only were eating, drinking and parading common, votes could be conducted by a public voice vote. Political parties would also hand out pre-printed ballots for voters to cast, to ensure that people voted for a party ticket. It wasn’t until the 1890s that the Australian ballot, also known as the Secret Ballot, became commonly used in America.

4. The Constitution didn’t spell out when Election Day was – The administration of elections was left up to the individual states in the Constitution, with the exception of some basic requirements for presidential and congressional candidates. States were left to pick their own election days, including when elections for federal offices were held. But any federal election involving the Electoral College needed to be resolved by mid-December.

5. The weather and farming dictated when elections were held – In the 1800s, the agrarian economy was an important factor, and farmers weren’t able to travel easily until the harvest was over. Also, the onset of winter conditions in areas that had winter conditions made travel a problem, so elections typically happened in the late fall.

6. Election Day wasn’t on a fixed day until the mid-19th century – Congress finally stepped in to set a uniform day for presidential elections in 1845 as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This was a scheme borrowed from New York state and it allowed people to observe the Sabbath, travel to vote, and return home for Wednesday, which was observed as Market Day. This was just for presidential elections every four years, but it started a trend.

7. Election voting machines are a 20th Century innovation – The mechanical lever voting machine was patented in 1889 but it took decades for the machines to become commonplace. Jacob H. Myers built the first lever machine used in an election, back in 1892. Meyers said the devices were needed to prevent “rascaldom.”

8. The mechanical voting machine is extinct – The classic mechanical lever voting machine (the one with the moveable curtain our parents used) was phased out by 2010 in the United States. Most votes are now conducted using electronic digital voting machines or by using paper ballots that are sometimes optically scanned.

9. The chance of a “hanging chad” is almost extinct, too – By 2012, punch card voting machines only accounted for 0.02% of machines in use. Back in 2000, it was a problem with the chads (the rectangular pieces of a card punched to indicate a vote), that caused problems with the presidential vote in Florida.

10. Not all states vote on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November – In years when federal elections aren’t held, not all states feel the need to have an election on a traditional Election Day. In 2015, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Louisiana held elections later in the month.

BONUS TRIVIA – A one-of-a-kind election that was literally “no contest” when George Washington ran unopposed in our country’s first election. Organized political parties had yet to form, so Washington’s victory is the only one in our nation’s history to feature 100 percent of the Electoral College vote.  (The real question in 1788 was who would become vice president. At the time, this office was awarded to the runner-up in the electoral vote (each elector cast two votes to ensure there would be a runner-up.) Eleven candidates made a play for the vice-presidency, but John Adams came out on top.

 

 

Spooky N Fun

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Halloween costumes have evolved with time and technology. You can get a costume off the rack but making your own is maybe the most fun. Pull out the stops and do a deep dive into theatrical makeup. Like that cutie with the sideways smile next to the joker in row 4. Then there is the shoe family in row 5. But I really love the simplicity of the father-son costumes in rows 6 and 7. Elvis and his guitar, the Blues Brothers, Where’s Waldo and Spy vs Spy.  Look at these cool couple’s costumes in row 8: Pencil & Paper and Jack & Jill after rolling down the hill. But in row 9 are my favorite subjects, food, like Bacon & eggs. And a friend of mine dressed as Mustard & Ketchup one year. Babies are always fun to dress up, too: Carrot, spaghetti, and a cupcake. Then get the pets involved. (that’s when cats will usually leave the room)

With all that’s going on, I just can’t skip Halloween.  I know it’s the kid in me, but I have such fond memories of candy, decorations, pumpkin carving, and costumes.  As a kid, I LOVED going to the store with my parents and picking out a costume. I remember the plastic face mask and the clothes – especially the capes!  (and sword or pitchfork).  Having a cape made you into a superpower – and it was even cooler running door to door and having it flap in the breeze.  I’m sure mom and dad have pictures of me dressed up with my brothers and sisters – with 18 kids in the family, it was quite the task to get us all dressed, and then organized to go door to door. The memories of my girls going out, starting with me carrying them with their little containers to when they graduated to the pillowcases still bring smiles to my face. With Halloween tomorrow, I’m sure you have plans to be safe and socially distant – good luck with that.  For my trivia and history buffs, here’s some fun info on how Halloween and unusual costumes came to be.  Enjoy!  And thanks to History.com and CNN for the info.  For some fun music to play while you read along, click HERE.

  • Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31. The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in), when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.  The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, also celebrated their new year on November 1.
  • This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. It was believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred (and the need to hide from evil spirits).
  • In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, the Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.
  • To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes.  When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
  • By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.  The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that is practiced today.
  • On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.
  • By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In 1000 A.D., the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.
  • All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.
  • The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies.
  • As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing.
  • Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the 19th century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.  here are some great ghost stories
  • Halloween costumes from the first half of the 20th century were terrifying. Drawing on the holiday’s pagan and Christian roots — as a night to ward off evil spirits or reconcile with death, respectively — people often opted for more morbid, serious costumes than the pop culture-inspired ones of today.
  • It was believed that, during the fall festival, the world of the gods became visible to humans, resulting in supernatural mischief. Some people offered treats and food to the gods, while others wore disguises — such as animal skins and heads — so that wandering spirits might mistake them for one of their own.  Hiding behind their costumes, villagers often played pranks on one another, but blamed the spirits.  Masks and cover-ups came to be seen as means to get away with things.
  • In medieval England and Ireland, people would dress up in outfits symbolizing the souls of the dead, going from house to house to gather treats or spice-filled “soul cakes” on their behalf (a Christian custom known as “souling”).  From the late 15th century, people started wearing spooky outfits to personify winter spirits or demons, and would recite verses, songs and folk plays in exchange for food (a practice known as “mumming”).
  • By the 1920s and 1930s, people were holding annual Halloween masquerades, aimed at both adults and children, at rented salons or family homes. Costume preparations, many hand-made,  began as early as August.  Falling right between summer and Christmas, the celebration also seemed to benefit from its timing in the calendar.
  • Those same decades also saw the emergence of costumes influenced by pop culture, alongside the first major costume manufacturing companies. The J. Halpern Company (better known as Halco) of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, began licensing images of fictional characters like Popeye, Olive Oyl, Little Orphan Annie and Mickey Mouse around this time. People also became fascinated with impersonating characters at the fringe of society, including pirates, gypsies and even bums became common outfit choices.
  • Continuing the tradition of old practices like souling and mumming, Halloween pranks became a common phenomenon in North America — sometimes to the point of vandalism and rioting. By the mid-1940s, the press had dubbed the night’s anarchy (or its broken fences and smashed windows, at least) the “Halloween problem” — and costumes may have partly enabled that behavior.  In an effort to discourage criminal damage, local and national officials attempted to recast the holiday — and dressing up for it — as an activity for younger children. (The Chicago City Council even voted in 1942 to abolish Halloween and establish “Conservation Day” on October 31 instead).
  • After World War II, as TV brought pop culture into family homes, American Halloween costumes increasingly took after superheroes, comic characters and entertainment figures. They also became increasingly store-bought: By the 1960s, Ben Cooper, a manufacturing company that helped turn Halloween into a pop phenomenon, owned 70 to 80 percent of the Halloween costume market.  It was around this time that adults started dressing up for Halloween again.  Like kids’ costumes, their approach was often more fun than frightening — and would eventually be just as inspired by popular movies or Hollywood fame.
  • But there was still a place for scary outfits, encouraged by a slew of splatter-horror movies that started emerging in the 1970s and 80s, from John Carpenter’s “Halloween” to Wes Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
  • According to those who track the traditions, costumes have certainly become more reflective of the times we live in, with parents dressing their kids as sports stars, movie stars, cartoon characters.  Many parents like to dress up as well, when walking with their kids, or greeting guests at the door.

Top 5 Characters for 2020:
·      Carole Baskin from Tiger King. …
·      Harley Quinn from Birds of Prey. …
·      Wonder Woman from Wonder Woman 1984. …
·      Cheerleaders from Cheer. …
·      Black Widow. …
·      Most popular – witch.

 

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

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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Please, Let Me Decide

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Folks, this space is reserved for fun. You know me, I like fun. But I do have some strong beliefs as you’ve seen if you’ve been reading my Friday afternoon posts for a while. And this is one. Forget about Republican or Democrat, censorship is wrong and scary! And the really scary thing is that people have been trying to sensor others for hundreds of years. Even in America. The land of liberty. Where you can even wear your feelings on your t-shirt! Read on. And have a great weekend!!!

What’s the saying – “history repeats itself”?  Over the weekend I was reading about the struggles going on within our social media platforms and the question of content censorship.  Let’s see – 7.8 billion people, almost 4 billion online, all talking, sharing, and expressing an opinion or two – and now we’re trying to control this – talk about a PIA (Pain in the @%$) Jobs!  With the free flow of content going “in”, our social media conglomerates are working furiously trying to control what’s right and what’s wrong to allow “out”. The relatively recent move to online “newsfeeds” has perpetuated this problem. Supposedly “neutral” algorithms limit what types of information are presented on the various platforms.    This dilemma took me back to my school days, and the great author and poet John Milton and his take on publishing freedom.  About 375 years ago, he for the most part posed the same question, in his publishing of Areopagitica on this day in 1644, challenging the notion of licensing and control of published content in England.  He asked many of the same questions – should the publishers be the ones to decide, or the readers themselves, to determine right from wrong.  Here’s some history I think you’ll enjoy.  Many thanks to Kevin R. Davis, past Associate General Counsel at Vanderbilt University for his insights and the First Amendment Encyclopedia on free speech. Enjoy!

  • John Milton (1608–1674), one of the greatest English poets, made an important contribution to the idea of free speech and free press in a pamphlet, Areopagitica (1644), which he wrote and published in response to a restrictive printing ordinance established by Parliament in 1643. The ordinance required authors to get prior approval from an official licenser before the publication of printed materials. Milton published the tract anonymously, defying the ordinance’s prohibition.
  • Milton was born in London, where he was educated at St. Paul’s School and by private tutors. He excelled in languages and later wrote poems in Greek, Latin, Italian, and English. After earning a bachelor’s degree (1629) and master’s degree (1632) from Cambridge University, he devoted the next five years to private study. In 1638 he undertook a journey to France and Italy. Returning to England in 1639 on the eve of the English Civil War, he became a staunch supporter of the Puritans against the crown and served for a time in the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.
  • Milton’s wide-ranging prose works included pamphlets on religious themes, education, and the law of divorce. His epic poems Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, for which he is most remembered, were written after he became blind in 1652.
  • England’s printing ordinance of 1643 prohibited the printing, binding, or sale of books except by persons licensed under the authority of Parliament and made the Stationers the agent of Parliament for the purpose of licensing printers. Anonymous publications were banned. The ordinance drew criticism, famously from John Milton.
  • The 1643 “Ordinance for correcting and regulating the Abuses of the Press” completed Parliament’s takeover of the licensing of printers in Britain.  It was just one of a series of such controls Parliament would continue to exert over the press until 1695.
  • The framers of the U.S. Constitution were quite familiar with critiques of press licensing controls, which they addressed by protecting freedom of the press in our First Amendment.
  • British printing regulations became a weapon against Puritan, political leaders.
  • The Crown had regulated printing, primarily by means of Star Chamber decrees, since it was introduced to England in 1476. Like laws against heresy, libel, and treason, the general requirement of licensing for printers had been a way in which the Crown silenced religious and political dissent.
  • Printers were licensed through the printers’ guild, the London Stationers Company, which was chartered in 1557 and given authority to conduct searches and seizures, confiscate unlicensed works, and promulgate its own regulations. In exchange for protecting the Crown’s censorship interests, the guild received the exclusive copyright to the printed works.
  • The enforcement of printing laws was erratic, and the regulations became a weapon for the Crown to use against Puritan religious and political leaders during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. However, Parliament abolished the court of Star Chamber in 1641, which left English printing briefly unregulated.
  • Orders issued from Parliament to the Stationers in July 1641, and again in January 1642, required the Stationers to record the name of any person bringing material to be printed. Another order issued from the House of Commons in March 1643 directed the Stationers to seize “scandalous and lying Pamphlets” and to arrest those responsible.
  • The effect of the 1643 ordinance was to establish a prepublication censorship regime. The ordinance prohibited the printing, binding, or sale of books except by persons licensed under authority of Parliament and made the Stationers the agent of Parliament for the purpose of licensing printers. Anonymous publications were banned, as were the reprinting or importation of previously printed works.
  • Although Areopagitica is commonly viewed as an eloquent plea for freedom of speech, in its context it should be understood as an argument for allowing printers to bring forth works that could be subjected, after publication, to evaluation, scrutiny, and censorship as might be judged appropriate.
  • In Areopagitica, Milton makes four arguments against the prepublication censorship of printed materials. The first was that prepublication censorship originated with the church and for that reason should be suspect. Although this is a kind of ad hominem argument, it is consistent with Milton’s preference that works be judged through public rational scrutiny rather than by ecclesiastical hierarchy.
  • Second, Milton argued that readers may benefit from reading morally incorrect books along with good ones. He said, in essence, that the practice of moral virtue requires the knowing choice of good over evil. Unless morally bad books were printed, readers would be denied the benefit of learning how to discern moral falsity through the vicarious experience of it in reading.
  • Third, he argued that prepublication censorship is an ineffective means of achieving the goal of protecting public morality and religion. Many other activities – for example, music, theater, and dance (today we could add radio and cable television) – would have to be censored in order to regulate public morality completely, indicating that censorship of print alone is an impractical means to this end.
  • Finally, he suggested that licensing would have the unintended effect of weakening people’s ability to recognize and affirm truths by using their reason. This argument draws on Milton’s belief that truths must be known by the use of reason rather than by acceptance of authority; unless a rich body of ideas, including some false ones, is available for rational debate, people’s faculty of reason will not flourish.
  • Although the London Stationers’ Company, which regulated publishing and printing, complained to Parliament about the unlicensed publication of Areopagitica, Milton was not penalized for it, and it was largely without effect in his time.
  • Milton went on to write the famous Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained amongst his poetry and other writings. Licensing of the press continued in England until 1695, 20 years after his death.

 

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

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!!

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

 

All Aboard!

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Trains are amazing machines. From the oldest to the newest. The biggest to the smallest. Speaking of small, check out these HO gauge set-ups. HERE and HERE. When it comes to trains, some kids just can’t stop building out their railroad sets.

If you grew up in this area, no doubt you’ve heard the name Nickle Plate Railroad. Ironically there is a Nickel Plate Road, 10 minutes from my house, I never really knew how that name came to be!  The New York, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad (reporting mark NKP), was a railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. Commonly referred to as the “Nickel Plate Road”, the railroad served a large area, including trackage in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, with its primary connections in Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Toledo.  Like most boys, I love the railroad – the sounds and raw power that goes into a giant mass of wheels and steel going by catches my attention and curiosity.  Where did it come from?  Where’s it headed?  Who’s running the train?  What’s onboard?  And more. Even now when stopped by a train, I look to see the names on the cars, while trying to keep track of the total number of cars being pulled!  Today marks a special day for the NPR – when back in 1882 the trains ran the system for the first time, linking the populated cities together like never before.  I get to see remnants of the train system working every day outside my office window.  The history is centered in Cleveland and the battle for control.  Enjoy, and thanks to Wikipedia for the info and YouTube for the song. Fun classic to listen to while you read.

  • The Nickel Plate Railroad was constructed in 1881 along the South Shore of the Great Lakes connecting Buffalo and Chicago to compete with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway.
  • The new rail lines created an economy of scale – larger, more efficient factories as the agricultural heartland of America was no longer confined to a market of single day’s trip by wagon. Railroad and railroad construction became one of the largest industries during that era. By 1881 one out of 32 people in the United States was either employed by a railroad or engaged in railroad construction.
  • Starting about 1877, two great railroad developers, William H. Vanderbilt and Jay Gould began competing for the railroad traffic along the south shore of the Great Lakes. By 1878 William Vanderbilt had a monopoly on rail traffic between Buffalo, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Chicago because he owned the only railroad linking those cities – the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, making him the richest man in America at that time.
  • By 1881 Jay Gould controlled about 15% of all U.S. railroad mileage, most of it west of the Mississippi River and he was considered the most ruthless financial operator in America. Gould’s major railroad east of the Mississippi River was the 335-mile Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railway (Wabash). The Wabash mainline ran from St. Louis, Missouri, to Toledo, Ohio, where it was forced to deliver its railroad traffic to William H. Vanderbilt’s Lake Shore Railroad for delivery to the eastern United States.
  • Jay Gould and William Vanderbilt together oversaw all east-west rail traffic in the mid-west. The Seney Syndicate, owners of a 350-mile (560 km) railroad, the Lake Erie and Western Railroad, were interested in tapping new sources of revenue. The stage was set for the creation of the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad.
  • The Seney Syndicate, headed by banker George I. Seney, met at Seney’s New York City bank and organized the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railway Company on February 3, 1881. The original proposal for the NYC&StL was a 340-mile railroad west from Cleveland, Ohio, to Chicago, Illinois, with a 325-mile branch to St. Louis, Missouri.
  • On April 13, 1881, the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railway Company bought the Buffalo, Cleveland and Chicago Railway, a railroad that been surveyed from the west side of Cleveland, Ohio to Buffalo, New York running parallel to Vanderbilt’s Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway.
  • The idea of an east-west railroad across northern Ohio was very popular with the people of Ohio. They wanted to break the high freight rates charged by Jay Gould and William Henry Vanderbilt.
  • Another reason for the popularity of the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railway was the positive economic impact on cities that any new railroad went through at that time. During a newspaper war to attract the NYC&St.L the Norwalk, Ohio Chronicle Newspaper referred to it as “… double-track nickel-plated railroad.” The New York, Chicago and St. Louis adopted the nickname and it became better known as the Nickel Plate Road.
  • It was decided to start building along the surveyed route between Cleveland, Ohio and Buffalo, New York rather than build the branch to St. Louis, Missouri. Five hundred days later the Nickel Plate’s 513-mile single-track mainline from Buffalo, New York to Chicago was complete. The railroad was estimated to require 90,000 long tons (80,000 metric tons) of steel rails, each weighing 60 pounds per linear yard (30 kg/m) and 1.5 million oak crossties. Additionally, the railroad required 49 major bridges (talk about a PIA Job!)
  • Vanderbilt tried to lower the value of the Nickel Plate by organizing a campaign to smear its reputation before a train ever ran on its tracks… He succeeded in creating long-standing rumors about the line but failed to devalue the company or scare the investors.
  • The cost of construction was higher than expected and the Seney Syndicate began to negotiate with Gould to purchase the railroad, but unlike Vanderbilt, Gould lacked the capital. Frustrated at the failing talks, Gould broke off negotiations and gave up on his attempt to break Vanderbilt.
  • In early 1881, William Henry Vanderbilt could have had the Nickel Plate for one million dollars, equal to $26,500,000 today. He realized if he allowed Jay Gould to gain control of the Nickel Plate his monopoly on rail traffic from Toledo, Ohio – east would be broken. He decided he would do anything to keep the Nickel Plate out of Gould’s hands.
  • On October 25, 1882, (a few days after the first trains ran) the Seney Syndicate sold the Nickel Plate to Vanderbilt for $7.2 million, equal to $190,800,000 today. Vanderbilt transferred it to his Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. However, Vanderbilt had a problem: he could not run the business into the ground or it would fall into receivership and someone else would buy it. He could not close the Nickel Plate either because it cost a fortune to buy. So, the Nickel Plate Road did business, but just enough to keep it solvent.
  • By the advent of the 1920s, the Nickel Plate was an obscure line that earned its keep through the transfer of freight from other rail connections. During the same period, Vanderbilt’s Lake Shore and Michigan Southern prospered and expanded.
  • Vanderbilt kept most of the rail traffic on his Lake Shore and Michigan Southern. Fewer trains on the Nickel Plate meant that they could move faster, so that is the railroad traffic they went after. By 1888 the Nickel Plate had been dubbed “The Meat Express Line.” Observers at Fort Wayne, Indiana reported six long meat trains every night and a couple of fruit trains during the day.
  • The Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland, Ohio were the next owners of the Nickel Plate. Oris Paxton Van Sweringen and his younger brother Mantis James Van Sweringen were real estate developers who constructed a rapid transit line from their development at Shaker Heights, Ohio to downtown Cleveland. As early as 1909 the Van Sweringen brothers proposed a stub-end terminal on Public Square in downtown Cleveland. The Cleveland interurbans and traction companies were in favor of the new terminal and right-of-ways leading to it.
  • The Nickel Plate was the key. It traversed Cleveland from east to west, had a high level crossing of the Cuyahoga River Valley, and it was adjacent to the proposed terminal. The Nickel Plate also provided a natural route to the proposed terminal for the Van Sweringen’s rapid transit and the other traction lines.
  • The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway was controlled by the New York Central Railroad’s Alfred Holland Smith, a close friend of the Van Sweringens. He had guided the Van Sweringens and even financed their rapid transit to Shaker Heights. In late 1915, the Attorney General of the United States advised the New York Central that its control of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and the Nickel Plate was in violation of the Federal antitrust laws. Alfred Smith called his friends, the Van Sweringens on February 1, 1916 and offered them the Nickel Plate. They bought it for $8.5 million on April 13, 1916, equal to $199,700,000 today. In return for operating concessions and access to certain stations, they only put up a little over $500,000 (equal to $11,750,000 today) but they controlled 75% of Nickel Plate’s voting stock.
  • The Van Sweringens had no intention of running the Nickel Plate. Alfred Smith was happy to give the Van Sweringens a vice-president of the New York Central, John J. Bernet, and some of his top men. Smith wanted to show that the Van Sweringens were not New York Central puppets, and the Nickel Plate needed to earn money to retire the $6.5 million in notes owed to the New York Central.
  • During Bernet’s reign, the Nickel Plate grew substantially. In 1922, the Nickel Plate purchased the Lake Erie and Western Railroad, giving it access to Sandusky, Ohio and Peoria, Illinois. Later that year, on December 28, the Nickel Plate purchased the Toledo, St. Louis and Western Railroad, also known as the “Clover Leaf Route”, finally giving the Nickel Plate access to the St. Louis area, as well as to the port in Toledo, Ohio.
  • Bernet also doubled the railroad’s total freight tonnage and average speeds system wide, while cutting fuel consumption in half. In 1934, Bernet ordered 15 Berkshire locomotives, which would become legendary with the Nickel Plate and remained as the president of the company until his death in 1935.
  • On December 29, 1937, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway gained control of the Nickel Plate and helped with the war effort.  After the war, in 1947, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway ended its control of the Nickel Plate, when it sold off its remaining shares.
  • Numerous legends have grown about when and how the name “Nickel Plate” was first applied. The accepted version is that it appeared first in an article in the Norwalk, Ohio, Chronicle of March 10, 1881. On that date the Chronicle reported the arrival of a party of engineers to make a survey for the “great New York and St. Louis double track, nickel plated railroad.”
  • Later, while attempting to induce the company to build the line through Norwalk instead of Bellevue, Ohio, the Chronicle again referred to the road as “nickel plated” – a term regarded as indicative of the project’s glittering prospects and substantial financial backing.
  • At the end of 1960, NKP operated 2,170 miles (3,490 km) of road on 4,009 miles (6,452 km) of track, not including the 25 miles (40 km) of Lorain & West Virginia. That year it reported 9758 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 41 million passenger-miles.

 

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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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Oh Granny

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I love apple pie. So, I always get way more apples than needed for a pie. You know why? Because I also love to eat apples. Apples in the morning. Apples at lunch. Apples for an afternoon snack. An apple after my evening run. So, I ALWAYS get way more apples than needed for a pie.  :)))

It’s that time of year again.  I’m not sure if it’s the cool nights, early sunsets, changing cloud patterns or just my gastronomical clock changing, but there’s something about October and my need to eat lots of apple pie. It’s an odd thing, that lasts through the holidays too.  Maybe it’s the piles of apples at the market or the smell of pumpkin spice at the grocery store (can’t believe how many products offer a pumpkin spice version (saw pumpkin spice Spam – what a waste of some good SPAM!), but I have the craving.  My first subtle (no comments about me not being subtle!) effort to convince Jackie it’s time to bake is when I bring home a rather large array of different apples from the farmer’s market – green, golden, red, macs, Honeycrisp.  Then I try pulling the pie dish out and leaving it on the counter with the cinnamon.  Or maybe it’s the “backup” half-gallon of vanilla ice cream and bonus sized Cool Whip container.  Jackie, amazing as always, pulls out one of her favorite recipes for Dutch Apple Pie and goes to work.  I love it when the house fills with that amazing aroma of sweet apples and hot pastry dough – it settles the mind and gets me ready for the transition from summer to fall.  There is nothing quite like a slice of amazing pie ala mode! Below are some great recipes, and a little history on the delicacy and the all-important crust.  Enjoy, and thanks Smithsonian and the recipes from All Recipes, Inspired Taste, Taste of Home and Tasty.co.

  • Apple pie is a longstanding symbol of America, but the dessert didn’t actually come from America, and neither did the apples.  Apples are actually native to Asia and have been in America about as long as Europeans have.
  • The early colonists of Jamestown brought European apple tree cuttings and seeds with them. The only native apple in North America was the crab apple, and the colonists found its tiny fruit “a poor substitute for Malus domestica.” Settlers primarily used the apples to make cider (the hard and soft kinds), which was preferred to water as a drink and easier to produce than beer, which required labor-intensive land clearing.
  • During America’s colonial history, planting trees was a good way to preserve a land claim; colonists who didn’t “improve” their land in some colonies, like Virginia, could have it taken away from them.
  • Apple trees are easy to cross-pollinate, meaning that deliberately producing new apple varieties is relatively simple. By 1800, writes Tim Hensley for the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, American farmers were growing a mind-boggling 14,000 varieties of apple, many of which had been bred in the country. Around the same time, John Chapman, otherwise known as Johnny Appleseed, had brought the apple to American folklore fame. “Chapman’s beloved apples became ‘American’ by association.”
  • The first recorded recipe for apple pie was written in 1381 in England and called for figs, raisins, pears, and saffron in addition to apples (now why would you go and do that??).
  • There were other differences, too: early apple pie recipes generally didn’t include sugar, and their pastry crust was “coffin” pastry, which was intended as an inedible container, not a part of the pie. There are also recipes for Dutch apple pies as far back as 1514.
  • A 1924 advertisement appearing in the Gettysburg Times promotes “New Lestz Suits that are as American as apple pie.” And by World War II, the America and pie association was cemented. American soldiers would tell journalists that they were fighting for “mom and apple pie,” giving rise to the expression “As American as mom and apple pie.”
  • The secret to great apple pie is also in the crust.  It’s not a topic to be thrown about – as making “the best crust” has merit and prestige in a family.  Surprising, the history of “crust” goes back many ages – here’s some highlights:
  • The first pies, called “coffins” or “coffyns” (the word actually meant a basket or box) were savory meat pies with the crusts or pastry being tall, straight-sided with sealed-on floors and lids.  Open-crust pastry (not tops or lids) were known as “traps.”  These pies held assorted meats and sauce components and were baked more like a modern casserole with no pan (the crust itself was the pan, its pastry tough and inedible).  These crusts were often made several inches thick to withstand many hours of baking.
  • A small pie was known as a tartlet and a tart was a large, shallow open pie (this is still the definition in England).
  • Historians have recorded that the roots of pie can loosely be traced back to the ancient Egyptians during the Neolithic Period or New Stone Age beginning around 6000 BC.    These early forms of pies are known as galettes, which are essentially rustic free-form pies.  Our ancestors made these pie-like treats with oat, wheat, rye, and barley, then filled them with honey and baked the dish over hot coals.
  • Between 1304 to 1237 B.C. the bakers to the pharaohs incorporated nuts, honey, and fruits in bread dough, a primitive form of pastry.  Drawings of this can be found etched on the tomb walls of Ramses II, located in the Valley of the Kings.
  • The tradition of galettes (pastry base) was carried on by the Greeks.  Historians believe that the Greeks actually originated pie pastry.  The pies during this period were made by a flour-water paste wrapped around meat; this served to cook the meat and seal in the juices.
  • A cookbook from the mid 16th century that also includes some account of domestic life, cookery and feasts in Tudor days, called A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye, declarynge what maner of  meates be beste in season, for al times in the yere, and how they ought to be dressed, and  serued at the table, bothe for fleshe dayes, and fyshe dayes, has a recipe for a short paest for tarte:  “To Make Short Paest for Tarte – Take fyne floure and a cursey of fayre water and a dysche of swete butter and a lyttel saffron, and the yolckes of two egges and make it thynne and as tender as ye maye.” (where are the apples??)
  • Animated pies or pyes were the most popular banquet entertainment. The nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence . . . four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,” refers to such a pie.  According to the rhyme, “When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing.  Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the King.”  In all likelihood, those birds not only sang, but flew briskly out at the assembled guests.  Rabbits, frogs, turtles, other small animals, and even small people (dwarfs) were also set into pies, either alone or with birds, to be released when the crust was cut.  The dwarf would emerge and walk down the length of the table, reciting poetry, sketching the guests, or doing tricks. (where are the apples??).
  • During Charles V (1364-1380), King of France, reign, the important event at banquets was not dishes of food but acts such as minstrels, magicians, jugglers, and dancers.
  • The chefs entered into the fun by producing elaborate “soteltie” or “subtilty.”  Sotelties were food disguised in an ornamental way (sculptures made from edible ingredients but not always intended to be eaten or even safe to eat). During this time period, the Duke of Burgundy’s chef made an immense pie which opened to the strains of 28 musicians playing from within the pie.  Out of the pie came a captive girl representing the “captive” Church in the Middle East.
  • The Pilgrims brought their favorite family pie recipes with them to America.  The colonists and their pies adapted simultaneously to the ingredients and techniques available to them in the New World. At first, they baked pie with berries and fruits pointed out to them by the Native Americans.  Colonial women used round pans literally to cut corners and stretch the ingredients (for the same reason they baked shallow pies).
  • Samuel Clemens (1835-1910), a.k.a. Mark Twain, was a big fan of eating pies.  His life-long housekeeper and friend (she was with the family for 30 years), Katy Leary, often baked Huckleberry pie to lure her master into breaking his habit of going without lunch.  Samuel Clemens also had a recipe for English Pie: To make this excellent breakfast dish, proceed as follows: “Take a sufficiency of water and a sufficiency of flour and construct a bullet-proof dough.  Work this into the form of a disk, with the edges turned up some three-fourths of an inch.  Toughen and kiln-dry in a couple days in a mild but unvarying temperature.  Construct a cover for this redoubt in the same way and of the same material.  Fill with stewed dried apples; aggravate with cloves, lemon-peel, and slabs of citron; add two portions of New Orleans sugars, then solder on the lid and set in a safe place till it petrifies.  Serve cold at breakfast and invite your enemy.”

Here are some recipes to try – and yes, please stop by the office and share a slice or two.
By Grandma Ople
Favorite Apple Pie  
Taste of Home
Made from Scratch

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

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!!

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