‘The Little’ – Day 1

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Thank goodness for calendars!!! Some dates are more important than others. But we still need to track them, share them, and remember them. Take for instance my birthday, __?__?__?__. Good to know, huh??  :)))))

The other day I was looking at my calendar, planning my week, staff meetings and calls to help my customers solve their PIA (Pain in the @%$) Jobs! Thinking through the next few weeks and what was ahead of me (and when I might be able to hit some golf balls .  I noticed that the first day of Ramadan (based on a lunar calendar) Good Friday and Easter Sunday (based on the numeric calendar) was clearly marked on my March calendar.  As I flipped through April, and May dates, it got me thinking about “calendars” – what’s the history behind all this.  I went online and “Wow”, did I uncover a TON of information, all started by a scholarly monk some 1700 years ago named Dionysis Exiguus, best known for his creation of a Christian based calendar (using the designations B.C. and A.D.) that led to our modern-day Gregorian calendar. For Dionysis, today, March 25th became “Day 1”.  I did my best to pick and choose the history details (be sure to click the links to dig deeper into the backstory).  Special thanks to Wikipedia, newadvent.org, brittania.org, and encyclopedia.com for the info.  Enjoy!

  1. Roman scholar and theologian Dionysius Exiguus (c. 465 A.D.-c. 530 A.D.) is best known for his creation of a calendar that led to the modern Gregorian calendar. From his calendar stem the designations “B.C.” and “A.D.” Dionysius championed the system that is still used today to determine the date of Easter, and his many translations and writings have influenced canon law and helped preserve early Church texts for study.
  2. Dionysius Exiguus, the man, is something of a mystery to modern scholars; Writing in Anno Domini: The Origins of the Christian Era, Georges Declercq argued that “the epithet ‘exiguus’ was adopted by Dionysius himself as a sign of intellectual humility, not because he was small of stature (‘the Short or the Little’).” Beyond this issue of nomenclature, the specific details of the early life and career of Dionysius have been lost over the centuries.
  3. Modern scholars do know that Dionysius originally came from Scythia—an area that in antiquity covered parts of present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan—where he was reputedly raised by a sect of Gothic monks before becoming a monk himself. A preface to one of his translations seems to indicate that Dionysius came from Scythia Minor, which today encompasses a portion of Romania that borders the Black Sea.
  4. Regardless of his place of origin, sometime around 496 Dionysius came to Rome; he was by that time already a well-known scholar who had been summoned by Pope Gelasius I to the city to organize the internal archives of the church “to compile a collection of texts of incontestable worth and authenticity.” Despite his origins, Dionysius was considered by contemporary Cassiodorus to be “a true Roman and thorough Catholic.”
  5. During his career, Dionysius worked in several fields of study. He translated many of the decrees issued by the Council of Nicaea, which created the first standard Christian doctrine; decrees by the Council of Constantinople, which created the first major revision of that doctrine; decrees by the First Council of Ephesus, which declared Mary to be the mother of God; and finally, decrees by the Council of Chalcedon, which established the difference between Jesus Christ the human and Jesus Christ the divine.
  6. Dionysius collected letters written by fourth-century Popes. These letters, together with his collections of council decrees, later served as important resources for the creators of canon, or church, law.  He also translated a number of texts describing the lives of saints, as well as theological works that recount early doctrinal debates among different groups within the Church. The New Catholic Encyclopedia claimed that “Dionysius’s perfect knowledge of Greek and Latin is proved by his translations.”
  7. In addition to translating important Church texts, Dionysius himself was a theologian who wrote on the early history of the Catholic Church. His biography in Science and Its Times stated that “he is credited with writing a collection of 401 ecclesiastical canons … that would become important historical documents about the early years of Christianity.”
  8. According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, “the entire work of Dionysius had but one purpose: the reconciliation of the Churches of the Orient and the West.” At the time of Dionysius, Christian doctrine was not yet standardized; the Christian world had divided into eastern and western branches due to disagreements on doctrinal matters.
  9. One of Dionysius’s efforts to reunite the divided Church related to the calculation of the dates of Easter, the most important Christian feast day, on which believers celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. At the time, two methods competed for supremacy. One, the Alexandrine rule, had been created by the Council of Nicaea in 325. The other, used by the Church authorities in Rome at the time of Dionysius, declared that Easter must fall between March 25 and April 21 and relied on an 84-year cycle.
  10. Dionysius was also trained as a mathematician and an astronomer too (this guy rocks!!), and these skills surely helped him as he conducted studies into the calculation of dates. His work with the calendar stemmed from a request from Pope John I in 525 to extend the existing Easter tables for an additional 95 years. To do this, Dionysius chose to employ the Alexandrian method and to base his calculation on the Easter tables of St. Cyril, who had used the Alexandrian method, rather than those of Victorious of Aquitaine, which employed the cycle then endorsed by the Roman Church.
  11. A number of bishops asked Dionysius to explain this decision, and Dionysius responded to this request in the preface to his Book on Easter Reckoning, as quoted by Declercq. Declercq noted that Dionysius believed firmly that the Council of Nicaea endorsed the Alexandrian method, and summarized Dionysius’s explanation of the criteria of that method thus: “The beginning of the first lunar month, Nisan, from 8 March to 5 April inclusive; the lunar limits 15-21 for Easter Sunday; the theory of the spring equinox on 21 March as the earliest possible date for the Paschal [spring] or 14th moon; the calendar limits for the Paschal full moon (21 March to 18 April) and those for the festival of Easter itself (22 March to 25 April).” (we’ll be having a test on Monday…”)
  12. These criteria dictated that Easter would occur on the first Sunday following the 14th day of the lunar cycle—the full moon—that falls on or after the spring equinox. Despite the controversy caused by Dionysius’s use of this method, his tables noting the dates of Easter for the years 532-626 stood. (Western Christianity still calculates the date of Easter using this method, showing the lasting impact of Dionysius’s work).
  13. In the course of determining the date of Easter, Dionysius also created the Christian Era calendar, commonly used today and recognizable by its B.C./A.D. (“Before Christ”/“Anno Domini”) designations. Instead of relying on the modern Gregorian calendar, people of Dionysius’s time determined the year using the Julian calendar.  This calendar was created by famed Roman statesman Julius Caesar in an attempt to correct the highly inaccurate Roman calendar of his day. This calendar numbered years commencing from either the foundation of the city in Rome, or from the first year of the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.
  14. The Diocletian dating system was at the fore in the era of Dionysius. Preferring not to memorialize Diocletian, who had been a somewhat tyrannical emperor and had persecuted Christians, by basing the calendar upon his reign, Dionysius decided to renumber the years. Dionysius is quoted as stating that he wished to date the year “from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in order that the beginning of our hope should be better known to us and the cause of our recovery, that is the Passion of our Redeemer, should shine forth more clearly.”
  15. Dionysius thus renumbered the years beginning with the incarnation of Jesus Christ, beginning with the year 1 as the Roman numbering system had no way to indicate a zero. This meant that his Easter tables began with the year 532, instituting the Christian Era (also called the Incarnation Era) still used for reckoning the number of the year.
  16. The legacy of Dionysius Exiguus is evident throughout the world. His dating system, incorporated into the standard Gregorian calendar, is the most common reckoning of the year around the globe. The Alexandrian rule of calculating the date of Easter, introduced by Dionysius, remains the method used by Western Christianity to set this feast day. (nice job!)
  17. If interested, learn more online at: “Dionysius Exiguus,” Catholic Encyclopedia, (November 26, 2007).

 

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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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Thanks Enrico

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Man, vinyl records were the thing for a hundred years. How’d it all start? Well, that Frenchman in the second row, Edouard-Leon Scott started the ball rolling with that device next to him. Then a young inventor Thomas Edison (third row) developed the idea further. The next photo down shows the first recording super star, Enrico Caruso, on the right, listening to himself sing with his friends. The next photo is the inventor of the phonograph, Emile Berliner. Below him is a 1920’s kid with a toy phonograph.  Today, vinyl record collecting and trading is HUGE!!! Read all about it below. 

Remember album?  Those vinyl plastic circles we used to rotate under a magic needle, and then dancing around in our bedrooms and basements.  I’m pretty sure I have a whole crate of them in the basement – many of which the girls loved to play while we did family chores on the weekends.  Invented by a famous fella you’ve never heard of, Peter Goldmark, who takes the prize as the inventor of the vinyl record we’re familiar with today (born in 1906, Goldmark ended up working at Columbia Records as an engineer and was the key developer of the 33 1/3 rpm LP “long play” record).  As any audio enthusiast will tell you, there’s something special about listening to an album on vinyl that just cannot be emulated. Despite now living in an age of streaming, where access to all the music in the world is at our fingertips, there is still something special about the audio quality of virgin vinyl spinning on a finely calibrated record player. (you gotta email me and tell me what your top three albums were/are !! – skowalski@khtheat.com).  For me it’s: My top three would have to be in no order, Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon, Queen – News of the World and 5thDimension – Age of Aquarius. Today marks the day, in 1902 when Italian opera star Enrico Caruso made what’s considered the first recoding by a professional singer  – talk about a PIA (Pain in the @%$) Job!  Hats off to all the great entertainers who have (and still) delight our senses and give us an excuse to “dust the rug” every once in a while.  Here’s some fun history and facts.  Thanks to discmanufacturingservices.com, Wikipedia and YouTube for the info and videos. Enjoy!

  • In the year 1857, a brilliant French inventor by the name of Edouard-Leon Scott, created a specialist device which utilized a vibrating pen which graphically represented sounds, onto small paper discs. This device was known as a Phonautograph, and it was primarily created to help us get a better understanding of the characteristics of sound. It wasn’t until Thomas Edison began showing an interest in this device however, that things really got interesting. In 1878, Edison took this concept and turned it into a machine that was capable of replaying the sounds that it recorded. The device utilized a stylus that was designed to cut grooves of sound onto cylinders and discs made of tinfoil.
  • On this day, in 1902, Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso becomes the first well-known performer to make a record.  Born into poverty in Naples, Enrico was the eighteenth child born in his family (I love big families) and the first to survive into adulthood. He went onto become the most famous Italian tenor of his generation and one of the first singers to achieve international fame through this new technology of recorded sound.
  • A little over a decade later, German-born US inventor Emile Berliner patented the very first vinyl record player – the Gramophone. This device had to be manually operated at 70 RPM and functioned by playing a rubber vulcanite disc, 7 inches in size with small lateral grooves cut into its exterior.
  • Over the next 13 years, vinyl records would undergo a series of material alterations and formatting changes, until 1901, where the Victor Company released its Red Seal line, capable of playing vinyl records in the form of ten inch, 78 RPM records. In terms of formatting, the 78 RPM format proved to be the most superior for the next 47 years. (my parents had a whole bunch of these – I remember how thick and hard the vinyl was).
  • When a record is placed on a record player, it begins spinning, and a needle (also known as a stylus) is lowered into the grooves of the record.  The needle sits in the grooves and follows them around the record, playing the sound contained in the grooves.
  • In 1948, thanks to CBS, we were introduced to the world’s first LP (Long Play) record. Thanks to Peter Goldmark, this vinyl record had a capacity of around 21 minutes per side and was 12 inches wide, playing at a speed of 33 1/3 RPM. This changed the face of the music industry to the album-centric format we all still abide by today. Shortly after, RCA Victor introduced their own LP, which turned at 45 RPM and was just 7 inches in size. These records formats are the very same that we use today that is once again growing in popularity.
  • The vinyl format is still widely hailed as the optimum in sound quality and listening pleasure, many challengers have come and gone but records have endured the test of time like no other.
  • Across the Western world, vinyl records have made a remarkable comeback. Independent labels, some of whom had never stopped pressing vinyl, were quick to spot the changing tide and drive the need for a new era of short run vinyl pressing services. Once the major labels followed suit it was clear that the vinyl resurgence would be here to stay. New vinyl manufacturing plants continue to pop up, some recommissioning Soviet-era record presses to help meet the growing demand.
  • There is a national day devoted to vinyl records called National Vinyl Record Day.  It falls annually on August 12th.
  • The term “like a broken record” doesn’t actually refer to a broken record, it refers to a scratched record.  When a record has a scratch, the needle can become stuck in that scratch, and play the same thing over and over, which is the true meaning of the phrase “like a broken record”.In 2020 there were 27.5 million vinyl records pressed in the US, surpassing the volume about 19 million in 2019.  CLICK
  • How they are made!!

 

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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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WOW!

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are amazing. Just a few of their important projects:
1. New Orleans flood protection system
2. The Lincoln Memorial
3. The great lakes restoration project
4. The Pentagon
5. ICBM Silos
6. WWII – D-Day They made the landing happen
7. Cape Kennedy vehicle assembly building
8. The Library of Congress
9. The St. Lawrence Seaway
10. Hundreds and hundreds of other of other amazing waterway projects most of us take for granted

Of all the Corps has done, this project to protect New Orleans since the catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Katrina is a real engineering marvel!!!

Ever take the time to reflect on some of the “really” big projects that have been built in Ohio and in our country.  Giant dams, long waterways, canals and harbors and so much more.  Recently, I read an article about some really exciting projects coming to our beautiful “North Coast” – after years and years of talking, multiple groups will begin re-engineering some really great stuff (one idea is to create an island off the coast).  On this day, March 11, 1779, Congress established the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help plan, design and prepare environmental and structural facilities for the U.S. Army, made up of civilian workers, members of the Continental Army and French officers.  For nearly 250 years, they have tackled some amazing works (talk about PIA (Pain in the @%$) Jobs!). We salute all of those engineers, technicians, scientists and “hard workin’ guys and gals who helped shape our nation.  Here’s some lengthy (but great) history, videos and tidbits I think you’ll enjoy.  We salute you!  Special thanks to historychannel.org, fpri.org, Wikipedia.org, ranker.com and YouTube for the info and videos.  Love it!

The members of the Corps who had joined at the time of its founding in 1779 left the army with their fellow veterans at the end of the War for Independence. In 1794, Congress created a Corps of Artillerists and Engineers to serve the same purpose under the new federal government. The Corps of Engineers itself was reestablished as an enduring division of the federal government in 1802.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is America’s oldest and largest engineering organization, and at times, the most controversial. Since 1802, when Congress created the Corps within the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the army engineers have brought science into government and extended the federal responsibility for natural resources.

As the construction arm of Congress, the engineers managed some of the world’s most monumental construction, as the nation’s premier builders of water projects-dams, dikes, canals, harbors, hydro facilities, and navigation channels. Visit HERE for some of the “big” projects.

Both “Beast” and “Benefactor” the Corps is praised as a nation builder, elsewhere denounced as an out-of-control bulldozer. Following a “bigger-is-better” national ethos, the Corps had been grandiose and also at odds with American traditions. In a nation committed to private enterprise and states’ rights, the Corps has been denounced as a military agent of big-government centralization.

The Corps emerged from the formative conflicts that divided the young republic during the Federalist Era. George Washington’s America stood at a geopolitical crossroads between two great rivals in Europe: Britain and France. Britain was the great center of industrial capitalism. Its grandest construction projects were built by self-made private enterprise. France was the center of science and formal academic training. France’s most magnificent projects were tax-financed and military inspired.

Hamilton advanced the idea that roads, canals, and other public construction were necessary for public safety. The Constitution, said Hamilton, implied a federal authority to build lighthouses for the safety of shipping, to remove obstructions to river commerce, and to build highways for troops. Thomas Jefferson, although suspicious of bureaucracy, admired the French talent for comprehensive planning and scientific professionalism. The result was a so-called “mixed enterprise” that allowed Congress to purchase stock and otherwise subsidize local construction. Jefferson envisioned a military academy for engineers that would professionalize the army and coordinate public works.

French engineering inspired the Corps. At the U.S. Military Academy, an engineering school, West Pointers learned French, studied mathematics, and grounded engineering in theory. French schooling left the West Pointers with an attraction to federally funded networks of projects and a preference for complex design. In 1816, President James Madison recruited French general Simon Bernard to head a U.S. board of fortification planners. The Monroe administration expanded Bernard’s authority to roads and canals.

After 1824, with the passage of the General Survey Act and the first federal river improvement act, the French-led Corps of Engineers assumed an active role as transportation planners. Together with the U.S. Bureau of Topographical Engineers, the Corps planned lighthouses, bridges, and Great Lakes ports of refuge from Buffalo to Duluth and our French-trained army engineers pioneered urban planning and sanitation engineering in Washington, D.C.

Many times, Congress hotly debated the constitutionality of federal internal improvements, the most expensive federal projects were seacoast fortifications. From 1808 to 1861, army engineers built one of the world’s most sophisticated systems of fortified harbors-more than 50 massive projects. Army engineers also surveyed the competing routes for the Pacific Railroad. Only about 100 strong, the engineering elite of the army planned a dozen major canals, a national highway, hundreds of beach-front dikes, and thousands of miles of navigation channels.

Gradually the Corps also took responsibility for planning a system of flood levees on the Lower Mississippi. After 1902, civilian agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey and the dam-building U.S. Reclamation Service rose to challenge the Corps monopoly over monumental construction. But the Corps, still the favorite of Congress, remained the nation’s foremost authority on water construction. Broad powers of implementation allowed the engineers to broker public assistance and direct federal aid.

Three missions have since dominated the Corps civil works. The first is navigation improvement-the channeling of rivers, the dredging of harbors, and the construction of locks and dams. For example, Corps-built navigation channels move oil from Tulsa to refineries above New Orleans. Barges of wheat and corn lock through Army engineered rivers from Omaha to Chicago. Soo Locks allow ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. The Corps’s Saint Lawrence Seaway connects the North Atlantic to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi tows push river barges through the Corps’s slackwater staircase from St. Louis to St. Paul. LINK

A second mission is flood control. This mission began in 1850 when a flood on the Mississippi excited the attention of Congress. After 1879, with the creation of the Corps-led Mississippi River Commission, engineers developed a sophisticated science of floodway design. In 1917, after another bad flood year on the Mississippi, Congress turned again to the Corps. On the Mississippi River and Sacramento River. In 1936, Congress expanded the federal flood program to the 48 states with $310 million for 250 projects.

The grandest result of the program was the Mississippi River and Tributaries project-the MR&T. Its vast system of levees and spillways funnels the dangerous river from St. Louis to New Orleans.  Link to how the levees have been expanded by the Corps after the New Orleans disaster in the early 2000’s

A third mission grew from the same scientific tradition that made the Corps an expert on floods. Corps engineers led the scientific surveys that mapped water resources. The engineers also surveyed Yellowstone and Yosemite parks.

In 1899, the so-called Refuse Act extended the environmental mission, making the engineers responsible for obstructions in navigable streams. Here began the Corps’s controversial permit authority to regulate dumping. Legislation such as the 1972 and 1974 Clean Water Acts expanded that authority. With the rise of the environmental movement, and the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969, the Corps became the steward of fraying coastlines and vanishing swamps.

Like so many decisions in our history – The Corps-for better or for worse-has been the agent of this modernization, as Americans have learned that every engineering solution always has secondary consequences.  For example, – Should we actually be building multi-million dollar homes over and over again on beaches and expecting a different outcome from major storms / hurricanes, and flooding?

Great Lakes and Ohio Valley Projects

 

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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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Chillin’

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The Yeti tumblers & coolers are truly amazing!! And they’re tough. Worth every penny. 

Want to see what’s inside a Yeti Cup? Watch this father & son do some fun experimenting!!! :)))

Being a heat treating guy, I always look closely at things that are hot, and things that are cold.  The other day, driving to work, I picked up my “insulated” coffee mug, and thought, “I wonder why this works so well.” Insulated tumblers, and coolers, like the successful Yeti brand, work really well to keep beverages cool or hot for very long periods of time (talk about PIA (Pain in the @%$) Jobs!).  I have memories of being down on the lakefront at a Brown’s game, reaching for my thermos, and pouring out hot, creamy tomato soup, watching the steam rise.  Of course, it was 13 degrees, with a wind chill of minus 72. Sipping the warm soup was ecstasy, as I watched my Brownies bungle another game.  So, I searched the internet and found some great info on the Yeti tumbler and got in depth info on exactly how these things work to keep heat out or to keep temperature in.  Enjoy, and thanks to huntingwaterfalls.com, study.com, byjus.com, hps.org and You Tube for the insights.

In a Yeti tumbler, while it just looks like a metal cup, it’s actually got an inner wall and it has an outer wall.  They are made of vacuum sealed stainless steel. The vacuum is what keeps out the majority of the heat by stopping heat conduction and convection. We here at KHT know a thing or two or three about vacuums!  The inside also has a copper plating to insulate against heat radiation as stainless steel itself is a poor conductor of heat. All of these elements combined with a plastic lid (another insulator) allow the tumblers to keep beverages cold or hot for so long.

In a “good” tumbler, there’s actually a gap in between the two walls and in between that gap is a vacuum. So, in manufacturing, they suck all of the air out of there so there’s basically nothing in there (or as close to nothing as they can get).

There’s different ways that heat is transferred from the outside air to the inside of your tumbler.

1. Conduction – you’ve got conduction which is the movement of heat from one object touching another. That’s the external heat from the air moving through the metal of the cup and into the contents inside your cup.

2. Convection – you’ve got convection, where air or water currents can move heat around.

3. Radiation – then you’ve got radiation which is heat that can pass through a vacuum.

Yeti tumblers are designed to effectively stop all 3 types of heat transfer, or minimize them as much as possible.

Now, let’s get serious on the “science” side:  Conduction needs particles for heat to move through and because there’s a vacuum and because there’s nothingness in between the two walls of the tumbler there’s actually no way for heat to pass through in conduction.  The only way for heat to do that is to actually hit the cup and actually pass through at the top of the cup where the inner wall and the outer wall is connected, as at the bottom of the cup the outer wall and inner wall aren’t actually connected. (got it?)

The only connecting point is the top of the cup and heat would need to move from the exterior of the cup all the way up to the top and all the way in – and that just doesn’t really happen.

Because thermos containers are made out of stainless steel (stainless steel is a terrible conductor of heat), the “lack of air” acts as an insulating material. This means the heat is unlikely to move from the outside up and around reducing conduction.

Convection is the movement of particles. For example, if you make a really hot pocket of water in the bath by turning the tap on hot and you “push” the hot water around that’s convection. (when I make a bath for the grandkids, I make sure to “blend” the water before they jump in).

When you have a vacuum present, there’s nothing to push around. So convection doesn’t happen in Yeti brand, or other tumblers, for this very reason.

The last tip of info is radiation. The sun’s rays obviously travel through space (which is a vacuum) and then heat up the earth. Radiation is always happening and will be able to go through the vacuum. (So even though the cup has a vacuum, this doesn’t protect it against radiation).

To protect against heat radiation, the interior is actually copper plated. Copper is a great reflector of radiation and so having that copper lining reflects the radiation trying to get in.  Learn more about shielding

The lid hole is the only space heat/cold can escape.  The newer tumblers have a magnetic slide so you can close it shut when you’re not drinking out of it.

The full cup is acting as an insulator, the top and the plastic is acting as a bit of an insulator as well and that’s what allows these to work so well and to keep ice for so long.

Now that you know how the thermal management of conduction, convection and radiation – watch this video comparing a $400 Yeti cooler to a $50 standard cooler – (you might be surprised!!).

So, next time at the beach, or camping, or just driving to work, you know!

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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!!

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

 

 

CAKE!

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I looooooove CAKE! (I know, I know, I do love food of any kind) They’re good anytime but especially fun on birthdays. Everyone can celebrate the event with a great big smile. Don’t forget to make a wish when you blow out the candles! And get them all out in one breath!!!!  :))))

Ah – the ritual of birthday cake.  It’s one of mankind’s great inventions (along with frosting, sprinkles, candles, balloons and of course ice cream).  I have a fun tradition with my golf buddies – every few weeks, we try to get together for breakfast and celebrate one of our group’s birthdays.  Nothing fancy, just good coffee and good food and good laughs.  It got me thinking about “cake”, so I dug up some interesting info on the topic. I never turn down a great cake – but I have to admit, my favorite desert is either Pineapple Upside Down cake or Boston Crème pie! . So, here’s a little history, fun facts about the birthday song, and world records.  Special thanks to readersdigest.com, The History Channel, CNBC and Wikipedia for the info.  Enjoy.

  1. A birthday cake is a cake eaten as part of a birthday celebration. Birthday cakes are often layer cakes with frosting served with small lit candles on top representing the celebrant’s age. Variations include cupcakes, cake pops, pastries, and tarts. The cake is often decorated with birthday wishes and the celebrant’s name.
  2. Birthday cakes have been a part of birthday celebrations in Western European countries since the middle of the 19th century. However, the link between cakes and birthday celebrations may date back to ancient Roman times.
  3. In classical Roman culture, ‘cakes’ were occasionally served at special birthdays and at weddings. These were flat circles made from flour and nuts, leavened with yeast, and sweetened with honey.
  4. The ancient Egyptians are credited with “inventing” the celebration of birthdays. They believed when pharaohs were crowned, they became gods, so their coronation day was a pretty big deal. That was their “birth” as a god – hence, birth day cake (get it?) So, they baked moon-shaped cakes to offer up to Artemis  goddess of the moon, as a tribute. They decorated them with lit candles to make the cakes shine like the moon – hence, the reason we light our birthday cakes on fire.
  5. In the 15th century, bakeries in Germany began to market one-layer cakes for customers’ birthdays in addition to cakes for weddings.
  6. During the 17th century, the birthday cake took on its contemporary form. These elaborate cakes had many aspects of the contemporary birthday cake, like multiple layers, icing, and decorations. However, these cakes were only available to the very wealthy. Birthday cakes became accessible to the lower class as a result of the industrial revolution and the spread of more materials and goods. So, it has become the cultures and traditions to celebrate the birthday with delicious cake and beautiful wishes.
  7. There is no standard for birthday cakes, though the “Happy Birthday“ song is often sung while the cake is served in English-speaking countries, or an equivalent birthday song in the appropriate language of the country.
  8. The birthday cake is often decorated with small candles, secured with special holders or simply pressed down into the cake. the number of candles is equal to the age of the individual whose birthday it is, sometimes with one extra for luck. Traditionally, the person whose birthday it is makes a wish, which is thought to come true if all the candles are extinguished in a single breath.
  9. The phrase “happy birthday” did not appear on birthday cakes until the song “Happy Birthday to You” was popularized in the early 1900s.
  10. In many cultures the person whose birthday is being celebrated is invited to make a wish, and blow out candles. Though the exact origin and significance of this ritual is unknown, there are multiple theories which try to explain this tradition.
  11. Greek:  One theory explaining the tradition of placing candles on birthday cakes is attributed to the early Greeks, who used candles to honor the goddess Artemis’ birth on the sixth day of every lunar month. The link between her oversight of fertility and the birthday tradition of candles on cakes, however, has not been established.
  12. Pagan:  The use of fire in certain rites dates back to the creation of altars. Birthday candles are said to hold symbolic power. In the past it was believed that evil spirits visited people on their birthdays and that, to protect the person whose birthday it was from evil, people must surround the individual and make them merry. Party-goers made noise to scare away evil spirits.
  13. German:  In 18th century Germany, the history of candles on cakes can be traced back to Kinderfest, a birthday celebration for children. This tradition also makes use of candles and cakes. German children were taken to an auditorium-like space. There, they were free to celebrate another year in a place where Germans believed that adults protected children from the evil spirits attempting to steal their souls.
  14. Swiss:  A reference to the tradition of blowing out the candles was documented in Switzerland in 1881. Researchers for the Folk-Lore Journal recorded various “superstitions” among the Swiss middle class. One statement depicted a birthday cake as having lighted candles which correspond to each year of life. These candles were required to be blown out, individually, by the person who is being celebrated.
  15. The Happy Birthday Song is arguably the most frequently-sung English song in the world, giving “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and “Auld Lang Syne” a run for their money. If you hear this song a lot in September, there’s a reason.
  16. Singing the Happy Birthday Song may actually make birthday cake taste better. According to a study by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Minnesota, indulging in a ritual before eating heightens our enjoyment of the food and helps us savor it.
  17. Here are some things you never knew about another birthday pastime: the “Happy Birthday” song. At a well preserved 125 years old, “Happy Birthday to You,” is the most frequently sung English song in the world.  It was originally composed in 1893 as “Good Morning to All” by Patty Smith Hill, a kindergarten teacher and principal in Louisville, Kentucky, and her oldest sister, Mildred Jane Hill, a pianist and composer. Its lyrics went like this:  Good morning to you, Good morning to you, Good morning, dear children, Good morning to all.
  18. The song was part of a larger project of the sisters to create simple music that catered to children’s limited abilities. They workshopped songs on Patty’s class so that “even the youngest children could learn with perfect ease,” with Patty writing the words and Mildred setting them to melodies. They published GMTA in their 1893 book, Song Stories for the Kindergarten. Just like us, the sisters loved simple, shareable sentiments.
  19. For years, legal battles raged over the Hill sisters’ ownership of the Birthday Song and whether or not it should be in the public domain. A 2013 class-action lawsuit initiated by a New York filmmaker challenged the song’s copyright and demanded that the current copyright owner return all previous royalties it had collected for HBTY. In May 2015, U.S. District Judge George King was still hearing arguments for Good Morning to You Productions Corp. vs. Warner/Chappell Music. In February 2016, Warner Music finally ended the long-fought battle when it paid $14 million to put “Happy Birthday” into the public domain. In June of the same year, a judge approved it.
  20. The world’s largest birthday cake was created in 1989 for the 100th Birthday of the city of Fort Payne, Alabama. The cake weighed 128,238 pounds, 8 oz. and used 16,209 pounds of icing!
  21. A birthday cake loaded with diamonds and hand-sculpted fondant smashed the record for the most expensive dessert ever created. Price tag: $75 million. The decadent cake was created by British designer Debbie Wingham, who rose to fame when she crafted the world’s most expensive dress for $17.7 million. It took more than 1,100 hours to make, since all of the tiny edible figurines were hand-sculpted with Wingham’s couture clothing and accessories, including sunglasses and handbags.  Much of the value comes from the bling. The cake has 4,000 diamonds, including a 5.2-carat pink diamond, a 6.4-carat yellow diamond and 15 five-carat white diamonds. Those 17 stones alone are worth more than $45 million. (now that’s when you wanna lick the frosting!!)

 

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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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SWAK

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I love Valentines Day and all the sweet things it brings!!

OK gang – this is public service “heads up” from your buds at KHT … next Monday is Valentines Day.  That gives you the rest of today and the weekend to get something special for your loved one(s). I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a softie when it comes to Valentine’s Day – Jackie and I have a tradition on Valentine’s gifts going back to when we were dating.  Since she still loves me I don’t mess with a good thing!  Jackie has always found cool gifts for the girls (and now the grandbabies).  I especially like chocolate covered peanuts or raisins or those little crunchy things (surprise?).  As a kid, I can remember the little boxes we’d get, and the joy (or disappointment of taking a nibble into the candy – to find nuts or jelly or “eeuuuwww” not sure.  Gently putting it back in the box was an art (hey, just sharing with my brothers and sisters).  The legend of St. Valentine dates back to the Roman times, and many of the traditions built up over the centuries still carry forward today.  Here’s some fun info – thanks to History.com and Wikipedia.  Enjoy – and be sure to get something special this year – we all need some extra love these days!!

  • Valentine’s Day occurs every February 14 across the United States and in other places around the world – candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine.
  • The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Still others insist that it was Saint Valentine of Terni, a bishop, who was the true namesake of the holiday. He, too, was beheaded by Claudius II outside Rome.
  • Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl—possibly his jailor’s daughter—who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today.
  • Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and—most importantly—romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.
  • While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial—which probably occurred around A.D. 270—others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.
  • To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.
  • Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity but was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”—at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine’s Day should be a day for romance. The English poet Geoffrey Chaucer was the first to record St. Valentine’s Day as a day of romantic celebration in his 1375 poem “Parliament of Foules,” writing, “For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day / Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.”
  • Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.)
  • Cupid is often portrayed on Valentine’s Day cards as a naked cherub launching arrows of love at unsuspecting lovers. But the Roman God Cupid has his roots in Greek mythology as the Greek god of love, Eros.
  • According to the Greek Archaic poets, Eros was a handsome immortal who played with the emotions of Gods and men, using golden arrows to incite love and leaden ones to sow aversion. It wasn’t until the Hellenistic period that he began to be portrayed as the mischievous, chubby child he’d become on Valentine’s Day cards.
  • Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap.” Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 145 million Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year (more cards are sent at Christmas).
  • By the 1840s, the notion of Valentine’s Day as a holiday to celebrate romantic love had taken over most of the English-speaking world. It was Cupid’s golden age: The prudish Victorians adored the notion of courtly love and showered each other with elaborate cards and gifts. Into this love-crazed fray came Richard Cadbury, scion of a British chocolate manufacturing family and responsible for sales at a crucial point in his company’s history. Cadbury had recently improved its chocolate making technique so as to extract pure cocoa butter from whole beans, producing a more palatable drinking chocolate than most Britons had ever tasted. This process resulted in an excess amount of cocoa butter, which Cadbury used to produce many more varieties of what was then called “eating chocolate.” Richard recognized a great marketing opportunity for the new chocolates and started selling them in beautifully decorated boxes that he himself designed.
  • From that point, it was a quick jump to taking the familiar images of Cupids and roses and putting them on heart-shaped boxes. While Richard Cadbury didn’t actually patent the heart-shaped box, it’s widely believed that he was the first to produce one. Cadbury marketed the boxes as having a dual purpose: When the chocolates had all been eaten, the box itself was so pretty that it could be used again and again to store mementos, from locks of hair to love letters. The boxes grew increasingly elaborate until the outbreak of World War 2, when sugar was rationed and Valentine’s Day celebrations were scaled down. But Victorian-era Cadbury boxes still exist, and many are treasured family heirlooms or valuable items prized by collectors.
  • About 60 million pounds of chocolate is sold in the seven days leading up to Valentines Day (video ), and about 145 million greeting cards are exchanged. (make your own)

 

I couldn’t resist sharing this photo… Happy Valentines Day!!!!!! 

 

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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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Wellies

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Got your Wellies?? Hope so!!! With the snow out there today I’ve got mine. Who’d have thought that The Duke of Wellington (second row right, above) would have started a fashion revolution. While they are definitely practical, They’re now a super fashion statement. Just look at that Vogue cover on the next row. At the bottom is the design I thought my wife would like. I’ll let you know. 

 

With this crazy snow dump going on around us, I like most of you, was out in the driveway with my trusty shovel.  Part of growing up and living in Cleveland is the annual snow ritual – sometimes with the snowblower, and sometimes just by hand. I’m not sure if you are aware, but there is an interesting history about the rubber snow boot.  Perfect in design, excellent in repelling water, and “sometimes” fashionable, rubber boots simply rock. From the little yellow and pink ones my girls used on rainy and snowy days, to the more industrial (just keep my feet dry) designs, we can thank a Duke and some engineers at the BF Goodrich (Ohio -yea!) company (today marks the patent anniversary).  Here’s some history, and some cool production videos on “wellington” style boots.  Enjoy, and thanks to Wikipedia, Scientific American and YouTube for the info.

Manufacturing Video  (I like the melt boot index!)

  1. Wellington boots in contemporary usage are waterproof and are most often made from rubber or polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a halogenated polymer. They are usually worn when walking on wet or muddy ground, or to protect the wearer from heavy showers and puddles. They are generally just below knee-high although shorter boots are available.
  2. The “Wellington” is a common and necessary safety or hygiene shoe in diverse industrial settings: for heavy industry with an integrated reinforced toe; protection from mud and grime in mines, from chemical spills in chemical plants and from water, dirt, and mud in horticultural and agricultural work; and serving the high standard of hygiene required in food processing plants, operating theatres, and dust-free clean rooms for electronics manufacture.
  3. Sailing wear includes short and tall sailing wellingtons with non-marking, slip-resistant soles to avoid damage to a boat’s deck. These boots require thermal socks to be worn underneath as the rubber does not provide enough warmth.
  4. The Duke of Wellington instructed his shoemaker, Hoby of St. James’s Street, London, to modify the 18th-century Hessian boot. The resulting new boot was fabricated in soft calfskin leather, had the trim removed and was cut to fit more closely around the leg. The heels were low cut, stacked around an inch, and the boot stopped at mid-calf. It was suitably hard-wearing for riding, yet smart enough for informal evening wear. The boot was dubbed the Wellington and the name has stuck in English ever since. In the 1815 portrait by James Lonsdale, the Duke can be seen wearing the more formal Hessian style boots, which are tasselled.
  5. Wellington’s utilitarian new boots quickly caught on with patriotic British gentlemen eager to emulate their war hero.  Considered fashionable and foppish in the best circles.
  6. From the Amazonian Indians’ pain of roasting rubber over fire, modern society may have gained the rubber boot. That’s the best guess, anyway, of experts who know their latex. “When the New World was discovered by Columbus and his followers, one of the first things they found was rubber,” says Joe Jackson, author of The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire. “There were two things reported back: bouncing balls and boots.”
  7. Indians would go out and slice into the bark of a rubber tree, collecting the white latex sap in a process similar to tapping maple syrup, Jackson explains. Then they would turn to the fire. “And, for hours, they would just sit there turning this stick over a smoky fire,” he says. “Then they would take a cup from a bigger basin of latex and pour more on the stick until they had a black ball of rubber,” to be sold for or used in games.
  8. Whether or not this boredom was the inspiration, historians do believe that Indians created makeshift boots by hanging their rubber-coated feet over fires. “It may have taken an awful lot of will power,” Jackson guesses. “Maybe they dipped them in until they couldn’t stand it anymore. Took a break. Then dipped them back in.”
  9. The result was a crude form of what would later evolve into high men’s fashion, a farmer’s standard, and a kid’s rainy-day footwear. None of them would come until centuries later, however, after Charles Goodyear improved on the Amazonian technology.
  10. “Goodyear was obsessed with rubber,” says Chris Laursen, the science and technology librarian for the Rubber Division at the University of Akron, a professional organization for the rubber industry within the American Chemical Society. “He foresaw a world in which everything was made out of rubber.”
  11. Before he could make that world a reality, Goodyear first needed to find a way to keep rubber from cracking in the cold and melting in the heat. The solution came to him by accident in 1839, according to his own book, Gum-Elastic and Its Varieties. Goodyear spilled a concoction of rubber, sulfur and white lead onto a hot stove and witnessed the mixture charring around the edges but, surprisingly, not melting.
  12. In this eureka moment, Goodyear managed to cross-link rubber molecules via sulfur bridges into one large macromolecule—creating a stronger, more thermal-resistant material. “Under a powerful microscope,” Laursen says, “it would look like a cooked plate of spaghetti all intertwined.” Goodyear would later fine-tune the process and coin it “vulcanization,” after the Roman god of fire.
  13. Wellington boots were at first made of leather. However, in 1852 Hiram Hutchinson met Charles Goodyear, who had just invented the sulfur vulcanisation process for natural rubber. Hutchinson bought the patent to manufacture footwear and moved to France to establish À l’Aigle (“to the Eagle”) in 1853, to honor his home country. Today the company is simply called Aigle. In a country where 95% of the population were working on fields with wooden clogs as they had been for generations, the introduction of the wholly waterproof, Wellington-type rubber boot became an instant success: farmers would be able to come back home with clean, dry feet.
  14. Production of the Wellington boot was dramatically boosted with the advent of World War I and a requirement for footwear suitable for the conditions in Europe’s flooded and muddy trenches. The North British Rubber Company (now Hunter Boot Ltd) was asked by the War Office to construct a boot suitable for such conditions. The mills ran day and night to produce immense quantities of these trench boots. In total, 1,185,036 pairs were made to meet the British Army’s demands.
  15. In World War II, Hunter Boot was again requested to supply vast quantities of Wellington and thigh boots. 80% of production was of war materials – from (rubber) ground sheets to life belts and gas masks. In the Netherlands, the British forces were working in flooded conditions which demanded Wellingtons and thigh boots in vast supplies.
  16. By the end of the war in 1945, the Wellington had become popular among men, women and children for wet weather wear. The boot had developed to become far roomier with a thick sole and rounded toe. Also, with the rationing of that time, labourers began to use them for daily work.
  17. The lower cost and ease of rubber “Wellington” boot manufacture, and being entirely waterproof, lent itself immediately to being the preferred protective material to leather in all forms of industry. Increased attention to occupational health and safety requirements led to the steel toe or steel-capped Wellington: a protective (commonly internal) toe-capping to protect the foot from crush and puncture injuries.
  18. Green Wellington boots, introduced by Hunter Boot Ltd in 1955, gradually became a shorthand for “country life” in the UK.  In 1980, sales of their boots skyrocketed after Lady Diana Spencer (future Princess Diana) was pictured wearing a pair on the Balmoral estate during her courtship with Prince Charles.
  19. While usually called rubber boots, but sometimes galoshes, mud boots, rain boots, mucking boots, or billy boots, in the United States, the terms “gumboots”, “wellies”, “wellingtons”, and “rainboots” are preferred in Canada. Gumboots are popular in Canada during spring, when melting snows leave wet and muddy ground. Young people can be seen wearing them to school or university and taking them to summer camps. They are an essential item for farmers, and many fishermen, often being accompanied by hip waders.
  20. While green is popular in Britain, red-soled black rubber boots are often seen in the United States, in addition to Canadian styles. Rubber boots specifically made for cold weather, lined with warm insulating material, are especially popular practical footwear for Canadian winters. This same style of lined boot is also popular among those who work in or near the ocean as one can wade in and out of shallow, but cold, ocean water, while staying dry and warm.  In the US white mid-calf rubber boots are worn by workers on shrimp boats and yellow boots for construction workers pouring concrete.
  21. Boots, including rubber boots, are an $8 billion-dollar worldwide industry.  Emerging markets in China, India, and Africa account for the largest growth estimates through 2025.

 

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

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!!

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

Play Well

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Legos…are they for kids? Sure. But adults around the world are building amazing sculptures with them. And the Lego global manufacturing processes and distribution system is nothing short of astonishing. Check it out. And if you have a Lego build you’re proud of, send me a picture. I’d love to see it. The one I’m proud of is my logo made from Legos near the bottom above. The one on the left is 20×20 single blocks. The one on the right is 70×70. Cool, huh??  :))))  If you want to see more Lego creations, kits and fun, Google it.

In these cold, wintery days, I find myself more interested in staying inside and relaxing (especially after shoveling) – staying warm, reading a book, or playing a game.  Games and toys are a big part of the Kowalski traditions, especially around the holidays when we’re all together.  Since Jackie and I are blessed to have the grandkids close by we have been able to introduce them to many of the wonderful toys our girls grew up with.  Jackie pulled out our collection of Legos this past weekend.  I must say we do have a significant collection!  After washing them all after years in storage…  I got thinking about how cool, and simple, these toys are and then of course took to the “net” and did some digging. Lego, was founded in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958), a carpenter from Denmark, who began his career making wooden toys. In 1934, his company came to be called “Lego”, derived from the Danish phrase leg godt [lɑjˀ ˈkʌt], which means “play well”.  In the late 40’s Lego expanded from wooden toys to producing plastic toys and in ‘49 Lego began producing, among other new products, an early version of the now familiar interlocking bricks, calling them “Automatic Binding Bricks”.  Fast forward to today, and Lego has become a global brand (ranks in top 5 awareness) manufacturing “bricks” by the billions.  For my manufacturing and engineering buds out there, be sure to watch the production videos below … talk about PIA (pain in the @%$) Jobs! – the inventory, quality control, packaging and distribution logistics are absolutely remarkable. I have to say the level of automation / technology in their facilities make me a little jealous!  Below is some history and trivia on that first simple patent (1/28/58) for little stackable bricks.  Enjoy! And thanks to YouTube, Wikipedia and Lego for the info.

VIDEO: Bricks in the making
VIDEO: Making the little people
VIDEO: Technic in action  
***Caution:  these videos are amazing – may impact your afternoon productivity!!

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958), a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934, his company came to be called “Lego”, derived from the Danish phrase leg godt [lɑjˀ ˈkʌt], which means “play well”.In 1947, Lego expanded to begin producing plastic toys. (FYI – plural for Lego … Lego)

In 1949 Lego began producing, among other new products, an early version of the now familiar interlocking bricks, calling them “Automatic Binding Bricks”. These bricks were based on the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which had been patented in the United Kingdom in 1939 and released in 1947 (oops! bad decision). Lego had received a sample of the Kiddicraft bricks from the supplier of an injection-molding machine that it purchased – and purchased, and purchased – (see videos!)

The Lego Group’s motto is “only the best is good enough” (Danish: det bedste er ikke for godt, literally “the best isn’t excessively good”). This motto, which is still used today, was created by Christiansen to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly.

By 1951 plastic toys accounted for half of the Lego company’s output, even though the Danish trade magazine Legetøjs-Tidende (“Toy Times”), visiting the Lego factory in Billund in the early 1950s, felt that plastic would never be able to replace traditional wooden toys (oops! bad insight).

By 1954, Christiansen’s son, Godtfred, (I love it when sons’/family step in) had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that led to the idea of a toy system. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their locking ability was limited, and they were not versatile. In 1958, the modern brick design was developed; it took five years to find the right material for it, ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) polymer. A patent application for the modern Lego brick design was filed in Denmark on January 28, 1958, and in various other countries in the subsequent few years.

Lego pieces of all varieties constitute a universal system. Despite variation in the design and the purposes of individual pieces over the years, each piece remains compatible in some way with existing pieces. Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those made in the current time, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers. Six bricks of 2 × 4 studs can be combined in 915,103,765 ways (I knew that – just do the math silly!).

The Lego Group’s Duplo product line was introduced in 1969 and is a range of simple blocks whose lengths measure twice the width, height, and depth of standard Lego blocks and are aimed towards younger children.  (Yep, we have mostly these in the house).

In 1978, Lego produced the first minifigures, which have since become a staple in most sets.

In May 2013, the largest model ever created was displayed in New York City and was made of over 5 million bricks; a 1:1 scale model of an X-wing fighter. Other records include a 34-metre (112 ft) tower and a 4 km (2.5 mi) railway. See top 20 World Records Here – unreal!!

In February 2015, Lego replaced Ferrari as the “world’s most powerful brand.”

Lego’s popularity is demonstrated by its wide representation and usage in many forms of cultural works, including books, film & TV and artwork, theme parks, retail stores (over 700!), books, apparel and more. It has even been used in the classroom as a teaching tool.

Each Lego piece must be manufactured to an exacting degree of precision. When two pieces are engaged they must fit firmly, yet be easily disassembled. The machines that manufacture Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 10 micrometers.

The average development period for a new product is around twelve months, split into three stages. The first stage is to identify market trends and developments. The second stage is the design and development of the product based upon the results of the first stage.. These prototypes are presented to the entire project team for comment and for testing by parents and children during the “validation” process.

In 1998, Lego bricks were one of the original inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York.

Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plastic waste from the manufacturing process. If the plastic cannot be re-used in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold on to industries that can make use of it. Lego has a self-imposed 2030 deadline to find a more eco-friendly alternative to the ABS plastic it currently uses in its bricks.

 

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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!!

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

Stayin’ Alive

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Just WOW!!!! If you’ve never seen this movie, get it. Watch it five times…then shoot me an email with your thoughts. Soooo much fun!!! At the bottom is John Travolta in “Welcome Back Cotter”

Sometimes the songs of our youth ring true, even today.  With all the pain, isolation, coughing, tests, headaches and heartache, I got thinking about the times when we could just go out, be free, dance and have some fun.  Today marks the anniversary when the album Saturday Night Fever hit #1 on the billboard charts – and those silly songs still play in my head.  When “Saturday Night Fever”, starring John Travolta, was released in 1977, few could have expected the cultural phenomenon it would become. The soundtrack by British band the Bee Gees (how did he hit those high notes??) was also an enormous hit: You would not believe the looks and faces that Jackie and my girls give me when I try to hit those notes!  its songs, including “Stayin’ Alive”, “How Deep Is Your Love”  and “Night Fever”, epitomized the disco era and the album hit #1 on billboard charts, spending 24 consecutive weeks at No. 1, selling more than 45 million units. Like I do, I dug into the internet and found some great info – so click on the links, crank up the music and “dance” – Enjoy!  And thanks to Wikipedia and YouTube for the info and videos.

Video – Stayin’ Alive
Video – More Than A Woman

Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood, staring John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man from Brooklyn who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local discothèque while dealing with social tensions and general restlessness and disillusionment with his life, and feeling directionless and trapped in his working-class neighborhood. The story is based upon “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night”, an article by music writer Nik Cohn, first published in a June 1976 issue of New York magazine. The film features music by Bee Gees and many other prominent artists of the disco era.

A major critical and commercial success, Saturday Night Fever had a tremendous effect on popular culture of the late 1970s. The film helped significantly to popularize disco music around the world and made Travolta, who was already well known from his role on TV’s Welcome Back, Kotter, a household name. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, becoming the fifth-youngest nominee in the category.

Disco was already a popular genre by 1977 but the film’s success broke it into the mainstream, and it would remain dominant for the next three years. According to Rolling Stone, top three disco songs are Stayin’ Alive, Gloria Gaynor “I Will Survive” and Donna Summer “I Feel Love”

The album revitalized the Bee Gees. They had experienced significant success in the 1960s with songs like “Massachusetts” and “New York Mining Disaster 1941” but Saturday Night Fever took them to another level, and their sound was virtually inescapable for months after the album’s release. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, featuring disco songs by the Bee Gees, is one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time.

Just look at this musical line up – (bet you know almost all of the songs).
“Stayin’ Alive” performed by Bee Gees – 4:45
“How Deep Is Your Love” performed by Bee Gees – 4:05
“Night Fever” performed by Bee Gees – 3:33
“More Than a Woman” performed by Bee Gees – 3:17
“If I Can’t Have You” performed by Yvonne Elliman – 3:00
“A Fifth of Beethoven” performed by Walter Murphy – 3:03
“More Than a Woman” performed by Tavares – 3:17
“Manhattan Skyline” performed by David Shire – 4:44
“Calypso Breakdown” performed by Ralph MacDonald – 7:50
“Night on Disco Mountain” performed by David Shire – 5:12
“Open Sesame” performed by Kool & the Gang – 4:01
“Jive Talkin’” performed by Bee Gees – 3:43 (*)
“You Should Be Dancing” performed by Bee Gees – 4:14
“Boogie Shoes” performed by KC and the Sunshine Band – 2:17
“Salsation” performed by David Shire – 3:50
“K-Jee” performed by MFSB – 4:13
“Disco Inferno” performed by The Trammps – 10:51

The film’s relatively low budget ($3.5 million) meant that most of the actors were relative unknowns, many of whom were recruited from New York’s theatre scene (for more than 40% of the actors it was their film debut). The only actor in the cast who was already an established name was John Travolta, thanks to his role on the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. His performance as Tony Manero brought him critical acclaim and helped launch him into international stardom. (he would repeat the success the following year with another musical smash, Grease).

Travolta researched the part by visiting the real 2001 Odyssey discotheque , rehearsing his choreography with Lester Wilson and Deney Terrio for three hours every day, losing 20 pounds in the process.

Karen Lynn Gorney was nine years older than Travolta when she was cast as his love interest Stephanie. (Jessica Lange, Kathleen Quinlan, Carrie Fisher, and Amy Irving were all considered for the part before Gorney was cast – good decision!).

The film was shot entirely on-location in Brooklyn, New York at the 2001 Odyssey Disco – a real club located at 802 64th Street, which has since been demolished. The interior was modified for the film, including the addition of a $15,000 lighted floor, which was inspired by a Birmingham, Alabama establishment. Since the Bee Gees were not involved in the production until after principal photography wrapped, the “Night Fever”, “You Should Be Dancin'”, and “More Than a Woman” sequences were shot with Stevie Wonder tracks that were later overdubbed in the sound mix. During filming, the production was harassed by local gangs near of the location, and was even firebombed.

The film grossed $25.9 million in its first 24 days of release and grossed an average of $600,000 a day throughout January to March going on to gross $94.2 million in the United States and Canada and $237.1 million worldwide This would be worth $1,090,800,000 today!!

In 2010, Saturday Night Fever was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

“…. You should be dancin’, yea … dancin’ – dance the night away….”  

 

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

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!!

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

Chips

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Chips are wonderful!!! But who made the first chip???? 

Supply chain mishaps.  Stranded shipping containers.  Logjams at the terminals. Millions of products waiting on the shelf.  Consumer frustration on low inventory.  All because of chips.  That’s not good for business or customers.  So, how did America respond?? – by increasing chips sales by over $400 million dollars in ’21, with a global projection to be four-fold that by 2026. According to people who track things, when Covid-19 forced people to stay home, many of us found solace in a snack: potato chips. I guess you can say, when the chips are down, American’s gobble them up. So, I did some digging, got some sound history and good explanations on the category.  So, grab a bowl, pour out some chips, and enjoy. Thanks to Brandon Tensley from Smithsonian, YouTube, Cleveland.com, thoughtco.com and foodandwine.com for the info.  Now, if we can only find enough dip!!  My favorite dip is still French Onion from Dairymens here in Northeast Ohio.  It pairs perfectly with ridged or kettle chips!

Traditional chips
Stackable chips

  1. Potato chips are thin slices of potato that have been either deep-fried or baked until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or appetizer. The potato chips market is segmented by product type (fired or baked), flavor (plain, salted and flavored), distribution channel (supermarkets, convenience stores, online, etc.), and geography – think globally.
  2. Americans consume about 1.85 billion pounds of potato chips annually, or around 6.6 pounds per person. (just one more reason for all those early morning runs!)). Add to that worldwide crunching, with explosive growth in Asian countries – and that’s a lot of chips!
  3. Any search for the origins of this signature finger food must lead to George Crum (born George Speck), a 19th-century chef of Native and African American descent who made his name at Moon’s Lake House in the resort town of Saratoga Springs, New York. As the story goes, one day in 1853, the railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt was eating at Moon’s when he ordered his fried potatoes be returned to the kitchen because they were too thick. Furious with such a fussy eater, Crum sliced some potatoes as slenderly as he could, fried them to a crisp and sent them out to Vanderbilt as a prank. Rather than take the gesture as an insult, Vanderbilt was overjoyed. (think this is where “crumbs” came from??)
  4. Other patrons began asking for Crum’s “Saratoga Chips,” which soon became a hit far beyond Upstate New York. In 1860, Crum opened his own restaurant near Saratoga known as Crum’s House or Crum’s Place, where a basket of potato chips sat invitingly on every table. Crum oversaw the restaurant until retiring over 30 years later; in 1889, a New York Herald writer called him “the best cook in America.”
  5. Still, historians who have peeled the skin off this story have hastened to point out that Crum was not the sole inventor of the chip, or even the first. The earliest known recipe for chips dates to 1817, when an English doctor named William Kitchiner published The Cook’s Oracle, a cookbook that included a recipe for “potatoes fried in slices or shavings.”
  6. And in July 1849, four years before Crum supposedly dissed Vanderbilt, a New York Herald reporter noted the work of “Eliza,” also, curiously, a cook in Saratoga Springs, whose “potato frying reputation” had become “one of the prominent matters of remark at Saratoga.” Yet scholars are united in acknowledging that Crum popularized the chip.
  7. For a long time, chips remained a restaurant-only delicacy. But in 1895 a Cleveland, Ohio entrepreneur named William Tappenden found a way to keep them stocked on grocery shelves, using his kitchen and, later, a barn turned factory in his backyard to make the chips and deliver them in barrels to local markets via horse-drawn wagon. Countless other merchants followed suit.
  8. In 1926, Laura Scudder, a California businesswoman, began packaging chips in wax-paper bags that included not only a “freshness” date but also a tempting boast—“the Noisiest Chips in the World,” a peculiarly American marketing breakthrough that made a virtue of being obnoxious.
  9. The snack took another leap the following year, when Leonard Japp, a Chicago chef and former prizefighter, began to mass-produce the snack—largely, the rumor goes, to serve one client: Al Capone, who allegedly discovered a love for potato chips on a visit to Saratoga and thought they would sell well in his speak-easies. Japp opened factories to supply the snack to a growing list of patrons, and by the mid-1930s was selling to clients throughout the Midwest, as potato chips continued their climb into the pantheon of America’s treats; later, Japp also created what can be considered the modern iteration by frying his potatoes in oil instead of lard.
  10. When Lay’s became the first national brand of potato chips in 1961, the company enlisted Bert Lahr, (famous for playing the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz), as its first celebrity spokesman, who purred the devilish challenge, “Betcha can’t eat just one.”
  11. The U.S. potato chip market—just potato chips, never mind tortilla chips or cheese puffs or pretzels—is estimated at $10.5 billion. And while chips and other starchy indulgences have long been criticized for playing a role in health conditions such as obesity and hypertension, the snack industry has cleaned up its act to some extent, cooking up options with less fat and sodium, from sweet potato chips with sea salt to taro chips to red lentil crisps with tomato and basil.
  12. Still, for many Americans, the point of chips has always been pure indulgence. Following a year of fast-food buzz, last October Hershey released the most sophisticated snack mashup since the yogurt-covered pretzel: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups stuffed with potato chips. Only history can judge whether this triple-flavored calorie bomb will be successful. But more than a century and a half after Crum’s peevish inspiration, the potato chip isn’t just one of our most popular foods but also our most versatile.
  13. For those who plan ahead, National Chip Dip Day is Wednesday, March 23rd

 

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

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!!

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