Netherfield Ball - 2009

The 2009 edition of the Netherfield Ball was this past Saturday night. This year John joined Sarah, Bobbie and me as he will be turning 12 in July. He looks like quite the dandy in this video! Hint, he's the wee one of the men in this three couple dance. In the meantime, Janine got to spend Saturday night with her pal Jennie.

Just for background, the Netherfield Ball is sponsored by our homeschool network as a teen event. We all get to dress in the manner of the British Regency period and perform English Country dances just like those depicted in Jane Austen novels. Attendance was up this year. There were perhaps as many as 150. The crowd included parents as well as teens, but was mainly teens.

The dancing is actually pretty simple especially since there was a caller who kept us all in line, three long lines, actually. There were two lines last year, but we needed three so everyone could dance. As a result we had to dance a bit closer together and were not able to set up as many tables and chairs. One of the nice extras is that this is a social dance so it is bad form to dance with the same partner more than once, (except for the moms and dads). It also helped to have some practice this past winter.

Here's a video of Sarah dancing with Josh Blum. Sarah took some liberties with her outfit. Look for Chuck Taylors under that period dress.

David McCollough

I had the privilege of listening to historian David McCollough speak this morning. He spoke at Robert Morris University as a prelude to his appearance tonight at Heinz Hall.

It was a very open talk. In fact he spoke for only about 10 minutes, then opened up the floor for 45 minutes of questions.

In his opening comments he said that if one were to place a lens on only once place to tell the story of the United States, he contends that Pittsburgh is that place. (Oh, did I mention he was born and raised in the Point Breeze neighborhood of the city?)

He took us on a brief journey from the early trappers who roamed this area to George Washington as a young officer serving under General Braddock in the French and Indian War. He went on to the Revolution and pointed out that Lewis and Clark's boat was built here. After more examples, he concluded with the development of the polio vaccine and the transplant techniques pioneered at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

As he reminisced about his boyhood he recalled spending rainy Saturdays at the Carnegie in Oakland where the library, museum and music hall all share the same roof. At that place, he said, there are no boundaries in learning. One diorama there depicts an Arab on horseback being attacked by a lion. When he was in college, McCollough told his father that as a boy of 10 he was terrified of it. His father replied, "when I was that age, so was I."

His love of history was first inspired when he was 14 and tagged along on his friend's family vacation to Virginia. During that trip they toured Montecello and he was hooked by the story behind it. The rooms with their odd doors and Jefferson's inventions as well as his architectural designs for the estate and the UVA campus fascinated the teenage McCollough as well as the elder historian.

But it is the power of the story that drives history well written. He said that despite all the trends and movements, history is always a human story. As an example he quoted E. M. Forester's distinction between a sequence of events and a story. "The king died, then the queen died" is a sequence of events. "The king died, then the queen died of grief" is a story.

"Overall," he said, "historians should strive to write literature."

How well he has done just that. So we are looking forward to the book he is currently writing on Americans in Paris from the 1830s to the 1930s.. Even there he cited Pittsburghers from Mary Cassett to Gertrude Stein to naturally, Gene Kelly.

A morning very well spent!

Black Diamond Street

This past weekend John and I were running errands. We changed our course and drove through Bellevue. Not satisfied to take the well traveled road, we drove down this street.

It is made of vintage cobblestones and must be at least a 30 degree drop. It impressed me so much that I had to get a photo as it reminded me of San Francisco.

I can only imagine that this street is rated as a black diamond ski run when the snow flies in the winter.

The Van is Back!

Yesterday I drove up to Buffalo with Dan, my business partner for sales calls and to pick up our van from the repair shop.

The story started two weeks ago when we were driving to Rochester, NY to see Grace play in a hockey tournament. Just as we got a toll ticket on the eastbound side of the New York Thruway I noticed the check engine light came on and the temperature gauge was climbing fast. I pulled over to the side of the road and opened the hood to find steam rising from the engine. I also smelled burning rubber.

With the semis whizzing by, I knew I had to drive on to a safer spot. We nervously made our way a mile and a half to the next exit. The toll taker directed us to a park and ride lot at the end of the exit ramp. As I turned off the car, the engine started to sound very busy, almost as if it was grinding itself up.

While Bobbie called AAA, I stood in the rain to call Butch, our mechanic back in Pittsburgh. He asked if there was white smoke coming from the car. When I said yes, he said we may have blown a head gasket and the engine is probably ruined. His estimate, a $1200 repair.

In the meantime, AAA told Bobbie that we were technically still on the Thruway and could not be towed using their benefits, but they would try anyway and call us back. While we waited, she called Enterprise and National to reserve a rental car. Then good news from AAA, they are sending a tow truck, but bad news on renting a car. We would have to go to the Buffalo airport too rent one-way from National. Enterprise would not pick us up.

The tow truck driver pictured above turned out to be a great guy. But at first he wasn't so sure about us because he had been told that there were five people arrested on the Thruway that needed to be towed. (Perhaps AAA may need some communications skills training.) He was very nice to the kids, gave us the phone number to a good cab service, and waited patiently as we gathered everything out of the van. "No offense." I said, "If the engine is blown, we may not want to bring it back to Pittsburgh." He laughed and agreed that I should do what I ought to do. Janine started to cry at this point because like us, she thought she may never see this car again.

Soon the cab arrived and we piled all of our stuff into the trunk. The cabbie was brusque at first, but soon was helping put things into his Crown Victoria cab. The tow truck driver left me with a firm handshake talking about his seven year old boy who is already playing hockey, and his two younger brothers who are right behind.

It was a five minute $12 cab ride to the airport as the park and ride lot was on the perimeter of it. The cabbie helped us unload all of our stuff into an enclosure on the departures level. Then he started to give me detailed directions on how to get to Rochester from there. Heck, I think he would have stayed with the kids if we asked.

The Buffalo car rental area was no picnic, but then, none are. The attendant was friendly but unhelpful in reassuring me I was getting a car that would fit all of us and our stuff. "We don't have any minivans. There's a big hockey tournament this weekend."

"Thanks, I know..."

But I was soon in a Dodge Charger 4 door winding my way out onto the airport drive and back to the Departures area. Everything did fit including the kids as you can see. Although I would not buy a Dodge Charger myself, we got to Rochester and back to Pittsburgh in fine order.

The next day, I got up the courage to call the repair shop associated with the towing service that had the van. It was a bad water pump, but the computer recording and engine overheat and shut-down. There MAY be engine damage. Relieved, I asked for a few days to make up my mind about it.

Once I was back in Pittsburgh I took a box of doughnuts over to Butch to ask his advice. "Where was the white smoke coming from?" he asked.

"Under the hood."

"You didn't tell me that! It's just the water pump! I thought there was white smoke from the tail pipe."

"You didn't ask, Butch! Are they shooting straight?"

"For that price, yes. But I can't tell about any damage without seeing the car."

So I OK'd the repair and upgraded our AAA membership to cover up to 100 miles towing.

And yesterday, the car came home...

Boulder Coffee...

...is a good place to meet your family from Colorado.

From left, here's Janine, Grace, John and Sarah at the Boulder Coffee shop two Sundays ago in Rochester, NY.

As we wrote in the previous post, we left right away, but Grace and Aunt Barb had to wait until 6:00 PM for their flight back.

Girls National Hockey Tournament

This past weekend we took our annual hockey trip to see cousin Grace and her team play here in the east. We drove up to Rochester on Friday morning and after some car trouble that will be the subject of a different post, we arrived in time for their game late Friday afternoon.

The Colorado team had lost their first two games. Unfortunately and ironically they were eliminated from the tournament by Pittsburgh on a last second goal scored by a rather tall girl named Lemieux. Yes, that one.

The only good news from those results is that it freed up Grace to spend time with us on Saturday afternoon. Here we are at the Pittsford town hall with a group shot. Later we had lunch at a Thai place in the city and then toured the George Eastman house where we ran into a group from Grace's team. In the evening, Barb had dinner with us while Grace went to a movie with her team.

We met for coffee Sunday morning, then cleared out of town via Lake Ontario (bottom shot). Barb and Grace had to wait until 6 PM for their flight back. Thankfully, they gained time as they flew back home west. Still I would imagine it was a tired Monday morning for both. Thankfully, we were home by 5:30 for pizza delivery.

Interesting Intersection

While Sarah was at a Harry Potter meeting two weeks ago, I took this shot on the South Side. The streets between Carson and the South Side Slopes (more like cliffs!) have girl's names. Sarah is the first one, then Jane, and so on. In fact, Nana was born in an apartment on Sarah Street.

So here is my photo for Sarah and her street.

Happy Birthday Nana!

Last night we took Nana out for her birthday. You're not supposed to know, but she turned 94 last Wednesday. Here she is with her birthday Tiramisu.

We went to a nice place in Cranberry called Siba. Like most Pittsburgh area restaurants, it's Italian themed in both cuccina and architecture. Still, Nana had her usual crab cake.

I had tortellachi. As one would imagine from the name, they are larger sized tortellini. These were filled with braised beef and served with wilted spinach and mushrooms in a clear beefy sauce. Not taking anything away from the pasta, but the spinach was its equal. It was perfectly cooked, not mushy.

Bravo and Happy Birthday!

Johnny Rocket

This past Saturday John and I got his Air Hogs rockets out. It was a nice sunny spring day. The birds were singing just for the joy of it and because it has been dry, the field in the park behind our house was perfect, not muddy or overgrown.

The flights were perfect as you can see. It was a perfect windless day so the rubber tipped rockets flew freely but landed nearby.

But a fella likes to mix things up every once in a while. So John tried a little experiment. He counted the number of pumps and observed the height of the flight for each one. We found that one pump would not get the rocket off the pad. Two pumps propelled the vehicle about six feet. Three yields 15 or so, etc. Next time we will tie this in with math and do some trigonometry to more accurately measure the height of the flight.

Later we tried angling the launch stand to fire the rocket at 85 degrees instead of straight up 90...to no avail. The Air Hogs company really made these things fool (or prank) proof. At anything other then straight up 90, the rocket would just pop up about a foot or so.

Next time, we are getting some foam or balsa gliders from the hobby store. This field is just asking for it.

We will have to see how things turn out for this field. The township has been grading and leveling endlessly the past two summers. The soil is best described as top grade Pennsylvania shale, so we are not expecting much to grow there without a lot of help.

I need my earplugs...

...because I'm in the BILLY MAYS DEPARTMENT OF THE GROCERY STORE!!!

There he is just below the sign on the LintBGone box. He's having a pitch-off with Vince whose ShamWows are hanging on a shelf talker. But only for the next 20 minutes because we can't be doing this all day.

So where are the Snuggies you ask? On the end cap of the freezer section of course!

After the Competition

After the competition the kids got t-shirts and then posed for this group shot in the lobby of the O'Reilly Theatre. Please note that most of the adult volunteers, including Bobbie (far left) are in the shot as well. Everyone was still excited, but relieved that their part of the competition was over.

In the past the Blackburn Study Center group has been scheduled for a late afternoon time slot. Afterward, many of us went out as a group for pizza or dessert.

This year however we were on at 2:50 PM and were finished before 4:00. As you can see in the lower photo, we had a nice ride on the glass elevator at the parking garage. But there was no time to waste. Sarah and John have Saltworks drama camp on Thursdays at 4:30, so we were not able to go our immediately afterward. Instead we had a late dinner at a nearby restaurant and unwound before bedtime. It was great to see Sarah and John sharing in the joy of achievement.

Shakespeare Competition

Today Sarah and John participated in this year's Pittsburgh Public Theatre Shakespeare competition. There were about 30 kids associated with the Blackburn Study Center including Sarah and John. The rules were simple: no costumes and know your lines.

All of them did a great job. Every one of them knew their lines cold and delivered them confidently. Bobbie helped several of the groups block and polish their scenes.

First, Sarah portrayed Portia in Act Five of Merchant of Venice. (Sorry about the quality of the video. There were no stage lights, and the microphone on my digital camera works great as long as you are within 10 feet.)



Then here's John delivering Brutus' speech in Julius Caesar.



...not that I loved Caesar less, but that I love Rome more...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It may not be the same as a pint of Guinness in a pub, but the thought is the same.

Janine drew these pictures and taped them to our front picture window to wish all passersby and our guests a happy St. Patrick's Day as well as Easter.

We had the required corned beef and cabbage on Sunday. Thankfully we now have leftovers for corned beef hash on Saturday morning.

Cheers!

The Skating Show '09

Figure skating in chains! that's the theme of this year's North Park skating show.

No not really, it was My Favorite Things. But it seemed a prison theme was appropriate since they installed the chain link fencing on top of the dasher boards. The rink is owned and operated by Allegheny County. To their credit they are trying to widen the use of the facility by offering it to local high school and midget hockey teams. So the chain link is the outdoor equivalent of plexiglass, but it makes it tough to take pictures.

Janine is in the pre-Alpha group which skated to Do-ray-me from the Sound of Music. Both this and Sarah's video were recorded at the dress rehearsal on the Thursday previous.



Later in the show Sarah skated with the Alpha group to the Lonely Goatherd. As you can see she is the soloist with the group skating around her. The skating director was very proud of this group as they are the first at this level has successfully done a "traveling circle" when the group skates around a soloist. There's Sarah in the middle with the graceful arm movements.

Sarah Wrocks!

Yesterday was Sarah's birthday. We celebrated here at home by opening gifts in the late afternoon. Earlier in the day Sarah was feted with cake at Science Club.



Then in the evening Sarah and I went to see a wizard rock performer by the name of the Remus Lupins. His real name is Alex Carpenter and he was kind enough to bring Sarah up on stage to sing Happy Birthday. It was a smaller crowd than usual.

Traditionally the Wizard Rock (Wrock) acts have played in libraries and book stores. But because most of those locations need a long lead time for bookings, it is impossible to play in those spaces when the acts are passing through trying to put together a tour on short notice. As a result, last night's concert was in an art gallery/loft. It is a pretty nice space that looks like it was restored from an old firehouse or other wagon based business. (See the photo of the front doors.)

The challenge is the fact that it is located in a marginal neighborhood. But tough neighborhoods usually mean low rental rates and interesting restaurants. This is no exception as one of the finest Vietnamese restaurants in town is located down the street.