Words To Live By

" It is absurd to divide people into good & bad.
People are either charming or tedious."
Oscar Wilde

attic1 Home Improvement

How to convert a loft

attic1 Home Improvement

Image: a. Murray Construction

Remodeling your attic, you can earn some extra living square footage, you can use for a home office, bedroom, playroom for children, and even a bathroom. What was considered a storage space can now increase the comfort of your home and area.

Firstly it is necessary to consult a specialist to see if your attic is suitable for renovation. Is it structurally sound? Does the home electrical system, water lines and units of air conditioning can reconfigure the attic?

The second thing you must do is set a budget. Consider a realistic amount of go into this business, the money spent must be at least equal to the benefits you get from remodeling the attic.

Make a list of supplies you'll need, including price, comply with the budget.

attic2 Home Improvement

Image: apartment therapy

Watch the walls of your attic. Do they need editing? If yes, then think of drywall or paneling. Advantages and disadvantages: drywall - cheaper, but requires more work woodwork - more expensive than drywall, but easier to install.

What speech? Usually the floor is determined by object part. If you decide to use your old attic room or new games for children, the carpet is the best choice. For a home office or a hardwood floor guest room is perfect. Although more expensive, it is durable and will repay on time.

Furniture: choosing furniture for your newly renovated attic is not a big deal is like furnishing a room with the same goal on the lower levels. However, there is something you should consider - the roof. It comes in different shapes and tastes, so keep in mind.

attic3 Home Improvement
learen more clik://www.homedesignfind.com/home-improvement/how-to-convert-an-attic/

Waterstudio1 green

Dutch Waterstudios Rise Along sea level

Waterstudio1 green
Here's a look at housing in the future. Do not run the risk of catastrophic damage as a change in sea level, just design housing that floats. Waterstudio designer Koen Olthius from Holland, where the management level of the sea for centuries thought of him. He came with a very innovative ideas. All swam residential complex.

Waterstudio4 green
His solution is prefabricated modules for the entire town of floating roads and 60 luxury apartments with parking. Units will be built on a small area, which makes the apartment complex to reach the density of 30 units per acre of water. Outside each apartment is a terrace garden and the complex will include greenhouses.

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From within each apartment, there are views of the water. But it's not just looks. Cool water from the depths of the lake, which will be used to cool the interior temperature of the complex, which helps to save up to 25% more energy than conventional buildings on the land.

Waterstudio3 green
World's first floating apartment complex, stronghold, makes it possible to live on the water and use it for energy, as well.
detail....//www.homedesignfind.com/green/dutch-waterstudios-rise-alongside-sea-levels/#more-7996

Via Eco Friend

The Trouble With Poultry

I stood on the Max Train on a recent warm summer morning, on a day when the temperature would eventually inch up to the high 90s. I shared the platform with the Mayor of Portland, who is my neighbor & an acquaintance. He had a briefcase, a backpack & a cloth satchel bag, each looking pretty darn full. He was standing with eyes closed, seeming to be meditating. As I passed him, he looked up & wished me- "good morning, Stephen". I didn’t want to bother him in any way, but he started the chatting, so I asked him- “does your house stay cool on days like this?”, & the Mayor stated that he shuts his house up when it is hot & that it stays cool until he can get home & open up the windows & doors. He then said- “it is weird though… my chickens keep looking at me like this heat is my fault. I think they really suffer even with the shade & water that I provide for them, but they look at me like they are unhappy”. I paused & then retorted- “Mr. Mayor, I don’t think that you should be guilt tripped by POULTRY”. I moved along, so as not to be a bother & to let him get in a bit more meditating before the train arrived & he started another day of running Portland.

99 Miles From L.A.- Time Tripping

Do you know how as song can bring you back to a time, a place, or an era? Certain tunes bring me back to the point that am having a breath of the air, & hearing the sounds from a time when that song was having an impact on my life.

In the early 1970s, while going to college at Loyola Marymount University, I was able to live what I thought was a very quintessential "L.A. lifestyle". I drove a '59 T-Bird, a gift from my father. I lived on the beach in Playa Del Rey, with double sliding glass doors that opened onto white sand beach & the Pacific Ocean; on a clear day I could see Catalina Island. My travels & adventures were almost entirely "beach". I would go to cafes & bars in Venice Beach & Santa Monica. I had a professor that lived & had events at his house in Malibu. My red curly hair turned the color of straw & I became deeply tan. I went to school with & was friends with children of stars. I did cocaine & fooled around with a major sports figure in the bathroom of a very famous producer’s home in the Hollywood Hills. I saw a brand new show from London at The Roxy, with some actor named Tim Curry, called The Rocky Horror Show, which blew my mind. I saw Linda Ronstadt at The Troubadour with Joel Douglas (son of Kirk, brother of Michael). I was doing my L.A. thing & loving it.

I know I should feel a shutter of embarrassment for my love of Johnny Mathis. I think it started at an early age listening to my parent’s record collection. I find this tune, (& I have it by other artists including Art Garfunkel, Julio Iglesias & Nancy Sinatra), is a real little pop gem. I like that it strays from the –“I am so in love with you” format of many pop songs of the era. It has a real melancholy & a sense of the rhythm of driving in a car alone. The music is by Albert Hammond with lyrics by Hal David. The session players on Garfunkel’s version included Toni Tennille, Andrew Gold, Stephen Bishop, Paul Simon, & David Crosby. It was produced by Richard Perry, who I fantasized would produce my first album- Jockstraps & Valium.

This morning, on the MAX train, 99 Miles From L.A. was on my Ipod in shuffle mode. I listened to it 3 times & I had an incredible sense memory trip of being on route 101, heading back to the city & not being able to shake my feelings for some hot dancer guy that I was in a show with. I felt like 1975's Stephen... traveling that experience again, smelling the smells & feeling the feelings of driving towards L.A..

Saturday Birthday Roll Call- August 29th... Born On This Day

Mark Morris is an openly gay dancer, choreographer & director from Seattle. He was long noted for the musicality & power of his dancing as well as his amazing delicacy of movement. His body was heavier than the typical dancer, more like that of an average person, yet his technical & expressive abilities outstripped those of most of his contemporaries. He heads his own company- The Mark Morris Dance Group & he started the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov. He has created works for San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, and the Paris Opera Ballet. Morris has worked extensively in opera, directing & choreographing productions for the Seattle Opera, Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, English National Opera, & the Royal Opera House. I always appreciated him for his many accomplishments, although he did not have the body or disposition of a typical dancer. My favorite work by Mr. Morris is his fantastic ballet based on The Nutcracker- Hard Nut, which has been broadcast on PBS.



Ingrid Bergman: beautiful, talented, & controversial star of stage & screen. She won 3 Oscars, two Emmys, & a Tony Award for Best Actress in the first Tony Award ceremony in 1947. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute. She is widely remembered for her performance as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca (1942). My favorite performance was her Oscar winning turn in Murder On the Orient Express (1974).

While still married to Dr. Petter Lindström, she became pregnant by Italian director Roberto Rossellini, with whom she was filming The pregnancy caused a huge scandal in the United States. It even led to Bergman being denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Edwin C. Johnson, who referred to her as "a horrible example of womanhood & a powerful influence for evil", there was a floor vote, which resulted in her being made persona non grata. The scandal forced Ingrid Bergman to exile herself to Italy. During Bergman's time in Italy, anger over her private life had continued unabated in the United States, with Ed Sullivan, at one point infamously polling his TV show audience as to whether she should be permitted to appear on his show. Although the audience was mostly in favor, Ed declined to book her. Steve Allen then booked her on his show opposite Sullivan, & answered critics by stating "If it became a principle to keep off TV those performers who have been guilty of adultery, then I am very much afraid that a great many of your favorite programs would disappear." She is, of course, the mother of beautiful & talented Isabella Rosselinni.




Dinah Washington is a life long favorite recording artist of mine. Her penetrating voice, perfect timing & crystal clear enunciation added her own distinctive style to every piece she performed. She made extraordinary recordings in jazz, blues, R&B & pop genres. Washington refused to record gospel music despite her obvious talent for singing it. She believed it was wrong to mix the secular & the spiritual. During the time that she was doing club dates & Las Vegas, she would have to enter through back doors & service entrances because of her color. Washington was married 7 times & had many lovers, including a young Quincy Jones, who at the time was her arranger. She died from an accidental overdose at age 39. What A Difference A Day Makes remains in my top 20 all time favorite recordings. The Husband & I saw a very well done play based on her life- Dinah Was, Off- Broadway in 1998. How about this amazing clip of Dinah doing I Don't Hurt Anymore?

New Music...The Avett Brothers

I love the rootsy sound of the Avett Brothers from North Carolina. There is no harmony like brotherly harmony. Something special in the weave of voices & the play of sensibilities is stamped into the fraternal DNA & also comes from a lifetime of shared experiences. You can hear it in classic brother acts across the musical spectrum, from the Louvin Brothers to the Everly Brothers & through the decades with the Wilson brothers (Beach Boys), the Davies brothers (Kinks), the Finn brothers (Crowded House) & even the Brothers Gibb (The Bee Gees).
I love this song with its references to Brooklyn & the wondeful title refrain- I & Love & You.

Happy Birthday, Pee Wee!!!

I have missed him so much. I can not articulate how much happiness he has brought to my life. I would tape his Saturday morning show- Pee Wee's Playhouse (remember VHS?) every week & his 2 movies had repeat viewings with my family. His absurd arrest for child porno, based on kitchy work from decades past (plus Rob Lowe's sex tape) were eventually be dismissed, but he career never recovered. Don't you think it is time for some more Pee Wee? He is needed more than ever.

Today is the birthday of his creator- the amazingly talented Paul Reubens.

RIP

"He changed the circumstances of 10s of millions of Americans. Literally." Joe Biden

Today our country lost one of the greatest legislators in our history. Edward M. Kennedy was an extremely affective senator for his state of Massachusetts, & he was a great friend to the disenfranchised, poor, women & minorities including gay people. He was truly the LION OF THE SENATE. He will be missed. I love the picture of the 3 Kennedy Brothers. I like to think of them as together again.

Dominick Dunne's diary, published in Vanity Fair from 1984- 2008, was one of my favorite reads. His glimpses into the lives of the rich & famous & his first hand accounts of famous trials including the Menendez Brothers, William Kennedy Smith & Phil Spector made for riveting reading. He did profiles for the magazine of Robert Mapelthorpe, Elizabeth Taylor & Warren Beatty, among many, many others. He wrote numerous novels & collections of essays & he produced plays, TV & movies. At one point in his life his use of drugs & alcohol & his life in Hollywood became unmanageable & he moved & lived alone in a cabin in the woods of Oregon, where he got sober & started writing again at age 50. His son Griffin is an actor, director & producer. Another son Alex lives here in Portland. The picture is of him with his brother writer John Gregory Dunne, his sister-in-law writer Joan Didion & son Griffin.

gratuitious...

This is one of many reasons that I like going to Sauvie Island in the summer.

Deepika Padukone New Photoshoot For BSNL

Actress Deepika Padukone has been appointed by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) as its new brand ambassador. She replaces Preity Zinta, who was until now endorsing the.......

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Transparent Phone

its transparent housing varies depending on the weather! Thus, in the sunny days, the screen will be completely transparent.......

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Megan Fox Elle Magazine Photoshoot

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Amazing Dog

New Friends

The Husband & I welcomed my fellow blogger- distinguished Will & his handsome husband Fritz, from New Hampshire, for wine & dinner in the Boys' Fort last evening. I am a daily follower of Will's interesting & entertaining blog DesignerBlog. I thought it would be fascinating to put the 4 us together: 2 couples with a lifetime of acting, directing & designing for theatre. I had made a joke on their arrival, that on paper it seemed that Will & Steve were 2 American guys with our Teutonic lovers- Rolfe & Fritz. I drove the boys to see the St. Johns Bridge, my favorite structure in Portland, while the Husband put together a dinner of Caprese Salad & Rice Cakes with asparagus & shitakes. We sipped, or rather they sipped & I gulped a bottle of Willamette Valley Pinot Gris. We talked & shared stories to candlelight until it was way past all the bedtimes for men of a certain age. Will is the first fellow blogger that have met in person & it was a lovely evening. How fun to meet another couple from the other side of our country & to make a connection. Will & Fritz were here to see their brand new granddaughter & family, but I am pleased they made time for a couple of old dudes.

Will has a passion for Opera, while I have only a passing interest, but for my new friend, here is my favorite aria-"Ebben, ne andro Lontano" from Le Wally.

One More From Elvis Costello

I have spent a number of rainy days with a little whiskey & conjuring up some tears because of this impossibly beautiful & angry song by Costello & Burt Bacharach... literally asking for God to give me strength, including the day that our first dog- Baby died in 1998.

Happy Birthday to Elvis Costello!

In sheer number of albums, the artists best represented in my music collection would be Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, The Police & Sting, Van Morrison, but the top of the heap would be Elvis Costello. I was crazy about him from the first listening, which would have been Alison from My Aim Is True in 1977. Declan Patrick MacManus was born on this day in 1954. He is one of my most favorite & important musicians, with much of his music speaking personally to me. Elvis Costello is married to jazz artist Diana Krall. He has straddled the genres of punk, new wave, rock, pop, pub rock, traditional Irish, classical/symphonic, art song, country & soundtracks. He certainly has been prolific with 37 albums in 32 years. I used to sing Alison for auditions for shows with rock scores, & I modestly have to say that I think it is one of my best numbers. I admire his songwriting skills & I am zany for his singing with the hoarse little catch in his voice. Favorites are too hard to narrow down, but: Watching The Detectives, Shipbuilding (with trumpet solo by Chet Baker!), Almost Blue, A Good Year For the Roses, Everyday I Write The Book, She, & God Give Me Strength. I could rhapsodize on & on, but I will just share one with you. This is the best cover of a country song ever!



And, of course, Alison: (but you really should hear me do it sometime. Just ask.)

Born On This Day- August 25th... The Great Leonard Bernstein

In the beautiful New England spring of 1972, I appeared as The Street Singer in a production of The Three Penny Opera at Harvard. At the same time Leonard Bernstein was giving a series of lectures at his Alama Mater named – The Unanswered Question. Always absorbing & frequently brilliant, Leonard Bernstein's The Unanswered Question were comprehensible & persuasive discussions of music's history & forms, with particular emphasis modern music. They addressed the average intelligent listener who is not musically trained but wants to know what makes music work & what is meant, for example, by "tonal" and "atonal." It required some concentration, but Bernstein, a superb teacher, kept technical terms to a minimum, illustrating what he meant with musical examples. I was lucky enough to go to two of the six lectures, being invited by the maestro after he thrillingly talked to me & gave me advice about singing Kurt Weill’s songs in Three Penny when he attended a dress rehearsal. I already understood his place in music history, especially for his music for West Side Story, On The Town & Wonderful Town & Candide. I didn’t expect to find him so totally sexy & hot, but then, I often find men who are talented to be sexy. I loved Jewish men, especially charismatic, one of a kind major 20th century talents, with a flowing mane of hair & the ability to look me in the eye & touch my hand while telling me what he thought I was getting right & what I was missing in my performance. I went home that night simply swooning & with dreams of being the lover of one of history’s most important musical figures.

He may well be more famous among the general public than any other conductor before or since. He wrote 3 symphonies, 2 operas, 5 musicals, a mass, & numerous other pieces. Throughout the 1960s, 70s & 80s, Leonard Bernstein was undoubtedly the most visible proponent of classical music in American culture. Through his outgoing personality & resourceful uses of the media, particularly television, Bernstein introduced 'highbrow' culture into the homes of middle America, while also defending rock & roll as 'real' music & supporting radical causes. In spite of Bernstein's speaking out for unpopular causes- he was outspoken on civil rights & Vietnam, he was, for much of his career, unwilling to risk exposure of his homosexuality. Indeed, the social mores of the 1950s & 1960s meant that revealing his homosexuality would undoubtedly have destroyed the celebrity & influence he had attained. Later in life & after the death of his wife in 1978, Bernstein became quite open about his sexuality. He left behind an unprecedented amount of recordings & videos, leaving us with a legacy to be experienced for generations to come, & the memory of one 19 year old boy who melted at having been in his presence. My crush on him never diminished.


Patti Lupone & Kristen Chenoweth doing Glitter & Be Gay from Candide.

Men I am Zany For #10

Johnny Depp is sexy because he is so talented, & well... just because he is so sexy. His upcoming film is Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland as the Mad Hatter. Have you seen the production pictures? Wow! This movie might be really luscious. Mr. Depp sure is.
He is one of the most versatile of actors & I admire a guy who is versatile. My favorite performance- as J. M. Barry in Finding Neverland.


Unforced All-American masculinity + true acting chops = yummy. Upcoming film is the romantic comedy Love Happens. My favorite performance- Thank You For Smoking.


My secret lover Jake Gyllenhaal causes my heart to flutter. His upcoming film is David O. Russell's Nailed. My favorite performance- the night together at The Chateau Marmont & he is underrated work in Brokeback Mountain. But, has given a bad performance? In development- Damn Yankees.

Born On This Day- August 24th... Mika!

Birthday boy Mika's album Life in Cartoon Motion was the soundtrack for my summer of 2007. I am really looking forward to the Lebanese born, British musicians next album The Boy Who Knew Too Much, which arrives in the States on September 22nd. Adorable.

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

In the summer of 1991, I did a film in which I had a very juicy part. It was really the best film role I had been cast in at that point. Too bad the film turned out to be so bad that it went straight to video. Still, it was very fun to play a character that kills several people, gets hog-tied to a log over a stream in the woods & then dies from a booby-trapped stack of logs. Really. The film- Edge Of Honor starred Corey Feldman ( who was behaving very badly), Don Swayze (brother of Patrick), & the very talented Ken Jenkins. I played a white supremacist who kills a group of Boy Scout’s that had stumbled onto his cache of weapons.

I have always been anti-gun. As a vegetarian, I find the notion of hunting difficult to comprehend. I grew up with guns, locked in a cabinet & I was never even vaguely interested. I believe in strict gun control while recognizing the 2nd amendment to our Constitution (with its controversies & ambiguities). So, I needed to find some strength of character to deal with the fact that I would be using real firearms for the filming. I had, of course, lied at the audition & had told the casting director that I was very familiar with using guns (I once had boasted that I knew how to fly a helicopter at an audition, thinking I could learn to fly before filming began, if I were cast).

On a union (SAG) film set, there is a gun wrangler who keeps, maintains, & handles the firearms. They are placed in the actor's hand before the camera rolls & taken from them the moment the director says “cut”. My wrangler taught me how to handle & fire a rifle so that it would appear that I knew what I was doing. I had a half day of shooting lessons. After decades of freely giving my opinion about the evil of guns in our country, when it came time to actually use one, I pulled that trigger, felt the kick back against my shoulder, heard the noise made by the blank… & I was thrilled. Really thrilled. I spent 10 days of filming looking forward to every moment with my gun. I wanted to touch it & hold it. It made me feel really sexy. I loved my gun. When filming was over I made a promise to myself to take lessons & continue to practice at a firing range. but, when I returned to my civilian life, I quickly forgot my love for my gun & returned to my liberal peacenik- ban the guns persona. Actually, that is a good thing. As a guy that is given to total outrage, I don't need to be holding a weapon. Trust me on this one.

New Music

Brazilian music, of all genres, is a favorite of mine & I have a fairly large collection. One of my all time top 5 favorite songs is Águas de Março by Antonio Carlos Jobim. I collect covers of that particular song. I think that the album- Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim is as close to a perfect album as I have ever encountered…especially on a late summer evening. Some of my favorite recording artists from Brazil: Astrud Gilberto, João Gilberto, Sergio Mendes, Bebel Gilberto, Vinicius Cantuária, Gilberto Gil, Seu Jorge, & especially Caetano Veloso.

I have new favorite. In the world of Brazilian music Otto occupies a place as unusual & unlikely as his name. Born- Otto Maximiliano Pereira de Cordeiro Ferreira, he combines the textures of electronica with the traditional African derived rhythms he first heard growing up in a small town in the interior. I am digging this. BOB is a moody, atmospheric bossa nova with a fresh unusual sound.

Words To Live By From Dorothy Parker

Four of the things I'd been better without:
Love, Curiosity, Freckles & Doubt.

You're Gonna Hear From Me

I had made a personal challenge to do a blog post a day. I missed yesterday & I let myself off the hook. I can often be a disappointment to myself, but I had started my day at 4am & I returned home 12.5 hours later. It was not the birthday of anyone I cared to note & I just was not up for telling a story from my past or passing on my musings about music, movies, books or hot men. I had some interesting things put out to me about Post Apocalyptic Bohemian in the last day or two. It had been commented on that I might get a bit too raunchy or unnecessarily bawdy in my posts, but I am basically a bad boy & Goddamn it, you motherfucking cocksucking shitheads…it is my blog! Hmmm... do I need to censor myself? Another comment was made that I just seem to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE everything. This is not true. I am very complicated & very opinionated & I have done a few posts on things I dislike & piss me off, but when I started this blog it was meant to be a way to mark & celebrate the things, people, events & culture that I love.



I had a Manhattan, (alright, I had 2) at my favorite neighborhood watering hole & I started to think: What were the all the many things, especially cultural things, that shaped who I am in my deep middle-age. I have shared many of these with readers, including this week’s post about music in my childhood. Thanks to all who commented. Bloggers love to get comments.



At 11 years old, my parents were not interested in censoring what I saw (within reason) & they never shied away from taking me to movies or plays that were intended for adults. My first play was South Pacific with Janet Blair, in Chicago, at 5 years old. For some reason I was fascinated by all the sailors with their shirts off. A film that had a very big influence on me was a movie my parents took me to see at a drive-in theatre in summer 1965. At 11 years old, I saw Inside Daisy Clover & it had a profound impact on me. This film started a lifetime love of & fascination with the stage, TV & film actress Ruth Gordon. In no small way has she been an influence on me. One of her 3 volumes of memoirs contains a quote that I have always held close to me. By the way, the parents would take me to see Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolfe the next summer. I watched Inside Daisy Clover from the very back of our station wagon & I was enthralled. I have seen it at least once a decade since, & that is a lot of decades. Now, I am not sure that I find Inside Daisy Clover to be a quality film, but it certainly blew my little gay 11 year old mind.

Inside Daisy Clover takes place in the 1930s & was based on a novel by Gavin Lambert & brought to the screen by the producing-directing team of Alan J. Pakula & Robert Mulligan. In addition to Wood, the film stars Robert Redford (in an important early role) as a charismatic, homosexual movie star, Christopher Plummer as the tyrannical head of “ Swan Studios,” Roddy McDowall as Swan’s attaché, & Ruth Gordon as Daisy’s eccentric mother. The film received mixed reviews but has become a cult classic for its terrific score by Andre Previn, vivid performances & cynical depiction of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Daisy Clover (Natalie Wood) goes from teenage girl (she was actually 27 playing 14) to movie star practically overnight when her demented mother (Ruth Gordon in an Oscar nominated performance) enters her voice in a talent search contest. She lives in a broken-down carnival on the Santa Monica Pier, & in no time at all she is attending glamorous Hollywood parties. But Daisy soon learns that misery & pain go along with fame & fortune. Before Daisy completes her first film, the studio execs have her mother committed to an asylum without permission. Daisy tries to find happiness in a series of unfulfilled romances. She has a single day marriage to Wade Lewis (Robert Redford) leaving her alone & divorced. After her mother dies, Daisy has a nervous breakdown & refuses to work, but the cold hearted studio head threatens her with starvation if she does not report back to the soundstage. This is a story of a Hollywood dream that turns into a nightmare. It made me frightened, but thrilled at wanting to be a star.

The Writing Is On The Wall... Part 2

As a vegetarian of 25+ years, what am I to make of this?

Fun With Architecture

I really enjoy this apartment in a drawer in Denmark. I think the design is first rate & the pull-out function is zany, but I think I would enjoy living there. I wish my house could be pulled-out for easy cleaning. What a great way to get rid of dog hair; with 2 terriers, I sweep & vacuum enough hair each day, to make an entire new dog.

Under The Covers... Happy Birthday, Musician Jamie Cullum

Here is another cover that I really dig. Birthday boy Jamie Cullum is an English jazz singer & pianist who turns 30 today. I have seen him live & Jamie puts on quite a show. This is his take on Coldplay's High & Dry.

Surveen Chawla

Surveen Chawla is basically from Chandigarh did her graduation in arts and mass communication. She soon moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in acting. Initially her family was against sending her to.......

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Amazing Player without Legs

3 Hotties Have Birthdays On This Hot Day.

William Jefferson Clinton remains my favorite president, despite DADT & DOMA. I am afraid I would had to have given him head if I had been an intern. Powerful men can be very sexy. President Bill Clinton turns 63 today & I still think he is hot. His wife recently reminded the world that she is Secretary of State... not him!
"Being President is like running a cemetery; you've got a lot of people under you & nobody is listening."


Broadway, TV & film actor & singer Peter Gallagher celebrates his 54 birthday by remaining smokin' hot.






Yummy, yummy John Stamos gets better with age. A star on Broadway & TV, & occasional drummer for The Beach Boys; today he turns 46.

High Fidelity

What was the first album that you ever purchased?
I love music more than anything in my life that is not a person or a dog. My first listening was my parents' record collection which I loved. I felt free to listen to & dig through their large LP selections. My favorites by age 6 were Dinah Washington, Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Darin & Nat King Cole. I was crazy for thier Broadway musicals including South Pacific, The Music Man & My Fair Lady. I thrilled to carefully taking the record from its sleeve & placing it on the black rubber turntable pad. I would push the button on the gears would engage with a whir & the tonearm would magically lower to the outermost groove of the record. How did it know? My first stereo of my very own (age 8) was an RCA portable, all in one unit with detachable speakers, that sat on a table beside my bed. By the time I was in high school, I thought bigger was better (in more than one way) & I had Yamaha amplifier with Thechnics turntable & 4 big enough to be furniture speakers by Genesis, that were placed in each corner of my room.

My first album that I bought with my own money was Meet The Beatles. The Husband says that his first, with money earned from baby sitting, was the Original Cast recording of West Side Story & housemate T says that his was Little Criminals by Randy Newman because of the song- Short People (he still likes his men short). In my high schools years I had every musical i could find including hard to find Original Casts of Goldilocks (Elaine Stritch & Don Ameche), Greenwillow (Tony Perkins), Salad Days, Cindy, & Henry, Sweet Henry. I had Hello, Dolly! with Carol Channing, Mary Martin, Ethel Merman & the Japanese & Swedish casts. How could my parents not know that I was gay? I also really listened to a lot of Bread, Cat Stevens, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, & Carly Simon... plus the constant rotation of Godspell, Company & Follies. Forty years ago today, I was listening to Joy To The World by 3 Dog Night, I Feel The Earth Move by Carole King, You've Got A Friend by James Taylor, What's Going On by Marvin Gaye, & Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves by Cher.

I lost most of my albums to Mt. St. Helen's eruption. I was living, with the future Husband (then the boyfriend) in Spokane & the ash from the volcano was mid-calf deep & it got into everything, including our LPs. The dust actually got into the sleeves & made cuts into the records' grooves. I then went to cassettes & eventually CDs. Now, I almost exclusively download my music & I listen with little tiny earbuds (which sounds so Van Gough-ish) on a device the size of a credit card.

iron design work

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Our Products
We use the latest design and manufacturing techniques for exceptional custom iron entry doors for our customers. Our factory makes high quality standards. Combining this with our unmatched craftsmanship produce doors.

All our doors are custom made to the following general specifications:

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Our entry doors are made of 14-gauge steel with 1 / 2 "and 3 / 4" wrought iron design work
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The weight of the old Iron Door entry ways are supported by barrel hinges with ball bearings and grease fittings.
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All welds are SAE certified.
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All hinges are welded on both sides to avoid any risk of cracking in high traffic areas.
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Most welding is performed from the inside, not to change smooth finish.
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Door frames are square and equal before the door hinges are positioned and welded thereby ensuring a smooth operation of the door.
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Door frames are square to less than ¼ inch tolerance. ½ "flat bar is welded to the bottom of each frame to maintain frame integrity during transportation and installation. ½" flat bar is also used for the door to the floor.
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Each entry door includes double-pane tempered insulated glass panels that open independently of the doors. A variety of glass options are available. Laminated glass with high impact is offered as an option. This feature allows for ventilation, ease of cleaning glass, and the option to keep the door closed and locked while the owner is talking to the visiting party.
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All materials needed to operate and assemble our doors is included.
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All doors are fully insulated with thermal sprayed foam in the door frame and the door sheet.
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Each door undergoes a five-step paint process completed in a clean environment and paint booth oven dried. Material is acid washed, anticorrosive founded, 2 layers of base areas color, hand-painted faux finish with baked on satin overcoat to project completion.
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11 gauge (1 / 8 ") are first formed frames inside and out. Most frames on the market today are rectangular tubes welded together and coated with acrylic hide the effects of industry.
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Weather stripping around the door frame and glass. Our standard door jamb is 6, the door plate thickness is 2 '6 "wide around the wrought iron opening.
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Delivery is 14 to 16 weeks due to high demand for our products.
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All the old Iron Doors come with a limited five year warranty.
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All finishes are guaranteed for one year.

The Dome House is an Australian home in Hawthorn

//www.housedesignnews.com/home-ideas/the-dome-house-by-mcbride-charles-ryan-in-australia/
//otomotifgaul.blogspot.com
The Dome House is an Australian home in Hawthorn, a suburb of Adelaide, Victoria, Australia designed by McBride Charles Ryan use at various stages of life, one family, one person, or a single person with a great family visit. The architectural design of the concept of McBride Charles Ryan Dome House was to take a perfect shape, the sphere of the copper and the removal of parts. By selectively removing parts of the field, there is a sense that within and surrounded by garden. The spherical shell also beautiful indoors on the first floor.

The dome of the House by McBride Charles Ryan in Australia

House Dome "owner is a middle-aged single woman, an artist with a large circle of family and friends often stay over. The place is a middle class suburb of Hawthorn, leafy and picturesque. Our first visit gave us a strong sense of what may be this building - a large oak tree, the adjacent Victorian Mansion and the site location on a hill, which terminated an easement tennis that swept the valley below. We detected an object that could meet these special and unusual spatial conditions.

The dome of the House by McBride Charles Ryan in Australia

We became obsessed with the idea of the garden from the center of the house. The plan evolved into one with a central living room, ancillary rooms were carefully slung sides provide graceful association between private and communal family life. These ideas were not without precedent, not deep, and could be on their own resulted in thousands of different homes. The dome was a firm favorite. And a good rough match of failure and programmatic shift.

But the idea of the dome as incomplete puzzle revealed by experiments with hollowing and cutting the object. The random superposition of dome and rectilinear plan resulted in a wide variety of new national indoor. External want to remove only enough to bring the original form. We hope that the revelation of the object, after deduction will be greater and more interesting than if it were whole. We thought the puzzle components like 3D pixel. We could scale up and down, resulting in some areas more emphasis. We examined the composition of the negotiation time by accident and design, representation and abstraction.

The dome of the House by McBride Charles Ryan in Australia

The home building had become extreme heroism of the revolutionary innovator dome home yet and could also be read as a ruin itself. These little houses around the mailbox, seats, sheds, fence, lights, and were placed in a broken system. Markers are shells and semi-open spaces, courtyards and two courtyard. Indoor spaces and color code split between two categories - «outside» (main lounge) and «within the dome» (bleached white).

The Dome House by McBride Charles Ryan in Australia

Rainwater collected from roof clad copper gutters concealed and stored in rainwater tanks installed in the south office. The design of dwellings by McBride Charles Ryan is also using solar hot water, a drip watering gardens and double glazed windows to maximize energy efficiency. These simple sustainable elements incorporated in the house, so as to have minimal aesthetic impact.

The dome of the House by McBride Charles Ryan in Australia

Materials Walls: clay Euroa product (black glazed brick) / Glass Cerdomus tiles, Parbury renderrock, Multitext Multistone, Vitre-panel, spotted gum timber investment / investment: Folded seam copper / Roof: Folded seam copper, Butynol membrane roofing / gutters: copper / Paint: Dulux / Paving: Urbanstone, RockNStone, City tiler, / Windows: Capral / Doors: Capral Photographer John Gollings - GollingsPidgeon