Another Cross Stitched Christmas Stocking

     If you read my March 16, 2015 post, you saw Mardi's Christmas stocking.  I decided, once my sinus headache diminished enough that I could see straight, that I would cross stitch a Christmas stocking for Mardi's favorite "cousin," her dog sitter, our niece.

  

     I got the alphabet from Google images.  I zoomed in until I could count the stitches and transfer the letters to graph paper.  The same goes for the candies.  I found a picture of various candies, and zoomed in until I could see how they were stitched.  I selected examples I could most easily convert to Christmas colors.
     So Jess, enjoy your stocking and its contents.

Four Calling Birds? No, It's Several Thousand Grackles

     The best Christmas gifts are unique experiences.  A flock of about a gazillion grackles passed through the neighborhood this Christmas day.  What a present.
     Grackles are over-sized blackbirds.  They appear to be black from a distance, but close up they are irridescent green, turquiose, and purple.  Males and females are similar in appearance. They travel in large groups and eat just about anything.  Our hoard of grackles picked through the lawn, I imagine, eating every bug and seed in sight.  Farmers don't like grackles because the birds raid fields and steal grain and seeds.  Interestingly, a flock of grackles is called a plague.
     So, why were we paid this visit?  It seems the warm weather is the reason.  Tens of thousands of grackles visited Franklin Township, Hunterdon County in January 2012.  They came then, and are here now, because there isn't any snow on the ground.  They go south to forage when the ground is snow covered.  http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2012/01/massive_flock_of_birds_has_bee.html
   

This is our front lawn and the lawn across the street.

   

The trees were full of grackles.

Excuse the blurred image.  They never stopped moving.  I wasn't sure how to stop the action using Mike's camera.

     Besides being a visual treat, the sound of all those wings flapping when they flew off was thrilling.  
     Here's more on grackles: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Grackle/id

The 1,000 Tissue Head Cold

     Christmas time is the wrong time of the year to be knocked on your keister by a head cold that morphs into a sinus infection.  What can you do when you would like to read but your head aches too much to focus your eyes on the printed word?  You download audiobooks to your Kindle, of course.
     Here's what kept me entertained while I sipped tea and soup:

     West of Sunset by Stewart O'Nan - This is a fictionalized account of the last three years of F. Scott Fitzgerald's life.  From 1937 to 1940, Fitzgerald went to Hollywood and worked as a screen writer.  He left his wife Zelda in a mental institution, took up with gossip columnist, Sheilah Graham, failed at screenwriting, and drank until he was dead.

     A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott - This is another work of fiction set around real events, the filming of "Gone With the Wind."  A starry-eyed girl from Indiana goes to Hollywood  in 1939. Her dream is to be a screenwriter.  Her reality is to perform the most lowly tasks in an office at Selznick International Pictures.  She ends up as Carole Lombard's assistant and becomes the girlfriend of David O. Selznick's right-hand-man.  She's a regular on the set of "Gone With the Wind," acts as Lombard's bride's maid when Clark Gable's divorce finally comes through, and eventually gets her crack at screenwriting.  Our protagonist's story is a familiar tune, however, there is one element of the book that I found interesting.  War is looming in 1939.  Writer Alcott brings in Jewish Hollywood's attitude toward Hitler and the war.  

     The Paris Wife by Paula McLain - This is also a novel inspired by real people and events. Hadley Richarson was Ernest Hemingway's first wife. She and her inheritance allowed Ernest to go to Europe and write his first successful novel, The Sun Also Rises.  By the time the book was published, the sun had set on their marriage.      

     An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff - Schroff was a successful advertising executive when she was stopped by a child beggar in New York City in 1986.  Instead of giving him cash, she bought him dinner at McDonald's.  This was the beginning of four years of weekly dinners and mentoring.  It's a story of a lifelong friendship, and it has a happy ending.  Schroff's memoir gave me some new insight on the definition of success.

     Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre -  During World War II the English  tricked the German's into thinking there would be an invasion in Greece and Sardinia when the real invasion was in Sicily.  The deception was accomplished by planting phony documents on a corpse and setting the corpse afloat on currents that would take it to the beaches of Spain.  It was correctly supposed that officially neutral, but German sympathizing Spain would share the information in the documents with the Germans before returning it to the British, as required by war time laws. So, how did the Brits get the corpse and who was he?  Read the book to find out.        

     Longbourn by Jo Baker -   Previously, I read (not listened, read) The Mermaid's Child also by Jo Baker.  I didn't like that book, but I really enjoyed Longbourn.  Longbourn is Pride and Prejudice retold from the perspective of the household staff.  

     Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum - Ana Benz is an American woman married to a Swiss banker.  She, her husband, and three children (two belonging to the husband, one belonging to one of Ana's secret lovers) live in Zurich, Switzerland.  Instead of getting a job, or working for a worthy cause, or cultivating a hobby, Ana has affairs.  There's some pretty explicit sexual content in the book, and it has been compared to Fifty Shades of Grey.  Hmmm, also like Fifty Shades of Grey, the protagonist is named Ana.  I don't have any sympathy for Ana, and I like how things ended.  I'm sure that says something about me.  

     Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich -   Complete fluff.  Fluff is good somethimes.

         

Easy Crocheted Scarf Using a Minimal Amount of Yarn

     My sister recently presented me with some soft, cuddly blue yarn that she bought in one of those fancy yarn shops.  She asked me to make a scarf.  This yarn, manufactured for Classic Elite Yarns was called Chateau.  It's fiber content was 70% alpaca and 30% bamboo viscose. The problem was that Sis, acting on the advice of the sales clerk, had purchased only two hanks of yarn. Each hank was 50 grams or 1.76 ounces.  The two hanks totaled only 3.52 ounces or the equivalent of one skein of common, everyday Red Heart.  I tried to find additional yarn, but the color was on back order at two yarn stores and at the internet sites I checked.  Besides that, the dye lots would not have matched.  What to do?
     While working at the Smithville Mansion Christmas Boutique, I found a cute scarf in inventory.  After staring at it for a while, I figured out the pattern.  I was able to make a scarf, and I even had a tiny ball of yarn left over.

     Here are the directions:

     J hook and H hook
     3.5 ounces of soft (bulky is good, too) yarn

     Ch 120 st with the J hook.
     Switch to the H hook.
     In the second ch from the hook, sc for 119 st.
     Dc the next row.
     Sc the next row.
     Dc the next row.
     Next row sc for 31 st or 10 inches.  Then ch 8 st to make a "button hole."
     Skip 8 dc on the row below and rejoin the yarn.  Sc 80 st to the end of the row.
     Dc next row.
     Sc next row.
     Dc next row.
     Sc next row.
     The scarf body is finished.

     To make the edge:
     Shell around (5 dc in st below, skip 2, sc in st below, skip 2, 5 dc in st below).
     The finished scarf should be 42"-43".  It is almost 5" wide.

     Wear the scarf by laying it around your neck and slipping the long end through the "button hole."  It will provide enough coverage and warmth to keep chills out.

Icebox Soup

     At least one night each week I stand in front of the open refrigerator and try to find a creative and appetizing way to turn something left over into supper.  Recently one of my father's old phrases came to mind - icebox soup.  He claimed that during the Great Depression, at the end of each week, the contents of the icebox was thrown into a pot with water, simmered, and served as soup.
     My child's imagination came up with all sorts of wild combinations.  Did they ever have mashed potato-catfish-pear soup?  What about macaroni-horseradish-hot dog soup?  Dad didn't get specific about the ingredients. I'm pretty sure that his icebox soup was vegetables, a little meat, and some broth, not a bad combination at all.  The point of his story was that I should be grateful for what was on my plate, and eat it.
     The interesting thing is that those cheap Depression era meals were pretty tasty.  We're still eating crash cuisine, but these days it isn't always inexpensive to prepare these dishes.  Who doesn't like beanie-weenies?  Pasta, beans, a little tomato sauce and grated cheese?  That sounds like Progresso Macaroni and Bean Soup, if you ask me.  Dandelion green salad was a way to turn weeds into a first course.  Back before the days of broad leaf weed killer, free salad was everywhere.  Nowadays Martha Stewart and Epicurious.com have practically turned the lowly green into haute cuisine.  The same thing goes for polenta.  Sliced and fried, it's a $12.00 appetizer at a decent Italian restaurant.  Creamed chipped beef or S.O.S. is no longer an economy meal.  At $20.00 per pound, those paper thin, salty slices of cheap cuts of beef are as expensive as filet mignon.
     I have never served icebox soup to Mike.  However, he has eaten summertime vegetarian meals like fried eggplant, sliced tomatoes, and corn on the cob.  I trim the brown stuff off the surface of past-its-prime-cauliflower and make mashed cauliflower.  His special weekend french toast breakfasts are made from stale bread.  As long as the meal is served with love and doesn't contain asparagus, he's a happy boy.         
         

A Hero Comes Along ... and Another ... and Another ... and Another

     An aquaintance of mine shared this video on Facebook:



     It reminded me of a quote.  Novelist, poet, businesswoman, and activist Margaret Atwood said, "Men are afraid women will laugh at them.  Women are afraid men will kill them."
     In the last fifty years, women have gained economic and political power.  Statistics say that on the whole we earn 78 cents on the dollar compared to men, but that's an average.  Many women are just as rich and powerful or more rich and powerful than many men out there. However, you can be richer than Wal-mart's Widow Walton or more influential than Hillary Clinton and you will still be afraid of the man in the Target parking lot standing next to a car parked near yours.  You might be a big, strapping girl, trained in self defense, who can bench press 150 pounds, but you will still be afraid.
     I like this video.  I think everyone in this country should see it.  It should be shown in every house of worship since it uses a religious angle.  It should be shown in every school and, since we keep religious instruction out of the public schools, followed by an explanation that standing against wrong doing is not just a religious thing.  The topic would dovetail nicely with the bullying lectures that kids get.  It should be part of every college's orientation exercises since some college boys need a refresher course in these matters.
     Of course, a video can't do it all.  Parents should preach the message, and dads should teach it by example 'cause, ya know, all this stuff starts at home.                              
   



      

Upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10

     My mother had a motto: If it's for free, take.  Our bathroom was full of tiny foil packets of shampoo and conditioner.  The dog ate vending machine sized bags of kibble.  Mom was one of those people who got a free lunch at Costco by accepting the offerings of every vendor hawking a product.
     Most of the freebies Mom snatched up weren't worth much.  She would be proud of my recent score - a free upgrade to Windows 10.  Everyone who bought a new computer loaded with Windows 8 and suffered through the experience, is getting this gift from Microsoft.
     My blog entry from October 13, 2014 is all about how much I hate Windows 8.  I have heard some fellow Eight Haters say they won't upgrade now that they are finally comfortable with their operating system.  Maybe they will change their minds when they hear about my upgrade experience.
     Microsoft added a little icon to the Notification Area on my Start Screen at the end of July when they first told me that I qualified for an upgrade.  I would have one year to make the conversion.  I had all sorts of trepidation about the outcome, so I put off the change.  I decided the other night that it was time.  I found out that you don't need any smarts to do the upgrade.  You don't have to prepare your computer in any way.  You don't have to disable your anti-virus protection.  You simply click a couple of times when asked questions, then you sit back and be patient.  The upgrade took about 90 minutes.  Things seemed to halt when the process was 95% completed.  I resisted the urge to touch the computer, and I waited.  Finally, that last 5% rolled in.  After the upgrade, my McAfee did a scan that took several hours.
     So, how has my Windows 10 experience been?  I'm loving that fact that the Start Button is back.  I also appreciate that the Charms Bar is gone.  I hated when that sucker flew in my face every time I moused too close to the edge of the screen.  I don't have a tablet or a Windows phone, so I'm not taking advantage of the option to integrate a bunch of devices.  I also don't care about Cortana, Windows' answer to Apple's Siri.  Mike sometimes talks to Siri on his iPad, and I don't think she's "all that."  However, someday I might get a microphone and strike up a friendship with Cortana.  The option is there.  Number Ten seems to be a nice version of Windows, and I'm happy with it.
     But will the happiness last?  Some people out there are calling the free upgrade a con.  They say Microsoft will support your copy of Windows 10 for only 2-4 years.  Others are saying 5-10 years.  Maybe there is no such thing as a free operating system.  We'll see in 2-4 years.  I'm here to tell you though, there is such a thing as a free lunch.  You get it a few bites at a time at Costco.  
   
     
   
   
   
                   

Party Invitation for Halloween (Or Not)

     I found this party invitation on Pinterest:

Complete instructions for this project are at
http://mrprintables.com/pop-up-house-party-invitation.html

      I modified this project to make a Halloween invitation.  For my guests though, it's not really a Halloween party since many of them "don't do Halloween."  Mike is an outright Halloween hater. My Halloweeny looking project is really an invitation to a chicken pot pie party that will occur at that time of the year when some people enjoy parading around in costumes.
     Here's my project:

I thought the original card was too small, so I increased it to 125% of the original. 

My template was drawn on 8.5 X 14 card stock.  The black card stock I used to make the house is 8.5 X 11, so I split the template and added a tab for gluing to two pieces together.

I traced and cut out the pieces.

The pieces are cut and most of the folds are done.

I embellished the house with images from my Print Artist program.  The inside and outside embellishments should be glued on before gluing the house together.

The information guests need is glued to the roof.  I used a dimensional to pop out the tombstone.

I put this image inside the house.  When recipients look through the windows, they will see it.  Elvira explains to Dracula, "Sorry, Drac.  They're having chicken pot pie.  Bloody Marys don't go with chicken pot pie."

The card will be flattened for mailing.  I made these pulls for popping it open.  Since there is a left and a right pull, they have to be mirror images of each other.

Fold the pull tab in half to make a crease, open and apply  glue, center the cord, then fold it over gluing the halves together.

The sides of the house are creased in the middle.  I decided where I wanted to place the pull tab and punched two holes.

Push the strings through the holes ... 

... and tie them on the inside.  

The Finished Project
To assemble the house pieces, I glued the roof peak tab first, then I glued the side wall tabs.

This is a scary neighborhood.

     If you want the chicken pot pie recipe, it's in the December 17, 2014 post.

    

Kindling My Love of Reading

     Kindle books are so great - no book shelves to dust.  Thank you Burlington County Library for the following "reads" and "listens."

READS

     The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters - In post World War I London, the Widow Wray and her daughter Frances are obliged to take in lodgers after the deaths of the male family members.  Not long after the Barbers move in, Frances and Mrs. Barber begin an affair.  The ending is as good as it could possibly be for the two ladies, but life is going to be far from easy for them.

     The Royal We by Heather Cox and Jessica Morgan - This is not a "Read".  It's an audio book, but it is connected to my next "Read."  This book is a fictionalized account of the romance of Kate Middleton and Prince William.  The authors made Kate an American girl named Rebecca (nicknamed Bex) who meets her prince (named Nick) when she attends college in England.  It was cute.

     Kate: The Making of a Princess by Claudia Joseph - After listening to the fictionalized version, I decided to read the true story.  Claudia Joseph must have of spent hours on Ancestry.com researching Kate Middleton's genealogy.  She sets out more information than you will ever need explaining Kate's grandparents' four branches of the family tree.  If you ask me, Kate did a masterful job of reeling Wills in.  I give her props for knowing what she wanted.  I also think she's a poor example for everyone else who isn't royal or filthy rich.

     Blood and Beauty: The Borgias; A Novel by Sarah Dunant - I loved "The Borgias" on Showtime, so it was fun to read this book and compare it to the TV series.

     Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories by Ron Rash - Short stories make great reading because it's easier to put the book down at the end of a chapter.  Some of these stories ended abruptly, and I thought there should have been something else coming.  Most of them left me thinking, Yeah, that's people for you.

     Serena by Ron Rash - I liked Ron Rash's short stories so much that I read his novel Serena. The story begins in 1929.  George and Serena Pemberton operate a lumber camp along the North Carolina-Tennessee border.  They are ruthless people.  If you deal with them, be prepared to be used or die.  It takes the National Park Service establishing the Great Smokey Mountains National Park to run them out of town.  Serena was made into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.  The library owns a copy of this film, so I borrowed it.  The story line deviates quite a bit from the book.  

     How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran - Johanna Morrigan realizes at age fourteen that her parents have not taught her life skills.  The story that follows shows her figuring it out on her own.

LISTENS

     Born With Teeth by Kate Mulgrew - This is actress Kate Mulgrew's auto biography.

     Ruby by Cynthia Bond - There are big sins (baby raping) and lesser sins (holier-than-thou snobs and gossips) and the idea that love conquers all.  In the main character Ruby's case, I think you need love plus a really good psychiatrist.

     Sizzlin' Sixteen, Smokin' Seventeen, and Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich - Who doesn't like Stephanie Plum novels?  They are complete fluff - great fun to keep you company when you cook, sew, or pull weeds.
   

  

Google Street View

Mike and I were cruising south on Route 206 when we saw something that looked like this:

This picture from Google Images.  It's an example of a car equipped for Street View. 

     "What's that?" I asked Mike.
     "It's a car taking pictures for Google," he answered, sounding completely sure of himself.
     It turns out that he wasn't completely sure, just almost sure.  When we got home we did a little googling and confirmed Mike's suspicions.
     Google Street View had modest beginnings in 2001.  Today, the United States, Canada, Australia, Western Europe, Argentina, and the Republic of South Africa are almost fully covered. Russia, Greenland, and most of South America are partially covered.  Only tourist attractions in China appear on Street View.  Most of Africa and the Middle East have no current or planned coverage.
     All good ideas have legal troubles along the way.  Street View has had to deal with privacy concerns.  Google blurs faces and license plates on their images, and they will blur houses if the owners request it.  Google cameras can "see" over fences, so Japan and Switzerland required Google to lower them.  An Edinburgh, Scotland business man heard that Google cameras would be rolling by, so he staged an attempted murder by standing over his friend with a pick ax.  He ended up making an apology to the police for wasting their time.  In 2011 Germany and India ended Street View's operations, mainly because of privacy issues.  Here are a couple of articles:

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

     http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217177/Google-Street-View--Please-dont-stand-middle-road-waiting-camera.html

     It seems that after, "Hey, what's that?" the question that follows is, "How can I get a job driving one of those cars?"  Google does not employ Street View drivers.  They use subcontractors, the main one being Immersive Media.  They only strategy for obtaining the job seems to be to apply to Immersive Media or other similar companies and hope for the best.  You'll only earn about $2500 per month, and it's a temporary job.  However, having Google Street View Driver on your resumé is going to impress your next employer a whole lot more that delivering for Domino's.

http://tek-bull.com/2012/02/how-to-get-hired-for-the-google-maps-street-view-car/

Replacing Damaged Vinyl Siding

     A couple of months ago, I was working in the front of the house, and I saw a blemish on the vinyl siding.  It was a Y-shaped crack caused by who knows what.  I slapped a piece of duct tape over the crack, painted the tape to match the siding color, and waited for cooler weather.  The weather hasn't gotten cooler, but with the recent long stretch of sunny days, I decided it was the time to learn how to repair siding.  As with every DIY project I do, it takes lots longer than those grinning experts on the YouTube videos say it will.  Lots, lots longer.

The first thing you need to do the job is to purchase a siding removal tool.  It costs about $7.00, and you get it at Lowe's or Home Depot.

Our broken siding was between two windows, so we had to remove the shutters.  Mike is demonstrating how to do this:  Work a sharpened putty knife under the head of the plastic shutter fastener.  Smack it with a hammer until the head breaks off.  Since shutter attachment is a little loose to allow for expansion and contraction of the vinyl material, it helps to have an assistant to hold the shutter firmly in place when trying to break off the head of the fastener. 

After the fastener heads are gone, pull the shutter off.  The back side is going to be loaded with old wasp nests and other insect crud.  The next thing you have to do is pull out the plastic posts.

You'll need pliers to grab the post and pry it out, but first place a board against the siding to protect it from being damaged by the pliers.  Pull out and roll down using the curvature of the pliers to remove the post.  If the post breaks, you'll have to drill out what remains with a 1/4 inch drill bit.  Here's a video:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QGT7l5ZmTgw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Go to the siding strip that is located above the damaged strip.  Starting at one of the ends, shove the tool up until it catches the upper strip.  I made four unsuccessful attempts to engage the upper strip, so I tried the other end.  I separated the strips and grabbed the upper strip on the first attempt this time.  Slide the tool along the strip, and the two pieces will unzip.  

Raise the upper strip.  It's easier if your helper holds the upper strip out of the way for you.  This is an example of poor nailing technique.  The nails should be centered in the slots, not up against the edge.  The nails should also be driven in leaving room for the strips to slid back and forth.  Imagine all your siding pieces as a sort of unit that floats on the surface of your house.  Draw a line along the top of the strip before you remove it.  The line serves as a guide when you insert the replacement strip.  Pull out the nails with a hammer or pry bar, and remove the damaged piece of siding.  We had some extra pieces of siding in the crawl space, so I cut a new piece from these left overs.  For this repair between two windows, I cut the new strip about 3/8 inch shorter than the space I needed to cover.  This allows for expansion and contraction of the vinyl during the hot and cold seasons.  I was able to reuse the nails.  I centered all my nails in the slots, so I had to make some new nail holes.  I squeezed caulk into the old holes to seal them.     

When the new piece is nailed into place, drop the upper strip down.  Insert the tool into the corner of the upper piece and pull down over the lower piece.  Run the tool along the seam pulling down and locking or zipping up the siding.  Here's a video:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4bh7tHkZBMs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

     You might think I would pat myself on the back at this point and have a nice, cold drink.  Not yet.  While doing the repair, I noticed that there was another piece of damaged siding higher up.  This wasn't a short easy run between windows.  It was a full 12 foot piece that was cut around the porch roof and the top of one of the windows.  After consulting YouTube and learning about J-channels, I decide I should try it.  Things went well until the end of the job.  I pressed against a piece of siding and heard a crack.  A staple that had not been nailed flat punched through another piece of siding when I pressed directly over it.  Oh well, by this time I was an expert.  
     Replacing three pieces of siding was enough for one day.  Washing and reattaching the shutters would wait until the next day.  Mike says I'm nuts, but I plugged up all the shutter attachment holes overnight because I was afraid bees or carpenter ants would crawl into our walls.    

New shutter fasteners look like this.  You can get them at Home Depot in colors to match most shutters.  They cost about $7.00 for 12 pieces - enough to hang a pair of shutters.  These fasteners are not reusable, so buy more than you need.  The barbed design means you can't remove it without destroying it, even if you tap it in just a little bit.

I pushed the fasteners part way through the shutters.  Then I matched the fasteners up to the holes in the house.  Finally, I tapped the fasteners in until they were almost tight.  I left  just a little bit of play in the way the shutters fit.  Be sure to mark the shutters when you take them down, so you put them back in their original positions.  Do this because the holes from window to window might not be exactly the same.    

Job done!

  

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

     Christ Church Cathedral, also known as The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, has a history beginning in 1030 A.D.  It started out as a Roman Catholic church, but today it represents the Church of Ireland denomination.  What is the Church of Ireland?  It is an Anglican church associated with the Church of England.  Within the church, some members are more Catholic-leaning and some are more Protestant-leaning, but overall the Church of Ireland is considered a Protestant denomination.
     The building is the oldest medieval cathedral in Dublin.  It started out as a wooden building, replaced by stone, expanded, and renovated over the years.

Interior of the Church
The church underwent extensive renovations during the Victorian era because it was in danger of collapsing.  Some say it was "Victorianized" too much, but a lot of examples of medieval building show through.   

This is the Portlester Chapel built in the mid 15th century.  It was unroofed in 1773.  The remaining structure was repaired in 1880.  Those slabs are the grave stones of people buried in the church.

The exterior is being spruced up now, so this is the only exterior shot I could get without scaffolding in it.

The is a 9th century grave stone thought to have supernatural powers.  Over the years, it was stolen many times, but it always managed to be returned to the church.  It was taken for the last time in 1826.  The robbers finally abandoned the stone when it became too heavy for the horses to carry.  Some people who found the discarded stone attempted to break it up, but they were unsuccessful.  The stone was set in its present location in 1860.  You are supposed to touch it for good fortune.  

Mike and I touched the stone together.

 

Guinness Storehouse

     The Guinness Storehouse offers a Guinness themed tourist experience.  It is located in a seven story building that used to be a fermentation plant.  When the plant was retired in 1988, the Guinness people decided to turn it into a visitor center.  The admission price is high, but we got a senior discount, and the price of admission included a pint of stout.
   

Arthur Guinness leased a vacant brewery in 1759 and started producing his libation.  He signed a 9,000 year lease for the price of  £45 per year.  The lease is embedded in the floor where the tour begins.  The lease is no longer valid because the company purchased the property outright many years ago.

This was a nice photo op.

The architecture is interesting.  Entry and ticket sales are on the ground floor.  The next floor contains the souvenir shop.  This is also where the lease-in-the-floor area serves as a starting off point for the self guided tours.  The next few floors explain the brewing process with pictures and videos.  They have also left some old equipment in the spaces.  After covering the brewing process, there is an area devoted to coopering or barrel making.  This was an important trade at one time, but now beer is stored and shipped in stainless steel.

Another floor features Guinness advertising campaigns.  The toucan became their advertising symbol in 1935 because, when it comes to Guinness, "toucan" be even better than one.
http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/articles/guinness_toucan.html

This kangaroo wouldn't give up the bottle of Guinness in her pouch.

My Favorite Ad Campaign
"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."

Guinness' first advertising symbol was the harp.  They began using it in 1862 and registered it as a trade mark in 1875.   

You can learn to pull your pint of Guinness, but we bailed on that activity when we saw the long line of 20-something males waiting for tutelage.  Instead we went directly to the instructors who teach you how to drink (actually, more like fully appreciate) Guinness.    We got a shot glass sized sample.  We looked at it in a darkened room.  People call Guinness "the black stuff," but it is really ruby red.  The deep red color appears black under most lighting.  We examined the head, took a swig and let it wash over our tongues, swallowed, and exhaled.  I expected this dark brew to taste awful, but it wasn't too bad.  Now we were ready to claim our free pint.   

The top floor of the storehouse contains a glass walled bar with 360° views of Dublin.  The music was so loud it drove us out.  

We went instead to the cafeteria where we got our pint.  I ordered Irish beef stew to go with my beer.  Of course, Guinness is one of the ingredients in the stew.  The beef was tasty, but the "root vegetables" in the stew weren't to my liking.  Give me carrots and potatoes.  I got my potatoes mashed and dumped on top (and they were delicious).  I got half way through the Guinness and decided I would stick to lager. 

Dublin Do

     Remember Clonycaven Man from yesterday's blog entry?  It seems his hair style is popular again in Ireland.  It might be popular in the United States too, but I don't get out much in this country.  I noticed this updo on three of the flight attendants during our trip to the Emerald Isle. On our first visit to Grafton Street, someone paraded past with the hair style every two or three minutes  I dubbed it Dublin Do.

An Aer Lingus Flight Attendant Sorting the Do

The Do in Line at the ATM

In Front of  Brown Thomas Looking a Bit Vexed

Taking a Stroll with Friends

At the Airport Waiting for a Flight to the States