2005 pitsburgh convention

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National Carousel Association

2008 Convention

Pittsburgh

Margaret Franklin


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Now I Know How it Feels to Be a Spaghetti NoodleAugust 24, 9:49 p.m

Ahhhh...the hot tub is soooo relaxing! What a wonderful way to end my first day here!

Unfortunately, my trip didn't begin so good. I had to reschedule my flight because customs

wouldn't let me take my merchandise. They said I didn't have the right kind of permit. I'm gladI was able to phone my in-laws and ask for help. Dave was right nest tho the phone. He heardit ringing but chose to ignore it and let the machine pick it up because he figured there was noway it could have been me. Fortunately his dad was home and if I'd called 15 minutes later hewould have been gone. He sacrificed his golf game to pick up Dave with my purple bag. Davebrought an extra suitcase just in case, but my purple bag was good enough. I was able totransfer my clothes, etc. to my purple bag and send the pink suitcase full of my merchandiseback with them. I asked Dave and his dad if they wanted to go out for lunch but they had tohead right back as the traffic was bad.

As soon as they left, I tried to get a boarding pass from the machine but it wouldn't let me.Just as well, because when I asked at the desk, they were able to get me an earlier flight. Ihad rescheduled for 4:50 because I had no idea how long it would take Ted and Dave to getthere. The earlier flight left almost immediately. I was able to just breeze on through and catchthe 12:45 flight even though it was delayed to 1:15. I took a shuttle bus to the departurelounge and had to go outside to board the plane. I had the best seat on the plane, right upfront with nobody else sitting next to me and plenty of leg room. And it was one of those nicelittle commuter planes with the propellers on the wings. Personally, I like those better thangreat big jet planes. There were not many people on the flight and best of all NO BABIES!!!And I had a wonderful view of the propeller outside my window. In fact I started to get thegiggles a bit about We like things that spin. As the plane started taxiing down the runway, Istarted to feel very sleepy. Personally, I tend to find takeoffs and landings very, very relaxing.TO me they're like being rocked in a giant cradle.

The journey was worth it for the airport alone! The Pittsburgh airport is absolutely amazing! Ialmost wished I could spend an entire day just exploring there! There were a lot of interestingshops, a Mr. Rogers display, a dinosaur skeleton, an antique airplane suspended from theceiling and all kinds of other fascinating sights everywhere. It was like a theme park, onlymuch quieter. Beautiful flute music played and I felt like a child full of awe and wonder.

One of the coolest things in that airport was this glassed-in subway train-type thing thattransported passengers from where they got off the plane to the baggage claim. All in all Ifound it to be a beautiful airport with a good, relaxing feeling.

Ironically, the only time I encountered any screaming babies today was back in the Torontoairport, naturally, when I was trying to use the phone, of course. The Toronto airport is sonoisy, ugly and so NOT Aspie-friendly, especially earlier in the morning when it was so busyand crowded.

A shuttle bus took me from the airport to downtown. Pittsburgh is not really such a big city,just extremely convoluted. It would be easy to get lost there. The city is basically SCRIBBLEDwith long, winding, narrow streets that made traffic slow and everywhere take forever to getto.


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And I've never seen so many jay-walkers in my life! People in Pittsburgh think nothing ofwalking out into the traffic or crossing against the lights! I swear, nearly half the pedestrians intown must have a death wish! And there are plenty of crazy drivers too. The layout of thistown is conducive to road-rag! No wonder each of these carousels are at least an hour awayeach even if they are relatively close as the crow flies, but I could understand Moses getting

lost for 40 years in the desert if it was as full of these narrow, winding streets going everywhich way as Pittsburgh. At least an hour to get downtown on the shuttle bus and at leastanother hour to take public transit to Monroeville. I noticed there were no babies on the buseither. No strollers allowed! I think their buses are narrower than ours anyway. However theydid allow wheelchairs.

When I finally got to the hotel, it was hard to make up my mind what I wanted to do first---Eator swim??!! It was good to see familiar faces and people were genuinely sympathetic and feltbad for me when I told them about my situation with customs.

I was pretty hot and sweaty from my journey so the desire for a refreshing swim won out overfood, at least for a little while. I didn't stay long in the pool. I found the chlorine was prettystrong and my eyes were quite red when I was finished. This is a half-indoor, half-out-doorpool with sort of a rubber curtain beneath the window separating the deep from the shallowend, the shallow end being indoors and the deep being outside, not very efficient forswimming laps. When I was done, I changed into fresh clothes and went to the hotelrestaurant for dinner. It seems to be a tradition at these last couple conventions for my firstmeal to treat myself to a seafood dish with a glass of white wine.

After dinner was our reception. It was great because everyone got to talk about their favoritecarousels. There was a beautiful miniature carousel on display with little dolls riding many ofthe horses.

I miss The Cat. I should have asked my hubby to bring him after all. My two stuffed ducks,Waddle and Wee Doo are in my backpack, but I have a feeling those two wanna be alonetogether.

After the reception, one more relaxing soak in the hot tub before bed.

August 25th, 12:22 a.mI miss my hubby! I miss The Cat and I miss my own bed!!

3:44 a.mGRRRRRRR!!! I'M HUNGRY! HUNGRY! HUNGRY!!! Yet I'm reluctant to open the mini barbecause I know there's a charge for everything in there. One thing I miss about being home isgoing to the kitchen and pouring myself a bowl of cereal. It's funny. Yesterday all I ate duringthe day was a bowl of cereal at 4:30 in the morning and a dear nook packet of sesame pretzelnuggets on the plane at around 1:30 and finally supper at around 7:00; salad, garlic breadand my seafood pasta dish but I was too full to finish the whole thing. At least I ate all theseafood, but there must have been at least 1/3 of the pasta left.

Dessert during the reception was an assortment of delectable little goodies. I had a brownieand two dear nook cheese cakes; one amaretto and one chocolate.


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Waddle is pestering me for caramel corn! KVAAAACK-WAK-WAAK-WACK!!!

2:50 p.m I-the-Diddle-Do-It SammichesAfter 3:30 thismorning I had pretty much given up on trying to sleep anymore so I did someembroidery and watched the Disney channel for awhile. Then at around 5 I had my shower

and got dressed. There was a music video by Bowling for Soup on the Disney channel, sonaturally I was in the mood to listen to them during my walk. I popped their CD into myWalkman and off I went. I walked down the stairs and outside, around the parking lot. After I'dbeen walking for awhile, there was still time to kill before breakfast so I sat on the comfycouch and did some more embroidery until the rest of the group showed up and we could goin.

We were soon seated and enjoying a salubrious feast of fruit, yogurt, fried potatoes,scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and pancakes and enjoying lively discussion around thetable. Marcia is a veterinarian and she's writing a book about her adventures. Sounds like shecould be the next James Herriot. She told us a hilarious story about a group of student whocame to watch a horse being castrated. Anyone who was feeling squeamish could leave theroom if they wanted to, but all the boys insisted on staying and EIGHT of them fainted,especially when they heard the CRUNCH! of the severed testicles. I guess guys tend totake castration personally. she said.

Soon we were on the bus and soon we were at Del Grosso's. The place was great! I'd alreadytaken a few pictures before we even got to the carousel. There was this really cute kiddie ridewith elephants and a Mangel's kiddie carousel with Illions horses. I had taken only 2 or 3pictures of the beautiful Allan Herschel carousel when my camera ran our of film already andautomatically rewound. I had a scare when I opened my camera and thought there was apiece of broken film jammed in there. It turned out not to be a piece of broken film after all andI hope I didn't break my camera trying to fix it.

After a few rides on the carousel, we went for lunch. Lunch was Del Grosso's famous Italianor turkey hoagies. It was an interesting surprise to get our hoagies unwrapped only todiscover that the lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, etc. each came individually wrapped so youcould put what you wanted on them. I didn't use all my lettuce.

After lunch more rides. Besides the carousel, I had two rides on this wonderful spinningballoon ride with colourful striped hot air balloons. I even took a picture in mid-flight!

I had names for some of my favorite horses. The black and white pinto is Domino, the palegray one with purple and turquoise trappings is Tehila which is Hebrew for Song of Praiseand the gold and white pinto with no upper teeth is Alex.

I'll write more later. We're arriving at Idlewild.

A good landing is one you can walk away from.A great landing means you can use the plane again!

I know I had a caramel apple this afternoon, but Waddle is bugging me for caramel corn!


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Above: Del Grosso's carousel horses, (left) Alex, (right) Tehila

6:35 p.mJust finished dinner. Idlewild Park is fabulous! It's got to be one of the most beautiful

carousels I've ever seen! I've lost count of how many rides I've had on it. It's one thing to haveseen so many pictures of the Idlewild carousel in books, magazines and on the Internet, butquite another to see the real thing in person and actually ride all these magnificent horsesincluding the armoured horse and the spectacular gray steed with her flamboyant pink plume.

During our bus trips I actually won TWO prizes in the raffles. First I won an NCA T-shirt andlater I won a VIDEO about P.T.C.#6 in Burlington Colorado! GUYEEERE!! Colour me happy!

I bought a pin at Del Grosso's. I haven't had a chance to see the gift shop here yet. I amwearing two wrist bands at the moment. The one from Del Grosso's has red stars and theIdlewild band has yellow dots.

And I actually rode the roller-coaster here as well as the Caterpillar! The roller-coaster hadgood old-fashioned plain flat seats that I actually FIT in! Same with the Caterpillar, but itdoesn't have that closing canopy anymore. I don't like things that spin that fast anymore. Itwas making my neck hurt!

On our way here we saw a huge water park with an ENORMOUS wave pool/man-made laketype thing. SO THAT was that brilliant turquoise body of water I could see from the plane


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yesterday!!

Marcia won several prizes on the bus too and the lady sitting next to her won a cute littlecarousel tin with an even cuter little stuffed duck inside. I would have enjoyed wining that, butWaddle and Wee Doo have enough kids.

There's already Andre, Oreo, Shane, and Serina, and last week at the C.N.E we broughthome Slartibardfast.

This little duck in the carousel tin can wear its pointy lid like a DEVO hat!!

8:25 p.mI was going to go on the balloon ride but they had to fix a seat belt so I didn't know how longthey'd take and found it hard to settle. This place has a balloon ride just like the one at theother place but it has purple striped balloons in addition to the blue, green and red ones.

So I had two more rides on the carousel. At the end of my penultimate ride, I took a picture ofthe horse I'd just been riding wearing my Gene Simmons hat. After all, today's his birthday,don'cha know! (Gene Simmons, not the horse!)

Shortly after we got on the bus we were all given these pretty tree ornaments. I think I maywear mine as an earring. And now we're riding off into the sunset back to our hotel.

Friday August 26th

I Used to be a Werewolf but I'm Okay NOWWWWW!3:45 a.mAhhhh!! I KNEW I should've brought tweezers! Ever since I've been on the Pill I've regularlysprouted an annoying crop of facial hair that has to be plucked regularly, even though I'vebeen off the Pill for at least two years now! I swear if I were left on some deserted island withno tweezers, I'd probably have a BEARD!!! I know that many married couples start to lookalike, but this is ridiculous!

To top it off, once again I am HUNGRY!!! I didn't really have much of a supper last night.


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Mostly salad. True there was chicken and ribs available but I really did not feel like dealingwith meats that were slathered in messy barbecue sauce, especially since I had myembroidery with me which I take out to work on at regular intervals.

I know one of my LiveJournal friends suggested that I have the buffet breakfast only on thelast day but TOUGH SHIT!! I am TOO HUNGRY!! I need extra fuel for all the buzzing around I

do on these trips. In fact I'm already starving for breakfast! I'd even thought of having an icecream or a candy bar last night before bed, but I was a good smurf and now here it is nearly 4in the morning and I'm hungry enough to eat a MOOSEE!! Antlers and all!! RRRAAAARRR!!!

At least I drifted off to sleep more quickly last night. Round-About Faire was open for awhileafter we got back to the hotel, so I checked it out. The room it's in is so small this year. I didn'tsee much that I really wanted this time around. We certainly don't need anymore Christmastree ornaments since we're not having a tree this year. Our last tree bought the farm onBoxing Day. It refused to stand any longer and the lights and tinsel were so hopelesslytangled we just had to throw the whole thing out. Besides I already have millions of tins andcoffee mugs. No doubt, I definitely would have sold if I had been allowed to bring my T-shirts.At least I was able to hand out several business cards and I may get some orders. Lynn isdefinitely interested in the goats for her and her husband. It's a pity my website doesn't do

justice to the ever-increasing infinite variety of carousel animals available. The assortment isone of those things one must see in person.

Nevertheless, there were at lest four women yesterday who were wearing T-shirts they hadbought from me at the Binghamton convention. Ruby wears her blue tiger all the time andgets a lot of compliments. Her daughter, Susan has one with a Dentzel stander in bluetrappings. Betty Jacques was wearing her S&G lilac horse and Sandra was wearing thepatriotic Parker she'd bought from me!

They auctioned off the armoured horse T-shirt I'd brought on one of the other buses. Rumourhas it that it went for $500 but I'm not sure. Bidding was fast and furious. The money goes tothe NCA to help raise funds for the maintenance and preservation of antique carousels.

I arranged for a wake-up call at 6:00 but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm out and about beforethem. I'm SOOOO FRIGGIN HUNGRY!! GRRRRR!!

10:26 a.mWe've just toured the International Rooms in the University of Pittsburgh. Fascinating! I tookquite a few pictures including one of an owl made entirely out o different shades of wood. Theschool is fascinating! I love the Gothic architecture! The main foyer was like King Arthur'sCastle or something! I bet the Harry Potter fans that I know would find this place impressive.The place is so full of history and everything! It's like something out of a movie! I'm just totallyblown away! I've seen so many amazing things here!

At the moment we are sitting in the chapel listening to the organ recital! Awesome!

11:02 a.mNow I'm back on the bus as everyone gradually gets on. One thing that impressed me aboutthis place was how wide and comfortable most of the classroom seats are. I overheardsomeone say that they were built with big, burly 200+lb men in mind. Now most things,


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including the plane I flew in on, seem to be built for anorexic 14-year-olds!

We're Off to See the Gizzard!5:38 p.mKennywood was great! I've lost count there too of the number of rides I took on this colourfulDentzel carousel. It's all horses, except for a lion and a tiger, and I'm happy to say I got to ride

both!

During the afternoon there I also had a ride on the Jackrabbit roller coaster! It was fantastic! Itdoesn't look very big from the ground, but it's built on a hill and around the corner it does adouble-dip! Best of all, FLAT seats with NO partition! I wish ALL roller-coasters had these kindof seats.

I was a bad smurf this afternoon. I had a huge ice cream cone. I thought I'd be swimming it offlater this afternoon, but I'm just too tired! I had a bath and now I'm just quietly relaxing in myroom watching TV before the banquet.

This carousel at Kennywood was so colourful, I took mostly group pictures rather thanindividual horses. I did take pictures of the lion and the tiger, however. The lion had anamazing saddle with a bird and some kind of dead animal; a goat or gazelle or something likethat. The outside row standers had no stirrups but they were reasonably low enough to jumponto easily enough.


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Is it my imagination or are kids around here more content? I've been to places where I'veseen lots and lots of babies and hardly ever heard a peep from any of them. On the other

hand, no matter where we stop for meals, we are always being pestered by bees, bees andmore bees!!! It's a wonder nobody's been stung yet!! My husband would hate this! He can'tstand bees!

Well, it's time to head downstairs for Happy Hour.

10:13 p.mI can't believe I've really got it! How I'm going to get it home is another story! The auction wasamazing! You know those Hallmark carousels with the new figures you buy to keep adding tothem every year? Every time I see them in the store I've been wanting one. Well they had oneat the auction. It comes with two horses, but this one also came with last year's lion and this

year's giraffe! Now who would like to start the bid at a hundred dollars? Before I knew it, I'dgrabbed the paddle and my hand shot up.! Nobody outbid me and now it's mine! Go figure!So much for saying I wasn't going to spend much money. But the same thing happens atevery convention---there's always some once-in-lifetime thing I can't pass up. At theBinghamton convention it was the missing back issues of Carousel News and Trader I'dmissed out on when I had to let my subscription lapse for a couple years.

So many people are heartbroken for me about what happened at customs. If those customsofficials hadn't thrown such a nasty monkey wrench in my plans I definitely would have madeseveral sales for sure.

We've got a very busy day tomorrow with a lot of traveling.

August 27th, 3:02 a.mIt's a good thing I have my own room. I'd drive anyone else crazy if they had to share a roomwith me because I'm awake at all kinds of crazy hours. I'm ALMOST finished the tiger. I justhave to do his right hind paw, the orange on his left hind leg and his saddle with the eagle. Ithink I will try and sleep for awhile. I wonder if I'll be having breakfast with the same peopletoday.


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10:56 p.m Kissed by Elvis!!!Even though I've had a wonderful time, I'm glad to be going home tomorrow. My backpack isfalling apart and I miss my husband! At least the underwear situation isn't as bad as I thoughtit was. I thought I didn't have any clean pairs left. In fact I thought I'd wrecked my penultimatepair last night. When I was getting dressed for the banquet last night the thread unraveledcausing the entire waistband to come off! I swear they don't make ANYTHING to last

nowadays!

I also forgot to mention that last night I had my FIRST MARTINI EVER! And I liked it. I liked ita lot. The first sip tasted terrible, like medicine, but it grew on me with each sip. I knew thatafter all these running gags about olives on the Internet, I just HAD to try a martini for the firsttime.

I think last night I had my best night's sleep yet. However, I was awake from around 1:30 toabout 3:30, but this time I was actually able to get to sleep and zonk right out until I got mywakeup call.Our first stop today was the Erie zoo. It was great. I've never ridden so many unusualcarousel animals! I rode a jaguar, a gorilla, a turkey, a black leopard, a zebra, a panda and apolar bear.

One of the best things about our stop at the zoo was visiting the rainbow lorikeets!! There,

too, you could purchase a cup of nectar to feed them but they don't flock all over you like theones at the Niagara Aviary do. However, I did get one very special bird to sit on my shoulder.The zoo keeper told me this bird's name is Elvis I was able to get a couple pictures taken andhe even gave me a few little birdie kisses! He didn't want to get off, neither did I want to lethim go, but I knew I couldn't take him with me even though I wished I could. WAAAA! MEwanteee dat birdieeee!!! I wish I could have kept Elvis and taken him home with me!

Our next stop was Albion, where we rode a positively quaint old-fashioned little two-rowstationary machine built by the U.S.A Merry-Go-Round Company. It had horses, at least 3 or


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4 zebras and at least 3 or 4 deer. I rode a zebra first and then after lunch I rode 2 deer and atleast one or two horses and I must have ridden in the chariot at least 3 or 4 times while Iworked on my embroidery.

I finished my embroidery just as we reached Conneaut Lake. This, too, was a wonderfulcarousel, a Muller with new figures from the Carousel Works, including a LLAMA. I had myfirst ride on a bunny rabbit! And my second ride on the PIRATE CAT! Yaarr, Matey! This onedoesn't have a peg-leg like the one in Mansfield, but he does have the eye-patch, parrot andtreasure chest. I then rode a bear. In fact I rode both bears! A brown bear and a panda! I wasthrilled when I finally got to ride the llama!


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I also visited the gift shop where I bought Dave and I matching colourful baseball caps withamusement rides and fireworks all over. There was another one with just the carousel thatlights up. I wish I could have bought that one too.

On my way out of the gift shop, Dan, the man who played the hand-cranked organ,remembered me from the 1991 convention and we chatted for awhile. He had driven me and

Richard to Marilyn Slacks' house that first night of the 1991 Convention to see her impressivecollection of band organs.

On my way to supper, I found myself getting irritable because I was getting frustrated with thewashrooms. The cubicles were ridiculously small and half the doors didn't even lock. The firstone didn't even HAVE a door! I find it quite amusing that there's evidence that these puny littlestalls actually used to be PAY TOILETS!! I can't imagine anyone actually paying to use such apathetically puny washroom stall! Someone would have to PAY ME!! There wasn't even roomfor both me and my backpack, let alone room to change a tampon. I was so disgusted I snuckinto the men's room to see if it was any better! Same puny pathetic stalls in their washroomtoo! So I asked one of the ride attendants and he directed me to the one by the water park.None of the doors locked in that jokey cracker-box either, but at least the amount of legroomwas an improvement.

Had a few more rides on the carousel and was glad to ride the goat,the giraffe, armoured leadhorse and Indian pony. This carousel has a ring machine, however I was never able to catchmore than three rings per ride. I would have ridden the dragon too, but by then it was alreadytime to get back on the bus.

Went to Round-About Faire when we arrived back at the hotel and they gave me a bigshopping bag to take my carousel home in. I also bought a Port Dalhousie button, someChristmas cards and a bumper sticker.

Not only was this the first day I slept until my wakeup call, but it was also the first day I wasn'ttormented by feeling so hungry all the time! I swear during the first two days of our tour I feltlike a bottomless pit!

P.S. No NCA Convention is complete without the usual assortment of nasty bruises all overmy legs.

Sunday, August 28th, 3:40 a.mRandom Thoughts and Musings

Well, this is it. My last night here. I feel sad about it being over, yet I'll be glad to get home.These past few days have gone by in a blur. I want to get this last roll of film finished off, butthere's still more than half of it left! I took a couple pictures of Waddle and Wee Doobeing sillyin the hotel room here. In the last one, they're ordering room service. Wee Doo is holding thereceiver and Waddle is dialing with his beak!

I miss Elvis. I wish I could have taken him with me to ride on my shoulder for the rest of thstrip and taken him home with me. Yaarr, pirates have got it made that way! I want a birdie sobadly, but first I must get a real job so I can afford to pay for one.


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I can hardly wait to show Janette the pictures of the rounding board at Del Grosso's withNiagara Falls and the scenery panel on this last carousel that actually shows a picture of aGAS STATION!!

Speaking of gas stations,I wish I could have taken a picture for her of this one we passedcalled the Get-GO! I've never heard of that one before.

I've been having one uninvited travel companion I could do without!

12:39 p.mHere I am at the airport at T.G.I.Friday's, waiting for my lunch.

This morning after breakfast we had our annual meeting with a special presentation by MarvinSylvor who was talking about the Coney Island carousel. :) We also discussed nest year'sconvention in Minnesota and North and South Carolina.

I had a moment of panic on the shuttle bus when I realized I forgot my N.C.A jacket at thehotel! D'OH!! X-# Susan let me use her cell phone, but the hotel referred me to customerservice who referred me back to the hotel again, yadayaydayayda.. GRRR!!! Susan ended upmaking the call for me, pretending she was me because she handled the situation morecalmly than I ever could. I don't even like cell phones. Especially these bitty little ones. Ialways feel like I'm afraid the person on the other end won't hear me properly. At least we got

the situation settled and they'll mail me my jacket.

Things ran relatively smoothly at the airport. Those security guys who have to look ateverything going through the x-ray machine must have the most fascinating job. They seemedquite enthralled with my little carousel in its box and were probably quite amused with all theother weird shit I travel with including my corny old ducks! I had to put Waddle and Wee Dooinside my backpack because Wee Doo escaped from my mesh compartment and fell out justbefore I got on the airport shuttle bus. She must like Pittsburgh! She tried to STAY here!


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1:29 p.mWhat a beautiful day for flying! The sun is shining and the sky is blue. I've got a terrific viewoutside this window of planes taking off, vehicles buzzing around, the usual fascinating airportstuff.

I can hardly wait to get hoe. Part of me feels like I want to sleep for days. The other part of me

can't wait to transfer this to my 'blog and tell everybody about everything I've experienced!But most of all, I can hardly wait to throw my arms around my hubby and give him a great, bigkiss!

I bought several Christmas stocking stuffers for him at the gift shop and after much searchingI found the perfect thing to put on our Fence Menagerie; a miniature Heinz Ketchup bottle.Actually it turns out that it's really a whistle! But nothing says Pittsburgh like Heinz Ketchup!LOL!

I'll look forward to posting photos once I figure out how and using MS Paint to design aninteresting graphic for this post.

EpilogueObviously I've come a long way since I originally wrote this and uploading pictures to mycomputer so I can post them into documents is second nature to me now. And Than God formy Scribd Account!!!(November 28, 2008)

2005 pitsburgh convention

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