Building The Amazing Steam Candle

I came across this video today, and thought what a neat project and educational eye opener re: steam. The heart of the industrial age.

Share this with family & friend.


Building The Amazing Steam Candle - More bloopers are a click away

Katonah Library Reopen March 9, 2009

Last night I returned some books to the Katonah library on it's reopening day.

What a joy! The big take away for me was the carpet,lighting and ceiling makeover. A real visual treat.

Highly recommended. Take your family and enjoy this reading/lounging oasis in Katonah.

A Tool For Sellers - The Real Estate Marketing Report Card

There are numerous real estate sites and portals designed to help buyers find the perfect property. There have been few service offered with sellers in mind.

Withe the current trend in the Katonah Real Estate Market:

Katonah Homes For Sale

Katonah Recently Sold Homes

Katonah Recently Sold Homes

Katonah Homes For Sale

... sellers need all the help they can get.

The Real Estate Marketing Report Card

Today, the Real Estate Marketing Report Card (REMRC) is being launched in an effort to help sellers monitor their online reach. Rather than having to rely on an agents word that the property information has been placed on the Web, sellers can now easily check for themselves and make sure they're getting the best bang for their buck.





How it Works

Once you've entered the property details, street, city, state, zip code, and price, the
REMRC searches across the Web and looks a a variety of real estate portals including Trulia, Google Base, Vast, Zillow and FrontDoor for details on where the property is listed.

The results appear as a grade; getting an A means your property has decent exposure on the Web; a D means you need to take some action. In addition to the grade, the site will provide a link to your listing on the various sites so you can see how well or how poorly your property is represented.

USA Service - Obama's Initiative To Bring Service To Neighborhoods

USA Service - This is a recently announced follow up on Obama’s promise to bring change to the neighborhood level across the nation. From the website: “It’s a tool that will allow you to organize a service event in your community and recruit others to join you. Or, if you’d prefer to join an existing event, the site will direct you to what others have organized in your neighborhood.”

Essentially, if you want to organize to help others in your community, USA Service.org will be the place to go for people interested in working on Obama’s goal of “Renewing America Together.”

As this site was just launched, there should be local service events posted soon.
Share this site with others to get the word out and get involved in service to the neighborhood.

Scariest Suspension Bridge In Japan

For a YouTube IMAX experience. Click on this video.
This is walk through on an old (1950s) wooden suspension bridge in a remote area of Japan. - deep Southern Japanese Alps. The bridge is very narrow and is believe to be Japanese oldest remaining suspension bridge. Oh being remote means if you got stuck on the bridge you are very far from help.

You are walking on two planks and 3/4 through the walk through (around the 4:30 min mark of the video)you are walking on one plank and at times it appears to me there are no planks there. The utterance from the Japanese walker makes me think "Oh My God What Was I Thinking". Hearing the wind constantly adds to the drama.


99.99% of us would say no way no how would I ever do this. The .01% that would try this would definitely IMHO need a check up from the neck up.

P.S. You can view also this video in High Definition.

From Ice Storm To Beautiful Landscapes

With the weather the way it is today, ice storm, with the forecast of more snow and cold weather to come -



Here is a visual respite.


Today, I came across a link to this beautiful site of Ralph Cooksey-Talbott a landscape photographer who studied under Ansel Adams in Yosemite in the 1970's.
Cooksey is currently doing vertical panoramic photography.
He calls them Vertoramas. They are works of beauty.
Should help to brighten up your day.
Here are a few of them below:






Cooksey is offering these vertoroma as free downloads at his site, which one can add to their site or social web page. He also is also offering prints of these beautiful photos for sale.

Thinking Green About Christmas Trees

KatonahGreen has a very interesting post on thinking green about Christmas trees and where you can find one locally.

I'm Looking For Local Help

Are you sometimes in a quandary looking for local help? Or would like your
neighbors to know that you can provide personal services, especially now with the economy the way it is?

Here are some sites that you might find useful. Just put in the Katonah zip code 10536 at each site and let it rip.

BabySitters.com is a place for parents to find local babysitters. Babysitters can list their services, be reviewed by the site , and then start booking jobs. Has been featured on Good Morning America and in Oprah Magazine as a good way to earn extra money. Tell your daughters, grand-daughters, nieces, etc. about this site.

Care.com does background checks and assists people with finding babysitters, nannies, elderly care givers, tutors, house sitters and more.

HireAHelper.com -

The site helps you sign up as a mover, cleaner, lawn & garden helper or day laborer, then lets you post your availability and get hired by people in your area.

NannyAvailable.com - Site built specifically for matching nannies, au pairs, babysitters and more with families looking for help.

Top Rated Restaurants in Katonah

According to BooRah a restaurant review site, here are the top rated restaurants in Katonah:

• Blue Dolphin Restaurant - 87%
  
• Katonah Grill - 88%
  
• Willy Nick's Cafe - 50%
  
• Deer Park Tavern - 33%
  

How does BooRah do this?

BooRah uses semantic analysis and natural language processing to aggregate reviews from food blogs. Because of this, BooRah can recognize praise and criticism in these reviews and then rates restaurants accordingly.

If you eat out at any of the eateries in Katonah you can write a review of that eatery and influnce how it compares with other eateries in the Katonah area

To find out more go to BooRah.com.

Restaurant managers and owners are encouraged to join to promote their business.

Katonah Eateries Websites

Movie About John Jay's Life Filmed at Homestead In Katonah

Northern Light Productions, a video film company from Boston, filmed a video about the life of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, at the John Jay homestead in October. Here is a link to images of the shoot.

In The Kitchen With Heather and Karla

In the Kitchen with Heather and Karla is a new video series produced by KatonahGreen.com. The plan is to make short videos on healthy food choices, meal preparation and where one can purchase healthy foods in and around Katonah.


Heather and Karla in the Kitchen, Episode 1 from Heather Flournoy on Vimeo.

YES WE (CAN) DID IT

In Memorium: Dr. William H. Smith

Dr. William H. Smith, 88, of Katonah, died on October 22, 2008.
In 1950 he settled in Katonah to work as the first pediatrician at the newly formed Katonah Medical Group.
An interest in scouting led to his role as Scoutmaster of Katonah Troop #1, BSA, a position he held for the past 52 years.

More.....

Presidential Election Count Down Nov 4 2008

Google Voter Info Site - New

With the upcoming U.S. elections only 13 days away, Google has released a new web site to help simply and centralize information about voting locations and voter registration..

Just enter your home address and it will show you where to go to vote - Kind of neat,especially for new registered voters.

Here is the link.

Interactive Piece - Sarah Palin As President

Some one has gone through a lot of work to make this funny interactive piece on Sarah Palin as President.

Here is the link to the site - use your mouse to move over the images, when the arrow turns to a hand click on that image - cleverly done.

You are What You Say John McCain!

As John McCain/Sarah Palin have now gone into mud slinging in this campaign, I find this Youtube piece so revealing! You draw your own conclusion!



At last count 6 million plus have viewed this!

To me (the bashing by McCain/Palin Obama's character)is Joseph Raymond McCarthy revisited -"McCarthyism"

Joe McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957.

The term "McCarthyism," coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist pursuits. Today the term is used more generally to describe demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.

It would seem that this is McCain/Palin's current strategy! If you can't beat them
then try "McCarthyism," them!

McCain's "That One" In Last Night's Debate Starts a Business

Talk about turning a negative into a positive, some enterprising person has taken the McCain comment about Obama in last night debate and started an online business with it the next day!!

Here is the link to the store.

And here is the part of the debate that created this novelty business.



The Internet is the Game Changer in so many aspects - we are seeing that played out
in the 2008 Presidential Election.

It is just ironic that McCain's "That One" turns into a "Vote for That One 08" Obama
campaign marketing tool - within 24 hours of the debate!

THE WORLD HAS CHANGED IF YOU DON'T GET IT YOU ARE TOAST!!

Sarah Palin Programmed

The Sarah Palin factor is getting a lot of lampoon play lately. It is open season on Sarah Palin - many would say thanks to John McCain's pick for VP.

This site interviewpalin.com is a parody. The answers are computer generated based on probabilities calculated from Sarah Palin's actual speech. We think it is hilarious.

The Markov chain generated answers are surprisingly close to her actual answers.

Here is the link to the site.

HPCI Reveals Katonah Most Expensive Market In NY

According to the 2008 Coldwell Banker® Home Price Comparison Index (HPCI) released September 9, 2008, Katonah ranked as the most expensive real estate market in New York State. Here is the link.

Currently, this $8,200,000,5 br, 6 ba, 10,000 sqft, Single-Family Home tops the list of over 20 plus homes in the $1,000,000 plus price range.



Here is a link to realtor.com showing current property listing in Katonah.