Monday, July 23, 2007

 

Daily Update 07/23/2007

Hello and welcome to my page

I am planning on posting daily things that I find interesting on the internet. I hope you enjoy these items as much as I do. Most topics posted on this page will be completely random. Just various stories and news tidbits I have discovered today.

My Favorite Featured Story
Brought to you by Yahoo

A final thrust of the crowbar cracked the wooden crate open, and the architect, the anthropologist and the mortar expert leaned in to look at the oddity that had drawn them to an out-of-the-way warehouse.

It was a 3-foot-by-10-foot section of timeworn brick wall, its predictable rows abruptly interrupted by three distinct, deliberate-looking triangular shapes. Once part of a warehouse, it now does nothing but raise questions.

Painstakingly preserved from a 175-year-old building in lower Manhattan, the brickwork symbol is part of a tantalizing historical whodunit. The setting conjures both New York's mercantile past and its future, and those who may be involved include a prominent, deeply Christian businessman.

Could the design be a cryptic marker of mystical beliefs? A tradesman's signature? A bit of architectural shorthand? A creative way to patch a hole?

Speculation, some backed with scholarly authority, has generating enough gravity to pull in community leaders and persuade a developer to spend $13,000 to save the artifact from demolition.

"Whether you believe in this stuff or not, it suggested so much and pointed to so many things," said Alan Solomon, a historian who pushed to preserve the symbol and probe its meaning. "It's just a cabinet of curiosities."

The design is simple, but clearly intentional: It centers on a triangle framed with a strip of mortar, framed by two rougher triangular forms.

It sat unheralded for years in a building on Pearl Street, at the edge of the financial district. Solomon, who works for a vintage-lumber dealer, spotted it several years ago while engaged in an effort to save the 1832 building.

Most of the building was demolished to make way for an apartment tower's parking garage, financed in part with tax-exempt bonds intended to spur redevelopment after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the facade and the brick symbol were saved.

City tax records show the building, a onetime warehouse, was built for William Colgate — the civic-minded, deeply Christian soap entrepreneur who founded what is now Colgate Palmolive Co. and helped establish the American Bible Society. A spokesman says Colgate Palmolive has no record that the company, then headquartered elsewhere in Manhattan, used the Pearl Street building. But Colgate prized it enough to make special note of it in his will, Solomon said.

To Solomon and some historians, Colgate's ties to the building suggest the brickwork pattern has religious resonance.

The triangle has traditionally been used to represent the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity. Some scholars, while stressing the need for more research, think the Pearl Street symbol evokes esotericism — efforts to delve for divine meaning in numbers, geometry, nature and elsewhere. The symbol was even the subject of a presentation at an academic conference on esotericism in Amsterdam in 2005.

The triangular forms could encode a message in their proportions, said Joscelyn Godwin, a Colgate University music and medieval studies professor who examined esoteric ideas in "The Theosophical Enlightenment."

Alfred Willis, a scholar of esotericism's influence on architecture and a university librarian at Hampton University, suggested that the proportions may point to Bible verses.

No one has claimed to be sure of the artifact's historical merit, and some have questioned whether it has any. They include Rockrose Development Corp., the company building the new tower on the Pearl Street site.

Rockrose's construction experts placed the brickwork pattern sometime in the 20th century, company planning director Jon McMillan said. But the developers agreed to pay for removing the artifact intact after fielding requests from Solomon, City Councilman Alan J. Gerson and others.

Tests in June dated the mortar to 1950 or later, though the bricks themselves may be older, said John Walsh, a mortar expert and geologist at Testwell Laboratories Inc. in Ossining.

Solomon is now trying to track down recent owners and occupants of the Pearl Street building. He wonders whether the artifact might have originated in the 19th century and later been reassembled with modern mortar.

The symbol's significance may never known, but enthusiasts see value in the questions. Some feel its pull as an imprint of human inventiveness.

"Whether it was made in the 1970s or it was made in the 1850s, somebody still made this thing," Rocco Leonardis, an architect and brick aficionado, said as he looked it over in its warehouse crate. "No matter how we slice it, it's meaningful."

My Favorite Story Trash News Story
Brought to you by TMZ

Animal rights protesters are angry over Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick's alleged involvement with an illegal dogfighting ring. Vick was indicted on Tuesday for federal dogfighting charges.

Around 75 animal-loving members of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals demonstrated in front of the NFL's New York offices on Friday calling for Vick's suspension, reported the Daily News. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has yet to rule on Vick's status.

The Humane Society of the United States held a similar protest at Nike's Portland, Oregon, headquarters. Nike recently decided not to release its newest Vick shoe, though it has seven other Vick-related items in production.

My Favorite Press Release Today
Brought to you The Open Press

Inaugural PartyPoker Women's World Open Features Strongest Line-Up Assembled In Europe Shannon Elizabeth, Jennifer Tilly And Liz Lieu Lead The Charge From The US

PartyPoker has once again underlined their ongoing commitment to producing quality televised poker events by announcing the inaugural PartyPoker Women's World Open in London in August. The 36 runner field features the strongest line-up ever assembled for a women's poker tournament in Europe. Leading the field is American trio Jennifer Tilly, Liz Lieu and Shannon Elizabeth. Tilly is an Academy Award nominated actress and WSOP bracelet holder, Lieu is one of the world's most feared cash game players and a star of the successful PartyPoker Premier League Poker series, while Elizabeth, best known for her role as a beauty in the film American Pie, recently made the final four of the NBC Heads-Up Championship in the US.

London (PRWEB) July 23, 2007 -- PartyPoker has once again underlined their ongoing commitment to producing quality televised poker events by announcing the inaugural PartyPoker Women's World Open in London in August. The 36 runner field features the strongest line-up ever assembled for a women's poker tournament in Europe.

Leading the field is American trio Jennifer Tilly, Liz Lieu and Shannon Elizabeth. Tilly is an Academy Award nominated actress and WSOP bracelet holder, Lieu is one of the world's most feared cash game players and a star of the successful PartyPoker Premier League Poker series, while Elizabeth, best known for her role as a beauty in the film American Pie, recently made the final four of the NBC Heads-Up Championship in the US.

I'm so excited to be coming to London to commentate and play in the inaugural PartyPoker Women's World Open. So many great women will be playing from the United States including Liz Lieu and Jennifer Tilly, so hopefully one of us can bring home the championship!
Elizabeth said: "I'm so excited to be coming to London to commentate and play in the inaugural PartyPoker Women's World Open. So many great women will be playing from the United States including Liz Lieu and Jennifer Tilly, so hopefully one of us can bring home the championship!"

The tournament is PartyPoker's first ever all-female event and takes place between the 7th and 10th of August in London and will be produced by Matchroom Sport. A similar format to the annual PartyPoker World Open will be followed, as 36 players from across the globe battle it out for a share of a $108,000 prize-fund. The buy-in for the tournament is set at $3,000, with the eventual winner taking home a cool $50,000. Amongst the European challengers will be Xuyen "Bad Girl" Pham, former PartyPoker World Open winner Pippa Flanders, European Ladies champion Jackie Meecham, Katharine Hartree, Jackie Vaswani and Deborah Rogers.

The show will be televised in the UK later in the year on Five. Commentary will be provided by Jesse May and Shannon Elizabeth.

A PartyPoker spokesman said, "This the first women's tournament we have held and we are delighted by the excellent line-up and hugely encouraged by the positive interest we have already received from broadcasters all over the world before a card has been dealt."

For more information or to attend the tournament contact Warren Lush warrenl @ partygaming.com

My Favorite Spam e-mail of the day
I don’t know about you but I am consistently getting spam e-mail. Some of these e-mails totally crack me up. I’ve decided to post my favorite spam e-mail daily.

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My Weather: Kansas City
Brought to you by the NOAA

Today: Scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 84F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Tonight: Isolated thunderstorms this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. Low 69F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.

Tomorrow: Mostly sunny skies. A stray thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.

Tomorrow night: Mainly clear skies. Low 71F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.

Wednesday: Abundant sunshine. Highs in the low 90s and lows in the low 70s.

Thursday: Plenty of sun. Highs in the low 90s and lows in the low 70s.

Friday: Clouds giving way to sun . Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the low 70s.

My Daily Horoscope (Virgo)
Brought to you by Yahoo Astrology

Quickie:
You and your intellectually curious mind will enjoy a controversial conversation.

Overview:
In some of Shakespeare's plays the stage directions read, 'Exit -- chased by a bear.' The question today is, who's the bear? It just might be you! Keep a hold of that temper. Your emotions are very strong now.

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