It's holiday week in Aspen, and this New Year's weekend is shaping up as the busiest party binge at the resort in years -- a time for Hollywood celebs and other one-percenters to pack the slopes and the clubs, to ogle and to be ogled, and call 911 about Charlie Sheen's ex-wives. But the prevailing buzz in this Gucci-padded wonderland this season is about slums.
A new book by two sociology professors at the University of Minnesota, blasting the Aspen way of life for fostering "environmental racism," is stirring up indignation and mea culpas among the glitterati. The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America's Eden, by Lisa Sun-Hee Park and David Naguib Pellow, is a ten-year study of the use of immigrant labor in the ski town that focuses on the stark contrasts between the good life of superwealthy "locals" -- many of them absentee landowners who are around only a few weeks of the year -- and the legions of foreign-born workers who live in trailer parks and dilapidated rentals "down valley" and commute to menial but essential jobs at the resort.
The authors contend that the privileged have ample use of the beauty and recreational opportunities of the Roaring Fork Valley while systematically excluding the lower-income workers from sharing in that bounty. "This is a bizarre story of a town that prides itself on being environmentally conscious," they write, "whose city council can approve the construction of yet another 10,000-square-foot vacation home with a heated outdoor driveway, and simultaneously decry as an eyesore the 'ugly' trailer homes where low-income immigrants live."
According to this article, Park and Pellow began their research a decade ago, in response to a local resolution linking mass immigration to environmental degradation. That led the two authors to conduct extensive interviews with Latino workers, who talked about how locals sought out their services but also "just wanted them to disappear."
Response to the authors' charges have been heated, with some locals denouncing illegal immigration and "scab labor" -- while others have pointed out that the book doesn't give much attention to the town's efforts to develop affordable housing and improve living conditions for seasonal workers. The town of Basalt recently signed off on a deal to purchase a trailer park in a floodplain, redevelop it as open space and relocate the residents to better housing.
But Park and Pellow see the notion of "affordable" housing in Aspen to be problematic, at best -- kind of like the prissy locals who complain about the older, high-polluting cars driven by immigrant laborers while tooling around themselves in shiny new Range Rovers. Nothing about a bubble of privilege like Aspen is simple, especially at this time of year.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Proto Labs Announces SkyLight as Latest Cool Idea
The latest recipient of the Proto Labs Cool Idea! Award, SkyLight, aims to make a big impact on global healthcare and science education. Proto Labs – the leading online and technology-enabled manufacturer of quick-turn prototype and short-run parts – provided their services to help co-founders, Andy Miller and Tess Bakke, launch their product internationally.
SkyLight is a device that connects any smartphone to any microscope. This universal plastic mount allows older microscopes to be upgraded to the digital age, and can help transform global healthcare, telemedicine, science education and research capabilities. The device enables scientists, doctors, teachers and students to use technology already at their disposal in new ways. Using the SkyLight, people around the world are able to share images and videos via their smartphone. Skype or FaceTime can also be used to collaborate in real-time, by enabling images from the microscope to be clearly transmitted to others via the smartphone. With the help of the SkyLight, a healthcare worker in a third world country can capture and send diagnostic images to a trained expert able to make a vital diagnosis. As a Cool Idea! Award recipient, Proto Labs provided SkyLight with CNC machining for prototyping, followed by injection molding tooling and the accompanying plastic parts.
“SkyLight offers users in a variety of fields the ability to digitally capture and share scientific discoveries that may otherwise not be seen and explored by others. This allows the advancement of not only science, but research, education and even hobbyist photographers,” said Proto Labs founder and CTO Larry Lukis. “An intuitive product that is designed to further enhance healthcare, telemedicine and science education on a global level is exactly the type of innovative thinking we want to recognize with the Cool Idea! Award.”
“The SkyLight connects new technology to old, allowing scientific images to be captured and securely transmitted to anyone of any age,” said SkyLight co-founder Andy Miller. “This award is especially exciting for us because Proto Labs helps to keep the total production cost minimal enough for this to be used as an educational resource throughout the world.”
SkyLight has received critical support on Kickstarter, to date receiving more than $18,000 in pledges from more than 200 backers in the community to aid in the product’s manufacturing, packaging and distribution. Pre-orders are available through SkyLight’s Kickstarter page until January 2. For every five SkyLights purchased, one will be donated for global health or educational purposes.
Cool Idea! Award is an award program offered by Proto Labs that gives product designers the opportunity to bring innovative products to life. During 2011, Proto Labs provided an aggregate of up to $100,000 worth of prototyping and short-run production services to award recipients. The program will be continuing throughout 2012.
SkyLight is a device that connects any smartphone to any microscope. This universal plastic mount allows older microscopes to be upgraded to the digital age, and can help transform global healthcare, telemedicine, science education and research capabilities. The device enables scientists, doctors, teachers and students to use technology already at their disposal in new ways. Using the SkyLight, people around the world are able to share images and videos via their smartphone. Skype or FaceTime can also be used to collaborate in real-time, by enabling images from the microscope to be clearly transmitted to others via the smartphone. With the help of the SkyLight, a healthcare worker in a third world country can capture and send diagnostic images to a trained expert able to make a vital diagnosis. As a Cool Idea! Award recipient, Proto Labs provided SkyLight with CNC machining for prototyping, followed by injection molding tooling and the accompanying plastic parts.
“SkyLight offers users in a variety of fields the ability to digitally capture and share scientific discoveries that may otherwise not be seen and explored by others. This allows the advancement of not only science, but research, education and even hobbyist photographers,” said Proto Labs founder and CTO Larry Lukis. “An intuitive product that is designed to further enhance healthcare, telemedicine and science education on a global level is exactly the type of innovative thinking we want to recognize with the Cool Idea! Award.”
“The SkyLight connects new technology to old, allowing scientific images to be captured and securely transmitted to anyone of any age,” said SkyLight co-founder Andy Miller. “This award is especially exciting for us because Proto Labs helps to keep the total production cost minimal enough for this to be used as an educational resource throughout the world.”
SkyLight has received critical support on Kickstarter, to date receiving more than $18,000 in pledges from more than 200 backers in the community to aid in the product’s manufacturing, packaging and distribution. Pre-orders are available through SkyLight’s Kickstarter page until January 2. For every five SkyLights purchased, one will be donated for global health or educational purposes.
Cool Idea! Award is an award program offered by Proto Labs that gives product designers the opportunity to bring innovative products to life. During 2011, Proto Labs provided an aggregate of up to $100,000 worth of prototyping and short-run production services to award recipients. The program will be continuing throughout 2012.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Two great years forecast for automotive tooling industry
Just in time for Christmas comes evidence that Windsor’s bellwether industrial sector – automotive tooling – is pointing to two exceptionally strong upcoming years.
Not only are the survivors of the machine, tool, die and mould making (MTDM) industries finishing 2011 in robust financial health, they promise to do even better in 2012 and 2013 – much better, in fact, observers and insiders say.
“The next two years should be rock solid, better than we’ve seen in a decade,” say Craig Wiggins, whose T & C Capital Inc. arranges financing for tooling programs on both sides of the Detroit River.
“2011 wasn’t bad – it was picking up. But I’ve been looking at the forecasts and 2012 is double that, 2013 is looking even better,” Wiggins said this week. Much of the work is already booked and the steel already ordered or “sitting on the floor” as inventory ready to be cut into new automotive tools and dies.
During six years of downsizing and bankruptcies, the region’s 200 MTDM employers were slashed in half or worse, putting thousands of people out of work and leaving dozens of empty plants scattered through local industrial parks.
In 2009, the number of jobs in the sector stood at about 8,500, down 6,000 from its peak. Up-to-date figures are not available.
Most of the surviving companies are now flush with work, going seven days a week again, stockpiling steel and even turning down offers to bid on new vehicle programs.
This is good news for the region and the provincial economy. If there’s an infallible canary in Ontario’s economic coalmine it’s the huge MTDM sector, one of the largest in the world and once the largest employer in the Windsor region.
“If we’re not still first, we’re second to automotive parts and assembly,” Wiggins says.
When too many of those shops start to slow down, as they did in 2005, or start going out of business as they did in 2008, hearts freeze with fear around these parts.
Professor Tony Faria, a long-time automotive consultant and expert observer at the University of Windsor’s Odette School of Business, says he detected a distinct improvement of the mood in the MTDM sector this fall as he took classes on tours of a half dozen of the leading local shops.
“In most of our visits they were very busy and really upbeat about the new business coming in,” Faria said this week. “They all talked about hiring. I think things are perking up.”
Wiggins says the improvement is due to a confluence of factors, from a rush of new cars and trucks being brought to market by the automakers to renewed competition between fewer surviving plants.
“We have a nice effect going on right now – the dollar is a little bit better, there’s lots of work out there and the tight lead times don’t allow the manufacturers to go overseas to get their tooling,” Wiggins said from his Tecumseh office on Friday.
Billions of dollars worth of mould-making and other tooling work has gone to China in recent years. But there are timeline penalties for the companies that do so in an industry where short launches produce higher profits, because fresh product is a major competitive edge.
In some cases, delayed automotive programs have been given the green light too close to the launch dates for work which recently would have been outsourced to China. “Now they can’t afford to have it sitting on a boat for three weeks,” Wiggins said.
Nagging quality issues with some Chinese suppliers have also reduced the appetitite of the automakers and their Tier One suppliers for some of the outsourcing, he said.
The short lead times has also lead to a shortage of tooling steel, which is a specialty product, rather than a commodity readily available.
Wiggins said many tool shops have found waiting lists of up to six months for the kinds of steel they need, which is unusual, and some automakers have even been cutting cheques in advance for the steel to ensure their toolers have it, which is unheard of.
Faria said the slow pace of the recovery “has been a bit of blessing in disguise” for the industry. It prevented MTDM companies from over investing when the downturn ended, and they weren’t tempted to quickly hire people as soon as some work started re-appearing.
“This bodes really well” for the OEMs, Faria said – the Original Equipment Manufacturers, as the Detroit, Japanese and German automakers call themselves.
Thanks to a flood of new models being planned by a rebounding automotive industry, the order pipeline for the MTDM sector is now crowded for months in advance, Wiggins said.
General Motors, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler and Toyota all have full portfolios of new product booked years out that require new tooling, “Honda not so much.”
The shops are getting toward the end of the new dies and moulds they have been cutting for the 2013 model year. The last of those tools must be shipped to the manufacturers by mid summer of 2012 for production ramp-up.
“The 2014 stuff is what’s jamming up the floor right now, and the 2015 stuff is starting to materialize,” Wiggins said.
The record year for work in the MTDM sector was 1995, when all the automakers had plenty of new product in their pipelines and General Motors put the mother of all tooling programs out for bids: the GMT 800, otherwise known as the GM truck family of full-size body-on-frame pickups and SUVs. The value of the GM work totalled several billion dollars.
“A lot of new boats got bought that year, and a lot of new houses got built on (Riverside) Drive,” Wiggins said.
The entire GMT family – the Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban, Chevy Silverado, Cadillac Escalade, GMC Yukon and GMC Sierra – is being either redesigned or re-engineered again for the model year 2014, which is causing part of the industry’s latest cyclical boom.
Tooling for each of those vehicles is dominating the work order sheets in local plants, along with last minute work on the 2013 Cadillac CTS crossover, the all-new 2014 Jeep Grand Wagoneer and a re-engineered 2014 Dodge RAM 1500.
Also being refreshed that year are the Chevy Cruze and the Impala and Corvette are being redesigned, but less of that work has been awarded in Windsor, Tecumseh and Lakeshore.
For 2014, Automotive News reports that Ford is redesigning the Edge and the Lincoln MKX, restyling the Fiesta (which requires less new tooling than a redesign), and “freshening” the Explorer and F-Series Superduty, although the last two could be pushed out to the 2015 model year.
There’s only one cloud on the horizon, Wiggins said: “Hopefully the banks will lend them the the money” to do the work, he says of the tooling sector. Toolmakers are normally paid for each billion-dollar tooling program after production starts and the new cars and trucks are rolling into showrooms, not before.
Two years ago much of the MTDM industry was facing bankruptcy along with GM and Chrysler. But persistent lobbying of the U.S. and Canadian government convinced Ottawa and Washington to force the automakers to pay off their debts to the sector.
Not only are the survivors of the machine, tool, die and mould making (MTDM) industries finishing 2011 in robust financial health, they promise to do even better in 2012 and 2013 – much better, in fact, observers and insiders say.
“The next two years should be rock solid, better than we’ve seen in a decade,” say Craig Wiggins, whose T & C Capital Inc. arranges financing for tooling programs on both sides of the Detroit River.
“2011 wasn’t bad – it was picking up. But I’ve been looking at the forecasts and 2012 is double that, 2013 is looking even better,” Wiggins said this week. Much of the work is already booked and the steel already ordered or “sitting on the floor” as inventory ready to be cut into new automotive tools and dies.
During six years of downsizing and bankruptcies, the region’s 200 MTDM employers were slashed in half or worse, putting thousands of people out of work and leaving dozens of empty plants scattered through local industrial parks.
In 2009, the number of jobs in the sector stood at about 8,500, down 6,000 from its peak. Up-to-date figures are not available.
Most of the surviving companies are now flush with work, going seven days a week again, stockpiling steel and even turning down offers to bid on new vehicle programs.
This is good news for the region and the provincial economy. If there’s an infallible canary in Ontario’s economic coalmine it’s the huge MTDM sector, one of the largest in the world and once the largest employer in the Windsor region.
“If we’re not still first, we’re second to automotive parts and assembly,” Wiggins says.
When too many of those shops start to slow down, as they did in 2005, or start going out of business as they did in 2008, hearts freeze with fear around these parts.
Professor Tony Faria, a long-time automotive consultant and expert observer at the University of Windsor’s Odette School of Business, says he detected a distinct improvement of the mood in the MTDM sector this fall as he took classes on tours of a half dozen of the leading local shops.
“In most of our visits they were very busy and really upbeat about the new business coming in,” Faria said this week. “They all talked about hiring. I think things are perking up.”
Wiggins says the improvement is due to a confluence of factors, from a rush of new cars and trucks being brought to market by the automakers to renewed competition between fewer surviving plants.
“We have a nice effect going on right now – the dollar is a little bit better, there’s lots of work out there and the tight lead times don’t allow the manufacturers to go overseas to get their tooling,” Wiggins said from his Tecumseh office on Friday.
Billions of dollars worth of mould-making and other tooling work has gone to China in recent years. But there are timeline penalties for the companies that do so in an industry where short launches produce higher profits, because fresh product is a major competitive edge.
In some cases, delayed automotive programs have been given the green light too close to the launch dates for work which recently would have been outsourced to China. “Now they can’t afford to have it sitting on a boat for three weeks,” Wiggins said.
Nagging quality issues with some Chinese suppliers have also reduced the appetitite of the automakers and their Tier One suppliers for some of the outsourcing, he said.
The short lead times has also lead to a shortage of tooling steel, which is a specialty product, rather than a commodity readily available.
Wiggins said many tool shops have found waiting lists of up to six months for the kinds of steel they need, which is unusual, and some automakers have even been cutting cheques in advance for the steel to ensure their toolers have it, which is unheard of.
Faria said the slow pace of the recovery “has been a bit of blessing in disguise” for the industry. It prevented MTDM companies from over investing when the downturn ended, and they weren’t tempted to quickly hire people as soon as some work started re-appearing.
“This bodes really well” for the OEMs, Faria said – the Original Equipment Manufacturers, as the Detroit, Japanese and German automakers call themselves.
Thanks to a flood of new models being planned by a rebounding automotive industry, the order pipeline for the MTDM sector is now crowded for months in advance, Wiggins said.
General Motors, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler and Toyota all have full portfolios of new product booked years out that require new tooling, “Honda not so much.”
The shops are getting toward the end of the new dies and moulds they have been cutting for the 2013 model year. The last of those tools must be shipped to the manufacturers by mid summer of 2012 for production ramp-up.
“The 2014 stuff is what’s jamming up the floor right now, and the 2015 stuff is starting to materialize,” Wiggins said.
The record year for work in the MTDM sector was 1995, when all the automakers had plenty of new product in their pipelines and General Motors put the mother of all tooling programs out for bids: the GMT 800, otherwise known as the GM truck family of full-size body-on-frame pickups and SUVs. The value of the GM work totalled several billion dollars.
“A lot of new boats got bought that year, and a lot of new houses got built on (Riverside) Drive,” Wiggins said.
The entire GMT family – the Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban, Chevy Silverado, Cadillac Escalade, GMC Yukon and GMC Sierra – is being either redesigned or re-engineered again for the model year 2014, which is causing part of the industry’s latest cyclical boom.
Tooling for each of those vehicles is dominating the work order sheets in local plants, along with last minute work on the 2013 Cadillac CTS crossover, the all-new 2014 Jeep Grand Wagoneer and a re-engineered 2014 Dodge RAM 1500.
Also being refreshed that year are the Chevy Cruze and the Impala and Corvette are being redesigned, but less of that work has been awarded in Windsor, Tecumseh and Lakeshore.
For 2014, Automotive News reports that Ford is redesigning the Edge and the Lincoln MKX, restyling the Fiesta (which requires less new tooling than a redesign), and “freshening” the Explorer and F-Series Superduty, although the last two could be pushed out to the 2015 model year.
There’s only one cloud on the horizon, Wiggins said: “Hopefully the banks will lend them the the money” to do the work, he says of the tooling sector. Toolmakers are normally paid for each billion-dollar tooling program after production starts and the new cars and trucks are rolling into showrooms, not before.
Two years ago much of the MTDM industry was facing bankruptcy along with GM and Chrysler. But persistent lobbying of the U.S. and Canadian government convinced Ottawa and Washington to force the automakers to pay off their debts to the sector.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Boat builders are back: Hancock, Martin form company
They just couldn't stay away: Tommy Hancock and Dale Martin are back in the boat-building business.
Several years after selling their interests in Sea Pro Boats and Key West Boats, respectively, the men have come out of a retirement of fishing and golfing to form Sportsman Boats Manufacturing.
"We got a little bored and were missing the industry," Martin said Wednesday. "We know what to do and are just excited about getting back in and are looking forward to it."
"This isn't work for us, this is play," he said. "This is what we enjoy doing."
Sportsman has leased about 20,000 square feet in the East Port Industrial Park off U.S. Highway 78 in Summerville, and the owners are in the process of designing and tooling up their molds.
Martin hopes to have a boat ready for the Charleston Boat Show next month.
The plan is to build six models of "affordable, better" fiberglass boats, ranging in length from 20 to 25 feet, Martin said. The off-shore fishing boats will be center-console with deep, V-shaped hulls, and the bay boats will have shallower sides and lower decks more suitable for recreational boating nearer to shore.
Hanckel Marine will be Sportsman's local dealer, but Martin said he plans to ship Sportsman's boats from Texas to New York.
To make it all happen, Sportsman intends to hire 30 people in 2012, mostly experienced boat builders.
"We run a skinny ship here," Martin said. "We're going to make money."
Martin, 50, and Hancock, 56, seem to know something about that.
Martin said Hancock was the co-owner and founder of Sea Pro Boats, which was sold, along with Sea Boss Boats, in 2005 to Brunswick Corp. for $51 million. Brunswick closed the Sea Pro factory in Newberry in May 2008, citing high fuel prices, housing woes and an uncertain economy.
For his part, Martin said he was the co-owner and founder of Ridgeville-based Key West Boats, which has been in business for 25 years, before selling out in 2003.
Sportsman chose to set up shop in Dorchester County because it is "boat-builder friendly," Martin said, referring to the associated fiberglass industry there and a knowledgeable workforce.
In addition to Key West, Scout and Zodiac make the same kind of boats nearby.
"We got a little boat cluster going on up here," said Jon Baggett, Dorchester County director of economic development.
Several years after selling their interests in Sea Pro Boats and Key West Boats, respectively, the men have come out of a retirement of fishing and golfing to form Sportsman Boats Manufacturing.
"We got a little bored and were missing the industry," Martin said Wednesday. "We know what to do and are just excited about getting back in and are looking forward to it."
"This isn't work for us, this is play," he said. "This is what we enjoy doing."
Sportsman has leased about 20,000 square feet in the East Port Industrial Park off U.S. Highway 78 in Summerville, and the owners are in the process of designing and tooling up their molds.
Martin hopes to have a boat ready for the Charleston Boat Show next month.
The plan is to build six models of "affordable, better" fiberglass boats, ranging in length from 20 to 25 feet, Martin said. The off-shore fishing boats will be center-console with deep, V-shaped hulls, and the bay boats will have shallower sides and lower decks more suitable for recreational boating nearer to shore.
Hanckel Marine will be Sportsman's local dealer, but Martin said he plans to ship Sportsman's boats from Texas to New York.
To make it all happen, Sportsman intends to hire 30 people in 2012, mostly experienced boat builders.
"We run a skinny ship here," Martin said. "We're going to make money."
Martin, 50, and Hancock, 56, seem to know something about that.
Martin said Hancock was the co-owner and founder of Sea Pro Boats, which was sold, along with Sea Boss Boats, in 2005 to Brunswick Corp. for $51 million. Brunswick closed the Sea Pro factory in Newberry in May 2008, citing high fuel prices, housing woes and an uncertain economy.
For his part, Martin said he was the co-owner and founder of Ridgeville-based Key West Boats, which has been in business for 25 years, before selling out in 2003.
Sportsman chose to set up shop in Dorchester County because it is "boat-builder friendly," Martin said, referring to the associated fiberglass industry there and a knowledgeable workforce.
In addition to Key West, Scout and Zodiac make the same kind of boats nearby.
"We got a little boat cluster going on up here," said Jon Baggett, Dorchester County director of economic development.
Czech Christmas tradition takes the biscuit
It’s a common scene during advent in the Czech Republic. Dough is made, rolled and cut into shapes or pressed into molds. Walnuts are crushed for filling and melted chocolate is drizzled on top. As one tray is removed from the oven and set out to cool, another is slid into its place.
When done, the sweets are arranged on trays for guests. They are as much a part of the decorations as the tree. Chocolate topped baskets filled with nuts, gingerbread fish and dusted vanilla rolls huddled together, doughy wasp-nests oozing egg-liqueur and crisp jam filled butter cookies are some of the dozen types usually made. All the while, not a single sweet is sampled until the 24th of December (when Czechs traditionally celebrate Christmas) — unless, according to legend, the person wants to bring misfortune upon his or her shoulders.
But how popular is the tradition of baking Christmas sweets, really? An entry on Czech Wikipedia claims that 87 percent of Czechs bake festive biscuits, but the entry provides no support for the figure. Friends, colleagues and family members all attest to baking, so maybe there is some truth in this number.
The major supermarket chains certainly see a marked increase in the sales of flour. Tesco said sales rose by a factor of 30 percent. For Albert, purchases of flour were “roughly seven times greater than during the ordinary times.” Kaufland also reported that the amount of flour sold was many times more than in the rest of the year. It can’t all be going into breading the carp.
The origin for the baking tradition apparently goes back to the pagan winter solstice festivals. Protective and ceremonial foods were prepared for the occasion to shield the house from “dark forces.” Overtime these “magical” foods became the sweets we know today.
Of course, it could be said that if you go back far enough, you’ll find a pagan root for anything. It doesn’t explain the continuing popularity.
Jana Florentna Zatloukalov, author of Vnon kuchaky pro dceru (A Christmas Cookbook for my Daughter) offered a personal explanation as to why the tradition is upheld.“I can't speak categorically for all 10 million Czechs. For myself, I'm pleased to say that the tradition of Christmas sweets is is one of the things that makes a family a family and a home a home. Christmas sweets cement us together in a refined way, and at the same time connect the present with the past,” she said.
Going back a few generations, sweets were not so common among ordinary people. Before the use of sugar beet in nineteenth century, sugar was quite expensive. Vnoka — the traditional Czech Christmas loaf with raisins — was more common in the past than rich biscuits.
The boom period was the first republic. Manuals of this time were “bursting” with many types of sweets and tea cakes. “I think the demand for considerable diversity and quality craftsmanship took root in this time,” Zatloukalov said.
When done, the sweets are arranged on trays for guests. They are as much a part of the decorations as the tree. Chocolate topped baskets filled with nuts, gingerbread fish and dusted vanilla rolls huddled together, doughy wasp-nests oozing egg-liqueur and crisp jam filled butter cookies are some of the dozen types usually made. All the while, not a single sweet is sampled until the 24th of December (when Czechs traditionally celebrate Christmas) — unless, according to legend, the person wants to bring misfortune upon his or her shoulders.
But how popular is the tradition of baking Christmas sweets, really? An entry on Czech Wikipedia claims that 87 percent of Czechs bake festive biscuits, but the entry provides no support for the figure. Friends, colleagues and family members all attest to baking, so maybe there is some truth in this number.
The major supermarket chains certainly see a marked increase in the sales of flour. Tesco said sales rose by a factor of 30 percent. For Albert, purchases of flour were “roughly seven times greater than during the ordinary times.” Kaufland also reported that the amount of flour sold was many times more than in the rest of the year. It can’t all be going into breading the carp.
The origin for the baking tradition apparently goes back to the pagan winter solstice festivals. Protective and ceremonial foods were prepared for the occasion to shield the house from “dark forces.” Overtime these “magical” foods became the sweets we know today.
Of course, it could be said that if you go back far enough, you’ll find a pagan root for anything. It doesn’t explain the continuing popularity.
Jana Florentna Zatloukalov, author of Vnon kuchaky pro dceru (A Christmas Cookbook for my Daughter) offered a personal explanation as to why the tradition is upheld.“I can't speak categorically for all 10 million Czechs. For myself, I'm pleased to say that the tradition of Christmas sweets is is one of the things that makes a family a family and a home a home. Christmas sweets cement us together in a refined way, and at the same time connect the present with the past,” she said.
Going back a few generations, sweets were not so common among ordinary people. Before the use of sugar beet in nineteenth century, sugar was quite expensive. Vnoka — the traditional Czech Christmas loaf with raisins — was more common in the past than rich biscuits.
The boom period was the first republic. Manuals of this time were “bursting” with many types of sweets and tea cakes. “I think the demand for considerable diversity and quality craftsmanship took root in this time,” Zatloukalov said.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Little workshop produces a Leviathan
Few people realize that a handful of factories in the United States still make old-fashioned, huffing-and-puffing steam locomotives. And probably even fewer realize one of those places is on Elgin’s far-southeast side.
When the building construction business took a nosedive, 65-year-old earth-moving contractor Dave Kloke decided to combine his ironworking ability with his longtime fascination for Abraham Lincoln. So he began to build an almost-exact copy of an 1860s locomotive named the Leviathan. Finishing that, well, leviathan project in 2009, he displayed the engine last summer at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union and at train shows in Michigan, Iowa and Rock Island.
That led to an order for him to build a similar locomotive for a theme park in Pennsylvania, which is now under construction. And now Kloke has begun raising funds to build a replica of the train car that carried Lincoln’s body from Washington back to Springfield after his assassination in 1865. In April 2015, Kloke hopes to re-enact that historic 14-day trip, which arguably was the most-seen and best-publicized train trip in history.
Located in an area named Spaulding — a center for light industry and railroad-track connections along the Elgin-Bartlett border — the home base of Kloke Locomotive Works LLC has several exotic earth-moving machines in its grassy front yard, along with a fleet of assorted semis around its gravel yard. But inside a cluttered metal shed filled with thousands upon thousands of metal parts and tools and machines, Kloke’s greatest achievement to date sits on a metal stand.
Forty-five feet long and weighing 88,000 pounds (including its bright-red fuel-and water-carrying tender), this is “Leviathan 63,” a reproduction of a Central Pacific Railroad locomotive of the same name that was built in 1868. The Leviathan was a sister of the historic steam engine Jupiter, which participated in the 1869 “driving of the golden spike” ceremony at Promontory Point, Utah. The ceremony marked completion of one dream Lincoln put into motion but never lived to see — a transcontinental railway route linking the populated East with the frontier West.
“The Leviathan and Jupiter had just a fraction as much power as a modern diesel locomotive. But they were the big dogs of their day,” Kloke said as he showed off his pride and joy. Gleamingly painted in black and red, its drive wheels alone stand 5 feet high.
“People think steam engines of that era were dirty because of how they’re shown in Hollywood movies,” he said. “But they were painted in bright colors like this; and at the end of every run, men came out to wipe them clean. If you wanted to work for a railroad in those days, your first job would be as a wiper.”
He and his construction company employees “putzed with this as a part-time, fill-in-work project for 10 years,” Kloke said. “Then when the construction business collapsed, we got more serious.”
Kloke’s research for re-creating the Jupiter included borrowing wooden foundry “patterns” for the locomotive’s parts that were still being stored by the National Park Service in Utah. The patterns filled 13 boxes, each 2 feet tall, 6 feet wide and 8 feet long. Foundry workers used sand molds to turn the wooden shapes into iron shapes to create the pieces that make up Leviathan 63.
The bright-red 5-foot wheels even bear the same wording as the original locomotive: “May 15, 1861 by A. Atwood — James C. Heath & Co.”
“It was a labor of love. We never really added up the cost of everything,” he said.
When the building construction business took a nosedive, 65-year-old earth-moving contractor Dave Kloke decided to combine his ironworking ability with his longtime fascination for Abraham Lincoln. So he began to build an almost-exact copy of an 1860s locomotive named the Leviathan. Finishing that, well, leviathan project in 2009, he displayed the engine last summer at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union and at train shows in Michigan, Iowa and Rock Island.
That led to an order for him to build a similar locomotive for a theme park in Pennsylvania, which is now under construction. And now Kloke has begun raising funds to build a replica of the train car that carried Lincoln’s body from Washington back to Springfield after his assassination in 1865. In April 2015, Kloke hopes to re-enact that historic 14-day trip, which arguably was the most-seen and best-publicized train trip in history.
Located in an area named Spaulding — a center for light industry and railroad-track connections along the Elgin-Bartlett border — the home base of Kloke Locomotive Works LLC has several exotic earth-moving machines in its grassy front yard, along with a fleet of assorted semis around its gravel yard. But inside a cluttered metal shed filled with thousands upon thousands of metal parts and tools and machines, Kloke’s greatest achievement to date sits on a metal stand.
Forty-five feet long and weighing 88,000 pounds (including its bright-red fuel-and water-carrying tender), this is “Leviathan 63,” a reproduction of a Central Pacific Railroad locomotive of the same name that was built in 1868. The Leviathan was a sister of the historic steam engine Jupiter, which participated in the 1869 “driving of the golden spike” ceremony at Promontory Point, Utah. The ceremony marked completion of one dream Lincoln put into motion but never lived to see — a transcontinental railway route linking the populated East with the frontier West.
“The Leviathan and Jupiter had just a fraction as much power as a modern diesel locomotive. But they were the big dogs of their day,” Kloke said as he showed off his pride and joy. Gleamingly painted in black and red, its drive wheels alone stand 5 feet high.
“People think steam engines of that era were dirty because of how they’re shown in Hollywood movies,” he said. “But they were painted in bright colors like this; and at the end of every run, men came out to wipe them clean. If you wanted to work for a railroad in those days, your first job would be as a wiper.”
He and his construction company employees “putzed with this as a part-time, fill-in-work project for 10 years,” Kloke said. “Then when the construction business collapsed, we got more serious.”
Kloke’s research for re-creating the Jupiter included borrowing wooden foundry “patterns” for the locomotive’s parts that were still being stored by the National Park Service in Utah. The patterns filled 13 boxes, each 2 feet tall, 6 feet wide and 8 feet long. Foundry workers used sand molds to turn the wooden shapes into iron shapes to create the pieces that make up Leviathan 63.
The bright-red 5-foot wheels even bear the same wording as the original locomotive: “May 15, 1861 by A. Atwood — James C. Heath & Co.”
“It was a labor of love. We never really added up the cost of everything,” he said.
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