French steel ball game starts to catch on in the States
Twice a week, members of the Petanque club in Portland, Oregon meet for several hours to toss around a steel ball. They are not crazy; they are just acting French.
While the game Petanque (pronounced pay-TONK), which involves tossing a steel ball into the air, sort of like a shotput, is second to soccer in
France, it is nearly unheard of in the US. Still, interest is growing in places like Portland, and there are some 1,200 registered Petanque players in the US.
The game was born at the turn of the 20th century on the French Riviera. The original rules had players run a pace or two before letting fly their hollow steel ball, however, legend has it that in order to accommodate a player in a wheelchair, the rules were changed so that participants must stand with their feet together while hurling the ball.
The original group of 10 members in the Oregon club has grown to over 60 players over the years, and this summer, they hope to host the Petanque World Cup Qualifier Tournament for US players, hoping to score a spot in the 2008 World Cup in
Netherlands. Who knew?
Steel makes noise
In Portage, Indiana, the company Axion Commercial Development has petitioned the city for the rezoning to construct an 111,500 square foot crane building for a steel processing plant, including a slitter to cut steel coils. The only problem is, they want to build it in a business park, shared with office buildings and nearby residences.
Just south of the proposed site for the plant is Park Place apartments. Needless to say, the residents were worried about the potential noise. Luckily for the residents, the city's Plan Commission agreed with them, this week voting down the rezoning to build the steel plant.
Bill Rathjen, vice president of The Pangere Corp., an engineering firm representing the petitioner, tried to downplay the noise problem, telling the committee that while he had no noise data, the plant is not a stamping plant and would not make a pounding sound. He eventually had to concede to the committee: "It is steel, it makes noise."
Public gets chance to sign Freedom Tower beams
The public will be able to sign the massive steel columns that will be used in New York City's Freedom Tower this Saturday at the Lynchburg City Stadium in Lynchburg, Virginia.
The public session to write messages on the
beams that will be used in the structure to be built on former site of the World Trade Center buildings, destroyed on September 11, 2001, was the idea of Banker Steel President Don Banker.
“There's a lot of public interest in this,” Mr. Banker said Wednesday. Everyone wants to participate ... We have one school who has planned a field trip to have its kids come and sign the
beams.”
In July of this year, Banker Steel shipped 27 extra-large steel columns, manufactured in
Luxembourg, to Lynchburg, where some were reinforced by heavy steel plates welded to their sides. The
beams, when completed, will weigh 30 tons apiece.
The signing session is scheduled to take place December 9 between 9AM and 4PM.
Cheboygan has a lot of junk to get rid of ...
Cheboygan Memorial Hospital in Cheboygan, Michigan received an overwhelming response to their “free
scrap” dumpster, as the receptacle was filled much more quickly than anticipated.
Facilities manager and safety officer at the hospital, Jim McNamee, originally said that the dumpster would receive items through December 20, but on Monday he announced that the dumpster was filled and all collections would cease.
“We didn't anticipate this huge of a response,” Mr. McNamee said Monday. “It was filled up in two weeks!”
Collection began on Nov. 20. Items allowed at the site were steel doors, steel
pipe and
wire, steel bed frames, sinks, clothes washers and dryers, cook stoves, water heaters, copper
wire and
pipe, aluminum
wire and siding, aluminum doors, brass faucets, wood stoves and tin.
Items that were not be accepted at the Dumpster include anything with freon, including refrigerators, freezers, ice machines and air conditioners. Computers were not accepted either.
The hospital plans to do another
scrap collection this spring.