big william's world

this is what the Pearl Street Mall looks like now - I prefer tulips and sunshine!
OK so fireguards are boring - I knew that! (interesting that the blogger spellchecker does not know "fireguard" and suggests I use the word "beaurocrat" - a well known synonym.
No stupid questions but you missed the clever choice of hinges which allow the thing to recess into the opening and the fact that it stays in the up/open position, apparently without support.
I think/hope W is wrong about the temperature effect.
I was hoping for more from our C Eng reader.
Log fires are nowhere near as hot as English coal fires which is why the fireplaces here are so big.
On side the mountain called flagstaff, above the house, there is Christmas star made from electric lights. From Four miles away it looks like a perfect five-point star on top of one of the tall buildings. As you get closer to it the shape is less star like and from our house it just looks like a lot of lights in a line.
I drove up there to look at it last night but forgot to take a camera so words and pictures and chrismas cards from Google will have to suffice. We live just below the star.
It seems something has been up there since 1948 and it also doubles as an Easter Cross. Over the years it has been vandalized by painting the bulbs red - which, at the time, was seen as a communist threat. The shape was modified to a peace sign by protestors against the Vietnam war.
On the ground the dimensions are 150 feet (50 meters) in left to right but, obviously more from top to bottom to compensate for the slope.