Please feel free to add your comments and share your stories about Piatt Castles. Whether you visited when you were a child, gave tours when you were in high school, were married on the grounds, or had any other experience here we'd love to hear how Piatt Castles has played a role in your life. All of your stories together make up our story.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The party's over, but the fun is just beginning.




I rope my friends into moving a model of Mac-A-Cheek onto the
lawn where it will decorate a mini golf hole.
I think we all had a great time celebrating a century of stories last weekend at Mac-A-Cheek.  I brought a few friends with me from Pittsburgh and convinced them to help set up in exchange for cake.  The day threatened rain, but despite (or perhaps because of) Mom's elaborate rain contingency planning we didn't get a single drop.  Once the tents were all up and the mini golf hole was in place the guests started pouring in.  It was hard to get an accurate count, as visitors milled about the grounds all afternoon, but I would estimate that we had at least 200 people join us for our celebration.

Mom and I cut the official birthday cake. 
On display were samples of many of the programs offered at Piatt Castles including activities from our summer day camps, a traveling exhibit about corn (it's a 6 foot tall quilted ear of corn - amazing) called Corny Facts and Kernels of Knowledge, exhibits about the civil war, information about our oral history program, games for children of all ages, and much more.  We took 2 commemorative photographs of all in attendance that will be published in a souvenir book that Mom and I are writing to commemorate this anniversary.  And of course, the cake was one of the most popular attractions with a line that stretched through the building.

Representatives from the fourth estate were present to capture the celebration, and the party was featured in both the Bellefontaine Examiner and the Columbus Dispatch.

I pose with the winner of our birthday cake baking competition.
Now that the tents have been put away and the cake has been eaten we're working to complete our anniversary year and prepare for the future.  First on the docket is the souvenir book.  The first souvenir book about Mac-A-Cheek was printed in 1915, and our book will include an annotated copy of the original book plus a history of tourism at Mac-A-Cheek told through the material culture of the museum (brochures, ads, tickets, post cards, etc.).  We are learning so much about the museum by looking at the way it was promoted through the years.  As much fun as I had planning Sunday's party, I'm a little glad that it's over so that I'll have more time to get going on the book!
The staff at Piatt Castles

Sunday, August 26, 2012

One Week Until Cake!

I can't believe that our 100th Birthday Party is only a week away.  This summer has gone by outrageously quickly.  I've been so busy with my internship in New York, with moving back and forth to New Jersey, and now with getting ready for school to start again tomorrow that I haven't had a chance to visit the Mac-A-Cheek during it's centennial season yet.  I'm so looking forward to driving over next weekend, and best of all I'm bringing several friends with me who have never seen the Castles before.  It will be a wonderful chance for me to reconnect with my family, and at the same time I'll have the pleasure of introducing the museum to new people who can view the work we've been doing with fresh eyes and hopefully provide some great feedback.

Newly designed exhibit panel
about me and my role at Piatt Castles
By far the strangest thing for me about the Castle (and this has been true for pretty much my entire life) is the exhibit panel about me.  Somehow the panel that discusses the lives and work of my grandparents seems perfectly reasonable, but the panel that discusses who I am and what I do has always seemed so funny.  It's just so weird to see pictures of myself on display.  This week it got even weirder.  As I've taken over more and more of the graphic design work at the Castles I've started doing a lot of the exhibit layouts.  The tricky thing about exhibits about live people (like myself) is that they require constant updates.  We realized that the exhibit about me was woefully out of date, so I found myself designing an exhibit panel about myself.  I tried to remove myself from it a little and work as though it were a panel about any other Piatt, and I think it turned out pretty well.  I will say that the best part about creating this panel was that fact checking was a breeze!  The new panel has gone to the printer and will be on display in Mac-A-Cheek in time for our party next weekend.  I've included a little preview of it here.

I hope you can make it out to Mac-A-Cheek to celebrate with us next Sunday afternoon (details here).  I look forward to seeing you all in real life.  If you can't make it, I'll have a blog post up about it as soon as I can.  In the mean time, have a great week!

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Cake!

We've spent the last couple of days hammering out the details for our Centennial Celebration Birthday Party on September 2.  My absolute favorite part of what we have planned is a birthday cake contest open to amateur bakers of all ages.  If I were 8, and not a Piatt, I would go crazy for this.  As a kid I loved contests.  If I had grown up in an area with county fairs I surely would have devoted lots of time to fair competitions.

Ceiling Fresco, Drawing Room, Mac-A-Cheek
This has nothing to do with cake, but I thought it might inspire
you as you decorate your cake contest entry.
Anyhow, back to the matter at hand, I hope you'll be as excited about this birthday cake competition as I am.  If you'd like to enter, or know someone who makes a mean b'day cake, you can get more information here.  If you can't tell a pastry bag from a profiterole, not to worry!  We'll also be giving away professionally baked cake, cupcakes, and ice cream donated by local business as well as recipe cards featuring a cake recipe (or "receipt" as it was called then) that my great grandmother (also named Kate) and her sister-in-law Bertie wrote in a book they called their Chicken Diary (it discussed the tails and successes of raising chickens as well as the various ways in which the chickens' eggs were used).

Whether you come for the cake, the competition or the celebration - I look forward to seeing you in September!




Monday, July 30, 2012

Eat and Learn Adventure

Today I want on what I call an Eat and Learn Adventure.  These are variations on what my father and I called eating our way across town that consist of alternating between museums and other cultural institutions and, well, eating.  They are an excellent way to get to know a new place.

Today's adventure took place in lower Manhattan, and on the train ride home I realized I had inadvertently curated a thematic adventure focusing on immigration.  I began at the 9/11 Memorial, headed to the lower east side for lunch at Katz's Deli and a tour at the Tenement Museum, walked through Little Italy where I ate ravioli and an amazing cannoli, and ended up drinking coffee in Battery Park looking out over the Statue of Liberty.  It was a fascinating, and delicious, trip through several historical periods that correlated to the immigration of different ethnic groups into the US through New York, and it made me think about the relationship between immigration and the family unit as well as the role of immigration in shaping the history of the US.

The story of the Piatt family in the US actually begins before the US.  There is some confusion owing to common names and inaccurate records, but we do know that the first Piatt came from France before the Revolutionary War.  Like with many immigrant families, this created two distinct branches of the family - one in the new world and one in the home country.  Over the generations, several Piatt men married Irish women who came from families who had entered the US much later.  In my case, the answer to the question "when did your family come to America?" cannot be answered simply, and with every passing generation the stories of all American families become more complicated.

My takeaway from today's adventure is that we can find strength and community by seeking out those of similar experience (or ethnicity), but what makes us stronger (as individuals and as a society) is the combination and cooperation of those with varied backgrounds and experiences.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Ice Cream

I'm going to take a break from heavy topics like politics and education and discuss something truly important:  ice cream.
Margaret Piatt, age 5.
She certainly would have liked some ice cream to go with that birthday cake.

Aside from being the ideal accompaniment to birthday cake and one of the best things about summer, ice cream also has an interesting history.  It's a bit hard to imagine ice cream before the advent of modern refrigeration.  While flavored ices had already been popular for some time the first printed recipes for ice cream appeared in the early 1700s, and ice cream was referenced in the Oxford English Dictionary as early as 1744.

Before the processed was industrialized in the 20th Century, ice cream production was reserved for very special occasions.  It was a time-consuming, expensive and labor-intensive process that involved freezing cream in pots that were submerged in crushed ice mixed with salt.  Before refrigeration ice was harvested during the winter, stored either under ground or in sheds insulated with hay and then crushed by hand in order to make ice cream (or, of course, used for other purposes).  The salt is added to the ice because it lowers the freezing point of water thus making the ice colder.  The cream is agitated during the freezing process in order to add air to the mixture and prevent the cream from freezing into a solid block.  There have been many modern modifications to the ice cream production process, but the science of freezing air into cream remains unchanged (except in regards to very low cost ice cream that is essentially a mixture of chemicals that bears no resemblance to cream).

Both the ice cream cone and the ice cream sundae were reputed to have been invented by numerous clever culinary artists over several years, but both were well established by the early 1900s (the 1904 Worlds Fair saw the first mass introduction of the ice cream cone into American culture).  Today, the versatility and variety of ice cream is astounding.  Last week I was at a farmer's market where a vendor was making ice cream on demand using liquid nitrogen.  Innovation never ceases, but who can complain about such delicious novelty?

Now, I honestly don't know whether there will be ice cream at our 100th Birthday Party, but I do know that there is a truly wonderful ice cream parlor just down the street in West Liberty.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Why do we learn?

Library at Mac-A-Cheek
For some of us, education is a means to an end.  We need to gain a set of skills in order to perform a job, or we need to collect data in order to make a decision.  For others, education is an end unto itself.  I suppose that most people seek knowledge for different reasons in different situations.  For me, the acquisition of knowledge is often more rewarding than its implementation.  I love the thrill of grasping a previously evasive concept or making a connection between two seemingly unrelated fields.  I see the world around me as a laboratory and a library - a place to explore and to learn.  In this world I am a perpetual scholar.

This love of learning is one of the many traits that has, through nature and/or nurture, been passed down to me by generations of Piatts.  Abram (my great-great-great-grandfater, builder of Mac-A-Cheek) was a farmer and a writer - a beautiful combination that allows for exploration of the physical world and the intellectual world.  The establishment and perpetuation of Mac-A-Cheek and Mac-O-Chee as historic house museums speaks to the Piatts' love of learning.  Running a history museum in a small Ohio community isn't easy, and it isn't particularly profitable, but it does afford us the joy of bringing new knowledge to visitors young and old.  It also creates an environment in which learning is the highest priority.  100 years after Mac-A-Cheek was first opened for tours, we are still doing research about this history of the land, the building, the family and the community.  We have interrupted family dinners because someone posed a historical question that was so compelling that we couldn't finish eating until we'd discovered the answer.  Living and working in a museum is a brilliant way for a family obsessed with learning to spend its time.  There is so much to explore, and so much to share.  I hope you'll join us this summer to celebrate 100 years of exploration.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

War

Personally, I have never found war to be terribly interesting.  As a concept it make so little sense to me. However, so much of history is illustrated by war.  This week we celebrate the anniversary of the end of the war that created the United States of America - the first in a series of American wars.

Newly renovated exhibit on the military history
of the Piatt family, Mac-A-Cheek Castle
Just as the history of a nation can be told (at least in part) through its wars, the history of a family can be told through its participation in those wars.  Jacob Piatt (paternal grandfather to brothers Abram and Donn) served in the Revolutionary War.  For his service he was paid in part with a lot of land just south of the Ohio River near Cincinnati.  This precipitated his son Benjamin's life in Cincinnati and eventual move to present-day West Liberty.  Benjamin served as a Quarter Master in the War of 1812.

By the Civil War, Benjamin's family was established in West Liberty.  Abram Piatt made the rank of Brigadier General, and his brother Donn made a name for himself by waiting for his commanding officer to take leave and creating an unapproved regiment of freed slaves.  Decades later, Abram's great-grandsons William and James served in World War II and the Korean War respectively.

What I find interesting about the family's story told through the wars is not the conflicts themselves, but the way in which it relates the Piatt story to the stories of other families across the country.  It pulls historical figures out of abstraction and relates them to a known event.  Just was we use paragraphs to break up blocks of text, wars make excellent delineations and reference points in history.  Someone with a relative who served in WWII has an immediate, real connection with the time period and the story being told when he or she learns about my grandfather, William.

This rather esoteric benefit of military history is vastly inconsequential when compared to the actual horror of war.  As we look back we celebrate not the atrocities or the bloodshed but the outcome.  We manage to overlook the means and enjoy the ends.  This is the spirit of the Fourth of July.  We light things on fire and celebrate our nationhood.  My grandfather shot off the cannon that sits in front of Mac-A-Cheek on the 4th, but only on years when there was a democrat in the White House.  My great-great-great grandfather's brother Donn explained so simply that, "the Fourth of July is a day set apart by the citizens of this blessed country on which to glorify themselves and mutilate their offspring."

Have a safe and happy 4th!

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Poetry

The way I see it, poetry is a method of applying beauty to the mundane.  It elevates the ordinary.  While I am most certainly not a poet (my version of creating beauty around the ordinary involves the formatting of complicated data into easily understood spreadsheets and databases), but many Piatts over the years have written poetry.  I was reminded of this when, last weekend, a family of Piatt descendants visited the Castles.  While touring the homes with her parents, twelve-year-old Zoe was inspired to write the following poems:


Exhibit Panel, Mac-A-Cheek
My vernon of poetry

Two Minutes of Tinkering

1.     
  
I wish I’d known her,
You can tell,
She and I would’ve gotten
Along quite well.
I love to write and she did too
Oh Sarah, why couldn’t I have known you?

2.       

The Piatts, at least they seemed
Like nice folks, plain as can be
And though they now they are dead,
And they are in my family tree,
Their blood still runs in me.

I, Zoe, will carry on,
Writing books, pomes and songs
And all the time I’m doing so
Sarah’s sprit in me shall not go.

The "her" to whom Zoe is referring is Sarah Piatt, the most prolific of the Piatt poets.  I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I'm not actually sure I'v read any of her poetry.  I need to take care of that.  However, Zoe's poems bring up the fascinating issue of continuation.  

When I look back at the four generations before me who gave tours at Mac-A-Cheek and the six generations before me who lived on the land that my family still calls home it is hard not be taken with the ways in which the work of one generation is continued on and how the values and ideologies that informed one generation still inform my mother and I.  
The dissemination of information has been important to Piatts for generations.  This took many forms, but always comes down to the love of sharing knowledge and ideas that is prevalent in every generation of Piatts.  Abram Piatt wrote and published a newspaper called the Mac-A-Cheek Press.  William McCoy displayed his collection of curiosities to the public.  Sarah Piatt and many other wrote poems and plays.  Donn Piatt was a prolific writer in many genres.  My grandfather, William, was well known for his "gift of gab" and his thrill at telling stories to anyone who would listed.  As I sit at my end of this long line of information spreaders, the last line of Zoe's second poem rings particularly true.  It's not just Sarah's spirit that lives in me, but the collective spirits of all who have come before me and who's work I continue as I use the technology of my time and the particular skills available to me to elevate and disseminate various forms of information through spread shed analysis, exhibit design, and of course this blog.  

What does your family value?  How do you embody and apply those values?  I think it's fascinating to look at the ways in which our activities change as the decades go by but the inspiration for and the function of the activities continues.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Toys

I was talking to my mother the other day about topics that might make good blog posts.  She told me that some Piatt was born the year the Hula Hoop was invented.  I was apparently only half listening, because I now have no idea whom she was talking about.  I thought perhaps I would look up the year of the hoop's birth and figure out which Piatt she was referencing, but I learned that the hula hoop was conceptually invented by the Greeks in the 5th Century.  No Piatt was born then, so far as I know.  The modern hula hoop was branded as such by Wham-O toys in 1957.  No Piatts born then either.  Perhaps I mis-heard the entire conversation.  Regardless, it did get me thinking about toys.  If the same toy can be popular in 5th Century Greece and 20th Century America, there may well be something universal about the ways we play and what we find entertaining.  Children and adults alike are fascinated by they toys of yester-year.  

Hula Hoop, ca 1960
By now we all know that Mac-A-Cheek was opened for tours in 1912, but of course that is not the entire story.  William McCoy Piatt opened his drawing room in order to display his cabinet of curiosities, but the rest of the house remained a private residence.  Over the years more and more of the home was opened for tours.  When my mother was a child in the 1950s and '60s the family of five lived primarily in a small apartment in the back of the house (their bedrooms are now offices, and their kitchen is now the gift shop), but they kept a family living room and business office in an area that is now open for tours.  My step-father and I call this room the Star Room because of the large star in the parquet floor, but this room and the adjacent dining room were the last part of the house to be included on the tour.  Much as the drawing room is furnished as it was when William McCoy first displayed his curiosity cabinet, the back part of the house contains artifacts from the lives of the last Piatts to live at Mac-A-Cheek.  This is by far one of the most popular rooms, and I think this is so for two reasons.  First, visitors are given the opportunity to explore their own history and to share that history with their families.  The middle of the 20th Century is still very much part of our current story, and there is something very compelling about the familiar presented within the museum context.  Second, the whimsy of toys is irresistible.  Whether they are toys we remember from our youth or toys that far predate our childhoods, there is something so charming about them that we can't help but smile.

Below are a few pictures of my favorite toys on exhibit in Mac-A-Cheek.  Enjoy!

Winky Dink:  the first interactive television game

Barbie, 1961
Barbie, 1961



Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Commuting

Abram Piatt in front of Mac-A-Cheek
I'm thinking about commuting.  Before the castles were built, Judge Benjamin Piatt raised his family (including sons Abram and Donn who would go on to build Mac-A-Cheek and Mac-O-Chee, respectively) in a small wood-frame home near where Mac-A-Cheek now stands.  Some of you may remember when a remodeled version of this home housed a gift shop, but that's beside the point.  Benjamin was a Judge on the Circuit Court and he frequently had to travel to court houses around his district and often had business in Cincinnati, where he lived before moving to West Liberty.  It is just over 100 miles from Cincinnati to West Liberty, and Benjamin made this trip frequently.  This sounds like a pain until we remember that it was the middle of the 19th Century, and Benjamin was making this trip on a horse.  It took three days.
By comparison, Benjamin's son Abram lived and worked on the land in Logan County he had inherited from his father.  Aside from his military service he had little reason to venture farther than he could see.  Later in his life he frequently visited his brother Donn at his home, one mile down the road.  

Commuting is on my mind because I will spend the next three months commuting 50 miles each way (it would be 30 miles if there weren't a pesky bay in the way) from a small town in New Jersey to Manhattan.  I am very pleased that (a) I don't have to make this trip on horse-back, and (b) the NJ Transit trains have quiet commuter cars.  I will have lots of time for reading (and writing blog posts), and it won't take me an entire day each way.  I am a little jealous of Abram and his tiny commute, but I'm also so grateful that modern transportation allows me to take advantage of professional opportunities without the hassle of horseshoes.

NJ Transit Train

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Renewal & Reflection

Detail from Oliver Frey's 1881 fresco in the ceiling
of Mac-A-Cheek.  Many of the flowers portrayed here
were also planted in the garden in front of the home.
Spring is a time of renewal, and birthdays are times for reflection.  This spring I am completing the first year of my Master's Degree, and at the Castles we are celebrating our 100th birthday.  The last days of spring semester are an amazing time on campus.  The overwhelming stress of a heavy work load starts to lift, and it is replaced by anxiety about exams and excitement about the summer.  As we watch our colleagues prepare for graduation we're reminded how fleeting our time in academia is.  Very soon we will transition back into the 'real world,' and however smooth or trying that transition may be it will give us the opportunity to reflect on what we have learned and what we hope to accomplish going forward.
At Piatt Castles we are approaching our anniversary not just as a time for celebration but also as a period for reflection and planning.  We are using the entire year to review and redevelop the content of our exhibits and to reflect on what we hope to accomplish as a cultural institution.
In 1912 the simple goal of displaying a cabinet of curiosities was simple to accomplish with straightforward methods for evaluating sucess.  Today the goals and success metrics are much more complex, and we are using our 100th year of tours to take a step back and analyze the experience we provide to our visitors in order determine our goals for visitor interaction and find new and informative ways to measure how well we are meeting our goals.  You can help us by telling us what you took away from your visit to Piatt Castles.  What was your most memorable experience?  If you had to describe the museum to a friend, how would you do it?

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Why would you bring strangers into your house?

William McCoy Piatt's Cabinet of Curiousities, 2012
We know that William McCoy Piatt opened Mac-A-Cheek to the public by 1912.  We don't know exactly why.  One popular theory is that he was so tired of people coming up to the house and asking for a tour that he decided to start charging admission to keep them away.  Although it seems plausible that strangers would come to the door asking to be shown around (it is a very cool building after all), but as compelling as this idea may be it is not likely the real story.
William McCoy Piatt's Cabinet of Curiosities, ca. 1915
If you've visited Mac-A-Cheek, you probably remember the large cabinet in the drawing room full of all sorts of random objects (including an ear of corn, a tooth from a mastodon and assorted hatchets).  Many, though not all, of these objects were in this cabinet when William McCoy first opened Mac-A-Cheek.  Curiosity Cabinets such as this were popular as far back as the Renaissance.  They piqued the interest of viewers and allowed them to explore unique and unexpected items.  William McCoy had spent much of his life collecting strange and interesting things that he found around the farm.  He had a cabinet custom-built and installed in his drawing room in order to display this collection, and his desire to share the collection with others is likely the true reason that Mac-A-Cheek was first opened to the public.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Why not make it a bed and breakfast?

Fresco at Mac-O-Chee
I can't begin to count the number of times I've been told that we should turn castles Mac-A-Cheek and Mac-O-Chee into a pair of bed and breakfasts.  Aside from the minor issues of indoor plumbing (or the lack thereof) and very minimal electricity, it seems like a pretty good idea on face value.  I don't really want to spend the rest of my life making coffee and muffins, but I'm sure I could find someone who does. And, yes, providing accommodations for romantic getaways would almost certainly generate more revenue than cultural tourism.
As we enter our 100th year of giving tours it is inevitable that we take a step back and wonder why on earth we are doing this at all.  You have to admit that it's a pretty peculiar situation.  Many family businesses last for only a couple of generations, and those that do last quickly move the place of business out of the living room.  Not us!  I'm the 5th generation Piatt to give tours at the Castles, and rather than move the business out of the living room, we relinquished the living room for the sake of the business.  I can't say exactly why William McCoy decided to open the doors in 1912, but I can reflect on why we keep them open now.  The story we have to tell is both incredibly unique and wonderfully universal.  It is the story of an American family fighting a series of wars and surviving the great depression, and it is also a story of diplomats and poets, soldiers and salesmen, judges and farmers.  Piatt Castles provides an escape from the contemporary into a past that is both familiar and intriguing.  It allows for exploration and contemplation, and it gives us the chance to give back to our community through arts and cultural programming what we could never give back through muffins and coffee.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Multi-tasking

It seems to be a commonly held belief that technological advancements over the past decades have encouraged us to do more with our limited time. For example, I'm writing this post on my phone in the 10 minutes before a class.
Regardless of the technology of the day, multi-tasking has always been a major part of life at Piatt Castles. I work on the website and design t-shirts in between the classes I'm taking toward my Master's degree. My mother, Margaret runs the Theatre department at Urbana University while running the programming and operations at the Castles. My Grandmother taught high school while working at the Castles. My Grandfather's aunts Bertie and Marguerite ran a farm and the Castle while raising their young nephews and bringing the family through the Great Depression.
Like most families Piatts have a wide range of interests, and the aggregation of those interests and the multiple careers that have supplemented work at Piatt Castles over the past several generations make the stories we tell particularly interesting. I feel that every topic is best examined from a wide variety of perspectives, and at the Castles we look at the history of the buildings through the eyes of parents, children, educators, students, farmers, soldiers, business people, visitors, and more. You can help us to examine these stories by adding your own unique perspective.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Blogging in 1916

It seems a little odd to be blogging about putting together an exhibit.  I mean, I find it pretty interesting work, but that doesn't mean anyone else should care.   I still think it's weird, but aparently there's a long tradition of this anomoly.  On May 1, 1916 William McCoy Piatt had this notice printed in the Daily Examiner:


PIATT SOUVENIR BOOK IN PRESS
    
William Piatt, of Mac-a-cheek, was in
Bellefontaine on Monday.  He is having a
catalogue of his large collection of valuable
relics printed in the Ginn shop.  Visitors to
Mac-a-heek will have an opportunity to view
this collection as soon as the season opens.
 

When I read it I thought, "why the heck did he put this in the paper?"  Then I thought, "oh, I should put that in the blog."  Then I laughed out loud.  

For the past 100 years we've been working to connect what we do to the community around us.  In 2012 that community is so much larger than William McCoy ever could have imagined when he opened his home for tours in 1912, but our goals are the same.  Piatt Castles is full of great stories and fascinating artifacts.  William McCoy wanted to share those stories and artifacts with his neighbors, and we want to share them with you.

The catalog mentioned in the news clipping will be featured in the new exhibits we're creating about the centennial.  It is amazing to see how much has changed and how much has stayed the same.

Cover page from William McCoy Piatt's 1916 Souvenir Book

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Spring Break

Photo from the original 1912 Souvenir Booklet
The academic world can be so all-consuming that other things tend to slip to the bottom of the to-do list.  Last week, Mom was on her spring break from teaching at Urbana University.  As a result she had time to send me approximately 40 thousand emails.  She and I are very alike in that once we get going on a project we get very excited and find it hard to stop.  This week I'm on my spring break from Carnegie Mellon.  In addition to catching up on some much-needed sleep I am going through those 40 thousand emails and getting my part of the Centennial preparations ready.  Yesterday I ordered a bunch of cool stuff for the gift shop including shirts, coffee mugs, neat wooden key chains, and more.  Today I need to do some exhibit layout work.  We're also planning out what we're going to do for our 100th Birthday Party over Labor Day weekend.  Any suggestions?