Shoe-shaped house in Pennsylvania now available for short stays

(UPI) — The new owners of an unusual shoe-shaped Pennsylvania house built in 1948 announced the facility is now available to rent for short-term accommodations.

Waylon and Naomi Brown purchased Hellam Township’s Haines Shoe House in July and they announced on Facebook the house is now available for short-term rentals on Vrbo.

The house was built in 1948 to promote Mahlon Haines’ chain of shoe stores and it has since gone through multiple owners and served as a honeymoon suite, an ice cream shop and a tourist attraction.

The house was renovated by the Browns. Its three bedrooms, which are all filled with shoe memorabilia, have been dubbed “Shoelace Space,” “Instep Suite” and “Ankle Abode.”

“We really tried to help preserve some of the original features, like the stained-glass windows, in order to make sure that it lives on for many more years for people to enjoy,” Naomi Brown told WGAL-TV.

Reservations, which are currently available through the end of the year, start at $269 per night.

Space Force Uniforms are Definitely Unique

The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and the world’s only independent space force. Along with its sister branch, the U.S. Air Force, the Space Force is part of the Department of the Air Force, one of the three civilian-led military departments within the Department of Defense. The Space Force, through the Department of the Air Force, is overseen by the secretary of the Air Force, a civilian political appointee who reports to the secretary of defense, and is appointed by the president with Senate confirmation. The military head of the Space Force is the chief of space operations who is typically the most senior Space Force officer. The chief of space operations exercises supervision over the Space Force’s units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Space Force personnel are called Guardians.

This uniform description from Reddit: The new Space Force uniforms make you look like a fascist bus-driver from “The Jetsons.”

Very fast Zombies and extremely slow Zombies 

Why is it that in some horror films the Zombies can run like olympic sprinters, while in other movies the Zombies are slower than a turtle on a beach?  I guess it depends on the plague that infected the humans and turned them into Zombies. 

In the 2002 film 28 Days Later the Zombies can really burn rubber.  It is almost impossible to outrun one of these Zombies.  In the 2004 Dawn Of The Dead the gruesome Zombies can keep up with trucks.  You would need a high-powered pick-up or car on a straightaway to get away from these things.  The plague in the latter movie must stimulate the adrenalin in the creatures legs.

On the other side of the spectrum there are movies that have Zombies that are slower than 96-year-old senior citizens.  In the 1968 Night of the Living Dead the Zombies are horrendously slow.  All a person has to do is use some semi-quick lateral motion and you can get around these ghouls.  Shaun of the Dead also has sluggish mutants.  Getting past these Zombies takes very little athletic coordination. 

The problem for humans in the slow Zombie movies is that they always get surrounded or trapped in a house.  The key here would be to stay in a big open area, like in the middle of a golf course or wheat field.  This way you could see them coming and high-tail it in the opposite direction.  And having a bicycle or roller blades at the ready would be a very good idea.

Very fast zombies

Very slow zombies

There appears to be a new kind of Zombie that would be very difficult to keep a safe distance from.  Especially in extremely cold climates that have many large lakes and rivers that freeze over.  Ice skating Zombies that wear Winnipeg Jets uniforms.

New York City tiny micro-apartments

This post is from 6 years ago.

To live in New York City, and especially Manhattan, is very expensive.  And space is money.  An average 600-700 square foot apartment in the city costs roughly $4,000 a month.  Therefore to create affordable housing for people who don’t make $100,000 a year mayor Bloomberg is putting forth a plan to create micro-apartments.

(Reuters) – Could apartments in New York City get any smaller? Mayor Michael Bloomberg hopes so.

On Monday he announced a competition for architects to submit designs for apartments measuring just 275 to 300 square feet (25.5 to 28 square meters) to address the shortage of homes suitable and affordable for the city’s growing population of one- and two-person households.

“People from all over the world want to live in New York City, and we must develop a new, scalable housing model that is safe, affordable and innovative to meet their needs,” the mayor said in a statement announcing the “adAPT NYC” competition.

Bloomberg said the city plans to waive zoning requirements at a city-owned lot in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan to allow the construction of a building filled with the “micro-units.”

They will be about four times the size of a typical prison cell and about one-fortieth the size of the mayor’s Upper East Side townhouse.

Officials say there are about 1.8 million one- and two-person households in New York City, but only about a million studio and one-bedroom apartments – a sign, they say, that the city’s housing stock has not kept up with its changing demographics.

Young, single New Yorkers in particular can find it hard to find an affordable apartment as demand outstrips supply.

Floor plan of a micro-apartment

                                                                                                             

The mayor is calling for proposals over the next two months for a building containing about 80 micro-units, all of which must have kitchens and bathrooms.

Ideally, they should also have “substantial access to light and air to create a sense of openness,” according to the competition announcement.

The apartments, once built, will be sold or rented on the open market. The city will not be subsidizing the project. If successful, the pilot project could help usher in a loosening of the city’s zoning laws regarding minimum housing size.

Under New York City’s zoning regulations, the average apartment size in a new building must be at least 400 square feet (37 square meters), although there are exceptions to the rule.

The mayor said the project is part of his plan to create or preserve 165,000 affordable homes in the city by 2014.

Although the new apartments will be cozy in realtor-speak, they are unlikely to break any size records. One couple paid $150,000 for a 175-square-foot (16-square-meter) studio in Manhattan in 2009, according to the New York Post.