This Old House is an American home improvement media brand with television shows, a magazine and a website, ThisOldHouse.com. The brand is headquartered in Connecticut; the television series airs on the American television network Public Broadcasting Service and follows remodeling projects of houses over a number of weeks. Boston PBS station WGBH-TV created the program and produced it from its inception in 1979 until 2001 when Time Inc. acquired the television assets and formed This Old House Ventures. WGBH distributed episodes to PBS until 2019 when WETA-TV became the distributor starting with the first episode of season 41. Warner Bros. Domestic Television distributes the series to commercial television stations in syndication. Time Inc. launched This Old House magazine in 1995, focusing on home how-to, know-how and inspiration. In 2016, Time Inc. sold This Old House Ventures to executive Eric Thorkilsen and private equity firm TZP Growth Partners. This Old House and its sister series Ask This Old House are broadcast together as The This Old House Hour, known as The New This Old House Hour.
Both shows are owned by This Old House Ventures, Inc. and are underwritten by GMC and The Home Depot. Weyerhauser lumber distributor, a previous underwriter, by 1989 had donated more than $1,000,000 a year to the show; this Old House is underwritten by State Farm Insurance, HomeServe, Marvin Windows and Doors. Other underwriters throughout the show's tenure included Parks Corporation, Glidden paints, Montgomery Ward, Ace Hardware, Kohler plumbing, Schlage locks, Century 21 Real Estate, Toro lawnmowers/snowblowers, ERA Real Estate, Angie's List, Mitsubishi Electric, Lumber Liquidators, Inc. Two of the original underwriters were Owens-Corning; the third series to share the name is Inside This Old House, a retrospective featuring highlights from previous episodes. Old episodes are shown under the program name This Old House Classics and were shown on The Learning Channel under the name The Renovation Guide. Only the episodes with original host Bob Vila aired under that name; as of 2006, Classics are carried on the commercial non-broadcast DIY Network as well as syndicated to local TV stations.
This Old House was one of the earliest home improvement shows on national television. As such, it was controversial among building contractors, the cast was afraid that they were giving away secrets of the building trades. However, as time passed, the show grew into a cultural icon. Producer-director Russell Morash became known as the "Father of How-To." Begun in 1979 as a one-time, 13-part series airing on WGBH, This Old House has grown into one of the most popular programs on the network. It has produced spin-offs, a magazine, for-profit web sites; the show received 82 nominations. Although WGBH acquired the first two project houses for renovation, the series focused on renovating older houses, including those of modest size and value, with the homeowners doing some of the work, as a form of sweat equity; the series covering the renovation of the Westwood house became something of a cult classic because of an escalating dispute between the hosts and Abram, the homeowners over the direction the project was taking.
Vila remarked at the end of the Westwood series that the owners could have contributed more "sweat equity." As the show evolved, it began to focus on higher-end, luxury homes with more of the work done by expert contractors and tradespeople. Vila left This Old House in 1989 following a dispute about doing commercials and created a similar show called Bob Vila's Home Again. According to news reporter Barbara Beck, Vila was fired by WGBH Boston over making TV commercials for Rickel Home Centers, Home Depot's competitor. Home Depot, the show's underwriter, dropped its local sponsorship for This Old House after Vila made the commercials. Vila was fired in an effort to have Home Depot return as a sponsor to the show. During Vila's tenure, the show had won five Emmys. Weyerhauser, at this time a supplier for Home Depot, stopped underwriting the show. Steve Thomas took over hosting duties after Vila's departure, remaining with the program until 2003. Cast members complained that Vila took up too much screen time, noted that the show became more of an ensemble production after he left.
Kevin O'Connor is the current host of This Old House. Before O'Connor joined the cast, he was a homeowner who appeared on Ask This Old House, having problems with wallpaper removal. While O'Connor has been the host, Abram's role has increased to that of a near co-host. In at least a couple of season opening episodes, Abram has appeared with O'Connor to introduce the new project. Abram filled in for O'Connor when his son was born during the Carlisle project. Beginning with the 2007–08 season, This Old House and Ask This Old House, were presented in a high-definition format. To celebrate its 30th anniversary season, This Old House worked with Nuestra Comunidad to renovate a foreclosed home in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. Nuestra Comunidad is a non-profit development corporation that acquired this 1870s-era Second Empire home from a bank. In 2016, Time Inc. sold This Old House to a joint venture operating as This Old House Ventures, LLC. To celebrate the 40th season in 2019, a retrospective and revisit of some of the more notable projects was incorporated into a handful of episodes with some of the original homeowners providing tours.
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Alina Alekseevna Somova is a Russian ballet dancer and principal dancer with the Mariinsky Ballet of Saint Petersburg. When Somova was young, she went to a regular Saint Petersburg school and to a special math school at her mother's insistence, she was not able to excel in sports like her mother wished due to Russia's political and economic transition in the 1990s. Because of this, she was introduced to ballet at the Dance Krushok school for children where she was recognized for her physical gifts for dancing. After it came time to choose math or ballet, she claimed there was no choice and admitted herself to a one-year pre-curriculum program at the Vaganova Academy, before embarking on the eight-year course, she was a prize-winner at the Vaganova-Prix International Ballet Competition in St. Petersburg in 2002, graduated in 2003 under the class of Lyudmila Safronova. After graduating from the ballet school in 2003 at age 17, she joined the Mariinsky Ballet under the Artistic Director Makhar Vaziev.
During her first year in the company, she was given the unusual honor of dancing Odette/Odile in Swan Lake on 13 May 2003. She was one of the youngest dancers in the company history to attain this kind of recognition. Advancing she became a soloist in 2004, she began at the Mariinsky Ballet by learning the Swan Lake variations under her teacher at the time, Olga Ivanovna Chenchikova. She was coached by Tatiana Terekhova who oversaw her rehearsals of George Balanchine's Symphony in C. Somova climbed the ranks, being promoted to principal in 2008. In 2009, for her performance as the Tsar Maiden in the ballet The Little Humpbacked Horse, Somova received a Golden Mask in the Best Female Role category. Somova still remains as a principal today. Somova was one of the featured dancers in the 2006 documentary Ballerina
Turtlepoint is an unincorporated community in Annin Township, McKean County, United States. The community is located along Pennsylvania Route 155 about 5.2 miles northwest of Port Allegany. Turtlepoint has a post office with ZIP code 16750; the Allegheny River flows through the area. The area is notable for its flat farm fields, a rarity in mountainous Northern Pennsylvania; the community is home to a gravel pit business. A center of the community is Carlsons' Store, which features a grocery store, meat market, deli, US Post Office, agricultural supplies/feed store, it has been operated by the Carlson family for several generations and is a rare remaining example of the general stores that were common in rural parts of North America in the middle of the twentieth century. Parts of the 2010 film Unstoppable were filmed in Turtlepoint and many of the small communities nearby; the scene involving the horse trailer being hit by the train was filmed at Carlsons' Store. Susan "Busty Heart" Sykes, big-bust entertainer, owns a strip club in the hamlet
Xiaomingxiong is the pen name of Wu XiaoMing known as Samshasha, is a veteran Hong Kong gay right activist and one of the first authors to study the history of homosexuality in China. Xiaomingxiong was born in 1954 in Hong Kong to Chinese parents emigrated from the mainland, his father owned a wood cutting factory but went bankrupt during the second world war when the Japanese occupied Hong Kong. Xiaomingxiong finished high school at the age of sixteen and went to the United States for university education in 1971, his arrival at Louisiana and Austin, Texas coincided with the advance of the Sexual Revolution throughout the Western world. It was there that he met fellow students who self-labeled themselves as gay and came across the first wave of gay liberation writings. After graduation, Xiaomingxiong returned to Hong Kong but went to rural New York in 1976 to pursue graduate study in geology, his attention was, however diverted to the vibrant post-Stonewall New York City. In the year that followed, he explored first hand various aspects of the new urban gay lifestyle, interviewing first generations of gay bookshop owners, gay parents, homosexuals from different races, etc.
In June 1979, Xiaomingxiong travelled to the White House as part of a delegate for gay rights, representing Asian Americans. There, he met with a secretary of Jimmy Carter and raised concerns regarding the United States immigration procedures. At the end of 1979, Xiaomingxiong returned to British colonial Hong Kong, where homosexual acts were still illegal and punishable by life imprisonment, he was quick to discover the one and only local underground gay bar at the time, the Dateline, through the editor of the City Magazine. There, he met a wealthy Chinese merchant, who agreed to finance Xiaomingxiong for his first gay liberation Chinese publication, "A Chinese Gay's Manifesto"; this was followed by the underground newsletter "Pink Triangle" and the book "Twenty-five Questions about Homosexuality". The public's reactions earned Xiaomingxiong a column space in the City Magazine, allowing him to disseminate information and advice on homosexuality. After more than five years of preparations, the comprehensive "The History of Homosexuality in China" was published in 1984 just before the announcement of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
The History of Homosexuality in China A Chinese Gay's Manifesto Twenty-five Questions About Homosexuality Thirty Questions About Homosexuality "Pink Triangle"" Homosexuality in China Transgender in China
Laura Drake is an American author of contemporary romance. In 2014, she won the Romance Writers of America's RITA Award for Best First Book for The Sweet Spot. Drake grew up in the suburbs outside Michigan, she sold her Sweet on a Cowboy series, romances set in the world of professional bull riding, to Grand Central in January 2012. Before the first book in that series was published, she went on to sell a Harlequin SuperRomance in June 2012 and three more in March 2013, her debut novel, The Sweet Spot, was released in the summer of 2013 and won a RITA for Best First Book. Drake worked as a CFO until leaving to work full-time on her writing; the Sweet Spot. Grand Central. May 2013. ISBN 9781455521951. Nothing Sweeter. Grand Central. January 2014. ISBN 9781455521975. Sweet on You. Grand Central. August 2014. ISBN 9781455521937, her Road Home. Harlequin. August 2013. ISBN 9780373718702; the Reasons to Stay. Harlequin. August 2014. ISBN 9780373608638. Twice in a Blue Moon. Harlequin. July 2015. ISBN 9780373609185. Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best First Book for The Sweet Spot, 2014 Starred review in Library Journal, as well as Top Picks in RT Book Reviews Author's website Author's blog Official publisher page at Harlequin Official publisher page at Hachette
The eleventh season of the American reality television series Food Network Star premiered June 7, 2015 on Food Network. Food Network chefs Bobby Flay and Giada de Laurentiis returned to the series as judges, with Alton Brown not returning for undisclosed reasons; this season continued the inclusion of Star Salvation, a six-week webseries that featured the most eliminated contestant competing against the remaining eliminated contestants for a chance to re-enter the main Food Network Star competition. This season returned to the practice of the winner of the competition being chosen by the Food Network staff, rather than by viewers as in the three previous seasons. Eddie Jackson – Richardson, Texas Jay Ducote – Baton Rouge, Louisiana Dominick "Dom" Tesoriero – Staten Island, New York Christina Fitzgerald – St. Louis, Missouri Matthew Grunwald – Scottsdale, Arizona Sita Lewis – New York, New York Rosa Graziano – Los Angeles, California Rue Rusike – Brooklyn, New York Emilia Cirker – Reston, Virginia Michelle Karam – Santa Barbara, California Dominick "Dom" Tesoriero – Staten Island, New York Alex McCoy – Washington D.
C. Arnold Myint – Nashville, Tennessee The contestant won the competition and became the next "Food Network Star"; the contestant did not win. The contestant won the challenge for that week; the contestant returned to the main competition. The contestant was one of the selection committee's favorites for that week; the contestant performed well enough to move on to the next week. The contestant was one of the selection committee's three or four least favorites for that week, but was not eliminated; the contestant was the selection committee's least favorite for that week, was eliminated. The contestant voluntarily left the competition; this season of Star Salvation was hosted by Iron Chef Alex Guarnaschelli and season 7 winner Jeff Mauro. ^Note 1: Having withdrawn from the competition, Michelle did not compete in Star Salvation this week. The chef returned to the main competition; the chef continued in the competition. The chef was eliminated from the competition. Top 3: Jay and Arnold Bottom 3: Dom and Christina Eliminated: Christina Top 2: Eddie and Arnold Bottom 3: Emilia and Matthew Eliminated: Matthew Top 2: Dom and Arnold Winner: Michelle Bottom 3: Eddie and Sita Eliminated: Sita Winners: Eddie and Alex Bottom 3: Dom and Rosa Eliminated: Rosa Top 4: Eddie, Alex and Emilia Bottom 4: Arnold, Dom and Rue Eliminated: Rue Top 2: Eddie and Jay Bottom 3: Alex and Emilia Eliminated: Emilia Top 2: Jay and Arnold Bottom 4: Dom, Eddie and Alex Withdrew: Michelle2^Note 2 Michelle chose to withdraw from the competition to be with her family.
She did not compete in Star Salvation. Top 2: Jay and Alex Bottom 3: Arnold and Dom Eliminated: Dom Top 2: Eddie and Jay Bottom 2: Arnold and Alex Eliminated: Alex Top: Jay Bottom 2: Eddie and Arnold Eliminated: Arnold^Note 3 Dom returned to the competition, having won Star Salvation. Winner: Eddie Show on Food Network: BBQ Blitz Runners-up: Dom and Jay Official website Food Network Star on IMDb Food Network Star at TV.com