St. Ferdinand Parish Annual Family Festival

(via email)

Come to the grand St. Ferdinand Parish Annual Family Festival and gigantic White Elephant Sale @ St. Ferdinand Church, 2535 Rochester Road, Cranberry Township, PA 16066.

When: August 7-8-9
Time: Friday 6-11 PM; Saturday 5-11 PM; Sunday 3-10 PM.

Come share in the fun.
* Take chances on numerous raffles and games
* Play at Kiddieland or ride a train
* Play poker or bingo
* Shop at the gigantic White Elephant Tent
* And more!

Concession foods sold all during the festival.
* Buffet dinners served daily
* Friday 4-8 PM - Italian Buffet
* Saturday 4-8 PM - Chicken BBQ
* Sunday 1-8 PM - Turkey or Ham Dinner.

For more information see www.stferd.org or call the rectory during regular business hours at 724-776-2888.

Barista battle in Cranberry

Coming this weekend to the Pittsburgh Marriott North in Cranberry will be "For the Love of Coffee," a regional barista competition. From the Trib:

Coffee aficionados can get their fix of caffeine and watch the best cafe baristas in the East this weekend at two simultaneous coffee competitions in "For the Love of Coffee," presented by the Specialty Coffee Association of America. The competitors will ply their skills Friday through Sunday at the Pittsburgh Marriott North, Cranberry, in either the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic Regional Barista Competitions. Local baristas participate in the Mid-Atlantic competition. Attendees also can browse an accompanying trade show.

About 60 baristas will compete in the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic competitions. The finals for both regions will be Sunday. Winners from each region will be awarded all-expenses-paid trips to compete in the national competition later this year in Portland, Ore.

In 15 minutes, each barista will brew 12 specialty beverages -- four espressos, four cappuccinos and four signature drinks -- using music, choreography and patter.

"It is very entertaining," Wethli says. "It's very theatrical."

It may be fun for the audience, but competitors will perform before four "sensory judges" who will watch the barista and taste the coffees; two technical judges who will evaluate how the competitor used the machines and the size of the drinks; and a head judge, who will preside over all.

In addition to making the coffees with precision and flair, baristas will tell the audience where the coffee beans came from, whether from a small village in Mexico or the slopes of a mountain in Sumatra.

The competition runs 11am to 5pm Friday through Saturday this weekend. Admission is free. The schedule of events (in pdf form) can be found here.

St. Ferdinand Parish's New Year's Eve Party

St. Ferdinand Parish is hosting a New Year's Eve fundraiser and holiday event at the Cranberry Marriott. The party is partially tax deductible and includes:

• 1 hour complimentary cocktails and hors d'oeuvres


• 3 course sit-down dinner


• Champagne toast


• DJ, dancing, big screen TV

Discounted hotel rooms at the Marriott are available as well. For more information, see the St. Ferdinand Parish website or the party poster (pdf).

St. Ferdinand Family Festival

I received a reminder about St. Ferdinand's 2008 Family Festival this weekend. Take the family for the White Elephant Sale, raffles, food, Bingo, games, train and Kiddieland.

2008 St. Ferdinand Family Festival
Friday, August 8, 6:00 - 11:00 pm
Saturday, August 9, 5:00 -11:00 pm
Sunday, August 10, 3:00 - 10:00 pm

Dinners
Friday 4:30 - 8:00 pm - Italian Buffet
Saturday 4:00 - 8:00 pm - Chicken BBQ
Sunday 1:00 - 8:00 pm - Turkey or Ham dinner

Volunteer information can be found here.

Armstrong Cable expands HD listings

For those of you with Armstrong Cable's HD service, you may have noticed like I did that there's a few more channels. In addition to the ones listed on their website, they've since added the following channels:

• 124 The Discovery Channel HD


• 126 The Learning Channel HD


• 127 The Science Channel HD


• 128 Animal Planet HD


• 130 History Channel HD

Besides the History Channel, the others are all part of the Discovery networks. It's nice to see them expand the basic HD lineup and try to catch up with other services (like DirecTV) that offer a much larger selection of HD channels. Armstrong also recently added ESPN2 HD to its "Advantage" block.

I'm curious why Armstrong doesn't publicize their HD channel additions. I haven't seen any mention of these channels and they still aren't on their channel lineup. For people like me that are considering switching services, some advance notice of these types of lineup changes could sway me one way or another.