Starting a Business ?
#11
06-13-2010, 07:51 PM
Running your own business can be trying at times, you can't slack, you have to push. Remember your're your boss so you have to stay accountable. Check you state, county, city regulations on zoning and taxes. And get a website!! I use doteasy.com, for $25 a year, you can't beat it - your own domain name, no ad banners, plenty of room for pics and if you need more than the basic plan, they have it. I buy my business cards at overnightprints.com, very reasonably priced, good quality card, and very quick turnaround. They'll send you samples if you ask.
#13
06-14-2010, 04:50 AM
Hi `Chris,
Thank you for sharing the obituary on your `Father.
He was a very talented man. I'm sure that he is missed
by many...When he is in your heart/mind, he will
be with you forever.
_____________________________________
Obituary: Charles S. Specht / Miniaturist, decorator and Civil War re-enactor
Monday, July 18, 2005
By Steve Levin, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Charles S. Specht, whose creative interests ranged from building miniatures to Civil War re-enactments, died Friday of a heart attack at his Blawnox home. He was 64.
Monday, July 18, 2005
By Steve Levin, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Charles S. Specht, whose creative interests ranged from building miniatures to Civil War re-enactments, died Friday of a heart attack at his Blawnox home. He was 64.
Charles Specht, re-creates the role of Charles Dana Gibson, a pen and ink illustrator, in 2000.
A native of New Kensington, Mr. Specht won his first craft show award at age 3 for an entire circus he built out of wood, complete with performers, animals and tents. By his senior year of high school, he had decided to attend the Art Institute of Pittsburgh to study interior design.
He postponed marrying his high school sweetheart, Mary Alice, until he graduated. During those four years, she said, her future husband lived on crackers and soft drinks, buying furniture with the extra money he made building theater sets and storing it in his future in-laws' basement.
After their marriage in 1963, the Spechts bought a duplex in Blawnox and raised their four children there.
At various times Mr. Specht trimmed windows for Gimbels and Saks Fifth Avenue, hung wallpaper, worked in a steel mill and a paint factory, and served as a guard at the old Allegheny County Work House.
He help numerous people with decorating their homes but finally quit because "he just got tired of carrying a couch," his wife said. "The clients were all nuts."
The Spechts opened Accents by Specht floral shop in their garage and ran that for 15 years. When his wife went back to work in 1980, Mr. Specht decided to focus on his love of miniatures, and the florist shop became his workshop and storage area.
Miniatures are built on the scale of 1-inch-to-1-foot. Mr. Specht was president several times of the Pittsburgh Miniature Society and its unofficial historian.
His own miniatures gained him notoriety throughout the region.
He built a five-story German cupboard house in his grandmother's old armoire, a project that later was displayed in the PPG Place Wintergarden, Downtown. His garage was full of all types of displays.
One Santa's Workshop he helped make out of a 20-gallon aquarium was displayed one season at Children's Hospital, in the admitting office. When it was finally removed, it was covered with little fingerprints and nose prints from children peering inside.
Mr. Specht took a particular liking to anything from the 1800s. He served as a docent at the Neville House and as a board member.
Through a friendship with the late Marijean Ferguson, a La Roche College professor, he became involved in Civil War re-enactments as part of the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves that served in the defense of the commonwealth in 1861. He sewed some of his own costumes for the re-enactment
He wore a ponytail for the past 20 years, but while friends thought it was to be more in keeping with re-enactments, his wife said it was because his barber had died.
Mr. Specht suffered his first heart attack when he was 47, and he had a quintuple bypass four years ago.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by two daughters, Elisabeth G. Brant, of Perrysville, Md., and Kathryn M. Coban, of Blawnox; two sons, Charles S. "Steve" Jr., of Cheswick, and Christian F., of Blawnox; and a brother, Richard, of New Kensington.
Services were private and the body was cremated.
First published on July 18, 2005 at 12:00 am
Always CIR (cover your rear)
#15
06-14-2010, 11:04 PM
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Posts: 11,978
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