Mold

The air at a Levittown elementary school does not appear to be harmful - but it still stinks. Bristol Township School Superintendent Regina Cesario received preliminary results yesterday from tests that were done after a musty smell led school officials to close James Buchanan Elementary on Tuesday. "The tests came out that the air quality is fine," she said, fresh from an afternoon meeting with Intec Environmental Consulting of Newtown. "They believe they have identified the source of both the smell and some of the mold in the building.

An exhibit of handmade dolls, some of them reproductions of some very pricey antique dolls that were the Cabbage Patch Kids of their day, will be on display at the Camden County Library in Voorhees through April 27. The 18 dolls are the work of Dorothy Resnick, 51, of Voorhees, a woman who admits that she has had "a lifelong love affair with dolls and doll houses. " In the exhibit are porcelain and wood reproductions of French and German dolls from the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as copies of modern American dolls.

Teachers and officials from the William Penn School District continue to work on finding reasons why a mystery illness has plagued the Green Avenue annex of Penn Wood High School. Susan Shubert, the William Penn Education Association's grievance chairwoman, said the teachers met Wednesday with officials from the district's cleaning service, ServiceMaster, and Scott Environmental Testing Inc., a firm the district hired in December to test the site. Scott issued a report earlier this month that said a mold, sporobolomyces, was found in the building at a level at least four times higher than is considered acceptable by health officials.

ASHLAND, Pa. - Children were once punished with coal in their Christmas stockings. However, Len S. Kimmel prefers it when people give coal as a gift. Over many years, he has turned coal dust and rice coal - small pieces of anthracite - into jewelry and paperweights shaped like penguins and pigs. "I loved doing it and going out to be a vendor at shows and meeting people," said Kimmel, 79, of Fountain Springs. For more than 15 years, Kimmel has been crafting coal sculptures, using coal dust, rice coal, epoxy, and molds, and selling his work at area malls.

More misadventures in home makeover, this time with curtains. You may recall that two years ago I painted my family room myself, on a Type A tear, but I took the Scottoline route. By which I mean, I took shortcuts. Lots of them. I painted around pictures rather than removing them, and the paint only reached 5 feet, 6 inches up the wall, which is my height plus my arm length, minus a ladder, which I don't own. This would be the mathematical formula for do-it-yourself wainscoting.

When it comes to the housing market for foreclosures - buyer beware. "One mistake that we see all the time is buyers going in and assuming all the mechanicals are working," said Brandon T. Johnson, president of GTJ Consulting in Roseville, Mich. "You have to be careful you don't get burned that way. " Johnson's company maintains foreclosed homes for a number of lenders, Realtors and Freddie Mac. He said the term "as is" shouldn't scare buyers off as long as they know what it means.

Mushrooms covered the ground, mold filled the air, and Debbi La Rue promptly made the switch from devoted distance swimmer to splendid sprinter. Of course, the dreaded combination of mushrooms and mold doesn't activate fast-twitch muscles or enhance speed. But indirectly, at least, it was a prime reason La Rue changed events. The Kennett High sophomore moved to Chester County from Frederick County, Md., as an eighth-grader. Allergies that had remained dormant in Maryland were suddenly electrified.

A reader purchased a window from Pella in 2000 for a bedroom she and her husband were preparing for their baby. It was a triple casement window from Pella's Proline series. In March 2009, she noticed mold growing in the lower corner of the center stationary casement. She immediately contacted Pella, but it took until June to get a technician scheduled to come out. They also charged her $120 for the visit. She heard nothing. After several calls, she finally got someone at Pella to let me know what the situation was. The person put in an order for a free replacement for the center portion of the window.

Somewhat as the first requisite for making rabbit pie is to bag a rabbit, among the first things one must do to prepare bronze for casting is to build a fire. Which is precisely what Haradhan Karmakar did yesterday. He built a fire - right in the middle of the Sharpe Circle Gardens of the University Museum, 33d and Spruce Streets. About two hours later, with several hundred dazzled school kids oohing and aahing, Karmakar showed what had been cast: a half-dozen exquisite bronze figurines and containers such as have been produced in India for more than 2,000 years.

The connection between American military history and ice cream is not immediately obvious. But it can be traced. Witness the headless admiral. During the 1890s, banquets in America frequently ended with an ice cream dessert, molded in a patriotic theme. Celebrating American naval conquests during the Spanish-American invasions of Cuba and the Philippines was a popular idea, but there were so many battles and so many victorious admirals that the makers of ice cream molds couldn't keep up. One enterprising mold manufacturer solved the problem by making a generic, headless admiral mold.