Grumpy

Someone in my office just microwaved some chocolate chip cookies and is selling them for a fundraiser of some sort. This peaves me as they smell awesome, the whole floor smells like them now, I have no cash, and I'm on a diet.

When my daughter was 3 months old we moved to a new apartment that had a lot of insulation in the interior walls. She either slept through the night every night once we moved there, or the walls were thick enough that we slept through her crying, we didn't know which and didn't really care that much to be honest. Falling off the couch doesn't count. Everyone's kid does that. In fact if a trip to the Emergency room isn't needed it shouldn't count. (We've made 1 trip to the emergency room with each of our kids so far.)

The libraries, schools, and public transportation are my big worries about Kasich. If he can figure out a way to cut taxes without cutting those three, I think he'll very likely have my vote. And frankly at this point transit has been cut so much that I don't think transit will get a LOT worse if the 10 million from the state is cut. (State funding makes up a really small percentage of RTA's budget.) So basically if he can convince me he won't cut the libraries and schools (K-12 AND Colleges) I will give him serious consideration. The biggest reason I like Strickland is the 3C, but I won't make my decision based on that issue alone. Until the budget got tight, then he allowed the schools to raise their rates.

^Fares make up such a small portion of the budget that adding riders doesn't translate into significant added funds.

The non-union workers, including management, have already taken a pay cut. RTA asked the union to just not get a raise and they said no.

^Seniors wouldn't like it and seniors vote in greater numbers than young people so I doubt we'll see that. Poll: Democrats get bump in Ohio From CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser (CNN) - A new poll suggests that Democrats are on the rise in Ohio, which will hold two important statewide elections this November and is considered a crucial battleground in the race for the White House. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/31/poll-democrats-get-bump-in-ohio/?fbid=6JzlECuZ8xT

New poll shows Americans strongly support public transportation; more walking & biking March 30, 2010 By Stephen Lee Davis American voters overwhelmingly support broader access to public transportation and safe walking and biking, according to this new national poll conducted for Transportation for America and released to the media today this afternoon. With the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ramping up efforts to draft a new long-term transportation bill before the end of the year, the results should be instructive to Senators. http://t4america.org/blog/2010/03/30/new-t4-poll-shows-americans-strongly-support-public-transportation-more-walking-and-biking/

So far? Not that I can see. Kasich has been talking a lot about balancing the budget when he was in congress and Strickland has been talking a lot about what he's done the last couple years, but I haven't seen or heard any unique ideas from either of them.

No. We aren't going to take the scenic route. A train from Cleveland through Youngstown to Pittsburgh wouldn't go particularly close to Akron. Most likely this route would pass through Hudson and Ravenna, but that's about as close as it would get.

^The renderings and plans still show public auditorium, so I would assume that's still subject to change and the site hasn't been updated with the latest plans yet.

What are you talking about? I'm the only person that has posted today about "ideas" or "talking points" and if you'll take another look I contrasted Kasich's ideas and Republican talking points, then contrasted Strickland's ideas and Democratic talking points. I'm not thinking "outside the box"? Ok, sorry you don't approve. :roll:

I have an idea what he's accomplished and failed to accomplish over the last few years, but I want to see if he has any ideas left on how to improve Ohio. I honestly don't know as much about his positions and priorities as I could, (I wasn't living in Ohio during the last gubernatorial election) and I probably won't take the time to do a lot of research for the next few months. If he still has a few good ideas, as opposed to some talking points, I'm willing to consider voting for him.

I like Kasich's ideas about making the state more business friendly, but I haven't seen any details on how he intends to do that except "reduce red tape" and "cut taxes". Both are worthy ideas, but he hasn't indicated how he'd do either, so I can't support him and unless he comes up with a better plan than some conservative talking points by the fall I don't know if I could vote for him. Strickland on the other hand hasn't started campaigning much yet, so it's hard to make a decision on how to feel about him. Thus, I'm waiting at least until the summer to decide which of these two I will vote for.

Don't we already have rail from Cleveland to Pittsburgh through Alliance?

Ok, apparently I posted an image with a link to a site that said the city name. Try this one instead.

Downtown Willoughby is a must, Garfield's home is pretty interesting and just a few miles up the road from there and makes a nice way to spend an hour or so. There are a handful of old buildings that at one point made up a downtown to Mentor near the intersection of Menter ave and Center St. and then there's downtown Painesville which is quite nice, but getting a little past "Western Lake County". Parks wise, I like Chagrin River Park in Willoughby (or is it Eastlake). The river is pretty, plenty of wildlife. (I've never been in the park and not seen deer.) http://www.lakemetroparks.com/select-park/chagrin-river.shtml

I'll agree that Strickland isn't a good candidate, and I'm not excited about him at all, but Kasich hasn't given me any reasons to vote for him either. I'm still undecided.

^Well architecturally it looks like the US, IMO. The beach looks too big to not be on the coast (or at least I can't think of a beach on a lake that big). Terrain wise, I can't imagine anywhere on the East Coast or Gulf Coast that looks like that. I can't see any palm trees, so I'm guessing it's not southern California. So as far as I can tell through my series of educated guesses that leaves us with Northern California through the Canadian border. (I suppose it could be just north of the border in the Vancouver region) You've said in the past you're from Oregon, so.... I'm guessing Astoria.

^I've been married for 10 years. I wasn't talking about getting notes/addresses from girls.

I find that when someone hands me something hand written it is easiest to just snap a photo of it when I don't have time to type it into my phone.

I think it is safe to say that ridership is higher on the Healthline than the #6 had in 2004, but I'd like to see how much. If we're seeing a 20% increase in ridership while ridership RTA wide was up 15% (I'm completely making those numbers up by the way) than that makes one wonder if the $200 million was spent wisely. Jerry, a statement was made that the Healthline is not what was advertised and your response was to state that people are still riding it in better than expected numbers. This is good news, but has nothing to do with the statement made. Whether you intended to or not I'm calling you on a red herring.

Maine is less densely populated, but the vast majority of its population is in one dense corridor, oh wait, what were we talking about?

Rob, who wrote that article and when?

What was the ridership on the #6 in Jan of '04? That would be an apples to apples comparison I'd like to see since construction started that spring.

Can we merge this thread into this one? I still we're seriously not going to build a commuter rail line because 40 people that bought houses next to railroad tracks don't want a train on the tracks.