BigDipper 80

That's because it's sinking into the beach!!! :-D

Or as an even better (and fitting for Cincinnati) analogy than phones, assuming a new wood coaster will be as rough as The Beast is like assuming a new, modern streetcar is a hopelessly outdated technology that hasn't evolved since the 1800s just because one hasn't been built in your area in a long time! :-D

Except that you can do most of these elements on wooden roller coasters now... Check out Goliath at Six Flags Great America or Outlaw Run at Silver Dollar City or Hades 360 in the Wisconsin Dells. All of these wooden roller coasters have inversions and extreme banked turns. Honestly wooden roller coasters have improved so much in the past two decades that they are now frequently smoother than steel roller coasters, and most coaster enthusiasts I know tend to actually prefer wood coasters because the ride layouts are less reliant on some new gimmick and focus more on a quality ride experience. The company who built Mystic Timbers, GCII, has made some absolutely phenomenal rides including Thunderhead at Dollywood. Plus, they have an office in Cincinnati, and the wood coaster company Gravity Group is HQ'd in Cincinnati! Show some Ohio roller coaster engineer love!

I guess I never really paid attention how much the ground sloped down from the northeast to the southwest corner of that lot. I sort of had it in my mind that the garage entrance would be more like Washington Park, not at-grade.

^I've been saying for a while now that Columbus probably "gets it" the most when it comes to doing really good, proper infill. I wish the cities would be more open to interchange of what works in each, because they're all strong in their own way and have so much they could learn if they cooperated a bit more.

Unfortunately a lot of the money that could have accelerated the rebirth (oops did I just argue for gentrification?!) of various Cincinnati neighborhoods is instead being spent rebuilding east side neighborhoods that were already just fine. Take 200 people that have squeezed houses onto odd lots in the past 8 years and put that money in Walnut Hills or Avondale or Evanston and everything would be different. Exactly! I feel like this is an issue in a lot of mid-size, Rust Belt-y cities. Not entirely apples to apples, but it's like how in Detroit they're currently building a tower full of expensive micro-apartments two miles away from both vast urban prairie and somewhat-still-intact midtown neighborhoods.

The renovation of the top floor of Rhodes was excellent, I do have to give the college credit for that. Hopefully they just do the rest of the building to match the quality of the upstairs room or even the refreshed lobby...

That's fair, I definitely do appreciate the narrowness of it, but having spent so much time in Rhodes I may just be very biased against that building! :laugh:

I like a lot of what was done during the renovation and I think much of the praise reflect this, but for many students who spend their lives on campus, they still encounter a lot of ugliness. The Main Street corridor is the one corridor that has a cohesive feel. The Rec Center and Steger building are great. Personally I am not a fan of what was done to TUC but I can see why architects like it. But the corridors I primarily used on campus were not nearly as nice, such as CCM to Edwards Center along Corry Street, and Edwards Center to College of Business, weaving between Dabney Hall and the Armory Fieldhouse. Yeah, campus still has a lot of awkward corridors, like the one between the ERC and Rhodes Hall, and the one between Rievschl and Zimmer, and pretty much any approach toward DAAP. Heck, the whole engineering quad could just use some more color- I don't mind the actual massing of most of the buildings, but the materials seem so "blah". I always thought it would be cool if the top couple of floors of Rievschl were removed so that the Zimmer garden could be extended, and then a set of terraces added to better connect DAAP with the rest of campus. Maybe even throw a glass roof over the "Berlin Wall" behind Crosley Tower and turn it into a new lobby or classrooms or something. UC also has some very good corridors as well. I love the Mews, and especially the outdoor pathways that wrap all around CCM.

Yay! Swensons Is Expanding to Cleveland This Year “Service” isn’t often a concept that comes up when discussing fast food restaurants. In fact, the entire foundation of the category is based on reducing labor costs by eliminating servers. But park your car at any of the Swensons Drive-In locations and you actually will feel appreciated – important even. More info: http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2017/04/06/swensons-is-expanding-to-cleveland-this-year

:clap: :clap: :clap: Keep marching westward, downtown development! There is hope for Dayton yet!

Why expand the Sharonville convention center? It's already bad enough that the metro has 3 convention centers.

I got a chance to hear a little bit more about the Fire Blocks District this evening... if/when all of this comes to fruition, this project will be a huuuuge shot in the arm to downtown! Some highlights and photos: -Overall, they've currently raised about half of the money needed to complete the project to their full vision. They're rolling it out in phases so they say they have more than enough to get the ball rolling right now. -There are plans for 100-ish new residential units, and about 400,000 sf of office and retail space. First apartments are expected online later in 2018. -They're hoping to work with local companies as much as possible to source materials for the interiors. -Some businesses they're hoping to court: A bike shop, bakery, oyster bar, a "super-late-night" bar. -Some businesses already coming: The candy store/speakeasy expansion for Century Bar, and a new Mexican restaurant at 3rd and Jefferson. -The lot south of the DP&L building is planned to be part garage/part retail, with the garage level convertable for future uses. -They're trying to save some of the facade of the Price building to use as interior design at one of the bars, which should make taestell[/member] very happy! -They considered doing a grocery store but they don't feel the numbers are there for it yet. -Green roofs, as evidenced in some of the slides below. -This is probably a lotta bit boostery, but at least it shows some vision... their goal is to make this project something that the 3C's would all be envious of. We'll see how all of this ends up turning out, but here's hoping it's smooth sailing for all parties involved. The view from the Racquet Club as the storm rolled in. They pitched the project from up here. Lots of new construction in this shot- The FBD, the library, the Simms project on Patterson, and Oregon East! The proposed infill for the lot across from the bus station. A lot of this is "pretty renderings" and not any fleshed out, finalized plans, but they're definitely dreaming!

150% OK with this. Let's be a good community steward and actually make it happen, UD!

They should just use all those strays that wander around the east side!

And as for Rapid Fired, it's not bad as long as you go in knowing it's a "Chipotle, but for Pizza" chain. I'd probably rather get it over most big national brands FWIW.

You keep doing you, Pittsburgh.

Did you bother riding Thunder Dolphin while you visited the Tokyo Dome area? It was still closed back in 2012 when I was in Tokyo, and I've heard it isn't great, but it's pretty damn cool to find that in the middle of a city completely surrounded by skyscrapers

Definitely adding the chili place to the ever-growing new-restaurants-to-try list!

^I don't know if it's for all Japanese real estate or just houses, but I know that home values tend to depreciate as fast as car values as opposed to here in the States, so a somewhat larger proportion of people are willing to build a more creative house because they know it'll get torn down and replaced when they move anyway. It's kind of a shame, because some of those "creative" homes are very well designed, but have no resale value!

It really is amazing how the Japanese can make do with such little space. The house I stayed in when I was over there was way out in the boondocks close to Chiba (of course there really isn't any "boondocks" anywhere around the Bay, but by Japan standards I was out in the countryside), and even out there the houses are very compact, but they never really feel claustrophobic. Everyone out there in the suburbs had a family car, too, but of course you're never more than a 20 minute walk from a train station so I can't imagine they get used terribly much except perhaps when visiting family in a remote part of the country or on trips to Costco (which I totally didn't expect to find existing in Japan, but they do!).

WOBO is probably one of the most entertaining radio stations just by virtue of the fact that you never knowing what you're gonna get. I was listening at 3:00 on a Thursday one time and got an hour of German music immediately followed by a bluegrass set, and then a few minutes of silence that the DJ later explained was because he couldn't remember how to work the new computer.

Yeah I definitely wouldn't consider the southern half of CUF to be in OTR! I wonder if there was a political reason for it or if it was just easier to define the community council boundary that way.

While a lot of radio stations are complete garbage any more, I've found that I get more enjoyment out of finding new music from places like WNKU over streaming services like Spotify. I'd rather not have my music selection hyper-tailored to me based on an algorithm guessing what I like to listen to. Same goes with Youtube suggestions - at some point you completely miss out on whole genres or opinions because these formulas try to rope you in with the stuff they know you like so that they can try to... sell you more crap.