GCrites

When I was at UC I couldn't figure out what was missing. When I found out that there was a bar on campus and that you could drink at games (I cant think of another state school around here where you can do that) I figured that this place must know how to party! Nope. I wondered where the spirit was that I felt at Shawnee State and Marshall -- of course they're not OU, but students at those schools still made both partying and "opening their minds" with friends a priority. Top Cat's and Sudsy's were still open when I started attending UC and I met way better partiers in the metalheads that congregated there than I ever met around campus. I don't think any of them were in school. One guy was Skeletonwitch's roadie, so those guys would stay at his place when they played around Cincy -- they were fun to drink and BS with. Now I hear there's a bunch of Skeletonwitch clone bands that turned up in Athens since they got big. Of course, since UC has so many students, there are parties around for sure. People still get kicked out of bars; you can find vomit and beer cans in the street. But it seems like the students are focused on their education more... could UC be turning into Ohio's Michigan? Another cause is that today's average kid is terrified of getting hurt or in trouble ("nerd" is rapidly becoming the dominant male culture) while Athens is known for miles around as the destination for those seeking misadventure.

Okay, I have a serious question after watching these old films and seeing tons of old pictures. Were potholes invented in the 1970's? Probably about the time we started using bargain basement road design, construction and materials. Plowing and salting the roads is also hard on them -- in the old days they used fiery cinders to melt snow and ice.

Lots of the money is going into diesel. Perhaps this will allow kids to attend schools closer to their homes so that the diesel money can go towards actual education. Also, this is going to really change property taxes and assessments.

USA! USA! USA!

Scope out this chart that ranks cities on their fuel use. Not a whole lot of surprises except that Cincinnati is ranked 15th (a Gulper) whereas Columbus is a Sipper at #34. I didn't think that they would be so far apart and I thought Cincy would actually use a little less than Cbus. Not true! A reminder that hills and curves really do wreck your car's fuel economy, this. Cleveland was not ranked for some reason. http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/mint-data-shows-where-the-gas-money-goes/?display=wide

Yes, it reduces the "Blue states subsidizing the red states" phenomenon, at least in the transportation sector. Europeans are rapidly becoming more hostile to the EU's decision-making and power. Think about how the Germans view money and finance as compared with Italy or Greece. In Germany, a business bankruptcy is shameful, but in Italy, businesses are constantly going in and out of it. You never know if motorcycle manufacturers Bimota and Moto Morini are bankrupt or back on any given day.

^The class structure fails when the college educated are less apt to earn a higher income than those without a higher education. A lot of my buddies didn't go straight through school, instead becoming things like elevator techs, parts managers, cops, and car salesmen. They all make, on average, more (sometimes much more) than my college educated friends, except for the ones that went into the medical field or became military officers.

Now that it's done, they have no excuse not to clone what they did at Weinland Park since the money for that design is a sunk cost. I'm sure there would have to be some revisions due to the differences in orientation of the sites, but much of the work is done.

bzzzzzzzzt, That's more of that "Suburbs is what people wanted" crap that completely ignores the hard work of the best salesmen and marketers in the world -- those in the real estate and auto industries. People, in the aggregate, buy what is "sold" to them. Walkability and social opportunities were not sold nearly as hard as fear and sprawl. And of course, cities were dirty, hot and overcrowded back in the old days.

Besides, I can get Grippo's, Skyline and Burger beer here in Columbus. We've even got Deveroe's now.

He probably didn't want to risk injury during even a flag game due to the Madden Curse!

Kroger sometimes names their stores after the more well known brand in an area rather than what is geographically correct. Hyde Park Kroger is in Oakley. There's other examples, but that's all I can think of offhand.

They might just sit on the cash for now. Companies with lots of cash on hand are popular during rough economic times. They make risk-averse bondholders happy and stockholders like cash to a degree; though they might wish for the company to turn that cash into growth.

I always thought that office from Big Business looked really strange -- like it was in a coal mine.

They should go back to GNP to more accurately reflect how nations' economies are doing at home. Probably ain't gonna happen though.

Orion, you had never seen a sunrise before? Not even when you were a little kid? Never partied all night to dance music? Perhaps it's a typo. Great shots of an interesting area that I knew little about.

When my mother lived in Cincinnati during the early '60s, she says that at that time Norwood had a reputation for having a sizable black population. But she might have just seen people going to and from their jobs at the GM plant. When I would visit Norwood often a couple years back it didn't seem 100% white, but did seem mostly white. My folks are old though. Sometimes old white people aren't the most accurate when it comes to racial stats, especially when it's been 50 years since they last spent a significant amount of time in an area. She also might not have know the borders of Norwood and Bond Hill, though it sounds like there were a lot more whites in Bond Hill back then.

The Rent Is Too Damn High Party's Jimmy McMillan at the NY Governor Debate

Ha ha, this is the kind of stuff that used to go on all the time but was never reported.

They're just going to keep building as long as thay have the money to do it. Seems like they didn't see much fallout from the whole mess except that they had to stop building for a while (low sales), unlike the mortgage companies, banks and homeowners. They build and let everybody else worry about what happens afterward.

Is the Lateral modern Interstate-grade? I don't think that can be done; the ramps seem too short among other factors.

I just finished moving to a loft that is on the 3rd and 4th floor of a walkup. The unit has central AC, but the stairwell did not. The heat index has been over 100+ in Cincy for what seems like the past month, which only added to the usual pain. The king size mattress was the hardest thing to deal with, weighs a ton and just flops around if you try to stand it on end. That sounds exactly like my old place; it's not right off Short Vine is it?

I just mailed something out to Penile Hill Road in Decherd, Tennessee.

Oh man, if the bar was permanent, it'd be hilarious to be a regular there even though you weren't involved with state government at all. "Where's your husband?" "Getting hammered in the Statehouse... again."

You'd hate Adams and Brown Counties, then. They started naming their roads that were say, "Twp. Rd. 497" after people's full names a few years back.