Rusty Shackleford

I remember from a job interview that GE aircraft engines had a testing facility around there. I was never there but I heard that it was pretty impressive.

^ Any idea (from anyone) what ride could be taken out to make room for it?

Slight correction: mediocre pseudo-barbecue - crock pot pork passed off as pulled pork, and ribs that are steamed or boiled and baked - is big here. Everyone around here likes the idea of barbecue, but slow smoking is not part of the cooking culture around here.

This seems to be the board section that has a charter - environmental issues - that is closest to this topic. I am curious whether there exists any maps of radon incidences, or public databases of radon test result data that can be viewed on the intertubes. My particular interest is SW Ohio and Warren county, by the way. I know that it will not be conclusive and that I should get a test done of our house. I am just curious what's out there, if anything. My own searching has resulted in very little except finding a "heat map" of radon levels across the state that does not have reference points or longitude/latitude marks. I think it was part of an online collection by the U. of Toledo. TIA. Update: I found this: http://www.eng.utoledo.edu/aprg/radon/ This seems to be the most readily available data online. Just wondering if anyone knows of anything better.

Picture #2 and maybe others - did you apply perspective correction? If so, how? The sides look too straight.

This is an interesting question. How do you measure something like this? A lot of lawncare companies are 1-5 person companies and they are probably under the radar of a search of D&B or Manta. Many HVAC companies are independent, small mom and pop operations. I know of three that operate primarily here in Lebanon. Same with small "construction companies" that are basically a guy and a truck and some tools.

^ Silver Street BBQ: word on the street here is that it can stand a *lot* of improvement. Also, a former partner in the joint who came up with the concept was allegedly pushed out, according to the comments in the story. I've been so disappointed in every new local place here that I will give it a couple of months before we bother with it. The soap opera I followed about it online sort of tainted it for me.

From "The Oatmeal" How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell:

"Dead Max and Ermas?" That one closed? Wait... never mind. I found the news articles just now. We went there maybe in early 2009. It was just a pathetic experience.

Funny, I grew up in D8ton, moved away for several years, moved back, and I was stunned by the level and ferocity of insular nastiness and cliquishness in SW Ohio. Getting away from it my "acclimatization" to local ganging-up behavior had decreased. My opinion is that Toledo has nothing over Dayton or Cincinnati.

Excellent commentary and analysis, Jefferey. There is ghettoization of stuff along 741 that is similar to 725. Note the plazas where Click Camera and Wal-Mart used to be. One of em is almost empty. It reminds of me of the old Van Buren Shopping Center in Kettering before it was redeveloped. "Port of entry" comments - I have a brother who lives at Revere Village in Centerville. Your comments sum up that area precisely. The street signs there could practically be printed in Farsi and Arabic. Re: Austin as "Cincinnati Far North". Of course. It really makes sense.

The Dayton economy is chronically horrible. Dayton is NOT growing, it is just sprawling out more thinly into temporarily cleaner and newer developments. The perimeter is ever-expanding, but it's not population or business growth. The city has already paid the expense of earlier waves of growth from the 70s and 80s. This development is coming at the expense of earlier-developed nearby areas such as the Dayton Mall/Miami County corridor around 725 and 741. The new stuff at Austin Road will build up and the 725/741 area will then start to resemble a low rise commercial ghetto as commercial developments here compete with the mall area. That has already started, vacancies are becoming a blight there. They are planning for some huge growth along 741 at Austin Pike. The new intersection there - not the interstate entrance, I mean the junction of Austin and 741 - is this crazy "figure 8" traffic pattern that has left turning traffic directed to the left of oncoming traffic via an island. I suspect that there are solid traffic engineering reasons for this, but it is nucking futz to drive through. When I see something that "innovative" around here, I figure that there is some escapist grandeur about the planning. Like, if they just build stuff there cool enough, it will not really be Dayton anymore.

Pretty easy to take pictures like that in Dayton. When I moved away, I was shocked that people actually used their front lawns and porches.

Crap, I go to that Superpetz all the time. Next closest one is in Miamisburg. @CincyDad [poster's note: I thought we were going to fill the area with high-paying jobs, entry-level shelf-pickers.] You wry dog, you... :wink:

How depressing. The comments, especially. Everyone makes a point to hate some other opposing group around here.

http://www.western-star.com/news/lebanon-oh-news/kilburn-irate-to-see-help-for-poor-779485.html "Kilburn irate to see help for poor": The guy has to reflect the mentality of the voters around Warren County. So I can't vent about him very much. The "blame" rests with locals here.

Lulz.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100527/NEWS010701/5280336/Computer-whiz-or-crook- Ahh, entrepreneurship. :evil:

Really? I'd like to add them to the map. Sorry for the false alarm, I may be mistaken. I could have sworn that there were a couple on Patterson Road. I checked the directory and I found just one on Mundale Ave. in Belmont. Maybe I somehow conflated the one on Franklin Street in Centerville with being in Belmont (which obviously it isn't.)

Great pictures. You don't see people much outside in Dayton neighborhoods. Ironically, their yards and small gardens can be exemplary in the stable middle class areas. My mother and grandmother back in the 60s used to make an entire Sunday afternoon of just wandering up and down streets in Belmont critiquing the flower beds. Is that the tree itself that's carved? That's impressive!

There were a couple of Lustrons around Belmont in Dayton when I grew up there in the 60s. They are cool and retro-futuristic. How are Lustron houses as far as heating and cooling? Any particular quirks to the experience of just living in one? Like does rain falling on one sound like pellets hitting the outside of a tin can or something?

I try to not stereotype the area, as much as possible. I always fail at this intention. :whip: Lebanon is pretty much a hardened prole town. Very redneck and briar. A pretty insular and ignorant area. When I run into smart people here they almost always come from someplace else. I think there's a clique factor with the affluent here. They don't understand that most people here are Rent-to-Own types. Middletown is basically a ghetto with some OK pockets. Lebanon has a bit of cachet, Middletown absolutely none.

I think people who come from the immediate area understand Lebanon. I think people who don't have a lot of experience with this area tend to misunderstand it and will project a New England or East Coast exurban community image onto Lebanon. They (especially affluent types) are subject to the groupthink of their similar income friends telling each other how cute and quaint it is and how Lebanon really needs a tapas bar NOW. Lebanon is not nearly as "rich" and cultured as it looks. Here you need to meet people's basic needs in order to stay in business. That's how I see it. One upscale tending place that seemed to do well and had great reviews was Ando Japanese. I was going to try it before they moved to Blue Ash. I think that tells a story right there. It was a good niche place, and they decided that Lebanon was not the best/right environment if they wanted to prosper. So that's kind of reaffirming the pattern I'm describing from the direction of success, not failure.

I think it's a result of two different demographics that both seem to dominate here. 1) The lumpenproletariat of Lebanon - blue and pink collar residents and working poor. "Strict" locals from the immediate area, also Appalachians here for family. Probably 80-90% of the area's population. 2) The Whole Earth crowd. Managerial, legal, medical, professional in general - who live in the vicinity or who are here because they "like" the idea of the area or who are here because they are attracted to the architecture and the place. They didn't grow up here, they don't mix with or know many people in the immediate area except in business. Think of a dual income geek or management couple that works at P&G or Lexis living here, using Lebanon like a bedroom suburb. #2 try to fund and start the type of restaurants they enjoy. Which includes the strict and careful omission of familiar comfort foods and fried things from their menus in place of thing$ like buffalo $teak$ and the like. They want to feature the plates decorated with sauce streaks. Not Mom's blue plate special. #2 tries to hire kitchen help, #1's from the area whose main dining experience is Frisches, show up (hell, it's a service job, you draw from the local area.) Big show off opening. A few months of business from friends of the owners. The inevitable decline as the artisanal ingredients get replaced with stuff from Kroger's and the basic concept of the too-fussy foods they prepare is mangled. The "Kitchen Nightmares" phase. Basically, it's pretentious outsiders who start these places, believing that deliberately excluding sub $20 items from their menu in a personal ego fest makes them "fine dining". Crash and burn, finally. The Wild Bill's owner was a chef from Cincinnati. When I read about his re-opening and some of the comments from him and his patrons I could see clearly that they didn't "get" what locals prefer (and could AFFORD... hello!!!) The news articles about the opening of "The Landing Bistro"'s owner's goals reeked an even worse ego. To get an idea: http://www.wccareercenter.com/protected/ArticleView.aspx?iid=4AG22&dasi=20B The owner clearly isn't a real local. :whip: Locals have that haggard look. I insist, a really well executed burger and barbecue place here along the lines of places that "Diners, Dives and Drive Ins" reviews is much more appropriate to this area. I think the dividing line is if you have to explain why people should patronize a restaurant and you have a "high concept", it's completely dead in the water here in Lebanon. Boy, that was merciless, wasn't it? :shoot: I was a #2 type up and comer when I moved here, and being distant from life giving good IT jobs instead of the crap that I have had to subsist on has moved me to the #1 category. So I know how both local types think. In a way, seeing these places fail gives me a tinge of schedenfreude. It probably shouldn't. The pretentious out of towner corporate employee types want to turn Lebanon into Bucks or Hunterdon County. It simply will not work here.

The Tin Duck was decent but had strange ideas about food - the "wings" were as big as a teradactyl claw (like a duck?) and the artichoke dip was served with shrimp in it. There was just an article in the Western Star about culinary students training at that bistro place, so that was a mighty fast closing. I suspect that location is "poison" to restaurants, no matter who goes in there. Lebanon seems to breed small, unique tending eateries that go out of business quickly. Best Cafe and Mighty Casey/Wild Bills come to mind. I think the town looks on the surface like it can support "upscale" and it really can't. I also checked out reviews of "The Landing" over the winter and over 2/3 were awful. The place sounded exactly like one of the joints that Gordon Ramsey does over in "Kitchen Nightmares" - fancy food done poorly. I think a basic local "triple D style" burger place to compete against the Breakfast Club would do really well here. Or a local barbecue place. I guess it's in the DNA of the type of owners who start these places here to go more upscale than they can execute competently.