Robert Pence

Does anyone know anything about the families/individuals whose memorials these are? The first one (Edwards) clearly has a lot of maritime references. The second one (Fritz) has a lot of stuff going on, but except for the anchor, I can't make out what most of it is supposed to represent. The third one escapes me entirely. Perhaps someone fluent in German could figure it out. When those monuments were created, any one of them likely cost more than a simple house to shelter a poor family. Then as now, the very affluent were largely isolated from the plight of the less fortunate.

In memory of my maternal grandfather, John E. Baumgartner (1880-1941). He served in the US Navy 1901-1905. He's seated on the left in the photo.

You've certainly led a full life. Honey, you should write your memoirs! I can't publish until after a couple of people are dead. For one of them, I can hardly wait! :shoot:

U.S. Air Force, active duty 1962 - 1966 1962 - USAF Basic Training Even then, you could see the beginnings of my understated fabulousness!

The following is a synthesis of interactions from various occasions, involving various Significant Others; it is not a real event, and is not meant to cast aspersions upon the reputation of any persons living or dead.</i> Me: Just look at that beautiful bridge! :-o It was designed by local county engineers and completed in 1917, with a lower deck that carried streetcars on four tracks until 1954. It's an engineering landmark, and still solid as a rock after all those years and all that traffic! I love how that massive steel center span seems to soar when you approach it on the street! :-) S.O.: :roll: Can we go now? I'm bored and I have to go to the bathroom. :x

Never been to an Urbanohio meet, have you? :laugh:

Maybe you're taking too many showers. Try cutting back to every four days or so. :-D Seriously, didn't you mention something earlier about having a thyroid condition? That can cause dry skin. Ha! One of my brothers is twice-divorced. By comparison with his life and the lives of some straight friends and former co-workers, my life is sorely lacking in drama. I dated a couple of drama queens early on, when I was a newbie on the scene. I soon learned to spot those a mile away. The solution is to only date people who don't live here. There's always Craigslist (JK! JK! JK!) :-o

Nice job! I've never seen Wilmington before, that I recall, but I'm impressed; it's a handsome town with a wealth of preserved historic buildings. I like your photos. The lighting is a little contrasty in places, but that's mostly an effect of the season and time of day, and you gotta take them when you can get there. If you can size them a little larger, the detail will come out better. A nominal 800x600 pixels works well with 1024x768 screen resolution that I think a lot of people are using; I usually size the larger dimension at 800 and let the smaller dimension fall where it will.

I bought an electric blanket instead. It never comes home stoned/drunk or yells at me, and I always know where it is when I go to bed. :roll:

Contemporary with the WPA was the CCC, or Civilian Conservation Corps, comprised mainly of young men from unemployed families. A lot of the construction in state and national parks was done by CCC workers, and a lot of the things they built are still in use. A CCC-like organization could teach young people productive skills while repairing infrastructure, cleaning up urban blight, and restoring the quality of our natural and built environment.

I'm here because of the cute young guys into design and architecture. :wink:

Can't find a smiley that expresses what I'm thinking, so this will have to do: :behind: :wink: Maybe these will help:

Excellent photos. That is one of the best observation decks in the midwest, because it's outdoors without glass or plexigass to obstruct the views. Is open at night? The last time I was there, I thought the sign said pretty much only during business hours.

Miraculous transformation, Riverviewer! Is that what happens to a Cincinnatian when there's no Goetta in the mess hall? :wink:

I guess you're right; it must have been Trailways, because the color scheme throughout was still red. I do seem to recall that there were some extra partitions in the space then that were not original and are no longer there. I remember that I didn't bother to try a photo because there was no interior vantage point that showed a view of anything. It's a respectable facility, but not what a visitor from another country might expect to find in a city Cleveland's size that sits on major rail routes between so many other important cities. It seems more like what you'd expect in a city of 50K population on a major corridor if the US put appropriate emphasis on passenger rail. For comparison, consider what the NYC built in the 1950s in Toledo, with much smaller population figures: Scroll this one to see the full span of the platforms:

Excellent photos and an impressive, appropriate ceremony. Thanks for posting that.

Spectacular view and light! Your best yet, at least on UO, I think.

We're not likely to see any change there soon, in my opinion. The size and devastated condition of the building mean that there'd have to be a lot of commercial tenants in addition to passenger service to justify the huge cost of making it serviceable, and its physical location doesn't make it likely that a lot of office tenants will be lining up in the near future to lease space.

Excellent photos, nice use of HDR, too. It's a remarkable tool when used properly. A lot of people way overdo it, but maybe that fad will wear off with the passage of time.

I have a couple of photos of the interior of Cleveland's Amtrak Station from 1979, when it was fairly new. It was spiffy & spotlessly clean, then. After Greyhound began sharing it, it rapidly descended to the condition of a typical bus station, dirty and smelling of stale cigarette smoke and with the glass perpetually smudged by the greasy front pawprints of people who had never been taught to "Use the d@mn handle, fool!" There was a Greyhound station at one of the Rapid stations on the West Side, too, maybe Brookpark?

I read that this year's Devil's Night fires were way fewer even than last year's. I don't know if that's from better prevention and control, or just because everything that would burn has already been burned. In the mid-eighties I boarded a train to Toledo at Michigan Central Station. Aside from four or five people waiting for the train, I think the only people in the building were the ticket agent and one cop working in a sort of precinct office there. The building was getting shabby and dusty, and some areas were barricaded off with plywood partitions, but it was intact and showed no vandalism or tagging. The lobby area was vast and grand. To kill time until my train I walked around the outside of the building to look it over. The cop cautioned me that I shouldn't be out there by myself. That was in the middle of the afternoon. I didn't see anyone else around except for one or two cars that passed on a nearby street. A recently-deceased friend of mine used to work for MDOT out of an office in that building. He said it never lived up to the developers' expectations as commercial space, and except during the WWII era, only a very small portion of it was ever occupied.

Excellent photography, both from an artistic and a technical standpoint. The images are strong in composition and visual content, and well-lighted and razor-sharp in detail. I love this set!

Great shots! Sounds like seicer made up for your not puking, only in the other direction. :laugh:

It's true that fossil fuels are stored solar energy, but unless you believe the creationists, how about millions of years, not thousands of years? Winds are created by solar heating, so I agree that all the energy we have, possibly with the exception of less-ubiquitously available geothermal energy, comes from the sun, but in just the past hundred years we've consumed solar energy that was accumulated over millions of years. When we reach the point where we have to get by each day or week or month mostly on the amount of renewable energy that becomes available during that time period, we won't be able in any way to sustain the per capita levels of energy consumption that we practice now. The best outcome we can expect is a middle ground of fewer people with more modest individual expectations. With luck and more enlightened self-interest that humanity at large has yet demonstrated, we may reach that balance through rational planning and intelligent managment. The alternatives are resource wars, environmental and climatic disasters, plagues and famine, and social chaos. As the disparity widens between the number of haves living well with plenty of food and comfort, and and the number of have-nots shivering and hungry, guess who will end up eating whom?

I believe you did. Neat pic.