Robert Pence

I could use a little boredom for a change! Visiting nurse, Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, ... I'm feeling pretty good most of the time, still trying to get my energy level back up. Pain is minimal, not enough to require meds now. The bitches are mobility and nutrition. The surgery was on my neck, and I'd had radiation there previously, so they had to do reconstructive surgery, too. That involved taking muscle & skin from my left thigh for a graft, so now I have a brace on my left leg until I-don't-know-how-long. Ever try to get into/out of a compact car with a leg brace? :laugh: Also not allowed anything to eat or drink by mouth, for at least the next couple of weeks. I've got a tube straight into my gut, and I pour these cans of slop into a bag hooked to a little digitally-controlled pump and the pump whines and wheezes 16 - 18 hours a day metering it in just the right amounts. I'm getting the essential nutrients and calories OK, but I still feel hungry most of the time. No alcohol, no caffiene. I feel like going out and getting into a fight just for some variety, but that probably wouldn't turn out too well. I'd better stick with naps in my recliner in front of a sunny window. :-) Plenty to do now, just catching up on business. I hope to get back to some scanning and photoshopping soon.

The highway involved in Fort-to-Port, especially on the western end, does need capacity improvement. I'll acknowledge that. However, that's no excuse for not trying to control the carnage with more aggressive enforcement. The route curves and twists, following the Maumee River through often-wooded areas. Sight lines are short, with frequent farm road intersections and the potential for slower, often poorly-marked farm traffic. 55mph is a good safe speed for that road, but if you try to drive less than 70 you'll have truckers climbing up your @ss and passing where visibility doesn't guarantee enough room ahead. Many drivers, truckers among them, drive too fast to control their vehicles on that road. Statistically, the info about how much drivers exceed the speed limit may be valid on a broad scale, but locally I've observed that if I push the posted limit by 4-5 mph on I-69, at least as many drivers tailgate and pass me as did before the limit was raised. I think their speeds aren't governed by what they feel is safe or reasonable, but by what they think they can get by with. Many Indiana speeders would still speed by 9 or 14 mph if the limit were 100 mph.

I still think it's idiotic to ravage the environment and take productive land from the tax rolls to further subsidize our air-fouling, oil wasting transportation system in the name of safety. I've driven the fort-to-port route many times, and it is a horror that continues to get worse because of the complete unbridled aggressiveness of truckers. It would cost a lot less, possibly even turn positive revenue for a while, to put troopers out there thick as fleas and enforce so aggressively that the worst drivers end up losing their CDLs.

Neat shots. Looks like a good day.

Jefferson is kind of sweet in spots. The Ashtabula Carson & Jefferson excursion train rides are good in autum.

Wish I coulda' been there, but the hotties might have been too much for my frail constitution. Beautiful fall foliage and autumn light, and clouds to interact with the reflective surfaces.

I think urbanohio.com is more than just an online forum. Compared with so many forums, this one has some great substance. Our shared interest in cities, architecture, planning etc., draw together a group that's wonderfully diverse in age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, occupation. The forum meets really build unity, and the moderators do an amazing job of keeping the peace. Darn good place to hang out. I think I'm making pretty good progress; feeling pretty good most of the time, regaining my energy. The big breakthrough will be getting enough PT behind me to get the brace off my leg so that I can dress more easily and get in and out of a car with less strugge. Believe me, wedging one's self into and then extracting one's self from a compact while unable to bend a fairly long leg gets quite interesting sometimes :-D

I felt pretty toasted about then, but I chalked it up to the hospital's pain meds!

Thanks to friends in Chicago, South Shore Railroad, and friends in Fort Wayne, I returned to my cozy, messy home this evening. Doctors and staff are all pleased/amazed with the outcome of my 14 hours in the OR on October 22, and my subsequent recovery. There's still a lengthy period ahead of hospital-at-home, along wih return visits for follow-up, but by spring, I'll be impatient and rarin' to go. The next couple of days will involve signing for shipments of supplies and learing to play "I'm my own doctor." Worst part of the whole thing? NO COFFEE for the next two weeks, at least. "You can have ice chips," they said, "Just don't get carried away." They had to remove a tumor (haven't seen the pathology report on it yet) from my neck, and then do reconstructive surgery using muscle and skin from my left thigh. Then they had to fix that with a skin graft from my right thigh. Pretty sore in places, yet. My left leg is in an immobilizing brace, and I'm being fed by tubes into my stomach and instestine for an indeterminate number of weeks. I have an interesting life. Thanks for the thoughts & prayers. I'll be working my way back up to speed on the forum.

Neat night shots. That block offers some interesting contrasts; Exotic Fantasies, Binger's Bar, Today's Adult and then Dayton Church Supply.

I'd appreciate your thoughts folks, and for those of you so inclined, your prayers. Monday morning I'll go into surgery at University of Chicago Hospital for a sarcoma that is most likely the consequence of radiation therapy and chemo that I had for head & neck cancer ten years ago. It's the continuation of a saga that began in 1994. I'll be out of touch with the world (what's new? :wink:) for four or five days in intensive care after the surgery, and in the hospital for a total of around ten days. I have a friend in Chicago who will bring me a bag with my laptop, cell phone, etc. after I get out of ICU, so if I can find a WiFi hotspot I'll be back on line as soon as I'm up to it. I'm putting a digicam in the bag, too, so maybe I can sneak in a photo tour from the belly of the beast. According to the CT scans it doesn't look like the sarcoma has metastasized. I'm maintaining my optimism; same surgeon as before, and she's one of the best. The care there is first-rate.

Damn! Beautiful shots, sharp as a razor. Excellent people photos.

Looks like a pleasant neighborhood; nice variety of housing including some really grand ones, well-kept. Excellent slide show, too.

... except of their drunk friends with a camera phone. Old guys are weird, anyway, and when one of them has a big camera with a long lens ...

Thanks goodness for the "our eyes have met - message received" look! lol Or the secret password ("Friend of Dorothy") :lol:

The Indy Greenways system is surprising; it's well thought out, designed and executed and is heavily used. I say it's suprising because Indianapolis drivers are possibly the most bat-out-of-hell aggressive people in the Midwest. The interstates through and around the city are frightening places and drivers don't slow down even when the road surface is a sheet of ice. Yet when I rode the Monon Trail from 38th Street to Carmel, I found that most drivers on the cross streets were very attentive and courteous to cyclists waiting to cross. The extensive greenway system, connecting places like Broad Ripple and Carmel with the attractive downtown and White River State Park, makes Indianapolis something of a cyclist's dream.

You shoot some fascinating places. Your photos will become a valuable archive over time.

Regardless of the flat light you still got good density and saturation, and the photos are crisp.

Excellent photos! There's some really nice infill and interesting older houses and buildings. I love #9; great colors, just the right sky, and dynamic composition. I can't quite get my eyes around the colors on #13, though; I've never been a fan of strong blues in large areas on a house, and if I were the painting contractor I'm not sure I'd want to put my sign in front of that one. :roll:

Y'all done good! :clap: I was there Monday - Thursday. Monday was sunny & a bit too warm, if anything. Tuesday was sunny with breeze and just a few clouds, just about perfect. Wednesday started out overcast, windy and almost chilly, and steadily got worse. By evening it was damn cold. Thursday started out dreary and by the time I got back to Michigan City it was cold & rainy.

I'm not really street-level familiar with either of those areas, so I don't know what opportunities for food or shopping might be within walking distance of Dempster, or within a short bus ride. The Yellow Line is a nice experience for an urban-transit geek; it's a long non-stop ride that's fairly smooth and pretty fast. Likewise for Linden. From the station it does seem like bedroom-community stuff. I just reversed direction there (center platform station). I'm not sure what stop would have the most activity nearby. Maybe Davis? It has the most elaborate station, with a trainshed and wide platforms that could accomodate a lot of people. I'd like to know those answers, too, especially for Evanston. I've walked through some of the beautiful residential areas, and I'd like to explore the place more.

They're high school girls and I'm an adult. I'd expect them to look pissed off, or at least bored, in my presence. Besides, high school girls are so self-absorbed that they undoubtedly thought I was taking a photo of them. Imagine how insulted they'd have felt if they had realized I was taking a photo of transit infrastructure with people, and they were only incidental!

I like!

If I were that guy, I'd be very careful about getting too near the edge of a crowded platform when a train apporaches. I've actually found a very good way of coping with motormouths, cell-phone babblers and fussy children. I bought a pair of 23db industrial ear-protection earmuffs for about $20. They're most effective against higher frequencies like women's voices and whiny children, and really knock down the overall sound level, and help me get a nice nap during my ride.

Enjoyable thread, and nicely done as usual. I miss what the corner stores stood for in terms of lifestyles and neighborhoods. When I was in my teens and twenties, buildings like that still housed drug stores (with soda fountains) and barbershops and a few grocers. They didn't need to tear down surrounding properties for parking, because most of their regular customers came and went on foot.