Robert Pence

Impressive homes! Springfield must have been quite the place in its heyday!

1/2 Swiss 1/4 German 1/4 Scots-Irish My Dad's Swiss ancestors (maternal side) came to America in 1738 I don't know when his dad's family came over from Ireland, but I have a lead on some geneaological info that was written by his grandfather in the late 1800's. I hope to check it out soon. Mom's Swiss ancestors (paternal side) came over about 1867. Her mom's German family came over in the late 1800s; my grandmother was the youngest of six kids, and the only one born in America. She was the only one who spoke fluent English, too.

Why, thank you, pope! You're pretty cool, yourself, for a young whippersnapper! Chronologically I'm 67. My emotional maturity level is about 14; I've learned to control my tantrums most of the time. Would it sound better if I say I'm 33 and 34?

Nothing wrong with that. Heck, I like both men and boys.

Metra was Nazi about photography too, for a while. It was so bad that local cops would stop railfans who were photographing passing trains from the public right-of-way, and detain them for the railroad cops. Metra finally reined that in and published a statement that says something to the effect that photography is permitted from any place that is accessible to the general public. There are still some rogue railroad and municipal cops who haven't gotten the message. I had a uniformed CTA employee come after me when I was taking photos from the EL platform at Belmont, but I was able to slip onto a train just as the doors were closing. I've also heard that there really aren't restrictions against taking photos on CTA from places accessible to the public, and that's the only time I've been challenged doing it. I can't see the sense in Amtrak's prohibiting photos of trains in Union Station, but it's a rule. Railroads are dictatorships, and despite the fact that Amtrak operates with public funds, the mentality prevails. Unilateral edicts from above can only be obeyed, never questioned, and never "interpreted." For subordinates, to violate that principle is to attract unwanted attention. The safety part of it doesn't make sense, nor does the security part. How is an individual with a hand-held camera any greater hazard to self, others, or company property than a small woman in heels piloting a sixty-pound piece of wheeled luggage down the platform half at a run? People with evil intentions don't necessarily need photographs to hatch and carry out their nefarious plans, and if they did need photographs or even video, it wouldn't be difficult to obtain them without being noticed. A saboteur or terrorist certainly wouldn't stand in the middle of a platform in plain view of railroad and station personnel, slowly and carefully framing and composing a photo with a big ol' DSLR, and then walk a few steps and repeat the whole procedure. There really isn't a reason for it. It's just company policy. :-P

Having been chastised some time back for taking photos on the platform after arriving in Chicago Union Station, I finally determined that Amtrak does have a stated policy in that regard. I think the paranoia is unwarranted, but that's not my decision. At least they do have an official policy, and now I know that my encounter wasn't just the result of security run amok. what got me in trouble:

Nice! Looks very charming & pleasant.

^ I knew it! The storm was created by aliens to conceal the landing of their ships!

Looks like a good time!

Wow! Some impressive structures. I had no idea Springfield had so many neat buildings.

I'd seen a little bit about parcour before, but nothing like this. This guy seems almost superhuman. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfODWCkxA8

Wonderful photos. They prove that Los Angeles is a real city, not the impression I often would get from popular media.

John Deere was a skilled blacksmith who migrated from Vermont to Illinois around 1836. Farmers who moved West to the prairies brought with them the cast-iron plows that worked well in New England's sandy soils, but the sticky clay soils of the midwest clung to the plows and made plowing an arduous task with frequent stops to scrape clinging soil from the plowshares. In 1837 Deere fashioned a polished steel self-scouring plowshare from a discarded broken saw blade from a sawmill, and it worked superbly. He began making steel plows that were well-received, and manufacturing started in earnest when he moved to Moline and built a factory there in 1848. The company dates its beginning to that year. The company was already seventy years old, with a diverse line of farm tools, when they began negotiating for the purchase of the Waterloo engines and tractors. J.I. Case started up a few years later, in 1852 in Racine Wisconsin, manufacturing machines for threshing wheat (separating grain from straw). Case introduced a line of steam engines for agriculture around 1880, and began experimenting with internal combustion with limited success in 1892. They introduced their first production kerosene tractors in 1912.

I won't drag the whole thing here; here's the coolest thing at the show. If you want more, click here.

I agree with seicer; pay attention and use common sense, and you'll be OK. A moment of inattention, prowling a long-abandoned textile mill that was undergoing demolition, and doing it late in the evening when the light was poor, almost cost me a three-story fall. It was my own foolishness that put me at risk.

NARP region 6 & 7, including Indiana and Ohio, will have a joint meeting with Midwest High Speed Rail in Chicago on Saturday, March 24. I posted it in the Events section some time ago, and it's time for a reminder. To see the Events post, click here. I plan to attend. I'll stay at the Airport Econo Lodge in South Bend on Friday night, and catch South Shore #502 at 7:40 a.m. EDT. It arrives in Chicago a few minutes late for the start of the meeting, but it's a short walk from Van Buren Station to the meeting site.

Bump - the time is at hand.

Sounds like a beautiful experience. Have you visited Blackwater Falls State Park? The falls should be impressive in Spring, when the water flow is at its strongest. The gorge there took me completely by surprise; I had no idea that something so spectacular existed in the eastern part of the country.

Neat stuff! I haven't been to either place, but I've known of Batesville for its casket industry for a long time. It looks like the town has been afflicted with the same strain of faux-Swiss kitsch that has infested Berne's once-charming downtown. Lots of history in Oldenburg, and some imposing buildings that look well cared for.

Go, Cat! Anyone who knows anything about cats knows that when they start to vocalize like that it's time to quit whatever you're doing, else you're gonna' get hurt. A dog may bark or growl without doing anything more, but cats always follow through.

Yay for sunny, warm days! I got my bike out today, pumped up the tires and took a ride. I rode in the sun to a meeting downtown, and rode home in a downpour!

Born to be wild!

Downtown has a nice cluster of buildings, but not much activity. Most of the upper floors are boarded up, and the businesses that are on the ground floors are lawyers and investment services, as I recall. The old territorial capital buildings were once on land owned by Vincennes University, and were somewhat randomly placed. They've been relocated to a sort of village grouping near the William Henry Harrison home, Grouseland. The restorations are pretty decent, and the docents know their history. The tour of Grouseland costs $5, and it's worth it. It's quite a grand home for the frontier in the early 19th century. The Cathedral, cemetery and George Rogers Clark Memorial are part of a beautiful park complex right by the Wabash River. It's a very pleasant place to visit and stroll around and just soak up the history, with lawns and big trees.

Looks like a charming place. Thanks for the tour.

The parking rates are an indicator of successful public policy. Sometime in the late seventies, I think, Pittsburgh inverted the property tax structure to place more of the burden on land and less on improvements. That made land too valuable for surface parking and removed the disincentive for development and renovation, and encouraged development downtown along with increased transit ridership and growth of transit service. If you don't have an alternative to driving to Pittsburgh, you can park in one of the outlying park-and-ride lots by a T station (free at Dormont), and take the light rail downtown.