Robert Pence

Likewise with me. A little alcohol goes a long way -- toward turning the first thing into my mind into the next thing out of my mouth. Not many whippersnappers will punch a guy my age, but a guy my age shouldn't push his luck.

Me, too. I can focus intently on one thing, to the point of not hearing the ringing of my cell phone on the table beside my chair while I'm reading. If I try to multi-task, I become completely fragmented and nothing gets done. I have to keep written to-do lists, but sometimes I forget to check the lists and still miss appointments. Years ago, a close friend lost his apartment and stayed with me until he could relocate. I'd get home from work and he'd be playing his guitar while watching television, and have a couple of things cooking in the kitchen and a radio on in another room. Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!

A trip to a dentist for the tooth is appropriate, but unless you understand why you blacked out, (alcohol, low blood sugar, stood up too quickly after sitting or lying down, etc.) you should be more concerned about that and take it up with your doctor.

Great photo set! There's such an abundance of historic architecture. Downtown the historic buildings are intermingled with new stuff and everything seems to fit and it's dense with generous areas for green space. Streetcar/light rail lines and cobblestone streets! ... and yet I'd hate to have to look for a parking space! :-D

I speculate that one of the things that makes parts of City West look suburban is lack of mature trees; that's characteristic of subdivisions built in the middle of farm fields. Give the trees some time (twenty years at the very least) to get some size and for residents to give the homes individual character with their own landscaping, and probably it will take on an entirely different, more established character.

Thanks. I had let this thread languish after I reorganized my web site and broke the links, and thought there might have been people who missed it the first time around, or who joined the site since 2008. I'd like to revisit the city; I hear that it's slowly showing signs of new life downtown. I wish I had seen Youngstown in the sixties, when the industries were still strong and the downtown still was thriving.

Suggested remedial reading for anyone who believes collegiate and pro sports and athletes merit the attention accorded them: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges

The situation was indeed an outrage, and investigation into the policies and conduct that caused it is warranted. The article has a tone of knee-jerk Amtrak bashing, though. "Notoriously ineffecient" doesn't describe the entire Amtrak system; I think it's remarkable that Amtrak does as well as it does, considering the poor funding and lack of respect it has received from past adminstrations and legislatures. On several occasions I've seen Amtrak crew members go to extraordinary lengths to make the best of bad situations that were not of their making and beyond their control, and twice when weather delays caused me to miss a connection in Chicago, Amtrak paid for my hotel room, meals, and taxi fare. And yes, I've seen times when rigid adherence to policy and rules went to ridiculous lengths. Years ago I was on a detoured westbound Broadway Limited that sat for nearly two hours in Alliance, Ohio. We were waiting for clearance or crew change or some such thing; I don't remember the details. My seatmate, a nineteen-year-old who was returning from DC to his home in Alliance and whose ticketed destination was Canton, could see his house from where he sat. Citing operating rules and liability constraints, the conductor refused to let him off the train. He was ticketed to Canton, and to Canton, By God, he would go. I'd think that even if they had to call a supervisor or dispatcher for permission, they could have put down a step box and had a crew member escort him beyond railroad property so he could get home, saving him inconvenience and discomfort and saving his parents a drive to Canton. Most rules on the railroad exist for good reasons, but sometimes in extraordinary circumstances the "Rules is Rules" mindset contributes to unnecessarily bad outcomes.

Great photo; unique skyline shot, with a variety of contrasting elements. There's iconic Cincinnati architecture backing up green space, with human activity in the foreground. Good eye!

Very excellent tours and photos; thanks for sharing them.

Neat stuff! Those are some parts of Cincinnati I haven't yet visited.

You guys pounded a lot of pavement in one day! Nice work!

Good stuff! All better now, apparently: May 2006:

Details like the window box in #8 and the decorative patterns and bright splashes of color on signage and restored buildings always make me smile. The photos of OTR that I'm seeing lately look a lot different from the ones I saw when I first started following UO in 2004-2005!

Fun photos of down-home summer events. Young's Jersey Dairy hosts some good things. I prefer a scrolling thread, though; it's easier to view.

Don't do it! It might alienate your affection for Toledo! :wink:

Great summer views!

I was resistant to it as a kid; I fell off my bike once into a ditch full of it, and never got it, and survived several other encounters without a reaction. Something changed when I was in my mid-twenties; I went swimming at a quarry with some friends and got into some and didn't even notice it until someone else pointed it out. The next day I started to break out and itch like crazy, and went through hell for about two weeks. Mid-summer in Southern Indiana, hot and humid in a dorm without air conditioning; I think the sweat just made it worse. Since then, it seems like if I get close, I get it. I had several repetitions of misery before I learned to go to the doctor on the first sign, and get a cortisone shot and a prescription for some lotion that they compound at the pharmacy. The itching stops within 24 hours, and the rash dries up in a few days. My dad was extremely sensitive to it. One time he got downwind of where they were burning a fencerow that was full of it, and he got an awful case. An old veterinarian who lived down the road gave him some tablets and told him to dissolve one in a pint of water and use a cotton ball to bathe the affected area. It worked miraculously well, and Dad relied on it several times before he learned that the tablets were bichloride of mercury. They were dark gray and shaped like little old-time caskets. Mom came as close as I ever saw her to freaking out when she found out what it was. She was a nurse and knew how toxic it was, and that it could be absorbed through the skin.

Statiscally proven, in fact. A seat belt is much more likely to reduce injury or even save your life than it is to contribute to a worse outcome than if none had been worn. A significant number of critical and fatal injuries result from an occupant being ejected from the vehicle, especially in rollovers where they end up being crushed beneath the vehicle. Does Ohio's law require that a law enforcement officer must stop you from some other reason in order to ticket you for not wearing a seat belt? Indiana's law used to work that way, but now they can pull you over if they notice that you're not belted in. They don't need any other reason to pull you over. Occasionally the hometown cops where I grew up just pick a spot and watch passing drivers for seat-belt violations. Sometimes they'll get twenty or thirty in an afternoon. I heard of one guy (not too bright, apparently) who got ticketed twice at the same spot in the space of an hour, once going to the store, and again on the return. I say turn that one loose and let Darwin take care of him.

Do you save more time by speeding than you spend in court dealing with the tickets? :-)

Bump. Broke a bunch of links again, and just now fixed them.

Very nice job. A beautiful day, and some good work. I knew I had a photo of this critter: On Labor Day weekend 2003, Buckeye Trolley (If I remember correctly, a now-defunct organization promoting the creation of a trolley line from the bridge down W25th Street to the West Side Market) was using it to push and pull an open-bench Birney car from the Trolleyville collection back and forth on a piece of track on the Old Viaduct.

Raccoons are nocturnal. Babies out in the open during the day with no mother present likely are orphaned. Ordinarily the only time you see ones that small is at night when their mother is teaching them to forage. When you get between a mama racoon and her babies, you've got a fierce problem on your hands.

Some decent shots, though. I've been fascinated by the Detroit-Superior High-Level Viaduct since I first drove across it in 1978; it's a magnificent piece of engineering and construction, and I think it's great that the County Engineer opens up the lower deck to the public a couple of times a year.

Translation: 'I got rid of the bodies...' Happy Birthday! When people ask me how I grow such huge, lush flowers in containers, I just tell them it's all in the compost. This photo is from last fall; this year promises to be even better: