Robert Pence

Most of the time I don't see myself as old, but sometimes I contemplate my approaching birthday ending in a zero and realize that not long ago, I thought of people of my present age as old. I'm a safe, defensive driver, fully aware that my senses, reflexes, and agility are not what they were twenty or thirty years ago. I avoid the interstates and expressways whenever possible because I feel like they're dangerous, full of aggression, and usually unpleasant. At a more leisurely pace on the byways I often come upon places that I want to visit and experience. When there's no alternative to an Interstate for covering some distance and my time is limited, I set my cruise control at the posted limit, stay in the right lane, and just roll along. When I find myself becoming boxed in, perhaps behind the rare truck traveling at the posted limit with several aggressive drivers jockeying to be the first to pass, I reduce my speed by about 5mph, drop out of the back of the pack and let the rest of them duke it out. Some drivers may blame me for creating a hazard, but they should be examining their own dangerously aggressive mindset. I don't think the 75th or 85th percentile is a good basis for determining speed limits; many drivers are blissfully unaware of potential hazards or the consequences of a screw-up at high speed and sublimely overconfident of their vehicle-handling skillls. The roads are used by people with a wide range of driving skills, and most of us pay taxes to build and support the roads. Laws and law enforcement should provide a safe traveling environment for all highway users, especially considering the lack of alternatives to driving; even if we attain our goal of more widespread, frequent passenger trains, those won't satisfy the needs of people in small towns that have lost or never had intercity bus service, who need to conduct business in a larger city two or three hours away. Opportunity cost hard to quantify. Some people drive fast because they think they're saving time that can be used productively doing something else, but many are just in the habit of driving fast. Some are just hurrying to get home for supper and moron TV. Adhering to the posted limit on non-interstates I'm often passed by drivers going much faster than I am, and thirty miles later I find that we're sharing the same stoplight cycle. On a two- or three-hour drive on an Interstate I may be passed twice or more by the same driver, who clearly isn't using his time productively, spending his gas money wisely or respecting the environment. Going like hell for a hundred miles, stopping for snacks, gas, bathroom, and then going like hell until the next hundred is just indulging stupid, bad habits.

Is it a good restaurant? Maybe free meals for you and your SO for an extended amount of time?

Just as CTA and Metra are experiencing increased travel for shopping and recreation, South Shore does a land-office business on weekends; service is frequent and many trains are nearly full, with many riders on board for the entire distance between South Bend and downtown Chicago. Rush-hour weekday trains are full with standees between Hammond or Hegewisch and the loop, and South Shore has been able to make a good enough case for high demand that they've been funded for 14 new bi-level gallery cars. I haven't seen them yet, but I hope to get a chance soon.

Just down the street from me there used to be a group home run by a mental health services group, that housed teenaged "problem girls." For several months when it first started up, the place wasn't supervised aggressively enough and the girls used to hang out on the porch and come on to the passing truckers, who would blast their air horns in appreciation. At night they'd sneak out and hook up with their trash boyfriends, who would steal everything that wasn't bolted down, while they were in the neighborhood. Finally some pimp started coming around to pick up one of the girls. He'd sit in the alley behind the house and honk. One night she must not have been able to sneak out, and he sat back there and kept blowing his horn at 2am. After about 20 minutes I'd had enough and decided to take radical action. I got my twelve-gauge out of the closet, chambered a #6 shot shell, and sneaked out the side door. It's very dark in the alley, and my intent was to sneak up fairly close, put a big, ugly hole in his pimpmobile, and disappear into the dark without anyone knowing who did it or where they came from. I don't know if he saw me or his intuition of danger kicked in, or if he just got tired of waiting, but I was almost close enough to accomplish my mission when he took off. He didn't come back. Probably lucky for both of us; in retrospect, I could have been just as effective by blasting a warning shot into the air from a safe distance.

Cute and quaint in spots, with a hint of redneck. The house in the second photo is just nuts! I'd love to have it with a bunch of money to spend on it!

I'm glad you folks have enjoyed the photos. Fort Wayne has kept a few of its treasures, and the courthouse is foremost among them. After years of "This is the way we've always done it" administration, things are beginning to move forward; the experience of the new downtown ballpark has turned even some of the naysayers into enthusiasts, and finally dirt is being moved for construction of the new hotel. Our previous mayor started running the city like a business, and his successor is following suit. There's a strong emphasis on bike paths and recreational trails and a comprehension of walkable communities and urban density, both in the administration and in the current generation of city planners. Downtown is still full of holes (surface lots), but I expect that that soon will begin to change.

I just received this email from Midwest High Speed Rail Association:

"Better Late than Never" Sounds like a good advertising slogan for Amtrak! :-D

Ahhh, yes. Evanston is lovely, and so are the men. Chicago's lakefront is the place to be for eye candy in summer.

I keep tellin' folks, don't just take photos of the outside of the World War Memorial. Go inside and explore. It's a period piece, 1920s Art Deco in its most glorious, dignified form and almost completely unmolested over the years. The soaring space in the center, accessed by one of two long, narrow stairways, took my breath away when I first saw it on an 8th-grade class trip more than fifty years ago. It still has very nearly that same effect on me - or is it just the stairs? The trip to the top of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on the Circle, in that tiny elevator, provides a neat view if your timing is right. They only wash the glass twice a year, and the pigeons crap 24/7/365. There are museums in both monuments. The Capitol Building is pretty impressive, too, with it's classical skylighted spaces and decorative trim. The last I knew, there were no restrictions on photography inside.

And on the other hand, depending on where you go, abject poverty, hard-core ghetto and ubiquitous violent crime. Not to attack the thread or any of the forumers; the photos are gorgeous, and so is the area. It looks like the kind of place I'd truly love to live if I had the means. I just can't help thinking of the opposite end of the spectrum, and although the disparity is typical of any large city in any country, it's an ironic characteristic of our nation's capital that gets swept under the rug. Sincerely and with apologies, Debbie Downer

There was a lengthy discussion about it on the forums at least a couple of years ago. Somehow it hasn't yet inspired me to make the drive to go see it. Is it near the Creation Museum? Maybe I could stay home and ignore both of them at the same time.

Nice billboard! Wow! Those knocked my socks off! Somebody told me yesterday it was time I changed them, anyway.

Seems kind of bassackwards, considering that higher speeds contribute to lower mpg and more emissions. Even with my small, economical Focus I notice a measurable difference in gas mileage between 55-60mph and 70mph-plus. On the occasions when I can't avoid the Interstates, the most flagrant speeders I see are often driving large SUVs and pickups, and those are even more sensitive to the effect of speed on mileage. Dodd has his head stuck in the sand ... or someplace.

Thank you!

This place is getting infested with robs. After giving it some thought, I decided I'd like to use my full name to eliminate any opportunity for confusion. Would you please change my user name to Robert Pence? Thank you.

How true! Even if you have it inspected by an experienced contractor and get an estimate of costs before you place an offer on the house, you're almost certain to get blindsided once work starts and unanticipated problems are found. Whatever estimate the contractor says is worst-case, double it; even then, you shouldn't be surprised when that falls short. I've seen projects abadoned after two or three years of struggle by buyers who were reasonably experienced and went in with their eyes open.

What does it say about the community and the availability of worthwhile candidates that a developmentally-impaired 28-year-old living rent-free in his parents' basement get elected to the school board? Do you suppose he throws things and cries when people disagree with him at school board meetings?

After that video came out, Northern Indiana Passenger Rail Association hosted a public presentation on high-speed rail at Cinema Center-Indiana Tech, where a presenter from Alstom showed the full-resolution version on a full-sized theater screen in an auditorium with professional projection equipment. Talk about mind-blowing! I think a couple hundred people saw it, and after it ended some just sat there looking stunned.

I hadn't heard of the freon-spray trick, but if it works, good. You can also try scanning it through the glass first, and then put the photo and glass into a pan or tray of water and let it soak and it probably will come loose without damage; just don't hurry it. Most older photos were processed with chemicals dissolved in water anyway, and the backing is either fiber-based or synthetic; water won't destroy the backing. What's stuck to the glass is probably the gelatin coating that they used to create the gloss, and while the glossy finish may be lost, it's not likely that the photo itself will be damaged or degraded. Sometimes people have stacks or boxes of old photos that get wet and stuck together. They can almost always be salvaged by soaking in cool water until they come unstuck.

The stations present a sharp contrast with typical American practice; even the trainsheds are objects of pride and beauty, often flooded with natural light from vast skylights. Even the below-ground ones often have finished ceilings and abundant, even lighting. Among US stations, at least in the Midwest, the only one that I can think of that has a headhouse/ticketing area comparable to European stations is Chicago's Millennium/Randolph, serving the South Shore and Metra trains. It's clean, sleek, and modern, with a nice collection of shops. Even there, though, the boarding areas are dreary. The South Shore area, although new, is bare, unadorned concrete above, below, and around, with harsh industrial lighting. The older, lower-level Metra platforms are gloomy and dim and the concrete platforms are paved with years of ground-in grime. We treat our urban railroad stations as something to be kept out of sight and endured where necessary.

Women don't have a monopoly on that! You can quote me. The friend who couldn't qualify for the house I ended up buying, went out and bought a new Corvette instead. Two years later he was driving a used Super-Beetle.

It helps to buy your house a long time ago. I bought my first one in 1972. It had been on the market for several months, and buying a house was far from my mind. I went with a friend who was thinking about it, but he had too much debt and not enough income. I started thinking more seriously about buying a house as tensions with my bastard landlord escalated, and I made the seller a seriously low-ball offer. We met halfway, and then the paper chase began. I applied for a VA-backed fixed-rate mortgage, and they really protected me from any mistake I might have made; two appraisers and inspectors went through the place from roof to basement and had a professional termite inspection done, and it took more than two months from application to closing. Luckily I bought as the neighborhood was bottoming out and some aggressive folks had formed a neighborhood association and partnered with city code enforcement to make life unpleasant for the absentee slumlords who had infested the area. A lot of them decided to leave, and it was a buyer's market for a while. My house is worth a lot more than my original investment plus improvements, and I'm in no hurry to sell (although I would consider a serious offer with cash or a good mortgage, no land contracts.) Five years later the house next door came up for sale, and the realtor who had it was thinking about buying it himself. He owned some low-quality rentals and I didn't want his white trash and junk pickup trucks next door. The house was under a VA-backed mortgage with the same company who had mine, and it took considerable jaw-boning to get approval to assume the balance with a little cash to the seller for his equity, but I got it. It was a rental at first, but I swapped and sunk a ton of money and sweat equity into a major rehab. I still have both houses and they're both paid off. As I recall, in the early eighties the combined payment for both houses was less than $300.

OMG That is just embarrasing. Those burnt orange/light blue/rose colored sunglasses were so damn popular back then. I wonder how much time it took the hair stylist to get their hair color to match their glasses. :roll:

It's pretty easy to change a spoke. I'm assuming you already do your own tire repair, in which case all you need is a spoke wrench ($5 - $10 at most). Although the bike shops have fancy wheel-truing fixtures, you can do it with the wheel in the frame; it only takes a little practice to figure out how to pull a wheel into line. You can use the brakes for a guide to tell when the wheel is centered and running true. If you figure to buy a new wheel anyway, you're not out all that much to try to fix the old one first.