Things seem to be moving forward on much of the proposed Hastings river bridge. The pic below is an artist’s rendering of downtown near the replacement bridge. This shows the ‘arch’ alternative – they still haven’t decided if it will be an arch or ‘cable’ design.
Two additional riverfront projects emerged while planning this bridge: 1) moving the electrical substation that blights the riverfront landscape, and 2) building a pedestrian ‘spiral’ – homage to the long-gone Hastings Spiral Bridge – to connect downtown and the pedestrian walkway on the bridge deck.
Neither of these will be part of the bridge project.
Continue reading 'The Bridge and The Riverfront'»
Joan Walsh of Salon made an apt observation today, when commenting on Rush Limbaugh, who is currently hospitalized. She thinks it’s impolitic to hit Rush on this, even though he’s never shied away from hitting others when (literally) down:
“There’s no liberal Rush Limbaugh, because most liberals don’t have a taste for cruelty as entertainment or political sport.”
I think she’s right, though such high-mindedness does pose a challenge for progressive and/or liberal people. I think that good causes can be promoted with humor and the sharp side of the tongue. Florida Rep. Alan Grayson gave a great example when he argued that opposition to health care reform was “pro death.”
I hope that some day soon our own humorist-turned-Senator Al Franken can find his voice.
Continue reading 'Fighting the Good Fight'»
Jack is the newest member of our family:
He’s a four year old Australian Shepherd whose owners moved into too-small of an apartment. It must have been awful to give him up, because Jack is a terrific dog. He can catch a tennis ball in the air, and he knows “cookie on the nose,” though he doesn’t quite do that one for us (not yet, anyway).
Jack may look a little morose in the picture (I don’t think he liked the flash) but you haven’t seen exuberance until you’ve seen him jump in the air while chasing a tennis ball.
I’ve been using the Canon Rebel XSi for about a year and a half now, and it’s definitely THE camera for aging yuppies. I need reading glasses, and that makes many cameras hard to use.
The Rebel Xsi is a classic single lens reflex – SLR. The viewfinder shows you what the lens sees. It has an eyepiece adjustment so I can use the viewfinder without glasses. In addition, the XSi has an extra large display screen on the back. While I can’t use it to carefully judge an exposure, it does display the camera settings in really large type. Yuppie sized type.
[Update: there's a newer model: the Canon Rebel T1i
. This one boasts 15 megapixels and built-in High Def video capture. I haven't seen one of these in the flesh, but the PR suggests it has a comparably large dispay on the back, and the essential eyepiece adjustment]
Continue reading 'A camera for aging yuppies'»
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