weekend log

I spent much of the holiday either relaxing at our house with my wife and kids, or doing homework. My grandfather turned 80 on Saturday, so we drove out to the sprawling metropolis of Grelton for that party.

One of the days, Friday I think, I noticed a bunch of birds hanging around. Here's a shot I snapped from our dining room...three blue jays and a mourning dove. Later I saw a woodpecker, numerous cardinals, and the typical sparrows/finches. This feeder has lasted longer than any other we've had.



Megan purchased it for me from Wild Birds Unlimited. It is truly squirrel proof too, the best they can do is scavenge around the ground. I've seen them hanging off it upside down, but the spring loaded base shuts when anyone too heavy attempts getting food from the holes.

Today I finally watched Master & Commander...it was good but I was a little let down. I'll give it 3.5 stars. The prior movie I saw, about a month ago, was Raising Victor Vargas. I'll give that one 2 stars. It was moderately interesting and subtly smart and funny, but nothing I'd watch again.

I'm dreaming of a white...Thanksgiving?

My new Tilley hat arrived yesterday. Just in time for today's lunchtime walk!

This lady was dressed quite inappropriately.



With the snow you couldn't even see the new I280 bridge construction from Promenade park.

Downtown Toledo pics

Hopefully Carty can keep One Seagate (former OI headquarters)



from turning into the completely abandoned 200 N. St Clair (former OC headquarters)



Notice the boarded windows going up the side. The ground level doors actually have ugly plywood boards covering the entrances as well.

weekend log

...did homework almost all weekend long, that was a downer. Unless Samkon Gado and Bubba Franks pull off a miracle for the Packers tonight, my fantasy football team will lose, another downer. The one bright spot on Saturday, Megan's oven baked pancake!

Downtown Toledo, the good and the bad...

I often walk around downtown on my lunch hour. Predictably, I find things I like, and things that could use improvement. So I'm going to start posting some of these things to my blog. Today I saw two noteworthy things on Monroe street.

Bad first:



A rather large hole in the ground, exposing some ugly building backsides. This is from the warehouse fire last month. I expect they will continue backfilling and turn into another boring parking lot.

Now the good:



The new Paula Brown shop has opened. It is a terrific store, but sadly most of the stuff is out of my humble price range. If you are looking for fine linens, table settings, kitchen wears, stationary, artwork, jewelry, etc, this is the place downtown. Also, they had some great Japanese art prints. They've done a nice job renovating this interesting old building. I think formerly it was Port Lawrence Antiques.

It was really cold and starting to snow, so it was a short walk today.

voting for grass roots candidates...

In Hillsdale Michigan, an 18 year old write in candidate (too young to be an official candidate at registration time) won the mayoral election over the 51 year old incumbent. That is really something encouraging! It reminds me of my old friend Travis Sheafer who was elected for Napoleon city council right after high school.

Congratulations Michael Sessions on a true grass roots effort, job well done, and what sounds like an excellent approach to taking on the new responsibilities.

College Town idea - Update

I knew UT Foundation bought the old NAPA store, but now they bought Mac's Motors as well. The real estate along Dorr is so CHEAP! As Krompac says, it is an untapped resource. Polling students is good, but I have a feeling many UT students don't know what they are missing. I hope the survey is guided by successfully blended campus/community settings like Ann Arbor and OSU.


Original Post - August 14th 2005:

As tonight winds down I can feel the energy around campus. Today I heard the UT marching band warming up. Students are trickling into the apartments. It won't be long until UT is back in full swing, I love that feeling.

I really wish the Dorr Street corridor would be developed with nothing but a college town atmosphere in mind. It is really a perfect strip of low cost and blighted land perfect for that purpose. UT has invested so much money in that side of campus, and it will be brimming with students this year upon completion of the huge new dorms. Two other large apartment complexes on Douglas/Westwood are finished now. And finally now the apartments near Dorr/Secor have finally been reclaimed for students. Last year I saw the changes taking place and it has done so much to spruce up the area (both grounds and inhabitants).

Designating a section of the city as College Town and focusing development around a student and young professional theme could work wonders for retaining some of those grads. Instead of thinking the town is one that dislikes them, they would think the town understands them and supports them. The area along Dorr does not conflict with the family oriented areas of Old Orchard and Ottawa Hills. It is within easy walking distance of the majority of student housing.

Larry Dillin, we need you! Follow Corpus Christi's lead and do something successful. Exploit the synergy of our beautiful, intelligent university with thoughtful, rational development!

pump up that ego

Yeah, so I'm in grad school and I have this math class that is actually making me think, hard. I thought this 8th grade quiz would be a fun diversion. Luckily I didn't embarrass myself.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

The Axis prevail...

Had a good 4 person match of Axis & Allies last night. I played Japan. It was a much needed respite from more difficult things like work, school, family. I made a new friend named Nick, who played Germany. We used good teamwork to put the squeeze on Russia. We had to call the game at 1am. Shamy was Russia and US, Allen was UK.

Am I a Libertarian?

According to this I'm pretty far into Libertarian territory.


Of course it was only about 10 questions from a libertarian web site. Still, all things considered their demographics of people taking the test were pretty balanced.

If you are a regular aaron.blog reader, take the quiz and let me know where you score. I'd like a survey of where my friends, family, readers, and detractors/lurkers stand.

Must have desktop Trebuchet

Since my cube nieghbors are much too nice to throw things at over the wall, I'm hoping someone buys me one of these nifty portable trebushets to launch some serious paper wads down the hall at my esteemed colleagues.

Ahh, the good old days at MCO... when the supply closet was always stocked with plenty o rubber bands.

weekend log

I had Friday afternoon off and so did Megan, so we had a nice 2 hour lunch together and then a long walk down the UT/Parks trail. I try to take those plastic grocery bags with me when taking a walk. I gathered up 2 bags full of litter on this expedition.

On Saturday I took the kids for a double header to COSI in the morning and the Zoo in the afternoon. We ate lunch on the patio at COSI, it was gorgeous weather. Its good that COSI (or the city) is finally repairing some of the concrete that has been flaking off that building. Its pretty sad that a building that new has problems like that. Quality isn't what it used to be. Take the Pythian castle versus the new buildings at Levis. You can see a photo of the Pythian in my downtown fire pics a couple weeks ago.

We also watched some of the rowing races down the river at the Docks. One of my colleagues said there were many visitors from out of town for the races. He also said they finally found the body of that missing doctor. So all of the visitors this weekend were greeted by a body floating in the river and race riots.

On Sunday Megan took the kids out so I could do some homework.

Downtown Fire

We had a view of the downtown fire from our office building today. Seeing the huge brick wall collapse was surreal. I'm assuming some cars are beneath that rubble. A colleague of mine took some photos and I fixed them up a bit for you.


I regularly walk by that corner (Monroe and Ontario) and it always smelled so bad from the dampness and the birds. At the beginning of the fire, you could see a couple hundred pigeons just circling above, not sure where to go.

I always thought the architecture of that building (arches especially) gave it good potential for some renovation project like the Bartley Lofts.

weekend log

Friday night I was called in to work because my main database server was very sick. The data volume lost two drives from the RAID 5 team.

On Saturday mom took the kids for an overnighter. Megan and I spent some much needed quiet time together. We had lunch at Saigon Bistro, one of her favorites around town. I had the Pho Tai, which is a hot broth noodle dish with steak and green onions. They put sprouts, limes, and other various spices on the side for you to add to your liking. Later we went to see the Pibare Krishna Rasam by Sujatha Srinivasan, a beautiful collection of short Hindu poems and proverbs choreographed to live music and dancing. Absolutely fantastic! The dance school is based in Cleveland.



Sunday was the boring housework day, along with study time. I'm slogging my way through a differential equations course...ugh. Hopefully my fantasy football team will pull off an upset against my brother's team. The Tizzles are hungry for their first win of the season.

What is wrong with these people?

So we have had a roadmap for peace in Israel. Sharon withdraws from Gaza, taking great political and civil heat in doing so. I first thought the stories of settlers tearing down their structures before exiting seemed bitter and shallow. Next, Israel sent in troops to physically remove the remaining settlers from occupied Gaza. The keys to the kingdom are peacefully handed over. Then what happens? Massive chaotic Palestinians pouring into the areas, overwhelming their own police, with the extremists claiming the credit for making this day come true. Right, so if Arafat had lived just a bit longer this would have happened anyhow...my intuition says not. Palestinians torch the remaining synagogues and structures instead of dismantling in a civilized way. Now I thought THAT was really shallow and insulting as well. Now, just a couple weeks later, the militants are stupid enough to start shooting rockets/mortars into Israel?

News Link

Like they have a real chance at accomplishing anything? Unless of course what they are trying to accomplish is more occupation, more chaos, more physical retaliation, and less life. So the circle of violence grows and grows and grows. Darwin, where are you?

Basra Jailbreak

Today two British soldiers being held in an Iraqi prison were busted out by their comrades. What a shame the jail was destroyed and 150 criminals also went free. The Iraq situation gets crazier all the time! If there is control in Basra, why would this be necessary?

News Link

Pledge of allegiance unconstitutional?

Just in from AP "SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge declared the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional Wednesday, a decision that could put the divisive issue on track for another round of Supreme Court arguments."

News Link

Michael Newdow, the same man who brought the case to the supreme court last year, is back with the same argument. How could this be? Because the court threw the case out on a technicality. I just rolled my eyes when I heard that reasoning. He is back with 3 families that have full custody of their children. Well, nothing like a hotly divisive issue to give Roberts a baptism by fire! They should have known the case would be back.

I actually believe the pledge should revert back to the original, without the words "under God". If you believe in God, great, praise Him, her, it, however you believe God exists. If you don't believe in God, what good is it to say you think the country is under God? Does it make them less of a citizen? Does it make them less patriotic to believe only in what they can see/feel/prove? Why drive a wedge into patriotism?

Similarly, why should someone swear in under oath with a Bible if they don't subscribe to that religion? It makes no sense at all. They should be swearing by their own integrity, under penalty of perjury. Bearing false witness is already a sin according to the ten commandments, so isn't this procedure sort of redundant for Christian's sake?

Nice shot Wilkowski

It is time to take down my yard sign. I guess the people of Toledo really do not want change from the last 12 years of relative economic and population decline. If the supporters of Ludeman and Wilkowski joined together under one candidate they would have amost tied Carty, and beat Ford by 10%. I support Ford in the final election. He balanced the budget in hard times, and does not throw damaging temper tantrums when things aren't going his way. Ford certainly had the grass roots support out in force yesterday. I was handed two pieces of literature when walking in to vote, had one on my door when I came home, and found TWO answering machine messages from him. All this and I'm a registered republican!!! I received nothing from the republican party during the entire season thus far. I always vote for the best candidate regardless of party, but I found this fact interesting.

Hurricane Katrina

I heard about the shoot to kill orders this morning. Officials already know the majority of the people left behind at this point are impoverished, many of whom are blacks. Now that many those remaining have been forced to live like animals, you say you are thinking about killing some of them? What does an animal do when backed into a corner? Not only have they opened themselves up racial backlashes, retaliatory attitudes, and lawsuits, they've practically invited others to join the rioting. With any luck, people will be too tired to take this approach, and just be thankful for finally getting rescued.

There are armed thugs, armed vigilantes, armed people teetering on both sides of that fence, and even unarmed people still roaming the flooded streets. Police always have the right to respond with deadly force when they are attacked; there is no need to tell people watching TV that they are sending in troops ready to kill. That message is being stated for the benefit of the world disgusted by the reports of looting. Let me ask, with 2 million without power across that region, how many people in New Orleans are watching CNN?!? Declairing the will to use deadly force, whether they intend to kill or not, is a foolish strategy, because the people you are going to kill are not even hearing the message. The people hearing the pre-meditated message are bound to hear stories of injustice, and they will put the two together making a conspiracy out of it. The rhetoric will fly.

4 civilians were killed at Kent State in a protest 40 years ago and we've never stopped hearing about it. Think of that, combined with an element of desperate survival and throw the race card into the mix...if the guardsmen open fire on anyone publicly perceived as innocent you could have LA riots all over again. Lets pray for calm.

weekend log

Saturday I worked around the house...put the finishing touches on my son's new bedroom. It is lofted with a nice cozy reading corner. He is quite happy with it except that we haven't brought his computer in yet. My daughter is desperately holding on to it in her inherited room. Its alright, I have another one to build up that just needs a monitor. Using a program like GameDrive makes kids computers so easy to maintain. A virtual CD drive keeps the software thinking the CD is installed even though it is safely tucked away from the mangling hands of youngsters.

On Sunday we went over to the first annual art fair at Levis Commons. It was very comparable to UT's Art on the Mall. Not quite as scenic as campus, but has more eating venues and good parking. I didn't see two of my favorite artists "Mr Atomic" aka the Kersey brothers. Their vibrant works can be seen all over Toledo, at the Docks for instance (Tango's, Old Navy Bistro). I have one of their paintings by Mark at home called "Computer Man".